http://pespmc1.vub.ac.be/books/IntroCyb.pdf -- dated, but still interesting, useful, a book in and of itself!
- cybernetics = "the study of systems that are open to energy but closed to information and control"
- cybernetics also = the study of systems whose complexity cannot be reduced away, or rather whose complexity is integral to its function, e.g. the human brain, the world economy. here simple examples have little explanatory power.
- book, for the most part, avoids calculus, and deals instead with discrete time and sums (i think?)
- with exercises!! for example, page 60 - cybernetics of a haunted house:)
- random thought: a lot of this stuff seems dependent on the mathematics of statistical physics...
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