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