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In the Seminar on Heraclitus, conducted by Martin Heidegger and Eugen Fink in 1966, Heidegger says:

In the experiment which we undertake, there is no question of wanting to conjure up Heraclitus himself. Rather, he speaks with us and we speak with him. At present, we reflect on the phenomenon of steering.

This phenomenon has today, in the age of cybernetics, become so fundamental that it occupies and determines the whole of natural science and the behavior of humans so that it is necessary for us to gain more clarity about it. You said first that steering means "bringing something into a desired course." Let us attempt a still more precise description of the phenomenon...

What does Heidegger mean by Cybernetics here? It isn't natural science for he says that it directs it as well as the behaviour of human beings. Is it akin to technology? However he goes on to say:

That natural science and our life today become ruled by cybernetics in increasing measure is not accidental; rather, it is foreshadowed in the historical origin of modern knowledge and technology.

Which suggests some essential differences between Cybernetics and Technology.

Mozibur Ullah
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    The atmosphere was "Psycho-cybernetics" by Maxwell Maltz (1960). This was extremely topical in the '60s. Poor Weiner. So this was in the air. – Gordon Jan 18 '18 at 17:10
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    He is making something of an elaborate pun here. 'Cybernetics' is the combination of information science, computation, and control theory -- it is still the word for Computer Science in many parts of the world. But the Greek word means 'The study of steering'. Many folks would take a broader look at the notion of directing and giving direction than the field that has co-opted this name allows. –  Jan 18 '18 at 17:15
  • @jobermark: Interesting. The context that the extract is taken from is a study of a fragment of Heraclitus: Lightning steers the cosmos. It seems H is making a parallel with the contemporary human situation. – Mozibur Ullah Jan 18 '18 at 17:19
  • My first thought when I saw that fragment was: it's Zeus throwing the lightning. Of course we'll never know how Heraclitus came by this image. – Mozibur Ullah Jan 18 '18 at 17:26
  • @Gordon - agreed. Wiener's Cybernetics was first published in 1948 and translated in Deutsch the same year. Thus in the post-war time, the term was very well "in the air". – Mauro ALLEGRANZA Jan 19 '18 at 10:09
  • @Maura Allegranza: I first came across the term cybernetics when reading a bio of Wiener. Still, I suspect that Heidegger means something very different to what Wiener is describing given the description by jjack. – Mozibur Ullah Jan 19 '18 at 12:05
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    I agree also with the comment above; maybe is a sort of pun. Cybernetics is the science of control. See page 43: "Scarcely a month passes but a new book appears on these so-called control mechanisms, or servomechanisms, and the present age is as truly the age of servomechanisms as the nineteenth century was the age of the steam engine or the eighteenth century the age of the clock." – Mauro ALLEGRANZA Jan 19 '18 at 13:47
  • @maura allegranza: possibly, but puns are associated with humour generally. The context where the extract is taken from seemed to be too serious for that though. – Mozibur Ullah Jan 19 '18 at 13:55
  • SEP on Paul Yorck. https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/yorck/ He also has a Wikipedia. – Gordon Jan 19 '18 at 19:02
  • Heidegger does not want us to be on course with our age. Our age controls us "cybernetically-like" and keeps us on course for a disaster; a catastrophe so bad that only a God can save us (der Spiegel interview). Heidegger's idea of being-time as a ""space" [Yorck] for being" that we can project into and plan our own life in, later he expands to other space-time-clearings that we ourselves can carry Being into, Holzwege, wood-ways, off the beaten track, and definitely not on course with our age. – Gordon Jan 19 '18 at 20:58
  • @gordan: it's better than my musings. I was wondering whether H was thinking some amalgam of the human and machine was to steer us on course; and then I realised I was confusing the words cyborg and cybernetics... – Mozibur Ullah Jan 20 '18 at 01:28
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    Your question was very helpful to me because in my look again at Yorck, I realized the importance to me of his concept of "space". Imagine space as a room, the far end of the room is our death. Then how do we prioritize things in our "Being envelope" or Being-space so as to make best use of our Being-time? We can also project forward into this "space". I am mixing Heidegger and Yorck here. – Gordon Jan 20 '18 at 15:36
  • Also, another note (sorry lol) I can take the Adorno road to arrive roughly in the same neighborhood where Heidegger ended up: a neighborhood of negativity. This negativity toward man and his future on our present course may be well justified. Frankly, late Marcuse was the only one who suggested a positive possibility. Habermas tried to be positive-neutral: a democracy without fear. – Gordon Jan 20 '18 at 15:41

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Cybernetics is a scientific discipline that deals with closed-loop systems and open loop systems. It's related to control theory in engineering.

Many systems on Earth, from technical or engineering systems to markets and social systems, can be "controlled" (as in made to behave in a desired way) by intervention. This intervention is either due to moving an actuator, like an electric motor to rotate a shaft, in an engineering system, or due to laws and policing in a social system. The systems are dynamical systems (differential equations), so their states change over time.

Open loop systems are steered in a desired direction by an actuation system. They are not very robust (not very good at achieving their desired goal) if there are externalities that influence and disturb the system. Such external forces can be both physical and social depending on the system.

Closed loop systems have feedback from the current state of the system to the desired state of the system. The difference between desired and actual current state is called the control error. This difference goes into a controller, which determines the required actuator position to make the actual state follow the desired state. Closed loop control systems are much more robust than open loop control systems.

The following diagram, taken from Wikipedia, shows a closed loop system.

Diagram of a closed loop system

jjack
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