The Human Use Of Human Beings: Cybernetics And Society (Da Capo Paperback) (Paperback)

by Norbert Wiener (Author) "Part of a chapter has already appeared in the Philosophy of Science..." (more)
Key Phrases: steering engine, United States, Mudfog Association, Clerk Maxwell (more...)

Editorial Reviews

Product Description

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 cybernetics—the study of the relationship between computers and the human nervous system—Wiener 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 impact—in effect, a third industrial revolution—that the computer has had on our lives.

About the Author

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.

Product Details

• Paperback: 200 pages
• Publisher: Da Capo Press (March 21, 1988)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0306803208
• ISBN-13: 978-0306803208
• Product Dimensions: 8.1 x 5.5 x 0.5 inches
• Shipping Weight: 8 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 4.9 out of 5 stars See all reviews (7 customer reviews)
• Amazon.com Sales Rank: #349,330 in Books (See Bestsellers in Books)

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

31 of 32 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars intriguing ideas made plain, January 20, 2000

By	Al Kihano (Iskandria) - See all my reviews

For those of us who cannot grasp the mathematical, technical version of Wiener's theory of messages in _Cybernetics_, this book is a wonderful stand-in. Wiener wrote this entirely equationless text as a populariztion of his ideas about humans and machines. this book is a fascinating piece of philosophy and sociology also, as Wiener expands his theories and brings them to bear on history, journalism etc. He never loses his scientific perspective though; this gives his writing and ideas a clarity freshness that is uncommon in theoretical writings about society. This is a great and important book

15 of 20 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Another Wiener Gem, December 28, 2001

By	Arthur Gershman (Alexandria, VA United States) - See all my reviews

Norbert Wiener was a child prodigy and Professor of Mathematics at MIT from 1919 until his death in 1964. He invented the science of cybernetics (look it up in the dictionary) and the guided missile but refused to help the military during the cold war. This volume includes an open letter published in the January, 1947 Atlantic Monthly magazine entitled "A Scientist Rebels" by Norbert Wiener. An introduction by Wiener biographer Steve J. Heims provides a context for Wiener's works.

If you are at all interested in cybernetics, and particularly interested in the effects it is having and will have on society, this book is must reading. Of course, this book does not approach Wiener's "God & Golem, Inc."(reviewed elsewhere in Amazon.com) for sheer brilliance, but then, what does, except perhaps the "Bahir."

7 of 9 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars A concerned and conscienscious genius , July 3, 2005

By	Shalom Freedman "Shalom Freedman" (Jerusalem,Israel) - See all my reviews (TOP 50 REVIEWER)

Wiener was acutely aware of the promise and the danger of the new technolgies he was helping to invent. He worked very hard during the Second World War to help develop an anti- aircraft system which would make use of some of his mathematical and technical innovations. However the dropping of the Atomic Bomb turned him wholly against the military establishment and he became an insistent voice calling for regulation of military technologies.
His own vision of a humane society is one in which the cybernetic and feedback elements enable a better managing of the economy and society as a whole. And this when he again was very concerned about the possible destructive elements of technologies which would provide unreasonable means of control over individual human lives. He very much was concerned that a society in which machine- slaves produced everything would deprive humanity of its freedom and dignity.
In other words he saw great promise in the new technologies but also was concerned that might exercise a degree of control over humanity which would make them more harmful than beneficial.