Metaman

Metaman: The Merging of Humans and Machines into a Global Superorganism (ISBN 067170723X) is a 1993 book by author Gregory Stock. The title refers to a superorganism comprising humanity and its technology.

While many people have had ideas about a global brain, they have tended to suppose that this can be improved or altered by humans according to their will. Metaman can be seen as a development that directs humanity's will to its own ends, whether it likes it or not, through the operation of market forces. While it is difficult to think of making a life-form based on metals that can mine its own 'food', it is possible to imagine a superorganism that incorporates humans as its "cells" and entices them to sustain it (communalness), just as our cells interwork to sustain us.

External links

• Review of Metaman, by Hans Moravec
• Review of Metaman, by Patric Hedlund