The Human Use of Human Beings cont'd ...

[Dave Monroe]

... more from Norbert Wiener, The Human Use of Human Beings: Cybernetics
and Society (New York: Anchor, 1954 [1950]) ...

The gap bewteen the Gibbs-Lebesgue way of thinking and Freud' intuitive
but somewhat discursive method is too large.  Yet in ther recognition of
a fundamental element of chance in the texture of the universe itself,
these men are close to one another and close to the tradition of St.
Augustine.  For this random element, this organic incompleteness, is one
which without too violent a figure of speech we may consider evil; the
negative evil which St. Augustine characterizes as incompleteness,
rather than the positive malicious evil of the Manicheans. (11)

...the fundamental unity of a complex of ideas which until recently had
not been sufficiently associated with one another, namely, the
contingent view of physics that Gibbs introduced as a modification of
teh traditional, Newtonian conventions, the Augustinian attitude toward
order and conduct demanded by this view, and the theory of the message
among men, machine, and in society as a sequence of events in time
which, though it itself has a certain contingency, strives to hold back
nature's tendency toward disorder by adjusting its parts to various
purportive ends. (27)

The scientist is always working to discover the order and organization
of the universe, and is thus playing a game against the arch enemy,
disorganization.  Is this devil Manichean or Augustinian?  Is it a
contrary force oppsed to order or is it the very absence of order
itself?  The difference between the two sorts of demons will make itself
apparent in the tactics to be used against them.  The Manichean devil is
an opponent, like any other opponent, who is determined on victory and
will use any trick of craftiness or dissimulation to obtain this
victory.  In particular, he will keep his policy of confusion secret,
and if we show any signs of beginning to discover his policy, he will
change it in order to keep us in the dark.  On the other hand, the
Augustinian devil, which is not a power in itself, but the measure of
our own weakness, may require our full resources to uncover, but when we
have uncovered it, we have in a certain sense exorcised it, and it will
not alter its policy on a matter already decided with the mere intention
of confounding us further.  The Manichean devil is palying a game of
poker against us and will resort readily to bluffing; which, as von
Neumann explains in his Theory of Games ... (34-5)

Compared to this Manichean being of refined malice, the Augustinian
devil is stupid.  He plays a difficult game, but he may be defeated by
our intelligence as thoroughly as by a sprinkle of holy water. (35)

As to the nature of the devil, we have an aphorism of Einstein's ....
"The Loord is subtle, but he isn't simply mean."  Here the word "Lord"
is used to describe those forces in nature which include what we have
attributed to his very humble servant, teh Devil, and einstein means to
say taht these forces do not bluff.  When Faust asked Mephistopheles
what he was. Mephistopheles replied, "A part of that force which always
seeks evil and always does good."  In other words, teh devil is not
unlimited in his ability to deceive, and the scientist who looks for a
positive force determined to confuse us in the universe which he is
investigating is wasting his time.  Natureoffers resistance to decoding,
but it does not show ingenuity ... (35-6)