BEGIN:VCALENDAR PRODID:-//Columba Systems Ltd//NONSGML CPNG/SpringViewer/ICal Output/3.3- M3//EN VERSION:2.0 CALSCALE:GREGORIAN METHOD:PUBLISH BEGIN:VEVENT DTSTAMP:20260731T094851Z DTSTART:20261126T130000Z DTEND:20261126T150000Z SUMMARY:Ghost in the Machine: The Battle for the Human Mind UID:{http://www.columbasystems.com/customers/uom/gpp/eventid/}w30-ms8rfs6 y-gfo8pv DESCRIPTION:Meat the Machine:\n\nor\, the Hidden History of Cybernetics a nd the Possible Futures of Humans\n\nA series of nine monthly seminars a t the University of Manchester exploring the rich and vibrant history of the radical science of cybernetics\, and the potentially profound impli cations of this hitherto occluded history for our shared socio-technical futures.\n\nAll events will run from 13:00 to 15:00 and will be hosted at the University of Manchester.\n\nRegistration & event details: https: //www.eventbrite.co.uk/e/meat-the-machine-or-the-hidden-history-of-cyber netics-the-possible-futures-tickets-1995079941812\n\n1. Fire and Ice: Th e Conception\, Birth and Infancy of Cybernetics.\n\n24 September 2026\nI n 1948 Norbert Wiener published Cybernetics: or Control and Communicatio n in the Animal and the Machine. To the amazement of its author and publ isher alike\, the book became an instant bestseller and spawned a global intellectual movement that helped shape the world we inhabit today. The connection between cyber and Cybernetics is far more than merely nomina tive.\n\n\n2. Those Serendipitous Mavericks: The Ratio Club and early Br itish Cybernetics.\n\n29 October 2026\nImmediately after the publication of Cybernetics\, a group of ambitious young British life-scientists\, m athematicians\, engineers\, and physicists formed a dining and discussio n club centred on the radical ideas in Wiener’s book. Alan Turing was a member of the Ratio Club\, and his intersection with cybernetics and the Club’s members was central to his later thought.\n\n\n3. Ghost in the M achine: The Battle for the Human Mind.\n\n26 November 2026\nFrom the out set\, Wiener’s contemporaries understood that his new science of cyberne tics exposed humanism\, if not humanity\, to mortal peril. In Britian pa rticularly\, cybernetics ignited a heated philosophical debate between m ental vitalism and mechanism that was fought out across the mass media\, and which drew Alan Truing onto the public stage to openly defend his s cientific heresy.\n\n\n4. The Spectre of Automation: Robots in the New J erusalem.\n\n28 January 2027\nThe contemporary impact of Wiener’s ideas spread far beyond the resurrection of Descartes’s ghost. In Britian and America alike Cybernetics raised the prospect of economic automation and the societal scale replacement of human labour\, cognitive as well as m uscular\, from speculation to imminent fact. For some\, this promised th e final defeat of Malthus\, for others it portended a decline to decaden ce.\n\n\n5. “It’s alive!”: Prometheus\, Frankenstein\, and the Cyborgs.\ n\n25 February 2027\nIn 1960\, Nathan Kline\, a psychiatrist\, and Manfr ed Clynes\, an engineer\, gave their paper on “Drugs\, Space\, and Cyber netics: Evolution to Cyborgs” to the Conference on the Psychophysiologic al Aspects of Space Flight at the School of Aerospace Medicine at Brooks Air Force Base in America. Thus was the cyborg born from science not fi ction\, and with it Mary Shelly’s dire prophecy rose again.\n\n\n6. The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Intergalactic Network: The real origins of the Internet.\n\n18 March 2027\nCybernetics spread across the entire spectr um of American intellectual life\, including the deep enclaves of the mi litary-industrial-academic complex. Here it found expression not just in the foundational technical architectures of the experimental computer n etwork that became the Internet\, but also in the ideas its makers had a bout what it could become.\n\n\n7. A Tale of Beer\, Chile\, and Syn: Cyb ernetics in the service of socialism.\n\n20 April 2027\nIn the early 197 0s Stafford Beer\, an early and key British cyberneticist\, was invited to Chile by the young technocrat Fernando Flores. Beer’s task was to imp lement the ideas of cybernetics in a system that would enable the govern ance and regulation of Chile’s economy and society in accordance with th e socialist principles of Salvador Allende’s government. The CIA had oth er ideas.\n\n\n8. Algorithms against Neurons: The great schism between A I and cybernetics.\n\n27 May 2027\nThe American mathematician John McCar thy is generally credited as the creator of AI. However\, what is less w ell known is why he came to this creation in the first place. McCarthy’s convocation of the Dartmouth Summer Research Project on Artificial Inte lligence in 1956 was his conscious commencement of a deliberate yet cove rt schism between his new discipline of AI and cybernetics\, the consequ ences of which continue to be felt today.\n\n\n9. Transcendence or Termi nation?: Cybernetics\, transhumanism\, and the future.\n\n24 June 2027\n According to the nineteenth century Russian Orthodox philosopher Nikolai Fyodorov\, the answer to the question of the meaning of life was the co nquest of death. For Fyodorov and his followers\, humanity had been gran ted the gift of science by God so as to attain immortality and colonise space. Fyodorov’s cosmism now sits alongside Wiener’s cybernetics in the form of transhumanism that pervades the modern culture of Silicon Valle y.\n\nConnect with the Centre for Digital Trust and Society:\n\nThe Cent re for Digital Trust and Society organises the DTS Guest Seminar Series and is a focal point for research across the University of Manchester th at explores aspects of trust and security in our digital world. The Cent re is part of Digital Futures\, a highly interdisciplinary network which operates across the whole range of the University of Manchester's digit al research.\n\nAbout Digital Futures:\n\nDigital Futures is a highly in terdisciplinary network that operates across the whole range of the Univ ersity’s digital research. We aim to present a coherent overview of The University of Manchester's digital research activity to external stakeho lders and bring together research communities to explore new research ar eas and address strategic opportunities.\n\nConnect with us:\n\nX: twitt er.com/DigitalUoM\n\nBlue Sky: bsky.app/profile/digitaluom.bsky.social\n \nLinkedin: linkedin.com/showcase/digital-futures-at-the-university-of-m anchester\n\nWebsite: digitalfutures.manchester.ac.uk\n\nNewsletter: tin yurl.com/digitalfuturesuom STATUS:TENTATIVE TRANSP:TRANSPARENT CLASS:PUBLIC END:VEVENT END:VCALENDAR