"The 'cybernetics' of Wiener […] is the science of organization of mechanical and electrical components for stability and purposeful actions. A distinguishing feature of this new science is the total absence of considerations of energy, heat, and efficiency, which are so important in other natural sciences. In fact, the primary concern of cybernetics is on the qualitative aspects of the interrelations among the various components of a system and the synthetic behavior of the complete mechanism." (Qian Xuesen, "Engineering Cybernetics", 1954)
"The purpose of ‘Engineering Cybernetics’ is then to study those parts of the broad science of cybernetics which have direct engineering applications in designing controlled or guided systems. It certainly includes such topics usually treated in books on servomechanisms. But a wider range of topics is only one difference between engineering cybernetics and servomechanisms engineering. A deeper - and thus more important - difference lies in the fact that engineering cybernetics is an engineering science, while servomechanisms engineering is an engineering practice." (Qian Xuesen, "Engineering Cybernetics", 1954)
"Cybernetics is likely to reveal a great number of interesting and suggestive parallelisms between machine and brain and society. And it can provide the common language by which discoveries in one branch can readily be made use of in the others. [...] [There are] two peculiar scientific virtues of cybernetics that are worth explicit mention. One is that it offers a single vocabulary and a single set of concepts suitable for representing the most diverse types of system. [...] The second peculiar virtue of cybernetics is that it offers a method for the scientific treatment of the system in which complexity is outstanding and too important to be ignored. Such systems are, as we well know, only too common in the biological world!" (W Ross Ashby, "An Introduction to Cybernetics", 1956)
"Cybernetics treats not things but ways of behaving. It does not ask ‘what is this thing?’ but ‘what does it do?’ […] It is thus essentially functional and behaviouristic. Cybernetics deals with all forms of behavior in so far as they are regular, or determinate, or reproducible. The materiality is irrelevant. [...] The truths of cybernetics are not conditional on their being derived from some other branch of science. Cybernetics has its own foundations." (W Ross Ashby, "An Introduction to Cybernetics", 1956)
"The most fundamental concept in cybernetics is that of ‘difference’, either that two things are recognisably different or that one thing has changed with time. Its range of application need not be described now, for the subsequent chapters will illustrate the range abundantly. All the changes that may occur with time are naturally included, for when plants grow and planets age and machines move some change from one state to another is implicit. So our first task will be to develop this concept of 'change', not only making it more precise but making it richer, converting it to a form that experience has shown to be necessary if significant developments are to be made." (W Ross Ashby, "An Introduction to Cybernetics", 1956)
"There comes a stage, however, as the system becomes larger and larger, when the reception of all the information is impossible by reason of its sheer bulk. Either the recording channels cannot carry all the information, or the observer, presented with it all, is overwhelmed. When this occurs, what is he to do? The answer is clear: he must give up any ambition to know the whole system. His aim must be to achieve a partial knowledge that, though partial over the whole, is none the less complete within itself, and is sufficient for his ultimate practical purpose." (W Ross Ashby, "An Introduction to Cybernetics", 1956)
"Cybernetics is not merely another branch of science. It is an intellectual revolution that rivals in importance the earlier Industrial Revolution. Is it possible that just as a machine can take over the routine functions of human muscle, another can take over the routine uses of human mind? Cybernetics answers, yes." (Isaac Asimov, [preface to Pierre de Latil’s "Thinking by Machine"] 1957)
"[Cybernetics is] the art of ensuring the efficacy of action." (Louis Couffignal, 1958)
"Cybernetics is the science of the process of transmission, processing and storage of information." (Sergei Sobolew, Woprosy Psychology, 1958)
"The purpose of ‘Engineering Cybernetics’ is then to study those parts of the broad science of cybernetics which have direct engineering applications in designing controlled or guided systems. It certainly includes such topics usually treated in books on servomechanisms. But a wider range of topics is only one difference between engineering cybernetics and servomechanisms engineering. A deeper - and thus more important - difference lies in the fact that engineering cybernetics is an engineering science, while servomechanisms engineering is an engineering practice." (Qian Xuesen, "Engineering Cybernetics", 1954)
"Cybernetics is likely to reveal a great number of interesting and suggestive parallelisms between machine and brain and society. And it can provide the common language by which discoveries in one branch can readily be made use of in the others. [...] [There are] two peculiar scientific virtues of cybernetics that are worth explicit mention. One is that it offers a single vocabulary and a single set of concepts suitable for representing the most diverse types of system. [...] The second peculiar virtue of cybernetics is that it offers a method for the scientific treatment of the system in which complexity is outstanding and too important to be ignored. Such systems are, as we well know, only too common in the biological world!" (W Ross Ashby, "An Introduction to Cybernetics", 1956)
"Cybernetics treats not things but ways of behaving. It does not ask ‘what is this thing?’ but ‘what does it do?’ […] It is thus essentially functional and behaviouristic. Cybernetics deals with all forms of behavior in so far as they are regular, or determinate, or reproducible. The materiality is irrelevant. [...] The truths of cybernetics are not conditional on their being derived from some other branch of science. Cybernetics has its own foundations." (W Ross Ashby, "An Introduction to Cybernetics", 1956)
"The most fundamental concept in cybernetics is that of ‘difference’, either that two things are recognisably different or that one thing has changed with time. Its range of application need not be described now, for the subsequent chapters will illustrate the range abundantly. All the changes that may occur with time are naturally included, for when plants grow and planets age and machines move some change from one state to another is implicit. So our first task will be to develop this concept of 'change', not only making it more precise but making it richer, converting it to a form that experience has shown to be necessary if significant developments are to be made." (W Ross Ashby, "An Introduction to Cybernetics", 1956)
"There comes a stage, however, as the system becomes larger and larger, when the reception of all the information is impossible by reason of its sheer bulk. Either the recording channels cannot carry all the information, or the observer, presented with it all, is overwhelmed. When this occurs, what is he to do? The answer is clear: he must give up any ambition to know the whole system. His aim must be to achieve a partial knowledge that, though partial over the whole, is none the less complete within itself, and is sufficient for his ultimate practical purpose." (W Ross Ashby, "An Introduction to Cybernetics", 1956)
"Cybernetics is not merely another branch of science. It is an intellectual revolution that rivals in importance the earlier Industrial Revolution. Is it possible that just as a machine can take over the routine functions of human muscle, another can take over the routine uses of human mind? Cybernetics answers, yes." (Isaac Asimov, [preface to Pierre de Latil’s "Thinking by Machine"] 1957)
"[Cybernetics is] the art of ensuring the efficacy of action." (Louis Couffignal, 1958)
"Cybernetics is the science of the process of transmission, processing and storage of information." (Sergei Sobolew, Woprosy Psychology, 1958)
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