X-Message-Number: 431
From: Brown/Jellinghaus
Subject: Unbounding the Future
Date: 8 Sep 1991
Unbounding the Future
by K. Eric Drexler and Chris Peterson wth Gayle Pergamit
Morrow, 1991, $23. hardback
Roughly five years ago K. Eric Drexler published "Engines of Creation",
which presented the case for nanotechnology. This was also an important
event for cryonics because it showed, in outline, a mechanism by which
reanimation from cryonic suspension might be achieved. A lot has
happened in five years - progress toward nanotechnology has been faster
than expected - and Drexler, et al. have written another, different book
on nanotechnology. (I understand that, in addition, a technical volume
on nanotechnology is due for publication in 1992.)
Rather than write my own review of "Unbounding the Future", I'll recycle
a message recently posted to sci.nanotech for those of you who missed it.
One comment I have about this review is that although the writer correctly
stated that "Unbounding the Future" does not mention cryonics, he neglected
to mention that it does list several references to biostasis in the index,
which, to me at least, is almost as good. The strategy, as I understand it,
is the "gentle seduction" approach; rather than alienating people with an
emphasis on the more advanced applications of nanotechnology it may be more
effective to describe in detail the relatively mundane applications and let
the more thoughtful and interested readers follow the pointers (such as the
brief references to biostasis) to the more advanced applications.
- Kevin Q. Brown
...att!whscad1!kqb
-----
From: autodesk! (Young Rob Jellinghaus)
Newsgroups: sci.nanotech
Subject: _Unbounding the Future_--impressions
Date: 5 Sep 91 04:54:17 GMT
Organization: Autodesk, Inc., Sausalito, CA
Approved:
I recently finished K. Eric Drexler's new book _Unbounding the Future_
and I realized I'd seen little mention of it on this group yet. What
is it like, and is it worth owning?
If you read sci.nanotech, and you have read _Engines of Creation_, you
will probably get little new technical knowledge from the book. What
you will get, though, is a good example of how to present these ideas
so they don't inflict Nanoshock, as well as a better sense of what
other sources on nanotechnology have left unsaid.
I inflicted Nanoshock on my sister; I gave her several selections from
_Engines of Creation_, and she read them on her way back to college,
and became extremely depressed. I had infected her with a really
powerful dose of memes, and it caused her to feel as though the future
was completely out of her control, and that she was doomed to live in
a world not of her own making, in which she would feel out of touch--and
moreover, a world in which (almost) everyone else would be equally
adrift. This came directly from my presentation, which emphasized the
radical implications of what this technology may possibly become, with-
out drawing connections between today's trends and the world of the
next century, or painting the picture of tomorrow with human colors.
_Engines of Creation_ was written for a technical audience that could
absorb radically new ideas and fill in the gaps for themselves; but if
nanotechnology is to become widely understood, it will have to be
explained to the many people who lack such extrapolative skill, and in
such a way that it seems exciting and challenging rather than bewilder-
ing and intimidating.
_Unbounding the Future_ is a book with that intention. It presents
nanotechnology using two main techniques--scenarios, which basically
tell short stories of various aspects of nanotechnology as they may one
day come to exist; and question-and-answer dialogues, which are used
to explicate the science and discuss the cultural implications of the
book's ideas. This presentation makes the material seem more immed-
iately graspable and comprehensible than the detached, high-density
explication of _Engines_.
Two of the book's early chapters are devoted to a long scenario in
which the reader is taken on a tour through a twenty-first-century
virtual reality museum of molecular technology. This section was very
enlightening; it gave me a much better notion of how things work on
the molecular scale. How better to discuss such concepts as friction
and molecular binding than by putting the reader at the molecular level?
The museum visit provides a solid grounding in the scale of the various
molecular tools and objects that are discussed throughout the rest of
the book; this in itself is very helpful.
_Unbounding_ goes into much more detail than _Engines_ about the social
implications of nanotechnology, including such areas as nanotechnology's
likely effect on Third World economies, the ongoing shift from an indus-
trial to a service economy and how nanotechnology may continue it, the
problem of future shock and its likely actual impact, and so forth. I
found that this material (at least partially) answered many of my ques-
tions about the likely effect on society of nanotechnology.
Equally interesting was what was _not_ mentioned in the book. If we are
to introduce nanotechnology to people in such a way that it will seem
immediately relevant and a worthwhile goal, it is important not to over-
load them with possibilities that are too far outside their intuitive
sense of what can work. Therefore, _Unbounding_ mentions life extension
only briefly, and does not discuss cryonics at all, nor the far-edge
speculations (superhuman AI, new life forms, downloading) that recur on
this newsgroup. Hypertext and science courts, two near-term tools that
could have a favorable impact on our progress, are also omitted, as they
would distract from the book's central message: that nanotechnology is
coming, and that it may well be a powerful tool to help heal the world
and enhance human life, if we choose to so use it.
_Unbounding the Future_ should be read be everyone interested in nano-
technology, as there are few more important tasks than educating people
widely as to the importance of these ideas, and _Unbounding_ is the best
book yet written for doing that. With _Engines_, I bought several
copies and lent them out freely, but they seldom got read. I will be
doing the same thing with _Unbounding_, and my bet is that my friends
will have a much easier time with it... and moreover, as I find myself
explaining these ideas more and more in the coming years, I will depend
on the solidly grounded and immediately graspable presentation used in
_Unbounding the Future_.
--
Rob Jellinghaus | "Next time you see a lie being spread or
Autodesk, Inc. | a bad decision being made out of sheer
| ignorance, pause, and think of hypertext."
{decwrl,uunet}!autodesk!robertj | -- K. Eric Drexler, _Engines of Creation_
-----
Rate This Message: http://www.cryonet.org/cgi-bin/rate.cgi?msg=431