The mid-century science of control and communication in machine and organism — the MIT-era work on feedback and computation that Cameron and Bob treat as the technical undercurrent of McLuhan's electric age. It reaches McLuhan through Giedion, drives the most active form of the drama of cognition, and is named as the making of the digital world. Start with dialogue 03 for its transmission to McLuhan, dialogue 05 for its stakes.
Across the dialogues
Enters as the active, "aggressive" automation behind the drama of cognition
Cybernetics enters as the active edge of the drama of cognition — put to work in computers and military equipment, an "aggressive" automation rather than mere sleepwalking.
"in cybernetics and in the use of the drama of cognition in computers and then especially in military equipment"
Placed at MIT as the work Giedion tuned McLuhan into
Cameron locates the source — through Giedion, McLuhan knew the cybernetics work being done at MIT, and knew the computer was its key.
"he knew about all of the work on cybernetics that was being done at MIT."
Weighed for its stakes — human beings assuming responsibility for their fate
Cameron weighs the stakes — cybernetics forces the question of humans, at a new depth, assuming responsibility for their own fate.
"The implications that are involved in cybernetics. What happens when human beings at a much deeper level than ever happened before begin to assume responsibility for their fate,"
Named as the making of the digital world
Bob names cybernetics as the origin of the digital world — the MIT scientists of the late '50s and early '60s who "began to make" it.
"They began to make the digital world. Cybernetics."
Pinned to its source — McLuhan reaching for the Macy seminars
Cameron pins a source behind a "half sentence" of McLuhan's — cybernetics and the Macy seminars, organic process brought within technological means.
"McLuhan was probably thinking of cybernetics, was probably thinking of the Macy seminars,"
Connections
Cameron sets cybernetics behind the drama of cognition's most active form — automation in computers and military equipment.
Giedion is McLuhan's conduit to the cybernetics work being done at MIT, alongside Karl Deutsch.
Bob names cybernetics as the making of the digital world — the MIT scientists who "began to make" it.
The limit is what defeats the Shannon pipeline model of communication — as A approaches B, there is no carrying across.
The MIT mathematician who founded cybernetics — the body of work that reaches McLuhan in the early 1950s through the Giedion and Theall channels.