It begins to look as if we might have been wrong. All those
predictions driving us forward throughout history have brought
us finally to the unexpected realisation that the future is,
suddenly, no longer what it used to be. Oops. Tagged with
“networks” (7) As usual, microbes led the way. Bacteria have
swarmed in intense networks for 3.5 billion years. Then a
hierarchical form emerged with the first nucleated cells that
were made up of an enclosed society of formerly independent
organisms. That’s the pattern for the evolution of information,
Alex Wright said. Networks coalesce into hierarchies, which then
form a new level of networks, which coalesce again, and so on.
Thus an unending series of information explosions is finessed.
In humans, classification schemes emerged everywhere, defining
how things are connected in larger contexts. Researchers into
“folk taxonomies” have found that all cultures universally
describe things they care about in hierarchical layers, and
those hierarchies are usually five layers