“The founder of cybernetics was American mathematician Norbert Wiener, who spent World War Two refining guided missile technology. Maltz thought: why could the technology behind guided missiles of a constant feedback loop in order to maintain direction not be applied to human achievement? He realised the key point about the loop is that it gains an automaticity when the target or goal is very clearly fixed. When you first learn to drive, you have to worry about every car and process every sign ahead of you on the road - the result is that you move slowly and are vulnerable to getting lost. In time, however, driving becomes easy because you know your destination when you sit behind the wheel, and body and mind automatically do what is necessary to reach it.
“Cybernetics appeared such a breakthrough to Maltz because its implication was that achievement was a matter of choice. Most important to the dynamic of achieving was the ‘what’ (the target), rather than the ‘how’ (the path). The frontal lobes or conscious thinking part of the brain could devise the goal, or create the image of the person you wanted to be, and the subconscious mind would deliver its attainment. The ‘set and forget’ mechanism of guided missiles would also work for our deepest desires.”
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