I've come across a fascinating evolutionary hierarchy of things by the Bordalier Intitute. It shows communication networks developing from cosmic networks. The diagram did make me think about Matryoshkus Russian dolls.
[image of product by Art Lebedev Studio. Hat tip to Laughing Squid]
The image I am using makes sense also in another respect. It represents a hierarchy in order of bit, byte, kilobyte, megabyte, gigabyte & terabyte. All it's missing is petabytes. According to Wired magazine, these are stored in the cloud.
If we take the opposite approach, from the outside in, for communication networks we have:
1. Chemical bonds in protolife (Gaia)
2. Cellular energy in prokaryote (Biosphere)
3. Genetic in eucariote (Biotope)
4. Central nervous system (Ecosystem)
5. Semiotic (Social Community)
6. Food Web or trophic Web in vertebrates or quadriopodes (Biotop)
7. Ritual verbal symbolic in religion (Culture)
8. Mechanical Tools (Engineering)
9. Written verbal (History)
10. Formal symbolic (Science)
11. Binary (Computer Systems)
12. Hypertext in the World Wide Web (Internet)
13. Computer to computer (Web Services)
This sequence or evolution seems to follow the path outlined in the article, where science (causation) is superseded by correlation (data analysis without hypotheses of what it might show). Is the evolution of communication networks taking us towards Artificial Intelligence (AI) agents as conversation agents?
Fascinating theory or potential reality?