11th December 2009
Quote
Wiener, the spokesman and advocate of cybernetics, in a distinction of great importance to him, divided the devils facing us in two sorts. One was the “Manichean devil” “who is determined on victory and will use any trick of craftiness or dissimulation to obtain this victory.” Wiener’s rational Manichean devil
could, for example, change strategy to outwit us. By contrast, the other,
the “Augustinian devil” (and Wiener counted the forces of nature as such)
was characterized by the “evil” of chance and disorder but could not
change the rules.’
— 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
Tagged: cybernetics
