Much scholarship in the history of cybernetics has focused on the far-reaching cultural dimensions of the movement. What has garnered less attention are efforts by cyberneticians such as Warren McCulloch and Norbert Wiener to transform scientific practice in an array of disciplines in the biomedical sciences, and the complex ways these efforts were received by members of traditional disciplines. In a quest for scientific unity that had a decidedly imperialistic flavour, cyberneticians sought to apply practices common in the exact sciences – mainly theoretical modeling – to problems in disciplines that were traditionally defined by highly empirical practices, such as neurophysiology and neuroanatomy. Their efforts were met with mixed, often critical responses. This paper attempts to make sense of such dynamics by exploring the notion of a scientific style and its usefulness in accounting for the contrasts in scientific practice in brain research and in cybernetics during the 1940s. Focusing on two key institutional contexts of brain research and the role of the Rockefeller and Macy Foundations in directing brain research and cybernetics, the paper argues that the conflicts between these fields were not simply about experiment vs. theory but turned more closely on the questions that defined each area and the language used to elaborate answers.

Key words: Cybernetics, Macy foundation, Neurophysiology, Rockefeller Foundation, Theoretical modeling, Warren S. McCulloch

Excerpt: This essay explores that history by focusing on certain developments within cybernetics from the immediate post-World War II period to the present. These developments can be understood as progressing in three waves. The first period, 1945–1960, marks the foundational stage during which cybernetics was forged as an interdisciplinary framework that would allow humans, animals, and machines to be constituted through the common denominators of feedback loops, signal transmission, and goal-seeking behavior. The forum for these developments was a series of conferences sponsored by the Josiah Macy Foundation between 1946 and 1953. Through the Macy discussions and the research presented there, the discipline solidified around key concepts and was disseminated into American intellectual communities by Macy conferees, guests, and fellow travelers. Humans and machines had been equated for a long time, but it was largely through the Macy conferences that both were understood as information-processing systems.

In this paper, we review McCulloch’s legacy, from his early work in neurophysiology, and its relationship to his philosophical quest for an ‘experimental epistemology’ to his role in the cybernetics movement during the 1940s and 1950s and his contributions to the development of computer science and communication theory. There are three parts in chronological sequence. First, the period up to his work at Yale University with Dusser de Barenne, where he concentrated on the experimental study of the functional organization of sensory cortex. Second, the time of his Psychiatric Chair at the University of Chicago and the organization of the Macy Foundation Conferences. To this period corresponds the genesis and publication of the most influential and quoted work by McCulloch and Pitts: A Logical Calculus of the Ideas Immanent in Neurons Activity. Third, the period of his research activity at the Massachussetts Institute of Technology where he, Lettvin, Maturana and Pitts produced epochmaking papers on epistemological neurophysiology, the modelling of the reticular formation and other work with da Fonseca and Moreno-Díaz. We finally refer to the International Conference that took place in McCulloch’s memory at the 25th anniversary of his death. Our main conclusion is that McCulloch’s writings are still a source of inspiration from neurophysiology to artificial intelligence and robotics.

Key words: Cybernetics, epistemological neurophysiology, neural nets

Heinz von Foerster (1911–2002) is held to be the ‘Socrates of cybernetics. ’ Having studied physics in Vienna, he worked in various research laboratories in Germany and Austria, and after World War II also briefly as a journalist and as a consultant to a telephone company. At the same time, he wrote his first book, Memory. A quantum-mechanical investigation. (Publ. Vienna 1948) His theory of memory caught the attention of the founding figures of American cybernetics. They invited him, he immigrated to the USA in 1949. There, he was received into a circle of scientists that began to meet in the early fifties under the auspices of the Macy Foundation. He was made editor of the annual conference proceedings. The mathematician Norbert Wiener whose book Cybernetics had just been published, John von Neumann, the inventor of the computer, the anthropologists Gregory Bateson and Margaret Mead, the neuropsychiatrist Warren S. McCulloch, together with more than a dozen other intellectual enthusiasts, formed the group essentially contributing to the so-called Macy Conferences.

Key events in the history of cybernetics and the American Society for Cybernetics are discussed: The origin of cybernetics in the Macy Foundation conferences held in the late 1940s and early 1950s; the pursuit of different interpretations of cybernetics by several professional societies; the reasons why the U. S. government supported or did not support cybernetics in the 1950s, 60s, and 70s; early experiments in cyberspace in the 1970s; conversations with Soviet scientists in the 1980s; the development of second order cybernetics in the 1990s; and increased interest in cybernetics in Europe and the U. S. in the 2000s due at least in part to improved understanding of the assumptions underlying the cybernetics movement. The history of cybernetics in the U. S. is viewed from the perspective of the American Society for Cybernetics (ASC). Several questions are addressed. Why was the ASC founded rather late, in 1964, about 10 years after the Macy Conferences ended? Why has the ASC remained small (300 or 400 members at its peak)? Why are there currently no departments or institutes of cybernetics in the US? How has thinking about cybernetics changed during the sixty year history of cybernetics in the US? Since most professionals in the US now spend a few hours a day in “cyberspace,” why do most of them know nothing about cybernetics?

Key words: Cybernetics, Government, Cyberspace, ASC, Experiments

Key events in the history of cybernetics and the American Society for Cybernetics are discussed, among them the origin of cybernetics in the Macy Foundation conferences in the late 1940s and early 1950s; different interpretations of cybernetics by several professional societies; reasons why the U. S. government did or did not support cybernetics in the 1950s, 1960s, and 1970s; early experiments in cyberspace in the 1970s; conversations with Soviet scientists in the 1980s; the development of “second order” cybernetics; and increased interest in cybernetics in Europe and the United States in the 2000s, due at least in part to improved understanding of the assumptions underlying the cybernetics movement. The history of cybernetics in the United States is viewed from the perspective of the American Society for Cybernetics (ASC) and several questions are addressed as to its future.