The Closed World

The Closed World

Author: Paul N. Edwards

Publisher: MIT Press

Published: 1996

Total Pages: 468

ISBN-13: 9780262550284

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The Closed World offers a radically new alternative to the canonical histories of computers and cognitive science. Arguing that we can make sense of computers as tools only when we simultaneously grasp their roles as metaphors and political icons, Paul Edwards shows how Cold War social and cultural contexts shaped emerging computer technology--and were transformed, in turn, by information machines. The Closed World explores three apparently disparate histories--the history of American global power, the history of computing machines, and the history of subjectivity in science and culture--through the lens of the American political imagination. In the process, it reveals intimate links between the military projects of the Cold War, the evolution of digital computers, and the origins of cybernetics, cognitive psychology, and artificial intelligence. Edwards begins by describing the emergence of a "closed-world discourse" of global surveillance and control through high-technology military power. The Cold War political goal of "containment" led to the SAGE continental air defense system, Rand Corporation studies of nuclear strategy, and the advanced technologies of the Vietnam War. These and other centralized, computerized military command and control projects--for containing world-scale conflicts--helped closed-world discourse dominate Cold War political decisions. Their apotheosis was the Reagan-era plan for a " Star Wars" space-based ballistic missile defense. Edwards then shows how these military projects helped computers become axial metaphors in psychological theory. Analyzing the Macy Conferences on cybernetics, the Harvard Psycho-Acoustic Laboratory, and the early history of artificial intelligence, he describes the formation of a "cyborg discourse." By constructing both human minds and artificial intelligences as information machines, cyborg discourse assisted in integrating people into the hyper-complex technological systems of the closed world. Finally, Edwards explores the cyborg as political identity in science fiction--from the disembodied, panoptic AI of 2001: A Space Odyssey, to the mechanical robots of Star Wars and the engineered biological androids of Blade Runner--where Information Age culture and subjectivity were both reflected and constructed. Inside Technology series


Book Synopsis The Closed World by : Paul N. Edwards

Download or read book The Closed World written by Paul N. Edwards and published by MIT Press. This book was released on 1996 with total page 468 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The Closed World offers a radically new alternative to the canonical histories of computers and cognitive science. Arguing that we can make sense of computers as tools only when we simultaneously grasp their roles as metaphors and political icons, Paul Edwards shows how Cold War social and cultural contexts shaped emerging computer technology--and were transformed, in turn, by information machines. The Closed World explores three apparently disparate histories--the history of American global power, the history of computing machines, and the history of subjectivity in science and culture--through the lens of the American political imagination. In the process, it reveals intimate links between the military projects of the Cold War, the evolution of digital computers, and the origins of cybernetics, cognitive psychology, and artificial intelligence. Edwards begins by describing the emergence of a "closed-world discourse" of global surveillance and control through high-technology military power. The Cold War political goal of "containment" led to the SAGE continental air defense system, Rand Corporation studies of nuclear strategy, and the advanced technologies of the Vietnam War. These and other centralized, computerized military command and control projects--for containing world-scale conflicts--helped closed-world discourse dominate Cold War political decisions. Their apotheosis was the Reagan-era plan for a " Star Wars" space-based ballistic missile defense. Edwards then shows how these military projects helped computers become axial metaphors in psychological theory. Analyzing the Macy Conferences on cybernetics, the Harvard Psycho-Acoustic Laboratory, and the early history of artificial intelligence, he describes the formation of a "cyborg discourse." By constructing both human minds and artificial intelligences as information machines, cyborg discourse assisted in integrating people into the hyper-complex technological systems of the closed world. Finally, Edwards explores the cyborg as political identity in science fiction--from the disembodied, panoptic AI of 2001: A Space Odyssey, to the mechanical robots of Star Wars and the engineered biological androids of Blade Runner--where Information Age culture and subjectivity were both reflected and constructed. Inside Technology series

From the Closed World to the Infinite Universe

From the Closed World to the Infinite Universe

Author: Alexandre Koyré

Publisher: SMK Books

Published: 2008-05

Total Pages: 0

ISBN-13: 9781604593686

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Time and again, when studying the history of scientific and philosophical thought in the sixteenth and the seventeenth centuries-they are, indeed, so closely interrelated and linked together that, separated, they become ununderstandable-I have been forced to recognize, as many others have before me, that during this period human, or at least European, minds underwent a deep revolution which changed the very framework and patterns of our thinking and of which modern science and modern philosophy are, at the same time, the root and the fruit. This revolution or, as it has been called, this "crisis of European consciousness," has been described and explained in many different ways. Thus, whereas it is generally admitted that the development of the new cosmology, which replaced the geo- or even anthropocentric world of Greek and medieval astronomy by the heliocentric, and, later, by the centerless universe of modern astronomy, played a paramount role in this process, some historians, interested chiefly in the social implications of spiritual changes, have stressed the alleged conversion of the human mind from theoria to praxis, from the scientia contemplativa to the scientia activa et operativa, which transformed man from a spectator into an owner and master of nature; some others have stressed the replacement of the teleological and organismic pattern of thinking and explanation by the mechanical and causal pattern, leading, ultimately, to the "mechanisation of the world-view" so prominent in modern times, especially in the eighteenth century: still others have simply described the despair and confusion brought by the "new philosophy" into a world from which all coherence was gone and in which the skies no longer announced the glory of God.


Book Synopsis From the Closed World to the Infinite Universe by : Alexandre Koyré

Download or read book From the Closed World to the Infinite Universe written by Alexandre Koyré and published by SMK Books. This book was released on 2008-05 with total page 0 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Time and again, when studying the history of scientific and philosophical thought in the sixteenth and the seventeenth centuries-they are, indeed, so closely interrelated and linked together that, separated, they become ununderstandable-I have been forced to recognize, as many others have before me, that during this period human, or at least European, minds underwent a deep revolution which changed the very framework and patterns of our thinking and of which modern science and modern philosophy are, at the same time, the root and the fruit. This revolution or, as it has been called, this "crisis of European consciousness," has been described and explained in many different ways. Thus, whereas it is generally admitted that the development of the new cosmology, which replaced the geo- or even anthropocentric world of Greek and medieval astronomy by the heliocentric, and, later, by the centerless universe of modern astronomy, played a paramount role in this process, some historians, interested chiefly in the social implications of spiritual changes, have stressed the alleged conversion of the human mind from theoria to praxis, from the scientia contemplativa to the scientia activa et operativa, which transformed man from a spectator into an owner and master of nature; some others have stressed the replacement of the teleological and organismic pattern of thinking and explanation by the mechanical and causal pattern, leading, ultimately, to the "mechanisation of the world-view" so prominent in modern times, especially in the eighteenth century: still others have simply described the despair and confusion brought by the "new philosophy" into a world from which all coherence was gone and in which the skies no longer announced the glory of God.

Asylum

Asylum

Author: Christopher Payne

Publisher: National Geographic Books

Published: 2009-09-04

Total Pages: 0

ISBN-13: 0262013495

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Powerful photographs of the grand exteriors and crumbling interiors of America's abandoned state mental hospitals. For more than half the nation's history, vast mental hospitals were a prominent feature of the American landscape. From the mid-nineteenth century to the early twentieth, over 250 institutions for the insane were built throughout the United States; by 1948, they housed more than a half million patients. The blueprint for these hospitals was set by Pennsylvania hospital superintendant Thomas Story Kirkbride: a central administration building flanked symmetrically by pavilions and surrounded by lavish grounds with pastoral vistas. Kirkbride and others believed that well-designed buildings and grounds, a peaceful environment, a regimen of fresh air, and places for work, exercise, and cultural activities would heal mental illness. But in the second half of the twentieth century, after the introduction of psychotropic drugs and policy shifts toward community-based care, patient populations declined dramatically, leaving many of these beautiful, massive buildings—and the patients who lived in them—neglected and abandoned. Architect and photographer Christopher Payne spent six years documenting the decay of state mental hospitals like these, visiting seventy institutions in thirty states. Through his lens we see splendid, palatial exteriors (some designed by such prominent architects as H. H. Richardson and Samuel Sloan) and crumbling interiors—chairs stacked against walls with peeling paint in a grand hallway; brightly colored toothbrushes still hanging on a rack; stacks of suitcases, never packed for the trip home. Accompanying Payne's striking and powerful photographs is an essay by Oliver Sacks (who described his own experience working at a state mental hospital in his book Awakenings). Sacks pays tribute to Payne's photographs and to the lives once lived in these places, “where one could be both mad and safe.”


Book Synopsis Asylum by : Christopher Payne

Download or read book Asylum written by Christopher Payne and published by National Geographic Books. This book was released on 2009-09-04 with total page 0 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Powerful photographs of the grand exteriors and crumbling interiors of America's abandoned state mental hospitals. For more than half the nation's history, vast mental hospitals were a prominent feature of the American landscape. From the mid-nineteenth century to the early twentieth, over 250 institutions for the insane were built throughout the United States; by 1948, they housed more than a half million patients. The blueprint for these hospitals was set by Pennsylvania hospital superintendant Thomas Story Kirkbride: a central administration building flanked symmetrically by pavilions and surrounded by lavish grounds with pastoral vistas. Kirkbride and others believed that well-designed buildings and grounds, a peaceful environment, a regimen of fresh air, and places for work, exercise, and cultural activities would heal mental illness. But in the second half of the twentieth century, after the introduction of psychotropic drugs and policy shifts toward community-based care, patient populations declined dramatically, leaving many of these beautiful, massive buildings—and the patients who lived in them—neglected and abandoned. Architect and photographer Christopher Payne spent six years documenting the decay of state mental hospitals like these, visiting seventy institutions in thirty states. Through his lens we see splendid, palatial exteriors (some designed by such prominent architects as H. H. Richardson and Samuel Sloan) and crumbling interiors—chairs stacked against walls with peeling paint in a grand hallway; brightly colored toothbrushes still hanging on a rack; stacks of suitcases, never packed for the trip home. Accompanying Payne's striking and powerful photographs is an essay by Oliver Sacks (who described his own experience working at a state mental hospital in his book Awakenings). Sacks pays tribute to Payne's photographs and to the lives once lived in these places, “where one could be both mad and safe.”

The Architecture of Closed Worlds

The Architecture of Closed Worlds

Author: Lydia Kallipoliti

Publisher: Lars Muller Publishers/Storefront for Art and Architecture

Published: 2018-09

Total Pages: 352

ISBN-13: 9783037785805

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What do outer space capsules, submarines, and office buildings have in common? Each is conceived as a closed system: a self-sustaining physical environment demarcated from its surroundings by a boundary that does not allow for the transfer of matter or energy. Contemporary discussions about global warming, recycling, and sustainability have emerged as direct conceptual constructs related to the study and analysis of closed systems. From the space program to countercultural architectural groups experimenting with autonomous living, this publication documents a disciplinary transformation and the rise of a new environmental consensus in the form of a synthetic naturalism. It presents an archive of 39 historical living prototypes from 1928 to the present that put forth an unexplored genealogy of closed resource regeneration systems. Prototypes are presented through unique discursive narratives with historical images, and each includes new analysis in the form of a feedback drawing that problematizes the language of environmental representation by illustrating loss, derailment, and the production of new substances and atmospheres.


Book Synopsis The Architecture of Closed Worlds by : Lydia Kallipoliti

Download or read book The Architecture of Closed Worlds written by Lydia Kallipoliti and published by Lars Muller Publishers/Storefront for Art and Architecture. This book was released on 2018-09 with total page 352 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: What do outer space capsules, submarines, and office buildings have in common? Each is conceived as a closed system: a self-sustaining physical environment demarcated from its surroundings by a boundary that does not allow for the transfer of matter or energy. Contemporary discussions about global warming, recycling, and sustainability have emerged as direct conceptual constructs related to the study and analysis of closed systems. From the space program to countercultural architectural groups experimenting with autonomous living, this publication documents a disciplinary transformation and the rise of a new environmental consensus in the form of a synthetic naturalism. It presents an archive of 39 historical living prototypes from 1928 to the present that put forth an unexplored genealogy of closed resource regeneration systems. Prototypes are presented through unique discursive narratives with historical images, and each includes new analysis in the form of a feedback drawing that problematizes the language of environmental representation by illustrating loss, derailment, and the production of new substances and atmospheres.

From the Closed World to the Infinite Universe

From the Closed World to the Infinite Universe

Author: Alexandre Koyré

Publisher: BEYOND BOOKS HUB

Published: 2021-01-01

Total Pages: 616

ISBN-13:

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From the Closed World to the Infinite Universe by Alexandre Koyré is a profound exploration of the transition in scientific thought from the Middle Ages to the modern era. The book offers a detailed analysis of the philosophical and intellectual shifts that led to the conception of an infinite universe.


Book Synopsis From the Closed World to the Infinite Universe by : Alexandre Koyré

Download or read book From the Closed World to the Infinite Universe written by Alexandre Koyré and published by BEYOND BOOKS HUB. This book was released on 2021-01-01 with total page 616 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: From the Closed World to the Infinite Universe by Alexandre Koyré is a profound exploration of the transition in scientific thought from the Middle Ages to the modern era. The book offers a detailed analysis of the philosophical and intellectual shifts that led to the conception of an infinite universe.

And The World Closed Its Doors

And The World Closed Its Doors

Author: David Clay Large

Publisher: Basic Books

Published: 2009-06-16

Total Pages: 314

ISBN-13: 0786748605

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In this masterpiece of Holocaust literature, David Clay Large tells the wrenching story of Max Schohl, a German Jew who, in the midst of the Second World War, could not find a government that would allow his family to immigrate, despite wealth, education, and business and family connections. After repeated but fruitless efforts to gain entry first to the United States and then to Britain, Chile, and Brazil, Max died in Auschwitz and his wife and daughters were sent to hard labor in Wiesbaden. Much has been written about the West's unwillingness to attempt the rescue of tens of thousands of European Jews from the hands of the Nazis; now David Clay Large gives a human face to this tragedy of bureaucratic inertia and ill will. The youngest daughter of the Schohl family, today a seventy-four-year-old widow living in Charleston, South Carolina, has opened her family's records to Large: a unique collection of family letters and other documents chronicling the experiences of the Schohls and those who tried to bring them to England and America. From these papers Large has fashioned a gripping and intimate narrative of one family's efforts to escape the Holocaust in Europe and the inadequate response from abroad.


Book Synopsis And The World Closed Its Doors by : David Clay Large

Download or read book And The World Closed Its Doors written by David Clay Large and published by Basic Books. This book was released on 2009-06-16 with total page 314 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: In this masterpiece of Holocaust literature, David Clay Large tells the wrenching story of Max Schohl, a German Jew who, in the midst of the Second World War, could not find a government that would allow his family to immigrate, despite wealth, education, and business and family connections. After repeated but fruitless efforts to gain entry first to the United States and then to Britain, Chile, and Brazil, Max died in Auschwitz and his wife and daughters were sent to hard labor in Wiesbaden. Much has been written about the West's unwillingness to attempt the rescue of tens of thousands of European Jews from the hands of the Nazis; now David Clay Large gives a human face to this tragedy of bureaucratic inertia and ill will. The youngest daughter of the Schohl family, today a seventy-four-year-old widow living in Charleston, South Carolina, has opened her family's records to Large: a unique collection of family letters and other documents chronicling the experiences of the Schohls and those who tried to bring them to England and America. From these papers Large has fashioned a gripping and intimate narrative of one family's efforts to escape the Holocaust in Europe and the inadequate response from abroad.

The Waste-Free World

The Waste-Free World

Author: Ron Gonen

Publisher: Penguin

Published: 2021-04-06

Total Pages: 288

ISBN-13: 0593191854

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The next revolution in business will provide for a sustainable future, from founder, CEO and circular economy expert Ron Gonen Our take-make-waste economy has cost consumers and taxpayers billions while cheating us out of a habitable planet. But it doesn’t have to be this way. The Waste-Free World makes a persuasive, forward-looking case for a circular economic model, a “closed-loop” system that wastes no natural resources. Entrepreneur, CEO and sustainability expert Ron Gonen argues that circularity is not only crucial for the planet but holds immense business opportunity. As the founder of an investment firm focused on the circular economy, Gonen reveals brilliant innovations emerging worldwide— “smart” packaging, robotics that optimize recycling, nutrient rich fabrics, technologies that convert food waste into energy for your home, and many more. Drawing on his experience in technology, business, and city government and interviews with leading entrepreneurs and top companies, he introduces a vital and growing movement. The Waste-Free World invites us all to take part in a sustainable and prosperous future where companies foster innovation, investors recognize long term value creation, and consumers can align their values with the products they buy.


Book Synopsis The Waste-Free World by : Ron Gonen

Download or read book The Waste-Free World written by Ron Gonen and published by Penguin. This book was released on 2021-04-06 with total page 288 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The next revolution in business will provide for a sustainable future, from founder, CEO and circular economy expert Ron Gonen Our take-make-waste economy has cost consumers and taxpayers billions while cheating us out of a habitable planet. But it doesn’t have to be this way. The Waste-Free World makes a persuasive, forward-looking case for a circular economic model, a “closed-loop” system that wastes no natural resources. Entrepreneur, CEO and sustainability expert Ron Gonen argues that circularity is not only crucial for the planet but holds immense business opportunity. As the founder of an investment firm focused on the circular economy, Gonen reveals brilliant innovations emerging worldwide— “smart” packaging, robotics that optimize recycling, nutrient rich fabrics, technologies that convert food waste into energy for your home, and many more. Drawing on his experience in technology, business, and city government and interviews with leading entrepreneurs and top companies, he introduces a vital and growing movement. The Waste-Free World invites us all to take part in a sustainable and prosperous future where companies foster innovation, investors recognize long term value creation, and consumers can align their values with the products they buy.

The Open World and Closed Societies

The Open World and Closed Societies

Author: V. Tomusk

Publisher: Springer

Published: 2004-04-23

Total Pages: 260

ISBN-13: 1403979472

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This book is about higher education reforms in the post-socialist states of Central and Eastern Europe and the former Soviet Union, seen through the eyes of somebody who has spent the last decade analyzing these reforms as well as negotiating and supervising reform projects in countries from Serbia and Montenegro to Mongolia. Analyzing the reforms in a broader political, economic and social context and relating these to global higher education developments, the book addresses the complexity of the processes and contradictions among the demands on higher education systems, which in many instances impede positive changes.


Book Synopsis The Open World and Closed Societies by : V. Tomusk

Download or read book The Open World and Closed Societies written by V. Tomusk and published by Springer. This book was released on 2004-04-23 with total page 260 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This book is about higher education reforms in the post-socialist states of Central and Eastern Europe and the former Soviet Union, seen through the eyes of somebody who has spent the last decade analyzing these reforms as well as negotiating and supervising reform projects in countries from Serbia and Montenegro to Mongolia. Analyzing the reforms in a broader political, economic and social context and relating these to global higher education developments, the book addresses the complexity of the processes and contradictions among the demands on higher education systems, which in many instances impede positive changes.

Reasoning with the Infinite

Reasoning with the Infinite

Author: Michel Blay

Publisher: University of Chicago Press

Published: 1998

Total Pages: 230

ISBN-13: 9780226058351

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Until the Scientific Revolution, the nature and motions of heavenly objects were mysterious and unpredictable. The Scientific Revolution was revolutionary in part because it saw the advent of many mathematical tools—chief among them the calculus—that natural philosophers could use to explain and predict these cosmic motions. Michel Blay traces the origins of this mathematization of the world, from Galileo to Newton and Laplace, and considers the profound philosophical consequences of submitting the infinite to rational analysis. "One of Michael Blay's many fine achievements in Reasoning with the Infinite is to make us realize how velocity, and later instantaneous velocity, came to play a vital part in the development of a rigorous mathematical science of motion."—Margaret Wertheim, New Scientist


Book Synopsis Reasoning with the Infinite by : Michel Blay

Download or read book Reasoning with the Infinite written by Michel Blay and published by University of Chicago Press. This book was released on 1998 with total page 230 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Until the Scientific Revolution, the nature and motions of heavenly objects were mysterious and unpredictable. The Scientific Revolution was revolutionary in part because it saw the advent of many mathematical tools—chief among them the calculus—that natural philosophers could use to explain and predict these cosmic motions. Michel Blay traces the origins of this mathematization of the world, from Galileo to Newton and Laplace, and considers the profound philosophical consequences of submitting the infinite to rational analysis. "One of Michael Blay's many fine achievements in Reasoning with the Infinite is to make us realize how velocity, and later instantaneous velocity, came to play a vital part in the development of a rigorous mathematical science of motion."—Margaret Wertheim, New Scientist

World War II Behind Closed Doors

World War II Behind Closed Doors

Author: Laurence Rees

Publisher: Vintage

Published: 2010-05-04

Total Pages: 466

ISBN-13: 0307389626

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In this revelatory chronicle of World War II, Laurence Rees documents the dramatic and secret deals that helped make the war possible and prompted some of the most crucial decisions made during the conflict. Drawing on material available only since the opening of archives in Eastern Europe and Russia, as well as amazing new testimony from nearly a hundred separate witnesses from the period—Rees reexamines the key choices made by Stalin, Churchill and Roosevelt during the war, and presents, in a compelling and fresh way, the reasons why the people of Poland, the Baltic states, and other European countries simply swapped the rule of one tyrant for another. Surprising, incisive, and endlessly intriguing, World War II Behind Closed Doors will change the way we think about the Second World War.


Book Synopsis World War II Behind Closed Doors by : Laurence Rees

Download or read book World War II Behind Closed Doors written by Laurence Rees and published by Vintage. This book was released on 2010-05-04 with total page 466 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: In this revelatory chronicle of World War II, Laurence Rees documents the dramatic and secret deals that helped make the war possible and prompted some of the most crucial decisions made during the conflict. Drawing on material available only since the opening of archives in Eastern Europe and Russia, as well as amazing new testimony from nearly a hundred separate witnesses from the period—Rees reexamines the key choices made by Stalin, Churchill and Roosevelt during the war, and presents, in a compelling and fresh way, the reasons why the people of Poland, the Baltic states, and other European countries simply swapped the rule of one tyrant for another. Surprising, incisive, and endlessly intriguing, World War II Behind Closed Doors will change the way we think about the Second World War.