Nature as Information; Technology as Memory
Nature is the continuous transformation of informational patterns —encoded, transmitted, and refined through physical and biological processes. It is information in motion. What persists in the natural world is not matter itself, but the patterns it forms—patterns that repeat, adapt, and endure (von Bertalanffy, 1968; Meadows, 2008). DNA is not just a molecule; it is the memory of life, storing instructions that allow generations to continue (Crick, 1958). Neurons do not simply fire; they encode experience, creating traces that guide future behavior (Kandel et al., 2021). Ecosystems do not exist by accident; their stability emerges from countless interactions, each transmitting and processing signals across time and space (Simard et al., 1997). At every level, nature is solving the same problem: how to remember what matters and coordinate what survives (Shannon, 1948; Bateson, 1972).
Humans inherit this process, but with a unique capability: the ability to externalize memory consciously. Language was the first tool for this: a system of sounds and symbols that allowed experience to move beyond the boundaries of a single mind (Chomsky, 1957; Cassirer, 1944). Writing extended memory further, creating records that could survive lifetimes, travel across distances, and accumulate over generations (Ong, 1982). Symbols, numbers, maps, and diagrams followed. Each was not merely a tool—it was a channel for information to persist and coordinate action at scale (North, 1990).
Technology, then, is nothing more and nothing less than memory made explicit. From clay tablets to books, from ledgers to databases, from computers to networks, every human invention serves the same purpose: to store, transmit, and make accessible what is remembered (Wiener, 1948; Shannon, 1948). Technology does not exist to dominate or replace nature; it exists to extend nature’s capacity to remember and to act on that memory.
But memory carries responsibility. As human systems grow, we increasingly interact not with reality itself, but with its representations: symbols, dashboards, models. This allows coordination at unprecedented scales—but it also introduces fragility. When memory drifts from experience, when symbols fail to reflect reality, systems begin to misbehave or misalign (Ostrom, 1990; Hayek, 1945). What once guided life efficiently now constrains it. The system continues to operate, but it no longer adapts.
Nature, by contrast, continuously updates memory. Feedback flows, errors are corrected, patterns evolve. Human technology often freezes memory, preserving past assumptions as rigid structures (Meadows, 2008). The power of memory can become the weight of inertia. What was adaptive becomes prescriptive. What once coordinated life begins to limit it.
This is why the question is not what can we build, but what should be remembered, and how should that memory be managed (Clark, 2001). If nature is information, and technology is memory, then our systems—the societies, markets, organizations, and networks we construct—are only as resilient as the memory architectures they rely upon (Bertalanffy, 1968; North, 1990). Technology, aligned with natural informational principles, becomes a living extension of life’s capacity to learn. Misaligned, it becomes a machine for repeating the past with precision.
Velera begins here. Not with products, not with outputs, but with the recognition that how we remember—and how we allow memory to inform action—defines the future of our systems. Memory is not neutral. It is the foundation on which all human coordination rests. To design meaningful, resilient systems, we must first understand this.
References
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Meadows, D. (2008). Thinking in Systems. Chelsea Green.
North, D. C. (1990). Institutions, Institutional Change and Economic Performance. Cambridge University Press.
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Wiener, N. (1948). Cybernetics. MIT Press.
