Mechanization of the Mind

Dupuy, Jean-Pierre. Mechanization of the Mind. Trans. M. B. DeBevoise. Princeton, NJ: Princeton UP, 2000.

Cited in Miri Nakamura, "Horror and Machines in Prewar Japan: The Mechanical Uncanny in YUMENO Kyûsaju's Dogura magura." See for early history of cybernetics.

From the Amazon.com long blurb:

In March 1946, [...] John von Neumann, Norbert Wiener, Warren McCulloch, and Walter Pitts [among others] gathered [...] with the aim of constructing a science of mental behavior that would resolve at last the ancient philosophical problem of mind and matter. The legacy of their collaboration is known today as cognitive science. Jean-Pierre Dupuy, one of the principal architects of cognitive science in France, reconstructs the early days of the field here in a provocative and engaging combination of philosophy, science, and historical detective work. He shows us how the ambitious and innovative ideas developed in the wake of that New York meeting prefigured some of the most important developments of late-twentieth-century thought. [...]

As Dupuy explains, the founders of cognitive science -- [...] "cybernetics" -- drew passion and energy from two convictions: that the mind operates like a machine and that physical laws explain how nature can appear to have meaning. Armed with these convictions, they laid the foundations not only for cognitive science but also artificial intelligence, and foreshadowed the development of chaos theory, complexity theory, and a variety of other major scientific and philosophical breakthroughs. [...] However, despite their genuine achievements, the cyberneticians had too much confidence in the power of their theories and made serious mistakes that led the next generation of thinkers to ignore their work. The development of a scientific theory of mind was thus significantly delayed.[1]

RDE, Initial compiler, 30May19