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The new and rapidly growing field of communication sciences owes as much to Norbert Wiener as to any one man. He coined the word for it--cybernetics. In God & Golem, Inc., the author concerned himself with major points in cybernetics which are relevant to religious issues.The first point he considers is that of the machine which learns. While learning is a property almost exclusively ascribed to the self-conscious living system, a computer now exists which not only can be programmed to play a game of checkers, but one which can "learn" from its past experience and improve on its own game. For a time, the machine was able to beat its inventor at checkers. "It did win," writes the author, "and it did learn to win; and the method of its learning was no different in principle from that of the human being who learns to play checkers.A second point concerns machines which have the capacity to reproduce themselves. It is our commonly held belief that God made man in his own image. The propagation of the race may also be interpreted as a function in which one living being makes another in its own image. But the author demonstrates that man has made machines which are "very well able to make other machines in their own image," and these machine images are not merely pictorial representations but operative images. Can we then say: God is to Golem as man is to Machines? in Jewish legend, golem is an embryo Adam, shapeless and not fully created, hence a monster, an automation.The third point considered is that of the relation between man and machine. The concern here is ethical. "render unto man the things which are man's and unto the computer the things which are the computer's," warns the author. In this section of the book, Dr. Wiener considers systems involving elements of man and machine.The book is written for the intellectually alert public and does not involve any highly technical knowledge. It is based on lectures given at Yale, at the Société Philosophique de Royaumont, and elsewhere. ... Read more

Customer Reviews (3)

A worthwhile venture
Weiner was something of a revolutionary in his time. He (among others) pushed the revolution in computing out of the slipstick era. He, at the height of the Cold War, wrote for audiences in both the USSR and the USA. Small wonder that he took on religion. I mean that he took it on as a duty and companion, not as an opponent, though many might have seen opposition.

Much of this book lacks direction. He skims issues that are still contentious, including the right to die. His arguments about self-reproducing machines tend twaords the vague, although he admits that he avoided tedious precision. Many of his points are clear and sharp, however. Drawing on the genie in the bottle, the Sorcerer's Apprentice, and other popular literature, he argues that the capabilities of technology steadily run ahead of our ability to predict and mitigate its consequences. He also notes, during first light of the transistor age, that "Living matter has a fine structure ... [approached by] machines which operate according to the principles of solid-state physics." As usual, technological optimism carried him well beyond justifiable extrapolation. Also as usual, he had a fair inkling of how today's 0.1 micron transistors might compare to 1.0 micron brain cells.

His sharpest commentary starts in the faith that scientists and engineers are moral people, and work in the belief of the human good that comes from their life's work. (Please, don't descend to the belief that we think we are evil people reveling in evil outcomes.) Weiner notes that the deepest hell in Dante's Inferno is reserved for the sin of simony - directing the Church's good power to personal gain, using the force of money. He draws a direct analogy to the sin of corrupting vast technological power towards personal gain, also using money as controlling force. If you're already queasy about the amorality of the MBA's "bottom line" ethos, this may give you some very bad dreams.

It's an important book. It's flawed, but has the honesty to ask hard questions. It also has the courage to attach a moral sense to the analytic trait of mind - it ought not be surprising that the two fit closely.

Among all the quotable lines in this book, one stands out: "... remember that in the game of atomic warfare, there are no experts." Here, now, under the president that demolished 30 years of arms control treaties, it's a phrase to remember.

//wiredweird

Good retrospective of the history of computing
Written in 1964 when the concept of a human interacting dynamically with a machine was first becoming a reality, there are facets of this book that are dated. Nevertheless, the concepts that are described are still as pertinent today as they were when Wiener first set down his thoughts. The book is a collection of essays where Wiener explains his ideas for what he thinks the future holds for humans interacting with machines.
The approach is very non-technical so it is possible for the lay person to understand his thoughts. The prose is also well structured, making it very easy to read through. Reading this book is a good way to go back in time and get some idea of what the early experts thought would be the direction and consequences of the development of the new "thinking machines". It is also an excellent choice for gaining a retrospective in any history of computing course.

Technological Ethics
A brief series of personal essays by famous mathematician Norbert Wiener on the ethics of modern technology and questions whether humans should follow all leads of technology regardless of the consequences. An easy-to-read, informative book. No technical background is needed to understand the arguments. ... Read more

Customer Reviews (3)

From insider perspective
This book is written in a calm and thoughtful style. It gives an insider perspective into the world of a young and very talented person, who has to develop his ability to cope both with his own abilities and with the world around him. This book is great for the parents of gifted children. They may also learn how the cognitive abilities may develop ahead of manipulative abilities ( i.e a child may be able to prove a theorem, but unable to memorize the multiplication table).The book also confirms the old truth that the life of an independent thinker is not an easy one.

Ex-prodigy. My Childhood andYouth
It's an excellent book telling about how it's to grow up as a prodigy and thereby living a life betwwen older in the schools and at the same age when out playing. And besides allso becaurse the books is about living 100 years ago telling about how it was then, and the meating with many famous science person living then. Allso telling about other prodigys problems.

A mathematical John Stuart Mill
This is the story of the childhood and youth of a genius. Norbert Wiener who would go on to become an important mathematician and one of the principal developers of communication theory, and his own specific discipline 'cybernetics' tells here the story of his most unusual childhood and youth. At the center is his relation to his father Leo Wiener who was a Professor of Slavic Languages, and an extraordinarily ambitious person. He pushed his son from an early age in much the same way that John Mill pushed John Stuart Mill. In the process he was often cruel. "He would begin the discussion in an easy, conversational tone. This lasted exactly until I made the first mathematical mistake. Then the gentle and loving father was replaced by the avenger of the blood.... Father was raging, I was weeping, and my mother did her best to defend me, although hers was a losing battle." The father pushed Wiener so well that he enrolled in Tufts University at the age of eleven finished four years later with a degree in Mathmematics. The father was also a publicity - hound who publicized his son the genius, and claimed it had nothing to do with any genetic quality or special gift of his son, but rather was solely attributable to his own educational methods. The father too saw too it that the son had a family life, and selected one of his students to be his son's wife, and practical daily life manager.
Wiener despite all this went on to become a distinguished MIT professor of Mathematics, an original genius and a highly respected teacher.
This autobiography is one of two and there is another work by Wiener covering his later years.
However anyone who wishes to know the life- in full should also look at the biographical literature, that contains much about the life of genius he himself did not apparently wish to tell. ... Read more

Customer Reviews (2)

Wiener's personal memoirs rather than a recapitulation of his professional accomplishments
Norbert Wiener was a first class mathematician and collaborator, yet he doesn't seem to get the due credit for both. As a globetrotting collaborator, he spent significant amounts of time in India, China, Mexico and many of the countries in Europe. This was before the advent of regular international flights, so his trips took a significant amount of time, which is why he spent so much time in those countries once he got there. Wiener also collaborated with Paul Erdos, the one person whose mathematical globetrotting clearly exceeds that of Wiener.
This is not a book about mathematics or even the mathematics that Wiener worked on. The main theme is the adult life of Wiener, where he went, what he did and the people he did it with. There are few phrases or even words that require any significant background in mathematics if they are to be understood. The style is that of a man who is simply talking about his life, setting down his personal memoirs rather than a recapitulation of his professional life.
While Wiener occasionally gets into the juicy side of personalities, that is a rare sidetrack, this is a book about Norbert Wiener. The titles of his two autobiographical books are "Ex-prodigy: My Childhood and Youth" and "I Am A Mathematician: The Later Life of a Prodigy." Wiener was known for his ego and that is demonstrated in the titles of these books. Some of that comes through in this book but thankfully; he does manage to keep that aspect of his personality in check.

Well written biography
Well written biography - what can I say else?It was very interesting toread the book. ... Read more

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This Is A Study Of Human Control Functions And Mechanico-Electrical Systems Designed To Replace Them. ... Read more

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Andrew Gordon Speedie Pask June 28, 1928 in Derby - March 28, 1996 London was an English cybernetician and psychologist who made significant contributions to cybernetics, instructional psychology, experimental epistemology and educational technology. ... Read more

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A series of lectures on the role of nonlinear processes in physics, mathematics, electrical engineering, physiology, and communication theory.From the preface:"For some time I have been interested in a group of phenomena depending upon random processes. One the one hand, I have recorded the random shot effect as a suitable input for testing nonlinear circuits. On the other hand, for some of the work that Professor W. A. Rosenblith and I have been doing concerning the nature of the electroencephalogram, and in particular of the alpha rhythm, it has occurred to me to use the model of a system of random nonlinear oscillators excited by a random input. . . . At the beginning we had contemplated a series of only four or five lectures. My ideas developed pari passu with the course, and by the end of the term we found ourselves with a set of fifteen lectures. The last few of these were devoted to the application of my ideas to problems in the statistical mechanics of gases. This work is both new and tentative, and I found that I had to supplement my course by the writing over of these with the help of Professer Y. W. Lee. " ... Read more

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Purchase includes a free trial membership in the publisher's book club where you can select from more than a million books without charge. Chapters: Claude Shannon, Aleksandr Lyapunov, Andrey Kolmogorov, Kevin Warwick, Norbert Wiener, List of People in Systems and Control, Harry Nyquist, Harold Stephen Black, Hendrik Wade Bode, Nikolay Bogolyubov, James S. Albus, Arthur Pollen, Yu-Chi Ho, John Tukey, Lotfi Asker Zadeh, Jakob Stoustrup, Jan H. Van Schuppen, Edward Routh, William Ross Ashby, Paul Tseng, Dimitri Bertsekas, Magnus B. Egerstedt, Václav E. Beneš, Richard E. Bellman, George Zames, Rudolf E. Kalman, Rutherford Aris, Harold Chestnut, Thomas Kailath, Ronald C. Arkin, Henrik I. Christensen, Eduardo D. Sontag, Ernst Guillemin, Masayoshi Tomizuka, Jeff S. Shamma, Lev Pontryagin, Damiano Brigo, Charles Stark Draper, Petar V. Kokotovic, Bernard Hanzon, Diederich Hinrichsen, Nikolay Mitrofanovich Krylov, Vasile M. Popov, Claire J. Tomlin, Roger W. Brockett, John J. Leonard, Abraham H. Haddad, Jaydev P. Desai, Vijay Kumar, Bernt Øksendal, John Milsum, Richard D. Braatz, Homayoun Seraji, Mark W. Spong, A.v. Balakrishnan, Walter R. Evans, Rufus Isaacs, Reza Olfati-Saber, Michael Athans, Ali Jadbabaie, John Zaborszky, Shankar S. Sastry, Antonio Ruberti, Harold J. Kushner, Rangasami L. Kashyap, Miroslav Krstić, Eliahu I. Jury, John R. Ragazzini, Arthur E. Bryson, George A. Bekey, Tamer Basar, John C. Lozier, W. Harmon Ray, Kumpati S. Narendra, Steven M. Lavalle, John V. Breakwell, William L. Brogan, Sanjoy K. Mitter, Seth A. Hutchinson, Elmer G. Gilbert, John G. Truxal, Irving Lefkowitz, Gene F. Franklin, Alberto Isidori, P.s.krishnaprasad, Nathaniel B. Nichols, Mathukumalli Vidyasagar, J. Karl Hedrick, Isaac Horowitz, Vladimir Andreevich Yakubovich, Steve Ciarcia, George Leitmann, Daniela L. Rus. Source: Wikipedia. Free updates online. Not illustrated. Excerpt: Hendrik Wade Bode (pronounced Boh-dee in English, Boh-dah in Dutch)...More: http://booksllc.net/?id=3995236 ... Read more

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Chapters: Kurt Vonnegut, Irving Langmuir, Charles Proteus Steinmetz, Joseph Weizenbaum, Norbert Wiener, Ralph Flanders, Sam Nunn, Douglas A. Warner Iii, Philip J. Klass, Vincent Schaefer, Jack Welch, Roger Penske, Robert Nardelli, Harold Beverage, Johnny Edwards, Gerhard Neumann, Jeffrey R. Immelt, Morton Sobell, Lawrence Bossidy, Daniel Mcfarlan Moore, John S. Apperson, Kathryn V. Marinello, Kenneth Langone, James Mcnerney, Daniel Fox, Milan Vukcevich, Edwin W. Rice, Charles A. Coffin, Charles Concordia, Q. Todd Dickinson, Bob Wright, Edith Clarke, Andrea Jung, Roger Johnson, Charles E. Wilson, Reginald H. Jones, Robert H. Wentorf, Jr., David M. Cote, Magnus W. Alexander, Helen Levitov Sobell, Gabriel Kron, James Rumbaugh, James P. Campbell, Clarence Hugo Linder, James Cash, Jr., Gary M. Reiner, Lemuel Boulware, Keith Sherin, Tom Szkutak, James Berges, Fred J. Borch. Source: Wikipedia. Pages: 229. Not illustrated. Free updates online. Purchase includes a free trial membership in the publisher's book club where you can select from more than a million books without charge. Excerpt: Kurt Vonnegut, Jr. (pronounced ; November 11, 1922 April 11, 2007) was an American novelist who wrote works blending satire, black comedy, and science fiction, such as Slaughterhouse-Five (1969), Cat's Cradle (1963), and Breakfast of Champions (1973). He was known for his humanist beliefs as well as being honorary president of the American Humanist Association. He is widely considered one of the most influential American writers of the 20th century. Kurt Vonnegut, Jr. was born in Indianapolis, Indiana, to second-generation German-American parents Kurt Vonnegut, Sr., and Edith Lieber. Both his father and grandfather attended MIT and were architects in the Indianapolis firm Vonnegut ... Read more