By kalm77 (New York)
Norbert Wiener, by his own admission, was a big fan of what today might be called "interdisciplinary studies", or "the no-man's land between established fields" as he describes it. In the process of describing his past accomplishments as a sort of cross-pollinator/evangelizer of cybernetics, he makes the case for a broad educational background, as a useful alternative to the darwinian academic trend of earning a living from increasing specialization.
Despite being an extremely sharp mathematician, and openly pooh-poohing the use of emipiricism and the application of maths to the social sciences, he nonetheless understood and even cared about the immense social impact of the technology ("technique" as he calls it), being developed by him and colleagues on the lay man of the future. He refers to the inevitable devaluation of future human beings, being forced to compete against computers, just as physical labor can not compete against automation ("...there is no rate of pay at which a US pick and shovel laborer can live which is low enough to profitably compete with a steam shovel as an excavator" serious aside: what does this say about the entire monetarist efforts of "the Fed" in tackling unemployment today! futility?).
Ironically, for a mathematician so deeply involved in the exposition of the advanced applications of the math of group theory, thermodynamics and statistical mechanics, to signal processing and control, his broad economic and societal comments (about the role of God, the undeniable technological impulse/drive of Man throughout history, Labor Unions, Capitalist "Hucksters" etc) are the most prescient and catchy part of his work! (maybe because I am not a mathematician myself).
But, these social themes are NOT what Cybernetics (2nd ed) is all about. Norbert has written many many other books solely musing over these social themes very profoundly! In Cybernetics, the preface and first chapter represent the full extent of his thoughts on this area, which he alludes to again in the second half of the book.
Cybernetics, is an eclectic work with several themes or threads. The eclecticism derives from his pure genius to see common patterns emanating from what one could call the study of "Signals and Systems" applied to biological evolution, development of instinct, learning, all the way to the more commonly explored information theory, computing machines, and feedback theory. Another significant overall theme is of the utility of modern statistical approaches in the study and analysis of non linear systems, to time's arrow, thermodynamics, and evolution itself. He certainly grounds all his observations (with many amazing nuggets to be picked up by an alert reader, along the way) by alluding to rigorous if not totally un-refutable mathematics.
The second chapter is the 'K2' summit of the maths to be encountered in the book (good luck). This chapter touches on topics which can be considered a good chunk of what qualifies today as standard rigorous graduate level course work in the field of signal processing in electrical engineering; for example, how fourier series are almost a second nature outcome of group theory and invariant transformations; how the ergodic theorems apply to Gibbs' statistical mechanics and indeed make noise filtering possible in communications. The next chapter goes into the development of theory of feedback and control. Then, in the rest of the book he leaves signal processing and he segues on to computation, artificial intelligence, gestalt and perception, and self replicating machines! One of the famous (infamous?) memes from this book is that "reality" is actually "computed" by humans, not observed or sensed.
Strangely, the blurbs/endorsements on the back cover of the second edition showcase reviews by a very diverse (to say the least) set of mass market publications (eg. NY Times, Electronics Magazine, Saturday Review of Literature), as if this book were a fun sunday afternoon's read: "lucid, direct....as readable by the layman as the trained scientist". Yeah. I highly doubt any of the reviewers mentioned in the blurbs really read the book (much less the even more mathematical first edition). It may be a fun read for the "layman" if the layman happened to be employed as a post-doctoral research fellow in signals and communications labs, certainly. But for the rest, may i humbly recommend a prerequisite of an undergraduate engineering degree to get the perspective and thrust of ideas Wiener wants so much to impart.
If you have an engineering degree somewhere, it can be a very profitable read. The only bones I have to pick are that this is an amazingly top-down book in 200 pages. Wiener tackles his subjects on from such a high conceptual level, that he can not go into the more pedestrian level which is also an extremely interesting discussion of the many themes he touches. (But then I feel no book should be more than 200 pages in today's time!) How can you drink from a fire hose? Verry carefully! But the fire hose has it's purpose too!
It is also important to read this book in the context that this author represents the culmination of the knowledge of computer theory at the very point of the introduction of computers into broader society. Prior to this, they were mathematical department curiosities. Certainly WW2 played a part. Then there is a strange leap to the "Whole Earth Catalog" level. So from a historical perspective and to understand historical milieu it is also a significant work.
转自amazon:Cybernetics
《控制论》热门书评
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Norbert Wiener 的控制论 (Cybernetics: or control and c
47有用 1无用 akon21 2009-05-16
本文转载自徐宥bloghttp://blog.youxu.info/2008/04/09/classics-in-cs/几个小体会, 写下来.1. 维纳的确是超级神童级别的人物. 从心理学, 社会学, 神经系统, 数学, 物理, 以及刚刚萌芽的计算机科学和博弈论引人到控制论, 虽然脉络繁杂, 包罗万...
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逻辑推理与想象力
21有用 0无用 小凡 2012-10-31
与其他伟大的科学家一样,维纳很多时候是依靠直觉来做判断,而非纯粹的逻辑推理。比如他经常直接拿生物体与机器进行类比,然后得出判断。逻辑推理可以保证我们的结论严谨和自洽,但却不能让我们产生有创意的想法,甚至过于强化逻辑推理,对想象力是一种限制。大师们常常在很早的年龄就完成了逻辑思维的训练,然后他们就可以...
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對抗增熵
8有用 0无用 见贤思齐 2013-01-25
維納認為宇宙是一個隨機的偶然的存在,這樣的存在是趨向于增熵的,即:混亂,無序,毀滅的。但當整個宇宙趨于衰退時,其中有一些局部是存在暫時的、有限的反熵過程的,僅管這樣的概率是最小可幾的,生命就在這些局部地區存在。這里所說的生命是控制論中所謂的“生命”,即有機體,包括動物和機器,它們與外界環...
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很吸引人,但是不好懂
4有用 1无用 xxmatlab 2009-06-07
1948 年诺伯特·维纳发表了著名的《控制论——关于在动物和机中控制和通讯的科学》一书。后来,控制论的思想和方法逐渐渗透到了几乎有的自然科学和社会科学领域。维纳把控制论看作是一门研究机器、生命社会中控制和通讯的一般规律的科学,更具体他说,是研究动态系统在变的环境条件下如何保持平衡状态或稳定状态的科学...
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转自amazon:Cybernetics
1有用 0无用 [已注销] 2012-04-23
By kalm77 (New York)Norbert Wiener, by his own admission, was a big fan of what today might be called "interdisciplinary studies", or "...
书名: 控制论
作者: [美] 维纳
出版社: 北京大学出版社
副标题: 或关于在动物和机器中控制和通信的科学
译者: 郝季仁
出版年: 2007-12
页数: 168
定价: 34.00元
装帧: 精装
丛书: 科学素养文库·科学元典丛书
ISBN: 9787301095652