Summary
It remains to summarize the contributions which each of the three disciplines discussed here is making toward the development of a science of man.
Significs makes a study of the effects on human behavior of the linguistic aspects of the evaluative process, the most distinctly human aspect of the behavior of the human organism.
Mathematical Biophysics seeks to describe the events associated with evaluative processes in physico-mathematical terms.
Cybernetics is discovering important invariants common to these processes and others, particularly those observed in man-made machines and in situations which lend themselves to description in thermo-dynamic or statistical (order — chaos) terms.
This is a preview of subscription content, access via your institution.
References
Norbert Wiener, Cybernetics New York: John Wiley, 1948.
Author information
Authors and Affiliations
Rights and permissions
About this article
Cite this article
Rapoport, A. Mathematical biophysics, cybernetics and significs. Synthese 8, 182–193 (1949). https://doi.org/10.1007/BF00485903
Issue Date:
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/BF00485903
Keywords
- Human Behavior
- Human Organism
- Mathematical Biophysics
- Important Invariant
- Human Aspect