Wiener and one of his cybernetic machines. [7] |
“It is my thesis that the physical functioning of the living individual and the operation of some of the newer communication machines are precisely parallel in their analogous attempts to control entropy through feedback. Both of them have sensory receptors as one stage in their cycle of operations: that is, in both of them there exists a special apparatus for collecting information from the outer world at low energy levels, and for making it available in the operation of the individual or the machine.”
See: human machineIn commentary on his perspective of what defines “life”, with focus on machine life, Wiener states: [5]
“Certain analogies of behavior are observed between the machine and the living organism, the problem as to whether the machine is alive or not is, for our purposes, semantic … if we use the word ‘life’ to cover all phenomena which locally swim upstream against the current of entropy, we are at liberty to do so; however, we shall then include many astronomical phenomena … it is my opinion, therefore, best to avoid all question-begging epithets such as ‘life’, ‘soul’, ‘vitalism’, and the like, and say merely that machines [and] human beings [are] pockets of decreasing entropy in a framework in which the large entropy tends to increase.”
“Both Sidis and I were in the class, and it was there that I first became aware of the boy's real ability and how great a loss mathematics suffered in his premature breakdown.”
“Rabbi Low of Prague claimed his incantations blew breath of life into the Golem of clay. The modern machine is the modern counterpart of the Golem of the Rabbi of Prague.”
“On no account is it permissible to mention living beings and machines in the same breath. Living beings are living beings in all their parts; while machines are made of metals and other unorganized substances, with no fine structure relevant to their purposive or quasi-purposive function. Physics—or so it is generally supposed—takes no account of purpose. The emergence of life is something totally new. If we adhere to these tabus, we may acquire a great reputation as conservative and sound thinkers, but we shall contribute very little to the further advance of knowledge.”Digital computer
“Where the knaves assemble, there will always be fools.”— Norbert Wiener (1948), Cybernetics (Ѻ) (Ѻ)
“Just as entropy is a measure of disorganization, the information carried by a set of messages is a measure of organization. In fact, it is possible to interpret the information carried by a message as essentially the negative of its entropy, and the negative logarithm of its probability. That is, the more probable the message, the less information it gives. Cliches, for example, are less illuminating than great poems.”— Norbert Wiener (1950), The Human Use of Human Beings: Cybernetics and Society (Ѻ)