61 quotes
An event is not triggered by a chain of being, but by a field of causes spreading horizontally, like creeping tide.
Out of Control: The New Biology of Machines, Social Systems and the Economic World (1995)
An ecosystem is more like a conference than a community -- indefinite, pluralistic, tolerant, and in constant flux.
Out of Control: The New Biology of Machines, Social Systems and the Economic World (1995)
A company cannot be a learning company without also being a teaching company.
Out of Control: The New Biology of Machines, Social Systems and the Economic World (1995)
Hereditary information does not exist independently of its embodiment.
Out of Control: The New Biology of Machines, Social Systems and the Economic World (1995)
Anything that can hold an electronic charge can hold a fiscal charge.
Out of Control: The New Biology of Machines, Social Systems and the Economic World (1995)
We cannot import evolution and learning without exporting control.
Out of Control: The New Biology of Machines, Social Systems and the Economic World (1995)
The quickest route to describing a seed's output is to sprout it.
Out of Control: The New Biology of Machines, Social Systems and the Economic World (1995)
Complexity must be grown from simple systems that already work.
Out of Control: The New Biology of Machines, Social Systems and the Economic World (1995)
We want a machine that is constantly remaking itself.
Out of Control: The New Biology of Machines, Social Systems and the Economic World (1995)
"It works, why worry?" is life's deepest philosophy.
Out of Control: The New Biology of Machines, Social Systems and the Economic World (1995)
We can only get smart things from stupid things.
Out of Control: The New Biology of Machines, Social Systems and the Economic World (1995)
Dying creatively is the hallmark of vivisystems.
Out of Control: The New Biology of Machines, Social Systems and the Economic World (1995)
Telling the future is what organisms are for.
Out of Control: The New Biology of Machines, Social Systems and the Economic World (1995)
A system is anything that talks to itself.
Out of Control: The New Biology of Machines, Social Systems and the Economic World (1995)
What humans can't engineer, evolution can.
Out of Control: The New Biology of Machines, Social Systems and the Economic World (1995)
"Correct" is a property of small systems.
Out of Control: The New Biology of Machines, Social Systems and the Economic World (1995)
Life never falls, but never gets out of falling. It is poised in a persistent state of almost-fell.
Out of Control: The New Biology of Machines, Social Systems and the Economic World (1995)
There is nothing to be found in a beehive that is not submerged in a bee. And yet you can search a bee forever with cyclotron and fluoroscope, and you will never find a hive.
Out of Control: The New Biology of Machines, Social Systems and the Economic World (1995)
We don't have a word for learning and teaching at the same time, but our schooling would improve if we did.
Out of Control: The New Biology of Machines, Social Systems and the Economic World (1995)
The great secret which life has kept from us is that once born, life is immortal. Once launched, it cannot be eradicated.
Out of Control: The New Biology of Machines, Social Systems and the Economic World (1995)