Future of The Web- Will Web 5.0 Take Control?: "Web 5.0- the Wise Web, is still in shadow play, but it’s definitely coming. It’s signature is written large in research labs across the planet, where everything from human behaviour, emotions, decision-making, network science, brain cognition and automated learning is being funded.
What’s emerging is a more complete understanding of human nature, consciousness and creativity and what it takes to replicate this essence in an alternate system.
Web 5.0 will scoop up all this new knowledge and the intelligence offered by Webs 2.0, 3.0 and 4.0 and deliver it in an ethical, self-aware and sentient framework, embedding all biological and artificial life within a global cooperative intelligence.
The Wise Web will mark the beginning of a new threshold in human civilisation- a new form of global consciousness- in which all life will be embedded.
All critical decisions affecting our planet and life, including those relating to global warming, sharing vital resources and the ethical resolution of conflict and human rights, will be guided by this global intelligence.
We desperately need a new paradigm in the 21st century. Our decision-making processes are seriously flawed- so flawed that they threaten our very existence- world wars, multiple genocides, the threat of nuclear weapons, ongoing malnutrition for millions, unstoppable global warming and now the collapse of the global economic system.
This isn’t a good roadmap for survival.
At its best, Web 5.0 promises redemption for the human race.
At its worst it offers a seductive but slippery slope straight to the Borg."
Monday, August 31, 2009
Future Darwinism- A Networked Information Theory
Future Darwinism- A Networked Information Theory: "Future Darwinism- A Networked Information Theory
Written by David Tow
David TowThe latest physical theories place both information and network theory at the heart of evolutionary processes.
At the cosmic and quantum level, theories such as Loop Quantum Gravity- LQG for example, model the evolution of the cosmos by flows of information through channels of spacetime. The core principle incorporated in LQG is that the structure of spacetime is built up from a network of interacting connections or spin networks, constructed from causal relationships, which evolve and grow over time from the past to the future. The topological braiding patterns of network nodes can also encode quantum particles
At the biological level, based on experiments measuring the ability of bacteria to adapt to new food sources, there is proof of an 'information minimum' level required for life’s survival. Natural selection favours organisms that capture more bits of information about their environment and this principle is common to all living systems. There is also a greater understanding that the analysis of cellular networks and the multilayered controls of gene expression can be best understood in terms of networked patterns."
Written by David Tow
David TowThe latest physical theories place both information and network theory at the heart of evolutionary processes.
At the cosmic and quantum level, theories such as Loop Quantum Gravity- LQG for example, model the evolution of the cosmos by flows of information through channels of spacetime. The core principle incorporated in LQG is that the structure of spacetime is built up from a network of interacting connections or spin networks, constructed from causal relationships, which evolve and grow over time from the past to the future. The topological braiding patterns of network nodes can also encode quantum particles
At the biological level, based on experiments measuring the ability of bacteria to adapt to new food sources, there is proof of an 'information minimum' level required for life’s survival. Natural selection favours organisms that capture more bits of information about their environment and this principle is common to all living systems. There is also a greater understanding that the analysis of cellular networks and the multilayered controls of gene expression can be best understood in terms of networked patterns."
Future Darwinism- Selecting Life for the Universe
Future Darwinism- Selecting Life for the Universe: "David Tow
Future Darwinism- Selecting Life for the Universe
Written by David Tow
David TowDavid Tow- Information scientist and Director of The Future of Life Research Centre in Sydney NSW, predicts life will prove to be ubiquitous within the universe. By combining physicist Lee Smolin’s evolutionary theory of the emergence of a life in the cosmos with the Centre’s Decision-Network Evolutionary Theory- D-Net, David Tow suggests it is likely that the universe, as the ultimate environment, selects life because it is the most efficient form of information processor.
The revolutionary idea that Smolin introduced over a decade ago is that each generational child universe is a mutated form of its parent, with slightly altered physical parameters. If these changes allow for small increases in inflation, this may kick-start larger universes that do not collapse as quickly and which will eventually have the capacity and longevity to create stars, planets, carbon, complex molecules and eventually life.
In other words, universes capable of generating life will be selected in the biological Darwinian sense, according to the rules of mutation, selection and replication."
Future Darwinism- Selecting Life for the Universe
Written by David Tow
David TowDavid Tow- Information scientist and Director of The Future of Life Research Centre in Sydney NSW, predicts life will prove to be ubiquitous within the universe. By combining physicist Lee Smolin’s evolutionary theory of the emergence of a life in the cosmos with the Centre’s Decision-Network Evolutionary Theory- D-Net, David Tow suggests it is likely that the universe, as the ultimate environment, selects life because it is the most efficient form of information processor.
The revolutionary idea that Smolin introduced over a decade ago is that each generational child universe is a mutated form of its parent, with slightly altered physical parameters. If these changes allow for small increases in inflation, this may kick-start larger universes that do not collapse as quickly and which will eventually have the capacity and longevity to create stars, planets, carbon, complex molecules and eventually life.
In other words, universes capable of generating life will be selected in the biological Darwinian sense, according to the rules of mutation, selection and replication."
Saturday, August 29, 2009
Part I: A Theory of Engaging Emergence « Engaging Emergence: Turning Upheaval into Opportunity
Part I: A Theory of Engaging Emergence « Engaging Emergence: Turning Upheaval into Opportunity: "Professor Jeffrey Goldstein from the School of Business at Adelphi University provides a definition of emergence in the journal, Emergence (Goldstein 1999): “the arising of novel and coherent structures, patterns and properties during the process of self-organization in complex systems”. He articulated these commonly accepted qualities of emergence:
* radical novelty — at each level of complexity entirely new properties appear (e.g., from autocracy- rule by one person with unlimited power to democracy – government in which the people are the primary source of political power)
* coherence – a system of interactions having a sufficiently persistent stable form over time that we name it (e.g., elephant, biosphere, Sally)
* “wholeness” – not just the sum of its parts, but also different and irreducible from its parts (e.g., humans are more than the composition of lots of cells)
* dynamic – always in process, continuing to evolve (e.g., the US constitution and its amendments)
* downward causation – the system organizing and shaping the behavior of the parts (e.g., roads determine where we drive)
Stephen Johnson organized his thinking about emergence around four core principles:
* Neighbor interaction – individual agents taking their cues from their neighbors in a sort of ordered randomness rather than through orders from above (e.g., well-worn trails determine where to pave the roads)
* Pattern matching – agents learning through their connections and forming more orderly structures (e.g., clustering of similar functions in a city: New York’s garment district, diamond district, Little Italy, etc.)
* Feedback – interactions that reinforce consonant patterns and balance dissonant patterns indirectly cause a system to learn and adapt (e.g., real-time feedback via a back channel shapes audience response which affects a tuned-in speaker’s behavior)
* Indirect control – a system’s behavior arises from setting up conditions intended to produce the desired outcomes and giving it a try (e.g., any change initiative)"
* radical novelty — at each level of complexity entirely new properties appear (e.g., from autocracy- rule by one person with unlimited power to democracy – government in which the people are the primary source of political power)
* coherence – a system of interactions having a sufficiently persistent stable form over time that we name it (e.g., elephant, biosphere, Sally)
* “wholeness” – not just the sum of its parts, but also different and irreducible from its parts (e.g., humans are more than the composition of lots of cells)
* dynamic – always in process, continuing to evolve (e.g., the US constitution and its amendments)
* downward causation – the system organizing and shaping the behavior of the parts (e.g., roads determine where we drive)
Stephen Johnson organized his thinking about emergence around four core principles:
* Neighbor interaction – individual agents taking their cues from their neighbors in a sort of ordered randomness rather than through orders from above (e.g., well-worn trails determine where to pave the roads)
* Pattern matching – agents learning through their connections and forming more orderly structures (e.g., clustering of similar functions in a city: New York’s garment district, diamond district, Little Italy, etc.)
* Feedback – interactions that reinforce consonant patterns and balance dissonant patterns indirectly cause a system to learn and adapt (e.g., real-time feedback via a back channel shapes audience response which affects a tuned-in speaker’s behavior)
* Indirect control – a system’s behavior arises from setting up conditions intended to produce the desired outcomes and giving it a try (e.g., any change initiative)"
Africa Unchained: Influencing Cybernetics
Africa Unchained: Influencing Cybernetics: "Thursday, August 27, 2009
Influencing Cybernetics
Appfrica highlights a paper by Ron Eglash in which he writes:
The use of African material culture as a form of analog representation is particularly vivid in cases of recursive information flow. In African architecture, recursive scaling – that is fractal geometry – can be seen in a variety of forms. In North Africa it is associated with the feedback of he “arabesque” artistic form, particularly in the branches of branches forming city streets. In Central Africa it can be seen in additive rectangular wall formations, and in West Africa we we circular swirls of circular houses and granaries. This is not limited to a visual argument; the fractal structure of African settlement patterns has been confirmed by computational analysis of digitized photos in Eglash and Broadwell (1989).
Recursive scaling in Egyptian temples can be viewed as a formalized version of the fractal architecture found elsewhere in Africa, and is most significant in it’s use of the Fibonacci sequence. The sequence is named for Leonardo Fibonacci (ca. 1175-1250), who is also associated with an unusual example of recursive architecture in Europe. The Fibonacci sequence was one of the first mathematical models for biological growth patterns, and inspired Alan Turing and other important figures in the history of computational morphogenesis. Since Fibonacci was sent to North Africa as a boy and devoted his years there to mathematics education (Gies and Gies 1969), it is possible that seminal example of recursive scaling is of African origin"
Influencing Cybernetics
Appfrica highlights a paper by Ron Eglash in which he writes:
The use of African material culture as a form of analog representation is particularly vivid in cases of recursive information flow. In African architecture, recursive scaling – that is fractal geometry – can be seen in a variety of forms. In North Africa it is associated with the feedback of he “arabesque” artistic form, particularly in the branches of branches forming city streets. In Central Africa it can be seen in additive rectangular wall formations, and in West Africa we we circular swirls of circular houses and granaries. This is not limited to a visual argument; the fractal structure of African settlement patterns has been confirmed by computational analysis of digitized photos in Eglash and Broadwell (1989).
Recursive scaling in Egyptian temples can be viewed as a formalized version of the fractal architecture found elsewhere in Africa, and is most significant in it’s use of the Fibonacci sequence. The sequence is named for Leonardo Fibonacci (ca. 1175-1250), who is also associated with an unusual example of recursive architecture in Europe. The Fibonacci sequence was one of the first mathematical models for biological growth patterns, and inspired Alan Turing and other important figures in the history of computational morphogenesis. Since Fibonacci was sent to North Africa as a boy and devoted his years there to mathematics education (Gies and Gies 1969), it is possible that seminal example of recursive scaling is of African origin"
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