6.12.1913  -  12.12.2002

Books of N.M.Amosov

Home   >   Publications   >   Books of N.M.Amosov   >   The book about happiness and unhappiness. Book One   >   Diary. Monday, February, 16, 1981

Diary. Monday, February, 16, 1981

Life makes strange zigzags sometimes.

Take cybernetics, for example. I became involved in the fuss about it quite unintentionally. When heart surgery began in 1955, we needed a sensor to measure the pressure in the heart cavities. These sensors were being developed at the Institute of Mathematics of the Ukrainian Academy of Sciences. This is how I met Yekaterina Shkabara. It was from her that I heard the word "cybernetics" for the first time and learned about computers. (She participated in the development of the first Soviet BESM —1 computer.) Yekaterina Shkabara finally get her own way, and two years later, a department of biological cybernetics was set up. I have headed it from that time till the present... First we did research in computer diagnostics, then expanded it to include physiology, and later we began research in thought processes, intellect, then personality, and society... Heuristic models were made at all stages. Our department grew until it had a staff of 50. Hundreds of papers and several books were written. Dozens of dissertations were approved... Then a reverse process began: the medical and physiological aspects were separated and studied in individual laboratories. Formally, I supervise only the studies on intellect now. My colleagues do the work, and I think up the global problems.