The Dreams of Reason

Just as the telescope opened up the universe and the microscope revealed the secrets of the microcosm, the computer is now opening an exciting new window on the nature of reality. Through its capacity to process what is too complex for the unaided mind, the computer enables us for the first time to simulate reality, create models of complex systems like large molecules, chaotic systems, neural nets, the human body and brain, and patterns of evolution and population growth. With refreshing clarity, physicist and author Heinz Pagels brings us a readable, revealing report on how the revolutionary conjunction of computer technology and the new sciences of complexity is influencing every major aspect of our society--universities and corporations, physics, biology, finance, telecommunications, the legal profession, and the military. He tells why the nations and the people who master the new sciences of complexity will be the economic, cultural, and political superpowers of the next century. And he provides an extraordinary glimpse of the civilization that will arise from this synthesis of technology and the new sciences--a vision of a new world empowered by the liberating capacity of unlimited knowledge. Book jacket.