During the 1950s, a surge of new research describing the electrophysiology of neural communication, behavior, and higher-order mental processes emerged alongside the first electronic, stored-program computers. Growing public consciousness of the affinities between information technologies and minds charged investigations into the nature of brain activity and brought the brain- computer metaphor into circulation. Such research was undertaken in mixed settings that enabled the breakdown of distinctions between describing, modeling, and engineering as styles of thought and practice. In this panel, we explore how these metaphorical affinities galvanized new practices, resulting in a diverse set of approaches that were often mutually incompatible.
Historians of science have long been fascinated by midcentury discourses on the limits of human rationality, or conversely, its extension into the worlds of transistorized circuits and animal behavior. These papers address a range of questions to push such inquiry forward and unsettle existing analytical categories. Where were new disciplinary boundaries drawn or existing ones gerrymandered? What role did new technical expertise, and the actors who bore it, play? What counted as ‘life’ and how did the cognitive order of nature disrupt, reinforce, or re-scale existing hierarchies of natural history? Moreover, how can we frame the lasting legacy of this period of ferment? Pushing at the boundaries of sweeping characterizations like information discourse, neuromolecular turn, and Cold War humanity allows us to re-imagine the practice, politics, and language of the Cold War mind and brain sciences.
