Economic systems, just like all natural systems, have an ability to produce information that is constrained by the systems’ computational capacity. For information to grow in the economy, the computational capacity of the economy needs to grow as well.

We can see now that information is what our world runs on: the blood and the fuel, the vital principle. It pervades the sciences from top to bottom, transforming every branch of knowledge. Information theory began as a bridge from mathematics to electrical engineering and from there to computing. What English speakers call “computer science” Europe

The Beginning is a century-long process, and its muddling forward is mundane. Its big databases and extensive communications are boring. Aspects of this dawning real-time global mind are either dismissed as nonsense or feared. There is indeed a lot to be legitimately worried about because there is not a single aspect of human culture—or nature—that