Metaman Explores Society as Organism

by Keith Schengili-Roberts

Picture a world where humans and machines unite, and where the individual is increasingly tied to others through technology. In this world an individual becomes the functional equivalent of an individual cell in a body, creating a global "superorganism". This is the central metaphor taken to the limit in Gregory Stock's book Metaman.

Stock's background is in biology, and from this he draws most of his ideas for the book. Stock sees Metaman as a living entity, drawn together through the actions of people and technology to further the aims of human society as a whole. This superorganism calls upon the planet's natural resources, circulates and processes this material through itself, and then co-ordinates its activities through a complex nervous system comprising telecommunications, computer technology and people.

While this approach to human society and its technology is not a new one, Stock has put things together with an interesting twist. While the author stretches his "global super-organism" metaphor to the limit in places, on the whole it holds up relatively well. Essentially, it gives mankind the responsibility of taking care of the planet, and shaping its future.

http://research.arc2.ucla.edu/pmts/metaman2.htm