Macy conferences

The Macy Conferences were a set of meetings of scholars from various disciplines held in New York by the initiative of Warren McCulloch and the Josiah Macy, Jr. Foundation from 1946 to 1953. The principal purpose of these series of conferences was to set the foundations for a general science of the workings of the human mind.

It was one of the first organized studies of interdisciplinarity, spawning breakthroughs in systems theory, cybernetics, and what later became known as cognitive science.

Overview

The Macy Conferences were organised by the Josiah Macy, Jr. Foundation, motivated by Lawrence K. Frank and Frank Fremont-Smith of the Macy Foundation. by the American Society for Cybernetics, retrieved 15 April 2008 The participants were leading scientists from a wide range of fields. Casual recollections of several participants stress the communicative difficulties in the beginning, giving way to the gradual establishment of a common language powerful enough to communicate the intricacies of the various fields of expertise present.

The scientists participating in all or most of the conferences are known as the "core group." They include:

• William Ross Ashby; psychiatrist and a pioneer in cybernetics
• Gregory Bateson; anthropologist, social scientist, linguist, visual anthropologist, semiotician and cyberneticist
• Julian Bigelow; pioneering computer......
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