Path: utzoo!attcan!uunet!pyrdc!pyrnj!rutgers!sunybcs!bingvaxu!vu0112
From: vu0112@bingvaxu.cc.binghamton.edu (Cliff Joslyn)
Newsgroups: comp.ai
Subject: Re: cybernetics of various forms
Message-ID: <1589@bingvaxu.cc.binghamton.edu>
Date: 20 Nov 88 00:31:58 GMT
References: <1519@harlqn.UUCP>
Reply-To: vu0112@bingvaxu.cc.binghamton.edu.cc.binghamton.edu (Cliff Joslyn)
Organization: SUNY Binghamton, NY
Lines: 25

In article <1519@harlqn.UUCP> fn@uucp (Phil Knightbridge) writes:
>Since CYBERNETICS is the study of communication and control of
>living bodies as compared to those of mechanical or electrical

Hm, I don't think this is true.  In fact, my understanding is that
Cybernetics is exactly interested in what might be different in control
and communication in organisms vs. non-organisms.  Thus Cybernetics (and
Systems Science) speaks directly to the Origin of Life and Evolution
problems, as well as design and management of human organizations and
information systems.

>Psycho-cybernetics 

I don't know exactly what the original poster was referring to, but all
I know the term "psycho-cybernetics" from is this hideous little
paperback intending to use it as somewhat similar to "the power of
positive thinking," e.g.  self-help and mind-control for the spiritually
impoverished.  I got a sinister sense of mass-marketting from it,
similar to "Dianetics". 

-- 
O---------------------------------------------------------------------->
| Cliff Joslyn, Cybernetician at Large
| Systems Science, SUNY Binghamton, vu0112@bingvaxu.cc.binghamton.edu
V All the world is biscuit shaped. . .