The Cybernetic Brain: Sketches of Another Future
Cybernetics - roughly, the study of systems - is often thought of as a grim science of control. This book reveals a much more lively and experimental strain of cybernetics that can be traced from the 1940s onwards.
Due to unconfirmed availability, this title can be ordered by library account holders only.
Account Customers, Schools & Libraries please log in.
Quick Reference
... view full title details below.
- $76.00 Retail price
- $60.80 Wheelers price
- You save $15.20!
Full details for this title
| Interest Age |
All ages |
| Reading Age |
All ages |
| Library of Congress |
Brain, Self-organizing systems, Cybernetics, Cybernetics - History |
| NBS Text |
Science: General & Reference |
| ONIX Text |
College/higher education |
|
| Number of Pages |
536 |
| Dimensions |
Width: 90mm
Height: 60mm
Spine: 38mm |
| Weight |
862g |
|
| Dewey Code |
003.5 |
| Catalogue Code |
245687 |
Description of this Book
Cybernetics - roughly, the study of systems - is often thought of as a grim science of control. But as Andrew Pickering reveals in this beguiling book, a much more lively and experimental strain of cybernetics can be traced from the 1940s to the present. The Cybernetic Brain explores a largely forgotten group of British thinkers, including Grey Walter, Ross Ashby, Gregory Bateson, R. D. Laing, Stafford Beer, and Gordon Pask, and their singular work in a dazzling array of fields. Psychiatry, engineering, management, politics, music, architecture, education, tantric yoga, the Beats, and the '60s counterculture all come into play as Pickering follows the history of cybernetics' impact on the world, from contemporary robotics and complexity theory to the Chilean economy under Salvador Allende. What underpins this fascinating history, Pickering contends, is a shared but unconventional vision of the world as ultimately unknowable, a place where genuine novelty is always emerging. Thus, Pickering avers, the history of cybernetics provides us with an imaginative model of open-ended experimentation in stark opposition to the modern urge to achieve domination over nature and each other.
^ top
Awards & Reviews
| NZ Review |
The Cybernetic Brain is a rich, ambitious, and highly original work - and a gently hopeful one. Pickering weaves analysis and advocacy together across the book, and his vision of what a nonmodern world might look like - or in fact, has looked like - is novel and compelling and will substantially extend our understanding of contemporary technoculture. - Fred Turner, Standford University |
^ top
Author's Bio
Andrew Pickering is professor and chair of sociology at the University of Exeter. He is the author of several books, including Constructing Quarks: A Sociological History of Particle Physics and The Mangle of Practice: Time, Agency, and Science, both published by the University of Chicago Press.
^ top
