Can a rat tell the difference between a Raphael Madonna and a Picasso Girl in Blue? Would a Martian (if there is such a thing) recognize a live cat after having seen a photograph of one? Can a “seeing”electronic machine be made to tell a cat from a dog or an A from a B? How would it go about “computing” the image? And is “machine thinking”anything like human thinking?

These and other such problems are investigated in the branch of cybernetics that studies living systems: bionics, as this ultramodern science is now called. It developed when scientists began to compare the design and operation of electronic systems with living organisms. Our body, they found, is a complex cybernetic system controlled by countless self-regulating devices. In fact, every single cell of our body is an automatic control device in its own right. Millions upon millions of tiny cybernetic units are constantly at work within us. They maintain normal blood pressure, control the composition of the gastric juices, ensure the rhythmic contraction of the heart and lungs, and do a thousand other things that come under the heading of “vital functions”of the organism.

How they work and how our body functions is described in this popular exposition, which requires no previous knowledge of cybernetics, biology, electronics, or any other subject for that matter (except reading, of course).