CYBERNETICSCybernetics is the science of control and communication, with special reference to selfcontrolling and adaptive systems. It does not draw an absolute distinction between living organisms and inanimate, or man-made, systems in this context, since either can be self-controlling and adaptive in behaviour. In the case of a human being, it is reasonably obvious that he or she is always learning to do things in new, and often better ways. In recent years, however, we have come to discover that we can also make machines (appropriately programmed computers provide a good example) that can and does change their behaviour responding to changes in their environment. George, the automatic pilot, is one well-known example of a machine based on such an adaptive principle. Since cybernetics is a science, it attempts to provide a precise theory of adaptive systems of all sizes and kinds, and of different degrees of complexity. Thus, in practice, cybernetics cuts across the frontiers of the so-called established sciences such as physics, chemistry, zoology, and etc., by abstracting from them those common features which would contribute to an integrated theory of control and communication. If you have a system, whether it be a mechanical toy, a whole industry, a string of retail shops, a defence radar network or indeed a single human being, provided it is adaptive and capable of accumulating knowledge in simple or complex ways, then its study is central to cybernetics.
Cybernetics as a science