The Human Use Of Human Beings: Cybernetics And SocietyOnly 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 complex and interesting. He hoped that machines would release people from relentless and repetitive drudgery in order to achieve more creative pursuits. At the same time he realized the danger of dehumanizing and displacement. His book examines the implications of cybernetics for education, law, language, science, technology, as he anticipates the enormous impact—in effect, a third industrial revolution—that the computer has had on our lives. |
Contents
Cybernetics in History | 15 |
Progress and Entropy | 28 |
Two Patterns | 48 |
The Mechanism and History | 74 |
Organization as the Message | 95 |
Law and Communication | 105 |
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action already animal apparatus atomic Augustinian automatic basis behavior brain Calculus Ratiocinator carried century chess-playing machine chimpanzees chines chitin Claude Shannon communication computing machine concerning consider construct continued Cybernetics effective electrical engine entropy example existence fact factory feedback forces function Gibbs hand human ical idea important increase individual industrial revolution insect intellectual interest invention language large number learning least Leibnitzian limited living organism Manichaean mathematical matter Maxwell demon means mechanical ment merely modern motor nature nervous system Nevertheless pattern performance person physics player point of view position possible present probability problem purpose reflex scientific scientist second industrial revolution semantic sense organs slide rule social sort speech spermatozoon stage steam steam engine taping task technique tendency tends theory thing tinian tion transmission transmitted universe vacuum tube Vannevar Bush Vocoder whole words