Cybernetic Self #2 / Nick Deakin

People are social media and it has created a whole new lease of life people. On social media people no longer feel held back by boundaries and freely express themselves by sharing funny vines or liking certain posts and videos. The internet has grown to become a huge opportunity factory. The internet has made everything more accessible, tools for creation, contacts, distribution and the ease to have your own voice out there to be heard. Also, the internet has been redefined as a network of people. It encourages risk, pushed boundaries, create mutual respect, enhances creativity and connects people from different backgrounds.

We Are Internet - Episode 1: WTF is the internet? from Internet Age Media on Vimeo.

Next, I learnt where the word cybernetics originates. It is the Greek meaning for 'the art of steering' and the idea of having a goal and taking action to achieve that goal. Feedback is a word that was brought about because of cybernetics, knowing whether or not you have achieved your goal or are getting closer to it required some feedback. All living intelligence have the property of cybernetics to see a goal and try to move towards that goal, if you get knocked off course towards that goal, you notice and correct yourself to get back on path. This is all cybernetics in your brain to detect stimulus's and feedback is sent to the brain to respond to a certain stimulus. It is also a survival trait. For example, if you hold your hand off of a hot flame, cybernetics send a stimulus to your brain to create a reflex to pull your hand away immediately.



There are many forms of cybernetics, biological, technological, social and many more. Basically, all systems that have goals. From what i have learnt cybernetics is almost everything, in terms of interaction. For example, me writing this blog post is applying cybernetics. I interact, research, learn, write, explain what I have learnt to achieve a goal. Combining both technological and human cybernetics, going back and forth to work and improve my understanding and knowledge around the subject I am studying.

All in all, my understanding of cybernetics has completely changed from when I entered the lecture. Before, I believed it was completely technological and I thought cybernetics was how circuits connect and create computers and other electrical machinery. Which it is, but there is so much more to it. I have learnt it is all systems that achieve a goal. If you think about it, lots of cybernetics took place in the lecture I was just in. The presentation was cybernetics, the videos was cybernetics, learning from these are cybernetics, me taking notes was cybernetics, when I got quite warm in the room and had to take my jacket off was biological cybernetics and so on.