I've tried figuring out what the big deal about cybernetics was, but I always come away with a feeling of it being a bit wish-washy. Is it a bit like Philosophy in that it birthed individual fields that were inspired by and made applications of the thoughts, models and ideas laid out by its forebears? Or were there actual proofs, discoveries or applications in the field itself?

(I guess one could call projects like https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Project_Cybersyn an "application" of its ideas, though cut off before one could see the results.)

Biological Computer Laboratory (1958-1976), https://web.archive.org/web/20190829234412/http://bcl.ece.il...

It's striking how cybernetics has gone from dated to timely.