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by Robert Pepperell and Michael Punt.
Intellect Books, Bristol, UK, 2000.
181 pp, illus. Trade $34.95.
ISBN: 1-84150-042-9.
Reviewed by Cliff Pickover, USA.
E-mail: cliffpickover@hotmail.com


Although most Westerners probably believe that the technological revolution has affected most aspects our lives, authors Punt (a film-maker) and Pepperell (a multimedia artist) do not believe we are living in a "digital age." They argue that the digital paradigm is not adequate for representing our daily lives and even our sciences.

The authors write:

"New conceptual models are required to derive the continuity between art, computing, philosophy, and science that avoid binarism, determinism, or reductionism.... The metaphor we use in this book is that of a biological membrane, a lubricating sheath that gives form to complex phenomena (such as imagination, technology, and desire) at the same time as enabling a continuity between them."

The book is divided into ten sections, each beginning with an assertion or proposition that serves as a launch point for discussion. The text contains a number of subtitled paragraphs that can be approached in almost any order, and the book is sprinkled with interesting quotes from scientists and philosophers. There is no index.

A number of fascinating topics are covered, from consciousness, history, and artificial intelligence to language as a technology. However, many scientists may have a difficult time following some of the discussions in the book or adjusting to the format; thus, perhaps the book will have the greatest appeal to avant garde artists and philosophers. To give you a flavor of the topics, several of the chapter propositions include statements like, "My awareness extends to, and consist in, those things of which I am aware." Or, "The practice of art consists in arranging mater so as to add (extra) significance to it." Or, "The idea that living things consist of organized energy is disavowed by convention science."

The precise tie between their postdigital concept and these topics is not always spelled out in a way with which many scientists would resonate. For example, when discussing ZenoÍs paradox -- a paradox probably resolved by modern mathematicians familiar with the concept of limits of infinite series -- the authors says that "ZenoÍs paradox reminds us again that in our unmediated consciousness there is no distinction between things, and differentiation is no more than a consequence of language and the operation of our senses. The postdigital migration of the body, and its fusion with the technological, resuscitates ZenoÍs position." As already indicated, statements such as these will probably have greater appeal to philosophers and artists than to many scientists and mathematicians.

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