"Fundamentals and History of Cybernetics: Development of the Theory of Complex
Adaptive Systems" is a 6-hours tutorial delivered by Professor Stuart
Umpleby at the The 10th World Multi-Conference on Systemics, Cybernetics and Informatics:
WMSCI 2006, on July 19th, 2006.
Slides used in the Tutorial
Abstract
The field of cybernetics originated in a series of meetings in New York City between
1946 and 1953 sponsored by the Josiah Macy, Jr. Foundation. These conferences were
attended by Norbert Wiener, John von Neumann, Ross Ashby, Gregory Bateson, Margaret
Mead, Alex Bavelas, Kurt Lewin, J.C.R. Lickleider and others and chaired by Warren
McCulloch. Since then the field of cybernetics made notable contributions to the
fields of computer science, robotics, management, family therapy, neurophysiology,
philosophy of science, sociology, etc. From time to time ideas developed at the
Macy meetings have been reinvented using names such as bionics, self-organization,
complexity, or memetics, though frequently in less advanced form. The purpose of
this tutorial is to review the history of these ideas with emphasis on how concepts
have evolved and how different groups have pursued different research agendas. Numerous
examples of the key ideas will be given from a wide variety of fields.
Stuart Umpleby is a professor of management at The George Washington University
in Washington, DC and former president of the American Society for Cybernetics.
He is Director of the Research Program in Social and Organizational Learning at
George The Washington University. He teaches courses in cybernetics and systems
theory, the philosophy of science, cross-cultural management, and process improvement
methods.
As a graduate student in the early 1970s he was associated with Heinz von Foerster
and Ross Ashby at the Biological Computer Laboratory at the University of Illinois
in Urbana-Champaign. He received degrees in engineering, political science, and
communications from the University of Illinois in Urbana-Champaign. While at the
University of Illinois, he worked in the Computer-based Education Research Laboratory
(the PLATO system), and the Institute for Communication Research.
In the early 1970s, he designed computer conferencing systems. Between 1977 and
1980 he was the moderator of a computer conference on general systems theory which
was supported by the National Science Foundation. This project was one of nine "experimental
trials of electronic information exchange for small research communities." About
sixty scientists in the United States, Canada, and Europe interacted for a period
of two and a half years using the Electronic Information Exchange System (EIES)
located at New Jersey Institute of Technology.
Between 1981 and 1988 he arranged scientific meetings involving American and Russian
scientists in the area of cybernetics and systems theory. In 1984 he spent part
of a sabbatical year at the International Institute for Applied Systems Analysis,
an East-West research institute located near Vienna, Austria. In the spring of 1990
he was a guest professor at the University of Vienna, Department of Medical Cybernetics
and Artificial Intelligence.
