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Cybernetics, Second Edition: or the Control and Communication in the Animal and the Machine 2nd Edition

4.4 4.4 out of 5 stars 59 ratings

Acclaimed one of the "seminal books... comparable in ultimate importance to... Galileo or Malthus or Rousseau or Mill," Cybernetics was judged by twenty-seven historians, economists, educators, and philosophers to be one of those books published during the "past four decades," which may have a substantial impact on public thought and action in the years ahead.—Saturday Review

Product details

  • Publisher ‏ : ‎ Mit Pr; 2nd edition (March 15, 1965)
  • Language ‏ : ‎ English
  • Paperback ‏ : ‎ 212 pages
  • ISBN-10 ‏ : ‎ 026273009X
  • ISBN-13 ‏ : ‎ 978-0262730099
  • Item Weight ‏ : ‎ 10.4 ounces
  • Dimensions ‏ : ‎ 0.75 x 5.5 x 8.25 inches
  • Customer Reviews:
    4.4 4.4 out of 5 stars 59 ratings

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Norbert Wiener
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4.4 out of 5 stars
59 global ratings

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Customers find the book interesting and challenging to read, but it provides valuable insights into cybernetic theory. They appreciate the author's thought-provoking ideas and hypotheses.

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10 customers mention "Readability"8 positive2 negative

Customers find the book readable, interesting, and prescient. They describe it as a must-read and consider it a pathbreaking work by Norbert Wiener, a genius mathematician.

"This is a seminal work by Norbert Wiener,genius mathematician, who was a child prodigy who recieved his PhD from Harvard at 18, then denied a..." Read more

"...But very insightful book with good rewards, but I still feel that I spent a disproportional amount of effort for the reward that I get." Read more

"...While written over 5 decades ago, Dr. Weiner is remarkably prescient in his writing, and demonstrates his expansive vision for the world as he saw..." Read more

"Tough read but learning a lot about cybernetic theory." Read more

3 customers mention "Knowledge base"3 positive0 negative

Customers find the book helpful for learning about cybernetic theory and hypotheses.

"...great hypothesis" Read more

"The founder of cyber methodology and thought. A must read for anyone contemplating a career involving cyber...." Read more

"Tough read but learning a lot about cybernetic theory." Read more

Print-on-demand reprint, poor quality
2 out of 5 stars
Print-on-demand reprint, poor quality
This review is about the specific edition ISBN 978-1773236650. It is not about the contents, just the form.It is a poor quality reprint and difficult to read if, like me, you are easily distracted by low resolution reproduction of original typefaces. Given the large number of mathematical formulae, often poorly rendered, it will be a tough slog.
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Top reviews from the United States

  • Reviewed in the United States on September 28, 2012
    This is a seminal work by Norbert Wiener,genius mathematician, who was a child prodigy who recieved his PhD from Harvard at 18, then denied a faculty postion because he was Jewish in 1936. He was a generalist, however, having first studied Zoology and philosophy; later psychology. He was absolutely prescient in his predictions about the sociopolitical outcome of Cybernetics a term that he coined himself. Cybernetics is automation, using feedback loops, that has led to robotics and machines making machines and leaving unemployment behind. Wiener predicted our current state of affairs in Cybernetics as well as in his sequel, Human Uses of Human Beings. It is a robustly readable book if one must skip the few mathematical formulas and milk it for its social implications. He discusses the coming concentration of media (communication), loss of local media, and the propagandization of our democracy leading to war. He predicts the economic failures that have seized the Western World before and since 2008 and that call for a "search for novel means of distribution of wealth" because full employment would no longer be needed or relevant. Here is a man who was at home with contemporaries Mead, Einstein, Buckminster Fuller, Bateson. For his long range views, that valued decentralization, he was ostracised and maligned by centrists and war profiteers. This book is an essential building block for the understanding of modern social and political problems and for the beginning of solutions. It is a true classic in the humanities sense.

    "Cybernetics typically denotes the interdisciplinary study and strategic deployment of communicative control processes in "complex systems" constituted by humans, other animals, machines, and the rest of living-nature. In what follows, I wish to suggest an even broader use of this term. Cybernetics, not simply as a field of techno-science research and application, but as a term connoting the most far-reaching of ultramodern forms of social control. In this sense, I will be using the phrase, social cybernetics, to provisionally configure the fluid, high speed, and densely layered webs of communicatively driven positive and negative "feedback" which, this very moment, affect the ways you are receiving my words. This is a story of how loops of cybernetic feedback are informing the energetic ritual organization of power between ourselves and others. Within the fast-flexible boundaries of global capital, the most dominant, but certainly not all, of these feedback loops carry a masculine, heterosexist, and racially inscribed charge. This is a history of the present." Stephen Pfohl [...] Such is the effect upon readers of Cybernetics by Norbert Wiener.
    10 people found this helpful
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  • Reviewed in the United States on December 26, 2024
    I haven’t read this yet, but as a masters student, one of my instructors recommended this book as it changed her views on the world.
  • Reviewed in the United States on September 11, 2023
    The technological expectations where at a minimum, however the formulas make for a
    great hypothesis
    One person found this helpful
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  • Reviewed in the United States on April 18, 2010
    it took a fairly major effort to read this one. the texts are hard enough to understand with ancient language (its hard to find people talking about "computing machine" nowadays). Lots of math appears in this book, and there certainly they are not step-by-step. This is basically for people with a good intuitive grasp of the underlying mathematics or else there is no chance you can follow it. The style of writing also seems foreign to me (21 years old). But very insightful book with good rewards, but I still feel that I spent a disproportional amount of effort for the reward that I get.
    6 people found this helpful
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  • Reviewed in the United States on February 1, 2016
    Dr. Weiner falls into a list of 20th century scientists that you've likely never heard of, but whose thoughts and research has impacted many aspects of your life (including the computer/mobile device you are reading this on). While written over 5 decades ago, Dr. Weiner is remarkably prescient in his writing, and demonstrates his expansive vision for the world as he saw it then, as well as were it was headed in the future.
    2 people found this helpful
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  • Reviewed in the United States on August 27, 2018
    The founder of cyber methodology and thought. A must read for anyone contemplating a career involving cyber. Cybernetics, while a tad dry, clearly shows the linkages between how communication works, and how the initial processes of communication were studied and included with the original thinkers. For even better success, pair this purchase with "Rise of the Machines" by Thomas Rid to continue examining how the field developed beyond Weiner's initial work.
    3 people found this helpful
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  • Reviewed in the United States on February 4, 2016
    Dear old "dad" (of cybernetics) had some primitive ideas conceived when there was nothing and nobody on the planet discussing them. His ideas were the germs of work that has by now mushroomed way beyond what he intended when he unloosed the concept of cybernetic feedback.
    4 people found this helpful
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  • Reviewed in the United States on August 16, 2016
    Tough read but learning a lot about cybernetic theory.
    One person found this helpful
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Top reviews from other countries

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  • Mark S. Fleeton
    5.0 out of 5 stars Good condition - fast delivery
    Reviewed in Germany on May 31, 2023
    Looking forward to reading it.
  • David H
    5.0 out of 5 stars An awesome classic in systems science
    Reviewed in the United Kingdom on September 24, 2017
    An awesome classic in systems science. Wiener's was a genuinely brilliant mind, and it is a privilege to read these sentences. Still exciting to read, and I will come back to it again and again.
  • Gérard Chazal
    5.0 out of 5 stars Un classique
    Reviewed in France on September 7, 2009
    Cet ouvrage est un classique. Bien que depuis sa première parution au lendemain de la seconde guerre mondiale, l'informatique, les automatismes et les moyens de communication aient connu un développement considérable, cet ouvrage est indispensable pour comprendre ce qu'il en est aujourd'hui de ces savoirs et techniques qui ont complètement envahi notre vie. Science et philosophie s'entremêlent étroitement et la lecture est particulièrement stimulante pour quiconque souhaite comprendre notre monde. A lire absolument le second ouvrage du même auteur : "The human use of human beings".
    Rappelons qu'après la seconde guerre mondiale Norbert Wiener s'est opposé avec beaucoup de vigueur aux risques de guerre et à la militarisation de la science. A travers ces deux ouvrages, on comprend comment la science peut favoriser des valeurs humanistes de partage du savoir au service de la paix et comment en se mettant au service de la guerre elle se trahit.
    Gérard Chazal, professeur émérite d'histoire et philosophie des sciences - Université de Bourgogne.
  • ALIEN
    1.0 out of 5 stars Bouillie indigeste
    Reviewed in France on February 26, 2020
    Mathématicien talentueux, Norbert Wiener a introduit la << cybernétique >> qui, si l'on suit ce livre, recouvre l'ensemble du savoir humain, ou presque. L'auteur y affiche une culture encyclopédique, souvent superficielle. Dès le début, il rapproche, voire confond les incertitudes liées à la mécanique statistique et à la sensibilité aux conditions initiales pour les équations différentielles avec le fameux principe d'incertitude de Heisenberg en physique quantique. Erreur gravissime ! Ailleurs, il passe, par exemple, de considérations sur Sigmund Freud aux équations aux dérivées partielles. Cette bouillie, épicée par de nombreux calculs mathématiques abscons, laisse sans voix. Même si l'on doit sans doute à la cybernétique la popularité dans le langage courant de la notion fondamentale de
    << feedback >>, son héritage est mince aujourd'hui. Mérite-t-elle mieux ?
  • Drew Withington
    5.0 out of 5 stars Five Stars
    Reviewed in the United Kingdom on March 26, 2016
    Classic book.