Resources Related to Patrick Gunkel and Ideonomy
Below you'll find a selection of Patrick Gunkel’s writings as well as references to Gunkel that appeared over the decades.
These references aren't comprehensive; they're just a starting point for discovering other stuff.
**There's no relationship between Patrick Gunkel and David J. Gunkel, a researcher and writer on AI and robot ethics with Northern Illinois University.**
- Original Gunkel archival material - We are making efforts to digitize and make available original Gunkel materials from a personal collection as well as from various archives. All materials are discussed first in the newsletter, then posted here. (Link)
- GGRP Projects:
- Newsletter - GGRP's weekly newsletter on Gunkel and ideonomy. (Link)
- Press - This imprint will release related books, translations, and ephemera. *COMING SOON* (Internal Link)
- Labs - Our experimental app and web development concern. (Internal Link)
- Papers and Texts - A growing list of peer-reviewed academic publications. (Internal Link)
- Grace Kind — Machine learning researcher Grace Kind has done a great service by creating text-searchable versions of Gunkel's core ideonomy manuscripts on her website. She has also hyped Gunkel on Bluesky. Gunkel would have been over the moon at this attention! (Link)
- MIT's Ideonomy Website — Throughout the late 1990s and early 2000s, Gunkel worked with MIT professor Whitman Richards to put the Ideonomy Project's materials online. The website contains a large portion of Gunkel’s ideonomy materials but not all of them. (Link)
- News Coverage — David Stipp, Wall Street Journal science writer, penned a compelling 1987 article after visiting Gunkel in Austin. Soon after, Austin writer Jo Zarboulas spent time with Gunkel and wrote an article about him on spec. Her article was never published, but she sent it to Gunkel, who transcribed the article by hand and posted it on the MIT website. (Link)
- Marvin Minsky in The Emotion Machine — Renowned MIT AI researcher Marvin Minsky, who met Gunkel in December 1970, included his long-time friend in the Acknowledgements section of his career capstone book alongside more well-known names such as Carl Sagan, Isaac Asimov, and Richard Feynman. (Link)
- Charles Van Doren in A History of Knowledge — Van Doren was a long-time editor for the Encyclopedia Britannica. In the Acknowledgements section of Van Doren’s 1992 career capstone book, Van Doren recorded a debt to “Patrick Gunkel, the inventor of ideonomy and my friend of two decades.” (Link)
- MIT Distinctive Collections — Wheaton College (MA) biology professor Betsey Dexter Dyer, a longtime friend of Gunkel, donated all of the materials Gunkel had given her to MIT, where an archive for Gunkel has been established. (Link)
- Professor Om Gnawali's Share Drive — During the late 1990s, Whitman Richards asked Om Gnawali, a graduate student at MIT, to work with Gunkel to digitize some of his early writings and ideonomy materials. These include Gunkel’s “brain book”; his early writings on space, progress, and the future of cities; and his failed collaboration on AI with Hudson Institute manager Anthony Wiener. None of these writings have ever been appropriately analyzed in an academic context.(Link)
- “Telepresence” — This June 1980 article by Marvin Minsky in OMNI Magazine credits Gunkel with coining the term “telepresence” to describe remote-controlled tools. Minsky calls Gunkel his “futurist friend.” (Link)
- Computer Scientist Stephen Wolfram's Recollection of Gunkel — Stephen Wolfram published a memorial piece for MIT computer scientist Ed Fredkin in August 2023. Wolfram mentions ideonomy and shares anecdotes, including an email from Fredkin about Gunkel. (Link)
- Patrick Gunkel’s Obituary (Martha’s Vineyard Gazette) — The Vineyard Gazette’s obituary, dated March 28, 2017, provides a number of anecdotes and well-wishes that help illuminate Gunkel’s story. (Link)
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