Out of Control: The New Biology of Machines, Social Systems, and the Economic World (ISBN 978-0201483406) is a 1992 book by Kevin Kelly. Major themes in Out of Control are cybernetics, emergence, self-organization, complex systems, negentropy and chaos theory. The book can be seen as a work of techno-utopianism.
Summary
The book's central theme is that several fields of contemporary science and philosophy point in the same direction: intelligence is not organized in a centralized structure but is much more like a beehive composed of small, simple components.1 Kelly applies this view to bureaucratic organizations, intelligent computers, and the human brain.
Reception
Although the book was not widely reviewed upon its initial release in 1992, it gained visibility, was reviewed, and was extensively cited in subsequent years.2 Reviews often discussed Kelly's hive-mind analogy as a metaphor for the New Economy.3
Reviewers have called the book a "mind-expanding exploration" (Publishers Weekly)4 and "the best of an important new genre" (Forbes ASAP).
Critics of the book have contended that its position precludes a critical approach to politics and social power.5
Further reading
- The book's homepage (includes the complete book online)
References
Mitchell, Melanie (October 1995). "Mystifying the Net". Technology Review. 98 (7): 74. ProQuest 195337887. /wiki/MIT_Technology_Review ↩
Turner, Fred (2006). From counterculture to cyberculture: Stewart Brand, the Whole Earth Network, and the rise of digital utopianism. Chicago: University of Chicago Press. p. 285. ↩
Turner, Fred (2006). From counterculture to cyberculture: Stewart Brand, the Whole Earth Network, and the rise of digital utopianism. Chicago: University of Chicago Press. p. 204. ↩
Stuttaford, Genevieve (June 6, 1994). "Nonfiction -- Out of Control: The Rise of NeoBiological Civilization by Kevin Kelly". Publishers Weekly. 241 (23): 53. ProQuest 196996078. /wiki/Publishers_Weekly ↩
Best, Steven; Douglas Kellner (1999-01-06). "Kevin Kelly's Complexity Theory The Politics and Ideology of Self-Organizing Systems". Organization & Environment. 12 (2): 141–162. doi:10.1177/1086026699122001. S2CID 144781438. /wiki/Doi_(identifier) ↩