cybernetika

Cybernetics, or cybernetika in some languages, is an interdisciplinary field that studies regulatory and communicative processes in complex systems, whether biological, mechanical, or social. It emphasizes feedback loops, information transfer, and the organization of systems that maintain stability, adapt to change, or achieve goal-directed behavior. The term derives from the Greek kybernētēs, steersman, and was popularized in the mid-20th century.

Norbert Wiener coined cybernetics in 1948 with a focus on control and communication in animals and machines. Early work by Wiener, Claude Shannon's information theory, and later researchers such as W. Ross Ashby, Heinz von Foerster, and Stafford Beer expanded the framework to include self-organization, adaptability, and social systems. Second-order cybernetics, emerging in the 1970s, emphasized the role of the observer and the observer’s influence on a system.

Key concepts include feedback control, where outputs are monitored and used to adjust inputs; closed-loop and open-loop systems; homeostasis in biology; and the flow of information that enables coordinated action. Cybernetics often uses mathematical models and computational simulations to analyze stability, robustness, and self-regulation. It overlaps with control theory, systems theory, and, in cognitive science, with models of thinking and learning.

Although it originated as a theoretical framework, cybernetics has shaped many disciplines. It influenced the development of automation, robotics, computer networks, and artificial intelligence, as well as organizational theory and management through concepts like the viable system model. In biology and neuroscience, cybernetic ideas describe neural control and regulatory networks.

Today, cybernetics remains a foundational perspective in system science, often integrated with computational approaches and data-driven methods. It provides a lens for understanding how complex systems coordinate behavior, respond to disturbances, and evolve through interaction among components.