Norbert Wiener: God and Golem, Inc.: A Comment on Certain Points Where Cybernetics Impinges on Religion (1964–) [EN, RU, ES, RO]

“In this book, Norbert Wiener concerns himself with major points in cybernetics which are relevant to religious issues.

The first point he considers is that of the machine which learns. While learning is a property almost exclusively ascribed to the self-conscious living system, a computer now exists which not only can be programmed to play a game of checkers, but one which can “learn” from its past experience and improve on its own game. For a time, the machine was able to beat its inventor at checkers. “It did win,” writes the author, “and it did learn to win; and the method of its learning was no different in principle from that of the human being who learns to play checkers.

A second point concerns machines which have the capacity to reproduce themselves. It is our commonly held belief that God made man in his own image. The propagation of the race may also be interpreted as a function in which one living being makes another in its own image. But the author demonstrates that man has made machines which are “very well able to make other machines in their own image,” and these machine images are not merely pictorial representations but operative images. Can we then say: God is to Golem as man is to Machines? in Jewish legend, golem is an embryo Adam, shapeless and not fully created, hence a monster, an automation.

The third point considered is that of the relation between man and machine. The concern here is ethical. “render unto man the things which are man’s and unto the computer the things which are the computer’s,” warns the author. In this section of the book, Dr. Wiener considers systems involving elements of man and machine.

The book is written for the intellectually alert public and does not involve any highly technical knowledge. It is based on lectures given at Yale, at the Société Philosophique de Royaumont, and elsewhere.”

Publisher MIT Press, 1964
ISBN 0262730111, 9780262730112
ix+95 pages

Publisher

God and Golem (English, 1964, updated on 2021-4-8)
Tvorets i robot (Russian, trans. M.N. Aronz and R.A. Fesenko, 1966, DJVU, added on 2021-4-8)
Dios y Golem (Spanish, trans. Javier Alejo, 1967, EPUB, added on 2021-4-8)
Dumnezeu şi Golem (Romanian, trans. Edmond Nicolau and Lucia Nasta, 1969, added on 2021-4-8)

Manuel DeLanda: Intensive Science and Virtual Philosophy (2005)

Intensive Science and Virtual Philosophy cuts to the heart of the philosophy of Gilles Deleuze and of today’s science wars. At the start of the 21st Century, Deleuze is now regarded as the most radical and influential of contemporary philosophers. Yet his work is widely misunderstood and misinterpreted. In this already classic work Manuel DeLanda does what the growing host of Deleuzians have falled to do – he makes sense of Deleuze for both analytic and continental thought, for both science and philosophy.

Publisher Continuum International Publishing Group, 2005
ISBN 0826479324, 9780826479327
232 pages

wikipedia
google books

PDF (updated on 2012-7-17)

Thomas S. Kuhn: The Structure of Scientific Revolutions (1962–) [EN, IT, ES, BR-PT, RU, GR, CZ, CR, CN, RO]

“The Structure of Scientific Revolutions is an analysis of the history of science. Its publication was a landmark event in the sociology of knowledge, and popularized the terms paradigm and paradigm shift.

Kuhn’s approach to the history and philosophy of science has been described as focusing on conceptual issues: what sorts of ideas were thinkable at a particular time? What sorts of intellectual options and strategies were available to people during a given period? What types of lexicons and terminology were known and employed during certain epochs? Stressing the importance of not attributing modern modes of thought to historical actors, Kuhn’s book argues that the evolution of scientific theory does not emerge from the straightforward accumulation of facts, but rather from a set of changing intellectual circumstances and possibilities. Such an approach is largely commensurate with the general historical school of non-linear history.”

Publisher University of Chicago Press, 1962
Third edition, 1996
ISBN 0226458083, 9780226458083
212 pages

Wikipedia
Publisher (EN)

The Structure of Scientific Revolutions (English, 3rd ed., 1962/1996; updated on 2015-7-10)
La struttura delle rivoluzioni scientifiche (Italian, trans. Adriano Carugo, 2nd ed., 1969, DJVU)
La estructura de las revoluciones cientificas (Spanish, trans. Agustin Contin, 1971/2004)
A estrutura das revoluções científicas (Brazilian Portuguese, trans. Beatriz Vianna Boeira and Nelson Boeira, 5th ed., 1975/1998)
Struktura nauchnykh revolutsiy (Russian, trans. I.Z. Naletov, 1975/2003, DJVU)
Η δομή των επιστημονικών επαναστάσεων (Greek, trans. Β. Κάλφας, 1997)
Struktura vědeckých revolucí (Czech, trans. Tomáš Jeníček, 1997)
Struktura znastvenih revolucija (Croatian, trans. Mirna Zelić, 2nd ed., 2002)
科学革命的结构 (Chinese, 2003)
Structura revoluțiilor științifice (Romanian, trans. Radu J. Bogdan, 2008)