On the African origins of the notion of « cyber »

Nowadays, we observe a massive (and sometimes abusive) use of the prefix "Cyber" for everything that refers to an action or activity in cyberspace by means of an electro-digital device. It is therefore a concept that several researchers have legitimately taken an interest in. However, the existing documentation on this subject does not seem to me to have exhausted the question, particularly as regards the etymological origin of this concept.

In reality, the notion of Cyber initially draws its origins far from computing and digital technology, in concepts one might not suspect at first sight. Before cyberpunk or cybersecurity, there was already cybernetics. Contrary to what one may read here and there, this term is said to have been used for the very first time in 1834 by the French mathematician and physicist André-Marie Ampère, to designate "the science of the government of men". It was only later, in 1948, that "cybernetics" reappeared with a more elaborate definition in the work of the American mathematician Norbert Wiener.

Indeed, at the end of the Second World War, Wiener was hired at MIT in a research programme devoted to developing new forms of weaponry, notably missiles capable of reaching the unmanned, explosive-laden German aircraft that caused significant damage to British troops. To achieve this, this researcher had to model the behaviour of a pilot who knows he is being pursued, in order to better understand human decision-making mechanisms in this type of situation. He therefore named the scientific field thus created "cybernetics", which he defined in his book of the same title as "a unified vision of the nascent fields of automation, electronics and the mathematical theory of information, as a complete theory of control and communication systems, both in the living being and in the machine".

In his works entitled "Cybernetics", published in 1948, and "The Human Use of Human Beings", published in 1950, Wiener already foresaw ethical and social consequences of information technologies, with the idea that humans and machines have similar aptitudes for behaviour and intelligence. This is an almost premonitory vision that seems to be confirmed today with certain use cases of artificial intelligence or transhumanism, for example.

Originally, the word cybernetics itself derives from the Greek noun kubernētēs / kubernēsis / kubernêtikê, which refers to "the action of steering (or to the pilot themselves)", to the "helm", to the "governor", and can even mean "the art of governance". Since it is now established that the Greek language draws its origins from ancient Egyptian [Obenga, Diop], it is not absurd to think that this is also the case for the word kubernētēs. Moreover, whatever meaning is retained for this word (helm, art of governing, steering, etc.), it is just as easy to establish that the activities it refers to were first carried out on the African continent (first maritime fleet, first organised government, etc.).

The "helm" hypothesis as the etymology of the word cybernetics

Let us take the case of the term "helm", which in current literature seems to stand out as the agreed translation of the Greek word meaning cybernetics. A focus on this term "helm" necessarily refers us to its field of application, namely maritime navigation and the navy in ancient Egypt. In this regard, the work of the French archaeologist and historian Charles Boreux, considered by specialists to be one of the foundational works of all research in naval archaeology, clearly illustrates our thesis. Moreover, in the critical note published on this work in November 1927 in the Journal des Savants, commanders Carlini and Vivielle confirm it in these terms:

"It is indeed evident that, by the importance and antecedence of its civilisation, the Egyptian navy had a direct influence on the Phoenician, Greek and Roman navies. To devote oneself to its study is therefore to go back directly to the origins of navigation in the world."

This same note specifies that "the monuments that make it possible to clarify the details of this navy are pottery discovered at Naqada, Diospolis Parva, Abydos… bearing yellow drawings and dating from the middle of the Neolithic period." That is crystal clear!