This document discusses Norbert Wiener and the origins of cybernetics. It provides context on Wiener's background and education. It describes how his collaboration with YUK Wing Lee in 1934 led him to become interested in the concept of feedback, which was a key building block of cybernetic theory. Cybernetics theory views communication as information transfer within and between systems. The document poses questions about how communication theory has been influenced by cybernetics and whether mathematical theories can apply to communication theory.

1. Chapter 10

2. • Norbert - Prodigy
• Norbert and Cybernetic
• Cybernetic and Theory of Communication

3. A Robert Browning “On A Balcony”
Let it be now, Love! All my soul
breaks forth.
How I do love you! give my love its
way!
A man can have but one life and
one death,
One heaven, one hell. Let me fulfil
my fate

4. It was a traumatic experience for
him to self-realize of his ethnic His doctoral dissertation at Harvard was entitled
identity. “A Comparison of the Algebra of Relatives of
Schroeder and of Whitehead and Russell”.

5. 1919 after the military service Wiener
joined the Department of Mathematics at
MIT.

6. In 1934 after his collaboration with
Absent-mindedness, He was famed at former doctoral student from
MIT for his so-called Wiener-wegs on China, YUK Wing Lee, Wiener
which he wandered in a random path became interested in the concept
through the institute buildings, of feedback, the key building block
dropping unannounced into offices and in the cybernetic theory that was to
laboratories to encounter a surprised
make him world famous.
professor or doctoral student

7. • 1941-1942 in MIT Radiation Laboratory he set to work on
the mathematics of antiaircraft gun control
• Cybernetics is so broad that it probably cannot be viewed
as a mainly mathematical theory…
• Questions 3,4,5

8. • Why did Everet M. Rogers claim that Cybernetics Theory
is communication theory rather than mathematics?
• Do you think that communication study has been
influenced by Cybernetic Theory? Can Communication
theories influence any other theories in other fields of
study?
• Can Mathematical Theories apply for Communication
Theory?

10. • 7H15 M3554G3 53RV35 7O PR0V3 H0W 0UR M1ND5
C4N D0 4M4Z1NG 7H1NG5! 1MPR3551V3 7H1NG5! 1N
7H3 B3G1NN1NG 17 WA5 H4RD BU7 N0W, 0N 7H15
LIN3 Y0UR M1ND 1S R34D1NG 17 4U70M471C4LLY
W17H0U7 3V3N 7H1NK1NG 4B0U7 17, B3 PROUD!
0NLY C34R741N P30PL3 C4N R3AD 7H15.

11. “Cybernetics” was chosen by Wiener
from the Greek word for “steersman”
(1942)
The word was first used
by Plato (424/423 BC[a]
– 348/347 BC) in the
sense of "the art of
steering" or "the art of
government ".
André-Marie Ampère (1775
–1836) used the word
cybernetics to denote "the
study of ways of
governing."

12. • How did Norbert Wiener’s insecurity motivate him to even
greater intellectual accomplishments?
• If the feedback system existed prior to Norbert Wiener’s
wartime work, why did Cybernetics come late?

13. A Systems Theory
Framework for
Careers
Development
Systems theory is actually not
a theory in a strict sense but
a broad paradigm, a response
to the problem of reductionism, and a
reaction against growing scientific

14. http://www.youtube.c
om/watch?v=jqd4Mqt
FduA&feature=relate
d

15. http://www.youtube.c
om/watch?v=SGaBu
PNa-
RQ&feature=related
(3.44)

16. • Feedback is seen in nature. For example, ice – water –
vapor. Could you give any example for Cybernetic?
• Is communication study in a closed system or in an open
system? Is System theory is appropriate to use in
Communication Study?
• What type of communication do you think can be studied
by System Theory?
• How is Cybernetic is integrated into System Theory, if it is
at all?

17. • Ex-Prodigy: My Childhood and Youth
• Systems theory and research in the study of
organizational communication: The correspondence
problem
• Developmental systems theory: An integrative approach