margaret mead and gregory bateson in a kind of confusing conversation talk about the invention of cybernetics and the early macy meetings, but nevertheless an interesting piece. the macy conferences was a series of elite gatherings of cybernetics research held in the 40s and 50s.

Now, if you say to somebody like that, ‘Why is the trunk of an elephant a nose?’ they can’t tell you without an awful sweat that it’s because it’s between two eyes. The formal-puzzle has never been presented to them.

mead and bateson about the rivals in the group, winner and looser, warren mcculloch and norbert wiener, the term cybernetic, ...

B: It actually existed as a word before Wiener - it’s a nineteenth century word.

SB: Material tools more than conceptual tools.