The Mechanization of the Mind by Jean-Pierre Dupuy, translated by M. B. De
Bevoise, Princeton, 拢18.95/拢29.95, ISBN 0691025746
CYBERNETICS: we use the word to describe the science of information and
control in humans and machines. Yet it could have been so different. In the
1940s, the term referred to the science of the mind. The idea was thrashed out
at conferences at a New York hotel, sponsored by the Macy Foundation, and held
sway until the early 1950s. From then on, the advent of computing meant that the
riches of a cybernetic theory of mind lost out to today鈥檚 narrower
definition.
The eminent French social philosopher Jean-Pierre Dupuy argues that cognitive
science lost its way when it followed this path. It is now far too dependent on
computational ideas. He shows why this is so in his scholarly unravelling of the
origins of cognitive science. Its roots embrace not only the neurosciences, but
also artificial intelligence, cognitive psychology and linguistics.
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The unsung hero of the Macy years was the physiologist Warren McCulloch of
the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, says Dupuy. This is a welcome
alternative to the accepted view that the 鈥渇ather of cybernetics鈥� was Norbert
Wiener who, also from an MIT pulpit, launched cybernetics as merely
鈥渟teersmanship鈥�. While Wiener argued for the use of mathematics of information
and control in models of humans, McCulloch had a far more rigorous and
overarching philosophical position. He aligned neural function in the brain,
logic and computation into a complete model of mental activity.
Dupuy deplores the trend of expressing the mechanisms of thought as if they
were computer programs. It distracted the cybernetic enterprise from founding a
far richer science of the mind. Dupuy provides a welcome critical analysis of
the way this happened.
I was particularly drawn to his view that a revision of McCulloch鈥檚 neural
model of cognition supported Franz Brentano鈥檚 1874 study of consciousness.
Brentano used the word 鈥渋ntentionality鈥� to mean 鈥減roviding an inner sensation of
a real world鈥�. An opportunity for cybernetics to change the course of the
philosophy of mind was missed when intentionality was misinterpreted as 鈥渢he
providing of coded knowledge鈥�.
Dupuy concludes that the post-1953 cybernetic enterprise was a scientific
failure. Hijacked by 鈥渃ognitivism鈥�, it failed to build connections with the
social sciences as well as it might have done. I find this a little too gloomy:
we are now beginning to catch up on many of the missed opportunities and exploit
them successfully. When Dupuy writes of McCulloch鈥檚 thoughts on how complex
systems have unexpected emergent properties, he fails to appreciate that these
are now at the focus of serious attention in the neurosciences and brain
modelling (his book appeared a few years ago in France).
Instead, he warns against such enthusiasms for fear that old mistakes may be
repeated. I feel that this pessimism runs against the grain: lessons may well
have been learned from the very story Dupuy has recounted.
But The Mechanization of the Mind is a healthy prescription for
those engaged in advancing theories of cognition. It contrasts starkly with the
superficiality of some self-styled gurus of cybernetics, who mire the word in
cyberspace, cyborgs and the cyberculture.