Once, not so long ago, everything was described in mechanical terms. We understood the body to be a mechanism responding to stimuli. The economic system was considered to be a delicate Swiss-watch action, needing occasional adjustment and lubrication. But the paradigm has changed. Machines are out.
Organisms are in.
First the earth was imagined as an enormous living being, Gaia, whose self-regulation and balanced ecology could only be interfered with by meddling humanity. Now cultural ideas have been described as memes, as if they replicated and spread like disembodied genes, acting to preserve themselves. And some treat the Internet itself as almost a living object, transforming and evolving in unpredictable ways. One commentator recently suggested that it will be the primal cybersoup out of which intelligent cyberbeings evolve. About six years ago, even economics was remade in an organic image, one that is now flourishing and sprouting extravagant variations all over the Internet.