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 describ-ing 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 es-sential part of this revolution and share all the innova-tions as well as the difficulties of this towering scientific enterprise which has changed the vision of what a sci-entific approach must be when dealing with something like information so different from the old matter and en-ergy.t These considerations are helpful in looking in an enlarged way at how to treat and consider the notion of cognition