Scan barcode
Reviews
Cybernetics: or the Control and Communication in the Animal and the Machine by Norbert Wiener
robertmason96's review against another edition
3.0
3/5 after a casual reading - it may require more than this to take everything in.
I picked this up as I believe it is an important work in the history of communication, but it spends little time on this and is much more broad - from AI and the nature of life to anti aircraft guns that track planes.
The book is extremely well written and some areas of the book feel like they were actually written for a general audience, however it can often get bogged down with maths without giving you the bigger picture which often left me wondering why a particular calculation was being done.
As it is a book whose first edition was released in 1949 (with two additional chapters added in the 1960s) some of the information is dated, but it is interesting to see what people thought of e.g. chess playing computers long before deep blue and some of the ideas are so foundational to a subject that it is still somewhat relevant to think about. However, from a modern perspective, some of the information seems unimportant for an overview of the subject because it's age.
I picked this up as I believe it is an important work in the history of communication, but it spends little time on this and is much more broad - from AI and the nature of life to anti aircraft guns that track planes.
The book is extremely well written and some areas of the book feel like they were actually written for a general audience, however it can often get bogged down with maths without giving you the bigger picture which often left me wondering why a particular calculation was being done.
As it is a book whose first edition was released in 1949 (with two additional chapters added in the 1960s) some of the information is dated, but it is interesting to see what people thought of e.g. chess playing computers long before deep blue and some of the ideas are so foundational to a subject that it is still somewhat relevant to think about. However, from a modern perspective, some of the information seems unimportant for an overview of the subject because it's age.
2000ace's review
4.0
I stumbled through this book the best I could as a non-mathematician, because a friend suggested I read it. There was also a movement afoot in the psychology world at the time called "Psycho-cybernetics," which borrowed heavily from Weiner's ideas. Perhaps the most significant aspect of Cybernetics to me was Weiner's exploration of human bodies as machines, coupled with the ethical considerations of tinkering with the mechanics.
ianchanning's review
5.0
Fascinating book, the maths is hard to follow, but the concepts are world changing
More...