Epstein Secrets

n Turing wondered what it would take for machines to become intelligent. John von Neumann wondered what it would take for machines to self-reproduce. Claude Shannon wondered what it would take for machines to communicate reliably, no matter how much noise intervened. Norbert Wiener wondered how long it wo

Shannon, and Marshall McLuhan, all of whom had currency in the New York art circles in which I was then moving. In particular, Cage had picked up on McLuhan’s idea that by inventing electronic technologies we had externalized our central nervous system—that is, our minds—and that we now had to presume tha

, “A Scientist Rebels,” Zhe Atlantic Monthly, January 1947. 31 Warren Weaver, “Recent Contributions to the Mathematical Theory of Communication,” in Claude Shannon & Warren Weaver, The Mathematical Theory of Communication (Urbana, IL: University of Illinois Press, 1949), p. 8 (emphasis in original). Shan

s of Curating and Lives of the Artists, Lives of the Architects. In the Introduction to the second edition of his book Understanding Media, Marshall McLuhan noted the ability of art to “anticipate future social and technological developments.” Art is “an early alarm system,” pointing us to new development

n Turing wondered what it would take for machines to become intelligent. John von Neumann wondered what it would take for machines to self-reproduce. Claude Shannon wondered what it would take for machines to communicate reliably, no matter how much noise intervened. Norbert Wiener wondered how long it wo

Shannon, and Marshall McLuhan, all of whom had currency in the New York art circles in which I was then moving. In particular, Cage had picked up on McLuhan’s idea that by inventing electronic technologies we had externalized our central nervous system—that is, our minds—and that we now had to presume tha

, “A Scientist Rebels,” Zhe Atlantic Monthly, January 1947. 31 Warren Weaver, “Recent Contributions to the Mathematical Theory of Communication,” in Claude Shannon & Warren Weaver, The Mathematical Theory of Communication (Urbana, IL: University of Illinois Press, 1949), p. 8 (emphasis in original). Shan

s of Curating and Lives of the Artists, Lives of the Architects. In the Introduction to the second edition of his book Understanding Media, Marshall McLuhan noted the ability of art to “anticipate future social and technological developments.” Art is “an early alarm system,” pointing us to new development