Re: RFI: Acropolis City/State Concept

Anders Sandberg (asa@nada.kth.se)
15 Sep 1998 22:19:35 +0200

"Bryan Moss" <bryan.moss@dial.pipex.com> writes:

> Anders Sandberg wrote:
>
> > Arcology is a termed coined by Italian architect
> > Paolo Soleri in 1959 to describe the concept of
> > Architecture and Ecology working as an integral
> > system.
>
> Is it me or is Mr. Soleri a certified "nut"?

Who is accredited to certify nuts? And are nuts ISO 14000 compliant? :-)

Soleri's writings strike me as rather typical of architects: lots of vague, artsy neologisms, with some quite realistic ideas mixed in with social speculations. Hardly enough to put him in the nut category. One might disagree with his ideas, but they are not entirely out of the window.

> And,
> if not, could someone explain to me what religion
> and "Omega seeds" have to do with Architecture.

I have the impression that Soleri is 1) very interested in creating working, sustainable communities, and this is of course related to religion in the sense of community-building. He seems to quite happily borrow useful ideas from religion, such as how to make austerity into something positive. 2) he is in some sense a follower of Teilhard de Chardin (and maybe Tipler, even if I don't know if he have read him) in the sense that he thinks life will evolve to higher stages, and that space colonization is something ethically good and necessary.

I would put him on the mystical side of transhumanism; not quite a transhumanist, but with several points in common.

-- 
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Anders Sandberg                                      Towards Ascension!
asa@nada.kth.se                            http://www.nada.kth.se/~asa/
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