EFTA00607426.pdf

GOLDEN GLOBE NOMINATION t CULTURE MICHAEL FASSBENDER - BEST ACTOR "THE MOST PROVOCATIVE `Elites that AND COMPELLING FILM are open OF THE YEAR" and based "ONCE SEEN, NEVER FORGOTTEN on merit can be nurturing "MESMERISING" Continued from page13 ANDING" "OUTST1Nt Brockman (1969), takinginformation theory - the mathematical theory ofcommunications - as a model for regardingall human experience. * * * * * A main theme has continued to inform my work over the years: new technologies = new perceptions. An incident from those years stands "SEARINGLY BRILLIANT out. Duringan evening at dinner. Cage reached across the table and handed AND UTTERLY. ,UNMISSABLE" me a copy ofCybernetics by Norbert Wiener. Fast forward two years. Around 1967, I spent two days with Stewart Brand while he was assembling *:A:A* **** the first edition ofthe Whole Earth Catalog and we sat and read the book together. underlining as we went along. * * * * Central to our interest was the notion of 'feedback", the non-linear relationship of input to output. It was apparent that the ideas in cybernetic theory were far "MICHAEL FASSBENDER GIVES more important than the applications for which the mathematical A SCORCHING PERFORMANCE" descriptions were designed. Stewart and I have been in touch regularly since then - a 45-year connection. 1N Was it difficult to come up with Edge's 2010 question, about the Internet? JB Every August, I begin a conversation with three of the original members ofEdge - Stewart, Kevin Kelly and George Dyson. Eventually, I came up with the idea of askinghow the internet is affecting the scientific work, lives, minds and reality of the contributors. A big consideration of this question is the difference between "we" and "you". When people respond to "we" questions, their words tend to resemble expert papers, public pronouncements or talks delivered from a stage. "You" leads us to share specifics ofour lived experience. The challenge then is not to let responses slip into life's more banal details. M I was struck by something that one respondent, Evgeny Mammy, said about his fear ofa chasm opening minded pursuits based on evidence Two of his aphorisms in particular - "between the disengaged masses and and empiricism, they are also public "The medium is the message" and "We the ovcrengaged elites". The elites, communicators, reaching out to shape our tools and later they shape he goes on. "continue thriving in the the public by means of their books, us" - seem particularly apposite. The new environment, exploiting superb lectures, etc. They live by their wits, first captured the thought that what's online tools for scientific research and doingso in the changing times important about a medium is not the and collaboration" etc. Actually, it's of the digital age is a challenge. Their content ofthe messages it carries but clear that many - most? - of your concerns are very different than, say, what the medium is doing to those who respondents are, par excellence, the casual user, who has signed up use it. That seemed to me to emerge members of those elites. That's not for a social network and by default from lots ofthe responses (and not just a criticism, but it might mean that becomes the product whose private Nick Carr's. either). And the meme a casual reader could come away information is sold to advertisers. about our tools shapingus surfaced from the book thinking that public again and again in the essays. engagement with the internet and its IN In a way, the shadow of Marshall significance is rather more elevated McLuhan looms over the conversation. JB McLuhan is certainly central to and intelligent than is actually the case. JBThe problem with a discussion INSIDE TRACK Edge members share their opinions about that uses the word "elites" is that the word is automatically perceived as a pejorative. But that's not how I feel MARTIN REES museum vault with other visitors was about it at all. Elites area problem if Ex-president of the Royal Society. something that I knew inprinciple. but they're closed and exclusive. Elites professor of cosmology and astrophysics. could not directly perceive. that are open, inclusive and based on University of Cambridge WhenI go onfne today. all those merit can be nurturing. Also, members rooms and hallways are teeming. What MICSASS BEN DE R ofelites give one another permission to The internet enables far wider participation strikes me is the human texture of the be great. One example is the Beat poets. in front-line science it levels the playing information. I've come to appreciate the Another example is the mix of people field between researchers in male( centres way the event and the crowd in fact live who created Silicon Valley. and thoseinrelative isolation. hitherto in symbiosis. each dependent on the While Edge is a read-only site, the handicapped by inefficient communication. other — the people all talking at once cast of characters contributing to the It has transformed the way science about the event. but the event only fully various projects is ever-changing and is communicated and debated. More comprehensible as thesum totalof the inclusion is by recommendation of fundamentally. it changes how researchis human reaction to it. The cacophony members of the community. That said, done.what might be discovered and how might make sense. and it might not. Edge is not for everybody. It helps students learn. to know some stuff. But one thing HELEN FISHER you won't find in the responses is JON KLEINBERG Research professor, Department arrogance. The site stands or falls on Professor of Computer Science, Cornell of Anthropology,Rutgers University IN CINEMAS FRIDAY the quality of the questions it asks. In terms of this particular question - "Is the internee changing the way University WhenI first used an Internet search engine The nternet is a retum to yesteryear it simply allows me (and the rest of us)to Ii you think?" - there's the question of in the early 1990s.I imagined myself think arid behave in ways for which we were people having skin in the game. The dipping into a vast. universallbrary. a built long.bng ago. Takelove. We think it's contributors to Edge are what I call museum vault filled withaccumulated natural to court a totay unknownperson third-culture thinkers or intellectuals. knowledge. The fact that I shared this ina bar or club. But Ws far more natural to Not only am they focused on science- 14 THE NEW REVIEW I 08.01.12 I The Observer EFTA00607426