December 2009
21 posts
“In 1943 Wiener, Rosenblueth, and Bigelow published a joint article, in which...”
– From Newspeak to Cyberspeak by Slava Gerovitch pg62
Walter Pitts studied with Rudolf Carnap. Norbert Wiener studied with Bertrand Russell. Warren McCulloch, and now Gregory Bateson, read and were influenced by Bertrand Russell. Who’s next to reveal a link to anglo-american analytic philosophers?
answers on an e-postcard
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“For his [Gregory Bateson] own early notions of proto-learning, deutero-learning...”
– Constructing a Social Science for Postwar America by Steve J Heims. 1991. MIT Press. London, England
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“The conceptions of Rosenblueth, Wiener and Bigelow related engineering and high...”
– Constructing a Social Science for Postwar America by Steve J Heims. 1991. MIT Press. London, England 97
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“The authentic scientific description was for [Leonard] Savage always...”
– Constructing a Social Science for Postwar America by Steve J Heims. 1991. MIT Press. London, England 93
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“We social scientists would do well to hold back or eagerness to control that...”
– Gregory Bateson Quoted in Constructing a Social Science for Postwar America by Steve J Heims. 1991. MIT Press. London, England 86
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In the British Library: It’s funny, and creepy, to see grown men take their laptops with them to the urinals. They all have macs, which is a little disconcerting. Is there a mac fetish I don’t know about…You know what, if there is I don’t want to know about it.
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“He [Bateson] never saw the abstract concept as equivalent to any actual concrete...”
– Constructing a Social Science for Postwar America by Steve J Heims. 1991. MIT Press. London, England pg58
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“[Warren] McCulloch as ‘chronic chairman’ of the series of...”
– Constructing a Social Science for Postwar America by Steve J Heims. 1991. MIT Press. London, England
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“[I]n 1955 McCulloch and Jerome Wiesner successfully arranged to give Pitts a PhD...”
– Constructing a Social Science for Postwar America by Steve J Heims. 1991. MIT Press. London, England
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“Where Darwin had assiduously tracked the similarities between human and animal...”
– Peter Galison The Ontology of the Enemy: Norbert Wiener and the Cybernetic Vision in Critical Inquiry, Vol. 21, No. 1. (Autumn, 1994), pp. 228-266. Pg.245
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“Wiener clearly saw the AA predictor, even before it was ready to shoot down a...”
– Peter Galison The Ontology of the Enemy: Norbert Wiener and the Cybernetic Vision in Critical Inquiry, Vol. 21, No. 1. (Autumn, 1994), pp. 228-266 Pg. 242
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“Cybernetics no longer appears as a futuristic bandwagon or as a rising worldview...”
– Peter Galison The Ontology of the Enemy: Norbert Wiener and the Cybernetic Vision in Critical Inquiry, Vol. 21, No. 1. (Autumn, 1994), pp. 228-266. Pg. 233
Watching
I’m sitting here watching a builder lug his tired body up level after level of scaffolding attached to the side of the train station he’s helping to renovate. If today continues to be so energetic and interesting I may just pass out.
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“Building on Wiener’s own usage of the term Manichean to designate
the...”
– Peter Galison The Ontology of the Enemy: Norbert Wiener and the Cybernetic Vision in Critical Inquiry, Vol. 21, No. 1. (Autumn, 1994), pp. 228-266. Pg.232
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“Wiener, the spokesman and advocate of cybernetics, in a distinction of great...”
– Peter Galison The Ontology of the Enemy: Norbert Wiener and the Cybernetic Vision in Critical Inquiry, Vol. 21, No. 1. (Autumn, 1994), pp. 228-266. Pg.231
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McCulloch and Penrose
I take the below quote to mean that Warren McCulloch, on of the fathers of Cybernetics, met Lionel Penrose, and his son Roger Penrose, who is famous for writing The Emperor’s New Mind and working with Stephen Hawking, while he was visiting Cambridge University.
I don’t have an exact date :-(
“Through him I met, at Cambridge, the son of the geneticist L. Penrose…R....”
– McCulloch, Warren, S. 1965 Where is Fancy Bred? in Embodiments of Mind MIT Press Pg: 219
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“Obviously, equivalent concepts and models are independently rediscovered...”
– Charles François: Systemics and Cybernetics in a Historical Perspective in Systems Research and Behavioral Science 16, 203-219 (1999) pg: 205
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“ Fremont-Smith, at the urging of McCulloch, began planning a conference to...”
– Heims, Steve, J. Constructing a Social Science in Postwar America. MIT Press: Pg 17
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Cybernetics: Week Two in review
Week two of my Cybernetics research has seen me tackle the British Library and Cybernetics as a universal language.