| This dissertation seeks to answer the following questions: How do myths we have of science make us see science in a new or different manner; specifically, how do myths make us see issues of control, communication, and the utilization of knowledge in human-machine interactions differently than merely studying these aspects of Cybernetics in a technical manner? In addition, how do these myths explain the gaps between the events and meaning of such events when analyzing these issues? The thesis for this dissertation is therefore the following: How will the placement of the fictive and real story of control and communication between humans and machines---within a mythic framework---make us see these interactions in a different manner than if we had just looked at the events and meaning of these events separately---outside the context of a mythic framework? In the end---utilizing the mechanical man as metaphor and mythic marker---our task will allow us to reconstruct a period of interaction "between a society's practical technology and its intellectual and spiritual culture" (Mayr xvii). Analyzing issues of control, communication and the exchange of knowledge involved in human-machine interactions within a mythic framework will illuminate the values and thought patterns in American society that were affected by this interaction. In addition, we will recognize the precise processes and channels in which this human-machine interaction takes place. While this may appear to be a historical process "which is carried out by its agents largely without conscious awareness," such awareness will be reduced to objective proof by utilizing the real and the fictive within the mythic framework of these interactions (Mayr xvii). Our findings will reinforce and redefine the mythic dimensions of America as the Chosen Nation, Christian Nation, Millennial Nation, and Innocent Nation. |
