Summary Man-Computer Symbiosis - Observatory

heterogeneity can be submitted to disassembly, reassembly, investment, and exchange.
In communications sciences, the translation of the world into a problem in coding can
be illustrated by looking at cybernetic (feedback-controlled) systems theories applied to
telephone technology, computer design, weapons deployment, or data base construction
and maintenance. In each case, solution to the key questions rests on a theory of language
and control; the key operation is determining the rates, directions, and probabilities
of flow of a quantity called information. The world is subdivided by boundaries
differentially permeable to information. Information is just that kind of quantifiable
element (unit, basis of unity) which allows universal translation, and so unhindered
instrumental power (called effective communication). The biggest threat to such power
is interruption of communication. Any system breakdown is a function of stress. The
fundamentals of this technology can be condensed into the metaphor C31, command-
controlcommunication-intelligence, the military's symbol for its operations theory.
In modern biologies, the translation of the world into a problem in coding can be
illustrated by molecular genetics, ecology, sociobiological evolutionary theory, and
immunobiology. The organism has been translated into prob-lems of genetic coding and
read-out. Biotechnology, a writing technology, informs research broadly. In a sense,
organisms have ceased to exist as objects of knowledge, giving way to biotic
components, i.e., special kinds of information-processing devices. The analogous moves
in ecology could be examined by probing the history and utility of the concept of the
ecosystem. Immunobiology and associated medical practices are rich exemplars of the
privilege of coding and recognition systems as objects of knowledge, as constructions of
bodily reality for us. Biology here is a kind of cryptography. Research is necessarily a
kind of intelligence activity. Ironies abound. A stressed system goes awry; its
communication processes break down; it fails to recognize the difference between self
and other...
…Microelectronics mediates the translations of labour into robotics and word processing,
sex into genetic engineering and reproductive technologies, and mind into artificial
intelligence and decision procedures. The new biotechnologies concern more than human
reproduction. Biology as a powerful engineering science for redesigning materials and
processes has revolutionary implications for industry, perhaps most obvious today in