The Earth as mother was an old and comforting notion. But the Earth as mechanical device has been a harder idea to swallow. Vernadsky came very close to Lovelock's epiphany that the Earth's biosphere exhibits a regulation beyond chemical equilibrium. Vernadsky noted that "organisms exhibit a type of self-government" and that the biosphere seemed to be selfgoverned, but Vernadsky didn't press further because the crucial concept of self- government as a purely mechanical process had not yet been uncovered. How could a mere machine control itself? [...] The Earth as mother was an old and comforting notion. But the Earth as mechanical device has been a harder idea to swallow. Vernadsky came very close to Lovelock's epiphany that the Earth's biosphere exhibits a regulation beyond chemical equilibrium. Vernadsky noted that "organisms exhibit a type of self-government" and that the biosphere seemed to be selfgoverned, but Vernadsky didn't press further because the crucial concept of self- government as a purely mechanical process had not yet been uncovered. How could a mere machine control itself?
(Kevin Kelly, Out of Control : The New Biology of Machines, Social Systems and the Economic World. Reading, MA: Perseus Press, 1995, p. 118)
Heron's regulator, Drebbel's thermostat, and Watt's governor bestowed on their vessels a wisp of self-control, sensory awareness, and the awakening of anticipation. The governing system sensed its own attributes, noted if it had changed in a certain respect since it last looked, and if it had, it adjusted itself to conform to a goal. In the specific case of a thermostat, the tube of alcohol detected the system's temperature, and then took action or not to tweak the fire in order to align itself with the fixed goal of a certain temperature. It had, in a philosophical sense, a purpose.
(Kevin Kelly, Out of Control : The New Biology of Machines, Social Systems and the Economic World. Reading, MA: Perseus Press, 1995, p. 156)
The minting and issuing of currency has been one of the few remaining functions of government that the private sector has not encroached upon. Emoney will lower this formidable barrier. By doing so it will provide a powerful tool to private governance systems, such as might be established by renegade ethnic groups, or the "edge cities" proliferating near the world's megacities. The use of institutional electronic money transfers to launder money on a global scale is already out of anyone's control.
(Kevin Kelly, Out of Control : The New Biology of Machines, Social Systems and the Economic World. Reading, MA: Perseus Press, 1995, p. 286.)
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