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Norbert Wiener: collected works
BOOK
REVIEW
P. Masani
(Editor),
Norbert
Wiener:
Collected
Works,
Volume
IV, MIT
Press, 1986, 1083 pp., $70.00.
With this volume, Masani completes the herculean task of placing the entire corpus of Norbert Wiener’s work in the context of modern scientific thought. It is a laudable accomplishment. Throughout the four volumes of the series, Wiener’s publications are assembled according to subject matter, accompanied by commentaries authored by Wieners’s collaborators and colleagues. These commentaries serve to identify the origins and significance of the works at hand, and to locate them in the larger picture of contemporary thought within the various disciplines. The first three volumes in the series cover Wiener’s contributions to mathematical philosophy, Brownian motion, potential theory, generalized harmonic analysis, Tauberian theory, the Hopf-Wiener equation, prediction and filtering, quantum mechanics, and relativity. This last volume is devoted primarily to papers on Cybernetics: the study of control and communication in animals and machines. The term “cybernetics’‘-derived from the Greek XU/~Z~V~T~S, or steersman -was used by Plato in the sense of “government.” For Wiener, the word imparted a sense of goal-oriented, purposeful control of behavior. Cybernetics had its origin in Wiener’s war-related work on the control of anti-aircraft fire. An anti-aircraft gun must fire, not at the current position of the target, but at the spot to which the aircraft will have moved during the flight of the shell. Thus, the controller must predict, or anticipate, the future path of the airplane. In working out the general mathematical basis for predicting the future course of an observed time series, Wiener and his colleague Julian Bigelow realized that it was important to collect information about the deviations between predicted motion and actual motion. These deviations could then be fed back as input to the predictor and treated as corrections to further predictions. Wiener and Bigelow also realized that improper treatment of the corrective feedback could result in two different forms of pathological behavior on the part of the controller. If the controller is not sufficiently sensitive to the corrective feedback, the corrections will not keep pace with the deviations, and the gap between predicted motion and actual motion will continue to grow. On the other hand, if the controller is overb sensitive to the feedback, each corrective maneuver will be too large, resulting in larger and larger deviations, first to one side and then to the other. Eventually, this will result in the system becoming hopelessly engaged in wild oscillations. MATHEMATICAL
BIOSCIENCES
87:231-232
(1987)
231
OElsevier Science Publishing Co., Inc., 1987 52 Vanderbilt Ave., New York, NY 10017
0025-5564/87/$3.50
232
BOOK
REVIEW
The first form of pathological behavior was similar to the condition in humans and animals known as Atuxiu, in which internal sensory feedback from a limb is insufficient or absent. Wiener and Bigelow asked Arturo Rosenbluth whether the second form of pathology was also known to occur in humans or animals. Rosenbluth answered immediately that “purpose tremor,” sometimes observed in patients who had suffered injuries to the cerebellum, was just such a pathological condition. Wiener, Bigelow, and Rosenbluth thus were lead to the realization that feedback played a similar role in a wide variety of natural and artificial systems, and that a comprehensive program of interdisciplinary research into the functions and dysfunctions of goal-oriented-or teleological- machines could reveal much about the nature of similar mechanisms operating in the central nervous system. Most of the papers in this volume are devoted to the elucidation, application, and philosophical and social consequences of such a program of research. The papers are collected into several distinct categories. Pre-Cybernetical Papers includes key early works that helped set the stage for the development of cybernetics in Wiener’s mind. Cybernetical Papers includes works on teleology, information theory, time and organization, homeostasis, prosthesis, and scientific models and physiology. The section on Cybernetics and Society contains works that reveal Wiener’s profound understanding of the scientist’s duty to consider fully the social and moral consequences of new discoveries and inventions. Further categories include papers on aesthetics, literature, and education, as well as various book reviews, prefaces, abstracts, and encyclopedia articles. Throughout the book-and indeed, the series-paper after paper reveals the tremendous breadth and depth of Wiener’s intellect. Wiener had the marvellous ability to understand a problem at many levels simultaneously, from the minutiae of its technical detail to its probable impact on society and its future course in scientific and mathematical thought. Revealed to us is a man who embodied much of what science is, or should be, all about. He fully understood that the scientific enterprise is not the abstract treatment of isolated problems, but rather the study of the myriad interrelationships that occur in the natural world. With this volume and this series, Wiener, his work, and his philosophy are brought vividly to life. It is a fitting monument to a great thinker, for Masani has not only collected together Wiener’s work but also in a sense has collected Wiener himself, embedded in his scientific era like a fly in amber. CHRISTOPHER
G. LANGTON
Center for Nonlinear Studies Las Alamos National Laboratory Los Alamos, New Mexico 87545
REVIEW
P. Masani
(Editor),
Norbert
Wiener:
Collected
Works,
Volume
IV, MIT
Press, 1986, 1083 pp., $70.00.
With this volume, Masani completes the herculean task of placing the entire corpus of Norbert Wiener’s work in the context of modern scientific thought. It is a laudable accomplishment. Throughout the four volumes of the series, Wiener’s publications are assembled according to subject matter, accompanied by commentaries authored by Wieners’s collaborators and colleagues. These commentaries serve to identify the origins and significance of the works at hand, and to locate them in the larger picture of contemporary thought within the various disciplines. The first three volumes in the series cover Wiener’s contributions to mathematical philosophy, Brownian motion, potential theory, generalized harmonic analysis, Tauberian theory, the Hopf-Wiener equation, prediction and filtering, quantum mechanics, and relativity. This last volume is devoted primarily to papers on Cybernetics: the study of control and communication in animals and machines. The term “cybernetics’‘-derived from the Greek XU/~Z~V~T~S, or steersman -was used by Plato in the sense of “government.” For Wiener, the word imparted a sense of goal-oriented, purposeful control of behavior. Cybernetics had its origin in Wiener’s war-related work on the control of anti-aircraft fire. An anti-aircraft gun must fire, not at the current position of the target, but at the spot to which the aircraft will have moved during the flight of the shell. Thus, the controller must predict, or anticipate, the future path of the airplane. In working out the general mathematical basis for predicting the future course of an observed time series, Wiener and his colleague Julian Bigelow realized that it was important to collect information about the deviations between predicted motion and actual motion. These deviations could then be fed back as input to the predictor and treated as corrections to further predictions. Wiener and Bigelow also realized that improper treatment of the corrective feedback could result in two different forms of pathological behavior on the part of the controller. If the controller is not sufficiently sensitive to the corrective feedback, the corrections will not keep pace with the deviations, and the gap between predicted motion and actual motion will continue to grow. On the other hand, if the controller is overb sensitive to the feedback, each corrective maneuver will be too large, resulting in larger and larger deviations, first to one side and then to the other. Eventually, this will result in the system becoming hopelessly engaged in wild oscillations. MATHEMATICAL
BIOSCIENCES
87:231-232
(1987)
231
OElsevier Science Publishing Co., Inc., 1987 52 Vanderbilt Ave., New York, NY 10017
0025-5564/87/$3.50
232
BOOK
REVIEW
The first form of pathological behavior was similar to the condition in humans and animals known as Atuxiu, in which internal sensory feedback from a limb is insufficient or absent. Wiener and Bigelow asked Arturo Rosenbluth whether the second form of pathology was also known to occur in humans or animals. Rosenbluth answered immediately that “purpose tremor,” sometimes observed in patients who had suffered injuries to the cerebellum, was just such a pathological condition. Wiener, Bigelow, and Rosenbluth thus were lead to the realization that feedback played a similar role in a wide variety of natural and artificial systems, and that a comprehensive program of interdisciplinary research into the functions and dysfunctions of goal-oriented-or teleological- machines could reveal much about the nature of similar mechanisms operating in the central nervous system. Most of the papers in this volume are devoted to the elucidation, application, and philosophical and social consequences of such a program of research. The papers are collected into several distinct categories. Pre-Cybernetical Papers includes key early works that helped set the stage for the development of cybernetics in Wiener’s mind. Cybernetical Papers includes works on teleology, information theory, time and organization, homeostasis, prosthesis, and scientific models and physiology. The section on Cybernetics and Society contains works that reveal Wiener’s profound understanding of the scientist’s duty to consider fully the social and moral consequences of new discoveries and inventions. Further categories include papers on aesthetics, literature, and education, as well as various book reviews, prefaces, abstracts, and encyclopedia articles. Throughout the book-and indeed, the series-paper after paper reveals the tremendous breadth and depth of Wiener’s intellect. Wiener had the marvellous ability to understand a problem at many levels simultaneously, from the minutiae of its technical detail to its probable impact on society and its future course in scientific and mathematical thought. Revealed to us is a man who embodied much of what science is, or should be, all about. He fully understood that the scientific enterprise is not the abstract treatment of isolated problems, but rather the study of the myriad interrelationships that occur in the natural world. With this volume and this series, Wiener, his work, and his philosophy are brought vividly to life. It is a fitting monument to a great thinker, for Masani has not only collected together Wiener’s work but also in a sense has collected Wiener himself, embedded in his scientific era like a fly in amber. CHRISTOPHER
G. LANGTON
Center for Nonlinear Studies Las Alamos National Laboratory Los Alamos, New Mexico 87545