Chapter 8 Summary and Analysis

Chapter 8 is called "The Informational Turn (The Basic Ingredient in Building a Mind)." Shannon's information theory drew little attention at first, but received some note in scientific and philosophical journals. One review was written by a man named Norbert Weiner, who claimed that he had developed a similar theory independently of Shannon. In Weiner's view, the theory had implications for the understanding of the human nervous system which might be thought of as a system of switches and signals.

Weiner produced a book in 1948 that coined a new word, "cybernetics" by which he meant a philosophical field that studied communication and control as well as the relationship between humans and machines. Weiner's book was a collection of philosophical musings, Gleick explains, but it came at a time when the first large computers were being unveiled after World War II and curiosity...