Leibniz's Explanation of Binary Arithmetic (1701)

  if i were to choose a patron saint for cybernetics out of the
  history of science, i should have to choose leibniz. the
  philosophy of leibniz centers about two closely related
  concepts-that of a universal symbolism and that of a calculus of
  reasoning.  from these are descended the mathematical notation
  and the symbolic logic of the present day. now, just as the
  calculus of arithmetic lends itself to a mechanization
  progressing through the abacus and the desk computing machine to
  the ultra-rapid computing machines of the present day, so the
  calculus ratiocinator of leibniz contains the germs of the
  machina ratiocinatrix, the reasoning machine. indeed, leibniz
  himself, like his predecessor pascal, was interested in the
  construction of computing machines in the metal . it is therefore
  not in the least surprising that the same intellectual impulse
  which has led to the development of mathematical logic has at the
  same time led to the ideal or actual mechanization of processes
  of thought.

  Leibnitz, in the meantime, saw the whole world as a collection of
  beings called "monads" whose activity consisted in the perception
  of one another on the basis of a pre-established harmony laid
  down by God, and it is fairly clear that he thought of this
  interaction largely in optical terms. Apart from this perception,
  the monads had no "windows," so that in his view all mechanical
  interaction really becomes nothing more than a subtle consequence
  of optical interaction.  A preoccupation with optics and with
  message, which is apparent in this part of Leibnitz's philosophy,
  runs through its whole texture. It plays a large part in two of
  his most original ideas: that of the Characteristica
  Universalis, or universal scientific language, and that of the
  Calculus Ratiocinator, or calculus of logic.  This Calculus
  Ratiocinator, imperfect as it was, was the direct ancestor of
  modern mathematical logic.  Leibnitz, dominated by ideas of
  communication, is, in more than one way, the intellectual
  ancestor of the ideas of this book, for he was also interested in
  machine computation and in automata. My views in this book are
  very far from being Leibnitzian, but the problems with which I am
  concerned are most certainly Leibnitzian.  Leibnitz's computing
  machines were only an offshoot of his interest in a computing
  language, a reasoning calculus which again was in his mind,
  merely an extention of his idea of a complete artificial
  language.  Thus, even in his computing machine, Leibnitz's
  preoccupations were mostly linguistic and communicational.

Wiener becomes preoccupied with Leibniz from his youth, writing philosophical entries for the Encyclopedia Americana which are like premonitions of his cybernetics.

He wasn't uncritical though, he especially attacked the pre-established harmony of monads. The argument I'm pursuing is that if you get rid of God, if you let monads actually intercommunicate, if you reinvent Leibniz's continuum of infinite confusion and infinite clarity of knowledge as entropy and information, you're pretty close to cybernetics.

On the other hand, so many brilliant minds have put in so much great work in this idea that it's just silly to let it die only because we're, well, stuck.