American Society for Cybernetics

The American Society for Cybernetics (ASC) is an American non-profit scholastic organization for the advancement of cybernetics as a science, a discipline, a meta-discipline and the promotion of cybernetics as basis for an interdisciplinary discourse. The society does this by developing and applying cybernetics’ concepts which are presented and published via its conferences and peer-reviewed publications. As a meta-discipline, it creates bridges between disciplines, philosophies, sciences, and arts. The ASC is a full member of the International Federation for Systems Research (IFSR). In order to do so it holds conferences and seminars, and maintains contacts with cyberneticians and organizations for cybernetics in other countries. Further activities of the ASC are: ASC Glossary on Cybernetics and Systems Theory Disciplinary Matrices in Cybernetics and Systems Science Wiener and McCulloch awards The American Society for Cybernetics was founded in 1964 in Washington, DC to encourage new developments in cybernetics as an interdisciplinary field with Warren McCulloch as first elected president of the ASC. In the 1980s ASC became a member of the International Federation for Systems Research, and in the 1990s supported the Principia Cybernetica Project. The ASC has been maintaining an editorial column in the interdisciplinary Cybernetics and Human Knowing Journal since its first issue in 1992. Rodney Donaldson was the first ASC president to write for the column. The First Annual Cybernetics Symposium of the ASC was held on 26-7 October, 1967 at the National Bureau of Standards, Gaithersburg, Maryland. The theme was "Purposive Systems: The Edge of Knowledge." The following people made presentations: Saul Amarel: "Problems of representation in artificial intelligence" Nikolai Amosov: "Simulation of thinking processes" Herbert Anschütz: "Prospects for the development of the psychocybernetics of intelligent behavior" Yehoshua Bar-Hillel: "The future of man-machine languages" Alexander S.