I would LOVE to hear how Wiener might interpret today's world.
As a total noob, I'm often delighted by the insights of earlier commentators. The people who lived thru great transformations, so can remember the before times, allowing them to see the now more clearly.
Like your lament about Wiener's ignored analysis and insights, rereading McLuhan was very fruitful. His concept of autoamputation seems to have been completely ignored. (Over stimulation leads to shutting down that sensory input.) But it's such a great way of describing the impact of modern rhetoric.
Sometimes I wonder if it's like Steve Jobs' visit to Xerox PARC. Jobs admits they (Apple) were so captivated by GUIs they totally missed other breakthrough concepts like object-oriented.
Read his book, God and Golem. The essence is all there including most of his projections for the future.
Besides predicting to a T multiple aspects of the world we're now experiencing, this book is full of insinuations about several conditions yet to arise (or maybe risen but yet to be discovered!). He doesn't explicitly lay them out, but leaves you to identify and connect the dots. This occultation of ideas is somewhat common in early cybernetics works.
Needless to say, the vision of Wiener will be seen by many who understand it as supremely negative.
An alternative is explored in 'Steps to an Ecology of Mind' by Bateson.
Thanks for the cite. Here is the pdf simson.net/ref/1963/God_And_Golem_Inc.pdf
I suspect (not having yet read the above beyond the preface) the root issue is, as usual, the nature of consciousness. My own views on that subject are fringe per du jour orthodoxy which states that 'mind arises from structure'. Weiner seems to take it for granted that an algorithm "learned" something. Does an algorithm even have a "self" that would "learn"? I personally think we're being careless with word usage.
Once you contest the implicit equivalence made between 'form' and 'meaning' which occurs when one asserts that a mechanical/causal device has "learned" something -- all we have observed is form in -> form out -- then the 2 remaining "points in cybernetics" are "[machine] self-reproduction", and, "man-machine coordination".
These last two are difficult topics -only- if generously attribute "consciousness" to machines that auto-extend their state transition map. Otherwise, they are interesting but not cosmic questions. And further, one can still entertain a 'Universal Mind' and speculations such as Leibniz's monadology, happily coexiting with a science of cybernetics.
I would LOVE to hear how Wiener might interpret today's world.
As a total noob, I'm often delighted by the insights of earlier commentators. The people who lived thru great transformations, so can remember the before times, allowing them to see the now more clearly.
Like your lament about Wiener's ignored analysis and insights, rereading McLuhan was very fruitful. His concept of autoamputation seems to have been completely ignored. (Over stimulation leads to shutting down that sensory input.) But it's such a great way of describing the impact of modern rhetoric.
Sometimes I wonder if it's like Steve Jobs' visit to Xerox PARC. Jobs admits they (Apple) were so captivated by GUIs they totally missed other breakthrough concepts like object-oriented.