Cybernetics presumes that there are underlying principles and laws which can be used to unify the understanding of such seemingly disparate types of systems. The characteristics of cybernetic systems directly affect the nature of cybernetic theory, resulting in serious challenges to traditional methodology. Cybernetic systems are complex structures, with many heterogeneous interacting components. These many simultaneous modes of interaction lead to subsystems which participate in multiple processes and structures, yielding any single dimension of description incomplete, and requiring multiple complementary, irreducible levels of analysis. Cybernetic systems are constructive, in that as they tend to increase in size and complexity, they become historically bound to previous states while simultaneously developing new traits.
Cybernetic systems are rich in internal and external feedback , both positive and negative.