CYBERNETICS AND GENERAL SYSTEMS—A UNITARY SCIENCE?

Abstract

The historical perspective of the emergence of cybernetics as the science of control, communication and computation in machines and living tissues, and integrated and complex man‐machine systems as a unitary discipline of General Systems Theory is presented. In the second section both the theories of cybernetics and general systems are shown to be the same in motivation, requirements, characteristics, attributes and behaviour. In the third section cybernetic systems such as the class of finite state machines are established as a subclass of general dynamical systems. In the last section the cybernetics as a general and universal theory of action, including social praxis in general comprehending technical and moral praxis, is presented.