The Magic of Code: How Digital Language Created and Connects Our World--And Shapes Our Future

In the tradition of classics such as The Lives of a Cell, a bold reframing of our relationship with technology that argues code is ＂a universal force--swirling through disciplines, absorbing ideas, and connecting worlds＂ (Linda Liukas).

In the digital world, code is the essential primary building block, the equivalent of the cell or DNA in the biological sphere--and almost as mysterious. Code can create entire worlds, real and virtual; it allows us to connect instantly to people and places around the globe; and it performs tasks that were once only possible in science fiction. It is a superpower, and not just in a technical sense. It is also a gateway to ideas. As vividly illustrated by Samuel Arbesman, it is the ultimate connector, providing new insight and meaning into how everything from language and mythology to biblical texts, biology, and even our patterns of thought connect with the history and nature of computing.

While the building block of code can be used for many wondrous things it can also create deeper wedges in our society and be weaponized to cause damage to our planet or our civilization. Code and computing are too important to be left to the tech community; it is essential that each of us engage with it. And we fail to understand it to our detriment.

By providing us with a framework to think about coding and its effects upon the world and placing the past, current, and future developments in computing into its broader setting we see how software and computers can work for people as opposed to against our needs. With this deeper understanding into the ＂why＂ of coding we can be masters of technology rather than its subjects.

Samuel Arbesman is scientist in residence at Lux Capital. In addition, he is a research fellow at the Long Now Foundation and senior fellow of the Silicon Flatirons Center for Law, Technology, and Entrepreneurship at the University of Colorado, Boulder. His writing has appeared in the New York Times, the Wall Street Journal, the Atlantic, and Wired, where he was previously a contributing writer. His scientific research has been cited widely and has appeared in numerous peer-reviewed journals including the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences. Previously, Arbesman was a senior scholar at the Ewing Marion Kauffman Foundation and a research fellow in the Department of Health Care Policy at Harvard Medical School. He completed a PhD in computational biology at Cornell University in 2008.