Marian Mazur's articles — overviews

1963–1967

• 1963 — “Cybernetyczna maszyna” (‘Cybernetic Machine’) (entry in the Wielka Encyklopedia Powszechna PWN (‘Great Universal Encyclopaedia’)): a division of self-controlling machines by principle of operation and by application, from translating machines to models of animals. Overview
• 1963 — “Cybernetyka” (‘Cybernetics’) (entry in the same encyclopaedia): a picture of the whole field — its scope, the history of its name, its method, its points of contact with other sciences, and the prediction that cybernetics will become the basis of general education. Overview
• 1963 — “Myślenie maszyn” (‘The Thinking of Machines’) (Problemy): an accessible exposition of the cybernetic theory of thinking — the correlator, the homeostat and the conclusion that a thinking machine would have to act in its own interest. Overview
• 1965 — “Cybernetyka a humanitaryzm” (‘Cybernetics and Humanitarianism’) (the volume Cybernetyka. Argumenty za i przeciw (‘Cybernetics: Arguments For and Against’)): a reply to the charge of demeaning the human being, and a demonstration of how the measure of information reveals both the underestimation and the overestimation of people. Overview
• 1965 — “O cybernetyce i cybernetykach” (‘On Cybernetics and Cyberneticists’) (the same volume): a polemic defending cybernetics as a general science of control, distinguishing between the skill and the profession of a cyberneticist. Overview
• 1965 — “Twór skostniały” (‘An Ossified Creation’) (Argumenty): the school assessed in the light of feedback and of the kinds of information, with a division into facts and views to which the author returns in later articles. Overview
• 1965 — “Źle z języków obcych” (‘Trouble with Foreign Languages’) (Argumenty): a plan for teaching four languages through a strictly selected minimum of words and phrases, mastered without errors. Overview
• 1966 — “O potrzebie cybernetycznych badań rozwoju” (‘On the Need for Cybernetic Research into Development’) (Problemy Inwestowania i Rozwoju): development as a shifting of functional equilibrium, and its two criteria — absolute and relative. Overview
• 1966 — “Szkoła bez lęku” (‘School without Fear’) (Argumenty): a critique of traditional examining and a proposal for programmed teaching with teaching and examining machines. Overview
• 1966 — “Źle z historii” (‘Trouble with History’) (Argumenty): history as a tool of prediction — looking for mechanisms instead of merely recounting events, an order from the general to the particular, discussion instead of an examination on causes. Overview
• 1966 — “Źle z matematyki” (‘Trouble with Mathematics’) (Argumenty): graphs, the concept of a function, optimisation and the critical reading of statistics instead of laborious arithmetic puzzles. Overview
• 1967 — “Informacja — dezinformacja — pseudoinformacja” (‘Information — Disinformation — Pseudoinformation’) (Argumenty): an accessible foretaste of Jakościowa teoria informacji (‘A Qualitative Theory of Information’), with a classification of faithful, distorted and uncertain transmission. Overview
• 1967 — “Integracja nauczania” (‘The Integration of Teaching’) (Argumenty): against dividing knowledge into pigeonholes — the school should teach the general concepts needed to solve optimisation problems. Overview

1969–1999

• 1969 — “Świadome działanie jako rozwiązanie problemu optymalizacyjnego” (‘Conscious Action as the Solution of an Optimisation Problem’) (Nauczyciel i Wychowanie): every decision is the choice of a decision variable for given parameters and a given criterion, and its soundness depends mainly on how the problem was posed beforehand — with examples from school. Overview
• 1976 — “Pojęcie systemu i rygory jego stosowania” (‘The Concept of a System and the Rigours of Its Application’) (materials of a systems engineering school; text based on a 1987 reprint): the system as a set of elements and relations, five rigours of the systems method and three kinds of decision problems. Overview
• 1980 — “Społeczne znaczenie cybernetyki” (‘The Social Significance of Cybernetics’) (Nowe Drogi): a survey for a broad readership — feedback, the systems method, counting relations, three kinds of decision-makers, social homeostasis and human character. Overview
• 1981 — “Zagadnienie prawdy w nauce” (‘The Problem of Truth in Science’) (Zeszyty Naukowe Stowarzyszenia PAX): truth and untruth described by means of the classification of informing, the distinction between falsehood and lying, and between science on the one hand and philosophy and art on the other, according to the obligation of proof. Overview
• 1983 — “Homeostaza społeczna” (‘Social Homeostasis’) (the volume Procesy samoregulacji w oświacie (‘Self-Regulation Processes in Education’)): the self-regulation of a community works more precisely and more cheaply than organisation, but does not allow it to pass through a temporary deterioration; applications in education. Overview
• 1984 — “Jaka szkoła?” (‘What Kind of School?’) (Przegląd Tygodniowy, posthumous publication): the school teaches the receiving of information, not the making of decisions, so it should give pupils real choices and the freedom to learn according to their gifts. Overview
• 1999 — “Tajemnice charakteru czyli poznaj samego siebie” (‘Mysteries of Character, or Know Thyself’) (booklet, posthumous edition): a popular exposition of the theory of character — character level, character dynamism and character breadth, relations between people, characterological illusions and the evaluation of figures in art. Overview

Our own overviews, working version; definitions of concepts are in the dictionary, with their sources.

All summaries