Fuzziness, Cognition and Cybernetics: a historical perspective

In the present paper, we connect some old reflections about the relationships existing between the theory of fuzzy sets and cybernetics with modern, contemporary analyses of the crucial (better: unavoidable) role that fuzziness plays in the attempts at scientifically describing aspects of information sciences. The connection, which has a basic conceptual origin, has been triggered also by the recent 50th anniversary of Norbert Wiener’s death which has been instrumental in looking again at some crucial aspects of the birth of information sciences in the midst of the last century. Fuzzy sets are an essential part of this revolution and share all the innovations as well as the difficulties of this towering scientific enterprise which has changed the vision of what a scientific approach must be when dealing with something like information so different from the old matter and energy.t These considerations are helpful in looking in an enlarged way at how to treat and consider the notion of cognition.