Between 1946 and 1953 ten conferences under the heading Cybernetics. Circular Causal and
Feedback Mechanisms in Biological and Social Systems were held. Sponsored by Josiah Macy Jr.
the so-called Macy Conferences mark perhaps the most important event in the history of science
after WW II. Using new terms such as information feedback and analogical digital as starting
point the participants tried to develop a universal theory of regulation and control that
would be applicable to living beings as well as to machines to economic as well as to mental
processes and to sociological as well as to aesthetical phenomena. These concepts permeate
thinking in such diverse fields as biology neurology sociology language studies computer
science and even psychoanalysis ecology politics and economy. They marked the epoch-making
changes from thermodynamics to cybernetics (Wiener) from the disciplinary to control society
(Deleuze) and from the industrial to information society (Lyotard).The Macy Conferences are of
special historical scientific value since they do not deal with completed texts yet but rather
with interdisciplinary negotiations about an emerging epistemology. This edition contains the
complete transcription and protocols of all Macy Conference contributions.
