GMU:Cybernetic Subjects - Ursula Damm (Georg Trogemann): Difference between revisions

[[File:Cybernetics zeichnung.png|thumb|531x531px|Drawing by Ricardo Tapia Ch in the class of Tibor Weiner, Chile (Credit: Antonieta Hola)]]

Beginning in the nineteen thirties and continuing through and after World War II, scientists developed increasingly sophisticated mechanical and electrical systems that seemed to have purpose. This intersected with research on animal cognition and early computing and led to a new perspective on mechanical, electrical, biological, and social systems, resulting in a unifying theory known as cybernetics. Although today the computer has become the driving force and steering mechanism of our civilization in an unprecedented development, the original ideas relating to cybernetics have faded from view. Cybernetics - with the computer as a means - became too much a synonym for control and domination, while at the same time almost every corner of our earth was digitally penetrated.  A kind of digital organism was created not only through governance, but also through self-organization.