OUT OF CONTROL - The New Biology of Machines
Kevin Kelly chronicles the dawn of a new era in which the adaptability and autonomy of living organisms become the model for human made systems and machines – everything from telecommunications to manufacturing processes, drug design and the global economy.
The book was originally titled, Out of Control, The New Biology of Machines, and was first
published in the United States in 1994 by Addison Wesley Inc. It was first
published in Great Britain in 1994 by Fourth Estate Limited. The first
paperback edition was published in 1995.
The original book frontispiece read : -
OUT
OF CONTROL
Kevin Kelly, executive editor of Wired, lives in Pacifica, California. Formerly publisher and editor
of Whole Earth Review, he has been
instrumental in helping launch a number of cultural innovations: The Hackers
Conference; Cyberthon, the first virtual --reality jamboree; and the WELL,
model way- station on the information superhighway. He is a feedback freak. His
E-mail coordinates are:kk@well.com. For slo-mo communication, use 19 Amapola
Avenue, Pacifica, California, 94044.
Special
Note written by David Bannister, DMB Publishing.
I purchased my paperback copy of Out of Control from a
second hand bookshop in Cheltenham, England for £2.49 in 2005. I read it cover
to cover and was exposed to multiple epiphany and serendipity moments with
these type of experiences not normally triggered by reading a Popular Science
paperback.
But one question that remains a mystery to me was why it
got named “Out of Control” when in fact it was all about being “Under Control”.
In fact I believe the tagline of “The New Biology of Machines” better
represents its contents indicating man made machines are now acquiring
biological attributes and capabilities.
The endorsements on the back pages of the book listed
below hardly do it any justice but they are quoted below for completeness:-
“A fascinating, entertaining book.” – New Statesman & Society.
“Extraordinarily thoughtful, thought provoking,
futuristic.” – Spectator.
“Out
of Control is an astonishingly ambitious extrapolation
from now, Read it for yourself.” – iD
“An engaging non-stop tour of the high – tech ecological
consciousness of the 1990’s” – TLS
“Conveys
brilliantly the end-of-the-millenium excitement felt by many….a joy to read,
both for its detail and for the enlivening impression it provides.” – Financial Times
“Touching on the frontiers of the most exciting science
and technology of our age, Kelly’s book is by turns fascinating, entertaining
and awe-inspiring” - Focus
So
why publish a book summarising the contents of Out of Control?
Well I completely missed the publication of Out of
Control in 1994. How widely it was publicised or reviewed in 1994 I am not
sure. It certainly never came on to my radar. I suspect the followers of Kevin
Kelly would have been alerted to its release and no doubt they would have purchased
copies. Once I had acquired my second hand copy in 2005 and read it through it
became a firm favourite of mine. From time to time I would pick it off the
bookshelf and re-read a chapter for both the pure pleasure and the new perceptiveness
it always generated. A habit of mine was to underline in pencil parts of the
text I found to be most interesting. This allowed me when re-reading to just
pick out the most salient points making the most effective use of my available
time. One of the advantages of buying second hand books is there is no
hesitation in doing such pencil mark ups whereas I am less inclined to do so on
a brand new book. This became a habit over a number of years whereby I would just
pick up the book from my study shelf and just read for a chapter the underlined
parts of text to get an instant dose of Kevin Kelly’s wisdom.
When I retired in 2016 I started to think about how I
could get Kevin Kelly’s book back into the public domain so others could gain
the pleasure I got from reading it. It also made me appreciate the outstanding
value that could still be gleaned from reading Kevin Kelly’s work 30 years after
it had been first written. In many cases what had been purely futurist at Kevin
Kelly’s time of writing was now evolving in some areas to become a reality whilst
the traction in other areas he predicted would see growth starting to fade or completely stop.
Because Kevin was a brilliant story teller and scene
setter often these stories remained stored in my memory dependant on the
remembering of the story rather than the pure facts. Whilst he still used facts
and figures to reinforced the subject being communicated. Because of his enormous
network of publishing contacts he was readily able to introduce you to these experts
in their specific fields whilst being able to narrate both their views and
ideas. In 1994 many of these were to become the inventors or investors behind
these concepts, ideas or products so it was a pure first hand narrative from
these original knowledge sources. This was priceless in itself since it was
often documenting elements of technological history in their early development
stages.
Kevin Kelly had his own sort of bohemia come Californian
new age style of communicating by immersing his facts into this blanket of
atmospherics. He was also inclined to jump in a random way across what some
writer’s would have defined as subject boundaries. It is acknowledged that most
really creative writers will often work this way as they rush to get their inner
thoughts documented before they are lost. But sometimes this jumping makes it difficult
for the reader to fully grasp the message being communicated. Whilst subsequent
editing would normally take out this randomness it sometimes makes it more
interesting to leave it in place. Although this editor has attempted to
maintain logical pathways.
So with all this marking up of key text now in my
possession how could I try to regenerate an interest in Out of Control in 2023. Would it lend itself to being a relevant
piece of work now that technology had or had not moved forward in the
intervening approximately 30 years since Kevin Kelly first narrated it and
committed it to paper.
So did I intend to just blog it free to a random readership?
Or put it behind a digital pay wall? Or create an eBook? Or create a paperback?
Then how should it be presented. It was Kevin’s creativity and work effort not
mine. All the underlined text would be shown as a quote from the Out of Control book with the relevant
page number recorded. Copyright would always be attributed to Kevin Kelly. On my behalf no
attempt at any form of plagiarism. Kevin Kelly would have to be contacted and
approve the approach before any sort of release to the public. David Bannister, the author and publisher, acknowledges and respects all Legal Copyrights. For my part I
would interject infrequently talking to the reader directly if I felt some
directional narrative from me might aid increased understanding. But my most
important added narrative would be a brief synopsis at the end of each chapter
where I would attempt to simply summarise the subject matter in the chapter.
This would be my only written contribution to the book.
So why do it? Firstly it revives interest in written
narrative, however old, adding value to a new readership thereby extending human
knowledge. Secondly it stops the loss of excellent intellectual material and
importantly pays tribute to what an exceptional thinker is Kevin Kelly. Thirdly
it will hopefully regenerate interest in these areas by other researchers and
authors. Fourthly it supports the building up of knowledge in these
increasingly relevant biological areas of advancement. Fifthly it might just
kick start a biological revolution in 2023 in all the directions covered by
Kevin Kelly achieving what I might call a 5th Industrial
(Biological) Revolution.
To me it only adds real value if it kick starts some real
activity resulting in a change of concept, service or product that uses some
biological tenet defined within this particular summary of Out of Control.
To add further value to the above please make use of
these relevant internet links.
Biography of Kevin Kelly
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kevin_Kelly_(editor)
Out of Control Summary
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Out_of_Control_(Kelly_book)
The Whole Earth Review
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Whole_Earth_Review
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_WELL
The Wired Magazine
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wired_(magazine)
The Linnaean Enterprise
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Linnaean_enterprise
No comments:
Post a Comment