„Summa Technologie” is a „mother-essay” from which most of Lem's later essayistic books stem. It was written in times when most of the discussed issues – today sometimes quite obvious ones – belonged to the world of fantasy. The ambition behind this project still amazes, especially if we take into consideration that Lem tried to set up a secular edifice of knowledge, competing in its universalism with Saint Thomas Aquinas and his Summa Theologica.
At the same time the book rivals world futurology - in the domain of foreseeing future ways of science and technology. Current generation, interested in biotechnology and informatics, shall find in Lem's “Summa” the project and prophecy of todays' successes of these disciplines.
The English translation (University Of Minnesota Press, 2013) is the work of Joanna Zylinska, professor of new media and communications at Goldsmiths, University of London.
3.00 out of 5 based on 1 ratings1 user reviews.
Weird Book that defies any Summary
Reviewed by Hiroo Yamagata on
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This is a really weird book. Despite being a "future" book, it doesn't seem dated at all even after 60 years, since the future tech (if I can call it that) that it deals with is at least 1000 years away (if ever).
The main theme of the book is, "maybe we can use evolution as a model for technical development." So Lem goes into evolutionary theory (which is unbelievably accurate, preceding Dawkins and almost every other popularizers of evolutionary theory in most of his arguments), discusses the similarities and differences between evolution and tech development. So far so good.
But then, he starts to theorize about the ways that we might cram technology in a pseudo-gene, so that it automatically evolves. He also theorises about how we may transform theories into pseudo-genes, so that scientific (and other) theories "grow" and evolve automatically.
And then, he argues about how natural evolution was constrained, and proposes various ways to "improve"on that design.
All this is interesting, but over-the-top speculation. Therefore, there is no point delving into the actual ways that these can be achieved, or the physical basis that this could be done (in --- literally --- million years). But, Lem does exactly that. And in doing that, he meanders into .... everything.
I tried to make a powerpoint summary of the book and it turns out rather bland, because all the interesting and/or crazy bits are in those meanderings, which are not really the main line of logic of the book. So it is not summarizeable.
There is a chapter "Phantomatics" where he kinda sorta foresaw VR. In the essay "30 years later" (1991) Lem makes a big deal out of it, and present it as a proof of his correctness, which is a pity, because this wasn't supposed to be that kind of near-sighted "predicting the future" book. It is a book with a much larger scope, every idea of later Lem novels and stories are in there.
However, it meanders all the way, I hesitate to reccomend it to anyone, because 20 page into it, you're bound to scratch your head and say "what the hell am I reading?" But, if you have time and patience, it shows the way Lem thinks in full view, and his almost anal attention to detail, combined with unbelievable blindspots, his almost non-human indifference, combined with his wierdly puritan morality can be fascinating and bewildering.
Rating: 35
„Summa Technologie” is a „mother-essay” from which most of Lem's later essayistic books stem. It was written in times when most of the discussed issues – today sometimes quite obvious ones – belonged to the world of fantasy. The ambition behind this project still amazes, especially if we take into consideration that Lem tried to set up a secular edifice of knowledge, competing in its universalism with Saint Thomas Aquinas and his Summa Theologica.