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| Out of Control: The New Biology of Machines, Social Systems, & the Economic World |  | Author: Kevin Kelly
Publisher: Basic Books
Category: Book
List Price: $22.95
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Rating:  50 reviews
Sales Rank: 66,152
Media: Paperback
Pages: 528
Number Of Items: 1
Shipping Weight (lbs): 1.3
Dimensions (in): 9 x 6.3 x 1.1
ISBN: 0201483408
Dewey Decimal Number: 570
EAN: 9780201483406
ASIN: 0201483408
Publication Date: April 14, 1995
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Amazon.com Review
In many ways, the 20th century has been the Age of Physics. Out of Control is an accessible and entertaining explanation of why the coming years will probably be the Age of Biology -- particularly evolution and ethology -- and what this will mean to most every aspect of our society. Kelly is an enthusiastic and well-informed guide who explains the promises and implications of this rapidly evolving revolution very well.
Product Description
In a book about the marriage of the born and the made--the biologicalization of everything from computers to government--the executive editor of Wired chronicles the dawn of a new era in which the machines and systems that dri ve our economy are so complex and autonomous as to be indistinguishable from living things.
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| Customer Reviews:
Showing reviews 1-5 of 50
 Perhaps the most important book of the 90s August 23, 2006
Chris Anderson (Berkeley, CA United States)
30 out of 32 found this review helpful
Why are the three most powerful forces in our world--evolution, democracy and capitalism--so controversial? Hundreds (in the case of democracy, thousands) of years after they were first understood, we still can't quite believe these three phenomena work. Socialist Europe resists capitalism, the religious right in America questions evolution and the Middle East makes a mockery of democracy. When you think about it, it's easy to understand why: all three are radically counterintuitive. "One person, one vote?" What if they vote wrong?
But that's the problem--we're thinking about it. Our brains aren't wired to understand the wisdom of the crowd. Evolution, democracy and capitalism don't work at the anecdotal level of personal experience, the level at which our story-driven synapses are built to engage. Instead, they're statistical, operating in the realm of collective probability. They're not right--they're "righter". They're not predictable and controllable--they're inherently out of control. That's scary and unsettling, but also hugely important to understand in a world of increasing complexity and diminishing institutional power (mainstream media: meet blogs; military: meet insurgency).
Fortunately, this book that makes sense of all of this. Out of Control was first published in 1994, well before its time, but it's one of those rare books that sells better each year it gets older. That's because Kelly recognized that the messy markets of natural selection, enlightened self-interest and invisible hands all anticipated the Internet and the delights of watching peer-to-peer cacophony create the greatest oracle the world has ever seen. Some of the examples may be a bit dated a dozen years later, but the message has only become more true: "There is no central keeper of knowledge in a network, only curators of particular views," he writes. The emergent mob wisdom of the blogosphere and Wikipedia were unimaginable then, but somehow Kelly imagined them all the same. This may be the smartest book of the past decade.
Co-Evolution of Man and Machine April 17, 2000
Robert D. Steele (Oakton, VA United States)
20 out of 22 found this review helpful
Kevin has produced what I regard as one of the top five books of this decade. A very tough read but worth the effort. I had not understood the entire theory of co-evolution developed by Stewart Brand and represented in the Co-Evolution Quarterly and The Whole Earth until I read this book. Kevin introduces the concept of the "hive mind", addresses how biological systems handle complexity, moves over into industrial ecology and network economics, and concludes with many inspiring reflections on the convergence of biological and technical systems. He was easily a decade if not two ahead of his time.
Highly recommended for anyone interested in the future. March 5, 1999
15 out of 16 found this review helpful
Love this book. A great introduction to a world of ideas and concepts about evolution and technologies that are already shaping our (near) future. Horizon-expanding ideas--indeed, the chapter on Borges Library literally had my brain "buzzing" with activity and a restless night of wild dreams on the subject. As the author states himself, he does not write or develop anything new, rather, he creates exposure to the fascinating work of others. Though it is not difficult or dry, the entire book is concepts--not for someone looking for a light novel.
A mind-expanding ride March 25, 2000
Craig Webster
20 out of 23 found this review helpful
This book is a fascinating roller-coaster ride through a host of emerging technologies which will no doubt have an influence on all our futures. Kevin Kelly demonstrates quite convincingly how the technological is becoming more biological. Artificial intelligence, robotics and our knowledge of ants and bees has produced insect-like robots capable of smart collective behaviour. Genetics, evolutionary theory and massively parallel connectionist machines (the fastest computers on the planet) are yielding emerging fields like evolutionary software design where the computer code is "bred" rather than being written. Open, closed, complex, self-organising, centrally controlled and distributed systems are all examined and contrasted, including everything from Borgian libraries to zero-sum games. Kelly tells us of his personal experience in Biosphere II, and contrasts the paradigmatic differences between the made and the born. What is made by us tends to be minimal, mechanical, predictable and maintenance intensive (even in our "autonomous" systems). By contrast, when we consider the different magnitudes of information in a blueprint compared with a DNA strand, we see that the born is vastly more complex, organic, unpredictable and constantly adapting to environmental changes.The book on the whole is accessible and a real technological page turner. It will be of particular interest to anyone with some background in computing, artificial intelligence, biology, information theory or cognitive science.
Nature Creates New Things Out of Nothing Every Day June 3, 2003
W. T. Louderback (Louisville, Kentucky)
8 out of 9 found this review helpful
This book must have been as much fun for Kevin Kelly to write as it is to read. It's a little long but very easy to understand. It'll make you think and you are sure to enjoy thinking about the ideas and examples in here.A more correct title might be "Out of Centralized Control." Kelly's point is that Nature is not a command and control monolith, but instead, a network of relatives, friends, neighbors, and sometimes predators. Nature does not control the Universe so much as it encourages cooperation within the Universe. The examples Kelly gives in the first few pages set the tone of the rest of the book. One is the flock of geese, which somehow knows its migration path from hemisphere to hemisphere even though none of the geese in the flock have ever flown it before. As Kelly shows us, there are plenty of surprises in Nature. Uncertainty is built in. That's life ! Some readers might find it hard to believe that Nature is not particularly concerned about efficiency. It doesn't mind duplication, redundancy, and a little waste. It fact, it wants these things because they lead us to flexibility. Kelly's point in all this seems to be that Nature does not play by the numbers. It might be even harder for some readers to believe, at first, that Nature creates new things out of nothing every day. But, Kelly will win you over on that point and many more. His "Nine Laws of God" which sum up the book in the last chapter made me want to read it a second time. One nice companion to this book would be "Morphic Resonance and the The Presence of the Past: The Habits of Nature" by Ruppert Sheldrake. That book presents a theory that is considered radical by many, yet the critics usually concede that it's well reasoned and fills many of the gaps in our knowledge of Nature. If you'd like to think about the theological implications of Kelly's ideas, try a few books about process theology, particularly these: "A Basic Introduction to Process Theology" by Robert Mesle, "What is Process Theology?" by Robert Mellert, and "Ominipotence and Other Theological Mistakes" by Charles Hartshorne.
Showing reviews 1-5 of 50
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