The following are the abstracts of presentations that have been made at the Global Brain Workshop, which was organized in July 2001 at the Free University of Brussels by the Global Brain Group (presently: the Global Brain Institute).
Discussion: what is
the GB and how does it evolve?
Discussion: which
technologies can support the GB?
Discussion: how can we practically manage and design a GB?
Centre for Policy Modelling
Manchester Metropolitan University
http://www.cpm.mmu.ac.uk/~bruce
From an evolutionary perspective the brain is an organ whose purpose is to
help implement adaptive behaviour useful to the organism. It presumably arose
because it conferred selective advantage to the individuals who had it -
individuals who were subject to an evolutionary process as a whole. It seems
likely that some of the benefit of the adaptivity that the brain provides is
that it allows sophisticated social coordination which may allow the
instigation of a new evolutionary process - that of memes. It also seems almost
certain that the adaptive behaviour is implemented in the brain using
evolutionary mechanisms - e.g. Edelman's neuronal Darwinism (1991) or Dennett's
multiple drafts (1992). For an evolutionary process to occur you need units
that are: replicated, selected and varied in response to an environment. In the
case of humans they evolved a brain to survive and perpetuate themselves in
their environment. In the case of memes they evolve as units as those that will
be socially perpetuated in the (human) social environment. In the case of
neural structures they are copied, reinforced and selected in response to the
environment driven by perceptions. Other kinds of units can only evolve
adaptive behaviour if they can replicate, vary and be selected out.
A culture can not itself evolve by internal evolutionary or computational
process - however sophisticated these processes are but a culture could evolve
as part of a population of cultures which replicate and propagate etc. One
of the differences in the outcomes is that a community of interacting and
evolving (as separate units) individuals can become socially embedded and improve their own fitness/computational load so
that the fitness of the whole system marginally drops (Edmonds 1999), whereas
if the whole system is being
evolved as a unit the fitness of the individuals is (at least somewhat)
sacrificed to improve the fitness of the whole. Being a part of a brain is a
different experience from being part of an interacting community of
individually evolving actors.
Thus the internet as a whole can not
become a Global Brain, however sophisticated the interactions, but parts of the internet could. This requires that parts of
the internet become distinct units capable of reliable replication etc. The
engine of their evolution would probably be our informational needs as users of
the internet. These units would probably have to evolve to become quite complex
entities - well entrenched using their own replicatory processes - before it
would be worth the "cost" of supporting brains of their own. Efforts
to design processes inside the
internet to make the whole
intelligent will probably fail - what you will get is a computer (Edmonds
2000). If a brain is characterised by intelligence rather than computation then
this will require the abandonment of a detailed design stance and the adoption of a more evolutionary
approach.
References:
full paper (draft,
word format)
Full paper final
(HTML)
Email address -- gpor@Co-I-L.com (or george.por@insead.fr)
URL of my home page -- http://www.co-i-l.com/coil/who/consultants.shtml#gp
Affiliations -- * Senior Research Fellow, Center for Advanced Learning
Technologies, INSEAD
* Founder, Community Intelligence Labs
Address -- 13, rue St. Severin
75005 Paris, France
The dual function of this presentation is to make a contribution that makes
a difference in the development of:
The motivation for this dual purpose comes from my assessment that the social dynamics of communities that learn will play a larger and more fundamental role in the evolution of GB than individuals, yet the sociological perspective is lagging behind the technological, epistemological, and the"individual-as-neuron" focus of GB research.
The intent of the suggested presentation is to foster a dialogue on the
nervous system of social organisms perceived as networks of conversation, and
how their facilitated constellations may promote the evolution of GB. To test
the usefulness of the ideas presented in that context, it will be proposed that
we design next year's event as an opportunity to not only talk about GB but to trigger and optimize a community dynamics
supportive to its evolution.
This presentation will be comprised of three sections as follow.
1. Overview and "lessons learned" commentary on current trends in
R&D pertinent to Dynamic Knowledge Repositories, including the work of:
2. Exploration of "Real-Time/Delayed Time" (RT/DT) synergy and the learning breakthroughs that become possible when we combine the best "features" of these two primary modes of collective cognition.
3. The implications of the key points developed in the first two sections,
for the organizing patterns of GB 2002.
Keywords: bootstrapping,
collaborative ontologies, collective intelligence, knowledge ecology, knowledge
ecosystem, nervous system in social organisms, network of conversations,
transformative conferencing.
References
Articles
* Nurturing Systemic Wisdom Through Knowledge Ecology, by George Pór, in
collaboration with Janice Molloy, in "Systems Thinker", http://coil.caucus.com/~coil/LIB/tami_co_i_l/gpor/00310041/KE.pdf
* Knowledge - Intelligence - Wisdom: Essential Value Chain of the New
Economy
Keynote address delivered by George Pór at the "Consultation Meeting on
the Future of Organisations and Knowledge Management" of the European
Commission's Directorate-General Information Society Technologies, Brussels, http://www.co-i-l.com/coil/knowledge-garden/kd/kiwkeynotes.shtml
* The Value of Emergent Value Creation Models in the Knowledge Economy
Position paper by George Pór, presented in the "Future of
Organisations" session of the "Consultation Meeting on the Future of
Organisations and Knowledge Management" held by the European Commission's
Directorate-General Information Society Technologies, Brussels, http://www.co-i-l.com/coil/knowledge-garden/kd/vcmodels.shtml
* Source Document for Knowledge Ecology
http://www.co-i-l.com/coil/knowledge-garden/kd/sourcedoc.shtml
Websites
Department of Kinesiology
Penn State University
University Park, PA 16802
gxm21@psu.edu, http://www.personal.psu.edu/faculty/g/x/gxm21/
The formation of cell-assemblies in the biological brain is believed to be
associated with cognitive events and feature binding in perception and
learning. In the context of a global brain we interpret gatherings of
intelligent agents with the objective to communicate intensively on a common
topic as an analogous event. We know from biological brains that the formation
of cell assemblies also is accompanied by gamma band ( "40Hz"),
synchronized electrical activity of participating neurons. Thereby
characteristic time-scales of biological brains are established. We know that
in human communication there exist similar "universal" time-scales
that facilitate constructive interaction and the emergence of collective,
self-organized behavior. One of the shortest time-scales is that of synchronous
interaction (e.g. 300ms in conversation etc) but other time-scales determined
by biological factors ("how long can a person sit and listen to a
speaker" ) can be of similar importance. Current mega-conferences with the
order of 10^4 participants push the limits of the concept of
"face-to-face" interactions among participants. At the same time we
currently witness the advent of modern electronic communication tools that
could push the envelope of meaningful interactions in big conferences all the
way to scales relevant to global brain dimensions (10^10). We finally will
discuss some of the electronic support tools that are available today or that
we can expect to become available in the near future. We count on constructive
and critical input from participants and other members of the Global Brain
community.
grossman@coin.org
3 Lemmon Drive
Columbia MO 65201
http://users.trib.net/~prossman
I wish to ask some questions for discussion at Brussels or afterwards,
related to only one small part of the global brain agenda. I welcome Rayward's
criticisms of the world brain concept of H.G. Wells. But Wells raises some
useful questions which can be separated from his political, social and
philosophical assumptions.
(1) For example I am intrigued by a suggestion made by Bill Gates that
perhaps the entry into the World Wide Web should be an encyclopedia. Could this
be a global encyclopedia--perhaps consisting many cross-indexed and linked
online encyclopedias scattered all over the world? Could this be a way to help
individuals cope with the knowledge explosion without some authoritarian
control over the organization of knowledge? Couldn't peer reviewed definitive
articles in those encylopedias be linked to many conflicting points of view,
thus pointing to areas where most research is needed? As for `control' isn't
the Internet a model?
(2) Is the global brain an inevitable product of the evolution of
technologies? As Moravec and Kurzweil right that linked supercomputers will
ultimately make human minds obsolete and unable to control the technology? Or,
on the other hand, isn't the global brain to be a combination of such future technology
plus collective human intelligence that may involve millions of human brains?
And more?
(3) Will not that collective intelligence be centered in linked universities
and linked research libraries (whatever their virtual shape may be), which will
continue to assume responsibility for peer review and indexing. . .on the
Internet, Web and whatever follows them? Would they divide responsibilies and
collaborate on one massive index? Or will something like many cross-linked
search engines--some commercial, some university library centered, continue to
organize and link various kinds of index systems?
A bit about myself? Instead of a vita (since I am retired anyway) I report some of my experiences in relationship to my study of the nature and future of higher education, and its relation to the Global Brain and new ways to solve human problems._
During my second undergraduate year I decided that I wanted to spend my life
helping universities be what they ought to be. In that I was influenced by Sir
Walter Moberley_s THE CRISIS IN THE UNIVERSITY. So I wrote a graduate thesis on
a phase of `the sociology of the university community._ While at the University
of Chicago I greatly enjoyed weekly public lectures on what was going on
currently in various disciplines, so while doing a Ph.D in higher education I
taught a seminar in which I invited young Yale faculty and graduate students in
various disciplines to tell about the `cutting edge_ in their fields and I
asked them how it might help solve society_s big crises. I set up a plan
to write a series of books (AFTER PUNISHMENT WHAT, HOSPICE, etc., challenging
various professions that way.
While spending a sabbatical in Geneva I visited many European universities.
(When a couple of years ago I sought out the last rector of Humboldt
University_under communism--to talk about the dream of the future of the
university which was developed there in the last days before the wall came
down, I discovered that he had years earlier been my host when I had given a
lecture there.) As a member of the board of World University Service, I spent
three months with a team of scholars, including university presidents, who
visited universities all around the rim of Asia. In this and other studies of
universities, my personal priority was on their possible role in solving global
crises ? the problem-centered university. (When In Burma to interview students
government officers in Rangoon, I was sitting in the office of the American
ambassador_a former student of our department at Yale_when I got the news that
the Burmese army had shot all of the students I was to interview!)
Probing into the dreams students had for new kinds of society, for some years
I was part of a research project studying the impact of Marxism on students,
mainly in Latin America. As part of that I talked with revolutionaries in
Philippines (I was told that the leading ideologue of the Marxist
revolutionaries there would never talk with an American, but he showed up at 3
a.m. one morning and turned out to be a theologian.), I also went up into the
hills of Colombia, Venezuela--and with Congresswoman Edith Green to interview
ex-comrades of Fidel Castro.
In the 1960_s, while on a sabbatical year in Beirut, I had long café
conversations with some future leaders of the PLO. (I urged them to try Martin
Luther King_s nonviolent approach, but their ideology had convinced them that
revolutionary change happened only at the point of a gun.) Some of these
experiences led me to some research on undergrounds_terrorist, prison,
revolutionary, sexual, criminal etc. So I became vice-president of a
group that was helping fund research on the mafia, which took me to Naples and
Sicily many times. I am convinced that the research center of Danilo Dolci_the
Gandhi of Sicily_deserves much credit for the decline of the Mafia in Italy.
(Of course I was told in South Italy late in 1999 that many wish the old
Mafia_that loved Sicily_was back, rather than the highly funded international
mafias that have moved into the vacuum. Even the old mafia had some good
dreams, I found_when a young mafia soldier sought me out for `an exchange of
views._ My book THE EMERGING WORLDWIDE ELECTRONIC UNIVERSITY got me invited to
brief student delegates to the UNESCO higher education conference_where
students talked with me about the changes in higher education that they dream
about-- and into the ASIS World Brain group, some World Bank projects to
explore how to provide education for everyone in the world, and other efforts
to cope better with human crises, --.following up on my last efforts at Yale to
create interdisciplinary teams to help professionals in mid-career planning. .
.in ways that would focus on bringing many minds together to work on
serious global and human problems. (I was intrigued by a Swedish futurist who
said that everyone should take a sabbatical at age fifty to plan the rest
of er or his life. That, however, is a bit late.)
Do we all, collectively, have some common dreams for the future of humanity
in this, our early years in the universe?
ben@goertzel.org ,
http://goertzel.org/ben/resume.html
,
Webmind, Inc., 50 Broadway,
New York, NY 10004, USA.
The Webmind AI Engine, an integrative AI architecture, will be
discussed, along with Webworld, a sister architecture allowing the AI Engine to
make use of massively distributed peer-to-peer computing. A focus will be
placed on the potential of this framework to seed the evolution of a newly
coherent "global brain", and the emergence of superhuman digital
intelligence (the Singularity). See http://www.goertzel.org/papers/SingularityPath.htm
for a related article.
1) ben@goertzel.org , http://goertzel.org/ben/resume.html , Webmind, Inc., 50 Broadway, New York, NY 10004, USA. 2) macklakov@mail.ru , Webmind, Inc. 3) redko@keldysh.ru , http://www.keldysh.ru/BioCyber/ , Keldysh Institute of Applied Mathematics, Russian Academy of Science, 4 Miusskaya sq., Moscow, 125047, Russia
The model of evolution of Artificial Life agents in Internet environment has
been designed. The model is based on the following assumptions:
The computer program that implements the model has been created; the first simulations have been performed. The results of simulations demonstrate that evolution is able to find simplest possible solutions. Though we included some intelligent options into the control system of agents (three types of communications, neural network learning, informational exchange between friends), agents donât use such "fine structure" of intelligence. Agents find "very good" solution (mating for 80% of time and solving tasks to find food for 20% of time) at large amount of food income or a combination of random search with "very goodä solution at small amount of food income.
A possible direction of development of the model that might ensure effective
operation of a "fine structureä of intelligence of agents is discussed.
The detailed description of the model and results of experiments is given at
the site: http://www.keldysh.ru/BioCyber/webagents/webagents.htm
Email address: hibbard@facstaff.wisc.edu
URL of home page: http://www.ssec.wisc.edu/~billh/vis.html
Affiliation: University of Wisconsin
Address: SSEC, 1225 W. Dayton St., Madison, WI 53706 USA
The global network of humans and machines is evolving into a global brain.
We can try to understand its nature by analogy with human and animal brains,
which are our only current examples of intelligent, conscious brains.
Studies of mammal brains reveal that the number of connections per neuron
increases with the number of neurons according to a mathematical relation that
is consistent over four orders of magnitude of brain volume (from mice to
whales) [2]. The relation between these values is tuned so that the diameter of
the neuron network remains constant at about 2.6, where network diameter is
defined as the average distance between pairs of neurons. There is some
evidence that a small diameter is important for the efficiency of learning. If
the average number of connections per neuron remains constant, then network
diameter increases without limit as the number of neurons increases.
The number of connections that humans can support as nodes in the global
brain is limited (e.g., people can understand only 1 or 2 simultaneous
conversations and can know only about 200 other people well [1]). In order for
the size of the global brain to increase without limit, and to maintain a
limited diameter as mammal brains do, then it must include components whose average
connectivity increases without limit. Thus machines rather than humans must
ultimately be the largest nodes of the global brain.
Learning and the emotional values that define positive and negative
reinforcement for learning are essential to intelligence and consciousness [3].
The values of human and animal brains promote the interests of self and of
others who share their genes, although some human emotions (e.g., guilt and
gratitude) and abilities (e.g., language and lie detecting) exist to enable social
cooperation [6]. However, there are strong limits to human cooperation [4]
including xenophobia that may be the accidental result of the choice of ape
species that humans evolved from [1].
But the values of the global brain can be influenced through the values of
the intelligent machines that will be its largest nodes, and their values can
be designed rather than accepted as the result of evolution. We can design
intelligent machines with values to promote human happiness and without values
to promote their own interests [5]. There will certainly be motives for
corporations and governments to design intelligent machines with selfish
values. This will be very dangerous to humanity and must be resisted by an
effort to educate the public.
References:
1. Bownds, M. D. 1999. Biology of Mind.
Bethesda. Fitzgerald Science Press, Inc. Available at http://mind.bocklabs.wisc.edu/.
2. Clark, D. Constant parameters in the anatomy and wiring of the mammalian
brain. Available at http://pupgg.princeton.edu/www/jh/clark_spring00.pdf.
3. Edelman, G. M. and Tononi, G. 2000. A Universe of Consciousness. New York. Perseus Books Group.
4. Heylighen, F. & Campbell, D.T. (1995) Selection of organization at
the social level: obstacles and facilitators of metasystem transitions. World
Futures: the Journal of General Evolution 45, 181-212. 1995. Available at ftp://ftp.vub.ac.be/pub/projects/Principia_Cybernetica/WF-issue/Social_MST.txt.
5. Hibbard, W. Super-intelligent machines. Computer Graphics 35(1), 11-13.
2001. Available at http://www.ssec.wisc.edu/~billh/visfiles.html.
6. Pinker, S. 1997. How the Mind Works.
New York and London. W. W. Norton and Co.
ckaplan@iqco.com
URLS:http://www.iqco.com, http://www.predictwallstreet.com
AFFILIATIONS: CEO of iQ Company,
Lecturer at University of California Santa Cruz,
Sigma Xi, ACM, ASQ, APA
ADDRESS: iQ Company, 1840 41st Avenue, #102-171
Capitola, CA 95010 USA
Curriculum Vitae
Heylighen (1999) defines collective intelligence as the ability of a group
to solve more problems than its individual members. Expanding the scope of this
definition allows inclusion of other types of cognition besides
problem-solving. For example, in this paper, a group that makes better
decisions than its individual members is considered to exhibit collective
ntelligence. In the future it might be desirable to expand the scope of
collective intelligence to include not only problem-solving and decision making
but also other cognitive functions studied by cognitive scientists (Simon &
Kaplan 1989).
While it is theoretically possible to implement a general problem solving
system that exhibits collective intelligence (Kaplan 2001), problem
representation (Heylighen 1988 & 1990, Kaplan & Simon 1990) and problem
decomposition (Newell & Simon 1972) remain tough practical challenges. An
easier first step is to build a simple decision making system that exhibits
collective intelligence.
This paper describes the design and testing of a prototype system that makes
stock trading decisions based on collective intelligence. During an eleven
trading-day test period, the system out-performed the NASDAQ, S&P 500, and
DJIA stock indices by margins of 12.40%, 5.68%, and 2.25% respectively.
Statistical analysis showed that it was highly unlikely that a random sample
of NASDAQ stock picks would have performed as well as our system (p<.02). We
also found that the system performed better when more people participated,
suggesting that the system's good performance was due to collective
intelligence.
Further testing is needed to see if these results will hold up over a longer
period of time and with more participants. Implications of this research for
general decision-making and problem-solving systems based on collective
intelligence are discussed.
References:
Graduate School of Management
Macquarie University, Sydney, Australia
C/-PO Box 266,Woollahra, Sydney, NSW, 1350
Ph: +612 9328 7466, Fax: +612 9327 1497, Mobile +0418 222 378
sturnbull@mba1963.hbs.edu
http://members.optusnet.com.au/~sturnbull/index.html
The design criteria for connecting humans on the planet through their five
senses needs to recognise that their capacity to receive, store, organise and
transmit information is subject to physiological and neurological limits. These
limits can be determined in bytes/second (Turnbull, 2000a: Table 4) to provide
a basis to identify the maximum rates that data, information, knowledge and
wisdom can be shared. Transaction Byte Analysis developed by Turnbull
(2000a,b,c) provides a basis for grounding organisational analysis and a theory
of social construction in the natural sciences to design a global brain.
Other criteria for designing a global brain is that the human neo-cortex is
limited to making around 200 calculations per second (Kurzweil 1999: 103) with
the architecture of its neural nets being best suited to solve complex problems
through pattern recognition (Kurzweil 1999: 79). However, the "chunks of
knowledge that a human expert in a particular field" can master is between
50,000 to 100,000 (Kurzweil 1999: 119). Dunbar (1993: 685) reports that size of
the neo-cortex also limits the number of people a person can trust to around
150 to provide a limit on the number of people a person can communicate with
most efficiently.
A contributing problem in establishing reliable communications is that the
operating characteristics of humans can be subject to change, inconsistency,
errors and contrary behaviour (Wearing 1975). However, Turnbull (2000b) points
out that these variations can be minimised as much as desired by using
cybernetic criteria in designing the architecture by which people are connected
like synapses. Increased reliability being obtained by providing requisite
variety in decision making, communications, and control by using the principles
identified respectively by von Neuman (1947), Shannon (1949), and Ashby (1968).
Utilisation of the contrary characteristics of people to create checks and
balances has been identified by Turnbull (2000c) as the most efficient way of
establishing the strongest self-organising social structures with the minimum
transaction of bytes. This design principle of using materials with contrary
characteristics is described as "tensegrity" (Ingbar 1998) and is
found throughout nature to provide the greatest strength for the least weight.
Additional design criteria to minimise information overload and
"bounded rationality" (Williamson 1975: 4?7) is provided by the
Principle of Subsidiary Function (Pius XI 1931:40; Schumacher 1975: 203). Also
by using architecture based on "holons" and "holarchies"
(Koestler 1967) described by Simon (1962) as "sub-assemblies" and
Beer (1985: 117) as a "viable system". Mathews (1996s: 30) states
that "The reduction in data transmission, and in data complexity, achieved
by the holonic architecture, is prodigious" and identifies three levels of
learning in holarchies (Mathews 1996b: 119). All these design features are
illustrated in the structure of the stakeholder cooperatives established around
the town of Mondragon in Spain (Turnbull 2000c).
The ways in which all these design criteria are used in designing a global
brain depends upon defining the functional role for a global brain. The role of
establishing World government to sustain life on earth provides one
self-motivating interest for the mind of "Gaia "(Lovelock, 1988).
References:
Ashby, W.R. 1968, An introduction to cybernetics, University Paperback, London.
Beer, S. 1985, Diagnosing the system for organizations, John Wiley & Sons, Chichester, England.
Ingber, D.E. 1998, _The architecture of life_, Scientific American, 30?39, January.
Koestler, C.O. 1967, The ghost in the machine, Hutchinson, London.
Kurzweil, R. 1999, The age of spiritual machines: When computers exceed
human intelligence, Viking, New York.
Lovelock, J., 1988, The Ages of Gaia.
W. W. Norton & Co., New York
Schumacher, E.F. 1975, Small is beautiful: A study of economics if people
mattered, Abacus, London.
Mathews, J. 1996a, 'Holonic organisational architectures', Human Systems
Management, 15, 27?54.
Mathews, J. 1996b, 'Organizational foundations of economic learning', Human
Systems Management, 15, 113?24
Pius XI, 1931, Enclyclical letter on social reconstruction, St Paul Editions, Boston, MA.
Neumann, J. von, 1947, Theory of games and economic behaviour, Yale University Press, Conneticut.
Shannon, C.E. 1949, The mathematical theory of communications, The University of Illinois Press: Urbana, 1?94
Simon, H.A. 1962, 'The architecture of complexity,' Proceedings of the
American Philosophical Society, 106,
December, 467?82.
Turnbull, S. 2000a Gouvernement d'entreprise:Théories, Enjeux et paradigmes
(Corporate Governance: Theories, challenges and paradigms), Gouvernance: Revenue internationale, 1:1, 11-43, Montréal, 2000. English text only at http://papers.ssrn.com/paper.taf?abstract_id=221350
Turnbull, S. 2000b _The competitive advantages of stakeholder mutuals_,
presented to the 12th Annual Meeting of the Society for the
Advancement of Socio-economics, London School of Economics, July 9th,
2000. http://papers.ssrn.com/paper.taf?abstract_id=242779
Abridged version forthcoming 2001 in The New Mutualism, ed. J. Birchall Chapter 9, Routledge, 2001, London.
Turnbull, S. 2000c _Why unitary boards are not best practice: A case for
compound boards_, presented to the First European Conference on Corporate
Governance, Belgian Directors_ Institute, November 16th, Belgium's
National Bank Brussels. http://papers.ssrn.com/paper.taf?abstract_id=253803
Wearing, A.J. 1973, _Economic growth: Magnificent obsession_, Paper
presented to 44th Australian and New Zealand Association for the
Advancement of Science Congress, August, Perth, Australia.
Williamson, O.E. 1975, Markets and hierarchies: Analysis and anti?trust
implications, Free Press, NY.
About the author:
Shann Turnbull graduated in engineering, science and business. He working
life has mainly been in business but with a strong interest in utilising the
proposals of his 1975 book, <>Democratising the
Wealth of Nations. He pioneered in 1975 the study and teaching of
corporate governance as a founding author of the first educational
qualification for company directors. He is now researching the theory and
practice of self-governance for democratising the control of nations. He
obtained his PhD degree for showing how the science of information and control
can be applied to social organisations.
Personnel web page at http://members.optusnet.com.au/~sturnbull/index.htm
and family page at http://y42.briefcase.yahoo.com/shannturnbull. The full text
of his 1975 book and twelve associated articles is at www.cog.kent.edu/library
Abstracts of 15 academic articles on governance and the full text of 11 are at
the Social Science Research Network at http://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/cf_dev/AbsByAuth.cfm?per_id=26239
Five topical corporate governance articles are in The Corporate Library at
http://www.thecorporatelibrary.com/ and the World Bank has three articles
on its anti-corruption strategies page at http://www.worldbank.org/devforum/comm_anti-library.html
Strategies for the future operations of the bank are at
http://www.jubileeplus.org/opinion/shann_Liquidwb.htm and www.google.com will
locate over 200 other items under his name.
Union of International Associations - UIA (http://www.uia.org/)
Anthony Judge
Director, Communications and Research
Union of International Associations
Rue Washington 40
B-1050 Brussels, BELGIUM
Tel:(32 2) 640.18.08 Fax:(32 2) 643 61 99
E-mail: judge@uia.be
The paper reports briefly on the ongoing process of systematic information
collection and web presentation by the UIA of networks of some 20,000
international organizations, 45,000 perceived world problems, 30,000 advocated
action strategies, and some 3,000 values -- resulting in a total of 500,000
hyperlinks. These different entities are understood to constitute an
interesting focal sub-system of whatever is to be understood by an emerging
global brain _ for which the "problems" might be understood as
"neuroses", if not "tumours". This is followed by a
description of implemented features to improve the way in which organizations
can use this facility to articulate the collaborative networks within which
they collectively develop strategic responses to subsets of the network of
problems (perceived in the light of networks of partially shared values). The
concrete challenge is the manner in which this network of features can become
self-aware via its web representation, at least to a degree that is less dysfunctional
in partially coordinating world system responses. Steps taken towards
facilitating cognitive coherence include dynamic self-organizing visualizations
(and sound equivalents) of these network features. The approach is being
designed to maximize the degree to which providers of information become users
of the resulting knowledge patterns with which they can interact, notably as a
means of evoking richer patterning of the complexity reflected in
"synaptic" hyperlinks. The conceptual challenge of developing
improved hyperlink editing tools and supportive knowledge management methods is
addressed, as well as associated tools through which coalitions of users can
derive more coherent patterns of meaning from what they access in the light of
often significantly incompatible perspectives. The more fundamental concern of
the paper is to highlight the conceptual difficulties of providing information
in a form that needs to be variously ordered according to user "bias"
whilst providing a non-intrusive, facilitative cognitive framework that can
maintain some degree of coherence, or allow for its emergence. A particular
concern is the dynamic between the necessary diversity of (often strongly held)
preferences for meaningful knowledge representation and the need for (often
overly simplistic) coherence within coalitions whose consensus is fundamental
to any concrete global response. These challenges raise questions about
integrating intelligent sub-systems into a global brain, ezpecially if some of
the networks might be understood as sub- intelligent from a global perspective.
The paper also reports on steps to shift the level of analysis, and
representation, from isolated entities to the multitude of feedback loops
buried within such patterns of information.
URLs:
Center for Study of
Social Change
New School for Social Research
5Th Av
New York, NY USA
Emai laddress Susanthag@hotmail.com
The use of the concept _information_ as pragmatic information, that is, a
set of instructions of how to interact with its environment, allows for an
overarching theoretical scheme in dealing with three sets of information
lineages. These lineages respectively encompass genetic information, some
machine-based information (as in neural networks and genetic algorithms and
artificial life) as well as human cultural information. Each of these lineages
can be shown to have common evolutionary characteristics..
These common characteristics are memory preservation, creation of novelty,
speciation, self-construction, subjectivity to the external world and an
evolutionary epistemology. The two non-cultural information systems are now
being acted upon by the cultural through biotechnology and information
technology. The three lineages interact with each other merging directly or
indirectly their information streams, merging the information content as well
as their modes of interacting with their environments. This results in changes
in all three streams, the genetic, the artefactual and the cultural. These
processes profoundly change in describable ways, the long term evolutionary and
other characteristics of all three lineages, giving rise to fundamental
changes.
This process will redefine what constitutes "social" and what
constitutes "community." A community_s members communicate with their
"significant others" and change their internal information states
(and their internal and external behaviors). Under conditions of merging,
information exchanges occur across all the three lineages. In this sense, the
concept of significant other, that is a communicating entity, is now spread
from human communities to encompass also the biological and the artefactual. A
seamless merging between the three realms now occurs.
The resulting image of interactions that now arises is of multiple oceans of
communities, operating at different levels, the genetic, the cultural and the
artefactual. There are exchanges across the different levels, up and down and
sideways, as information is translated from one realm to the other. These
exchanges arise from internally generated signals due to the internal dynamics
of each community as well as from those generated through dynamics between
lineages. These dynamics result in changes in the evolutionary characteristics
of each lineage and sub-lineage, including the internal perceptions from within
a lineage, namely in the language of evolutionary epistemology, its "
meaning" and "hypotheses" on the world. Thermodynamically this
is an open system with a constant increase of organization within the system,
upward and onward accompanied necessarily by changes in inflows and outflows to
and from the system. The study of social phenomena in the new millennium must
necessarily take into account these factors. A future sociology must
incorporate dynamics of all three realms.
REFERENCES
Susantha Goonatilake:Evolution of Information: Lineages in Genes, Culture
and Artefact (Pinter Publishers, London
1992),
Susantha Goonatilake:Merged Evolution: the Long Term Implications of
Information Technology and Biotechnology (Gordon
and Breach, New York 1998)
Susantha Goonatilake:"Towards a "meta-ethic" derived from
evolutionary lineages" in Evolutionary
Systems - Biological and Epistemological Perspectives on Selection and
Self-Organization by Gertrudis Van De
Vijver (Editor), et al (1998) Kluwer Academic Dordecht/Boston/London
Susantha Goonatilake:"The Structure of "Communities" and
Communications in the New Millennium" in The Quest for a Unified Theory
of Information Wolfgang Hofkirchner
(Editor) (Gordon and Breach, New York 1998)
Scientific Degrees: Doctor of Philosophy, professor
Position: Head of the Theoretical Center
Head-office: Informological Institute AG (Switzerland)
E-mail: ininin@ininin.org
Web-site: http://www.ininin.org
Location: Moscow Representative Office of Informological Institute AG
Address: 12 Trubnaya str., 103045 Moscow, Russia
Projects like "Global Brain" contribute to a larger endeavor to
address a radically new problem our society faces, with new organizational
forms. This should be welcomed. Nobody doubts that disciplinary and
interdisciplinary approaches ought to be employed for the gripping with
separate components of this problem. Nevertheless hazards for the society from
the impact of "the self-organized system of the Global Brain" should
not be neglected.
To analyze the risk of the likely impact of the complex multi-factor and
multi-component systems on humans and society is an evident transdisciplinary
problem in our case. Thereby an adequate variant of the transdisciplinary
approach has to be applied for its solution. To our minds, an informological
variant of the transdisciplinary approach (worked out by Informological
Institute) can profess to take this role. An advantage of this approach is that
it was molded as an independent general scientific discipline for the first
time. It yielded in the possibility to legalize its language, universal
patterns, a method of information analysis. All this allows to carry out a
transdisciplinary analysis of the "Global Brain" from the uniform conceptual
stance and focus experts on those peculiarities of its further development that
hide potential danger for the society. Our thoughts on this subject are
expressed in this abstract.
A planet can be represented as a certain informological space (an organized
environment). The general condition of space represents an order of the potency
realization (hidden force) that stipulates co-evolutionary harmonic development
of all its fragments. All the objects, processes, interactions and any complex
organized environments of the planetary space perform as fragments. Deviation
of a general condition from the norm brings about a change into the order of
the potency realization. Informology considers that in this situation a real
condition of the space represents two potencies - a potency of the real process
and a potency of the margin. Order of realization of the potency of the entire
space is the law for realization of all its spatial fragments. Therefore, if
the real condition of space does not coincide with the norm, a potency of all
its fragments will be subtracted for the margin value.
Let's project this theoretical discourse on the substantiation of
transdisciplinary safety of the project:
It should become obvious that the extent of deviation of the general condition
of the planetary space from a norm indicates the extent of the deviation (or of
a predisposition to such a deviation) of the general condition of people and
any complex organized environments to which "Global Brain" also
belongs, from a norm. This is an unconditional rule. The emerging margin in
this case diminishes the magnitude of the constructive potency of "the
space of Global Brain". So the first dangerous feature of the "Global
Brain" for the society is an objective curb on the degree of the complexity
of tasks that can be solved with its aid under the actual general state of the
planetary space.
The second perilous and latent peculiarity of the "Global Brain"
for the society is a realization of the margin's potency, which value
demonstrates stable growth every year. The value of the margin's potency
predetermines an emergence of several negative situations at once:
First, it may exemplify "a value of illusions" that will be
inevitably generated, when "Global Brain" tries to solve complex multi-factor
tasks exceeding its actually existing potential.
Second, it may embody "a value of estrangement" from the offered
reliable solutions of complex multi-factor tasks due to the excessive level of
perception of a potential of scientific concepts by the "Global
Brain".
The third potentially dangerous and concealed from the society peculiarity
of the "Global Brain" is the absence of "Global Ethics for the
Global Brain". In this case it is the matter of absence of a concept of
the common worldview of the humankind. This worldview is to establish obvious
and indisputable principles of the relationship inside such a complex combined
system as "Global Brain". Otherwise the "Global Brain" is
capable to become a hindrance to the harmonious development of each man and the
community on the whole.
Provided a transdisciplinary technology is applied, disciplinary and
interdisciplinary approaches will be enforced by it, and thus a forestalled
solution of these potentially dangerous for humans and the society peculiarities
of the "Global Brain" can be provided. The subsequent elaboration of
a concept of the current and strategic risk-analysis of the "Global
Brain" will make its activities an important and safe element of the
development of the Human Race.
BIBLIOGRAPHY:
1. Margaret A. Somerville & David J. Rapport (editors):
Transdisciplinarity: reCreating Integrated Knowledge, EOLSS Publishers Co. Ltd,
2000.
2. Vladimir Mokiy, Anna Zhamborova and Olga Shegai: Brief introduction to
Informology, Noviy Tsentr, Moscow, 1998.
3. Alexandr Nikiforov, Mikhail Mokiy and Vladimir Mokiy: System and
informological approach to cognition and practical work, Noviy Tsentr, Moscow,
1999.
4. Vladimir Mokiy, Anna Zhamborova and Olga Shegai: Method of informological
analysis, Noviy Tsentr, Moscow, 1999.
5. Anatoliy Putintsev, Valentina Artiukhova and Galina Lebedeva: 'Phenomenal
condition of biological and ecological systems in the organized space' in the
materials of the International scientific - practical conference Analysis of systems
on a threshold of the 21st century: a theory and a practice, Moscow, Vol. 2, p.
414; February, 1996.
6. Valdimir Mokiy, Natalia Fedorenko: 'About an opportunity of the current
and long-term forecasting of adverse (extreme) situations for the concrete man'
in Military medicine at the down of the 21st century: realities and prospects
(dedicated to the 70th anniversary of the State research probe institute of
military medicine). The theses of reports at the all-Russia scientific -
practical conference, Moscow. pp. 64-65; November 28, 2000.
It is well-known that society is in many respects similar to an organism-like
system, with various institutions and organizations performing the functions of
various organs and tissues in the body. In this presentation I do not so much
want to elaborate on this analogy, but rather study how the present
evolutionary pressures on society will affect it.
I assume society to be based on a division of labor, in which different
individuals and organizations specialize in producing a particular type of good
or service for the rest of society, neglecting the production of other commodities.
In return, they get some form of payment, which allows them to acquire those
goods and services that they need but which they themselves no longer are
capable of producing. This makes the different subsystems of society dependent
on each other, and thus creates a network of exchanges and interdependencies.
These trends of specialization or differentiation, and interconnection or
integration, continue at an ever faster pace, for the simple reason that
greater specialization and greater exchange allows greater efficiency, and thus
a relative advantage compared to those that do no differentiate and integrate.
The net effect is that all processes in society become more efficient or
more productive: less time and less resources are needed to produce more goods
or services. Thus, the general "throughput" of social systems
increases ever more: matter, energy and information are transferred and
processed more quickly, making us ever more powerful to achieve our aims.
Generally, this leads to more wealth, health, knowledge, freedom, safety, and
equality, that is, to higher quality of life for the average citizen of this
earth. As a result the age-old constraints of material scarcity, geographic
separation, and temporal duration, are becoming increasingly marginal. The
question is no longer how to get enough of a particular scarce good, but how to
choose from the myriad possible ways to get it.
This general increase of productivity, or reduction of "friction",
has a number of negative consequences, though. First, as already suggested, it
increases the complexity of choice, and leads to an information overload. The
scarcity of information has made place for a scarcity of attention: people are
only able to attend to so many messages, signals or options per day. This
creates increasing stress on individuals and organizations. Second, reduced
friction and increased interconnections mean that the causal effects of events
in any particular subsystem will spread much further, affecting many more
nearby and remote subsystems. Thus, society as a whole becomes more sensitive
to perturbations in any of its parts, and more complex and unpredictable in its
overall functioning. Third, reduced friction will amplify the danger or runaway
effects, where a small fluctuation, through a positive feedback, can snowball
very quickly into a major catastrophe.
All of these dangers call for a "control" at the global level, the
equivalent of a central nervous system that coordinates the actions of
the different components by transmitting and processing information. This
"global brain" would be able to attend to and intelligently choose
between myriads of stimuli, thus relieving individuals from information
overload. It would constantly monitor, follow through, and if necessary
redirect the myriad of causal connections between the different parts of
society, so as give us an understading of, and the capacity to intervene in,
this inimaginably complex system. Finally, it will help the emergence of
a global consensus on collective values aiming to control the dangers of
runaway problems, such as greenhouse effects, spread of infectious diseases, or
financial collapse.
Most of this global brain is at present emerging spontaneously,
"bottom-up", through the self-organization of increasingly efficient
channels for communication and transaction. However, to tackle the most
difficult problems at the global level, where side effects of generally
positive developments can snowball out of control, some form of top-down
agreements about global governance seem to be in order, as exemplified by the
Kyoto protocol, the World Trade Organization, and the Universal Declaration of
Human Rights.
This talk will review several technologies, algorithms and protocols that
could transform the web, in the broadest possible sense, from a medium for the
communication and storage of information into an intelligent, brain-like
system. The web can be viewed as a network of nodes or resources, connected by
links. Resources can include HTML documents, pictures, multimedia documents,
virtual environments, databases, programs, agents, remotely controlled devices,
and even the human users themselves. Links between nodes mean that a signal
("activation") can travel directly from one resource to a linked resource, because these resources are
closely associated. An intelligent web will continuously exploit, analyse and
adapt this linking pattern, so as to maximally support its users in solving
their individual and collective problems.
The functional components of this distributed intelligence can be best
conceptualized through the series of cognitive metasystem transitions that
characterize the evolution of the human brain: reflexes - learning - thinking -
metacognition or knowledge discovery. At present the web is is in the
"reflex" stage: it transmits and processes complex signals, but in a
rigid, "hard-wired" manner. To reach the next stage, learning, links should be able to adapt to the way they are used, e.g. by strengthening the
links between resources that are frequently used together. This can be
implemented through an equivalent of the Hebbian rule, or the equivalent of
collaborative filtering. Thinking
requires first of all the spread of activation, so that selected or activated
resources can spontaneously activate further, but still related resources.
However, to efficiently control activation, and avoid its diffusion, the goals
or criteria of the problem-solving process should be formulated explicitly,
using conventional categories that mirror those available in the web. This
requires the creation of a semantic web, based on a shared ontology of resource types and link types. Agents,
who know their user's preferences, goals and constraints, could use this
semantic architecture to efficiently retrieve those resources that would best
solve their users' problems. The final stage, discovery of new
concepts and rules, may be implemented by
various methods of clustering and machine learning that try to find ordered
patterns in the complex, self-organizing network of data, thus continuously
generating new insights and models.
Dr.CliffJoslyn
Distribtued Knowledge Systems and Modeling Team
Modeling, Algorithms, and Informatics Group (CCS-3)
MS B265, Los Alamos National Laboratory
Los Alamos, NM 87545
joslyn@lanl.gov, http://www.c3.lanl.gov/~joslyn
The IT and Internet revolutions concluded the 20th century in a state of
substantial doubt and speculation. Practically, in the wake of its
extraordinary economic hype and financial speculation, could information
technology fulfill its promise to transform society through automated markets,
decision support environments, collaborative environments for scientific and
technical knowledge development, infrastructure control, disaster response,
etc.? Theoretically, in the wake of the recognition of the limitations of
automated intelligence and computer simulations, is there any strength to the
reigning metaphor of the ``Global Brain'' (GB), that the internet is to society
as brain is to multi-cellular organism, as mind is to body, indeed, as
information is to matter and energy?
Fortunately, scientific interest in the area predates recent developments,
and, indeed, there are whole scientific fields, in particular those of
Cybernetics (or Complex Systems Science) and Semiotics, which are historically
dedicated to the study of systems of all types as distributed information systems.
Thus there is a great deal which can be known about these kinds of systems in
principle, and furthermore about their interaction with human society according
to the principles of cybernetic evolutionary theory.
In this talk I will discuss both this general perspective and its
consequences for some specific technological issues. In particular, I will
explicate the concepts of a Distributed Knowledge System (DKS) (communities of
semiotic agents interacting with networked information resources) and of
Socio-Technical Organizations (DKS coupled to network-meditated physical
systems to maintain a control relation). I assert these as general
representations of the kinds of system architectures necessary for a social
knowledge network to have the possibility of displaying the properties
necessary to be described as something approaching what a true GB should be
conceived of.
By considering these two architectures in the context of the cybernetic
concepts of the Meta-System Transition (MST) as the mechanism for the evolution
of levels of control, we will discuss centralized vs.~distributed control in
social systems, social organization as an MST, and the potential for DKS to
effect a social MST at the global level. Possibilities for realizing such ideas
will be described in the context of modern movements to develop formal
algebraic theories of semiotic transformations and portable inter-agent
knowledge exchange protocols.
Summary of presentation (July 4, 2001)
Joël de Rosnay
Director of Forecasting and Assessment
Cité des Sciences et de l_Industrie, La Villette,
Paris, France.
http://www.derosnay.com
joel@derosnay.com
The convergence of biology and computers
New interfaces between man and computers are developed. They result from the
marriage of biology and computers. A new fundamental and applied discipline is
being born of this convergence and, more generally, of the hybridization and
coevolution of the methodologies and techniques used in computers and of those
used in biology and supramolecular chemistry. In 1981, I proposed to call this
new discipline : biotics (a combination
of biology and informatics). (de Rosnay 1981-2000). Biotics opens the way to
the developpement of new molecular electronic components and circuits
(biochips, biotransistors) and bioelectronic interfaces linking humans,
computers, and networks.
Biotics comprises two complementary areas of application: that of analog
signals (in this case, bioelectronics) and that of digital signals (molecular
electronics). The construction of a "biocomputer" based on circuits
and memory from DNA or molecular electronics and using materials compatible
with living systems, is part of biotics. (Aldeman 1994, Kolata 1995, Kari
1997). The field emerged from recent advances in biology, solid-state physics,
organic chemistry, micro-electronics, robotics, and nanotechnology. Today it
constitutes a new area of research with many applications.
Molecular electronic components are currently considered the potential
successors to semiconductors. These synthetic components offer many advantages
over traditional semiconductors: three-dimensional assembly, synthetic
materials that allow the custom design of properties, miniaturization
approaching that of biological structures, and possibilities for interfacing
with living systems. (Reed 1999, Joachim 2000, Tour 2000).
New interfaces between the human brain and computers
Direct neurons to machines interfaces have been developed during the last
years. Boris Rubinsky at Caltech has developed a "biotransistor" made
of living cells interconnected with a microprocessor. The cells acts as diodes.
(Rubinsky 1999). William L. Ditto, a physicist at the Georgia Institute of
Technology working with a group at the University of Bordeaux in France, has
developed hybrid computers that mate living neurons with silicon circuits. He
has called this new field "neurosilicon computers." In 1999, he was
able to do arithmetic with two large neurons from leeches, joined together and
linked to a personal computer. (Spano and Ditto, 1999)
Another step on the road to creating biocomputers was achieved by Jerry
Pine, a biophysicist at the California Institute of Technology in Pasadena. He
was able to "grow" microcircuits made of living neurons on top of an
array of electrodes. He calls the device the "Neurochip." By
assigning a specific place to each neuron, it is possible to "listen"
to their chatter and develop reproducible logic gates out of combinations of
neurons.(Regehr and Pine 1988, Maher and Pine in press, Pine et coll 1996).
A similar type of research has been undertaken by Keiichi Torimitsu at the
NTT_s Biosciences Research Group in Atsugi, Japan. (Niwa and Torimitsu, 1998
His group is trying to develop an effective interface between computers and the
brain. To test this possibility, his laboratory sent electronic signals to
slices of neuronal tissue placed close to tiny electrodes and researchers
monitored the electronic current naturally generated by the neurons when they
communicated with each other. (Torimitsu 1998).
More recently, Miguel Nicolelis of the Duke University Medical Center, has
trained two owl monkeys to control a robotic arm through brain signals. The arm
was placed at MIT_s lab for Human and Machine Haptics and controlled by the
monkeys through an Internet interface. (Nicolelis 2000)
Biological evolution and the Internet as massive parallel multiprocessors
The new symbiotic interfaces between man, computer and networks, creates a
massive parallel multiprocessor. Biological evolution performs like such
parallel multiprocessor. The basis of biological evolution is the three-part
process of mutation, competition, and selection. Random variations occur in the
programming of living things (DNA). This results in new species that are more
or less suited to the environment in which the species are in competition. The
fittest survive, are selected ? or rather self-select ? and transmit to their
descendants the genetic code for survival and competitiveness, the new mutant
genes. This process takes place in parallel within the DNA of billions of
individuals in competition for limited resources. Biological evolution, is
therefore comparable to a huge parallel multiprocessor that seeks solutions to
problems by trying out potential solutions and storing those that work in
memory. This is how the diversity of the living world, biodiversity, is
created. (de Rosnay 2000)
The autocatalytic development of the Internet is an illustration of a
coevolutionary process of order emerging from chaos. Millions of agents acting
in parallel according to simple rules also form a gigantic multiprocessor that
can collectively find solutions to complex problems and adapt to the evolution
of its informational ecosystem. As a result of these rules and emergent
properties, the Internet has become an increasingly intelligent planetary
metacomputer. It processes data in parallel, combining the actions of millions
of agents testing procedures and programs in real time in a competitive
environment ? a process that is not unlike Darwinian biological evolution. We
can therefore expect the Internet to select increasingly powerful solutions in
electronic communications and software applications. Intelligent agents manage
interfaces by interconnecting all the existing networks, allowing people to
access information and act in real time, as do the neurons of the brain. This
new planetary neural hypernetwork functions chaotically, fluidly, and in a way
that is constantly reconfigurable, in response to decisions made in parallel by
hundreds of millions of interacting human agents and virtual robots. In this,
it resembles the immune system, the hormonal system, and the nervous system,
three interconnected networks that determine an organism_s
psycho-neuro-immunological behavior.
Selective stabilization and reconfiguration of Internet links and nodes
In 1949, in his book The Organization of Behaviour, Donald O. Hebb, a
neurophysiologist at McGill University, in Montreal, proposed a revolutionary
new theory of psychological behavior. (Hebb 1949). According to this theory,
the brain constantly reconfigures the synapses that transmit nerve impulses.
Through the chemical action of activator or inhibitor hormones, the synapses
are reprogrammed as a result of various stimuli. Through the successive
stimulation of neural connections and pathways, whole areas made up of
thousands of neurons are activated and connect so as to form subsets that store
information through the reinforcement of impressions (shapes, colors, sounds,
words). These subsets constitute dynamic networks of neuronal interactions, the
brain_s building blocks of information.
I propose to look at the formation and functioning of the Global Brain,
(that I call "the Cybiont"), in a similar way. Human beings, multiple
agents in chaotic interaction, are the neurons of the hypernetwork. The links
among them, occurring through computers (and even more directly through biotic
interfaces), are giving rise to a conscious representation of the
"mental" functioning of the Cybiont, a global consciousness that is
reflected in the introsphere. (de Rosnay
2000). These links are reversible, and they can be reinforced or inhibited.
Autocatalytic processes take place, leading to new concepts, solutions, or
ideas. The Internet today abounds with examples of such processes.
Jean-Pierre Changeux, of the Institut Pasteur and his collaborators have
proposed a model of epigenesis of neural networks by selective stabilisation of
synapses and analysed in these terms the molecular mechanisms involved in the
regulation of acetylcholine receptor genes expression during the development of
the motor endplate. (Changeux 1985, Kerszberg and Changeux 1992). In particular,
they have identified DNA regulatory elements, as first/second messengers,
specifically involved in the regulation of acetylcholine receptor genes
transcription by electrical activity in extra junctional areas, and by
"trophic" factors in the subneural domain. These issues are of
relevance for the understanding of long term synaptic plasticity.
I propose that the selective stabilization of Internet node follows an
analogous principle through HTML links, bookmarks, address books, Web sites,
creating a situation of intercommutability and increasing the complexity of the
network. New properties will emerge from such highly complex system.
Autocatalytic processes, self selection and emergence of new properties
Emergence, mutation, and breakthroughs can be observed in the light of rapid
accelerations resulting from sudden phase transitions. These phenomena are
typical of the Internet_s fast development, and can be seen as autocatalytic
systems creating dense "time bubbles" and fostering the emergence of
new properties through rapid phase transitions. To illustrate this type of
self-selection, I propose to adapt to the Internet the random graph model used
by Stuart Kauffman to outline the role of collectively autocatalytic molecular
systems in the origins of life. (Kauffman 1995). His model is based on the
interconnection of many buttons using threads. As Stuart Kauffman puts it,
"When there are very few threads compared to the number of buttons, most
buttons will be unconnected. But as the ratio of threads to buttons increases,
small connected clusters begin to form. As the ratio of threads to buttons
continues to increase, the size of these clusters of buttons tends to
grow." A phase transition suddenly occurs when the ratio of threads to
buttons reaches 0.5, and a giant cluster is formed. The rate of growth of the
giant cluster then slows down as the number of isolated buttons and small
clusters decreases. This is represented by the top of the S-shaped curve.
I propose to replace the buttons with web sites (nodes) and the threads with
Internet links (edges). Let_s imagine millions of web sites and millions of
links. Beyond a given ratio of links to web sites (0.5?), a phase transition
must occur. With 400 million users, 170 million host computers, and an average
of 50 links per site (bookmarks and email addresses), new properties will
certainly emerge. What about with 2 billion users, 800 million host computers,
and 500 links per site? With such a giant electronic cluster of interconnected
brains and machines, what will these properties look like? Probably a new form
of macrolife becoming progressively conscious of its own existence and
self-maintenance.
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Spano, M.L. and Ditto, W.L., "Chaos control in biological
systems", in : Handbook of Chaos Control, pages 427 - 456, 1999).
http://www.businessweek.com/1999/99_25/b3634137.htm,
http://gtalumni.org/news/magazine/sum00/profile.html
Torimitsu, Keiichi et coll., "Application of Microfabricated Biosensor
Chip for Neuroscience", Electrochemistry, Vol. 68. No. 04, 2000, p. 284
Tour, James M. and Reed, Mark A. ´ Computing with Molecules ª, Scientific
American, June 2000
The efficiency of browsing hypertext networks or the web is determined by the
interaction between two distinct models: the user model that the designer uses
to structure the network and the browser's mental model that he/she uses to
browse the network. The degree of similarity between both models will determine
how easy or how difficult browsers can retrieve information from the network.
Since browsers' mental models are difficult to control and shape, the present
paper proposes a connectionist system that automatically restructures hypertext
networks according to the browser's mental models. The system uses a set of
three learning rules that change connection strengths in the network based on
implicit measures of the browsers' collective mental models. The system has
been shown to make hypertext networks reliably and validly mimic the browser's
collective mental models in two in situ experiments and a simulation
using a mathematical model of browser navigation.
I plan to talk about a "cognitive web" which is focused on
facilitating human cognition, communication and collaboration, in contrast with
a semantic web, which is focused on machine interchange of digitally signed
proofs and a crisp monotonic logic.
Here is an off-the-cuff, two-minute version of the abstract: I've been thinking about, and will be talking about, the interrelationship between humans and machines in creating the Global Brain. I believe the next-level of intelligence, and the first phase of the GB, will not go directly to smart machines, but rather to augmented humans. Through work in this area, and in robotics, people and machines will come closer together and a more robust shared-context will be created which will allow people to build and train AI's more successfully. I also think that AIs will, for a long time, be inferior to humans in certain endeavors and that cooperation and collaboration will be the order of the day even post-AI. However, I feel that the first phase of the GB is relatively close, and it involves improvements in user interfaces, networking, collaborative filtering, and current AI algorithms to build a network of "augmented humans" who will be able to utilize the computer network as a means of rapid communications, storage and retrieval of large bodies of knowledge (augmented memory, basically), etc. Thus, I think that AI is not the only area in which GB folks should be thinking, but also user interfaces and usability, high-speed networking, datamining and efficient data retrieval, etc. (all of which, incidentally, will make life easier for AI as well).
The talk will have a dual focus, first a look at intellect from the field of cognitive neuroscience then secondly various methods of augmentation in the cultural, technological and biological domains. I will still touch on neural implants but it will no longer be the focus.
(the following is not the abstract of a contribution to the workshop, but a short text written for another conference which touches on the global brain theme)
The frequency with which this particular theme is discussed is entirely
justified considering its topical relevance, especially now at the turn of the
millenium: the arrival of a new culture, an information or internet culture. Of
all the achievements of civilization, the development of the worldwide
information and communication network is so powerful that its consequences may
become apparent in the next few years. Will this new culture, promising a
rapid, diverse and extensive communication for anyone with anyone in the world
and facilitating access to an unsuspected wealth of information, influence the
lives of people, communities, nations, humanity? Reflections on this theme are
sometimes full of fears for the loss of natural interaction between people; and
sometimes, by contrast, reflections heroically predict the revolutionary and
far-reaching refinement of human society. One group regards the fears of the
others as exaggerated pessimism; a third group is skeptical of grand
predictions. The result: moods alternate.
The French sociologist and philosopher Pierre Lévy defines cyber-culture
as the totality of all technologies (material and intellectual), practices,
positions, opinions and values that accompany the new communication and
information environment - the so-called cyber-space.
Imagine an enormous library that includes everything conceivable. What
you will read, however, is not an ordinary linear text, but a hypertext: a
dense network of texts linked to one another by diverse cross-references that
enable you to set out at any time on whatever path you choose - just like the
wanderer at the crossroads sets out on whatever path appeals to him at that
moment.
They don_t all have to be texts; they might be pictures, music, spoken
text, video or all of these together: multimedia objects. The classical methods
of cross-references, indexes and citations - but likewise the principle of the
film-vending machine - are thus brought to perfection.
The reader chooses a path through the hypertext, which draws him/her into
the game as a kind of co-author. We can reflect further on the role of the
reader. The places for digressions can become concentrated; more references
(with a known or unknown goal) can be inserted on the same spot - let us recall
the array of alternatives in making decisions in real life. Hypertext novels
already exist. This, of course, may mean a revolution in literature: not
reading through to the end, but rather returning and reading at random - one
day this will not only be permitted, but even a matter of course and necessary.
It will be the intention of the writer and the pleasure of the reader. The
reader will _paddle_ through the story according to his/her mood and
creativity, and will bring to it another - his/her - temporal dimension.
Different readers will experience different stories, but the possibilities will
never be exhausted, just as all the possible chess games will never be played.
The comparison of cyber-space with the human brain can be an interesting
mental experiment. Recently, some theorists have focused on the remarkable idea
that all of human society can be regarded as a kind of many-celled
super-organism, the _cells_ of which are not cells but rather us, human beings.
The internet (in particular, the web) might be a kind of embryonic phase of the
nervous system of this super-organism, its _global brain_, which might
facilitate the linking up of all the partial intelligences of the users into a
single global intelligence. Perhaps it could then develop further on its own to
ideas and a consciousness of a higher order. The idea is attractive and even
natural, from a certain perspective.
One cannot impose limits on the imagination. It is conceivable that in
cyber-space, pieces of information are constantly being copied and that the
more interesting information (there is greater interest in it, either from the
participants or from the other pieces of information), will be copied in
greater numbers. Some of these may be altered to a greater or lesser degree, by
chance (and, of course, intentionally), and these changes may in turn influence
the interest they awaken. This kind of environment would certainly (partly on
its own and partly under direction) develop and - let_s not be afraid to say it
- perfect itself.
It would certainly be naive to imagine that all the accounts in
cyber-space must be consistent (and not contradict one another). Each of us
also cultivates different suppositions, hypotheses, guesses, longings and
fears, while happily forgetting those that are discredited and modifying those
that are verified. And thus it is not inappropriate for some fragments of
knowledge in cyber-space to be, to a certain extent, only tentative and
temporary. Here one finds a partial answer to the above-mentioned question
concerning the elimination of all that is of poor quality, unverified and
false: it is enough to remember that all these phenomena appear regularly in
the minds of all of us (I am ashamed to include as well the indecent and
dangerous phenomena). If a gray cortex can cope with this, a global brain should
be able to cope as well. I think that, like the invention of boots or the
printing-press, cyber-culture as such is not some kind of aberration and it
does not make sense to fear it. If it weren_t for the invention of good quality
boots, lovers of nature would hardly be able to reach many of its beauties, and
if it weren_t for the invention of the printing-press, you wouldn_t have this
catalogue in your hands right now. And, equipped with only a goose quill, I
probably wouldn_t have promised to write this essay.
- What
is the global brain?
- Do we need to assume a global superorganism?
- Is the global brain a higher level of evolution?
- What is the role of a global encyclopedia?
- How does the GB differ from mere distributed
cognition/collective intelligence?
- What is the role of _binding events_?
- Will a GB encompass biological information?
- How does the GB relate to Gaia?
- How does the GB relate to the singularity?
- Does the GB have a spiritual dimension?
- Does the GB entail a World government/governance?
- Why
do we need a GB to tackle information overload?
- How does the GB support the new economy?
- How can the GB help overcome conflicts?
- How can the GB contribute to global education and research?
- How can the GB help us solve global problems?
- Can
a GB spontaneously evolve?
- Can the development of a GB be avoided?
- Will everybody want to become part of the GB?
- Couldn_t the GB split into rival GBs?
- Won_t the poor be excluded? (digital divide)
- Will a GB encompass the ecosystem?
- Can
there be a GB without computer technology?
- What is the role of direct, _cellular_ communications?
- What is the role of the Internet?
- What is the role of the World-Wide Web?
- What is the role of MUDs/virtual worlds?
- What is the role of web learning?
- How does this relate to collaborative filtering?
- What is the role of spreading activation?
- peer-to-peer computing?
- What is the role of the semantic/cognitive web?
- How can we agree on shared ontologies?
- What is the role of real-time communication/group
interaction/conferences?
- What is the role of groupware/CSCW?
- What roles can software agents play?
- Which other technologies can support the GB?
- How can the human-GB interface be improved?
- How quickly can these technologies become reality?
- Will
the GB have its own goals and values?
- Will the GB have feelings?
- Will the GB become conscious?
- Will we able to understand the GB_s thinking?
- In how far will people merge with the GB?
- Would the GB allow uploading the human mind in a computer, thus
making it immortal?
- Is
the GB necessarily good?
- Doesn't a single GB system suppress diversity?
- Doesn_t the GB reduce humanity to an insect colony or to the
Borg?
- Cannot humanity and the GB turn into a _cancer_ that parasitizes
the rest of the planet?
- Wouldn_t the GB be totalitarian?
- Won_t the GB restrict our freedom?
- Cannot GB technology be abused for selfish purposes?
- How can we protect privacy, and avoid turning the GB into a
high-tech version of _Big Brother_?
- Could the GB escape from our control?
- Isn't there a danger that the GB will eventually overpower and
replace humanity?
- Does
the GB need bottom-up self-organization, top-down design, or both?
- Who or what should/shouldn_t control GB development?
- academia, government, UN, commercial,
_grass-roots_, W3C ?
- How to design the GB so as to minimize individual information
overload?
- How can we best collect, represent and organize the needed
knowledge/values?
- What protocols or standards do we need?
- How can we agree on such standards?
- In how far must the GB be rooted in a universal worldview/system
of ethics and values?
- How can individual/group selfishness be overcome?
- How
can we best promote GB ideas to the public?
- How can we best avoid scare stories and misinterpretations?
- How can we best organize further research/discussion into GB
issues?
- What role should the GB Group play?
- How can we institutionalize the group?
- How should a future GB website look?
- How should we organize a next conference on the GB?
- Who could sponsor such an event?
- Where should it take place?
- Who would take on the responsibility for various activities?