Abstract
Cybernetics is usually mentioned in the same breath with the pioneering work of Cannon (1932) , and indeed as an elaboration of this classic work.
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Cannon’s book The wisdom of the body was published in 1932, but his studies on homeostasis (and his first uses of the term) began to appear already in the nineteen twenties. His collaborations with Wiener took place largely through the mediation of the brilliant physiologist Arturo Rosenblueth, who was Cannon’s foremost student and his co-author in some of the early studies on different mechanisms of internal regulation in the human body and in the nervous system in particular. Only later did Rosenblueth become a close friend of Wiener’s and a key figure in cybernetics. Wiener and Rosenblueth co-authored various important articles in a variety of fields, from the methodology of science to the physiognomy of the nervous system. Most prominent among these for communication scholars are Rosenblueth et al. (1943), and Rosenblueth and Wiener (1945,1950).
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An unduly short account of this meeting, intriguing in its baffling brevity, is provided by Wiener in his autobiography (Wiener 1956, p. 171). On Cannon’s place among the scientists of his time, see p. 221. From reading the various details about Cannon that Wiener scatters throughout the story of his life it seems almost as if he revered Cannon to the point of fearing full collaboration with him, a fear that dissipated only when it was too late for any real collaboration given Cannon’s advanced age. The two men met to discuss their work only close to Cannon’s death and without resulting in any significant publications.
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Precedence arguments about the first source or instance or appearance of ideas whose evolution is clearly gradual are usually pointless if not ridiculous, expressing more than anything else the narcissistic hope to be born ex nihilo, out of the white foam of the waves. Cannon and Wiener are inspiring examples in this respect, since both were at once impressively original and very generous—indeed, excessively so—in attributing this originality to their predecessors. The first chapter of Cannon’s book is devoted entirely to quotes by his various harbingers, most notably the great Claude Bernard . Cannon notes many other sources of inspiration but also adds wisely that the basic idea of human health as the ability to maintain a relative balance between competing forces can be attributed even to Hippocrates. Beyond his generosity and humility, Cannon was keenly aware of the clash between the basic idea underlying the theory of homeostasis, on the one hand, and reductionism on the other, so that his list of distinguished forerunners may well be an attempt to cushion the impact of this clash on his fiercely reductionist milieu.
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Here Freud is clearly indebted to Plato, whose dialogue Phaedo offers an explicit expression of the idea that within every adult lies a kind of child to whom the philosopher addresses himself directly, as to an independent entity complete with its own anxieties and patterns of behavior.
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Bar-Am, N. (2016). Back to the Basic Problem of Communication: The Limitations of Cybernetics. In: In Search of a Simple Introduction to Communication. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-25625-2_14
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