“It’s going to spread. And the children will be born. You can’t expect people not to have them. They’ll lead to war between the Ring and Earth. But they might also change humans from walking ghosts back into a viable species.”
“But what species?”
“Isn’t that always the question?”
Further Reading
If you’ve gotten this far, you’ve probably figured out that a lot of the science in this book involves a group of phenomena called complex adaptive systems and an area of study called complexity theory.
Complexity theory is the study of complex nonlinear dynamic systems. It is an infant science; though complexity theorists have made impressive steps toward solving some of the most infamously intractable problems in applied mathematics, they are far from having a comprehensive vision of where the field is going…or where it is right now, for that matter.
The following readings deal with some of the major complexity-related topics that have popped up in this book, and with the works of three scientists whose ideas have deeply influenced this book: Edward O. Wilson, Walter J. Fontana, and Andrew Ilachinski.
Enjoy…
Artificial Life and Artificial Intelligence
Adami, Christoph. Introduction to Artificial Life. Springer-Verlag, 1998.
Aleksander, Igor. How to Build a Mind: Toward Machines with Imagination. Columbia University Press, 2001.
Aleksander, Igor, and Piers Burnett. Thinking Machines: The Search for Artificial Intelligence. Alfred A. Knopf, 1987.
Anderson, Alan. Minds and Machines. Prentice-Hall, 1964.
Brooks, Rodney, and Luc Steels, eds. The Artificial Life Route to Artificial Intelligence: Building Embodied, Situated Agents. Lawrence Erlbaum, 1995.
Copeland, Jack. Artificial Intelligence: A Philosophical Introduction. Blackwell Publishers, 1993.
Hillis, Danny. The Connection Machine. MIT Press (reprint), 1989.
———. Pattern on the Stone. Perseus, 1999.
Kurzweil, Ray. The Age of Spiritual Machines: When Computers Exceed Human Intelligence. Penguin, 2000.
Langton, Chris, ed. Artificial Life: An Overview. MIT Press, 1997.
Levy, Steven. Artificial Life. Random House, 1992.
Luger, George F., ed. Computation and Intelligence: Collected Readings. American Association for Artificial Intelligence, 1995.
Moravec, Hans. Mind Children: The Future of Robot and Human Intelligence. Harvard University Press, 1988.
Morris, Richard. Artificial Worlds: Computers, Complexity, and the Riddle of Life. Plenum, 1999.
Newquist, Harvey. The Brain Makers. Prentice-Hall, 1994.
Pagels, Heinz. The Dreams of Reason. Simon Schuster, 1988.
Paul, Gregory S., and Earl Cox. Beyond Humanity: Cyberevolution and Future Minds. Charles River Media, 1996.
Perlovsky, Leonid I. Neural Networks and Intellect: Using Model-Based Concepts. Oxford University Press, 2001.
Pfeiffer, Harvey, and Christian Scheier. Understanding Intelligence. MIT Press, 1999.
Pratt, Vernon. Thinking Machines: The Evolution of Artificial Intelligence. Basil Blackwell Ltd., 1987.
Wiener, Norbert. Collected Works. MIT Press, 1976.
———. Cybernetics or Control and Communication in the Animal and the Machine. MIT Press, 1948.
———. God and Golem, Inc. MIT Press, 1964.
Complexity, Biocomplexity, Evolution
Bossomaier, Terry R. J., and David G. Green. Complex Systems. Cambridge University Press, 2000.
Dawkins, Richard. The Blind Watchmaker. Longman Press, 1986.
———. The Selfish Gene. Oxford University Press, 1976.
Dennett, Daniel. Darwin’s Dangerous Idea. Simon Schuster, 1995.
Dyson, George B. Darwin Among the Machines: The Evolution of Global Intelligence. Helix Books, 1997.
Eldredge, Niles. Reinventing Darwin. John Wiley, 1995.
Frank, Steven A. Immunology and Evolution of Infectious Disease. Princeton University Press, 2002.
Goodwin, Brian. How the Leopard Changed Its Spots. Scribner, 1994.
Holland, John. Emergence: From Chaos to Order. Perseus Books, 1998.
———. Hidden Order: How Adaptation Builds Complexity. Helix Books, 1994.
Janssen, Marco A., ed. Complexity and Ecosystem Management: The Theory and Practice of Multi-Agent Systems. Cheltenham Press, 2002.
Johnson, Steen. Emergence: The Connected Lives of Ants, Brains, Cities and Software. Scribner, 2001.
Kauffman, Stuart. At Home in the Universe: The Search for the Laws of Self-Organization and Complexity. Oxford University Press, 1995.
———. The Origins of Order. Oxford University Press, 1993.
Kingsland, Sharon E. Modeling Nature: Episodes in the History of Population Ecology. University of Chicago Press, 1985.
Levin, Simon. Fragile Dominion: Complexity and the Commons. Helix Books, 1994.
Lewin, Roger. Complexity. Macmillan, 1992.
Lotka, Alfred J. Elements of Mathematical Biology. Dover Press, 1924.
Lumsen, Charles J. Genes, Mind, and Culture: The Coevolutionary Process. Harvard University Press, 1981.
Nowak, Martin A., and Robert M. May. Virus Dynamics: Mathematical Principles of Immunology and Virology. Oxford University Press, 2000.
Ruse, Michael. The Evolution Wars: A Guide to the Debates. Rutgers University Press, 2001.
Strogatz, Steven H. Nonlinear Dynamics and Chaos with Applications to Physics, Biology, Chemistry, and Engineering. Addison-Wesley, 1994.
———. Sync: How Order Emerges from Chaos in the Universe, Nature, and Daily Life. Hyperion, 2003.
Ward, Mark. Virtual Organisms: The Startling World of Artificial Life. Thomas Dunne St. Martin’s, 1999.
Ants
Bonabeau, Eric, Marco Dorigo, and Guy Theraulz. Swarm Intelligence: From Natural to Artificial Systems. Oxford University Press, 1999.
Eisner, Thomas. For Love of Insects. Belknap Press, 2003.
Gordon, Deborah M. Ants at Work: How an Insect Society Is Organized. Free Press, 1999.
Gotwald, William H. Army Ants: The Biology of Social Predation. Cornell University Press, 1995.
MacArthur, Robert M., and E. O. Wilson. The Theory of Island Biogeography. Princeton University Press (reprint), 2001.
Schnierla, T. C. Army Ants: A Study in Social Organization. W. H. Freeman, 1971.
Wheeler, William Morton. Ants: Their Structure, Development and Behavior. Columbia University Press, 1910.
Fontana, Ilachinski, and Wilson
Three individuals deserve special mention here, as I have played particularly fast and loose with their work. E. O. Wilson is practically a household name, while Walter J. Fontana is one of the rising stars of biocomplexity theory. Andy Ilachinski created the synthetic weapon system, ISAAC/EINstein, on which EMET was loosely based.
What follows does not even come close to being a full accounting of their work, but it does include the books and articles that sparked some of the ideas at the heart of this novel. And needless to say, none of them can be held even remotely responsible for Arkady and Arkasha’s misadventures.
Ancel, L. W., and Walter J. Fontana. “Evolutionary Lock-in and the Origin of Modularity in RNA Structure.” In Modularity: Understanding the Development and Evolution of Complex Natural Systems, edited by W. Callebaut and D. Rasska. MIT Press, 2002.
Fontana, Walter J. “Beyond Digital Naturalism,” Artificial Life 1/2 (1994): 211-27.
———. “Modelling Evo-Devo with RNA.” BioEssays 24 (2002): 1164-77.
———. “Perspective: Evolution and Detection of Genetic Robustness.” Evolution 57, no. 9 (2003): 1959-72.
Fontana, W., J. Lobo, and J. H. Miller. “Neutrality in Technological Landscapes.” 2004.
Fontana, W., and P. Schuster. “Continuity in Evolution: On the Nature of Transitions.” Science 280 (1998): 1451-55.
Fontana, Walter J., B. M. R. Stadler, and G. Wagner. “The Topology of the Possib
le: Formal Spaces Underlying Patterns of Evolutionary Change.” Journal of Theoretical Biology 213, no. 2 (2001): 241-74.
Ilachinski, Andrew. Artificial War: Multiagent-Based Simulation of Combat. World Scientific Publishing, 2004.
———. Cellular Automata: A Discrete Universe. World Scientific Publishing, 2001.
Wilson, E. O. Naturalist. Warner Books, 1995.
———. The Social Insects. Harvard University Press, 1971.
———. Sociobiology: The New Synthesis. Belknap Press, 2000.
Wilson, E. O., and Bert Holldobler. The Ants. Belknap Press, 1990.
———. Journey to the Ants: A Story of Scientific Exploration. Belknap Press, 1994.
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
A number of friends and colleagues made contributions to this book that went far above and beyond the call of duty. Heartfelt thanks to the following creative, intelligent, and generous people:
Andy Ilachinski for his poetic musings on science fiction, complexity, and cellular automata… and for writing the real semitechnical primer on nonlinear dynamics, deterministic chaos, and complex adaptive systems.
Lt. Col. Martin E. LaPierre, USMC, for his profound knowledge of expert systems and synthetic weapons design, and his willingness to hear out my wildest speculations and top them.
Tom Seeley and Stephen Pratt for revealing the secret and astounding world of social insects.
Sam Arbesman, Charlie Bennett, Ciro Cattuto, Mavis Dunkor, Lauri Johnsen, Cliff Lasser, Derek Paley, John Smolin, and Steven Strogatz for their willingness to spend otherwise productive segments of their lives on fake science instead of the much more exciting stuff they do.
Kirsten Underwood, Tim Weed, Jim McLaughlin, and Ian McCullough for being the loyal, patient, and insightful readers I have come to rely on.
Anne Groell for remaining her serene self when this book was a year late and running.
And always and above all to Mitchel.
SPIN CONTROL
A Bantam Spectra Book / July 2006
Published by Bantam Dell
A Division of Random House, Inc.
New York, New York
This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents either are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.
All rights reserved
Copyright © 2006 by Chris Moriarty
Bantam Books, the rooster colophon, Spectra, and the portrayal of a boxed “s” are trademarks of Random House, Inc.
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Moriarty, Chris, 1968–
Spin control / Chris Moriarty.
p. cm.—(A Bantam spectra book)
eISBN-13: 978-0-553-90273-0
eISBN-10: 0-553-90273-3
1. Artificial intelligence—Fiction. I. Title.
PS3613.O749S67 2006
813’.6—dc22
2005057156
www.bantamdell.com
Footnotes
1
The Subcommittee wishes to note that sentences three (3) and five (5) of this paragraph (emphasis added) were proposed for inclusion by the Member from KnowlesSyndicate. The remaining subcommittee members reached a consensus that the language of sentences three (3) and five (5) was inappropriately provocative, and that sentences three (3) and five (5) should consequently be expunged from the final text. The Member from KnowlesSyndicate categorically refused to join the afore-referenced consensus or agree to deletion of the sentence at issue, thus rendering a unanimous consensus impossible. In the interest of maintaining intersyndicate amity and proper decision-making procedures, the remaining Subcommittee Members concluded that the most appropriate action in the face of this unprecedented situation was to append some record of the committee’s deliberations. The Member from AzizSyndicate wishes formally to note that the wording of sentence one (1) also does not meet with his approval. The Member from MotaiSyndicate wishes formally to note that the wording of sentences one (1), two (2), and four (4) are counterrevolutionary. The Member from KnowlesSyndicate wishes formally to note that the Member from AzizSyndicate and the Member from MotaiSyndicate are blithering idiots…
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