Closed World : Computers and the Politics of Discourse in Cold War America

by Paul N. Edwards

• ISBN13: 9780262550284
• ISBN10: 0262550288
• Edition: Reprint
• Format: Paperback
• Copyright: 1997-08-01
• Publisher: Mit Pr

Summary

The Closed Worldoffers a radically new alternative to the canonical histories of computers and cognitive science. Integrating political, cultural, and technological history, it argues that we can make sense of computers as tools only when we simultaneously grasp their roles as metaphors and political icons. In this extended exploration of the relations of science and engineering to the evolution of modern society, Paul Edwards argues that what people have said, thought, and experienced through computers-as reflections of the nature of their minds; as solutions to political, commercial, and military problems; as icons of rationality-is as significant as anything computers have actually accomplished. Social and cultural context has shaped the growth of computer technology as much as it has been shaped by it.

Table of Contents

Preface

Acknowledgments

"We Defend Every Place": Building the Cold War World

Operation Igloo White

The Postwar World as a Closed System

Characterizing the Closed World

Turing's Machines

Cyborgs

Cyborgs in the Closed World

Tools, Metaphors, and Discourse

What Are Computers?

Tools as Metaphors

Concepts of Discourse

Wittgenstein: Language-Games and Meaning as Use

Foucault and the Idea of Discourse

Discourse: Technology as Social Process

Why Build Computers?: The Military Role in Computer Research

The Background: Computers in World War II

Vannevar Bush: Creating an Infrastructure for Scientific Research

The ENIAC Project

Directing Research in the Postwar Era

Transference and Apocalypse

American Antimilitarism and a High-Technology Strategy

Support for Research and Development

The Military Role in Postwar Computer Research

Consequences of Military Support

Why Build Computers?

Analog vs. Digital: Computers and Control

Computers Take Command

Sage

Whirlwind and the Trek from Analog to Digital Control

Computers for Command and Control

Mutual Orientation: Constructing the Future

Cold War Politics, Strategic Doctrine, and Air Defense

"Prompt Use"

"A Dangerous Complacency": Resisting Air Defense

From Whirlwind to SAGE

Converting the Air Force to Air Defense

Centralizing Command, Mechanizing Control

Technological and Industrial Influences of Sage

Technology

Industry

SAGE as Political Iconography

Strategy and Automated Command

Conclusion

From Operations Research to the Electronic Battlefield

Operations Research, Systems Analysis, and Game Theory at Rand

Systems Analysis, Strategy, and Technology

Rand and Computer Science

Robert McNamara, Systems Analysis, and Military Management

The Office of Systems Analysis

Military Management: Integrating the Armed Services

Command and Control

Computers as Icons

Vietnam

Computers and the "Production Model of War"

On the Electronic Battlefield

Conclusion

Interlude: Metaphor and the Politics of Subjectivity

Politics, Culture, and Representation

The Power of Metaphor

Computers as Metaphors

Entailments of Computer Metaphors

Other Metaphors for the Mind

Subject Positions and Cyborg Discourse

"Objects to Think With"

The Machine in the Middle: Cybernetic Psychology and World War II

Psychology as Power/Knowledge

Cognitivism, Behaviorism, and Cybernetics

Cybernetics: The Behavior of Machines

Psycho-Engineering

The Macy Conferences

The First Meeting: Computers as Brains

Exploring the Metaphor

Challenges to Computational Metaphors

Vision as Tracking and Targeting

Project X: Noise, Communication, and Code

The Chain of Command

Noise, Communication, and Cognition

The Psycho-Acoustic Laboratory and the Problems of Noise

The Chain of Communication

Language Engineering

The Systems Research Laboratory

The Postwar Era

Psychoacoustics and Cognition: George A. Miller

Language and Communication

Bringing Information Theory to Psychology

A Cognitive Paradigm

Plans and the Structure of Behavior

The Center for Cognitive Studies

Conclusion

Constructing Artificial Intelligence

From Cybernetics to AI: Symbolic Processing

The Turing Machine

Symbolic Computing: Levels of Description

Writing Programs, Building Levels: Programming and Symbolic Computing

Intelligence as Software

The Dartmouth Conference

Time-Sharing: Linking AI to Command and Control

The Advanced Research Projects Agency

"Man-Computer Symbiosis"

The Information Processing Techniques Office

Conclusion: The Closed World and the Cyborg

Computers and Politics in Cold War II

The Era of Detente

Cold War Redux

Computers and War in the 1980s

The Return of Military-Led R&D

Computer Failure and Nuclear Anxiety

The Dangers of Complexity

SAGE Reborn: The Strategic Defense Initiative

The Strategic Computing Initiative

Artificial Intelligence

Battlefield Technology

Strategic Computing and Star Wars

Resealing the Dome: AI and the Closed World

Minds, Machines, and Subjectivity in the Closed World

In the Theater of the Mind: Fiction and Cyborg Subjectivity

Closed Worlds

Green Worlds

"More Human than Human": Second Selves

Fictional Closed Worlds in the Early Cold War

Fail-Safe

Dr. Strangelove

l2001 A Space Odyssey

Colossus: The Forbin Project

Cyborg Subjectivity in the 1980s

War Games

Tron

Cyborgs in the Green World: The Star Wars Trilogy

Star Wars as Green-World Drama

Machine Subjectivity in the Green World

Rehabilitating the Cyborg

Conclusion: Recombinant Theater in Blade Runner and Neuromancer

Blade Runner

Neuromancer

Epilogue: Cyborgs in the World Wide Web

The Persian Gulf War

Neural Networks and AI

Terminator 2: Judgment Day

Notes

Index

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