NORBERT WIENER
GOD AND GOLEM, Inc.
A Comment on Certain Points where
Cybernetics Impinges on Religion
in
THE M.1L.T. PRESS
Massachusetts Institute of Technology
Cambridge, MassachusetisPreface
Some years ago, in The Human Use of Human
Beings,* I gave an account of some of the ethical
and sociological implications of my previous work
Cybernetics,t the study of control and communi-
cation in machines and living beings. At that
period, cybernetics was a relatively new idea, and
neither the scientific nor the social implications
had become fully clear, Now—some fifteen years
later—cybernetics has made a certain social and
scientific impact, and enough has happened to
justify a new book in a related field.
The problem of unemployment arising from
automatization is no longer conjectural, but has
become a very vital difficulty of modern society.
‘The cybernetic circle of ideas, from being a pro-
gram for the future and a pious hope, is now a
* Wiener, N, The Human Use of Human Beings; Cy
bernetics and Society, Houghton Miffin Company, Boston,
1950.
+t Wiener, N., Cybernetics, or Control and Communication
in the Animal and the Machine, The Technology Press and
John Wiley & Sons, Inc, New York, 1948.
[ vii][ viii J
working technique in engineering, in biology,
in medicine, and in sociology, and has undergone
a great internal development.
I have given more than one series of lectures
tying to outline the impingement of this circle
of ideas on society, ethics, and religion, and 1
think the time has come to attempt a synthesis of
my ideas in this direction, to consider more in
detail the social consequences of cybernetics. This
book is devoted to certain aspects of these conse-
quences, in the discussion of which, although I
retain the ideas and many of the comments which
I made in the Human Use of Human Beings, 1
can consider the matter more in detail and more
completely.
In this undertaking, I wish to acknowledge the
great help I have received from the criticism of
many friends on both sides of the Atlantic, es-
pecially from Mr. Piet Hein of Rungsted Kyst
in Denmark, from Dr. Lawrence Frank of Bel-
mont, Massachusetts, and from Professor Karl
Deutsch of Yale University, as well as from many
others. In addition, I wish to thank my secretary,
Mrs, Eva-Maria Ritter, for her assistance in the
preparation of this material.
I found an opportunity to elaborate my ideas
in a course of lectures which I gave in January of