The three articles talk about different definitions of ‘Cybernetics’ and its involvement and interpretation in various fields like architecture, science, culture etc. It is a scientific study of how people, animal control and communicate information. Gordon Pask relates the concept of cybernetics to architecture. He says that the building (an architectural product) should not be designed as a decorative entity but a functional object – living mechanism. I definitely agree Pask on this statement because building cannot be imagined as an individual unit. It is closely associated with human environment and behavior. I can think of Louis Kahn’s concept of ‘Served and Servant’ spaces in this case to understand it. Pask also talks about functionalism and mutualism in terms of form, dynamic over static entities. How the demand for system orientated thinking in architecture evolved through the lenses of cybernetics is argued in this article.

Norbert Wiener in his article – The Human Use of Human Beings – cybernetics and society defines cybernetics as a complex system of ideas that are related to the theory of messages. It is communicating with and controlling over our environments. Wiener also discuss the concepts on input, output, and feedback in his article. I also observe through the readings that the process of ‘processing information’ is closely related with the notion of feedback. The mobile screen receives or senses the touch of our finger at a particular location on the screen through various sensors, receptors or receivers. The finger touch is the input. The mobile then understand it and process on it to generate some results – an output. The (past) stored data on the machine (in this case mobile) – memory, remains equally important with immediate input in the process. Wiener frames the definition of ‘feedback’ as the control of a machine on the basis of its actual performance rather than its expected performance in known as feedback.

In the article, Designing Freedom – The disregarded tools of modern man; he describes the concept of ‘Variety’. Stafford believes that our institutions are failing because they are disobeying laws of effective organization and effective organizations should maximize the freedom of their participants, within the practical constraints of the requirement for those organizations to fulfill their purpose. He believes that the science of cybernetics can be used to design organizations which fulfill these objectives. The redesigning process should use technology, to assist in providing organizations with a central system which supports their aims.