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The Moment of Complexity: Emerging Network Culture
 
 

The Moment of Complexity: Emerging Network Culture (Hardcover)

by MC Taylor (Author) "At pivotal moments throughout history, technological innovation triggers massive social and cultural transformation ..." (more)
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Product details

  • Hardcover: 352 pages
  • Publisher: Chicago University Press (7 Jan 2002)
  • Language English
  • ISBN-10: 0226791173
  • ISBN-13: 978-0226791173
  • Product Dimensions: 23.9 x 15.7 x 2.5 cm
  • Average Customer Review: 4.0 out of 5 stars See all reviews (1 customer review)
  • Amazon.co.uk Sales Rank: 832,760 in Books (See Bestsellers in Books)

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Product Description

Product Description
We live in a moment of unprecedented complexity, an era in which change occurs faster than our ability to comprehend it. With "The Moment of Complexity", Mark C. Taylor offers a map for the unfamiliar terrain opening in our midst, unfolding an original philosophy of our time through a remarkable synthesis of science and culture. According to Taylor, complexity is not just a breakthrough scientific concept but the defining quality of the post-Cold War era. The flux of digital currents swirling around us, he argues, has created a new network culture with its own distinctive logic and dynamic. Drawing on resources from information theory and evolutionary biology, Taylor explains the operation of complex adaptive systems in natural, social and cultural processes. To appreciate the significance of emerging network culture, he claims, it is necessary not only to understand contemporary scientific and technological transformations, but also to explore the subtle influences of art, architecture, philosophy, religion and education. "The Moment of Complexity" is a remarkable work of cultural analysis on a scale rarely seen today. To follow its trajectory is to learn how we arrived at this critical moment in our culture, and to know where we might head in the 21st century.

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1 of 2 people found the following review helpful:
4.0 out of 5 stars All the world's a.. complex adaptive system, 23 Feb 2007
By D. S. Hickson "dshickson" (UK) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   
I'm an armchair science reader; I'm not an expert on art, philosophy, science, biology, information systems, cultural studies, etc. but have a healthy top-level interest in the lot of them so far as they relate to the big questions. The beauty of this book is that it takes plastic polymaths like myself and scatter-guns their curiosity with a lot of little intellectual gems. I suppose somewhere inside I'm grasping for the grand metanarrative that links the whole darn life thing together. And, I'm pleased to report, so too does Mark C Taylor. His holy grail? The complex adaptive system.

For those of you interested in complexity theory, have a read. The complex adaptive system is apparently (almost) all-pervading. It is not just about ant colonies and sandpiles, but the real reason behind evolution, consciousness, meaning, societal systems, culture and some other stuff that I can't rightly recall. And, what's more, its becoming positively ubiquitous in our 21st Century digital information society. We are defined by networks within webs within networks within webs.

So, is the argument compelling? I think your average logical positivist would claim that the metanarrative died out with the onset of the cold hard logic of the empricists. Of course Mr Taylor knows this and litters his book with the evidence, but, I dunno, its a pretty tough challenge; and, frankly, using the architecture of Frank Gehry and the art of Chuck Close (where their work has got to be derivative) and drawing analogies with Hegel and Kierkegaard seems a little much.

I think Mr Taylor would have been better served reining in some of lofty ambitions for complex adaptive systems, and tempered his language a bit so that he would appear just a little more critical. However there is no doubt that this is a fascinating little read.
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