Darwin Among the Machines: The Evolution of Global Intelligence

320 Pages·2013·2.61 MB·English

by  Dyson George

DARWIN AMONG THE MACHINES
‘Brilliant . . . a wonderfully chewy, nuggety tour of the fields of ideas
behind technological history; and it’s a felt piece of work too’ Francis
Spufford, Literary Review
‘Presenting ideas from 20th-century scientists, as well as from
professional thinkers like Hobbes, Babbage and Leibniz, George
Dyson has come up with a nicely condensed history of the people and
processes that have led to today’s technology’ J. D. Biersdorfer, The
New York Times Book Review
‘A cogent, succinct history of thinkers and thinking that paved the
way . . . to today’s technology’ Katie Hafner, Newsweek
‘George Dyson’s clever, eccentric Darwin among the Machines
brings evolutionary thinking to bear on 21st-century subjects such as
machine intelligence . . . His arguments are subtle and careful’
Maggie Gee, Daily Telegraph
‘Lucid and thoughtful’ Sadie Plant, The Times
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
George Dyson was born in 1953. Through his father, a mathematical
physicist, his mother, a logician, and his sister, a computer industry
analyst, he indirectly witnessed the conjunction of theory, technology
and high finance which precipitated the information age. A kayak
builder and ethnohistorian, his experience in the Canadian and
Alaskan wilderness has sharpened his skills as an observer of the
convergence between technology and living things.
DARWIN
AMONG THE
MACHINES
The Evolution of Global Intelligence
George Dyson
BASIC BOOKS
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New York
Copyright © 1997 by George Dyson
Published by Basic Books,
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First published by Addison-Wesley Publishing Company in 1997.
The woodcut on page 228, from The Famous History of Frier Bacon, 1679, appears by permission of the
Huntington Library, San Marino, California.
Library of Congress Control Number: 2012943208
ISBN 978-0-465-04697-3 (e-book)
10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1
Anything can happen once.
—PHILIP MORRISON
CONTENTS
Preface: Edge of the World
Acknowledgments
1. LEVIATHAN
2. DARWIN AMONG THE MACHINES
3. THE GENERAL WIND
4. ON COMPUTABLE NUMBERS
5. THE PROVING GROUND
6. RATS IN A CATHEDRAL
7. SYMBIOGENESIS
8. ON DISTRIBUTED COMMUNICATIONS
9. THEORY OF GAMES AND ECONOMIC BEHAVIOR
10. THERE’S PLENTY OF ROOM AT THE TOP
11. LAST AND FIRST MEN
12. FIDDLING WHILE ROME BURNS
Notes
Index