> That processes like cultural diffusion and change are too rarely seen in terms of programming is largely the fault of cybernetics, the formal study of control that has unfortunately concentrated almost exclusively on behavior, The example cyberneticists cite most frequently, for example, is the behavior of a simple thermostat, one that can turn a furnace on and off and thereby control temperature by means of feedback from the environment heated. The major shortcoming of such examples is that they draw attention to the control behavior itself especially to feedback-—and therefore away from the more fundamental aspect of control, namely programming. As Ernst Mayr put it:

> It is not the thermostat that determines the temperature of a house, but the person who sets the thermostat .. . Negative feedbacks improve the precision of goal seeking, but they do not determine it. Feedback devices are only executive mechanisms that operate during the translation of a program. Therefore, it places the emphasis on the wrong point to define teleonomic processes in terms of the presence of feedback devices. They are mediators of the program, hut as far as the basic principle of goal achievement is concerned, they are of minor consequence. (1976, p. 391)

> Overemphasis on control behavior and feedback may be even more misleading than Mayr suggests. By concentrating on behavior per se, cyberneticists tend to overlook two other aspects of control perhaps most obvious in genetic programming but which must prevail in any control system. At a more fundamental level than behavior itself is maintenance of the mechanism on which control depends: at a higher Existence or being, the problem of maintaining organization—even in the absence of external change—counter to entropy

> Experience or behaving, the problem of adapting goal-directed processes to variation and cbange in external conditions

> Evolution or becoming, the problem of reprogramming less successful goals and procedures while at the same time preserving more successful ones...

#ErnstMayr in #JamesBeniger's #ControlRevolution
#ThermostatCybernetics to be thought of with #JohnMcCarthy on his #ThermostatBeliefs as described by #NeilPostman in #Technopoly book