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Silicon Second Nature takes us on an expedition into
an extraordinary world where nature is made of bits and bytes and life is born
from sequences of zeroes and ones. Artificial Life is the brainchild of scientists
who view self-replicating computer programs -- such as computer viruses -- as
new forms of life. Anthropologist Stefan Helmreich's look at the social and simulated
worlds of Artificial Life -- primarily at the Santa Fe Institute, a well-known
center for studies in the science of complexity -- introduces readers to the people
and programs connected with this unusual hybrid of computer science and biology.
When biology becomes an information science, when DNA is downloaded
into virtual reality, new ways of imagining "life" become possible.
Through detailed dissections of the artifacts of Artificial Life, Helmreich explores
how these novel visions of life are recombining with the most traditional tales
told by Western culture. Because Artificial Life scientists tend to see themselves
as masculine gods of their cyberspace creations, as digital Darwins exploring
frontiers filled with primitive creatures, their programs reflect prevalent representations
of gender, kinship, and race and repeat origin stories most familiar from mythical
and religious narratives. But Artificial Life does not,
Helmreich says, simply reproduce old stories in new software. Much like contemporary
activities of cloning, cryonics, and transgenics, the practice of simulating and
synthesizing life in silico challenges and multiplies the very definition
of vitality. Are these models, as some would claim, actually another form of the
real thing? Silicon Second Nature takes Artificial Life as a symptom and
source of our mutating visions of life itself. Stefan
Helmreich is Lecturer in Anthropology at Stanford University. |
