3.3 Cybernetics

21

StartLayout 1st Row 1st Column right arrow 2nd Column a 3rd Column b 2nd Row 1st Column a 2nd Column 1.0 3rd Column 0.0 3rd Row 1st Column b 2nd Column 0.6 3rd Column 0.4 EndLayout comma

→a

b

a 1.0 0.0

b 0.6 0.4

,

(3.3)

for example, since, for various reasons, the machinery may not work perfectly. Further

sophistication may be incorporated by increasing the number of states; for example,

a comma b comma ca, b, c, anddd corresponding respectively to [HgSuperscript 2 plus Baseline right bracket²⁺] = 0, 1 nM, 1muμM, and 1 mM and

above, with the corresponding matrix

StartLayout 1st Row StartLayout 1st Row 1st Column right arrow 2nd Column a 3rd Column b 4th Column c 5th Column d 2nd Row 1st Column a 2nd Column 1.0 3rd Column 0.0 4th Column 0.0 5th Column 0.0 3rd Row 1st Column b 2nd Column 0.6 3rd Column 0.4 4th Column 0.0 5th Column 0.0 4th Row 1st Column c 2nd Column 0.3 3rd Column 0.4 4th Column 0.3 5th Column 0.0 5th Row 1st Column d 2nd Column 0.0 3rd Column 0.3 4th Column 0.4 5th Column 0.3 EndLayout period EndLayout

→a

b

c

d

a 1.0 0.0 0.0 0.0

b 0.6 0.4 0.0 0.0

c 0.3 0.4 0.3 0.0

d 0.0 0.3 0.4 0.3

.

After several cycles, the machine will be completely in state aa (cf. Sect. 11.2).

In the simplest cases, the error, or a quantity proportional to it, is sent back to

the regulator but, more sophisticatedly, some function of the error—for example,

its integral, or its derivative—could be fed back to R. The vast majority of indus-

trial controllers use a combination of all three (and hence are referred to as PID

controllers).

3.3

Cybernetics

In its modern incarnation, cybernetics was, initially, the study of control and com-

munication within machines (considered as information processors, hence in this

sense also encompassing living organisms), with the machine considered as an entity

independent from the observer. Perhaps from the influence of quantum mechanics

and its concept of the absolutely small quantum being irremediably perturbed by

the observer, cyberneticians realized that they also needed to explicitly encompass

the observer, and this extension of the earlier idea became known as “second-order

cybernetics”, or “cybernetics of cybernetics”.

Cha˘ılakhian (2005) has pointed out the inevitability of “bioinformatics” becoming

synonymous with “cybernetics” and it would be artificial to deny it. It is a curiosum

that physiology still focuses on exchanges of energy rather than exchanges of infor-

mation, although with the recognition of the importance of signalling within and

between cells this is slowly changing. This synonymity vastly expands the scope of

bioinformatics beyond genomics. “Survival” is a rather high level “goal”. The action

of breathing is quite central to it, but this implies not only operation of the autonomic

and somatic nervous systems, but also whatever is needed to ensure that one is in a

place where clean, respirable air is available, which itself implies myriads of actions,

including some at the highest level of organization of society.