Prependix A: Glossary

Extropic:

Any system which can sustain disequilibrium -- that is, over time it neither collapses in chaos (one-time disequilibrium) nor tightens into repetitious and predictable harmony (sustainable equilibrium) – is an extropic system. One consequence of the extended disequilibrium found in extropic system is that this unbalance will steadily produce new things in the universe. The constant state of “being on the edge between chaos and order” becomes a source of perpetual novelty. Technology, like life and mind, is one such extropic system. From these we get new forms, new directions, new ideas. There is probably no other source of the new in the universe other than this profound imbalance.

-Kevin Kelly February 2006,
early draft of The Technium

Epistemic Technology:

Epistemic technologies are the technologies of knowing, such as the alphabet, writing, books, libraries, indexing, cataloging, cross-referencing, hyperlinking.

-Kevin Kelly February 2006
early draft of The Technium