Cybernetics or Control and Communication in the Animal and the Machine

A classic and influential work that laid the theoretical foundations for information theory and a timely text for contemporary information’s theorists and practitioners. An early warning against “noise,” his disdain for “hucksters” and “gadget worshipers,” and his view of the mass media as the single greatest anti-homeostatic force in society. First published in 1948, Norbert Wiener laid the theoretical foundations for the multidisciplinary field of cybernetics, the study of controlling the flow of information in systems with feedback loops, be they biological, mechanical, cognitive, or social. At the core of Wiener's theory is the message (information), sent and responded to (feedback); the functionality of a machine, organism, or society depends on the quality of messages. Information corrupted by noise prevents homeostasis, or equilibrium. And yet Cybernetics is as philosophical as it is technical, with the first chapter devoted to Newtonian and Bergsonian time and the philosophical mixed with the technical throughout. First printing with some edgewear along the edges of the dust jacket, small chip at the top fold of the spine. Contents are in fine condition, dust jacket is not clipped ($3.00), protected in removable transparency. 5½" - 8½".