Cybernetics is often thought of as a grim military or industrial science of control. But as Andrew Pickering reveals in this beguiling book, a much more lively and experimental strain of cybernetics can be traced from the 1940s to the present.The Cybernetic Brain explores a largely forgotten group of British thinkers, including Grey Walter, Ross Ashby, Gregory Bateson, R. D. Laing, Stafford Beer, and Gordon Pask, and their singular work in a dazzling array of fields. Psychiatry, engineering, management, politics, music, architecture, education, tantric yoga, the Beats, and the sixties counterculture all come into play as Pickering follows the history of cybernetics’ impact on the world, from contemporary robotics and complexity theory to the Chilean economy under Salvador Allende.

控制论通常被认为是一门严峻的军事或工业控制科学。但正如安德鲁·皮克林（Andrew Pickering）在这本引人入胜的书中所揭示的那样，控制论的一个更生动、更具实验性的流派可以追溯到20世纪40年代至今。控制论的大脑探索了一批被遗忘的英国思想家，包括格雷·沃尔特、罗斯·阿什比、格雷戈里·贝特森、R.D.莱恩、斯塔福德·比尔和戈登·帕斯克，以及他们在一系列令人眼花缭乱的领域中的独特工作。精神病学、工程、管理学、政治学、音乐、建筑、教育、密宗瑜伽、节拍和六十年代的反文化都在皮克林追踪控制论对世界影响的历史，从当代机器人技术和复杂性理论到萨尔瓦多·阿连德领导下的智利经济。