{"resolved":true,"match_type":"uuid","source_type":"original_book","book_id":"8a3d8546-8fbb-485e-b423-37bc08c3284a","title":"Media and New Capitalism in the Digital Age The Spirit of Networks","author":null,"edition":null,"publisher":null,"year":null,"isbn":"9781349379743","requested_by":"printed_page","book":{"source_type":"original_book","book_id":"8a3d8546-8fbb-485e-b423-37bc08c3284a","id":"8a3d8546-8fbb-485e-b423-37bc08c3284a","uuid":"8a3d8546-8fbb-485e-b423-37bc08c3284a","title":"Media and New Capitalism in the Digital Age The Spirit of Networks","normalized_title":"mediaandnewcapitalisminthedigitalagethespiritofnetworks","author":null,"edition":null,"publisher":null,"year":null,"isbn":"9781349379743","isbns":["9781349379743","9780230106062"],"parsed":true,"ai_readable":true,"document_type":"book","page_count":258,"navigation_url":"https://workshop.closeclaw.top/ai/book/8a3d8546-8fbb-485e-b423-37bc08c3284a","title_url":"https://workshop.closeclaw.top/ai/title/Media%20and%20New%20Capitalism%20in%20the%20Digital%20Age%20The%20Spirit%20of%20Networks","fixed_page_url_template":"https://workshop.closeclaw.top/ai/book/8a3d8546-8fbb-485e-b423-37bc08c3284a/page/{printed_page}","path_api_url_template":"https://workshop.closeclaw.top/api/ai/book/8a3d8546-8fbb-485e-b423-37bc08c3284a/page/{printed_page}","read_url":"https://workshop.closeclaw.top/api/ai/read/8a3d8546-8fbb-485e-b423-37bc08c3284a","page_url":"https://workshop.closeclaw.top/api/ai/books/8a3d8546-8fbb-485e-b423-37bc08c3284a/page","search_url":"https://workshop.closeclaw.top/api/ai/books/8a3d8546-8fbb-485e-b423-37bc08c3284a/search"},"page":{"printed_page":199,"pdf_page":200,"physical_index":200,"physical_index_base":0,"printed_page_status":"recognized","page_sha256":"26134527ffd4c1938b1ac2100b82e580c38865503323fe8996f76c78d0620847"},"chapter":"Media and New Capitalism in the Digital Age","content":"The power of computing, Kelly suggests, arises from its transcendental, transhistorical universality. He posits two assumptions: “all computation can describe all things,” that is, anything from logical arguments to emotions can be translated into a digital language, and “all things can compute,” that is, not only what we usually refer to as computers but also everything, from the human brain to metals and stones, perform computations. A third postulate, derived from the first two, is that “all computation is one,” that is, that “all computation is equivalent” (a postulate also known as “universal computing”). Indeed, computing pioneers such as Alan Turing and John von Neumann extended “the laws of computation away from math proofs and into the natural world,” declaring that “evolution and learning . . . were types of computation. Nature computed.” Refusing to limit himself to the parochialism of planet Earth, Kelly ponders about extending these insights into the universe (“If nature computed, why not the entire universe?”) and, even further, into metaphysics (“God, or at least the universe, might be the ultimate large-scale computer”). Computers, according to Kelly, are ultimately not human inventions but a divine creation: “In a sense, nature has been continually computing the ‘next state of the universe for billions of years; all we have to do . . . is ‘hitch a ride’ on this huge, ongoing Great Computations” (Kelly 2002).\n\nIt is critical once again to insist that the notions of the universe as a computer and nature, life, and existence as computing processes are not simply metaphors. In fact, the power of this rhetoric lies precisely in conflating the model with reality, since such knowledge presents itself as truth (Aronowitz 1989). Such an argument is not therefore “the-universeas-computer”; the argument instead is that the universe is a computer. Kelly clarifies the distinction by asking one scientist to comment on the view of another: “[Do you] go along with the weak version of the ultimate computer, the metaphorical one, that says the universe only seems like a computer? Or do [you] . . . embrace Fredkin’s strong version, that the universe is a billion-year-old computer and we are the killer app[lication]?” The scientist responds, “I regard the two statements as equivalent . . . If the universe in all ways acts as if it was a computer, then what meaning could there be in saying that it is not a computer?”—a rhetorical question to which Kelly answers, “Only hubris” (Kelly 2002).\n\nThe idea of the universe as a computer is presented quite literally by Kelly, who attempts to quantify the computing power of the universe. He reports on research published in the Physical Review Letters, in which an MIT professor calculated the computing power of the universe, or more accurately, “the upper limit of how much computing power the entire universe (as we know it) has contained since the beginning of time.” The professor then compared this number to the computing power humans have built: “He then tallied up the total energy-matter available in the known universe and divided that by the total energy-matter of human computers expanding at the rate of Moore’s law.” His conclusions led him to predict that humans need some six hundred years “before all available energy in the universe is taken up in computing. Of course, if one takes the perspective that the universe is already essentially performing a computation, then we don’t have to wait at all. In this case, we may just have to wait 600 years until the universe is running Windows or Linux” (Kelly 2002). And other scientists concur: “there is nothing theoretical to stop the expansion of computers”; “In the end, the whole of space and its contents will be the computer. The universe will in the end consist, literally, of intelligent thought processes” (Kelly 2002).\n\nNetwork Cosmology and the Exhaustion of Criti<sub>q</sub>ue\n\n199","previous_page":198,"next_page":200}