Gordon Pask: An Approach to Cybernetics (1961/1968)

“This book is not for the engineer content with hardware, nor for the biologist uneasy outside his specialty; for it depicts that miscegenation of Art and Science which begets inanimate objects that behave like living systems. They regulate themselves and survive: They adapt and they compute: They invent. They co-operate and they compete. Naturally they evolve rapidly.

Pure mathematics, being mere tautology, and pure physics, being mere fact, could not have engendered them; for creatures to live, must sense the useful and the good; and engines to run must have energy available as work: and both, to endure, must regulate themselves. So it is to Thermodynamics and to its brother SUM(p) log p, called Information Theory, that we look for the distinctions between work and energy and between signal and noise.

For like cause we look to reflexology and its brother feedback, christened Multiple Closed Loop Servo Theory, for mechanical explanation of Entelechy in Homeostasis and in appetition. This is that governance, whether in living creatures and their societies or in our lively artifacts, that is now called Cybernetics.

But under that title Norbert Wiener necessarily subsumed the computation that, from afferent signals, forecasts successful conducts in a changing world.

To embody logic in proper hardware explains the laws of thought and consequently stems from psychology. For numbers the digital art is as old as the abacus, but i came alive only when Turing made the next operation of his machine hinge on the value of the operand, whence its ability to compute any computable number.

For Aristotelian logic, the followers of Ramon Llull, including Leibniz, have frequently made machines for three, and sometimes four classifications. The first of these to be lively computes contingent probabilities.

With this ability to make or select proper filters on its inputs, such a device explains the central problem of experimental epistemology. The riddles of stimulus equivalence or of local circuit action in the brain remain only as parochial problems.

This is that expanding world of beings, man-made or begotten, concerning which Ross Ashby asked, ‘How can such systems organize themselves?’ His answer is, in one sense, too general and its embodiment, too special to satisfy him, his friends or his followers.

This book describes their present toil to put his ideas to work so as to come to grips with his question.” (Warren S. McCulloch, Preface)

With a preface by Warren S. McCulloch
Publisher Hutchinson & Co, London, 1961
This edition March 1968
ISBN: 0090868102, 0090868110
128 pages
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James Vogel, Nevin B. Scrimshaw: The Commodore 64 Music Book. A Guide to Programming Music and Sound (1984)

Are you interested in electronic music? Do you dream of playing “Rhapsody in Blue” … without a piano? You can … with THE COMMODORE 64 MUSIC BOOK. It will teach you to play your Commodore 64 as a musical instrument, and you’ll pick up profes sional programming skills along the way. THE COMMODORE 64 MUSIC BOOK is designed for people with little or no programming experience. It includes the fundamental techniques of musical composition, programming in BASIC, and electronic sound synthesis. All of the instructions are in practical step-by-step language, and are geared to teach, rather than train by rote. With THE COMMODORE 64 MUSIC BOOK, you can learn to compose music, write advanced programs, and enjoy the sheer pleasure of creation. Praised by Popular Computing for “simulating the sounds of acoustic instruments better than any other personal computer,” the Commodore 64 is an exciting addition to electronic musicology. With THE COMMODORE 64 MUSIC BOOK you can play too … from a simple one-voice tune, to a complex multi-instrumental score. Consider the possibilities! So, give Gershwin your best… with THE COMMODORE 64 MUSIC BOOK!

Publisher Birkhauser Verlag AG, 1984
ISBN 3764331585, 9783764331580
146 pages

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Albrecht Betz: Hanns Eisler, Political Musician (1976/1982)

Eisler’s role in German music is similar to that of Brecht in German literature and the two men worked together for nearly thirty years. Together with Webern and Berg, Eisler is considered one of the three great pupils of Schoenberg. Albrecht Betz divides Eisler’s life and music into four periods. The early formative period as student of Schoenberg includes compositions written in Vienna up to 1925. From 1926 to 1933, the second period, Eisler lived in Berlin and made his greatest impact with his political vocal music. The third phase of Eisler’s life, fifteen years of exile, was spent principally in the USA, and the fourth (from 1948) in East Germany. The author shows how Eisler is distinguished from other great twentieth-century composers in his belief that music had a social function, and how he liberated modern music from what he and others felt was its isolation. Originally published in German in 1976, this English edition is illustrated with music examples and includes a complete list of works, and a bibliography which has been adapted for the English-speaking reader.

Originally published in German as Hanns Eisler, Musik einer Zeit, die sich eben bildet by Edition text und kritik GmbH, Munich 1976
Translated by Bill Hopkins
Publisher Cambridge University Press, 1982
ISBN 0521240220, 9780521240222
326 pages

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