Amazon
I’ve quoted a few things from this book on the blog already, so click the tag, Kevin Kelly and you will see my notes as I read the book.
I think its profound.
Its not just about the evolution of technology. He revises biological evolution in a radical way. Its not just him though, he draws on many latest developments in the field. The main thrust is captured in this image from the book.
Just got a name for something I have grasped for a long time. I used to call it accidental by products of evolution, and had this idea when I was doing biology aged 15. EG the piano and music itself is a by product of the evolution of fingers. We as humans have gone beyond what was biologically fittest, accidental by-products just heaped upon themselves and interacted with each other to enable creativity and consciousness.
From What Technology wants by Kevin kelly page 50: “These inadvertent anticipatory inventions are called exaptations in biology.”
The point is that in the evolution of technology it is all exaptation. The reason is that the basis of tech evolution is not genetic, the information is carried by social means. Thus nothing goes extinct, and all innovations can be resurrected. In other words we can cut and paste to make new things, that process is far faster and more efficient than evolution in the biological sphere. Sexual reproduction is a form of cut & paste, but still far more primitive than what we can do with our inventions.
Id love to graft the Graffiti handwriting system from the dead Palm onto a current smartphone for example.