The cybernetics map

Everything on these pages, as one map: the ideas on the family tree, and against each one the primers, talks, playlists, books, essays and math that cover it, and my own words where I have them. It shows where the material is thick, where it is thin, and where to go next.

It is also a map of what I know, kept honest. Every fact on it says what kind of fact it is: a claim with a source, a disputed one, something counted, something I chose, or something I said about myself. Those are different things, and the map never mixes them.

Ideas: 50
People: 87
Works and primers: 17 · 17
Talks: 15
Links between them: 425

Coverage, idea by idea

Down the side, every idea on the tree, in its era. Across, the kinds of material. The more a cell stands out, the more there is; an empty cell means nothing yet, not nothing worth having.

Idea	Primer	Talks	Playlists and books	Essays	Math	My words	Kinds
Before the name 1788 to 1934
Watt's governor							0/6
Maxwell, On Governors					3	1	2/6
Feedback amplifiers					2		1/6
Servomechanisms at MIT					1		1/6
Milieu intérieur to homeostasis							0/6
Ampère's cybernétique							0/6
The roots 1943 to 1956
Behavior, Purpose and Teleology	1				1		2/6
A Logical Calculus of neurons					2		1/6
Craik, The Nature of Explanation							0/6
The Macy conferences					1		1/6
Wiener, Cybernetics	1	1			2	1	4/6
A Mathematical Theory of Communication				1	2		2/6
Von Neumann's automata					1		1/6
Ratio Club, Grey Walter's tortoises		1			1		2/6
Ashby, requisite variety	1	1			2		3/6
First branches 1950s to 1970s
Modern control theory					3		1/6
Every Good Regulator	1				2		2/6
The perceptron					2		1/6
The name "artificial intelligence"					1		1/6
Information theory					2		1/6
Man-Computer Symbiosis				1	1		2/6
Management cybernetics, the VSM	1	2			1		3/6
Project Cybersyn		1		1			2/6
Soviet cybernetics							0/6
General systems theory					1		1/6
System dynamics					2		1/6
The Limits to Growth		1			2		2/6
Ecosystems as loops							0/6
Bateson: the double bind, an ecology of mind	1			1	1		3/6
Second order 1967 to 1990s
Von Foerster, the observer inside	1	1			1		3/6
Mead, Cybernetics of Cybernetics	1				1		2/6
Autopoiesis	1	1			1		3/6
Radical constructivism	1				1		2/6
The Embodied Mind					1		1/6
Pask's conversation theory	1	1		1	1	1	5/6
Whole Earth, counterculture					1		1/6
Luhmann's social systems					1		1/6
Morin's complex thought	1			1	1		3/6
On the shelf today now
Robotics and control				1	1		2/6
Control loops in software			1	2	1		3/6
Neural nets, deep learning			3		3		2/6
Reinforcement learning			2		2		2/6
Entropy, coding, compression			1	1	2	1	4/6
Interaction design, HCI	1					1	2/6
Organizational design			1	1			2/6
Systems thinking		1	1	1		2	4/6
Family and systemic therapy					1		1/6
Cognitive science, extended mind					1		1/6
The free energy principle					1		1/6
Complexity science			1	1	2		3/6

Primer: an audio primer for the idea’s paper. Talks: on the watching path. Playlists and books: the reading shelf. Essays: posts on this site tied to the idea. Math: the languages it is written in. My words: where I have said I started on it, or watched a talk on it.

What the map answers

Where is the material richest?: Pask's conversation theory (5 of 6 kinds); Wiener, Cybernetics (4 of 6 kinds); Entropy, coding, compression (4 of 6 kinds).
Which era is best covered?: On the shelf today, for the number of its ideas.
What has nothing yet?: Watt's governor; Milieu intérieur to homeostasis; Ampère's cybernétique; Craik, The Nature of Explanation; Soviet cybernetics; Ecosystems as loops
Which papers have a primer but no talk yet?: Behavior, Purpose and Teleology; Every Good Regulator of a System Must Be a Model of That System; Cybernetics and Design; Cybernetics of Cybernetics; Ethics and Second-Order Cybernetics; Cybernetics of Cybernetics; Form, Substance and Difference; Autopoiesis; What Is Conversation?; Restricted Complexity, General Complexity; Destruction and Creation
Where should the next talk go?: The ideas with the fewest kinds of material, starting from the roots. The grid above is the list, read from the light rows.

What kind of fact each thing is

Every node and link on the map carries one standing. Checked is not read, found is not watched, and begun is not read: a status moves only on my word.

Standing	Means	On the map
Asserted, sourced	a claim about the world with a source behind it: a documented descent, who is named on an idea	477
Partial	a descent the sources only half support: shared ideas, some contact	19
Contested	a descent that is claimed and disputed	3
Observed	counted by a machine on a date: views, how a talk was found (on the method pages)	0
Curated	my choice, not a claim about the world: a talk kept on a shelf, a primer written, a playlist	158
My word	my own account of myself: started, read, watched, a note, what led to what	9

What the map is made of

A property graph: labelled things, typed links between them. Each label and link maps to a public vocabulary (SKOS, schema.org, CiTO, PROV), so the map can be read by people and machines alike, and the same shape can carry the next domain.

Thing	Is	Vocabulary	Count
Idea	a box on the family tree: a field, a theory, a school	`skos:Concept`	50
Discipline	an older discipline an idea came out of	`skos:Concept`	10
Person	someone named on the tree or speaking in a talk	`schema:Person`	87
Work	a paper or book the primers cover	`schema:ScholarlyArticle`	17
Primer	my audio primer and sheet for a work	`schema:LearningResource`	17
Talk	a recording on the watching path	`schema:VideoObject`	15
Collection	a shared playlist, on O’Reilly or YouTube	`schema:Collection`	27
Book	a book I have marked read or skimmed	`schema:Book`	0
MathStep	a step of the math under the papers	`schema:LearningResource`	9
Post	an essay on this site	`schema:BlogPosting`	9

Link	Vocabulary	Count
`ASSOCIATED_WITH`	`schema:about`	105
`CAME_FROM`	`skos:related`	89
`DESCENDS_FROM`	`skos:broader`	71
`WRITTEN_IN`	`schema:teaches`	59
`ABOUT`	`schema:about`	39
`EXPLAINS`	`cito:reviews`	17
`ON`	`schema:isPartOf`	15
`PRIMER_FOR`	`schema:isBasedOn`	13
`FEATURES`	`schema:actor`	11
`OPENS_ONTO`	`cito:discusses`	6

The other maps: the family tree, the field’s history · how the watching path was made · the Atlas, this whole site