The construction of complex systems cannot succeed
with the help of clockwork logic alone. This is why
the biological principles of organic systems are increasingly
being transferred and applied to technological systems.
On the other hand, technology also tends to increasingly
interfere with "life". Therefore, a principal change
in the relation between organic matter and man-made things
can be observed: man-made things are behaving more
life-like, and life is becoming more engineered.
However, Kelly is of the opinion that the "wilderness
of nature" will continue to be the most important
source for exploring complex systems in the future.

---

Kevin Kelly

THE BIONIC CONVERGENCE

The failure to create artificial intelligence in the last two decades has made it embarrassingly clear that the naked clockwork logic of machines alone cannot build a workable robot. Clockwork logic - the logic of the technos - will only build simple contraptions. Truly complex systems such as a cell, a meadow, an economy, or a brain require a rigorous non-technoIogical logic. We now see that no logic except bio-ogic can assemble a thinking device, or even a workable systems of any largeness.

Nature has all along yielded her flesh to humans. First, we took nature's materials as food, fibers and shelter. Then we learned to extract raw materials from nature's biosphere to create our own new synthetic materials. Now bios is yielding us her mind; We take her logic.

The most astounding discovery of the last ten years has been that one can take the logic of bios out of biology and still have something useful. Although many philosophers in the past have suspected one could abstract the laws of life and apply them elsewhere, it wasn't until the complexity of computers and human-made systems became as complicated as living things, that it was possible to prove this.