Cybernetics

Norbert Wiener, an American mathematician, is considered by many to be the founder of cybernetics. The word "cybernetics" comes from the Greek and means "to direct or navigate". It refers to the study of systems of all kinds (biological, social, technological...) and the interaction of actions in pursuit of foreseeable goals.

Wiener himself defined cybernetics as the science of control and communication between humans and machines.

In other words, cybernetics is the transdisciplinary study not only of the nature of systems, but also of how they work. Its approach is not so much interested in what is being studied as in how it works.

Cybernetics thus strives to understand the interactions within a system, building its coherence and attributing a particular behavior to it. It considers systems as "active" entities, and focuses on identifying the catalysts behind these actions.

These catalysts can take a variety of forms, depending on the nature of the systems studied: electronic messages in technological systems, nerve signals in biology, interpersonal communications in social systems...

Finally, the cybernetic approach consists in modeling the exchanges that take place in a given system to enable the observer to manage them as efficiently as possible. These exchanges are seen as the determinants of the intelligible dynamics of the system as a whole. When well governed, they can be used to predict these dynamics.