The Cybernetics Era and Cold War Military Strategy - Essay Example

Module ‘The Cybernetics Era and Cold War Military Strategy’ Introduction: In the book ‘Digital Culture’ the Charlie Gere highlights the importance of the digital culture and thus put light on the history of digital development in the society. Gere actually try to explore the rapidly changing media of digital culture. In the initial part of the book ‘Digital Culture’, Gere provide a deep overview of the capitalistic move of machinery and the management towards the digital revolution. The theories of the father of information technology, Claude Shannon, are also a part of the discussion of the digital culture. Shannon has worked hard on reducing the noise factors in the digital devices and thus minimizing the redundancies. All of the current technological digital devices are based on the theories of Shannon (Gere, 2008). Shannon was the connection with the structuralism of the digital culture. After his theory presentation and successful achievement, many other information technology experts took over the stage from him. We are living in the digital culture where everything is changing at a faster pace and thus we cannot do anything rather just wait and watch the inventions of the technology and infact of the digital culture. The book ‘Digital Culture’ truly highlights the importance of the related fields of the information technology. Therefore, we can support the argument of Charlie Gere, he says that most of the people are of the opinion that actually digital technology or the information is the product of the digital culture. Contrary to this point of view, Gere says that actually information technology is the result of the digital culture. The idea of advancement in the routine life is not a new rather the devices or the tools and the medium may have been changed.  Main Discussion about the Second Chapter (The History of Cybernetics): In the second chapter of this book, Gere is basically telling about the history of the relationship between the humans and the machines with the help of information technology. A famous author has defined this era as the control of the communication between the animals and the machine. Different authors have termed this controlling of mutual relationship between the humans and the machines as the cybernetics. Gere also supports the development of computers as the cybernetics era and thus give his reasoning that why he thinks the cold war era was supposed to a development in technology era. Cybernetics actually follows the implementation of the rules and the directions of the communication between the duo parties. The cybernetics era starts from the Second World War, after which the binary digital computer was invented. This invention was very much influential on the digital culture of that particular era because it was a result of hard works. That particular and especially basic electronic computer helped a lot in the research process for the further modifications of the digital culture. After that, there comes the theory of information technology, which was presented by Shannon, who was the main person behind the idea of communication using the digital technologies. After that, he researched and worked very hard to invent such theories, which can modify the ways and mediums of communication by the help of digital technologies. After the successful development of the ideas, he presented all the ideas in a collective form in his book ‘A Mathematical Theory of Communication’ in the year of 1949. The main contribution of the Shannon’s communication theory was the streamline communication process. The elements of this communication process are source of the message, encoder for the message, channel or the medium to transmit they message, decoder device, and at the end there is message destination. At that particular time, telephone was the true depiction of this streamline communication process. Not only telephone but also television, radiography and several other mechanical devices are actually based upon this Shannon’s theory of mathematics. During the communication process, Shannon gave the concepts of noise, redundancy and the entropy; all of these factors are very much important and can even distort the streamline process of communication. Cybernetics era also focused on the importance of the information. There was an invention of s shot gun, which can predict the path of a plane. This means that there is an important role of information in the application of the digital technologies. Another high point of the cybernetics era is the meeting or we can say conference, which was held in 1942. Many of the physicists, mathematicians, physiologists and engineers were present in this Cerebral Conference. The main discussion during this conference was about the behavior and the effects of the technology. It is very much clear that cybernetics deals with the communication between the people and the technology, therefore it is necessary to analyze the effects of the digital cultures and the modifications on the people. The development of the inventions of the cybernetics era, really appreciated the developments in many of the other fields of life. At that time, many of the biologists were trying to use these digital technologies in their works and researches. It means that at that time, the cybernetics was very influential and we should say beneficial for the people and the society. At that time, the inventions of the technology were very much helpful to explore more about the life of the people. Another major achievement of that cybernetics era is the study of human DNA strand and its composition. It is clear that this DNA study could be impossible without the help of the digital culture. This series of development is not just confined to the cybernetics era rather it was the starts and after that, there is continuous development in almost every field of life. Another biggest achievement of the cybernetics era was the automation of the warfare tools and equipments. The military forces used the power of cybernetics not just to model the situations rather to develop their equipments also. The main thinking behind the involvement of the machines in the warfare equipment was to regularize and make the process more efficient. According to the military officers, there will be moiré efficient war equipments if there is involvement of mechanics in it. Therefore, the American military funded maximum for the research process to find out the best possible ways for the automation of their particular tools and equipments. At that time, it seems that Military forces are the biggest customers of the cybernetics because they were really in search of finding any ways of the development of their procedures (pg 66). We can say that there is no field of life, where there is less involvement of information technology in its developmental process. The post WWII era as the cold war came up with the redefinition of the computing using the computer researches. Conclusion: The history of the digital revolutions depicts the fact that the digitalization revolutions are not at all a new thing for the society. Rather the man is trying his best to modify every possible thing using the technology. The medium of technology may differ in different eras of the life still the concept of modifications is same. For this reason, we can track the roots of the digitalization in the decades back when first machine was interacted with the human being. After the Second World War, the very first electronic and digital binary computer system was invented and this was the actual start of the cybernetic era. The basic idea of involving the digital technologies in the communication processes is presented by Shannon. These ideas were collectively presented in his final book in 1949 that was named as ‘A Mathematical Theory of Communication’. The most successful invention of the Shannon in this era of cybernetics was the streamline communication process, which was truly depicted in the case of a telephone. Radiography, televisions, telephones and many other similar mechanic devices are actually based on Shannon’s principal.  Cybernetic era’s inventions are mainly affected by three factors, which are noise, redundancy and the entropy. The scientists of the cybernetics’ era were concerned about the effects of the technological revolutions on the human beings and the society. After seeing the development of the cybernetics in the mechanical fields, many other scientists especially biologists tried their best efforts to use the technological advancement. In other words, we can say that the Gere’s point of view regarding the cybernetics era is true and it is really a true support to digital culture by promoting it in almost every major field of life like mechanics and biology etc. All the systematic discussion of the chapter may provide a proof that cybernetics era actually was a foundation of the digital culture. At that particular time, the evidences of all the involvement of the computers in the different fields is exactly depicted by the Gere’s writings. In short we can say that the opinion of Gere regarding the development of information technology from the digital culture is not just a lame story rather the evidences support this claim. The claim of the writer is entirely based on the historical development of the life from IT perspective.  A press conference for what is considered the first computer, the Electronic Numerical Integrator and Calculator (ENIAC), was held at the University of Pennsylvania on February 1, 1946. The machine (shown here with a technician) took up an entire room, weighed 30 tons and used more than 18,000 vacuum tubes to perform functions such as counting to 5,000 in one second. ENIAC, costing $450,000, was designed by the U.S. Army during World War II to make artillery calculations. The development of ENIAC paved the way for modern computer technology–but even today’s average calculator possesses more computing power than ENIAC did. (Chill Out Point - Funny image galleries and artwork, 2014) The above image paved way to the first electronic and digital binary computer depicting the start of the cybernetic era. This relates to the time after World War II.  References Top of Form Top of Form Top of Form Top of Form Chill Out Point - Funny image galleries and artwork,. (2014). Old Photos of the First Generation Of Computers. Retrieved 29 November 2014, from http://www.chilloutpoint.com/featured/old-photos-of-the-first-generation-of-computers.html Gere, C. (2008). Digital culture. London: Reaktion Books. Bottom of Form Bottom of Form Bottom of Form Bottom of Form Read More