Circuits of Amnesia

Abstract

This article interrogates the relationship between temporality, memory, and reason in cybernetic models of mind to excavate a historical shift in knowledge and governmentality with direct implications for knowledge production in the social sciences. Cyberneticians reformulated ideas of reason to re-imagine both minds and machines as logical circuits. In doing so, early pioneers in neural nets and computing, such as Warren McCulloch, Walter Pitts, and John von Neumann, also created the epistemological conditions that underpin contemporary concerns with data visualization, big data, and ubiquitous computing.