concepts of evolution is the subject of Chapter 2, entitled Mechanics of Evolution. Here we will note that DNA encompasses a design language as well as the blueprint-level design of life itself. Change in this design can be precipitated by mutation and genetic adaptation. The design of computer systems is similarly established through languages and blueprints, although in this case we observe that they are significantly more arcane, more verbose and yet less powerful. Change wrought in technical design is largely a result of human research; itself an adaptive or mutational mechanism of serendipitous effect. As far as evaluating the design and its ongoing modifications is concerned, the mechanisms are similar for the two domains; natural selection for organic life and the marketplace for computer systems. While the progression of organic life is fairly commonly understood, in an effort to illustrate to the reader the parallels we’ll conclude this chapter with a survey of distinct evolutionary epochs drawn from the historical record of computer progression.

While mutation, genetic adaptation and natural selection are central features of evolution, the environment in which they operate actually determines their efficacy. Thus Chapter 3, entitled Environment, begins with an overview of the concept of an ecosystem as the melding of organic life with its supporting infrastructure. We then use this concept as a means to introduce a derivative specialization termed a social ecosystem as an organizing medium of trust and policy in the formation and functioning of human groups. We characterize the progression of human grouping mechanisms through reference to family, clan, tribe, religious congregation and an emerging group associated with the nation-state that we term égalité. Within the containing environment of these various collections of humans, among-group and within-group interactions emanate from the definition, application and consequences of policy. We observe a connection between the human needs hierarchy as expressed by Abraham Maslow and the impetus of human interactions that occur as a consequence of, and according to this policy construct. Throughout the remainder of the book, this rationale for interaction stimuli forms a central feature of our considerations of human grouping mechanics and their relationship to computer networks. The basis for this consideration is the recognition of a foundation for social structure that is grounded within human physiology, which is the topic of the next chapter.

Within Chapter 4, entitled Physiology of the Individual, we begin with a cursory overview of human anatomy that provides the structure within which the mind exists and operates. Centered in the brain, the mind establishes its understanding of the world through stimuli from a collection of senses and it in turn effects responses through the body’s motor system. These are the means through which a person functions within the surrounding environment. The needs hierarchy manifests as distinct appetites that stimulate the acquisition of sustenance of various forms, forming a feedback loop maintained through a command and control facility centered on the mind, and distributed across the full sensori-motor system through the form and actions of the central and peripheral nervous systems. We then draw significant parallels between human anatomy and physiology with similar facilities found in computer systems. The anatomical structure of computers is established according to the specifications of a self-replicating machine suggested by John von Neumann; in essence, a specification of an automaton that functions much like organic life. The physiological processes of computers follow the model of computation known as a Turing Machine. From these facilities are derived much of the architecture of modern computer systems. We follow the progression of such architectures to a culmination in the personal electronic device; computer-like mechanisms that relate to individual people on a one-to-one basis.

To summarize just a bit, through the first four chapters we peruse the parallel perspectives of evolutionary progression of organic life and of computer technology during its emergent half

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