Yet a little time in the nether regions of the Web can make you feel like the SETI researchers at the University of California, Berkeley, searching through an unstoppable flood of meaningless information from outer space for signs of intelligent life.

So as information technology tunnels deeper and deeper into everyday life, it's time to think not simply in terms of the next quadrillion packets of the next megaflop of processing power, but look instead to things that lie beyond information.