NetFuture is an electronic newsletter with periodic postings. It is currently going through a bit of a transition - from its earlier focus on technologies to a preoccupation with the deeper issues rooted in our technology-centered, scientific vision of the world. Above all, it seeks a new, qualitative science.

In one sense, this quest could hardly be more radical: from Galileo's time onward, the dominant science has tried to ignore qualities in favor of quantities - in other words, to define qualitative science as non-science. But in fact the only science we can have is irreducibly qualitative, which is why all true scientists continually appeal to qualities - even if they prefer not to notice the fact. The task at hand is not so much to create something new as to become conscious of what goes on in science all the time - and learn to discipline it - thereby avoiding the crippling distortions that result from the effort to evade reality's fullness. Of course, this would already be to create something new.

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

The editor of NetFuture is Steve Talbott (stevet@netfuture.org). His current main project is reflected in a growing collection of papers, From Mechanism to a Science of Qualities, 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 go to 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.

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Guide to the site:

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

2012 (issue #184 - current) 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

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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 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: June 21, 2012

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