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79th out of 107 books
—
51 voters
The Human Use Of Human Beings: Cybernetics And Society
Only a few books stand as landmarks in social and scientific upheaval. Norbert Wiener's classic is one in that small company. Founder of the science of cybernetics—the study of the relationship between computers and the human nervous system—Wiener was widely misunderstood as one who advocated the automation of human life. As this book reveals, his vision was much more comp...more
Paperback, 200 pages
Published
March 22nd 1988
by Da Capo Press
(first published November 30th 1949)
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Thoughts on accelerated change, the singularity, neuroscience, evolution, and more from a man who refers to the last decade of the 19th century as "the nineties".
This book is the forerunner to a line of fantastic (yet, at times, exaggerated) works straddling mathematics, machines, and biology, known as the "cybernetics" movement. At times, this book suffers from the same affliction that Akira Kirosawa's films do - they seem cliched and unoriginal to the modern reader/viewer who has grown up in a...more
This book is the forerunner to a line of fantastic (yet, at times, exaggerated) works straddling mathematics, machines, and biology, known as the "cybernetics" movement. At times, this book suffers from the same affliction that Akira Kirosawa's films do - they seem cliched and unoriginal to the modern reader/viewer who has grown up in a...more
In looking back more than 15 years to when I read this book, I find, as is usually the case, that what persists are general impressions more than specific recollections. Instead of attempting to construct some sort of short essay, I'll present a few comments.
The word "cybernetics" was coined by Norbert Wiener, in 1947 (to use the year specified by the usually reliable Science Fiction Encyclopedia), as an English adaptation of a Greek word, kubernētēs, meaning pilot, steersman, navigator, control...more
The word "cybernetics" was coined by Norbert Wiener, in 1947 (to use the year specified by the usually reliable Science Fiction Encyclopedia), as an English adaptation of a Greek word, kubernētēs, meaning pilot, steersman, navigator, control...more
Norbert Wiener was a child prodigy and Professor of Mathematics at MIT from 1919 until his death in 1964. He invented the science of cybernetics (look it up in the dictionary) and the guided missile but refused to help the military during the cold war. This volume includes an open letter published in the January, 1947 Atlantic Monthly magazine entitled "A Scientist Rebels" by Norbert Wiener. An introduction by Wiener biographer Steve J. Heims provides a context for Wiener's works.
If you are at a...more
If you are at a...more
A brilliant, wild little book from a polymath of prodigious proportions, it summarizes his seminal and baffling Cybernetics (1948) and extends an early critique of the information society. Written amid postwar froth, Wiener vaults a theory of communication and control meant to help stabilize any agent (quantum, chemical, biological, human, mechanical, social) into a sweeping philosophically informed lattice of "communal information." A must read for anyone interested in cold war history, philoso...more
Norbert Weiner, who should most certainly be a household name, is the father of cybernetics. This book was written more than 50 years ago, but the predictions and conclusions are startling and fairly consistent with our current state of affairs. Much of the context is set upon our technological progression, and the inevitable inclination from some to utilize this technology for evil. The book is also very interesting at noting some of the early overlap between society and technology, and the res...more
(my review for Amazon)
More than fifty years after its initial publication, this book remains as relevant and prophetic as it is brilliant and exhilarating.
To start, Wiener explains cybernetics in a way that the intelligent layperson can understand; he discusses how human beings, animals, and machines relate to one another through communication and feedback, thus becoming systems that limit or temporarily reverse the universal tendency toward disorganization (entropy). After establishing this fra...more
More than fifty years after its initial publication, this book remains as relevant and prophetic as it is brilliant and exhilarating.
To start, Wiener explains cybernetics in a way that the intelligent layperson can understand; he discusses how human beings, animals, and machines relate to one another through communication and feedback, thus becoming systems that limit or temporarily reverse the universal tendency toward disorganization (entropy). After establishing this fra...more
I read it just to see if there was anything to be gained from returning to the horse’s mouth when it comes to cybernetics and information theory…but there’s not a great deal of interest today, given how much his ideas have permeated our society. It’s a mixum-gatherum of various observations and what he thinks are noteworthy implications of different ideas, a type of free-association of theory in the abstract to try bring it to bear on reality.
Cardinal for fans of Gaddis, and of J R esp.; seems too to me, seeing (viz.) as it has a few ¶s dedicated to the playerpiano, the Germ of his lifelong arts-mech fetish.
Dry and hard to follow.
Essential reading for anyone deep into social networking by one of the pioneers of human-machine interaction. Humans are built to be curious, pattern-making fixers of social challenges while machine are built to be obedient, pattern-following do-ers that assist with the solutions of social interactions. We mix them up to our peril. Read Norbert and be inspired!
The first important contribution to cybernetics, maybe laid the foundation of it. A visionist and scientist who tried to merge the Humanities with the information science. He was prodromus of semiotics and of a language theory as the most important keys for the hermeneutics of social and natural phenomena.
An important read anyone wanting to understand the relationship between "noise" and feedback in the communication process. Totally agree with Chis´s review, way back in the 50´s Wiener explained, in easy to understand language, fundamental communication processes.
An interesting book that dealt mostly with humanitarianism issues and the use of technology. Covered a lot of things between communications, self-teaching/detecting systems, to the role of scientists and the downfall of (in his day) current scholastic direction.
Oct 21, 2008
Alan
added it
I am using this text in a class that I am teaching. So far, it has been good to go back and read it again by installment. I'll add to this post after class in a few weeks.
The parts that aren't incredibly dated are intriguing, and there's lots of food for thought. Worth picking up if you're interested in sci-fi &c.
Wiener’s discussion relates engineering to a number of issues: game theory, language, biology, consumer economy, social theory, art.
Wiener is one of the greatest thinkers. This book addresses the social dimensions.
80% of people who read should read this book.
It is way less about cyborgs than I wanted it to be.
cybernetics rules...
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“The world of the future will be an even more demanding struggle against the limitations of our intelligence, not a comfortable hammock in which we can lie down to be waited upon by our robot slaves.”
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May 03, 2013 10:49am