Mirror Worlds: or the Day Software Puts the Universe in a Shoebox...How It Will Happen and What It Will MeanOxford University Press, 28 jan 1993 - 256 pagina's Technology doesn't flow smoothly; it's the big surprises that matter, and Yale computer expert David Gelernter sees one such giant leap right on the horizon. Today's small scale software programs are about to be joined by vast public software works that will revolutionize computing and transform society as a whole. One such vast program is the "Mirror World." Imagine looking at your computer screen and seeing reality--an image of your city, for instance, complete with moving traffic patterns, or a picture that sketches the state of an entire far-flung corporation at this second. These representations are called Mirror Worlds, and according to Gelernter they will soon be available to everyone. Mirror Worlds are high-tech voodoo dolls: by interacting with the images, you interact with reality. Indeed, Mirror Worlds will revolutionize the use of computers, transforming them from (mere) handy tools to crystal balls which will allow us to see the world more vividly and see into it more deeply. Reality will be replaced gradually, piece-by-piece, by a software imitation; we will live inside the imitation; and the surprising thing is--this will be a great humanistic advance. We gain control over our world, plus a huge new measure of insight and vision. In this fascinating book--part speculation, part explanation--Gelernter takes us on a tour of the computer technology of the near future. Mirror Worlds, he contends, will allow us to explore the world in unprecedented depth and detail without ever changing out of our pajamas. A hospital administrator might wander through an entire medical complex via a desktop computer. Any citizen might explore the performance of the local schools, chat electronically with teachers and other Mirror World visitors, plant software agents to report back on interesting topics; decide to run for the local school board, hire a campaign manager, and conduct the better part of the campaign itself--all by interacting with the Mirror World. Gelernter doesn't just speculate about how this amazing new software will be used--he shows us how it will be made, explaining carefully and in detail how to build a Mirror World using technology already available. We learn about "disembodied machines," "trellises," "ensembles," and other computer components which sound obscure, but which Gelernter explains using familiar metaphors and terms. (He tells us that a Mirror World is a microcosm just like a Japanese garden or a Gothic cathedral, and that a computer program is translated by the computer in the same way a symphony is translated by a violinist into music.) Mirror Worlds offers a lucid and humanistic account of the coming software revolution, told by a computer scientist at the cutting edge of his field. |
Inhoudsopgave
| 1 | |
| 3 | |
2 The Orb | 15 |
3 Disembodied Machines | 37 |
4 Space Time and Multitime | 67 |
5 The Deluge | 107 |
6 Simple Mind Machines | 141 |
7 Building Mirror Worlds | 179 |
Epilogue | 213 |
Notes | 227 |
Index | 233 |
Overige edities - Alles bekijken
Mirror Worlds: or the Day Software Puts the Universe in a Shoebox...How It ... David Gelernter Gedeeltelijke weergave - 1993 |
Mirror Worlds, Or, The Day Software Puts the Universe in a Shoebox--: How it ... David Hillel Gelernter Geen voorbeeld beschikbaar - 1991 |
Mirror Worlds, Or, The Day Software Puts the Universe in a Shoebox--: How it ... David Gelernter Geen voorbeeld beschikbaar - 1992 |
Veelvoorkomende woorden en zinsdelen
Actor answer attribute basic big picture blackboard blond blue bunch called cauliflower Chapter chronicle stream City Mirror World communication compact disk complex concrete database David Gelernter describe diagnosis dive dollhouse electronic engineering ensemble programs Espalier evocative exactly example fact fast figure Fruitford goal going grab hardware huge human hypercomputer Hypotenuse important infochunks infomachine information machine Ingrid inside instructions intensive care unit interesting Ken Musgrave kind landscape language Linda look means memory memory pool merely microcosms modules Nicholas Carriero patient piece Piffel piranhas plunge and squish principle problem procedure processor programming language recursive region screen script sense simple simulated single software agents Software architecture software ensembles sort speculation structure stuff talking televiewers there's thinking topsight Trellis element tuple space Tuplesphere Uncoupling understand what's words
Populaire passages
Pagina 223 - No changing of place at a hundred miles an hour, nor making of stuffs a thousand yards a minute, will make us one whit stronger, happier, or wiser. There was always more in the world than men could see, walked they ever so slowly; they will see it no better for going fast.
Pagina xv - You can't imagine how strange it seemed to be journeying on thus, without any visible cause of progress other than the magical machine, with its flying white breath and rhythmical, unvarying pace...
Pagina xv - ... its flying white breath and rhythmical, unvarying pace, between these rocky walls, which are already clothed with moss and ferns and grasses ; and when I reflected that these great masses of stone had been cut asunder to allow our passage thus far below the surface of the earth, I felt as if no fairy tale was ever half so wonderful as what I saw.
Pagina 17 - In the software version, it's merely a starting point. You can dive deeper and explore. Pilot your mouse over to some interesting point and turn the altitude knob. Now you are inside a school, courthouse, hospital or City Hall. You see a picture like the one at the top level, but here it's all focussed on this one sub-world, so you can find out what's really going on down here. Meet and chat (electronically) with the local inhabitants, or other Mirror World browsers.
Pagina 16 - World, you see a city map of some kind. Lots of information is superimposed on the map, using words, numbers, colors, dials—the resulting display is dense with data; you are tracking thousands of different values simultaneously. You can see traffic density on the streets, delays at the airport, the physical condition of the bridges, the status of markets, the condition of the city's finances, the current agenda at city hall and the board of education, crime conditions in the park, air quality,...
Pagina 16 - ... (p. 6). How is this to happen? How will the 'place' of mirror world permit one to enter, stroll around, and retrieve archival and live-medium information? The picture you see on your display represents a real physical layout. In a City Mirror World, you see a city map of some kind. Lots of information is superimposed on the map, using words, numbers, colors, dials - the resulting display is dense with data; you are tracking thousands of different values simultaneously.
Pagina 3 - ... real' world that they were taken for 'software models of some chunk of reality, some piece of the real world going on outside your window'. In such mirror worlds, he writes, 'oceans of information pour endlessly into the model (through a vast maze of software pipes and hoses); so much information that "the model" can mimic the "reality's" every move, moment-by-moment
Pagina 1 - This book describes an event that will happen someday soon: You will look into a computer screen and see reality. Some part of your world—the town you live in, the company you work for, your school system, the city hospital—will hang there in a sharp color image, abstract but recognizable, moving subtly in a thousand places.
Pagina 228 - The Democratic Wish: Popular Participation and the Limits of American Government, Basic Books, 1990. 14. Data on what the poor receive in federal assistance are from "Receipt of Selected Non-Cash Benefits: 1987,
Pagina 33 - But if no one among us is capable of governing himself, then who among us has the capacity to govern someone else?
Verwijzingen naar dit boek
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An Introduction to Geographical Information Systems D. Ian Heywood,Sarah Cornelius,Steve Carver Fragmentweergave - 2006 |