Cyberneticist Cyberneticist A cyberneticist or a cybernetician is a person who practices cybernetics. Heinz von Foerster once told Stuart Umpleby that Norbert Wiener preferred the term "cybernetician" rather than "cyberneticist", perhaps because Wiener was a mathematician rather than a physicist. The word cyberneticist was used by Nicolas Rashevsky who began as a theoretical physicist, Robert Rosen, who began his career as a mathematician, regarded Neuro cybernetics—and more generally Biocybernetics—as fields closely allied to Mathematical Biology and Mathematical Biophysics in which control theory and dynamical system theories also play significant roles. Today "cybernetician" is preferred by members of the American Society for
An Essay Concerning Human Understanding An Essay Concerning Human Understanding An Essay Concerning Human Understanding is a work by John Locke concerning the foundation of human knowledge and understanding. It first appeared in 1689 (although dated 1690) with the printed title An Essay Concerning Humane Understanding. He describes the mind at birth as a blank slate ("tabula rasa", although he did not use those actual words) filled later through experience. The essay was one of the principal sources of empiricism in modern philosophy, and influenced many enlightenment philosophers, such as David Hume and George Berkeley. Book I of the "Essay" is Locke's attempt to refute