NetFuture is an electronic newsletter with periodic postings. Having focused for many years on technology and its social implications, it has now turned more toward the problems of a science influenced by visions of technology. In particular, the newsletter is currently dealing with issues in genetics, molecular biology, evolution, and the nature of the organism. The aim is to overcome the limitations of the nineteenth-century materialism that still dominates biological thinking (as opposed to the rather more “liberated” thinking of the physicist). The aim, in other words, is to find a more living approach to the dynamism, plasticity, and intentionality of the organism. Organisms are creatures of meaning and purpose, of directed striving, and their activity is a kind of speaking. But while these central features are often implicit in biological descriptions, a recognition of them has yet to transform the most deeply-rooted, materialistic thought habits of the biologist.

Please Note:

The NetFuture archives contain a vast range of commentary on many aspects of technology and science, including their social impacts. You will find convenient access to all these contents via the topical index.

The editor of NetFuture is Stephen L. Talbott (stevet@netfuture.org). His growing collection of papers, From Mechanism to a Science of Qualities, is largely derived from articles that have appeared in NetFuture. This collection always contains the latest versions of the papers. For other writings of his, you can visit his home page.

NetFuture is a non-profit publication and needs its readers' support. To make a contribution, click here. You can also check to see what other readers have said about NetFuture.

Search the NetFuture site

Guide to the site:

• Current issue
• Topical index to all issues
• Index to books reviewed
• Past issues and tables of contents

2013 (issue #186 - current) 2012 (issue #184 - 185) 2011 (issue #182 - 183) 2010 (issue #179 - 181) 2009 (issue #175 - 178) 2008 (issue #172 - 174) 2007 (issue #166 - 171) 2006 (no issues) 2005 (issue #160 - 165) 2004 (issue #153 - 159) 2003 (issue #141 - 152) 2002 (issue #127 - 140)

2001 (issue #116 - 126) 2000 (issue #100 - 115) 1999 (issue #82 - 99) 1998 (issue #63 - 81) 1997 (issue #37 - 62) 1996 (issue #3 - 36) 1995 (issue #1 - 2)

• Archives for NetFuture forwarding service

  1998 1997

Subscribe or unsubscribe to email postings of NetFuture (free).

Associated resources:

• The Nature Institute also publishes a hardcopy newsletter, In Context. Subscriptions are free for those living in the U.S. For more information, visit the In Context website.
• For examples of a qualitative and holistic approach toward the animal and plant kingdoms, see these papers by Nature Institute director, Craig Holdrege.
• Steve's most recent book, based on writings in NetFuture, is Devices of the Soul: Battling for Our Selves in an Age of Machines. Michael Pollan (author of The Botany of Desire and The Omnivore's Dilemma) has written of this book: "Nothing is as rare or sorely needed in our tech-enchanted culture right now as intelligent criticism of technology, and Steve Talbott is exactly the critic we've been waiting for: trenchant, sophisticated, and completely original. Devices of the Soul is an urgent and important book." You will find more information about the book (and can order it) here, and can read the introduction here.

• NetFuture editor Steve Talbott is deeply indebted to the work of the British philologist and semantic historian, Owen Barfield. You'll find an introduction to some of Barfield's thought in an appendix to Steve's earlier book, The Future Does Not Compute: Transcending the Machines in Our Midst. (The book itself is fully available online.)

Privacy Policy: The Nature Institute (publisher of NetFuture) will use your name and address only for communicating directly with you, and will not pass this information on to anyone else. We will, however, thank financial contributors by name in our hardcopy newsletter, In Context, unless you request otherwise.

Last revision: February 28, 2013