Talk:Cybernetics
Major comments:
About: The dissolution of the Cybernetics
...At least four disciplines have crystallized from cybernetics (Arbib 1989, pp.6): • Biological control theory • Neural modeling • Artificial Intelligence • Cognitive psychology ...
I believe that the students of some of the above disciplines would disagree, also strongly, with this statement. In particular as the father of the Artificial Intelligence is credited Alan Turing (who is not in the mainstream of the Cybernetics).
To this aim, please consider the following statement:
...We may regard the subject of artificial intelligence as beginning with Turing's article Computing Machinery and Intelligence (Turing 1950) and with Shannon's (1950) discussion of how a machine might be programmed to play chess.
from: John McCarthy and Patrick J. Hayes: Some Philosophical Problems from the Viewpoint of Artificial Intelligence. In: Machine Intelligence 4 (Bernhard Meltzer and Donald Michie, Editors), pp. 463-502. Edinburgh University Press, 1969.
Also in the seminal paper by Searle, John. R. (1980) Minds, brains, and programs. Behavioral and Brain Sciences 3 (3): 417-457
reference is done to A. Turing, no tribute is paid to Cybernetics' fathers.
So, I suggest that AI should disappear from the above list.
Also the Neural modeling is not completely ascribable to Cybernetics (via McCulloch&Pitts). In fact, Nicolas Rashevsky, just at the beginning of the 1930s, introduced some continuous models of the neural activity:
Rashevsky, N., J. Gen. Physiol., 1931, 14, 517. Rashevsky, N., Physics, 1933, 4, 341. Rashevsky, N., Protoplasma, 1933, 20, 42.
Nicolas Rashevsky (1899–1972) was a theoretical physicist, Russian born, who introduced a course in “mathematical biophysics” at the University of Chicago during the 1930s. (See the interesting article by Paul Cull on BioSystems 88 (2007) 178–184: The mathematical biophysics of Nicolas Rashevsky)
He was also the originator of the Bulletin of Mathematical Biophysics (then Bulletin of Mathematical Biology) who housed the article by McCulloch&Pitts (1943), Pitts being a student of Rashevsky.
From the work by Rashesky and his school (Herb Landahl, Anatol Rapoport et al.) sprouted the continuous approach to neural fields, continued by J. S. Griffith, F. Ventriglia, J. Cowan, S. Amari and others, but Rashesky was not in the Cybernetics enterprise.
I believe that the Neural Modeling research field should be referenced also to this not cybernetic origin.
Minor:
It would be appropriate to quote, after Ashby, also the theoretical work of Caianiello, an Italian scientist, who advanced, at the very beginning of 1960s, a physical theory of neural networks, borrowed by the logical approach by McCulloch&Pitts (Caianiello E.R.: Outline of a theory of thought-processes and thinking machines. J Theor Biol. 1961 Apr;1:204-35). This work had some seminal effects, not only in Italy, but also in Japan and Soviet Union.
In the References should be reported that Bulletin of Mathematical Biology reprinted in a special issue (Vol. 52, n. 1/2, 1990) the article by McCulloch&Pitts (1943), with a beautiful discussion by J. Cowan (J. Cowan, Bulletin of Mathematical Biology 1990, 52:73-97).
Reviewer B
(sent comments to the editor-in-chief)
Reviewer C
1) English: As I mentioned, the paper needs considerable improvement in English. Some native English speaker should go over the text. I have marked dubious phrases/words in the text in YELLOW! 2) REFERENCES: a. The references in the reference list are not written consistently (abbreviations of first names (e.g. Arbib MA, vs Turing A.M) b. In many references the place of publication is missing (I marked it with 'c' or country) c. IN several places an additional reference would be helpful (marked by 'C')
3) EDITORIAL style: rather a question to the editors of the scholarpedia: a. Do you want bold face in the text (e.g. P)? b. Item J, should the title not be in quotes? c. (W) I think it is not a service to a reader to have the references in the order appearance - when looking at an article one usually prefers alphabetic order!
4) Detailed remarks (marked by uppercase letters in the marked-up doc. B: underlying D: inizates (?) -> generates an output E: inactive F: ??? they are not connected by weights, but by signal lines and are weighted at the receiving end. G: add (relays, tubes, transistors) H: rather 'logic' than 'mathematics' K: add birth and death-year L: temporal -> time domain M: automatics ?? automation M2: wrong word! N : error - ?? Q: explanation is the wrong word for that phenomenon! R: 'influences' is too weak: 'becomes part of' S: a theory of cybernetics ... T: These sentences should be reworded for clarity. U: generation, actually followers of the founding cyberneticians, V: defined -> conceptionalized or introduced
