Starclouds

Welcome!

“Starclouds” is an experiment for me. My intention is use it as a place to think through stories as I’m working on them, to talk about interesting aspects that don’t make it into the final article, and/or to talk about notions that might never see the light of day otherwise. I’ll probably end up surprising myself; I usually do when I write. But hopefully, we (my hypothetical readers and I) will have some fun along the way.

Among many other things, I expect to be following up on the issues I talked about in my books Complexity (shamelessly advertised to the right) and The Dream Machine (likewise). For example: how do we cope with a dizzyingly fast-moving world that is simultaneously becoming more integrated, and yet more fragmented? And how do we adjust to a technology—networking—that is simultaneously making society freer, more open and more collaborative than ever before, and yet more dangerous?

If there’s time, I’d also like to meditate on some of the “Big Questions” in science (and elsewhere.) A partial list:

• The Idea of Natural Law: Unity—of heavens and earth, life and non-life, human and non-human—plus the notion that the Creator plays fair…
• The Credo of Science: Conclusions require evidence-and the evidence is for everyone
• Before the Big Bang: What are space and time, anyway?
• Cosmic Evolution: From dust to us—the triumph of complexity…
• Global Climate Change: CO­_2, tectonics, an aging sun, and more…
• The Origin of Life: The not-so-warm little pond…
• Evolution: The further triumph of complexity..
• The Nature of Consciousness and Thought: It isn’t just one thing…
• The Great Transition (I): Exactly how are humans different from other creatures? And exactly when and why did that difference arise?
• The Origins of Ethics and Trust: Can nice guys finish first?
• The Nature of Human Nature: Actually, it’s nature and nurture…
• The Unreasonable Effectiveness of Information: From iPods to black holes and beyond…
• The Great Transition (II): How did the modern world come to be? How did a medieval society founded on faith, tradition, authority and hierarchy manage to transform itself into a global society founded (in some countries) on open markets, open democracies and open inquiry? It was a historical anomaly, and far from inevitable…
• The Four Realms of Science: There’s physical, biological, neural/behavioral and social—each with it’s own realm of technology…
• The Four Realms of Technology: There’s grey tech and green tech—and two more…
• The Innovation Ecosystem: Innovation isn’t just what happens in the laboratory…
• How the Internet Almost Didn’t Happen: Technology isn’t inevitable…

About the Name

The main reason I chose to call the blog “Starclouds” is that I like the word. It’s evocative. It has a nice rhythm when you say it out loud. And if it has a certain dreamy, other-worldly, New-Age-ish quality-well, maybe that’s appropriate.

Taken literally, the word “starclouds” refers to the Milky Way: a cloud made of stars. It also refers to the dark clouds of interstellar gas and dust that line the spiral arms of our galaxy—and of other galaxies. These clouds are very hard to see with the naked eye against the black of the night sky. But they are the nurseries of the galaxy, where stars are born. Famous bright patches like the Orion Nebula—Hubble has taken lots of gorgeous pictures—are just the places where newborn stars are bursting from the cocoon, so to speak. Finally, at the very largest scale, the word “starclouds” refers to the vast network of galaxies and clusters of galaxies that fills the observable universe. (A few of the most distant of these galaxies can be seen in the “deep-field ” image at the top of this page, which was also taken by Hubble.)

Again, these literal meanings are appropriate: I’ve loved astronomy all my life, and I’ve written a great deal about it in my time as a science journalist. But the word “starclouds” also works as a metaphor for what I hope to do in this blog. I want to look at the Deep Field, so to speak: the large-scale patterns of earth, sky, and humankind. I want to understand how it all fits together, and see the invisible structures that lie beneath surface appearances. And of course, I want to understand what it all means…