The Cybernetics Society is the UK national learned society and professional body promoting pure and applied cybernetics.

Overview

The Cybernetics Society is a national organisation for interdisciplinary collaboration and promotion of cybernetics. It holds scientific meetings, conferences, and social events, and engages in other activities to encourage public understanding of science and to extend and disseminate knowledge of cybernetics and its associated disciplines. The Society aims to support the Continuing Professional Development of its members.^[1]

The Cybernetics Society is a member society of the International Federation for Systems Researchand is affiliated to the "World Organisation of Systems and Cybernetics".^[2]

History

The Society was founded at King?s College London in 1968. Its annual conferences and monthly scientific meetings for members within reach of London have usually been held at King?s College ever since. It was reconstructed and enlarged in September 1973.

Past presidents are;

• Haneef Fatmi from 1968 to 1976 (Founder of the Cybernetics Society^[3])
• Gordon Pask from 1976 to 1979
• Igor Aleksander from 1979 to 1984
• Haneef Fatmi from 1984 to 1995
• Brian Warburton from 1995 to 1999
• Martin Smith from 1999.

Since 1972 every two year European meetings are held in cooperation with the International Federation for Systems Research and other national Cybernetic societies in Europe. These meeting served as a forum for discussion of converging ideas and new aspects of different scientific disciplines. As on previous occasions, a number of sessions providing wide coverage of the rapid developments will be arranged, complemented with daily plenary meetings, where eminent speakers will present latest research results.^[4] In 2008 the 18th Annual European Meeting on Cybernetics and Systems Research will be held in Vienna. ^[5]

The subjects of this kind of meeting meeting on Cybernetics and Systems Research are, for example in the 2008 meeting :

• Agent Construction and Emotions
• Agent based modeling
• Artificial Intelligence
• Biocybernetics and mathematical biology
• Cognitive rationality, Relativity and Clarity
• Cultural systems
• Cybernetics of cybernetics

• Living systems theory
• Mathematical Methods in Cybernetics and Systems Theory
• Natural Language Processing
• Neural computation and neuroinformatics
• Socio-technical systems: design and use
• Systems Movement and Systems Organisations
• Systems science

Activities

The Cybernetics Society holds scientific meetings, conferences, and social events, and engages in other activities to encourage public understanding of science and to extend and disseminate knowledge of cybernetics and its associated disciplines.

Annual Conference

Annual conferences of the Cybernetics Society are held since 1973.^{[6] [7]}

CYBCOM

CYBCOM is a Cybernetics discussion group.^[8]

Fellows of the Cybernetics Society

Some of the fellows are Ranulph Glanville, Charles Hampden-Turner

Honorary fellows

Among those awarded by the Cybernetics Society are: Eric Ash, Anthony Stafford Beer, James W. Black, John Carew Eccles, James Lovelock, Roger Penrose and Abdus Salam. ^[9]

Kybernetes

The Society has a close relationship with Kybernetes, The International Journal of Systems and Cybernetics, which is the official journal of World Organisation of Systems and Cybernetics.

References

External links

• Cybernetics Society homepage
• Cambridge Cybernetic Society a related British society.

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