The Cybernetic Brain

Sketches of Another Future

Andrew Pickering

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English

Chicago University Press
15 December 2011

Cybernetics & systems theory; Mathematics & Sciences; Impact of science & technology on society

Cybernetics is often thought of as a grim military or industrial 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 sixties 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. And 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.

By: Andrew Pickering
Imprint: Chicago University Press
Country of Publication: United States
Dimensions: Height: 23mm, Width: 15mm, Spine: 3mm
Weight: 794g
ISBN: 9780226667904
ISBN 10: 0226667901
Publication Date: 15 December 2011
Audience: College/higher education , Further / Higher Education , Further / Higher Education
Format: Paperback
Publisher's Status: Active

Reviews for The Cybernetic Brain: Sketches of Another Future

"""By focusing on the developments in Britain, Andrew Pickering's The Cybernetic Brain opens wide new vistas for exploring cybernetic practice and its legacy.... As a protean science with connections to psychiatry, theater, music, politics, and counterculture, it was a lot more glamorous and fun than previous accounts of the field would have us believe."" (Science)"""