The definition of life itself has become blurred, and the virtual and real have converged together into a continuum, the infotech / biotech / nanotech operational ecology.   This convergence phenomena has spawned the most powerful tools of creation ever invented, which have synergistically accelerated the human species into a realm of transformation which, in just the past decade, supercedes all of the 2 ½ million years of human socio-technological evolution preceding this moment in time.  

Think of an operational ecology as being a highly complex, hierarchical system of interrelated elements and processes, not necessarily confined to biological elements, but behaving as a biological system.   We ourselves, as physical organisms, as spiritual entities, as sentient, conscious beings, and as a collective organism, have become symbiotically, and irreversibly engaged with this operational ecology.    This is all converging together, and forming into a unified, accelerating existence manifold.    In physics
and mathematics, the term manifold is often
used to describe a highly complex domain,
one consisting of many interrelated elements.  
I use the term here to describe the metaphor of our existence, here in this world at this moment, and the world we are quickly evolving into.