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“Cybernetics” comes from the Greek word Kybernetike, meaning “the art of steering”.
Cybernetics is about having a goal and taking action to achieve that goal. It is therefore about knowing whether you have reached your goal (or at least are getting closer to it) and requires “feedback”, a concept that was made rigorous by cybernetics, in order to measure the degree or extent to which you are achieving or arriving at that goal. If we use the example of a boat crossing from one side of a wide and fast-flowing river to the other, the steering principle comes into its own. The boat starts out from its mooring and moves into the river. However, the flow of the river causes the boat to deviate from its original course ...
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