Cybernetics and Dynamics

When we talk about the paradigm for psychology described in The Mind in the Wheel, we often use the word cybernetic. Cybernetics refers to the study of negative feedback loops and control systems, things that function like thermostats to keep values at certain levels or a signal on one side of some threshold — keeping your vehicles at certain speeds, your blood sugar within a certain range, and your reactor temperature below critical levels. But this paradigm is not just cybernetic. It’s also dynamic. Dynamics refers to the study of drives and motivations, analysis of something in terms of the internal forces that cause it to do the things it does. This term is no longer popular, but it has a long history in cognitive science. Ulric Neisser gives this definition: Dynamic psychology, which begins with motives rather than with sensory input, is a case in point. Instead of asking how a man’s actions and experiences result from what he saw, remembered, or believed, the dynamic…

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