Signal: Communication Tools for the Information Age

234 Pages·1988·80.127 MB·English

by  Kevin Kelly

A
Whole Ea•uth
Catalog
Communication Tools for the Information Age
EDITED BY KEVIN KELLY
FORE ORDBY
STEWA T
BRAND
Communication Tools for the
Information Age
EDITED BY KEVIN KELLY
Catalog
A Whole Earth
~
HARMONY BOOKS
Staff gathered on deck, with
two weeks to go 1ill deadline.
Starting with the front row, left
to right: Sally, office dog; Don
Ryan, usually at the other end
of the camera; Susan Erkel
Ryan, resting for a change;
Laura Benne, paste-up
freelancer; Corinne Cullen
Hawkins, researcher on loan
from Whole Earth Review;
Richard Kadrey, with sun
glasses and smirk. In the back
row, same direction: Kevin
Kelly, smiling foolishly (the
book is late); Sally, alta.
Sarah, Vandershaf, smiling
happily (she's done); Sarah
Satterlee, chief of the early
morning shift; Lori Woolpert,
general purpose aide; Kathleen
O'Neill, sole designer of book.
Not present here, but shown
elsewhere: John Chan, paste
upper; David Bumor, master
indexer; Jeanne Carstensen,
midwife of the preliminary
book.
SIGNAL Researchers Far-Ranging SIGNAL
David Finacom Factotum Communication Tools for the Information Age
Editor in Chief Corinne Cullen Dick Fugett
Kevin Kelly Hawkins Copyright © 1988 by Point Foundation
Typesetter
Editors Special thanks to James Donnelly All rights reserved. No part of this book may be
Richard Kadrey Jay Kinney reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any
Circulation
Sarah Satterlee means, electronic or mechanical, including
Stats and Halftones Keith Jordan
Sarah Vandershaf photocopying, recording, or by any information
Marins tat
Promotion storage and retrieval system, without permission
Signal Special in writing from thE publishers.
Literary Agent Richard S<:hauffler
Issue Editor
John Brockman
Jeanne Carstensen EWEC Editor Published by Harmony Books, a division of
Associates
J. Baldwin Crown Publishers, Inc., 225 Park Avenue South,
Designer
Harmony Books New York, New York 10003 and represented in
Kathleen O'Neill Michael Pietsch Canada by the Canadian MANDA Group.
Production Manager Point Board
HARMONY and colophon are trademarks of
Susan Erkel Ryan
POINT Crown Publishers, Inc.
Stewart Brand
Camerawork
Doug Carlston
Don Ryan Bookkeeper Manufactured in the United States of America
Robert Fuller
Cindy Fugett
Pasteup Huey Johnson Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication
Laura Benne Subscriptions Kevin Kellly Data
John Chan Paul Davis Signal : a whole earth catalog.
Includes index.
Proofreaders Office Manager
1. Telecommunication-Apparatus and
Hank Roberts Susan Rosberg supplies-Catalogs. I. Kelly, Kevin, 1948-
Lori W oolpert Assistant Editor TK5103.S49 1988 621.38'0294 88-13165
Indexer Richard Nilsen BOMC offers recordin"s and compact discs, cassettes
and records. For infonc·>ation and catalog write to
DavidBumor
BOMR, Camp Hill, Pi\. 17012.
TABLE OF CONTENTS
2 Operating Instructions 56 Newsletters 110 Body Language 170 Computer News
3 Introduction 57 Self-Publishing 111 Body Circuits 171 Computer Care
58 Desktop Publishing 112 Performance Art 172 Cheap Computers
PRIME INFORMATION 60 Bookmaking 113 Street Performing 173 Used Computers
61 Getting Published 114 Mime 174 Home Office
4 Symbols
62 Independent Publishing 175 Media Rooms
5 Information Theory
63 Alternative Distribution THE AUDIBLE SIGNAL 176 Computers In Nonprofits
6 Cybernetics
64 Alternative Printing 177 Enabling Computers
7 Whole Systems 115 Voicing
8 Self-Organizing Systems 65 Printmaking 116 Public Speaking 178 Robotics
66 Copy Machines 179 Robotic Supplies
9 Cellular Automata 117 Interviewing
67 Xerox Culture 180 The Media Lab
10 Chaos 118 Storytelling
68 Xerox Art 181 Applied Science Fiction
11 Fractals 119 Oral History
13 Artificial Life 120 Listening Skills
NE1WORK SOCIETIES INFORMATION CIVICS
14 Codes 121 Cassette Underground
15 Structure 69 Mail Art 122 Books on Tape 182 Copyright
16 Form 70 Postal Networks 123 Radio Archives 183 Intellectual Property
17 Design Strategies 71 Play-by-Mail Games 124 Music-by-Mail 184 Electronic Democracy
18 Memes 72 Computer Adventure Games 125 Music News 185 Media Culture
19 Computer Viruses 73 The WELL 126 Samplers 186 Demographics
74 Teleconferencing 127 Synthesizers 187 Direct Marketing
THE ORDER OF 75 Notable Networks 128 Music Software 188 Promotion
76 Computer Bulletin Boards 129 Home Recording 189 Marketing
LANGUAGES n
Phreakers 130 Experimental Music 190 Advertising
20 Programming Languages 78 Smart Phones 131 Music Theory 191 Propaganda
21 Programming Tools 79 Voice Mail 132 Environmental Recording 192 Urban Legends
22 Software Architecture 80 On-line Activism 133 lnterspecies Communication 193 Information Bureaucracies
23 Hackers 81 Video-Teleconferencing 134 Sound Libraries 194 Censorship
24 Math 82 Global Communications 135 Sound Landscapes 195 Freedom of Information
25 Statistics 83 Information Highways 196 Counterintelligence Methods
26 Words 84 World Information Economy VISUAL KNOWLEDGE 197 Counterintelligence
27 Semantics 85 Packet Radio 136 Visual Landscape 198 Big Brother
28 Writing 86 Nomadic Networks 137 Remote Imaging 199 Countersurveillance
29 Writing Tools 87 Cellular Radio 138 Mapmaking 200 Information Takeover
30 Word Processors 88 Shortwave Radio 139 Maps 201 Information Imperialism
31 Document Processors 89 Pirate Radio
140 Visual Displays
32 Typography 90 Backyard Satellite TV 141 Graphic Design MIND CIRCUITS
33 Calligraphy 91 Global TV
142 Visual Thinking 202 Societies of Mind
34 Foreign Language Word 92 Low-Powered Broadcasting
144 Art 203 Artificial Intelligence
Processors 93 Interactive Video
145 Art Supplies 204 Mind/Body
35 Foreign Languages 94 Video-by-Mail
146 Drawing 205 Ecology of Mind
36 Other Languages 95 Video Guides
147 Illustration Tools 206 Brain Tuners
37 Journals 96 Video Making
38 Screenwriting 97 Film Making 148 Computer Graphics 207 Human Biocomputer
150 CAD 208 Mind Circuits
39 Interactive Literature 98 Cinematography
151 Image Processing 209 Cognitive Enhancers
99 Animation
152 Comics 210 Mind Chemistry
PUBLISHING FRONTIERS
153 Cartoons 211 Memory
40 'Zines BODILY 154 Visual History 212 Consciousness
41 Magazine Frontiers COMMUNICATION 155 Visual Dictionaries 213 Imagination
42 Reading Skills 100 Presentations 156 Art Reference 214 Creativity
43 Out-of-Print Books 101 Meetings 157 Picture Research 215 Game Playing
44 Research Techniques 102 Workshops 158 Photography Supplies 216 Dreamwork
45 Investigative Journalism 103 Conferences 159 Photography Skills 217 Dreams
46 Independent Scholarship 104 Exhibits 160 Fine Photography
47 Reference Tools 105 Theater 161 Holography GATE5ROAD
4498 CSpitaetcioianlt yIn Ldiebxrainrgie s 106 Acting 162 Fax 218 Gossip
50 Information Brokering 107 Improvisation DIGITAL THINKING 219 Business
108 Directing
51 On-line Searching
52 Clipping Services 109 Dance 163 CD-ROM 220 INDEX
164 HyperCard
53 Alternative News Sources
54 Government Databases 165 Stackware 226 Further
166 Computer Toolbox
55 International News
168 Software
169 Shareware
2 OPERATING INSTRUCTIONS
PURPOSE The listings are continually revised and up outside of the envelope. Writing "mail order"
dated according to the experience and sug or "catalog request" or "subscription order''
W
gestions of Whole Earth Catalog users and staff. will speed your transaction. You can usually
E ARE AS GODS and might as well
Latest news can be found in our magazine, request free information with an inexpensive
get good at it. So far remotely done
Whole Earth Review (seep. 53). post card.
power and glory - as via government, big
business, formal education, church - has
RANGE 2. Expect prices to rise. The prices shown here
succeeded to the point where gross defects
are accurate as of June, 1988. All prices will be
obscure actual gains. In response to this di
T greater if you are ordering outside of the U.S.
lemma and to these gains, a realm of intimate, HIS BOOK LIMITS its investigation to
JL
personal power is developing - the power of all possible tools having infom1ation at
3. Don't order from the excerpts of the cata
individuals to conduct their own education, one end and a grasp at the other. It mnsiders
logs we've reviewed. Catalog prices go out of
find their own inspiration, shape their own any idea that can amplify the reach of per
date quickly. Request their latest brochure to
envimonment, and share the adventure with sonal communication, any science which can
get the latest specifications and prices.
whoever is interested. Tools that aid this intercept the power of larger circuits to redi
process are sought and promoted by this rect its flow toward individuals, and any art
4. Include sales tax if the supplier is in the
version of the Whole Earth Catalog. that can nurture data into information, infor
state you are ordering from.
mation into knowledge, and knowledge
FUNCTION into wisdom.
5. Use the phone. Most companies will be
S happy to bill your credit card if you need
PROCEDURE
IGNAL IS AN EVALUATION and something quickly. Even if you aren't in a
access device. It can help a user dis 0 hurry it's worth a phone call to check prices
cover what is worth getting and how to get it. RDER ITEMS from Signal directly or make sure what you want is in stock. Don't
We're here to point, not to sell. We have no from the supplier or publisher. Do not be shy to make use of a company's 800 toll
financial obligation to any of the suppliers order from us. We sell nothing but informa free number; they have bought one because it
listed. Our only obligation is accuracy for tion. Books can also b·€ ordered from the increases their business.
the reader. We only review stuff we think independent Whole Earth Access Company if
is great. Why waste your time with marked "or Whole Earth Access" beiow the 6. Use International Money Orders (IMOs) to
anything else? book's ordering information. send money abroad. You can get them at the
post office. Don't send a personal check.
An item is listed in Signal if it is deemed: Consider these points of mail order etiquette;
they'll make shopping by mail more pleasant 7. Be patient. It takes at least two weeks for
1. Useful as a tool, for you and the companies you are dealing your goods to arrive; four to six weeks is nor
2. Relevant to independent education, with. mal. Make a photocopy of your order before
3. High quality or low cost, you send it.
4. Easily available, preferably by mail. 1. Write legibly. Say what you want on the
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remember your goal is resolution, not
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T
HE PHRASE "or Whole Earth Access" page number they appear on in Signal. write or call.
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that appears under most book ordering
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order the book or item from the Whole Earth shipped UPS, and UPS does not deliver to stuff just to keep your mailbox full. If some
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outfit inspired by the Whole Earth Catalog but probably worth includiilg a stamped, self
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them as a convenience to our readers, who first two books and 50 cents for each addi fast response.
may want to order multiple books from a tional book, shipped viia post office book rate.
single source instead of dealing with various For orders to developing countries, I:ntema 10. You don't have to buy it. Don't forget
publishers. To order from them: tional Registry Insurance is recommmded. libraries, user groups, and schools. Libraries
That costs an extra $3.60 per order. Remit a can get you most any book in the world
1. Start with the list price (not the postpaid bank draft in U.S. dollars. if you are willing to wait for the inter-library
price). Total the prices of the book(s). Add $3 loan network to do its magic. They also
to each order up to five books, and 50 cents Send orders, or call in with a credit card, have growing collections of 'l!ideos, CDs,
for each additional book for postage. Orders to: and tape cassettes. User groups have massive
over 20 books will be charged actual UPS libraries of pubb e domain software. Many
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2990 Seventh Street classes that afford you a chance to use and
2. Beside listing the title and quantity of Berkeley, CA 94710 try out expensive equipment. And then
books you want, it is helpful to indicate the 800/845-2000; 415/845-3000 there are friends ...
INTRODUCTION 3
A REALM WITHOUT DISTANCE
INTI<~ODUCING
by Stewart Brand
BACK
WHEN tion frontiers as one
the original Whole meta-domain-intri
Earth Catalog was hav cately and subver
ing a heyday in the sively intercon
mid-70s, two products nected. Any tool or
were introduced which skill from one of
we recommended them may inform or
heartily. One was the transfigure any other
Vermont Castings one. With over half
wood stove, the other of the American
was the Apple personal workforce now man
computer. Both cost a aging information for
few hundred dollars, a living, any appar
both were made by and ent drone drudging
for revolutionaries who away on mainstream
wanted to de-institu information chores
tionalize society and might be recruited,
empower the individ via some handy out
ual, both embodied law technique or
clever design ideas and tool, into the holy
good business sense, disorder of hacker
and both became dom. A hacker takes
famous successes. nothing as given,
Stewart works in his boat office, a dry-docked shrimp
everything as worth creatively fiddling
trawler grounded in our waterfront courtyard.
with, and the variety which proceeds
In the summer of 1988 Vermont Castings from that enricheth the adaptivity, resil
cast its last "Defiant" stove i.n response to ience, and delight of us all.
increasing air-quality regulation and Society is led, Buckminster Fuller used to
struggled to keep its competitive position tell us geezers, by design ideas which (Pause for an important distinction .
in a static market. Apple, that summer, emerge in the "outlaw area." That be There is a subspecies of computer hacker
was the design leader of America's prime carne Whole Earth's domain. Some of called "crackers" who use their skills to
"meta-industry'' of personal computers, the outlaw areas we reported on, such as vandalize systems or steal information
its revolution still advancing full tilt, and communes and psychedelic research, for profit. They belong in jail without a
was sitting on a vast cash horde which it were inventive and significant, but short keyboard.)
employed for basic research on equip lived. Some, such as solar energy and
ping a learning world. environmentalist concerns, eventually A "hacker," in the emerging definition, is
went mainstream. And one major area, anyone who pushes the edges of the pos
Pretty obvious lesson: the Vermont Cast communication technology, simultane sible and permissible. In Signal are tech
ings tool manipulated heat, the Apple ously went mainstream and expanded its niques for hacking English, music, audio
tool manipulated informati.on. (So did outlaw edge. cassettes, postcards, rubber stamps,
the Whole Earth Catalog, and that's why video, diagrams, robots, and the nervous
we're still around too, probably.) Information technology is a self-acceler system, to name a fraction of the myriad
ating fine-grained global industry that represented here. In all of these realms
The Whole Earth operation in Sausalito sprints ahead of laws and diffuses be the distance to the edge is not far, and the
these days is in the hands of a new gen yond them. It has done so for twenty distance from one to another is no dis
eration, led by Kevin Kelly (age 36). five years and shows every sign of being tance at all.
Some of the old geezers an~ still on able to keep dodging for another twenty
hand-J. Baldwin, Kathleen O'Neill, Don five, if not indefinitely. Hence Whole The information world is inherently
Ryan, Dick Fugett, Richard Nilsen, David Earth's abiding, and now focussed, inter global, in both senses-all-encompassing
Bumor, and me (enjoying a dignified role est. and planetary. Welcome to a new whole
as editor erneritus)-but the torch has de Earth, whose true-blue image in space
cidedly passed to a fresh band of outlaw Kevin and crew wish to consider the full we are no longer just viewing, but begin
appreciators. gamut of explosively diverging informa- ning to live.
4 SYMBOLS
Man and His Number Words
Symbols and Number
Carl G. Jung Symbols
1964; 320 pp. (A Cultural History
$5.95 of Numbers)
($7.95 postpaid) from: Karl Menninger
Dell Reader Service MIT Press
P.O. Box 5057 Out of print
Des Plaines, IL
60017-5057
Suppose you want to help human communication
or Whole Earth Access
to re-understand itself. So much of that under
standing is wrapped up in numbers that if you
Carl Jung did a nice thing just before he died. He penetrate the one you may have a foothold to
helped with a British effort to bring all of his work tweak the other one onto a new course. Invent
together in one richly illustrated introduction to the language and you invent humans.
breadth of his realm. This book covers his con
cepts of the unconscious, myths, individuation, the This book penetrates numbers.
visual arts, dreams, and analysis. Why aren't all -Stewart Brand
psychology books illustrated?
-stewart Brand
•
The 'fairy
godmother" of many
I vividly recall the case of a professor who had had a
tales is also a
sudden vision and thought he was insane. He came to
symbolic
see me in a state of complete panic. I simply took a 400-
personification of
year-old book from the shelf and showed him an old
the female Self.
woodcut depicting his very vision. "There's no reason for
you to believe that you're insane," I said to him. "They
knew about your vision 400 years ago." Whereupon he
sat down entirely deflated, but once more normal.
•
manifestations are what I call the archetypes. They are
What we properly call instincts are physiological urges, without known origin; and they reproduce themselves in
and are perceived by the sense. But at the same time, any time or in any part of the world-even where
they also manifest themselves in fantasies and often transmission by direct descHnt or "cross fertilization"
reveal their presence only by symbolic images. These through migration must be ruled out.
A bundle of Alpine number billets, small flat sticks some 20 em long
on which are carved the cow-rights to which their owner is entitled;
An Illustrated
the owner's name or syrn bol is on the reverse side. The most ornate
Encyclopaedia of these sticks, the one at the extreme right showing the number 122,
of Traditional gives the total.
•
Symbols
J.C. Cooper With Three a new element appears in the concept of
1978; 208 pp. numbers. 1-You: The I is still in a state of juxtaposition
$12.95 postpaid from: toward the You, but what lies beyond them, the It, is the
Thames & Hudson, Inc. Third, the Many, the Universe .... An old Sakai in
500 Fifth Avenue Malacca, on being E,sked his age, replied, "Sir, I am
New York, NY 10010 three years old." To him 2 was the You, the near and
1-800-233-4830 familiar with which ~ e lives, to which he feels related and
or Whole Earth Access with which he interacts, but this is no longer true of the It,
the 3; for him that is the Many, the Alien, the Unknow
[Above] Shou-lao, Chinese God of
Often I've seen religious or ceremo Longevity, holds the peach of able.
nial art and wondered what a immortality, long life and
particular element stood for. This prosperity in this late 18th-century
fascinating reference will, most soapstone carving. [Right]'Lady If 1~ E_'([_m_JR=_~_~~,
likely, provide an answer-or with an Ermine' by Leonardo. The
several. Each entry guides you from ermine stands for chastity and
the symbol's generally accepted purity-but here the symbolism
may have been double-edged, for Three as the plural in Egyptian: (1) flood= heaven with 3 water jugs;
interpretation to its more specific
the lady is thought to be the (2) water = 3 x wave; (3) 'many' plants = 3 x plant; (4) hair = 3 hairs;
cultural or geographic meaning. The
mistress of Lodovico il Moro, of the Sforza family, and the ermine was their emblem. (5) weep= eye with 'many·(= 3) tears; (6) fear= dead goose with 3
illustrations are rich and varied,
vertical strokes, the genE!ral plural sign, next to the ideogram.
crossing time and continent.
The Egyptian sky
-sarah Satterlee goddess Nut
•
bends over the
world of creation,
Parrot Imitation; unintelligent repetition. ordering all
Chinese: Brilliance; a warning to things and
unfaithful wives. Hindu: An attribute of creating them, Three as the plural in Chinese: (1) forest= 3 x tree; (2) fur = 3 x hair;
Kama, god of love. An oracular and rain while maintaining (3) all= 3 x man; (4) speak endlessly ('much')= 3 x speak (mouth
bringing bird. It had these qualities also her position of from which words emerge); (5) rape= 3 x woman; (6) gallop (ride
in pre-Columbian America. transcendence. 'much') = 3 x horse.
INFORMATION THEORY 5
Godel, Escher, Bach Grammatical Man
Douglas Hofstadter (Information, Entropy, Language,
1979; 777 pp. and Life)
$14.95 Jeremy Campbell
($15.95 postpaid) from: 1982; 319 pp.
Vintage Books $9.95 postpaid from:
Random House Simon & Schuster/Mail Order Sales
400 Hahn Road 200 Old Tappan Road
Westminster, MD 21157 Old Tappan, NJ 07675
1-800-492-0782 (in MD.) 1-800-223-2348
1-800-638-6460
or Whole Earth Access In the age of information it is shocking that there is
so little useful information about information -
The Mind's I how it behaves, what its economics are, indeed,
Douglas R. Hofstadter what it is. A good book on the subject would have
and Daniel C. Dennett to talk about the primary domains of information:
1981; 501 pp. Evolution, genetics, computer programming,
$12.95 Hofstadter's second volume, The Mind's I, as an
entropy, whole systems, and human language.
($14.45 postpaid) from: anthology of essays he co-edits that circles
This book does. It is the only one to encompass
Bantam Books through the apparent paradoxes of conscious
the whole natural ecology of information in a
2451 South Wolf Road ness. Round it goes through children, ant colonies,
readable way.
Des Plaines, IL 60018
and large computers. Parable and fiction lurk in the
-Kevin Kelly
1-800-223-6834
book, about the only animals that can keep a •
or Whole Earth Access
tentative grip on the circulating elusiveness of self-
consciousness. -Kevin Kelly There are probably more than a thousand billion
synapses in the brain, and each one is a kind of coding
station, where signals arrive in the form of bursts of
The subject of the electrical pulses, so many a second, and are translated
first book-and the into chemical signals in the form of very small, separate
"equentpreoccupa packets. Only if a sufficient number of packets accumu
tion of its deities, lates is a critical threshold reached and information sent
across the synaptic gap. The nerve cell on the other side
mathematician Kurt
Godel, artist M. c. of the gap computes the frequency of the arriving
packets and, if the frequency is high enough, fires off a
Escher, composer
signal of its own. This is the means of transmission
J.S. Bach, and writer
along the basic communications channels of the brain.
Lewis Carroll-is The code of the message is changed from electrical to
self-reference, what chemical and then back again to electrical as it moves
•
the author calls from one nerve cell to another. Such a procedure allows
"strange loops" or ''tangled hierarchies." It is the plenty of room for chance to enter, and shows how
domain of extreme paradox, wht:,re math, art, Of course, you can misleading it is to compare the essential processes of
religion (lots of zen in the book, honestly em am afakme iyliaoru rlasenglf uhaegaer •the brain with those of a computer.
ployed), and epistemology collid.;,_ It is the fearless
as pure uninter
exploration of black holes of the' mind.
preted sound if you Indeed, Gregory thinks the perceptual system of the
try very hard, just brain, so active in testing possible answers to a puzzle
Hofstadter set out to make Godel's Incomplete as you can look at set by what the eye sees, is more "intellectually honest"
ness Theorem accessible to the ray thinker, and a windowpane if than the supposedly rational parts of the cerebral cortex.
happily he succeeds in that. Alor·g the way he you want; but you Faced with an ambiguous object or drawing, it will not
illuminates a world of music, mathematics, can't have your fasten on one interpretation and stick to it, unlike the
computer intelligence (and goss,;o), and philos cake and eat it rational mind, which will often espouse a particular
too-you can't hear dogma in politics or religion and refuse to relinquish it,
ophy. The book confirms the suspicion I've had for
the sounds both no matter how impressive the countervailing evidence
years that perhaps the most adv,gnturous and
with and without may be.
fruitful human frontier we have these days is the •
their meanings.
hall of mirrors, Lewis Carroll's looking glass.
And so most of the
-·-Stewart Brand time people hear "How can machines reproduce themselves?" Queen
mainly meaning. Christina of Sweden asked her tutor, Descartes, after he
• For those people informed her that the human body, though not the soul,
who learn a could be explained in mechanical terms. Good question.
Here is a short section of one of thi[J Crab's Genes, language because Three centuries after the Queen asked it, John von
turning round and round. When thEt two DNA strands are of enchantment Neumann suggested an answer. He proposed that in
unraveled and laid out side by side, they read this way: with its sounds, this living organisms, and even in machines, there exists a
... TTTTITTITCGAAAAAAAAA is a bit disappoint "complexity barrier.· Beyond this barrier, where systems
... AAAAAAAAAGCTITTITTIT .... ing-and yet are of a very high complexity, entirely new principles
Notice that they are the same, only one goes forwards mastery of those come into play. It is possible, von Neumann said, for a
while the other goes backwards. Tl'is is the defining sounds, even if one machine to make another machine more elaborate than
property of the form called "crab ca ,,on" in music. It is no longer hears itself once it attains a certain level of organization--once
reminiscent of, though a little different from, a palin them naively, is a beautiful. exhilarating experience. (It it breaks through the complexity barrier. Complexity is a
drome, which is a sentence that reads the same would be an interesting tning to try to apply this same decisive property. Below the critical level, the power of
backwards and forwards. In molecular biology, such kind of analysis to the hearing of music, where the synthesis decays, giving rise to ever simpler systems.
segments of DNA are called "palindromes"-a slight distinction between hearing bare sounds and hearing Above that level, however, the synthesis of more
misnomer, since "crab canon" would be more accurate. their •meanings" is far less well understood, yet seems elaborate systems, under the right conditions, becomes
--Godel, Escher, Bach very real.) -The Mind's Eye explosive.
6 CYBERNETICS
CybernetiC •
American Society for
Cybernetics, Eds. GRELLING'S PARADOX. Call an adjective •autological"
$50/year for 2 issues C y B FRNET!C if it describes itself. "Short" is short, and polysyllabic" is
and membership polysyllabic, so "short" and "polysyllabic" are autological.
Back issues worth ordering: Let "heterological" mean "not autological". "Long and
$10; Vol. 1, Issue 1; "monosyllabic" are heterological. Is "heterological"
1985; 147 pp. heterological?
$15; Vol.. 2, Issue 1;
1986; 80 pp.
American Society for
Cybernetics
c/o Department of
Engineering Management
Old Dominion University
Norfolk, VA 23529-0248
Cybernetics is a very loose approach to an even
looser subject: the understanding of whole The old epistemology implies that the
system, psyche, family structure, the gene
systems. The closer one comes to the core of a
-what have you, contains or creates the
large system, the more it appears to be a hall of
problem. The new epistemology implies
mirrors, vanishing into self-reference. Nothing
that the problem creates the system.
governs it, everything governs it.
Repeat that, underline that. The problem
creates the system. The problem is
This infrequent magazine stalks whole understand whatever the origional distre1ss consisted
ing through a path of the heart. Contributors have of, plus whatever the distress, on its merry
no idea what they are hunting for, only that it is as way through the world, has managed to
large and ungraspable as spirit. stick to itself. The problem is the meaning
- Kevin Kelly system created by the distress, and the
• treatment unit is everyone who is
contributing to that meaning system.
A subtle thing happens when everything is visible: the -Cybernetic II
display becomes reality.- David Canfield Smith
-Cybernetic I
•
Cybernetics of edition was brougi1t out for the Cybernetic
Cybernetics Systems Program at SJSU in a reduced size
The old idea of treating a psychiatric symptom was
based on the medical notion of curing a part of the body. Heinz Von Foerster, Editor format but is still n?adable.
The illness was in some spatially-defined, out there, unit. 1974, 1986; 523 pp. -Eiin Whitney Smith
We can no longer say that it is in the family, nor is it in $17.50 [Suggested by Rodney Donaldson]
•
the individual. It is in the heads or nervous systems of ($20.50 postpaid) from:
everyone who has a part in specifying it. Spartan Book Store
Customer Service 0. What is Cyberneti:::s?
San Jose State University A. I would like to call Cybernetics an offer.
San Jose, CA 95191 Q. What does Cybernetics offer?
408/924-1800 A. Cybernetics offerE access to and interaction with
complex systems in order that they may appear simple;
This book was originally made possible through a to and with apparently simple systems in order that their
grant from the Point Foundation, and like most of complexity may be revealed. (B. Rebitzer)
•
the things which are influenced by the Whole Earth
folks it's eclectic, interesting, not as polished as it
The gentleman with the bowler hat insists that he is the
might be and a trifle uneven. In other words,
sole reality, while evE?ry
human and exciting. It started as a year long thing else appears only
(1973-74) class project at the Biological Computer in his imagination.
Lab at the University of Illinois at Urbana. The However, he cannot
students collected articles, definitions, word deny that his imaginary
universe is populated
pictures called "conceptu;;rl entailment structuresn
with apparitions that are
and lumped them together with pictures, and
not unlike himself.
photographs and called it a book. Articles range Hence, he has to
from classics to student pieces, but the author concede that they them
index reads like a who's who in information and selves may insist that
cybernetics: Ross Ashby, Gregory Bateson, they are the sole reality
and everything else is
Stafford Beer, Stewart Brand, Jurgen Habermas,
only a concoction of
Garrett Hardin, Ivan 11/ich, John Lilly, Humberto
Figure 3: The observer by stepping in the synaptic gap their imagination. In that
Maturana, Warren Mcculloch, Gordon Pask, Bill
defmes his or her domains of distinctions as the envi case their imaginary
ionment of the nervous system. For the observer there Powers, G. Spencer-Brown, Francisco Varela, universe will be
is a flower in the environment; for the dynamics of sta· Heinz Von Foerster and Norbert Wiener to name a populated with
tes of the nervous· system as a closed neuronal network
few. Unfortunately the students were experiment apparitions, one of
there is no flower, only a synaptic gap that is not a gap.
The structures of the environment that the observer sees ing and placed the Table of Contents and the which may be he, the
constitute only orthogonal perturbations for the sensors, Index in the center of the book making it hard to gentleman with the
not an input to the dynamics of states of the nervous bowler hat. (Heinz Von
system. Arrows like in Fig. A. use. I've marked my pages with a marker which Foerster)
eases but doesn't solve the problem. The new
WHOLE SYSTEMS 7
B: Promise
Understanding It should be no surprise, then, that the area in
which artificial intelligence has had the greatest
Computers
difficulty is in the programming of common
and Cognition
sense. It has long been recognized that it is
Terry Winograd and much easier to write a program to carry out
Fernando Flores B: Reject abstruse formal operations than to capture the
1987; 207 pp. A: Withdraw common sense of a dog. This is an obvious
$12.95 postpaid from: A: Reject consequence of Heidegger's realization that it
/
Addison-Wesley B: Withdraw is precisely is our "ordinary everydayness" that
Publishing Co. Inc. we are immersed in readiness-to-hand. A
1 Jacob Way 8 methodology by which formally defined tasks
Redding, MA 01867 can be performed with carefully designed
1-800-447-2226 Figure 5.1: The basic conversation for action representations (making things present-at
hand) does not touch on the problem of
What does it mean to understand :;omething? blindness. We accuse people of lacking
This books tries to understand unc1erstanding. properties, and relations among them. It therefore common sense precisely when some representation of
- Kevin Kelly embodies the blindness that goes with this articulation. the situation has blinded them to a space of potentially
relevant actions.
[Suggested by J'oel Trachtenberg]
•
• If we look at intelligence in a broader context, however,
the inadequacies of a program with built-in permanent
blindness begin to emerge. The essence of intelligence A major goal of frame formalisms was to represent
Living systems are cognitive systems, and living, as a
process, is a process of cognition. Thi:; statement is is to act appropriately when there is no simple pre 'defaults': the way things are typically, but not always.
valid for all organisms, with and witho1.1t a nervous definition of the problem or the space of states in which For example we might want to include the fact "Dogs
to search for a solution. bark" without precluding the possibility of a mute dog.
system .
•
Systemantics understanding a colossal system-you can't, 2)
If we turn to computer systems, we s•:··3 that for different
realize you CAN change a system-by starting a
people, engaged in different activities, the existence of (The Underground Text
objects and properties emerges in diff,~rent kinds of of Systems Lore: How Systems new one, and 3) flee from starting new systems
breaking down. As I sit here typing a craft on a word Really Work and How They Fail) they don't go away.
processor, I think of words and they appear on my John Gall -Kevin Kelly
screen. There is a network of equipm;:,nt that includes 1986; 319 pp.
my arms and hands, a keyboard, and many complex $14.95 postpaid from:
devices that mediate between it and a screen. None of General Systemantics Press
this equipment is present for me excHpt when there is a 3200 W. Liberty Road
breaking down. Ann Arbor, Ml 48103
• or Whole Earth Access
Reflective thought is impossible withollt the kind of The pun in the title carries the important message
abstraction that produces blindness. The program is that systems have "antics"-they act up, misbe
forever limited to working within the w'lrld determined by have, and have their own mind. The author is
the programmer's explicit articulation llf possible objects, having fun with a serious subject, deciding rightly
that a sense of humor and paradox are the only
means to approach large systems. His insights
Continuing the Conversation come in the form of marvelously succinct rules of
thumb, in the spirit of Murphy's Law and the Peter
Greg and Pat Williams, Editors. $8/yE: 1r (4 issues) from:
Principle. This book made me 1) not worry about
Hortideas, Route 1, Box 302, Gravel Switch, KY 40328
606/332-7606. COMPLEX SYSTEMS EXHIBIT UNEXPECTED BEHAVIOR.
Continuing the conversation begun by the late
•
Gregory Bateson, biologist, anthropologist,
psychologist, epistemologist, and teacher. To him,
We begin at the beginning, with the Fundamental
these thickets of knowledge were~ sub-circuits in a
Theorem: New systems mean new problems.
larger loop which he helped identrfy--cybernetics. •
His finished work is frozen in boo,l:s (seep. 205);
his unfinished cybernetics is warmly pursued in this The system always kicks back-Systems get in the
chummy, and sometimes acaden;ic, newsletter. way-or, in slightly more elegant language: Systems
- Kevin Kelly tend to oppose their own proper functions .
• •
DOLPHINS HAVE NO HANDS. Having no hands, they Systems tend to malfunction conspicuously just after
have not been able to change the wodd around them, so their greatest triumph. Toynbee explains this effect by
perhaps the effort that humans being:; have put into pointing out the strong tendency to apply a previously
civilization and the "taming" of the nalural world has successful strategy to the new challenge. The army is
been put by dolphins into changing themselves. If now fully prepared to fight the previous war.
•
something is amiss the human urge t· as been to fix
something else, not oneself. This is ''' lot more difficult if
you have no hands to do the fixing, :;o when something A complex system that works is invariably found to have
evolved from a simple system that worked. The parallel
is amiss in the dolphin world ... do cl::>lphins "fix"
proposition also appears to be true: A complex system
themselves instead? Might dolphin l<1.1guage provide a
designed from scratch never works and cannot be made
contrasting mode of communication 1'l set up against the
to work. You have to start over, beginning with a working
subject/predicate structure of human language?
-Janie Matrisciano WHEN BIG SYSTEMS FAIL, THE FAILURE IS OFTEN BIG. simple system.