Erik Drexler’s Engines of Creation- From Nano to Metaphor
Posted in E-Commerce, Future Shock, Online Education, Science, Web 2.0 by wayne.porter on April 16th, 2007 Need inspiration? Need some inspiring metaphor? Want to think ahead? Drexler’s Engines of Creation is a great way to jump start your neurons.
Engines of Creation by K. Eric Drexler. Drexler is one of the foremost thinkers on nanotechnology- certainly an important discipline. However, I find metaphors galore and many useful. If anything it will spin you around. I had read it years ago, but not with the clarity I have now. Amazing how the years help perhaps.
For example, bulk extractors (think “flint chipping”- moving a few hundred thousand atoms at a time- like American Indians did with their arrow tips) and nanotechnologists (people doing the tagging, social bookmarking, etc- protein engineering and atom sculpting) could be useful metaphors for current search engine analysis, not to mention the sudden utility of the concept of “microchunking” and XML site maps. For example, why not get atom shapers to masticate data for you so it is easier to swallow? Question is (as I pose to Nick of Metaversed in a twitter exchange- is this dynamic make-up of SERP “COMPOSITION” driven by AI or something different? Good question.
(Important Note: I don’t care what “HTML pages” are returned- I don’t see the world as web pages- I see them as media types.)
Quick quip from WP:
The substance of Engines of Creation is extraordinary. Various science fiction writers have used the concept of tiny machines and Drexler brings their wild tales to shame. He extrapolates a world from the bottom up where we can build atom by atom. Similarly and inspirationally, physicist Richard Feynman discussed the concept of recursive miniaturisation in his 1959 speech There’s Plenty of Room at the Bottom. But only Drexler came up with the idea of using molecular machinery for large-scale fabrication. Drexler sees a world where not only can the entire Library of Congress fit a chip the size of a sugar cube, but “universal assemblers” (tiny machines that build atom by atom) will be used for everything from medicinal robots that help clear the capillaries to environmental scrubbers that clear pollutants from the air.
Engines of Creation (Chapter 10, Limits to Growth) takes a realistic Malthusian view of exponential growth within limits to growth. It also promotes space advocacy arguing that, because the universe is essentially infinite, life can escape the limits to growth defined by Earth. Additionally, Engines of Creation supports a form of the Fermi paradox, arguing that as there is no evidence of alien civilizations:
This should be standard reading for futurists, or for non-futurists really…and those interested in transhumanism, AI Ethics, and singularity…later we can touch more on robotics and the three laws put forth by Asimov, in his fictional I, Robot. There is alot going on out there, I am just not smart enough to get into an Artificial Intelligence conference…yet.
Drexler’s book is free, and awesome- although I plan to order up a batch to give out to those I can influence or at least those I think are ready for this type of thinking. It is not for everyone- you really have to stretch your neurons a bit, especially if you want to extrapolate nanotech to current metaphor.
You can get Drexler’s book, Engines of Creation for free too….
Free ebook of updated and expanded edition Wowio offers a number of free texts with no DRM- PDF format.
Full text of Engines of Creation version 1.0 (1986)
Full text in Russian: МАШИНЫ СОЗДАНИЯ: Грядущая эра нанотехнологии
Full text in Italian: MOTORI DI CREAZIONE: L’era prossima della nanotecnologia
Full text in Chinese: 创造的发动机
Drexler’s site and archive
Biography of K. Eric Drexler
Drexler’s firm NanoRex
Engines of Creation
The Coming Era of NanotechnologyK. Eric Drexler
Anchor Books, 1986
Original web version prepared and links added by Russell Whitaker.
Table of Contents
COVER PAGE & links to non-English versions
FOREWORD - by Marvin Minsky
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
PART ONE - THE FOUNDATIONS OF FORESIGHT1 - Engines of Construction
2 - The Principles of Change
3 - Predicting and ProjectingPART TWO - PROFILES OF THE POSSIBLE
4 - Engines of Abundance
5 - Thinking Machines
6 - The World Beyond Earth
7 - Engines of Healing
8 - Long Life in an Open World
9 - A Door to the Future
10 - The Limits to GrowthPART THREE - DANGERS AND HOPES
11 - Engines of Destruction
12 - Strategies and Survival
13 - Finding the Facts
14 - The Network of Knowledge
15 - Worlds Enough, and TimeAFTERWORD
GLOSSARY
NOTES AND REFERENCES
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[...] and damn is he funny! Odd to think of his recent death happening while i was unaware and pondering Asimov, Robotics, Nanontechnology and Engines of Creation. They were both humanists too- he and Isaac [...]