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S‘ 6 gSung feaders to donate their computer‘s downtime to Chuck Erion is the owner/operator of Words Worth Books in his Aâ€"Life program "in which simple digital organisms evolve _ Waterloo. ..Q...Q..O0.000000000..00000.....000. Kevin Kelly‘s Out of Confrol is a view of the future. Whether MMureBexcfllnqoneulw\gmonmowmood- hgofihemvllodchonoecheneshmewond. Last week‘s review barely got past the first two chapters of this 500â€"plusâ€" page book. | was disappointed that such an allâ€" encompassing book relies entirely on printed text without diaâ€" grams or Mlustrations. I‘ll try to summarize more briefty in this cokmnbutyoumoyhavetomkomthetomemefl(Add- sonâ€"Wesley, $35.95) and his annotated bibllography, for more detalls. Among his topics I won‘t be able to cover are: comâ€" puter modeling for military training, the closed ecology of Blosphere 2, Virtual Reality and Simâ€"city, and cashless economies. f When looking towards the future, start with the word ‘optiâ€" mism‘. The Pocket Oxford defines it in philosophy as the beliet that this world is as good as it can be, derived from the Latin ‘optimus‘ or best. in his final chapter Kelty lists among the Nine Laws of God: Pursue no optima, have multiple goals. We get from chaos to order via evolution, the dominant theme of the book, which he subtities "The Rise of Neoâ€"Biological Civiâ€" lzation". Darwin‘s theory of evolution was as radical a challenge to _the 19th century worldview as Columbus had been to the 14th. The fact that creationists still oppose it speaks to its conâ€" troversy. Kelly explores not only blological evolution but geoâ€" logical: where is the earth and the universe headed, and life within it? He believes that, despite the absence of habitable planets within ou\r;blaf system, life will Inevitably colonize deep space. Postdarwinists admit that fossils fail to record the origin of even one brandâ€"new species. Rather than grounds to deny evolution, as the creationists claim; he regards this as evidence that evolution works in quantum steps, not malâ€" leable transition. Evolutionists are now using computer modeling to play with their subject. This is called Al, (Artificial Intelligence), or Aâ€"Life. A computer program can grow from simple commands that include the task of evolving itself towards higher complexity. Such a program is a metaphor for the egg cell, the DNA of which contains all the rules necessary to create a human being or a sperm whale. in the current issue of Wired, one such computer evolutionâ€" ist is asking readers to donate their computer‘s downtime to his Aâ€"Life program "in which simple digital organisms evolve le expansion of knowledge into complex communities of competitive and cooperative creatures". The plan is for engineers to extract the digital organisms which have evolved usable characteristics and "breed" or domesticate them into saleable products. Scary stuff? As I said before, it depends on your optimism. What is clear is that the expansion and evolution of such knowledge is inevitable. The task is to discover the rules of thumb, which level of complexity and interconnectivity optiâ€" mizes evolution. Kelly is obviousty in pursuit of the Big Theory, the undertying principles and overriding direction of the universe. For him this puzzle was first tackled by cybernetics, a research project begun in the late 1950s by Gregory Bateson, Margaret Mead, Norbert Wiener and four other scientists. They were in pursuit of selfâ€"organizing systems, mutations, subordinations, etc. long before a DNA model existed, before digital technology, before complexity theory. Cybemetics is evolution applied to knowledge; it realizes that finding the right question in the fight context may be more important to soâ€"called progress that finding the answers. $ As Out of Control winds down, Kelly states that scientific knowledge is a parailiel distributed system, like a phone sysâ€" tem or the Internet. It consists of huge gaps of ignorance between the pools of light. "Mapping the holes of ignorance is perhaps science‘s next advance." Each technology of knowledge from the monk‘s quill pen to the printing press to electronic hypertext, shapes our thought. With something like 17 million users, the Internet may well be the venue for the next stage in the evolution of knowledge and the knowledge of evolution. Nleinener Apntent® =~ nponer Aurasismnenimeie # ow w WATERLOO CHRONICLE, WEDNESDAY, AUGUST 17, 1994 â€" PAGE 13 or any other occasion Just Call and Leave the Rest * _To Us. Only at: Coming: Aug. 22 to 27 JENNIFER STEELE Miss Nude Flexibility ‘89,90, 91 Miss Nude Eastern Canada, Hottest Legs & Audience Favourite ‘90, ‘31 STAGS, STAGETTES, BIRTHDAYS, Divorces, Waterioo‘s Network DRAWS FOR Battle of the Sexes Saturday, Aug. 20/94 Passion, Young Blood, Fatal Attraction This Weeks Feature Aug. 15 to 20 MARLINA PRESLEY Hot, Luscious Lady Too Hot to Handle Show Times 12:30 â€" 5:00 9:30 â€" 12:30 FREE TABLE PLUS:!