NORBERT WIENER AND THE GROWTH OF NEGATIVE FEEDBACK IN SCIENTIFIC EXPLANATION; WITH A PROPOSED RESEARCH PROGRAM OF "CYBERNETIC ANALYSIS" by Walter Daniel Hellman A THESIS submitted to Oregon State University in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy Completed December 16, 1981 Commencement June 1982 AN ABSTRACT OF THE THESIS OF Walter Daniel Hellman for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy in General Science (Physical Science) presented on December 16, 1981 Title: Norbert Wiener and the Growth of Negative Feedback in Scientific Explanation; With a Proposed Research Program of "Cybernetic Analysis" / Abstract approved: J. Brookes Spencer Negative feedback has become ubiquitous in science both as a technique and as a conceptual tool. As a technique, negative feed- back has a long history; devices based in its use were made in antiquity. It has only been during the last century, however, that rigorous quantitiative methods have become associated with the appli- cations of negative feedback. These methods originated in communi- cations engineering and during the World War II period spread rapidly to other areas of science where further applications were soon made. During this process of dissemination negative feedback was trans- formed into a powerful conceptual tool, of general application, having to do with the organization of behavior. The central figure responsible for both the dissemination and transformation of negative feedback was the American mathematician, Norbert Wiener, who, as a child prodigy, had developed graduate level proficiency in science, mathematics and philosophy before he was twenty. Wieners multidisciplinary background and interests were critically important in allowing him to interact with professionals in many different fields and thereby to disseminate the feedback ideas. Wiener and two colleagues were the authors of the 1943 paper, "Behavior, Purpose and Teleology," which stimulated a number of interdisciplinary meetings. These meetings were important in spreading the feedback concepts to the different disciplines. Participating in these meetings were, among others, Gregory Bateson, Wolfgang Miler, Margaret Mead, Warren S. McCulloch, F. S. C. Northrop, John von Neumann and Wiener. The successful assimilation of feedback by the various disciplines in spite of the problems associated with modern discipline specialization provides a lesson in how these problems may be overcome. In the case of feedback, the climate for its assimilation was made considerably more receptive by concurrent developments in computer science and neurophysiology which mutually reinforced the robotic view. The role of negative feedback in scientific research and the significance of this role have not yet been fully identified. Such an identification must be made in order to evaluate the historical events which led to the assimilation of negative feedback. I attempt to define the role of negative feedback in scientific research in terms of a program called "cybernetic analysis." This program develops the behavioral and functional roles of negative feedback in terms of "adaptive goal-directed behavior"; such behavior occurs when a system can maintain a certain state or tend toward a certain state even while being disturbed by external influences. This behavior is exhibited both by organisms and by mechanical devices controlled by negative feedback. Until now the idea that systems could be directed toward an end has been unacceptable because goal-directedness has been associated with the outdated notions of teleology and final cause. The ability of negative feedback to account for goal-directedness mechanistically not only challenges the view that organisms alone can exhibit such behavior, but also stands to revise the scientific view of goal- directedness in general. With the new legitimacy of both adaptive and non-adaptive goal-directedness, the path is opened for more effective analysis of scientific problems. Despite the great value of Wieners Cybernetics in focusing attention on the many new robotic developments of the World War II period, it tended to obscure many of the critical points made in the earlier (1943) paper with regard to the role of negative feed- back in scientific explanation. The term "cybernetics" came to be a great source of confusion because of Wieners initial presentation, a presentation which mirrored many of the earlier events in the interdisciplinary meetings which led to the writing of the work. It is suggested here that the term "cybernetic analysis" be used to designate that type of problem analysis which utilizes the hypothesis of a negative feedback mechanism to account for adaptive goal- directed behavior. The use of the term "cybernetics" in this manner will not only succinctly identify one of the great unnamed develop- ments in science, but give the word renewed meaning in terms of the literal roots from which Wiener first derived it. —I Copyright by Walter Daniel Hellman December 16, 1981 All Rights Reserved APPROVED: Associat rifessor of the Hist ry of Science in Charge of Major Chairman of Department of General Science Dean of Graduate School Date thesis is presented December 16, 1981 Typed by Leona Nicholson for Walter Daniel Hellman ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS Scientific laboratory research and historical research both require exceptional resources if high quality work is to be performed. Whereas the laboratory scientist cannot expect to obtain precise measurements with poor equipment, the historian cannot expect to make a worthwhile study without access to the many people, books, documents and papers which relate to the subject matter. I feel extremely fortunate to have had access to such resources. Although Norbert Wiener died in 1964, many of the people he worked with are still active and some of these generously gave of their time so that I could interview them personally and on the telephone. My thanks, then, go to Prof. Julian Bigelow, Dr. G. E. Hutchinson, Dr. George Kreezer, Dr. Jerome Lettvin, Dr. William T. Martin, Prof. P. Masani, Mr. Oliver Selfridge, and Dr. Heinz von Foerster, all of whom helped me greatly. I would especially like to acknowledge my debt to Prof. Bigelow. Besides giving me a vast amount of his time, he reinforced my view directly that the principals of this study were an extraordinarily talented group of people. I especially appreciate his help on the details of the fire control project. Dr. von Foerster, being one of my first interview subjects, had to contend with some very broad and at times unfocused questions. His graciousness in filling me in on a vast number of events is greatly appreciated. He has also provided me with some extremely useful unpublished documents. The less formal, but nevertheless very helpful, conversations I had with Steve J. Heims, H. H. Goldstine and Mrs. Rook McCulloch are also greatly appreciated. I note in passing that although there may be problems with doing the history of modern science, there are also unique advantages. The historian of the seventeenth century cannot interview the subjects of his study. Although personal interviews remain the best approach to interviewing, use of the telephone is invaluable when travel is impossible. I recommend this procedure to historians of modern science. Other personal resources which enabled the completion of this study include the history of science faculty at Oregon State University who introduced me to the history of science in all its diversity. My thanks here go to Drs. Paul Farber, R. J. Morris, Dan Jones, and J. Brookes Spencer. As my major professor for this work, Dr. Spencer has been invaluable in helping me to clarify the expression of my thoughts. I greatly appreciate the great amount of work he did toward the end of the project when we were under a crushing schedule. My principal resource for published works has been the Oregon State University Library. The role of a library is critical in a work such as this and I was very fortunate to have such a good library close at hand. Michael Kinch and Donald Unger made it even more pleasant to use. This study has been vastly aided by the multitude of Wieners papers available at the Institute Archives and Special Collections of the Libraries of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. I would like to thank archivists Jane McCavitt and Helen Slotkin who helped me get to the materials quickly and efficiently. Mr. C. Dewing of the Polar and Scientific Archives Division of the National Archives helped me to locate some very useful Wiener documents, and Mr. Stephen Catlett of the American Philosophical Society in Philadelphia helped me with the papers of Warren S. McCulloch. Dr. Eugene Fichter of the College of Engineering, Oregon State University helped me greatly in pursuing the topic of robotics. Production of this work has been made much more pleasant by conversations with Joel Hagen and Pete Hokanson. I would like to thank my brother Arthur Hellman, not only for his moral and critical support, but also for helping to defray the costs of production of this work. Leona Nicholson took on the burden of typing a manuscript with bottom footnotes rather than end notes. I know that I, and I hope the reader will, appreciate this effort. No matter how excellent the resources or interesting the subject matter, one cannot do good work unless the desire to do it exists. I have been inspired by the environment of the Pacific Northwest, but more personally by the wonderful home life provided by my wife Roberta and our two children. In the midst of pursuing her own career and doing her part in the care of the children, Roberta has managed to give me all the extra time I needed to pursue this project. As any parents who have been in the situation of raising children while pursuing careers will know, this was a most generous gift. Finally, my deepest appreciation goes to my parents who set an example I am still trying to follow.