- H.U.O.H. -

After Dr, Wiener wrote Cybernetics, he was introduced to the idea that, because almost no one could actually understand what he had written, maybe he should write another one that was not quite as math intensive, which he did.


That book is - the Human use of Human Beings.  Interesting thing for me is that you could spend just a lot of time thinking about the title, without ever reading the book.

Moving On:    The book itself is a great deal easier to read of course without the math stuff, but, it is still very challenging.   Cybernetics was the attempt to create a new " field " of science, something like a cross between biology and electrical engineering, I think, but at least in my mind it never " took off " that way.  The word is still around and used from time to time.

What is most interesting about the Human Use of Human Beings is the concern that it contains about the future use of electronic computing machinery, and to be brief - it does not contain a lot of  " how wonderful " that future will be, but very concerned about the effects this equipment would have to societies at large.

But if any generation ever had it's nose into it --- it's this one.

I will get into more of his concern on this - but I wanted to mention one very important concept he brings up - which is - the difference between consistency and truth.   This is a very interesting concept - you can see that in the age of  "systems " this is a big concern - because when a system is created - consistency is one of the " keys " to it being accepted or/and a success.

Now how this relates to truth - becomes very interesting - because quite simply, a system
developed on false premises may be consistent - but not " helpful " in the long term
because it does not produce "honest" results.

Do in fact, systems of this type exist currently ???