The Key Characteristics of A

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ETEC 531

• The Key Characteristics of A
• Cybernetic Communication System

Qibo Fu June23 , 2005
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Communication

• Communications were the defining paradigm of the
  20th century and seem certain to remain central
  to society in the 21st. Part of the reason for
  its importance is because communications refer to
  every kind of meaningful interchange between
  life-forms.
• Communication of information has come to be the
  metaphor which permeates our understanding of
  life itself.

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Communication

• Definition of Communication
• The branch of technology concerned with the
  representation, transfer, interpretation, and
  processing of data among persons, places, and
  machines.
• (The definition was prepared by ATIS Committee )
• Modern communication system is established on the
  basis of information theory and cybernetics
  theory, which were both published in 1948.

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Claude Shannon and Information Theory
Shannon reduced information to the "binary digit"
(0s 1s) or bit. Digital information is made of
a series of bits or patterns that are encoded by
a transmitter and decoded by a receiver. For
Shannon, communication was a formal, deliberate,
logical process of encoding that led to a process
of decoding and successful mutual
understanding. (Petrina,2004)
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Communication System Modelin the Information
Theory

• As originally conceived, the model contained five
  elements
• an information source,
• a transmitter,
• a channel of transmission,
• a receiver,
• and a destination

Destination
Info Source
Transmitter
Receiver
Channel
Noise
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Communication System Modelin the Information
Theory

• Shannon's model is deficient in that it
  represents communication as a one-way flow of
  information. It fails to take into account the
  fact that most communicative acts involve a
  simultaneous flow of information in both
  directions.
• Cybernetics addressed the reciprocal nature of
  communication.

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Norbert Wiener and Cybernetics
Cybernetics Control Communication
Cybernetics is all about servo-mechanisms,
goal-seeking behavior, feedback loops, positive
and negative feedback systems, self-stabilizing
systems, homeostasis and the control of systems,
and how they might apply to biological or
mechanical systems.
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Cybernetics Contribution to Communication System

• It was Wiener's strongest contention that
  "society can only be understood through a study
  to the messages and communication facilities
  which belong to it".
• Every interaction involves a feedback loop -- I
  speak to you, you respond to (or ignore) me, I
  react and so on. We are acculturated to notice
  the reactions from our conversation partners and
  we adjust our interactions accordingly, even if
  irrationally.
• Wiener inferred that in order to control a
  finalized action (an action with a purpose) the
  circulation of information needed for control
  must form "a closed loop allowing the evaluation
  of the effects of one's actions and the
  adaptation of future conduct based on past
  performances."

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Cybernetics Contribution to Communication System

• Feedback is a way to introduce learning into the
  system, something ignored by Shannon and
  Information Theory.
• Feedback represents the control in
  communication.
• The whole world -- even the universe -- could be
  seen as one big feedback system subject to the
  relentless advance of entropy, which subverts the
  exchange of messages that is essential to
  continued existence (Wiener, 1948).

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Cybernetics Communication System
Feedback
Destination
Info Source
Transmitter
Receiver
Channel
Noise
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Cyborgs and Cybernetics Communication System
Meeting Canceled
Meeting On-time ?
A cyborg is a cybernetic organism when we put
the cybernetic and the organic together we see
that the organism becomes one part of elaborate
feedback mechanisms. The cybernetic, in turn,
gets to incorporate the sophistication of the
organism into its systems. ( Murphie and Potts,
2003)
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Characteristics of a Cybernetics Communication
System

• Reflexivity
• Cybernetic communication systems are rich in
  internal and external feedback, both positive and
  negative. Ultimately, they can enter into the
  "ultimate" feedback of reflexive
  self-application, in which their components are
  operated on simultaneously from complementary
  perspectives, for example as entities and
  processes. Such situations may result in the
  reflexive phenomena of self-reference,
  self-modeling, self-production, and
  self-reproduction.

Communication is a being-controlled process. The
control is performed through feedback.
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Other Characteristics of a Cybernetics
Communication System
The same as other cybernetics systems, the
cybernetic communication system has some generic
characteristics as follows.

• Complexity Cybernetic communication system is a
  complex structure, with many heterogeneous
  interacting components.
• Mutuality These many components interact in
  parallel, cooperatively, and in real time,
  creating multiple simultaneous interactions among
  subsystems.

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Other Characteristics of a Cybernetics
Communication System

• Complementarity
• These many simultaneous modes of interaction
  lead to subsystems which participate in multiple
  processes and structures, yielding any single
  dimension of description incomplete, and
  requiring multiple complementary, irreducible
  levels of analysis.

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Other Characteristics of a Cybernetics
Communication System

• Evolvability Cybernetic communication systems
  tend to evolve and grow in an opportunistic
  manner, rather than be designed and planned in an
  optimal manner.
• Constructivity Cybernetic communication systems
  are constructive, in that as they tend to
  increase in size and complexity, they become
  historically bound to previous states while
  simultaneously developing new traits.

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Resources

• Murphie, A. and Potts, J. (2003). Culture
  Technology. New York Palgrave Macmillan.
• Petrina, Stephen (2004). Communication,
  Information and Cybernetics
• Retrieved from http//www1.cstudies.ubc.ca8900/E
  TEC531/Modules/Module5/Content/PDFs/infocom.pdf
• Shannon, C. and Weaver, W.(1949). The
  methematical theory of communication. Urbana
  University of Illinois Press
• Weiner, N (1948) Cybernetics, Second Edition or
  the Control and Communication in the Animal and
  the Machine The MIT Press 2nd edition (March 15,
  1965)
• Saul ,Shiralee (1999). Communication and Theory.
• Retrieved from http//www.labyrinth.net.au/saul/
  essays/
• Scrivener , A (2002) A Curriculum for Cybernetics
  and Systems Theory Retrieved from
  http//www.well.com/user/abs/curriculum.html

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• The End
• Thank You !