Domain: cybernetics

In this dictionary, cybernetics is the domain of concepts concerning control. Mazur built it around a system that has the ability to control and the ability to counteract the loss of the ability to control — the autonomous system — and around the energetics of such a system: its power, its material and its accumulator.

Where the entries come from

The domain contains 59 entries with 63 definitions. They come from three of Mazur's books: 36 definitions from Cybernetyka i charakter (1976), 21 from Cybernetyczna teoria układów samodzielnych (1966) and 6 from Jakościowa teoria informacji (1970). These six are numbered definitions with which the exposition of the theory of information begins: controlled system, controlling system, control path, control loop, control process (definitions 2.1–2.5) and metacontrol path (definition 12.1). The first four of them have two definitions each in the dictionary — from Jakościowa teoria informacji and from Cybernetyka i charakter. The remaining definitions of the domain are not numbered in the books; they have been taken from sentences of the text.

Load-bearing concepts

A load-bearing concept is one that many other definitions use. In cybernetics these are above all the homeostat (used by 14 entries), the correlator (12) and the autonomous system (11) — all three are among the twenty most frequently used concepts of the whole dictionary. They are followed by the effectors (6) and by energy concepts: quality of material and idle power (5 each).

Bridges to other domains

Both of the other domains of the dictionary rest on cybernetics. From the theory of character 33 references lead to it, most often to the homeostat (11) and the correlator (9). From qualitative information theory 5 references lead to it — to the control process and the control loop. Only one runs in the opposite direction: the metacontrol path is defined through information. There are 83 links between entries within cybernetics itself.

The entry with the longest definitional chain in this domain is the metacontrol path: the chain leads from it through information and the control process to control and on to the concept of a system, which has no entry of its own in the dictionary — nine steps in all. Several concepts used in the definitions of this domain, such as the environment, feedback or the ability to control, do not yet have an entry of their own in the dictionary — these are places for further work.

The school's work also includes other domains not covered by this dictionary.

Sources

• Marian Mazur, Cybernetyczna teoria układów samodzielnych (‘A Cybernetic Theory of Autonomous Systems’), PWN, 1966.
• Marian Mazur, Jakościowa teoria informacji (‘A Qualitative Theory of Information’), WNT, 1970.
• Marian Mazur, Cybernetyka i charakter (‘Cybernetics and Character’), PIW, 1976.
• The numbers of entries, definitions, references and links were counted from the dictionary data on this site.