"Cybernetics is concerned primarily with the construction of theories and models in science, without making a hard and fast distinction between the physical and the biological sciences. The theories and models occur both in symbols and in hardware, and by 'hardware* we shall mean a machine or computer built in terms of physical or chemical, or indeed any handleable parts. Most usually we shall think of hardware as meaning electronic parts such as valves and relays. Cybernetics insists, also, on a further and rather special condition that distinguishes it from ordinary scientific theorizing: it demands a certain standard of effectiveness. In this respect it has acquired some of the same motive power that has driven research on modern logic, and this is especially true in the construction and application of artificial languages and the use of operational definitions. Always the search is for precision and effectiveness, and we must now discuss the question of effectiveness in some detail. It should be noted that when we talk in these terms we are giving pride of place to the theory of automata at the expense, at least to some extent, of feedback and information theory."
Quote Details
Added by wikiquote-import-bot
Unverified quote
0 likes
Original Language: English
Available Languages (1)
Sources
F.H. George (1962) The Brain As A Computer Pergamon Press. p. 2.
https://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Information_theory
Revision History
No revisions have been submitted for this quote.
Categories
Information theory
Information theory is a branch of applied mathematics, electrical engineering, bioinformatics, and computer science involving the quantification of information. Information theory was developed by Claude E. Shannon to find fundamental limits on signal processing operations such as compressing data and on reliably storing and communicating data.
18 quotes on TrueQuotesView all quotes by Information theory →
Related Quotes
"Claude Shannon, the founder of information theory, invented a way to measure 'the amount of information' in a message…"
"In fact, an information theory that leaves out the issue of noise turns out to have no content."
"If quantum communication and quantum computation are to flourish, a new information theory will have to be developed."
"The 19th and first half of the 20th century conceived of the world as chaos. Chaos was the oft-quoted blind play of a…"
"We completely ignore the human value of the information. A selection of 100 letters is given a certain information va…"
"In fact, the science of thermodynamics began with an analysis, by the great engineer Sadi Carnot, of the problem of h…"
"Whether computers are used for engineering design, medical data processing, composing music, or other purposes, the s…"
"Incomplete knowledge of the future, and also of the past of the transmitter from which the future might be constructe…"
"I have tried to show that psychiatric research can be empirical and experimental, controlled, and operational and not…"
"Every time we fire a phonetician/linguist, the performance of our system goes up"