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 cyberneticsthe study of the relationship
between computers and the human nervous systemWiener 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 impactin effect, a third industrial
revolutionthat the computer has had on our lives.
關於作者:
Norbert Wiener received his Ph.D. from Harvard at the age of
eighteen, and joined the mathematics department at M.I.T. when he
was twenty-five. Honored throughout his life with numerous
scientific awards, he was the author of two autobiographies,
Ex-Prodogy and I Am a Mathematician, as well as several important
books and basic papers on the theory and practice of
cybernetics.
目錄:
I Cybernetics in History
II Progress and Entropy
III Rigidity and Learning: Two Patterns of Communicative
Behavior
IV The Mechanism and History of Language
V Organization as the Message
VI Law and Communication
VII Communication, Secrecy, and Social Policy
VIII Role of the Intellectual and the Scientist
IX The First and the Second Industrial Revolution
X Some Communication Machines and Their Future
XI Language, Confusion, and 1am
Index