Cybernetics and Biology

Despite the many fundamental differences between living and mechanical systems, they have enough features in common so that insights derived from one type of system can illuminate the other. And so, even though analogies can be misleading, extended too far, and may n/bt be able to stand the test of time, this seems not to be the case with biology and cybernetics. However, the convergent movement between these two fields has not been as rapid as anticipated. But a growing interest is developing in applying cybernetics principles to biology, as the emphasis in biology has tended to move from what is there and what processes take place to how choices are made between the variety of things which might take place. Although cybernetics had its origins in a desire to understandwhat mechanisms are required to generate purposeful behavior (proper decision-making) in biological systems, the abstraction of the treatment has made it less attractive to biologists in the past. Now that the basis of so many regulatory functions in biology is becoming apparent at the molecular level, there will doubtless be more interest on the part of biologists in testing the application of cybernetic theory to biological systems.