Introduction

2. Cybernetics of Norbert Wiener

Conclusion

Cybernetics is concerned with the management of open systems, but only those that have feedback. Positive feedback - the behavior of the system enhances external influences (for example, an avalanche). Negative connection is the behavior of the system, in which external influences are weakened. Such a connection stabilizes the processes in the system (refrigerator, thermostat and all modern information devices). Homeostatic connection - when the external influence is reduced by the system to zero (Homeostasis - maintaining a constant body temperature).

One of the meanings of the Greek word kebernetes, from which its science name is derived, is helmsman. The birth of cybernetics is usually associated with the American mathematician Norbert Wiener.

Norbert Wiener in the 50s and 60s defined cybernetics as the science of managing connections in machines and biological systems. The behavior of open systems with feedback is described as organized goal-directed behavior that leads to a decrease in entropy. By the 60s, it became clear that for real systems it is not enough to take into account the effective management of the system, but it is necessary to take into account the self-organization of the system, that is, it was necessary to find a connection between the effective management of the system and the specifics of the development of a real system.

The history of cybernetics spans 19 years, an official history that began with Norbert Wiener, professor of mathematics at MIT, when he published his famous book Cybernetics, or Control and Communication in Animal and Machine in 1948. Of course, this story had its own prehistory, traced by later authors to Plato himself, but cybernetics was discussed everywhere only after the Wiener sensation. Though at first it seemed only a sensation, cybernetics has now turned into a vast and influential branch of world science.

Norbert Wiener has already finished his earthly labors. This was one of the most brilliant and paradoxical minds of the capitalist West, deeply disturbed by the contradictions of the atomic age, intensely thinking about the fate of man in an era of unprecedented power of science and technology. "The Human Use of Human Beings" is the title of his second cybernetic book. He felt the collapse of the old liberal humanism, but, like Einstein and a number of other representatives of Western thought, he did not find the path to new values. Hence his pessimism, dressed in the clothes of stoicism; he dreaded the role of Cassandra.

He left behind a great scientific legacy, complex and contradictory, in many ways controversial, in many ways interesting and stimulating. This legacy requires a thoughtful, critical, philosophical approach, far from the extremes of denial and exaggeration that have so often been heard. And in this heritage the first place is occupied by "Cybernetics" - a book that proclaimed the birth of a new science.

This is the main book of Wiener, the result of all his scientific activities. Wiener called it "an inventory of his scientific baggage." It is the most important material for characterizing a scientist and, at the same time, a monument to the early, romantic era of cybernetics, the "period of storm and stress." But it has not lost its scientific significance and may turn out to be useful for an inquisitive researcher even in the new conditions, when cybernetics, having won a place in the sun, is preoccupied with the rational organization of what has been won.

1. Norbert Wiener, life and work

Norbert Wiener was born November 26, 1894 in Columbia, Missouri to a Jewish immigrant family. His father, Leo Wiener (1862–1939), a native of Bialystok, then part of Russia, studied in Germany as a young man and then moved overseas to the United States. There, after various adventures, he eventually became a prominent philologist. In Columbia, he was already a professor of modern languages ​​at the University of Missouri, later he was a professor of Slavonic languages ​​at Harvard University, the oldest in the United States, in Cambridge, Massachusetts, near Boston. In the same American Cambridge in 1915, the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) settled, one of the main higher technical schools in the country, in which his son later worked. Leo Wiener was a follower of Tolstoy and his translator into English. As a scientist, he showed very broad interests and did not back down before risky hypotheses. These qualities were inherited by Norbert Wiener, who, however, was apparently distinguished by greater method and depth.

According to family tradition, the Wieners are descended from the famous Jewish scholar and theologian Moses Maimonides of Cordoba (1135–1204), a physician at the court of Sultan Saladin of Egypt. Norbert Wiener spoke proudly of this legend, but did not vouch for its authenticity. Maimonides' versatility especially admired him.

The future founder of cybernetics was a child prodigy, a child with early awakened abilities. This was largely facilitated by his father, who worked with him according to his own program. Young Norbert read Darwin and Dante at the age of seven, graduated from high school at the age of eleven, and graduated from the higher educational institution, Tufts College, at the age of fourteen. Here he received his first degree - a Bachelor of Arts.

Then he studied at Harvard University already as a graduate student (graduate student) and at the age of seventeen he became a master of arts, and at eighteen, in 1913, a doctor of philosophy in the specialty “mathematical logic”. The title of Doctor of Philosophy in this case is not only a tribute to tradition, since Wiener first prepared himself for a philosophical career and only later gave preference to mathematics. At Harvard he studied philosophy under J. Santayana and J. Royce (whose name the reader will find in Cybernetics). Wiener's philosophical education was subsequently reflected in the development of the project of a new science and in the books that he wrote about it.

Harvard University provided the young doctor with a scholarship to travel to Europe. In 1913–1915 Wiener attended Cambridge University in England and Göttingen University in Germany, but returned to America in connection with the war and ended his educational journey at Columbia University in New York. In Cambridge, England, Wiener studied with the famous B. Russell, who at the beginning of the century was the leading authority in the field of mathematical logic, and with J. H. Hardy, a well-known mathematician and specialist in number theory. Subsequently, Wiener wrote: “Russell inspired me with a very reasonable idea that a person who is going to specialize in mathematical logic and the philosophy of mathematics might know something of mathematics itself.” In Göttingen, Wiener studied with the outstanding German mathematician D. Hilbert, listened to the lectures of the philosopher E. Husserl.

In 1915 the service began. Wiener got an assistant position in the philosophy department at Harvard, but only for a year. In search of happiness, he changed a number of places, was a journalist, wanted to join the soldiers. However, he, apparently, was sufficiently provided for and did not feel the need. Finally, with the assistance of the mathematician F.V. Osgood, a friend of his father, Wiener got a job at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. In 1919, Wiener was appointed instructor (instructor) in the Department of Mathematics at MIT and since then has remained a member of the institute all his life. In 1926 Wiener married Marguerite Engemann, an American of German origin.

Wiener considered the years 1920–1925 to be the years of his formation in mathematics. He reveals a desire to solve complex physical and technical problems using the methods of modern abstract mathematics. He is engaged in the theory of Brownian motion, tries his hand at potential theory, develops a generalized harmonic analysis for the needs of communication theory. His academic career is slow but successful.

In 1932, Wiener became a full professor. He is gaining a name in the scientific circles of America and Europe. Dissertations are written under his supervision. He publishes a number of books and large memoirs on mathematics: “Generalized Harmonic Analysis”, “Tauberian Theorems”, “Fourier Integral and Some of Its Applications”, etc. A joint study with the German mathematician E. Hopf (or Hopf) on the radiative equilibrium of stars introduces science “Wiener–Hopf equation”. Another joint work, the monograph "Fourier Transform in the Complex Domain" was written in collaboration with the English mathematician R. Paley. This book was published under tragic circumstances: even before its completion, an Englishman died in the Canadian Rockies during a ski trip. Wiener also pays tribute to technical creativity, in company with the Chinese scientist Yu.V. Lee and W. Bush, a well-known designer of analog computers. In 1935–1936 Wiener was vice president of the American Mathematical Society.

In the 1920s and 1930s, Wiener repeatedly visited Europe, made extensive scientific acquaintances, lived for a long time in Cambridge and Göttingen, and participated in international mathematical congresses. Among his acquaintances were M. Fréchet, J. Hadamard, N. Bor, M. Born, J. Haldane, J. Bernal and others. Viner visits China as a "traveling professor" (visiting professor) and lectures at Beijing Tsinghua University. Wiener attached great importance to travel and personal scientific communication in his scientific development.

The year of the trip to China - 1935 - Wiener considered an important milestone in his life, the beginning of scientific maturity. He was forty years old, he achieved recognition and a strong position in science. “My work began to bear fruit - I managed not only to publish a number of significant independent works, but also to develop a certain concept that could no longer be ignored in science.” The development of this concept then led Wiener to the significant project of cybernetics.

Back in the 1930s, Wiener became close friends with the Mexican scientist Arthur Rosenbluth, a collaborator of the famous American physiologist W.B. Cannon, and takes part in a free methodological seminar organized by Rosenbluth and bringing together representatives of different sciences. This seminar played an important role in the preparation of Wiener cybernetics. The real book begins with a story about him. Acquaintance with a Mexican physiologist introduced Wiener into the world of biology and medicine; the idea of ​​a broad synthetic approach to the problems of modern science began to strengthen in his mind.

Norbert Wiener, a brief biography and interesting facts from the life of an American scientist of Jewish origin, an outstanding mathematician and philosopher, the founder of the theory of artificial intelligence and cybernetics are presented in this article.

Brief biography of Norbert Wiener

Norbert Wiener was born on November 26, 1894 in Missouri to a German Jewish family. Being very young, he eagerly read books from his parents' library. He was a very gifted person. And at the age of 7 he wrote the first scientific treatise on Darwinism. In fact, Wiener did not really study in high school, since at the age of 11 he entered Taft College, graduating 3 years later with a Bachelor of Arts degree. When Norbert was 18 years old he already had a doctorate in mathematical logic, which he received after studying at Harvard and Cornell Universities. And a year later he was invited to the Massachusetts Institute of Technology in the Department of Mathematics.

But he does not get tired of comprehending science - in 1913, Wiener travels around Europe and listens to Hardy and Russell's lectures at the University of Cambridge and Hilbert's lectures in Göttingen. In Europe, he tries his hand at journalism, teaching, and even worked at an engineering factory.

After the First World War began, he returns to America and tries to get to the front. But he did not pass the medical examination.

In 1919, Norbert worked as a lecturer at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology in the Department of Mathematics.

In the 1920s and 1930s, he again traveled to Europe. True, this time he is already lecturing, since Wiener, together with Hopf, created the theory of radiative equilibrium, called the Wiener-Hopf equation.

Before the start of World War II, Wiener was already a professor at Harvard, Columbia, Göttingen, Cornell and Brown universities. He also received a mathematical chair at the Massachusetts Institute in his undivided ownership. He wrote many articles and studies.

During the Second World War, the professor began work on a mathematical apparatus for anti-aircraft fire guidance systems. Viner is the developer of a new effective probabilistic model for controlling air defense forces. It was a breakthrough in cybernetics. Soon he publishes the book "Cybernetics, or control and communication in the animal and the machine", which became the main result of his long research and experiments. She laid the foundation for the study of artificial intelligence. That is why the American scientist Norbert Wiener is considered the father of cybernetics. For its development, cybernetics was awarded the Gold Medal of Scientist, the highest honor in America for a man of science.

Norbert Wiener interesting facts

• Scientist was a rather clumsy and insecure child, because due to severe myopia, he developed many complexes. As a result, the boy had little contact with his peers, being distracted from everything in the world of science and literature.
• Father of cybernetics, American scientist Norbert Wiener suffered from extreme forgetfulness.
• In 1926, he married Margaret Yengerman. The couple had two daughters.
• During his teaching activities, Norbert Wiene never announced the topic of the lecture, and never brought an outline or plan to class. Having entered the audience, blowing his nose loudly, he immediately turned his face to the blackboard and began to deduce formulas, muttering something incomprehensible to himself under his breath. Having written the necessary formulas or arguments, he immediately erased and took up the chalk again and again. Students sometimes did not even have time to copy on the boards. At the end of the lecture, he left the audience without looking at anyone.
• He created a management model, which, without computers, was able to homing on a target, and showed the effect of artificial intelligence in practice.

Norbert Wiener is the father of cybernetics, without which it is now impossible to imagine our life, and everything that happens in it.

Like his future "creations", Norbert from childhood was "programmed" for a certain fate. The dictates of his father, under whose authority the future scientist happened to be formed as a person, was tangible literally from the first conscious steps of Wiener's life. Norbert's father himself was a very remarkable person, and although there is an opinion that "nature rests on the children of geniuses", in this case everything turned out exactly the opposite - everything that was genetically laid down, Wiener managed to develop and increase, subsequently rising to the level iconic personalities who made an invaluable contribution to the development of scientific thought, the consequences of which we feel at every step, and in the long term, humanity has yet to evaluate the foundation that was laid by people like Norbert Wiener in the pyramid of knowledge development of human civilization.

Norbert Wiener was born in November 1894 in Missouri, where the Wiener family moved from the Polish city of Bialystok, which at that time was part of the Russian Empire. Norbert's father, Leo Wiener, in addition to being a fairly well-known philologist by the time his son was born, is also famous for translating the twenty-four-volume collected works of Leo Tolstoy from Russian into English. Here is what Norbert himself wrote about his father: “He became a scientist rather due to his character traits than due to any special training” . Of course, books in the Wiener family occupied a dominant position, and little Norbert could not get away from this, and, apparently, he did not resist much. The future "father of cybernetics" began to read a little later than he could walk, and from that moment on he felt his father's demands on himself, who had high hopes for the heir. Norbert himself, without coercion, did what he liked, for example, by the age of 7 he realized the theory of Darwinism, while his father had a hand in his son's study of languages ​​and mathematics. Norbert was literally a "wunderkind", and subsequently, without false modesty, he called himself that. And there was a lot of evidence for this - at the age of 11, Wiener graduated from a college course, at 14 he received a bachelor's degree, at 17 he became a master of arts, and at 18 - a doctor of philosophy. Impressive, isn't it? However, this was only the beginning of a long journey.

Speaking about successful people, we sometimes ask ourselves, due to what they, these very “successful”, become such? And how are they different from the rest? Speaking about our hero, it is worth noting that he possessed a full range of qualities that characterize a typical scientist familiar to us from old Soviet films. Today's youth calls such "nerds". A typical appearance is a beard and glasses, non-standard, and sometimes strange judgments, and, most importantly, the presence of a permanent dissenting opinion. There were stories about Wiener's forgetfulness, which gradually turned into anecdotes. Here is one of them:
Somehow his family moved to live on another street. Wife, knowing Wiener's forgetfulness, always wrote him notes with the address where they live. Wiener lost the note, somehow remembered the way, came to the old place of residence. A girl played there, whom he asked about her family, to which the girl answered him in a human voice: “Mom knew that you would lose a note with a new address!”

However, let's return from humor to the prose of life. The lively, cognitive mind of a young scientist, like a sponge, absorbed everything new, and, taking into account a wide range of interests, accumulated data from which a kind of generator of ideas was formed, which over time surprised many. There was a period in Wiener's life during which he, as he later put it, "tasted the joy of free labor." During the seven years that followed his doctorate, Norbert was engaged in various sciences at various universities around the world, among which were Cambridge and Göttingen. In addition, he tried to deal with purely “worldly” affairs, for example, journalism, and even tried to get to the front (the First World War was on), however, due to poor eyesight, he was commissioned, and, perhaps due to this physical defect, fate saved the scientist and all his subsequent discoveries from nonexistence. The accumulated life experience, coupled with a non-standard approach, gave an excellent result. His research in the field of mathematics was periodically published in world scientific publications. In parallel, Wiener taught at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. Here is what one of his students recalled about how he lectured:

He approached the blackboard, wrote something on it with chalk, and then, muttering under his breath with displeasure: “Wrong, wrong,” he erased. Then he wrote and erased again and again. Two hours later he said: “Now, perhaps, everything!” and, without looking at the audience, ran out of the audience.

Speaking about the phenomenon of Norbert Wiener, it should be noted that in his works he tried to compare what seemed absolutely illogical at the then level of development of science. So, he linked together the principle of machine calculation and the features of the human brain, while rightly assuming that the human brain is a more advanced tool, which, among other things, has such a thing that machines are still inaccessible to this day. It's about motivation.
Actually, the motivation of Wiener himself helped him take the first step towards the most important discovery of his life. Not getting to the front in the First World War, Wiener expressed a desire to be useful during the Second World War, but not at the forefront, but in a research laboratory, where he focused on modeling the trajectories of enemy aircraft, which was based on observations of the behavior of aircraft and further systematization of the collected information. Even then, Wiener noticed that the simulation results have a certain pattern and lend themselves to a certain logic, which, as previously thought, was inherent only to rational beings. Here is what Wiener himself wrote about this in his Cybernetics:

“Already before the war, it became clear that the increasing speed of aircraft overturned the classical methods of fire control and that it was necessary to build in the fire control device all computing devices that provide calculations for the shot ... It is necessary to shoot not directly at the target, but at some point, at which, according to calculations , after some time, the plane and the projectile should meet. Therefore, we must find some method of predicting the future position of the aircraft."

Of course, it was extremely premature to talk about artificial intelligence, but even then the analogies seemed obvious to Wiener. Based on them, he was able to convince a group of scientists at Princeton University, among whom were neurophysiologists, that the human nervous system is analogous to a computer. At the same time, a language familiar to today's programmers was developed - the so-called "binary calculus", on which both lamp calculators of the 40-50s of the last century and the current high-performance processors of personal and stationary computers worked. The key idea of ​​the new concept was the assumption that not only people can transmit and receive information, therefore the line between the human mind and artificial intelligence is not insurmountable.

All this was collected together by Wiener over time, however, chance played a significant role in the publication of Cybernetics, which later became epochal. The scholar was persuaded to write it by a publisher during Wiener's stay in Paris in 1946. This idea was realized two years later, and neither the publisher nor Wiener himself expected how popular the book would become for many years. The success was obvious. We can say that Wiener fulfilled a kind of "order" of that time. The masses were captured by a new idea - the creation of smart machines that can solve all the problems of mankind. Even in the Soviet Union, which for the time being was wary of everything new coming from the West, in 1958, during the Khrushchev thaw, a translation of Cybernetics was published, and Norbert Wiener himself even visited Moscow, where he talked to the advanced figures of Soviet science, met with the editors of the journal "Problems of Philosophy", and also read a report at the Moscow Polytechnic Museum.

However, the genius of our hero was not only in the ability to think creatively and put forward fresh ideas, but also in the ability to critically evaluate what has already been proposed, and, thinking ahead, to see not only the “bright” but also the “dark” sides of his theory. Already at the end of his life, he realized that with all the advantages of the idea of ​​"smart machines", there are certain dangers. It will be clearer to us, living today, if we recall Hollywood films about cyborgs, at the same time, the term “machine riot”, further developed by science fiction writers, came into use. The last book by Norbert Wiener was published a year before the death of the scientist, in 1963, and was called "Joint-Stock Company" God and Golem "(Golem - a revived clay idol from the old tradition of the Prague Jews). In this kind of "scientific testament", the creator of cybernetics warned humanity against the temptation to shift all social and economic issues onto the shoulders of unconditionally smart, but without moral principles and motivation, artificially created devices. “How can we be if we transfer the solution of the most important questions into the hands of an inexorable sorcerer or, if you like, an inexorable cybernetic machine, to which we must ask questions correctly and, so to speak, in advance, without yet fully understanding the essence of the process that produces answers ?.. No, the future leaves little hope for those who expect our new mechanical slaves to create for us a world in which we will be freed from the need to think. They can help us, but on condition that our honor and reason will meet the requirements of the highest morality ... ", - wrote in his last book an outstanding scientist who was many years ahead of the time in which he himself lived.
A few months before his death, Norbert Wiener was awarded the Scientist's Gold Medal, the highest honor for a man of science in America. At the solemn meeting dedicated to this event, President Johnson said: "Your contribution to science is surprisingly versatile, your view has always been completely original, you are an amazing embodiment of the symbiosis of a pure mathematician and an applied scientist." At these words, Wiener took out a handkerchief and blew his nose feelingly.
Such was the great scientist who, with his discoveries, entered the history of the development of science and technology, as well as our everyday life. Back in those years when cybernetics was more of a theory than a tool, he suggested that machines could not only be a modeling tool, but also serve as a communication tool. After all, everything that we use every day - computers, the Internet, electronic settlement systems, data processing systems on stock exchanges, all this would be impossible without programmable machines and the calculation system proposed at one time. Norbert Wiener, a man whose research became the basis for most modern information technologies. Which to this day, thanks to the automation of exchange operations, in many ways make life easier for traders and investors around the world.
The followers of the great scientist keep up with the times, developing more and more complex automatic decision-making systems, training programs, trading robots, all kinds of indicators and much, much more. And now it is already thought that the hour is not far off when intelligent systems will be able to compare with the human brain. And the warning of the great genius about the lack of emotionality in machines will sink into oblivion.

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, Mathematician , Philosopher

Norbert Wiener (November 26, 1894, Columbia, Missouri, USA - March 18, 1964, Stockholm, Sweden) was an American scientist of Jewish origin, an outstanding mathematician and philosopher, the founder of cybernetics and the theory of artificial intelligence.

Norbert Wiener was born into a Jewish family. Mother's parents, Berta Kahn, were from Germany. The scientist's father, Leo Wiener (1862 - 1939), studied medicine in Warsaw and engineering in Berlin, and after moving to the United States, he eventually became a professor at the Department of Slavic Languages ​​and Literature at Harvard University.

The discipline of a scientist lies in the fact that he devotes himself to the search for truth. This discipline gives rise to the desire to make any sacrifices - whether they be material sacrifices or even, in extreme cases, the sacrifice of one's own safety.

Wiener Norbert

At the age of 4, Wiener was already admitted to his parents' library, and at the age of 7 he wrote his first scientific treatise on Darwinism. Norbert never really went to high school. But at the age of 11, he entered the prestigious Taft College, which he graduated with honors in three years with a Bachelor of Arts degree.

At 18, Norbert Wiener was already a Ph.D. in mathematical logic at Cornell and Harvard Universities. At the age of nineteen, Dr. Wiener was invited to the Department of Mathematics at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology.

In 1913, the young Wiener began his journey through Europe, listening to lectures by Russell and Hardy in Cambridge and Hilbert in Göttingen. After the outbreak of the war, he returns to America. While studying in Europe, the future “father of cybernetics” had to try his hand as a journalist for a university newspaper, test himself in the teaching field, and serve as an engineer at a factory for a couple of months.

The most perfect model of a cat is the same cat, but better - he himself.
(Philosophy of Science 1945)

Wiener Norbert

In 1915, he tried to get to the front, but did not pass the medical examination due to poor eyesight.

Since 1919, Wiener became a teacher in the Department of Mathematics at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology.

In the 20-30s, he again visits Europe. In the theory of radiative equilibrium of stars, the Wiener-Hopf equation appears. He lectures at Beijing Tsinghua University. Among his acquaintances are N. Bor, M. Born, J. Hadamard and other famous scientists.

The feeling of an inextricable connection with the past... depends not only on the knowledge of chronicle history... striving for a worthy future, one should remember the past, and if there are entire regions where awareness of the past is crumpled to the size of a barely noticeable point on a huge map, then nothing can be worse than for ourselves and for our descendants...

Wiener Norbert

In 1926 he married Margaret Engerman.

Before the Second World War, Wiener became a professor at Harvard, Cornell, Columbia, Brown, Göttingen Universities, received a chair at the Massachusetts Institute in his own undivided ownership, wrote hundreds of articles on probability theory and statistics, on Fourier series and integrals, on potential theory and number theory, on generalized harmonic analysis... During the Second World War, for which the professor wished to be called, he was working on a mathematical apparatus for anti-aircraft fire guidance systems (deterministic and stochastic models for the organization and control of the American air defense forces). He developed a new effective probabilistic model for controlling air defense forces.

Wiener's "Cybernetics" was published in 1948. The full title of Wiener's main book is as follows: "Cybernetics, or Control and Communication in the Animal and the Machine."

A few months before his death, Norbert Wiener was awarded the Scientist's Gold Medal, the highest honor for a man of science in America. At the solemn meeting dedicated to this event, President Johnson said: "Your contribution to science is surprisingly universal, your view has always been absolutely original, you are an amazing embodiment of the symbiosis of a pure mathematician and an applied scientist." At these words, Wiener took out a handkerchief and blew his nose feelingly.

Norbert Wiener photo

Norbert Wiener - quotes

The discipline of the scientist lies in the fact that he devotes himself to the search for truth. This discipline gives rise to the desire to make any sacrifices - whether they be material sacrifices or even, in extreme cases, the sacrifice of one's own safety.

Scientists are usually overly sensitive, and just as easily aroused as artists and poets.

The most perfect model of a cat is the same cat, but better - he himself. (Philosophy of Science 1945)

“The feeling of an inextricable connection with the past… depends not only on the knowledge of chronicle history… striving for a worthy future, one should remember the past, and if there are entire regions where awareness of the past is crumpled to the size of a barely noticeable dot on a huge map, then nothing can be worse both for ourselves and for our descendants ... ”(Norbert Wiener. Science and Society. See Social Sciences and Modernity - 1994, No. 6, p. 130.)

“The brain is a peculiar organ ... in one Chicago insurance company there was an agent, a rising star ... Unfortunately, he was often dominated by the blues, and when he left home from work, no one knew whether he would use the elevator or step out the window of the tenth floor. In the end, the board convinced him to part with a tiny piece of the frontal lobe of the brain ... After that ... no agent since the founding of the society has done equal feats in the field of insurance ... However, everyone lost sight of one fact: a lobotomy does not promote subtlety of judgment and caution. When the insurance agent became a financier, he suffered a complete collapse, and society with him. No, I would not want anyone to change my internal wiring diagram ... ”(Norbert Wiener. Head. American Science Fiction: Collection: - M .: Rainbow, 1988, p. 451.)

Management classics. Wiener Norbert

Publication information courtesy of a publishing house Peter

Wiener Norbert (1894-1964), Wiener, Norbert

1. Introduction
2. Main contribution
3. Practical application of the main ideas

Brief biographical information

Main works

(1948)
The Human Use of Human Beings: Cybernetics and Society (1950)
ex-prodigy (1952)
I am a Mathematician (1956)
God and Golem Inc. (1964)
Invention: The Care and Feeding of Ideas (1993)

Summary

Norbert Wiener was the father of cybernetics, a new science that emerged at the intersection of several scientific disciplines shortly after the end of World War II. Cybernetics established links between wartime science and post-war social science through the development of a non-causal and ecological vision of both physical and biological systems. In his works devoted to cybernetics, N. Wiener demonstrated the presence of invariants in the mechanisms of control and information transmission of living beings and machines. Cybernetic principles provided, on the one hand, the foundations for the creation of many technical devices, such as radars, information networks, computers, and artificial limbs, and, on the other hand, helped develop fundamental approaches to the study of such phenomena of the living world as learning, memory, and intelligence. Cybernetic ideas have been applied and further developed in the management sciences, as well as in a wider sociological context.

1. Introduction

Norbert Wiener possessed extraordinary mathematical abilities and already at the age of 19 he managed to get a Ph.D. from Harvard University (Harvard University). The bulk of his academic career has been at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT), where he has written 11 books and over 200 articles for various scientific journals as a professor of mathematics. From the first early works devoted to the creation of a mathematical theory of Brownian motion and mathematical models for quantum mechanics (in the 1920s - the most important problems of theoretical physics), N. Wiener proved himself to be a remarkable mathematician, having managed to supplement the natural science content of his works with original personal philosophy. For N. Wiener, mathematical theories were special conditions in which general philosophical ideas were concretized. His philosophical approach implied a unified view of the world, including the people existing in it, a world in which everything is interconnected, but in which the most general principles have elements of uncertainty (Heims, 1980: 140, 156). Such a holistic (or ecological) vision of nature, proposed by scientists working in the first half of the 20th century, was far ahead of its time.

2. Main contribution

During World War II, the US Office of Research and Development prioritized work on the long-term atomic bomb project, as well as the more urgent task of finding ways to destroy German bombers. While the main work on the creation of the atomic bomb was carried out at Los Alamos, research on ways to detect, escort and destroy aircraft was carried out mainly inMIT, where N. Wiener was responsible for the development of the mathematical apparatus necessary for solving this problem. In collaboration with young engineer Julian Bigelow, N. Wiener developed a fairly general mathematical theory of predicting the best possible futures from incomplete information about the past. This theory contributed to a revolutionary revolution in the practice of creating means of communication and laid the foundation for the modern statistical theory of communication and information (Heims, 1980: 184). At that time (1940s), this theory immediately led to a significant improvement in the methods of tracking aircraft using radar and was successfully used in the creation of noise filtering devices for radios, telephones and many other general-purpose devices (Wiener, 1993). This work was carried out by N. Wiener at about the same time when, independently of him, Claude Shannon created his “mathematical theory of information transmission” (Shannon and Weaver, 1949).
One of the most interesting aspects of the air defense problem was the creation of a feedback loop: information from the radar screen was used to calculate the corrections needed in the control of weapons to improve targeting accuracy, and then the effectiveness of these corrections was tracked and displayed using the radar, then this new the information was again used to clarify the aiming of the weapon at the target, etc. If the calculations in this process were carried out automatically, then such a system worked as a self-controlled one; if the calculations were not automated, then the whole system, including the people acting in it, was also self-governing. N. Wiener's most important guess was precisely that similar feedback mechanisms are used in all types of purposeful activity, for example, in the case when we take an ordinary pencil from the table. Here, information, taken in mainly through observation, is continuously used to control our arm muscles until the moment we successfully complete the task. N. Wiener discussed his ideas in this area with the Mexican physiologist Arturo Rosenblueet, who suggested that some common disorders of the nervous system, known as ataxias (impaired coordination of movements), can be explained in terms of the inaccuracy of the feedback system. If you offer a cigarette to a person suffering from ataxia, he will stretch his hand further than it takes to take it from the table. Then he will make useless movements in the opposite direction, and then again in the original, so that his actions will resemble an oscillatory process that does not lead to the goal.
The idea that with the help of mathematical formulas some parallels can be found between mechanical devices and living organisms has received support from many representatives of various sciences. On March 8, 1946, twenty-one prominent scientists gathered in a New York hotel to discuss such ideas. This meeting was the first in a series of scientific conferences sponsored byMacy Foundation- during which the basic principles of the new science of cybernetics were formulated. A group of scientists who regularly participated in these meetings in 1946-1953. called the "cybernetic group" (Heims, 1991). It included such scientists as the eminent mathematician John von Neumann, the neuropsychiatrist Warren McCullach, the social scientist Gregory Bateson, as well as Arturo Rosenblueth and Norbert Wiener himself.

In his classic bookCybernetics: or Control and Communication in the Animal and the Machine (“Cybernetics or Control and Communication in Animals and Machines”) (1948) N. Wiener outlined and described the foundations of cybernetics - one of the youngest scientific disciplines of the 20th century. The name of science used by N. Wiener goes back to the ancient Greeks and literally means “the art of management”. When choosing it, N. Wiener wanted to emphasize the recognition of the fact that the first significant work devoted to the action of the feedback mechanism was an article on controllers by Clark Maxwell (1868) and that the term "regulator" (governor) comes from a corruption of the Latin wordgovernorate. Plato used this term to refer to the science of managing ships, while in the 19th century. the French scientist André Ampère borrowed it to define the science of management.
By demonstrating the fact that there is a fundamental similarity between the control mechanisms used in various sciences, cybernetics was able to eliminate the long-standing philosophical contradiction between vitalism and the mechanism, according to which biological and mechanical systems had a fundamentally different nature. In fact, cybernetics, in accordance with the philosophical position of N. Wiener, allowed a much broader classification of systems, and thus showed its interdisciplinary character (Wiener, 1993: 84). A useful criterion for making this classification is the notion of complexity, according to which the main interest of cybernetics is the study of complex (that is, so complex that they cannot be described in a detailed and detailed way) and stochastic (as opposed to deterministic) systems (beer, 1959: 18). Typical examples of such systems are the economy, the human brain, and a commercial company.
To study the mechanism of control and transmission of information in such systems, N. Wiener and his colleagues developed the concepts of feedback, homeostasis, and “black box”. Although we have discussed the feedback mechanism earlier, it is useful to analyze its main characteristics in more detail. Each feedback loop involves the use of input information (eg, temperature measurements) and output (eg, heater operation data); in addition - and this is of the utmost importance - information at the input is affected by the output, for example, the power of the heater will determine the reading taken from the thermometer, which, in turn, will affect the signal to turn on or turn off the heater. Thus, there is a continuous monitoring of the discrepancy between the desired and the actual situation. If the control mechanism acts in the direction of reducing this discrepancy, then such feedback is called negative (as in the case of a thermostat); if the feedback increases the discrepancy, then it is called positive (as in the case of a mechanical brake that captures the initial movements of the driver's hand and then strengthens them until it can stop a moving car).

In his book Cybernetics(“Cybernetics”) (1948) N. Wiener showed that feedback mechanisms are present in many systems of a fundamentally different nature - from mechanical to economic and from sociological to biological. A special type of feedback that is essential for the maintenance of life is present in the so-called phenomenon of homeostasis. The classic biological example is blood temperature homeostasis, which allows the body temperature to remain virtually unchanged despite the body moving from a cold to a warm environment. Thus, a regulating device is called a homeostat, to maintain certain variables within given limits. So, a typical example of a homeostat is the steam pressure regulator in a steam locomotive created by J. Watt, designed to control its speed at various load values. Here it is extremely important to understand that the controlled variable going beyond the desired limits (when the speed of the locomotive is too fast or too slow) itself acts as a feedback (when there is a corresponding closing or opening of the valves in the Watt regulator). In other words, as long as the mechanism itself is functioning, its feedback will also work properly. This conclusion is of great importance, since it implies that the controller feedback will always be guaranteed to compensate not only for this type of disturbance, but also for disturbances of any type (beer, 1959: 29). This special property of control systems is commonly referred to as ultrastability (Ashby, 1956).
Now it should be clear to us that the concept of "control" in cybernetics is not reduced to a naive idea of ​​the process of coercion, but implies the implementation of self-regulation.
Another important concept of cybernetics that has become widespread in many other sciences is the “black box”. Cybernetics, as noted above, is mainly concerned with the study of the mechanisms of control and transmission of information in complex stochastic systems. To study the control process, cybernetics use the concepts of feedback and homeostasis; they use statistical information theory to analyze the probabilistic characteristics of systems; finally, they study the complexity of systems with the help of the concept of a black box. By presenting the system as a black box, cyberneticians default to the cognitive limitations of their understanding of the vast number of possible states available to a complex system at any given time. However, they also recognize the possibility of manipulating some of the input signals and observing some of the results of the system's output. If the outputs are continuously compared to specific desired values, then some of the system's responses can be determined in terms of their effect on the black box inputs so as to keep the system "in control."
When modeling a system as a black box, four sets of variables are identified: a set of possible system states (S); a set of perturbations that can affect its current state (R); set of responses to these perturbations (R); a set of goals defining acceptable states according to established criteria (T). A system is considered to be in a “controlled state” if at any time its state corresponds to the state from the setT. With the help of this model, an extremely important cybernetic principle is established: if the system is in a controlled state, then it is necessary that for any perturbation that seeks to bring the system out of admissible states, there is such a reaction that, after its implementation, would bring the system into one of the states from the setT. This principle was developed by the English cyberneticist Ross Ashby and was called the “law of necessary variety”, usually formulated as follows: “only variety can absorb variety” (Ashby, 1956).
N. Wiener gained experience with computing devices at the very beginning of his scientific career (Wiener, 1993). Back in the 1920s, long before the creation of the first computers, he developed a method for calculating a certain group of integrals by passing a beam through special filters and then measuring the intensity of the received light flux. This new device was, in fact, an analog computer, and was called the “Wiener Integraph”. Approximately twenty years later, in 1940, N. Wiener sent a memorandum to the American government, in which he described five characteristics that the future computer should have: it had to be digital, not analog; use the binary number system; be created on the basis of electronic elements; its logic scheme had to follow the principles on which the Turing machine was created; In a computer, magnetic tape should have been used to store information. Although this memorandum was ignored by government officials for many years, some of his ideas, put forward independently by N. Wiener by other scientists, formed the basis for the creation of modern high-speed computers.

3. Practical application of the main ideas

Many of the early studies now associated with the creation of cybernetics were devoted to the design and construction of various devices. Electronic models of turtles, created by the British neurologist Gray Walter, clearly demonstrated that the combination of several simple mechanisms using the right feedback allows you to implement almost the same complex behaviors as in living systems. Around the same time, the English cybernetician Gordon Pask developed a learning machine, starting the process that would eventually lead to the writing and publication of his famousConversational Theory(“Conversion (conversational) theory”) (1975). G. Pask's machine displayed the information that was to be learned, received from the student the answer to the question asked, and used it as a feedback signal to improve the learning process. Thus, this machine, constantly adapting to the abilities of the student, could be used for teaching. N. Wiener himself in the 1950s and early 1960s. paid much attention to the creation of devices for the replacement of amputated limbs, also trying to reproduce their tactile sensitivity. His collaboration with a group of orthopedic surgeons, neurologists and engineers (although unsuccessful at the time) charted the way for the subsequent creation of a prosthesis, called the Boston arm.
This work with various devices had the dual purpose of (1) demonstrating the feasibility of practical applications of cybernetic ideas and (2) promoting the study of complex systems similar to the human nervous system, as well as a better understanding of such properties of living beings as learning, memory and intelligence. As an example of the study of intelligence, N. Wiener in the second edition of his book on cybernetics (Wiener, 1961) explained in detail how a machine could be made capable of playing chess at an acceptably high level. At present, almost any PC is able to defeat almost any amateur chess player. Unfortunately, due to, among other things, the initial attempts at practical application of cybernetic ideas, the whole new scientific discipline as a whole became associated with real equipment, especially computers, despite the fact that its principles were still used in other disciplines.
In the field of management theory, the most significant development of the ideas of N. Wiener was carried out by Stafford Beer, who, modeling a company in the form of a set of interconnected homeostats and using Ashby's law on the required diversity, created a model of a viable system - MHS (beer, 1979, 1981, 1985). The MHS, which has become an important achievement in the direction of cybernetics, called managerial cybernetics, has turned out to be a useful tool for diagnosing and even designing complex systems - from small firms to large international companies and from local governments to the state economy as a whole (Espejo and Harnden, 1989).
In the late 1970s some social scientists have tried to develop and enrich cybernetics by combining it with sociology and creating the so-called "socio-cybernetics". However, along the way, they encountered some problems, the solution of which seemed to be extremely difficult for them (Geyer and Zouwen, 1986). Only subsequent work in the field of research on the biological aspects of the process of cognition (see, for example,Maturana and Varela, 1987; Foerster, 1984) laid the foundations for the successful development of social cybernetics. This science, known as “second-order cybernetics” (Foerster, 1979) is an example of a non-objectivist approach to scientific inquiry that emphasizes the role of the observer in social systems.
Thus, second-order cybernetics, by emphasizing the importance of the independence of individuals and studying the continuous processes by which they create a common reality, points to the possibility of a new paradigm in social research, which could provide - referring to the title of one of N. Wiener's books - more “ humane use of human beings”.