Stanislaw Lem (1921–2006) was the best-known science fiction author writing outside the English language. His books have been translated into more than forty languages and have sold more than 27 million copies worldwide.Joanna Zylinska is professor of new media and communications at Goldsmiths, University of London. She is the author of Bioethics in the Age of New Media and The Ethics of Cultural Studies.

"At the end of the thirteenth century, Thomas Aquinas wrote the Summa Theologiae, an ambitious compendium of all orthodox philosophical and theological knowledge about the world. Seven hundred years later, science fiction author Stanislaw Lem writes his Summa Technologiae, an equally ambitious but unorthodox investigation into the perplexities and enigmas of humanity and its relationship to an equally enigmatic world in which it finds itself embedded. In this work Lem shows us science fiction as a method of inquiry, one that renders the future as tenuous as the past, with a wavering, ‘phantomatic’ present always at hand." -Eugene Thacker, author of After Life"Summa is a fantasia that follows certain lines of speculative thought as far as Lem can take them. Lem’s sober materialism may seem dehumanizing, but he brings back to the frontier a question that has plagued civilization since the beginning, and whose shifting, always insufficient answers have always signaled revolutions in culture: what is it to be human?" -Los Angeles Review of Books "With Summa Technologiae, his masterwork of non-fiction which has been translated into English for the first time, Lem has taken Western civilisation for a spin-with spectacular consequences. " -New Scientist

• Contents Translator’s Introduction. Evolution May Be Greater Than the Sum of Its Parts, but It’s Not All That Great: On Lem’s Summa Technnologiae Joanna ZylinskaSumma Technologie1. Dilemmas2. Two EvolutionsSimilaritiesDifferencesThe First CauseSeveral NaÏve Questions3. Civilizations in the UniverseThe Formulation of the ProblemThe Formulation of the MethodThe Statistics of Civilizations in the UniverseA Catastrophic Theory of the UniverseA Metatheory of MiraclesMan’s UniquenessIntelligence: An Cccident or a Necessity?HypothesesVotum SeparatumFuture Prospects 4. IntelectronicsReturn to EarthA Megabyte BombThe Big GameScientific MythsThe Intelligence AmplifierThe Black BoxThe Morality of HomeostatsThe Dangers of ElectrocracyCybernetics and SociologyBelief and InformationExperimental MetaphysicsThe Beliefs of Electric BrainsThe Ghost in the MachineThe Trouble with Information Doubts and Antinomies5. Prolegomena to OmnipotenceBefore ChaosChaos and OrderScylla and Charybdis: On RestraintThe Silence of the DesignerMethodological Madness A New Linnaeus: About SystematicsModels and RealityPlagiarism and Creation On Imitology6. PhantomologyThe Fundamentals of PhantomaticsThe Phantomatic MachinePeripheral and Central PhantomaticsThe Limits of PhantomaticsCerebromaticsTeletaxy and PhantoplicationPersonality and Information7. The Creation of WorldsInformation FarmingLinguistic EngineeringThe Engineering of TranscendenceCosmogonic Engineering8. A Lampoon of EvolutionThe Reconstruction of the SpeciesConstructing LifeConstructing DeathConstructing ConsciousnessError-based ConstructsBionics and BiocyberneticsIn the Eyes of the DesignerReconstructing Man CyborgizationThe Autoevolutionary MachineExtrasensory PhenomenaConclusionNotesBibliographyIndex

Stanislaw Lem (1921–2006) was the best-known science fiction author writing outside the English language. His books have been translated into more than forty languages and have sold more than 27 million copies worldwide.Joanna Zylinska is professor of new media and communications at Goldsmiths, University of London. She is the author of Bioethics in the Age of New Media and The Ethics of Cultural Studies.

"At the end of the thirteenth century, Thomas Aquinas wrote the Summa Theologiae, an ambitious compendium of all orthodox philosophical and theological knowledge about the world. Seven hundred years later, science fiction author Stanislaw Lem writes his Summa Technologiae, an equally ambitious but unorthodox investigation into the perplexities and enigmas of humanity and its relationship to an equally enigmatic world in which it finds itself embedded. In this work Lem shows us science fiction as a method of inquiry, one that renders the future as tenuous as the past, with a wavering, ‘phantomatic’ present always at hand." -Eugene Thacker, author of After Life"Summa is a fantasia that follows certain lines of speculative thought as far as Lem can take them. Lem’s sober materialism may seem dehumanizing, but he brings back to the frontier a question that has plagued civilization since the beginning, and whose shifting, always insufficient answers have always signaled revolutions in culture: what is it to be human?" -Los Angeles Review of Books "With Summa Technologiae, his masterwork of non-fiction which has been translated into English for the first time, Lem has taken Western civilisation for a spin-with spectacular consequences. " -New Scientist

• Contents Translator’s Introduction. Evolution May Be Greater Than the Sum of Its Parts, but It’s Not All That Great: On Lem’s Summa Technnologiae Joanna ZylinskaSumma Technologie1. Dilemmas2. Two EvolutionsSimilaritiesDifferencesThe First CauseSeveral NaÏve Questions3. Civilizations in the UniverseThe Formulation of the ProblemThe Formulation of the MethodThe Statistics of Civilizations in the UniverseA Catastrophic Theory of the UniverseA Metatheory of MiraclesMan’s UniquenessIntelligence: An Cccident or a Necessity?HypothesesVotum SeparatumFuture Prospects 4. IntelectronicsReturn to EarthA Megabyte BombThe Big GameScientific MythsThe Intelligence AmplifierThe Black BoxThe Morality of HomeostatsThe Dangers of ElectrocracyCybernetics and SociologyBelief and InformationExperimental MetaphysicsThe Beliefs of Electric BrainsThe Ghost in the MachineThe Trouble with Information Doubts and Antinomies5. Prolegomena to OmnipotenceBefore ChaosChaos and OrderScylla and Charybdis: On RestraintThe Silence of the DesignerMethodological Madness A New Linnaeus: About SystematicsModels and RealityPlagiarism and Creation On Imitology6. PhantomologyThe Fundamentals of PhantomaticsThe Phantomatic MachinePeripheral and Central PhantomaticsThe Limits of PhantomaticsCerebromaticsTeletaxy and PhantoplicationPersonality and Information7. The Creation of WorldsInformation FarmingLinguistic EngineeringThe Engineering of TranscendenceCosmogonic Engineering8. A Lampoon of EvolutionThe Reconstruction of the SpeciesConstructing LifeConstructing DeathConstructing ConsciousnessError-based ConstructsBionics and BiocyberneticsIn the Eyes of the DesignerReconstructing Man CyborgizationThe Autoevolutionary MachineExtrasensory PhenomenaConclusionNotesBibliographyIndex