Cybernetics

• It seems similar to what was written in Generalization.

• Biology

  • #homeostasis

• Engineering

  • Communication
  • Feedback and Control

• The boundary between System and Environment becomes blurred.

• There seem to be many connections with ESS.

A Struggle for the Soviet Future: The Birth of Scientific Forecasting in the Soviet Union

• Newtonic Mechanic VS Cybernetic

• Newtonic mechanic perspective: The future is determined by the past.

  • In contrast,
  • Cybernetic perspective: The future is determined by the goals defined in the system (Goal-oriented)

    • Goal-oriented cybernetic control linked the past, present, and future through feedback loops of free-flowing information.

• A mechanical universe was replaced with a cybernetic one.

  • The Soviet government discourses shifted from a physics-based (Newtonic, Mechanic) perspective to a cybernetic one.

  • The metaphor of workers as cogs in the machine was replaced by one of people as carriers and conductors of information in Soviet governmental discourses.