Founding editor of Wired and alumnus of Stewart Brand's Whole Earth Review and CoEvolution Quarterly, whom Bob Dobbs opens Dialogue 53 with as the one contemporary thinker whose vocabulary brushes against his own. Kelly's coinage — the technium, the accumulation of all technologies as a working, living system, "the seventh kingdom of nature" — is the outside mirror Bob holds up to his Tech Body. Cameron treats the convergence warily, pressing at once for the concept's ontological basis. New to it — start here for the technium/Tech-Body parallel and Cameron's challenge to it.
Across the dialogues
Enters as the lone contemporary who names Bob's tech body from the outside — the technium, technology as a living "seventh kingdom" — a convergence Cameron immediately puts on trial by asking its ontological basis
Kelly's technium — the accumulation of all technologies and inventions as a working, living system — is pitched as a new "kingdom of nature," the outside vocabulary Bob has been looking for.
"He even refers to the technium as the seventh kingdom of nature,"
Bob enlists Kelly as the sole contemporary who independently sees his Tech Body — technology come alive as a living organism — which is why the whole session opens with him.
"this is the only person I've come across who sees something similar to what I'm calling the tech body."
Cameron's standing challenge to the coinage — before granting the technium is real, he wants its ground: "what is its possibility of being a reality? Coming to be as a phenomenon."
"what is the ontological basis of this technium?"
Connections
Bob enlists Kelly's "technium" as the one outside account that sees what he means by the Tech Body — technology as a living system.