Principia Cybernetica:Placing the Web at the Center of Man’s Quest for Knowledge

An old article, echoing the early days of the Web, which I found interesting. From the article:

“Every time has its own approach to these eternal philosophical questions, deriving from its knowledge and technology. We hold that in our time, the age of information, it is systems science and cybernetics, as the general sciences of organization and communication, that can provide the basis for contemporary philosophy.”

"Systems of agents interacting with each other display complex dynamics, and sometimes undergo transitions in which the whole system displays so much coherence and unity that it begins to control the parts. […] The Principia Cybernetica crew believe that the Net is about to trigger another metasystem transition, in which computer and communication technologies worldwide come together to form a brainlike whole."

"… it’s worth reflecting on the Principia Cybernetica dream, the view of the Net as a means for drawing our minds and souls together, to move slowly but surely toward the unattainable goal of truth. One hopes that, as the Net moves into the next phase of development, this kind of seriousness and intellectual quality will play more of a role once again, as they did in the early days before the wonderful and chaotic explosion of graphics, sound and e-commerce that the last decade has delivered us."

http://www.goertzel.org/benzine/PrincipiaCybernetica.htm