In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:

• Sketches of a Needed Future
• Paul Pangaro (bio)

The Cybernetic Brain: Sketches of Another Future
Andrew Pickering
University of Chicago Press
www.press.uchicago.edu/ucp/books/book/chicago/C/bo8169881.html
536 Pages; Print, $37.00

British Figures of Cybernetics

The Cybernetic Brain: Sketches of Another Future is an ambitious and deep synthesis that conjures a compelling narrative of the early decades of cybernetics. Author Andrew Pickering focuses on certain aspects of cybernetics rather than others, and he asserts that he has captured the essence of the field. He succeeds not by recounting history per se but by focusing primarily on the actions—behaving and building, not thinking and theorizing—of just six great British cybernetic figures, up to the 1970s.

Four of the book's figures are given dedicated chapters: W. Grey Walter, W. Ross Ashby, A. Stafford Beer, and Andrew Gordon Speedie Pask. A further chapter is shared by Gregory Bateson and R. D. Laing.

Illuminating how their work is inextricably linked, one of the book's considerable achievements is the constant inter-weaving of one figure's contribution through the specifics of another's. The result is a tapestry of shared sensibility that is the echoing, foundational story of the book: the "performative ontology" of it all, of cybernetics at its essence. The author thereby makes a compelling argument for where the critical contributions of the field are situated, in its past as well as its possible future. By the end of his journey he becomes a very strong advocate of the field, promoting its promise for a better, needed future.

Why Performative Ontology

Right off in the introduction Pickering clarifies that his book "is intended more as an exploration of cybernetics in action than as collective biography" (emphasis mine). Pickering characterizes cybernetics as a "performative ontology"—that is, rooted in action, whose purpose is to question "what the world is like, what sort of entities populate it, how they engage with one another." He spends most of 400 prodigious pages (not counting extensive notes, bibliography, and index to a total of 536) describing the activities of these cybernetic figures, in their practice of psychiatry or management, or (especially) building cybernetic machines.

In a single paragraph that sweeps through mentions of Buddhism, Willem de Kooning, roboticist Rodney Brooks, Martin Heidegger, and Gilles Deleuze, the author declares that

the appeal of following cybernetics in action is that it enables us to see interconnections between all these traditions, fields, and projects; to pick out their common staging of an ontology of unknowability and becoming; and, indeed, to pick out as resources for the future the strands from these traditions that have this resonance. (emphasis mine)

So, is that what cybernetics is? The efforts of six Brits and an action-oriented ontology? Is it fair to place such emphasis on just these figures? Pickering forefronts "objects and artifacts" and what they embody, above all rumination and understanding, rather than ideas. Where is second-order cybernetics and where is theory? Does this well represent our field?

Pask's Maverick Machines

To keep this review within reasonable length I will direct my deepest scrutiny to Pickering's treatment of Gordon Pask, where I am most knowledgeable. Pask was the poster child of the term "maker" decades before it came into vogue (referring to individuals who tinker with analog or digital computer hardware and software, prototyping their way forward).

Pickering's serious and thorough research is on display in his Pask chapter (though likely more so in his references to Ashby's journals, where he detects important timings and shifts of emphasis in Ashby's career; and, in fairness, to his longest treatment, that of Beer). With respect to Pask's Musicolour, he rightly and explicitly "examines it at some length here, historically, ontologically, aesthetically, and sociologically." Musicolour deserves all of this. Apart from Pask's own account, Pickering's rich coverage of Musicolour is the most complete I have seen.

In operation, Musicolour comprised interactions between a human musician and analog electronic machinery, whose response to the performer was enacted by a bank of lights. Musicolour listened via microphone and responded by varying its lights...

中文翻译：

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未来的草图

代替摘要，这里是内容的简要摘录：

• 未来的草图
• 保罗·潘加洛（生物）

Ť他ç ybernetic乙雨：小号的ketches一个诺特尔˚F uture
皮克林
芝加哥大学出版社
www.press.uchicago.edu/ucp/books/book/chicago/C/bo8169881.html
536页; 印刷，37.00美元

英国控制论人物

《控制论之脑：另一个未来的草图》是一个雄心勃勃而深刻的综合，让人联想到关于控制论早期几十年的令人信服的叙述。作者安德鲁·皮克林（Andrew Pickering）专注于控制论的某些方面，而不是其他方面，他断言自己已经掌握了该领域的本质。他取得成功的方式不是回顾历史本身，而是主要关注直到1970年代仅六位英国控制论人物的行为-行为和建立，而不是思想和理论化。

该书中的四个图分别有专门的章节：W。Gray Walter，W。Ross Ashby，A。Stafford Beer和Andrew Gordon Speedie Pask。格雷格里·贝特森（Gregory Bateson）和RD莱因（RD Laing）分享了另一章。

本书阐明了他们的工作是如何密不可分的联系，这本书可观的成就之一就是通过另一个人的细节不断地编织一个人的贡献。结果就是形成了共同的感悟挂毯，这就是该书的回声基础故事：控制论本质上就是这一切的“表现本体论”。因此，作者就该领域的过去和未来可能做出的重要贡献提出了令人信服的论据。在他的旅程结束时，他成为该领域的坚定拥护者，宣扬了其对更好，需要的未来的承诺。

为什么执行本体

在引言中，皮克林澄清说，他的书“更多地是作为对控制论的探索而不是集体传记”（重点是我的）。Pickering将控制论描述为一种“表演性本体论”，即扎根于行动，其目的是质疑“世界是什么样，什么样的实体在其中生活，它们如何相互影响”。他花了400页的绝大部分篇幅（不包括大量注释，参考书目和索引，总共536页）来描述这些控制论人物的精神病学或治疗，或（尤其是）建造控制论机器的活动。

在对佛教，威廉·德·库宁，机器人学家罗德尼·布鲁克斯，马丁·海德格尔和吉勒斯·德勒兹的提及中，作者宣称

将控制论付诸实践的吸引力在于，它使我们能够看到所有这些传统，领域和项目之间的相互联系；选择他们对不可知和成为本体的共同阶段; 的确，并从这些具有这种共鸣的传统中选出一些作为未来的资源。（强调我的）

那么，这是控制论吗？六位英国人的努力和面向行动的本体论？将这些重点放在这些数字上是否公平？皮克林最先考虑的是“物体和人工制品”及其体现的内容，首先是思考和理解，而不是思想。二阶控制论在哪里，理论在哪里？这是否很好地代表了我们的领域？

帕斯克的特立独行的机器

为了使这篇评论保持在合理的长度内，我将最深入地研究我最有知识的皮克林对戈登·帕斯克的治疗。Pask在成为“时尚”一词的几十年之前就已经成为风靡一时的孩子（指的是那些对模拟或数字计算机硬件和软件进行修补的人，以此作为前进道路的原型）。

皮克林的严肃而透彻的研究在帕斯克一章中得以展示（尽管在他对阿什比期刊的引用中可能更是如此），在那里他发现了阿什比职业生涯中的重要时机和重点转移；公平地说，对他最长的待遇是啤酒）。关于帕斯克的《音乐精神》，他正确而明确地“从历史，本体论，美学和社会学角度对此进行了详细的审查”。Musicolour应该得到所有这些。除了Pask自己的帐户外，Pickering对Musicolour的丰富报道是我所见过的最完整的。

在操作中，Musicolour包含了人类音乐家与模拟电子设备之间的交互作用，后者对表演者的反应是由一排灯来制定的。Musicolour通过麦克风聆听并通过改变其灯光来响应...