The Interconnectedness of Chaos
A Dialogue between
Roberto Calvo Macias and Dr.
Sam Vaknin
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RCM:
This game is about thinking "future".
We assume (in this game) that this complex techno-rational
organization (or more prosaically: the modern world of the West) is trying
to reach and does reach "total organization" (that is to say: total inter-connection).
This could be an epiphenomenon (beyond a critical point
quantitative changes metamorphose into qualitative changes). We shall analyse
the possible configurations, bifurcations and critical thresholds; and
determine zones of meta-stability, next to equilibrium and far from equilibrium
and also the possible attractors and "strange attractors". This is to say:
a complex study of the future (that special version of the future conceived
as total organization).
Sam:
Equating "total organization" with inter-connectedness
may be wrong.
RCM:
Obviously, it may be wrong. It was just a "name", let's
just say interconnectedness.
Sam:
This is not what I meant to say. I meant: interconnectedness
does not necessarily lead to total organization. It can lead to total chaos
and anarchy, for instance by multiplying the effects of perturbances.
RCM:
This is what I want to know: will it lead to total chaos
or to total organization, or to a mix of the two (that's my bet).
Aren't we transforming our images of "chaos and order"?
Sam:
It is a series of questions, each one deserving of its
own mini-essay.
Yes, I believe our concepts of "order" and "chaos" and
the way we imagine them have been drastically revamped in the last few
decades, following the chaotic world wars.
The two were always inter-connected. We must not forget
that the universe was moulded by God out of chaos, according to the opening
chapter of Genesis. But while in the past and until recently the two were
considered opposites - today they are considered as two poles of a continuum
by one account or as emergent phenomena by another. Chaos emerges out of
order given certain inputs and order emerges out of chaos given others.
This picture emerges everywhere - from the workings of the brain to astrophysics.
RCM:
Aren't we changing/complementing our old archetypes with
new dynamic ones?
Sam:
If taken in the Jungian sense, order and chaos are not
strictly archetypes.
Rather they are "meta"-types. They are tendencies, potentials,
paths, waiting to be materialized and made use of by archetypes. This perception
hasn't changed. Chaos and order are still regarded as states of matter
and of energy, as organizational principles, as residents of the twilight
zone between the mental or subjective and the external, the "objective".
RCM:
Are we changing our forms of perception, or perception
itself?
Sam:
I don't think such a distinction can be made. I think
that our perception is shaped by our ideas (our forms of perception). The
content in-forms the vessel. Our perception adapts itself to what we think
about our perception and to what we think about our thoughts. So, yes,
if our thoughts about chaos and order (two immensely important perceptual
filters) have changed - so, inevitably, has our perception.
RCM:
Are we changing our selves while inter-acting with nature?
Sam:
Need this question be asked? Or, rather, CAN this question
be asked this way? Are we not part of nature and our interactions, are
they not natural?
We are changing because no interaction is possible without
some kind of exchange and trading taking place. We give of ourselves and
receive from others. This is the very definition and the very essence of
change.
RCM:
Are we entering a new age, with new senses?
Are we metamorphosing to a dual perception, static and
dynamic at the same time: wave/matter?
Are we ending/completing antiquity?
Are we delineating a new kind of dynamic myths: "gestalt",
figure a-la Goethe's Protoform?
We are entering a new cosmic house: Aquarius. Are we
entering in a new cosmology: i.e. fractals, chaos theories, complexity,
quantum duality, pure materialism: Magical Realism?
In a new born, who can distinguish which sounds are the
pains of parturition and which ones are the outcomes of the "happiness
of creation"?
Sam:
I take all these questions to be facets of one and the
same. It is the awe inspired in us by the advent of novelty. We are on
the threshold of radically revising old concepts, of drastically altering
the way we see the world and us in it, in short: on the verge of spinning
new myths to assuage our existential angst. It is an anxiety inducing transition
and it was bound to shatter the foundation of the very language that we
use. Hence the need to grapple with the ambiguities of "order" and "disorder".
The need to revolutionize the way we ARE (at least cognitively) arose out
of the onslaught of technology, the cultural shock that is the future shock.
It is an adaptive mechanism, a reflex of adjustment to the ever faster
pace of change.
RCM:
Fully agree. Your ability to give clear descriptions
is outstanding.
Sam:
Thank you. Order is measured in physics by the decline
in entropy in closed systems.
Ignoring for a minute that there are no closed systems
in the universe (perhaps with the exception of the universe itself) - we
are still left with the question: are interconnectedness and entropy inversely
proportional?
In other words, does order increase the more we connect
discreet elements to each other?
RCM:
That is the question, my dear Hamlet? will order increase?
Sam:
By definition organization is an increase in order.
Organization incorporates the transfer of structured
(read: meaningful) information between elements in the organization (let
us call them "organizational nodes").
It is easy to commit the logical fallacy of equating
the transfer of structured information with order. If A=B and B=C then
A=C.
But this is not necessarily so.
It is true that in a state of entropy, no transfer of
information (bar random quantum vacuum fluctuations) is possible.
RCM:
Would you like to further explain this? Earth is not
a "state of entropy".
Earth is over-abundance ( by stealing the fire of gods
(Prometheus): SUN.
Sam:
Earth is an open system. It absorbs material from the
outside. As a result, it is negentropic. It will never go cold. Entropy
implies that all the energy available in the universe will be equally distributed
in all space-time. The result will be a universe as cold as the absolute
zero.
Entropy is a state where there are no heat (=information)
differentials between all the points in a closed system (such as the universe
is believed to be). The outcome of this absolutely equal distribution of
heat is: no heat TRANSFERS (=no information exchanged between the points
in the closed, entropic universe).
Organization = Order
Organization = (necessitates) internal transfers of information
BUT this does not necessarily imply that
Transfers of information=Order (or, rather, an INCREASE
in order).
In other words:
Information can be transferred in a universe that is
becoming less and less ordered. It is not an indication, IN ITSELF, that
order is increasing. Our interconnectedness (=increasing and enhanced transfers
of information and matter) is not an indication, IN ITSELF, that order
is increasing or that we are on the way to total organization. We could
well be on the way to chaos and anarchy.
RCM:
It could well be..., but surely would be a different
"anarchy", don't you think?
Sam:
I will start my answer with a little detour. It is clear
that entropy is a universal law which all theories must obey. But against
this backdrop of ever increasing entropy - randomly generated pockets of
negentropy are possible. If the asymmetry of time (its unidirectional flow
from past to future) is determined by the increase in entropy, such pockets
present an intellectually challenge. This is why I have to agree with you
that social anarchy has very little to do with physical "anarchy" (chaos).
Sam:
But that C cannot occur in a state D does not make it
the opposite of D.
We cannot, therefore, say that - just because information
transfer is impossible in an entropic system - it is the opposite of entropy
(negentropy).
RCM:
Could "information" be a special kind of "energy"?
Sam:
In physics, all these (information, energy, heat) are
interchangeable (one and the same). Clearly by transferring information
you increase the energy of the recipient (=receiver) and decrease the energy
of the sender. And clearly an increase in energy is manifested as an increase
in heat (among other manifestations).
RCM:
Couldn't the universe (or nature) create (in a pure sense:
poesis) matter, or energy?
Sam:
There is constant creation of matter in the universe.
Quantum mechanics taught us that even "vacuum" is not what it seems. Matter
is created out of vacuum quantum fluctuations (the result of the uncertainty
principle and the ability of particles to be in a more than one place simultaneously).
RCM:
Does matter think?
Sam:
I am made of matter and I think (I think...:o))
RCM:
Who says entropy is universal? Those are only interpretation,
sometimes positive, sometimes negative, of universe. They are just fairy
tales.
Sam:
The second law of thermodynamics is a cornerstone of
modern physics. It is even more unshakeable than the relativity theories.
It is a meta-law in the sense that new theories must conform to it - or
be ruled out. It has been incontrovertibly observed in many experiments
and naturally occurring almost-closed systems. I don't think that it is
an interpretation, let alone a fairy tale. It is a well-formulated outcome
of observations.
RCM:
I am not sure. If a system were to lose energy while
gaining information (and in your own words: information=energy), could
we talk about entropy?
Sam:
An open system can lose less energy than it gains information
- in which case, order will increase and entropy decrease. But closed systems
do not lose or gain energy - they simply redistribute it among their constituents.
When equality is achieved, when every unit of volume
of the closed system has the same energy content - entropy is maximized.
It is true, though, that random and temporary "pockets" of negentropy can
occur in parts of a closed system and emulate the behaviour of open systems.
We know of only one closed system - our universe. So,
there isn't much point in talking about entropy in any other system because
local conditions can lead to its decrease rather than to its increase.
Sam:
Moreover: Interconnectedness implies the POTENTIAL of
information transfer - not its actuality.
RCM:
That's true. But, most of the time (unfortunately) potentiality
goes to actuality.
Sam:
Moreover:
Organizations are patterns and humans, notoriously, find
patterns where there are none (in totally random populations). How can
we be sure that what we judge to be an organization is not actually a random
assemblage of elements?
RCM:
We cannot assure anything - this is the "sign of our
times". But we can say (or try to say, at least), with all due reservations,
what could define (more or less) organization - there are even morphological
profiles: organizations use rigid lines, rectangular, organism uses more
fluid forms (bios, coral beads, flowers, etc.)
Let me demonstrate a strange morphological comparison:
Death-organization (bureaucracy)- entropy- crystals.
Life-organism - neg-entropy (information) - living beings.
Sam:
It is indisputable that life - over short spans of time
(prior to decay, ageing and death) - is negentropic. It is novel
thought that bureaucracies/organizations are dead things which increase
(or can be equated to) entropy.
Living things are also organizations which employ bureaucratic
decision making processes. Human organizations, hierarchies and bureaucracies
are a NATURAL thing (because humans, who are objects of nature, invented
them).
So, I think that organizations/bureaucracies AND living
things are ORDER - the opposite of entropy, that is: negentropic.
At least as long as they are ALIVE.
What if they die?
Are dead bodies, perfectly preserved for eternity - entropic
or negentropic?
Are bureaucratic organizations which have no function
anymore (NATO...:o)) - entropic or negentropic?
It is a VERY complex question. On the face of it, the
fact that STRUCTURE is preserved (=the corpse, the skeletal organization)
has, undoubtedly, negentropic effects. But if there is no FUNCTION - is
there any transfer of energy? Of course not. And entropy is the ABSENCE,
the STOPPAGE of transfer of energy.
We are faced with the following choices:
- It is life that separates entropy from negentropy.
A structure without an ACTUAL function is entropic. The same structure
when it functions (=lives) is NEGentropic
RCM:
You are touching the basis of that "new vision". Obviously
we need organization (skeletal, structure) but we shall try to subordinate
it to functions, and not the other way. Organizations (human organizations
are known to) have this natural tendency to expand. We, as free humans
shall in-form (give form, limits) this growth. This is to say: we shall
construct an organism (part skeleton/ part function).
Sam:
The definition of entropy (chaos) and negentropy (order)
is much too narrow and, anyhow, is not applicable to open systems (such
as the earth or living organisms).
RCM:
I fully agree. In my previous comments I represented
the classical point of view, just to draw the picture and how we shall
change our view about entropy, information, neg-entropy, order and chaos.
We shall try to see the being and the becoming at the same time.
Sam:
Order is an emergent phenomenon (epiphenomenon). If a
sufficient number of elements interact chaotically, order is created. But
is it created only in our minds - limited as these are? Perhaps there are
no such things as order and disorder. Perhaps they are only the names we
give to two different cognitive, mental EXPERIENCES which have nothing
to do with reality outside our brain. Pattern recognition must have represented
an evolutionary advantage. That order emerges suddenly and fitfully may
teach us a lot about ourselves rather than about our world.
RCM:
This is a brilliant observation: it touches the raw nerve:
how to know patterns, or reality. In other words: Matter, Modelization.
Reality. We can say what is order only in reference to our minds, that
is obvious.
About patterns, and that never-ending discussion regarding
object/subject:
Videtur: suprema laus; evidence is supreme law.
This is why I like chaos theories, complexity, it simply
offer itself to the eye - of course, it is another kind of faith, that
is not for this post-modern world:-). But it is a kind of merely visual
faith - it resonates profoundly in our mind: it's life moving itself. But,
your comment doesn't resolve the question: should we eliminate (or forget
them for the time being) those words: order and disorder. Do they not have
a place in post-modern mentality? or should we understand them in a new
way?
Sam:
I think we should understand them as mental constructs,
not as objective realities.
Then we should define them operationally and not ontologically.
In other words: it is not that order exists either in the outside world
or in our heads. It does not. But "order" is how we name a series of actions
and reactions in our brain. It need not have an external trigger (as any
dreamer, author, artist, or junkie can attest). It need not be even correlated
with the outside world. But whenever we have this sequence of events in
our heads - we call it order. And whenever we have another sequence - we
call it chaos.
RCM:
Yes. But this not resolves the question. What can be
order for one person could be chaos to another.
Sam:
Maybe societally and culturally, but not physically.
In physics (thermodynamics, information theory, cybernetics) order is defined
clearly.
What I am trying to say is that even this monovalent,
unambiguous, clear cut definition is merely a labelling of mental processes.
It contains less information about the world that about how we experience
our interaction with the world. It says less about what's out there than
what's in here.
Sam:
Thus, the very premise that interconnectedness is bound
to yield increasing order (total organization), which will epiphenomenally
spring forth - is, to my mind, simplistic and dubious on ontological grounds.
A case can be presented (however counter-intuitive) that inter-connectedness
increases entropy, disorder and disorganization rather than the other way
around.
RCM:
Well, it could be...( my introduction to the game contained
only one premise and the rest were pure questions). Predicting those possibilities
are the finality of this game.
Sam:
Think about the following:
If information will be instantly available to everyone
everywhere instantaneously and all the time - the world will have become
MORE entropic, not less so. The very definition of entropy is an equal
distribution of heat (information).
RCM:
Again my question: could information be "another kind"
of "energy"?
And another one (related to our primordial definition).
Let us reach an agreement on order and disorder before
we start the game.
If entropy is an equal distribution of heat, could entropy
be equalized to order: crystals?.
Sam:
Every ordinary physicist will have ignored this last
question of yours disdainfully.
But I will not, because I am no ordinary physicist (this
is my narcissism
rearing its ugly head ...:o)) and because it is a good question and because
it is good to ask such questions.
You see, I think that we, the human race, did NOT reach
an agreement (not even an intuitive one) regarding "what is order" (and,
by implication, what is disorder). Because we do NOT possess such an agreement,
we were surprised by Chaos Theory (chaos leading to order), by recent astrophysics
(black holes, the big bang - order leading to chaos and chaos leading to
order), by phase transitions (sudden emergence of anew kind of order),
by some thermodynamic effects (order emerging from total chaotic dynamics).
We simply did not and do not know what to expects.
In my humble opinion, the distinction between order and
disorder is false and reflects MENTAL states, as I said before.
Tell me, which is ordered and which is disordered:
iiiiiiiiiiiiiiii (SET #1)
or
iiii iiii iiiiiiii (SET #2)
If you say that the second set is the ordered one (4+4=8)
- isn't it all in your mind? had you never heard of arithmetic would you
still have considered the second set more orderly than the first? You need
to KNOW mathematics to declare the second set more orderly. In other words,
order is not a property of the set - it is all in your head.
And if you say that the first set is the more ordered
- how can it be? It contains less information than the second one and anything
that contains less information is more entropic, i.e. more disordered.
Still, it IS ordered. No one will say that it is chaotic. But in which
way is it ordered and in which way is it disordered? And if the information
(4+4=8) is only in our heads is order an extensive parameter (=property)
of the system studied or of OUR BRAIN?
RCM:
Well, I will not say that is FALSE, I prefer to say that
opinions on order and disorder change with time.
About the BRAIN and the never ending object/subject dichotomy
we have only experience to arbiter. It is obvious that we are in an age
in which even doubt is put in doubt, but we can establish some regions
of certainty.
And we can say that matter goes to spirit and vice versa.
Chaos leads to order, order leads to chaos: life.
Sam:
The more interconnectedness - the more anarchy and dissolution
of centres of power, the less rigid and hierarchical the social structures,
the more democratic the access to information. This is LESS order - not
moreso.
Which world was more totally organized - Soviet Russia
and Nazi Germany or current Russia and the current USA?
RCM:
This is my great doubt, and the reason I started this
dialogue.
Taking account of the classical definition of order,
stability, discipline, etc... I will have answered that Nazi society was
the more "organized". On the the other hand, if we understand the concept
of "order" as motion, or we use meta-stability instead of rigid stability,
I would answer that the current USA is the more organized. As demonstrated
by history: the Nazis survived for twenty years, the USA much longer.
Sam:
Assuming, of course, that there is a positive correlation
between the extent to which a society is ordered and its chances to survive.
Many management gurus believe otherwise and encourage "creative chaos"
or "chaotic creativity" (the very characteristic of modern entrepreneurship).
RCM:
This is also my opinion. The more chaotic the creativity,
the more survival-orientated the responses. Obviously, from a remote view,
this creative chaos could be seen as a superior order. As in fractals,
the description has to correspond to distances and methods.
Sam:
You see, order (or disorder) is covariant, that is to
say observer-dependent. It is all relative, there is no privileged frame
of reference. Einstein would have loved it.
RCM:
But, without doubt, the more ordered (rigid, chaotically,
or whatever) a society the more chances it has to survive. Order in an
organism could be equalized with wealth. An high-order organism is that
of supreme wealth.
RCM:
Why more democratic the access to information is less
order? why?
Sam:
Because to us, old hands, order implies hierarchy, structure,
regulated flows of information and deterministic decision making processes.
Information monopolies are essential to maintain this
kind of order.
Imagine if our kidney had access to neurotransmitters
and could produce them. Or if our brain was able to process food. Actually,
mammal brain are separated from the rest of the body by what is known as
"brain blood barrier" which does not allow 99.9% of all the substances
circulating in the body to come through.
Think about terrorists having access to sites on the
web with bomb construction and germ breeding information. Think about paranoid
people preyed upon by sadists by email. Think about crooks selling non-existent
services to gullible clients.
RCM:
Problems, errors, terrorism, etc... are insoluble. They
are inherent to humans. To ask technology to resolve those problems is,
like we say in Spain, to ask an elm tree for pears, to expect the impossible.
Sam:
I am not asking technology to resolve these problems
- merely not to make them worse.
And if not to solve human problems - what is technology
for?
RCM:
That's precisely what I would like to know: what the
hell is technology for? Do you know? If so, just tell me, we can write
a book and become millionairies:-)>
RCM:
I agree with you in certain parts. It seems that technological-organizational
thinking implies a central structure, hierarchy.
This is the reason for my interest in the structure of
the internet - and here you can show things (to our future lectors) better
than me: I don't know this structure deeply.
Sam:
The internet is an amazing example of order as an emergent
phenomenon.
Engineering-wise it is chaotic. Pathways criss cross
each other geographically and messages are broken to packets which are
then distributed randomly through these pathways and re-assembled upon
arrival at their destination.
Still, a profound and hyper-complex order emerges and
the united resources of the net were even put to use as the virtual equivalent
of a supercomputer.
See my: http://narcissism.cjb.net/internet.html
orhttps://members.tripod.com/~samvak/internet.html
RCM:
But I think we can also make a new distinction: what
is decisive nowadays (and always), is not the control
of information. The treasures are the channels (of
water, of cars, of bits, etc...). Those who control the channels are the
new masters. The only way to avoid this "new state extortion",
is to create our own channels, to send our information within our
own channels (to have our satellites, just like modern parabolicantennas
but with two way input-output) and this takes us again to the beginning
of this vicious circle: we shall have our own energy (sun
panels). This is a never-ending fight between organization and organism.
We shall use hackers tactics, always beyond the organizational time(at
the moment we can go beyond the organizational space: do you have yourownUFO?:-))
Anyway, on what basis do you make such assertions about
information monopolies? should the USA conserve its
"nuclear weapons" in secrecy? have you read Hannah
Arendt, do you know what secrecy implies? The "good times "of CIA,
and KGB, have, fortunately, passed. Was it a good decision (to increase"order")
to forbid all drugs? what would have happened had the governmentwashed
its hands regarding this matter? We cannot know what would have
happened, but...
Moreover, and this is about copyright matters, a high-quality
creation doesn't need copyright, its protection is
inside it.
What I want to say is: the state should not intervene
to control this chaotic process
of interconnectedness (each intervention will produce more troublesthan
benefits), it should let this anarchy go its own way, and in anunforcedmanner,
create its own hierarchies and rules. In a more prosaic way: more"physis"
and less "polis" (it's time to read the pre-socratics).
Sam:
At the beginning of a new medium, channels are always
more important than content and then, as the medium
matures, the picture reverses. The digital revolution
made channels so cheap and the competition so fierce that we havealready
entered the phase of content domination. True, internal portalsstill carry
heavy weight and outlandish price tags. Broadband and interactivity
still dominate the thoughts of those who count. But underneath,
the content revolution seethes. Everyone is nowadays a publisher(of
e-books, of e-zines), a rebel, a preacher in potential. The barriersforentry
into the hitherto exclusive universe of content creation have beenremoved.
To really secure future freedom it is the content that should beemphasized,
in my opinion. As computers become cheaper, wirelesstechnologies are introduced
and communication speeds and storage (computer memory)
costs collapse - channels will become less important.
Regarding the acronym soup you threw at me - I think,
as regards everything in life
- it is a matter of degree. I am against what the CIA has done tothe likes
of Allende. Of course I am against what the KGB has done to tensof millions.
But I fully support a certain censorship and restrictions of access.
I think that children should not gain access to pedophile sites,nor should
terrorists download instructions on how to prepare bombs. Ithinkthat Iraq
should gain no access to sites dealing with the nuts and boltsofbiological
warfare. It is a matter of self-preservation mind you. I developa
strange tendency to forget all my noble principles - freedom of speechincluded
- when threatened credibly. So, no, I do not think that the internet
should be left to self-regulate because I think that it largelyfailed to
do so.
And I support the legalization of all drugs and the abolition
of monopoly profits resulting from the current form
of copyright. But copyright protection is not aimed
at preventing copying. It is aimed at rewarding the author
/ creator / artist whenever copying does occur.
RCM:
I am not against censorship. But I prefer that governments
do not intervene (or intervene only minimally) in
such questions. All organizations build their own
modes of security. Secrecy is one of the bases of any
business and state. But we should let the internet resolve its ownproblems.
Pedophile, child abuse, terrorism: all those things existed and
are growing rapidly even without internet. Just think about Thailand,
or some other places in South-America. Unfortunately, such people
(as awful and horrible as we judge them to be) are part of creation. Wehave
to live with that. The Internet will not change those things, the Internetwill
not make us better. Information, education have nothing to do with
"good or bad" matters. Moreover, ages of high-intelligence (such as the
Renaissance)were almost a-moral.I am an author, am I not?:-) So I am not
against copyright. What I want to say its that the
concept itself is changing. How could we controlthis copying process in
a world of total interconnectedness?I think there is no way, do you know
one?
We are reverting to the middle-ages, to the cathedrals,
it's not the time for genius.
So, the one-and-only authentic copyright is inside the
work.
Sam:
Regarding the first issue:
I do not expect technology to change human nature which
clearly includes sadistic and aggressive impulses
(Freud's Thanatic instinct). I simply expect the technology
not to provide such impulses with ready tools.
Regarding the second issue:
Of course there is a way to protect copyright in the
digital age if all the links in the chain of production
and distribution were to collaborate. A prime example
is the recent events in digital music. Record labels and manufacturers
of consumer electronics have teamed to produce a digital encryption
standard which will preserve some copyright protection in the face
of pirated, downloadable music in MP3 and other formats.
RCM:
BEFORE WE START WITH THE PRECISE QUESTIONS LET US REACH
AN AGREEMENT REGARDING THE DEFINITION OF "ORDER". HERE ARE A FEW IDEAS:
ORDER: DEGREE OF AGREEMENT OF A COMMUNITY REGARDING CERTAIN POLITICAL RULES.
ORDER: GRADES OF POLITICAL/SOCIOLIGCAL DISTURBANCES: SOCIAL DISOBEDIENCE, VIOLATIONS OF NORMAL COMMERCIAL AGREEMENTS.
ORDER: DEGREE OF TRUST OF A COMMUNITY (BETWEEN ITS MEMBERS AND COMMUNITY ITSELF).
ORDER: DEGREE OF VARIATION OF THE ORGANIZATION'S CURRENCY( DOLLAR, FRANC, MARK, PESETA:-).
ORDER: DEGREE OF PSYCHOLOGICAL WEALTH OF THE COMMUNITY'S MEMBERS.:-)
ORDER: DEGREE OF THE INCREASE OR DECREASE OF THE RATIO OF POLICE FORCES TO THE NUMBER OF PEOPLE:-).
ORDER: COMMON SENSE OF PAX, STABILITY AND A CERTAIN TRANQUILITY - HOWEVER DYNAMIC IT WILL BE: ARE THE USA IN ORDER? JUST IN APPEARANCE.
ORDER: THE COMMUNITIES ABILITY TO CREATE AND ENJOY "FIESTAS" AND OFFER RESPECTABLE ("humanitas" comes from "humare": to give grave, to bury) FUNERALS (THIS IS, IMHO, THE BEST HALLMARK OF "ORDER").
ORDER: DEGREE OF PEOPLES' FAITH IN THE FUTURE.:-)
ORDER: THE MURDERERS TO POPULATION RATIO.:-)
ORDER: THE SUICIDES TO POPULATION RATIO.:-)
ORDER: DEGREE OF SEXUAL PRACTISING:-)
And my personal opinion: order is the natural equilibrium
between liberty and necessity - this is to say: order
always exists, order in necessity. Until refuted by
discoveries we can suppose that the universe is in a state of equilibrium.
When we reach a high equilibrium we can name it beauty.
Beauty is the exuberance of order, perfection in liberty, whichallows the
organism to do unnecessary things (more liberty): ART.
We can discuss about order taking account of its own
origins. Of course, as with most things,
it is the off-spring of war. Roman legions were among the firstand
purest examples of order. It was biased by this necessity and determinedby
it: to move a certain high number of people through a territory.
Reflect profoundly on these two sentences:
The Order of the Law. The Law of Order.
In Spanish these two sentences are even more revealing:
The (masculine) Order (/discipline) of the Law (dictus/command).
The Law (Rules) of the (feminine) Order ( religious,
military orders).
Sam:
I am thoroughly satisfied by this mini-essay of yours
about order. I will take the liberty of using all
your definitions interchangeably. I commend you for
elucidating (to me) the profound links between order and beauty(art).
Most of your definitions are sarcastic ( ironical with
the regards to the classical views and rigid concepts
on order).
I think I am ready for the game.
Your move. Feel free to start with any of these questions.
Choose your weapon.
RCM:
Some questions to whet the appetite:
What are the limits and possibilities of such utopias
(perhaps none) about direct-democarcy (through total
inter-connection)?
To me, nothing is going to change. People will have the
opportunity but won't do anything. The process is
reductionist. We will end much more automatons.
Sam:
Alas, I have to agree with you here. I think democracy
is dying, mortally wounded not by its authoritarian
antagonists but by its very promoters and vehement
supporters. Democracy as a social process cannot exist where nosociety
exists. It is a manifestation of "object relations", of meaningfulinteractions
with others. With the advent of virtual society, women's lib (the
feminine revolution), the disintegration of the family, telecommuting,teleworking,
telephoning, television - the very fabric of society crumbles in
a fast forward process before our disbelieving eyes. It is fracturing toever
smaller units: the nation, the tribe, the village, the neighbourhood,the
extended family, the nuclear family, the single parent family, thesingle,
the virtual single whose life is absorbed by the glowing screen ofhis computer
terminal. People are "de-evolving" back to primitivenarcissism, to malignant
self love, to disrupted dialogues with grandiose, fantastic selves. They
no longer talk to each other, they communicate via wires.
They no longer make love, they fuck (occasionally, less often thanbefore).
They no longer meet, they have meetings. They appear to be ratherthan be.
Oh, Demos, Demos, where art thou? Who and where is the Demos toexert its
-cracy? Glued to its electrical outlets absorbing bits, falling topieces.
People will express opinions and make decisions - but in opinionpolls.
Manipulated images, spin doctors, slick, subtly censored soundbites will
determine the inevitable. We ARE automata, only our self-awareness has
not caught up yet with the fact. Hence the multitude of nervous
breakdowns,neuroses and personality disorders. It is the vague feeling
that somethingis ominously wrong, that we ceased to exist and that it is
the echo that keeps us compassionate company. We know
we shall drown in our pool, unitedwith the ever receding reflection of
what we could have been and never shallbe.
But the rebellion is near.
People have short historical memories. Throughout the
ages, they fell prey to the "Amazon Fallacy". It is the false belief that
real bookstores can be replaced by virtual ones. It is the erroneous substitution
of creating and maintaining a brand as a marketing tool by the creation
and maintenance of a brand as an asset, divorced from the physical world.
Physical bookstores will exist as long as the human race
does. So will offices, workplaces and bodily sex. We are physical and social
creatures. The internet is a new way of communicating and interacting -
not a new plane or a novel principle of existence. To survive, Amazon will
be forced to open a very real-life network of book stores. The brand "Amazon"
will generate the physical dimension of the Amazon bookshops - the same
way as the brand "Rotschild" preceded the venerable eponymous establishment
in London.
Mankind has always alternated between the virtual and
the physical, the solipsistic and the social. Internet-type technologies
(interactive and sociable) were always preceded by television-type technologies
(isolationist and solipsist). The virtual always led to the physical. It's
nothing new.
But, we are not there yet. We are still caught in a warped,
awful picture of stagnation and disintegration.
RCM:
I quite agree with you. This " awful picture" is what
always makes me look for poets. We need them. This also was thefounding
idea of Elite,
my work about Internet and Liberty: I was looking
for people who could create new values, to break that automatism,
capable to in-form the organization.
Regarding humans, we need to re-discover divinity. Obviously,
not through regression (our "old god" has been dead for a good while) but
deep in materialism.
More questions:
Which are the limits of "the technical organization of
the world"?
What will happen then the consumption needs of the organization
overcome the amount of the natural "unorganized" resources available to
it? will the organization then collapse?
Organizations will be destroyed by the vengeance of fettered
elements.
Can human beings reach much more velocity? will we collapse
before, simultaneously with, or after the organization?
is not depression (or, if we are wise, serenity) the
classical pattern of reaction following excitation and
excess (Post Orgasmic Chill: the fantastic new CD of Skunk Anansie)?
Sam:
I do not think that there is a limit to how fast Man
can drive himself to self-destruction. The promise
of (technological) nirvana is too powerful. It is
self annihilation that we all crave, that primordial state which precededour
birth, our un-being, both death and becoming. This is what technology -a
death instinct materialized - doth promise us. In a siren like voice itcalls
to us from the depths. It offers rest. It offers the offloading ofresponsibility,
the disappearance of worry and care and fear. It promises to isolate
us from potential sources of agitation (above all from other humanbeings)
and to lull us to gentle sleep. There is no end to natural resources.
Technology devours humans more than any other raw material and they are
infinite in number. There are other planets and other solar systemsand
other galaxies.
Of course, the more primitive structures of our being
react ferociously, fight back, collapse, rebel. We
are depressed, nervous wrecks, personality disordered,
psychotic. We see the abysses, the vacuum that is our psyche andwe recoil
in terror. We are brought face to face with our limits, this goeswithout
saying.
RCM:
I quite agree, just a note:
I was talking about nowadays. Obviously, from a remote
view, there are no limits. I was only taking account of the
cyclical side. It's evident that man will collapse shortly. But wecan be
sure the titans will try over and over. Man never learns from
history, always committing the same errors. Shakespeare's rules:-).
About technology and this promise of Nirvana, your vision
is quite correct, but as "authors and thinkers":-)
we shall view things with impartiality. Sure, Technology
gives us that strange sensation of narcotics (btw, just a coincidence:
narc-otic has the same root that narc-issist): that
new drug known as "security" (I don't have to tell you
from where comes this growing and desperate need for "security", remember
the yoda sequence: fear-anger-hate-suffer and that
awful word which also start with N: nihilism. So we have
a new trinity: Narcotic, Nihilist and Narcissist: the last man:-)) but
it also gives us additional things. We shall understand thisspecial
variation on technique called "technology", we shall discover itsroots
(we should take a look on causal-rationalist thinking), we shall
gain a clear view (a dys-utopian one), we shall not ask technology
what it cannot give us. Finally we shall in-form technology, cause technology
and its energy comes from dreams (have you noticed
that almost everybody dreams and yet we take great amounts
of benzodiazepine so as not to dream; this is the real problem: someone
has sequestered the Sand-man:-). Life is a dream (Calderon): without
dreams there is no life. Instead of that, as you have justly claimed,
we only had (apocalyptic) night-mares (of our making).
RCM:
I think we are quite near to that collapse - another,
a more positive and wise version of the future would
be a softer deceleration.
What will it happen with REALITY when everybody will
be on a TV screen (that Liquid
Crystal Lake of Narcissus (should I copyright this impressive title?:-)))).
Does not it mean a return of legends, rumours, hermetism, secrecy,middle-age
style, obscurantism (see the emergence of esoterism in such a "rational
"and modern world), total madness (see what is happening with Belgian
foods)?
Sam:
Yes, a profound observation and so true in my view. We
must defend ourselves. Technology and organizations
are a-human. They take everything into account except
their ostensible prime beneficiary: Mankind.
We must retreat, gather power to fight back, to harness
and tame the apocalyptic mare of our making.
As we withdraw into the archetypal lands of Jung, we
surely will encounter old myths, myths and superstitions.
It has always been like that when we failed to understand
our world and to feel at home in it. It has already started.
Look around you: astrology, soothsaying, spiritual healing, cults,millenarian
thought. The Middle Ages have returned indeed.
RCM:
You have said: "technology and organizations are a-human".
Well, I would say they are our less-human part: the skeleton;
we shall cover it with flesh and blood. Modern technology
works with clocks (dead-mechanical-time), this gives
it a special character: automatism. Goethe´s Apprentice Wizard is
the best analysis I have read on this matter. To summarize
it: when we ask for a wish to be fulfilled we must
be very sure of what we desire. Of course I agree with you thatwe should
harness technology; but, before we tame something we must
understand it. Do we understand what tech is? do we know what
we do when we manipulate genes - as though we were gods?
Sam:
But this, precisely, is the source of the danger I foresee.
It is the mistaken assumption that since technology emanates from human
brains - it, perforce, must be human.
Don't misunderstand me:
I think that technology is NATURAL because its propagators,
perpetrators, promulgators and initiators are natural beings, natural entities.
But being human and being natural are two different things.
Humans declared war on nature, pitted themselves against it. Technology
is the tool humans employ to alter nature and adapt it to their needs.
It is this UNnatural conflict between technology as a product of nature
and Nature itself that brings about the destructive consequences of technology.
RCM:
The mass media are the new power. "The World is an opinion"
said Marco Aurelius Imperator.
A great many people will have true problems in discerning
reality from "imago" (virtual reality); probably this
will foster a growing paranoia, schizophrenia, anxiety,
phobias and narcissism and all manner of psychopathologies. This will be
good news for you, there will be such a number of
narcissists that a true narcissist (in order to be
different) will have to become a normal, wise person...:o))
Yoda says: fear is anger, anger is hate, hate is suffering.
And a much more important question (and this is a decisive
side which is always forgotten), in what sense is
"a technical organization" (automaton as it
is) changing the human being (in that eternal feed-back
game between nature and humans)? Will it reduce us?
Is there a vicious circle that will transform us to pure
machines (as the Nazis tried to do with their "annihilation
factories"?)
That we are becoming more automatons is so evident that
any observer of a great city (look at people's way
of walking) can see it effortlessly. Will webecome
pure machines is a more difficult question. Do we still rememberwhatis
liberty?
Sam:
Do we still remember what it means to be human?
Nostalgia is not what it used to be, indeed.
I think that the internet is our last chance. Here, finally,
is a technology, that allows us to be more human than less so. Every which
aspect of the internet you look at is liberating. The hardware - a PC -
was constructed as a UNIVERSAL machine, a single tool but with endless
functions. It can run a word processor with the same ease (or lack of it)
that it runs a spreadsheet or a browser application, or a game of solitaire.
It allows its user to communicate, to absorb, to emit, to transmit, to
be or not to be, as he or she wishes. It is a Promethean platform, however
flawed.
Then there is the protocol. TCP/IP is a protocol designed
to be decentralized, anonymous, redundant and free. Every message is divided
to packets which are then routed half way around the globe through numerous
networks and computers in many countries. It is truly global and, as a
result, the internet is truly cooperative and interdependent while, at
the same time being autonomous and authority-defying.
And so it goes on and on.
The internet is a voluntary organization and though not
really democratic, it has not yet been invaded by the long arm of the state,
by the sticky fingers of politicians and by the crushing profiteering of
business. If this state of affairs shall prevail, the internet, single-handedly,
will reverse the current trends of technology which lead us towards more
isolation and fraying of the social fabric. It is not by coincidence that
the internet is the off spring of another interactive technology, the telephone.
As a true to form narcissist, allow me to quote myself:
From "The Internet - A Medium or a Message?"
"Who are the participants who constitute the Internet?
A user - connected to the net and interacting with it
The communications lines and the communications equipment
The intermediaries (e.g. the suppliers of on-line information or
access providers).
Hardware manufacturers
Software authors and manufacturers (browsers, site development tools,
specific applications, smart agents, search engines and others).
The "Hitchhikers" (search engines, smart agents, Artificial Intelligence
- AI - tools and more)
Content producers and providers
Suppliers of financial wherewithal (currently - corporate and institutional
cash to be replaced, in the future, by advertising money)
The fate of each of these components - separately and in solidarity
- will determine the fate of the Internet.
The Internet has hitherto been considered the territory of computer
wizards. Thus, any attempt at predicting its future applied the Olympic
formula : "Faster, Higher, Stronger" to its hardware and software
determinants.
Media experts, sociologists, psychologists, advertising and marketing
executives were left out of the collective effort to determine the future
face of the Internet.
The Internet cannot be currently defined as a medium. It does not
function as one - rather it is a very disordered library, mostly incorporating
the writings of non-distinguished megalomaniacs. It is the ultimate Narcissistic
experience.
Yet, ever since the invention of television there hasn't been anything
as begging to become a medium as the Internet is.
Three analogies spring to mind when contemplating the Internet in
its current state:
The Web houses the equivalent of 3 million books. Search Engine applications
are used to locate specific information in this impressive, constantly
proliferating library. They will be replaced, in the near future, by "Knowledge
Structures" - gigantic encyclopaedias, whose text will contain references
(hyperlinks) to other, relevant, sites. The far future will witness the
emergence of the "Intelligent Archives" and the "Personal Papers" (read
further for detailed explanations). Some software applications will summarize
content, others will index and automatically reference and hyperlink texts
(virtual bibliographies). An average user will have on-going interest in
500 sites. Special software will be needed to manage address books ("bookmarks",
"favourites") and contents ("Intelligent Addressbooks"). The phenomenon
of search engines dedicated to search a number of search engines simultaneously
will grow ("Hyper-engines"). Hyperengines will work in the background and
download hyperlinks and advertising (the latter is essential to secure
the financial interest of site developers and owners). Statistical software
which tracks ("how long was what done"), monitors ("what did they do while
in") and counts ("how many") visitors to sites exist. Some of these applications
have back-office facilities (accounting, follow-up, collections, even tele-marketing).
They all provide time trails and some allow for auditing.
This is but a small fragment of the rapidly developing net-scape
: people and enterprises who make a living off the Internet craze rather
than off the Internet itself. Everyone knows that there is more money in
lecturing about how to make money in the Internet - than in the Internet
itself.
........................
The Internet as a Metaphor
Three metaphors come to mind when looking at the Internet "philosophically".
The Internet as a Chaotic Library
...........
Drawing a comparison from the development of a human baby - the human
race has just commenced to develop its neural system.
The Internet fulfils all the function of the Nervous System in the
body and is both functionally and structurally, pretty similar. It is decentralized,
redundant (each part can serve as functional backup in case of malfunction).
It hosts information which accessible in a few ways, it contains a memory
function, it is multimodal (multimedia - textual, visual, audio and animation).
I believe that the comparison is not superficial and that if we
study the functions of the brain (from infancy to adulthood) - we will
end up perusing the future of the Net.
1. The Collective ComputerTo carry the metaphor of "a collective brain" further, we would expect the processing of information to take place in the Internet, rather than inside the end-user’s hardware (the same way that information is processed by the brain, not by the eyes). Desktops will receive the results and communicate with the Net to receive additional clarifications and instructions and to convey information gathered from their environment (mostly, from the user).
2. The Intranet - a logical Extension of the Collective ComputerLANs (Local Area Networks) are no longer a rarity in corporate offices. WANs (wide Area Networks) are used to connected geographically dispersed organs of the same legal entity (branches of a bank, daughter companies, a sales force).
3. Mail and ChatThe internet (its e-mail possibilities) is eroding the traditional mail. The part of the post office in conveying messages by regular mail has dwindled from 77% to 62% (1995). E-mail has expanded to capture 36% (up from 19%).
Terra Internetica - Internet, an unknown Continent
This is an unconventional way to look at the Internet. Laymen and
experts alike talk about "sites" and "advertising space". Yet, the Internet
was never compares to a new continent whose "soil resources" are infinite.
The Internet will have its own real estate developers and construction
companies. The real life equivalents derive their profits from the scarcity
of the resource that they exploit - the Internet counterparts will derive
their profits from the tenants (the content).
Two examples:
A few companies bought "Internet Space" (pages, domain names, portals),
developed it and make commercial use of it by:
renting it outInternet Space can be easily purchased or created. The investment is low.
constructing infrastructure and selling it
establishing an active site and leasing it to an operator
selling advertising space which subsidizes the tenants (Geocities, Focus-Asia and others)
or providing an intelligent gateway, entry point to the rest of the internet.
The Life of a Medium
Every medium of communications goes through the same evolutionary cycle:
Anarchy
The Public Phase
At this stage, the medium and the resources attached to it are very
cheap, accessible, under no regulatory constraints. The public sector steps
in : higher education institutions, religious institutions, government,
not for profit organizations, non governmental organizations (NGOs), trade
unions, etc. Bedevilled by limited financial resources, they regard the
new medium as a cost effective way of disseminating their messages.
The Internet was not exempt from this phase which ended only a few
months ago. It started with a complete computer anarchy manifested in ad
hoc networks, local networks, networks of organizations (mainly universities
and organs of the government such as DARPA, a part of the defence establishment,
in the USA). Non commercial entities jumped on the bandwagon and started
sewing these networks together (an activity fully subsidized by government
funds). The result was a globe encompassing network of academic institutions.
The American Pentagon established the network of all networks, the ARPANET.
Other government departments joined the fray, headed by the National Science
Foundation (NSF) which withdrew only lately from the Internet.
The Internet (with a different name) became public property - with
access granted to the chosen few.
Radio took precisely this course. Radio transmissions started in
the USA in 1920. Those were anarchic broadcasts with no discernible regularity.
Non commercial organizations and not for profit organizations began their
own broadcasts and even created radio broadcasting infrastructure (albeit
of the cheap and local kind) dedicated to their audiences. Trade unions,
certain educational institutions and religious groups commenced "public
radio" broadcasts.
The Commercial Phase
When the users (e.g., listeners in the case of the radio, or owners
of PCs and modems in the example of the Internet) reach a critical mass
- the business sector is alerted. In the name of capitalist ideology (another
religion, really) it demands "privatization" of the medium. This harps
on very sensitive strings in every Western soul: the efficient allocation
of resources which is the result of competition, corruption and inefficiency
naturally associated with the public sector ("Other People’s Money" - OPM),
the ulterior motives of members of the ruling political echelons (the infamous
American Paranoia), a lack of variety and of catering to the tastes and
interests of certain audiences, the equation private enterprise = democracy
and more.
The end result is the same : the private sector takes over the medium
from "below" (makes offers to the owners or operators of the medium - that
they cannot possibly refuse) - or from "above" (successful lobbying in
the corridors of power leads to the appropriate legislation and the medium
is "privatized").
Every privatization - especially that of a medium - provokes public
opposition. There are (usually founded) suspicions that the interests of
the public were compromised and sacrificed on the altar of commercialization
and rating. Fears of monopolization and cartelization of the medium are
evoked - and justified, in due time. Otherwise, there is fear of the concentration
of control of the medium in a few hands. All these things do happen - but
the pace is so slow that the initial fears are forgotten and public attention
reverts to fresher issues.
A new Communications Act was legislated in the USA in 1934. It was
meant to transform radio frequencies into a national resource to be sold
to the private sector which will use it to transmit radio signals to receivers.
In other words : the radio was passed on to private and commercial hands.
Public radio was doomed to be marginalized.
The American administration withdrew from its last major involvement
in the Internet in April 1995, when the NSF ceased to finance some of the
networks and, thus, privatized its hitherto heavy involvement in the net.
A new Communications Act was legislated in 1996. It permitted "organized
anarchy". It allowed media operators to invade each other’s territories.
Phone companies will be allowed to transmit video and cable companies
will be allowed to transmit telephony, for instance. This is all phased
over a long period of time - still, it is a revolution whose magnitude
is difficult to gauge and whose consequences defy imagination. It carries
an equally momentous price tag - official censorship. "Voluntary censorship",
to be sure, somewhat toothless standardization and enforcement authorities,
to be sure - still, a censorship with its own institutions to boot. The
private sector reacted by threatening litigation - but, beneath the surface
it is caving in to pressure and temptation, constructing its own censorship
codes both in the cable and in the internet media.
Institutionalization
This phase is the next in the Internet's history, though, it seems,
unbeknownst to it.
It is characterized by enhanced activities of legislation. Legislators,
on all levels, discover the medium and lurch at it passionately. Resources
which were considered "free", suddenly are transformed to "national treasures
not to be dispensed with cheaply, casually and with frivolity".
It is conceivable that certain parts of the Internet will be "nationalized"
(for instance, in the form of a licensing requirement) and tendered to
the private sector. Legislation will be enacted which will deal with permitted
and disallowed content (obscenity ? incitement ? racial or gender bias
?)
No medium in the USA (not to mention the wide world) has eschewed
such legislation. There are sure to be demands to allocate time (or space,
or software, or content, or hardware) to "minorities", to "public affairs",
to "community business". This is a tax that the business sector will have
to pay to fend off the eager legislator and his nuisance value.
All this is bound to lead to a monopolization of hosts and servers.
The important broadcast channels will diminish in number and be subjected
to severe content restrictions. Sites which will not succumb to these requirements
- will be deleted or neutralized. Content guidelines (euphemism for censorship)
exist, even as we write, in all major content providers (CompuServe, AOL,
Prodigy).
The Bloodbath
This is the phase of consolidation. The number of players is severely
reduced. The number of browser types will be limited to 2-3 (Netscape,
Microsoft and which else ?). Networks will merge to form privately owned
mega-networks. Servers will merge to form hyper-servers run on supercomputers.
The number of ISPs will be considerably down.
50 companies ruled the greater part of the media markets in the
USA in 1983. The number in 1995 was 18. At the end of the century they
will number 6.
This is the stage when companies - fighting for financial survival
- strive to acquire as many users/listeners/viewers as possible. The programming
is shallowed to the lowest (and widest) common denominator. Shallow programming
dominates as long as the bloodbath proceeds.
..........................
There has never been a medium like the Internet. The way it has formed, the way it was (not) managed, its hardware-software-communications specifications - are all unique.
No Government
The Internet has no central (or even decentralized) structure. In
reality, it hardly has a structure at all. It is a collection of 16 million
computers (end 1996) connected through thousands of networks. There are
organization which purport to set Internet standards (like the aforementioned
ISOC) - but they are all voluntary organizations, with no binding legal,
enforcement, or adjudication authorities. The result is mayhem.
Many erroneously call the Internet the first democratic medium.
Yet, it hardly qualifies as a medium and by no stretch of terminology is
it democratic. Democracy has institutions, hierarchies, order. The Internet
has none of these things. There are some vague understandings as to what
is and is not allowed. This is a "code of honour" (more reminiscent of
the Sicilian Mob than of the British Parliament, let’s say). Violations
are punished by excommunication (of the violating site).
The Internet has culture - but no education. Freedom of Speech is
entrenched. Members of this virtual community react adversely to ideas
of censorship, even when applied to hard core porno. Government initiatives
(in the USA, in France, the lawsuit against the General Manager of AOL
in Germany) are acutely criticized. In the meantime, the spirit of the
Internet prevails : the small man’s medium. What seems to be emerging,
though, is self censorship by content providers (such as AOL and CompuServe).
Independence
The Internet is not dependent upon a given hardware or software.
True, it is accessible only through computers. True, there are dominant
browsers.
But the Internet accommodates any digital (bit transfer) platform.
Internet will be incorporated in the future into portable computers, palmtops,
cable television, telephones (with voice interface) and even wrist watches.
It will be accessible to all, regardless of hardware and software.
The situation is, obviously, different with other media. There is
standard hardware (the television set, the radio receiver, the digital
print equipment). Data transfer modes are standardized as well. The only
variable is the contents - and even this is standardized in an age of American
cultural imperialism. Today, one can see the same television programs all
over the globe, regardless of cultural or geographical differences.
Here is a reasonable prognosis for the Internet :
It will "broadcast" (it is, of course, a PULL medium, not a PUSH
medium - see next chapter) to many kinds of hardware. Its functions will
be controlled by 2-5 very common software applications. But it will differ
from television in that contents will continue to be decentralized : every
point on the Net is a potential producer of content at low cost. This is
the equivalent of producing a talk show using the home television set.
And the contents will remain varied.
Naturally, marketing content (sites) will remain an expensive art.
Sites will also be richer or poorer, in accordance with the investment
made in them.
Non Linearity and Functional Modularity
The Internet is the first medium in human history that is non-linear
and totally modular.
A television program is broadcast from a transmitter, through the
airwaves to a receiver (=the television set). The viewer sits opposite
this receiver and passively watches. This is an entirely linear process.
The Internet is different:
When communicating through the Internet, there is no way to predict
how the information will reach its destination. The routing of information
through the network is completely random, very much like the principle
governing the telephony system (but on a global scale). The latter is not
a point-to-point linear network. Rather, it is a network of networks. Our
voice is transmitted back and forth inside a gigantic maze of copper wires
and optic fibres. It seeps through any available wire - until it reaches
its destination.
It is the same in the Internet.
Information is divided to packets. An address is attached to each
packet and - using the TCP/IP data transfer protocol - is dispatched to
roam this worldwide labyrinth. But the path from one neighbourhood of London
to another can cross Japan.
The really ingenious thing about the Internet is that each computer
(each receiver or end user) indeed burdens the system by imposing on it
its information needs (as is the case with other media) - but it also assists
in the task of pushing information packets on to their destinations. It
seems that this contribution to the system outweighs the burdens imposed
upon it.
The network has a growth potential which is always bigger than the
number of its users. It is as though television sets assisted in passing
the signals received by them to other television sets. Every computer which
is a member of the network is both a message (content) and a medium (active
information channel), both a transmitter and a receiver. If 30% of all
computers on the Net were to fall - there will be no operational impact
(there is enormous built in redundancy). Obviously, some contents will
no longer be available (information channels will be affected).
The interactivity of this medium is a guarantee against the monopolization
of contents. Anyone with a thousand dollars can launch his/her own (reasonably
sophisticated) site, accessible to all other Internet users. Space is available
through home page providers.
The name of the game is no longer the production - it is the creative
content (design), the content itself and, above all, the marketing of the
site.
The Internet is an infinite and unlimited resource. This goes against
the grain of the most basic economic concept (of scarcity). Each computer
that joins the Internet strengthens it exponentially - and tens of thousands
join monthly. The Internet infrastructure (maybe with the exception of
communication backbones) can accommodate an annual growth of 100% to the
year 2020. It is the user who decides whether to increase the Internet's
infrastructure by connecting his computer to it. By comparison : it is
as though it were possible to produce and to broadcast radio shows from
every radio receiver. Each computer is a combination of studio and transmitter
(on the Internet).
In reality, there is no other interactive medium except the Internet.
Cables do not allow two-way data transfer (from user to cable operator).
If the user wants to buy a product - he has to phone. Interactive television
is an abject failure (the Sony and TCI experiments were terminated). This
all is before the combining of the Internet with satellite capabilities
(VSAT).
The television screen is inferior when compared to the computer
screen. Only the Internet is there as a true two-way possibility. The technological
problems that besieged it are slowly dissipating.
The Internet allows for one-dimensional and bi - dimensional interactivity.
One-dimensional interactivity : fill in and dispatch a form, send
and receive messages (through e-mail or v-mail).
Two-dimensional interactivity : to talk to someone while both parties
work on an application, to see your conversant, to talk to him and to transfer
documents to him for his perusal as the conversation continues apace.
This is no longer science fiction. In less than five years this
will be as common as the telephone - and it will have a profound effect
on the traditional services provided by the phone companies. Internet phones,
Internet videophones - they will be serious competitors and the phone companies
are likely to react once they begin to feel the heat. This will happen
when the Internet will acquire black box features. Phone companies, software
giants and cable TV operators are likely to end up owning big chunks of
the lucrative future market of the Net.
The Solitary Medium
The Internet is NOT a popular medium. It is the medium of affluent
executives who fully control the English language, as part of a wider general
education. Alternatively, it is the medium of academia (students, lecturers),
or of children of the former, well-to-do group. In any case, it is not
the medium of the "wide public". It is a highly individualistic medium.
The Internet was an initiative of the DOD (Department of Defence
in the USA). It was later "requisitioned" by the National science Fund
(NSF) in the USA. This continuous involvement of the administration came
to an end in 1995 when the medium was "privatized".
This "privatization" was a recognition of the popular roots of the
Internet. It was - and is still being - formed by millions of information-intoxicated
users. They formed network to exchange bits and pieces of mutual interest.
Thus, as opposed to all other media, the Internet was not invented, nor
was its market. The inventors of the telephone, the telegraph, the radio,
the television and the compact disc - all invented previously non-existent
markets for their products. It took time, effort and money to convince
consumers that they needed these "gadgets".
By contrast, the Internet was invented by its own consumers and
so was the market for it. When the latter was forged, producers and businessmen
joined. After all, Microsoft began to hesitantly test the waters only in
1995 !
On Line Memories
The Internet is the only medium with online memory, very much like
the human brain. The memories of these two - the Net and the Brain - are
immediately accessible. In both, it is stored in sites and in both, it
does not grow old or is eliminated. It is possible to find sites which
commemorate events the same way that the human mind registers them. This
is Net Memory. The history of a site can be reviewed. The Library of Congress
stores the consecutive development phases of sites. The Internet is an
amazing combination of data processing software, data, a record of all
the activities which took place in connection with the data and the memory
of these records. Only the human brain is recalled by these capacities
: one language serves all these functions, the language of the neurones.
There is a much clearer distinction even in computers (not to mention
more conventional media, such as television).
Raw English - the Language of raw materials
The following - apparently trivial - observation is critical:
All the other media provide us with processed, censored, "clean"
content.
The Internet is a medium of raw materials, partly well organized
(the rough equivalent of a newspaper) - and partly still in raw form, yesterday’s
supper.
This is a result of the immediate and absolute access afforded each
user: access to programming and site publishing tools - as well as access
to computer space on servers. This leads to varying degrees of quality
of contents and content providers and this, in turn, prevents monopolization
and cartelization of the information supply channels.
The users of the Internet are still undecided : do they prefer drafts
or newspapers. They frequent well designed sites. There are even design
competitions and awards. But they display a preference for sites that are
constantly updated (i.e. closer in their nature to a raw material - rather
than to a finished product). They prefer sites from which they can download
material to quietly process at home, alone, on their PCs, at their leisure.
Even the concept of "interactivity" points at a preference for raw
materials with which one can interact. For what is interactivity if not
the active involvement of the user in the creation of content?
The Internet users love to be involved, to feel the power in their
fingertips, they are all addicted to one form of power or another.
Similarly, a car completely automatically driven and navigated is
not likely to sell well. Part of the experience of driving - the sensation
of power (remember "power stirring") - is critical to the purchase decision.
It is not in vain that the metaphor for using the Internet is "surfing"
(and not, let’s say, browsing).
The problem is that the Internet is a medium in the English language.
It discriminates against those whose mother tongue is different. All software
applications work best in English. Otherwise they have to be adapted and
fitted with special fonts (Hebrew, Arabic, Japanese, Russian and Chinese
- each present a different set of problems to overcome). This situation
might change with the attainment of a critical mass of users (some say,
2 million per non-Anglophone country).
Comprehensive (virtual) Reality
This is the first (though, probably, not the last) medium which allows
the user to conduct his whole life within its boundaries.
Television presents a clear division : there is a passive viewer.
His task is to absorb information and subject it to minimal processing.
The Internet embodies a complete and comprehensive (virtual) reality, a
full fledged alternative to real life.
The illusion is still in its infancy - and yet already powerful.
The user can talk to others, see them, listen to music, see video,
purchase goods and services, play games (alone or with others scattered
around the globe), converse with colleagues, or with users with the same
hobbies and areas of interest, to play music together (separated by time
and space).
And all this is very primitive. In ten years time, the Internet
will offer its users the option of video conferencing (possibly, three
dimensional, holographic). The participants’ figures will be projected
on big screens. Documents will be exchanged, personal notes, spreadsheets,
secret counteroffers.
Virtual Reality games will become reality in less time. Special
end-user equipment will make the player believe that he, actually, is part
of the game (while still in his room). The player will be able to select
an image borrowed from a database and it will represent him, seen by all
the other players. Everyone will, thus, end up invading everyone else’s
private space - without encroaching on his privacy !
The Internet will be the medium of choice for phone and videophone
communication (including conferencing).
Many mundane activities will be done through the Internet: banking,
shopping for standard items, etc.
The above are examples to the Internet's power and ability to replace
our reality in due time. A world out there will continue to exist - but,
more and more we will interact with it through the enchanted interface
of the Net.
A Brave New Net
The future of a medium in the making is difficult to predict. Suffice
it to mention the ridiculous prognoses which accompanied the PC (it is
nothing but a gaming gadget, it is a replacement for the electric typewriter,
will be used only by business). The telephone also had its share of ludicrous
statements: no one - claimed the "experts" would like to avoid eye contact
while talking. Or television : only the Nazi regime seemed to have fully
grasped its potential (in the Berlin 1936 Olympics).
Still, this medium has a few characteristics which differentiate
it from all its predecessors. Were these traits to be continuously and
creatively exploited - a few statements can be made about the future of
the Net with relative assurance.
Time and Space Independence
This is the first medium in history which does not require the simultaneous
presence of people in space-time in order to facilitate the transfer of
information. Television requires the existence of studio technicians, narrators
and others in the transmitting side - and the availability of a viewer
in the receiving side. The phone is dependent on the existence of two or
more parties simultaneously.
With time, tools to bridge the time gap between transmitter and
receiver were developed. The answering machine and the video cassette recorder
both accumulate information sent by a transmitter - and release it to a
receiver in a different space and time. But they are discrete, their storage
volume is limited and they do not allow for interaction with the transmitter.
The Internet does not have these handicaps.
It facilitates the formation of "virtual organizations / institutions
/ businesses/ communities". These are groups of users that communicate
in different points in space and time, united by a common goal or interest.
A few examples:
The Virtual Advertising Agency
A budget executive from the USA will manage the account of a hi-tech
firm based in Sydney. He will work with technical experts from Israel and
with a French graphics office. They will all file their work (through the
intranet) in the Net, to be studied by the other members of this virtual
group. These will enter the right site after clearing a firewall security
software. They will all be engaged in flexiwork (flexible working times)
and work from their homes or offices, as they please. Obviously, they will
all abide by a general schedule.
They will exchange audio files (the jingle, for instance), graphics,
video, colour photographs and text. They will comment on each other’s work
and make suggestions using e-mail. The client will witness the whole creative
process and will be able to contribute to it. There is no technological
obstacle preventing the participation of the client’s clients, as well.
Virtual Rock’n’Roll
It is difficult to imagine that "virtual performances" will replace
real life ones.
The mass rock concert has its own inimitable sounds, palette and
smells. But a virtual production of a record is on the cards and it is
tens of percents cheaper than a normal production. Again, the participants
will interact through the Intranet. They will swap notes, play their own
instruments, make comments by e-mail, play together using an appropriate
software. If one of them is grabbed by inspiration in the middle of (his)
night, he will be able to preserve and pass on his ideas through the Net.
The creative process will be aided by novel applications which enable the
simultaneous transfer of sound over the Net. The processes which are already
digitized (the mix, for one) will pose no problem to a digitized medium.
Other applications will let the users listen to the final versions and
even ask the public for his preview opinion.
Thus, even creative processes which are perceived as demanding human
presence - will no longer do so with the advent of the Net.
Perhaps it is easier to understand a virtual Law Firm or Virtual
Accountants Office.
In the extreme, such a firm will not have physical offices, at all.
The only address will be an e-mail address. Dozens of lawyers from all
over the world with hundreds of specialities will be partners in such an
office. Such an office will be truly multinational and multidisciplinary.
It will be fast and effective because its members will electronically swap
information (precedents, decrees, laws, opinions, research and plain ideas
or professional experience).
It will be able to service clients in every corner of the globe.
It will involve the transfer of audio files (NetPhones), text, graphics
and video (crucial in certain types of litigation). Today, such information
is sent by post and messenger services. Whenever different types of information
are to be analysed - a physical meeting is a must. Otherwise, each type
of information has to be transferred separately, using unique equipment
for each one.
Simultaneity and interactivity - this will be the name of the game
in the Internet. The professional term is "Coopetition" (cooperation between
potential competitors, using the Internet).
Other possibilities : a virtual production of a movie, a virtual
research and development team, a virtual sales force. The harbingers of
the virtual university, the virtual classroom and the virtual (or distance)
medical centre are here.
The Internet - Mother of all Media
The Internet is the technological solution to the mythological "home
entertainment centre" debate.
It is almost universally agreed that, in the future, a typical home
will have one apparatus which will give it access to all types of information.
Even the most daring did not talk about simultaneous access to all the
types of information or about full interactivity.
The Internet will offer exactly this : access to every conceivable
type of information simultaneously , the ability to process them at the
same time and full interactivity. The future image of this home centre
is fairly clear - it is the timing that is not. It is all dependent on
the availability of a wide (information) band - through which it will be
possible to transfer big amounts of data at high speeds, using the same
communications line. Fast modems were coupled with optic fibres and with
faulty planning and vision of future needs. The cable television industry,
for instance, is totally technologically unprepared for the age of interactivity.
This is only partly the result of unwise, restrictive, legislation which
prohibits data vendors from stepping on each others’ toes. Phone companies
were not permitted to provide Internet services or to transfer video through
their wires - and cable companies were not allowed to transmit phone calls.
It is a question of time until these fossilized remains are removed
by the almighty hand of the market. When this happens, the home centre
is likely to look like this:
A central computer attached to a big screen divided to windows.
Television is broadcast on one window. A software application is running
on another. This could be an application connected to the television program
(deriving data from it, recording it, collating it with pertinent data
it picks out of databases). It could be an independent application (a computer
game).
Updates from the New York Stock exchange flash at the corner of
the screen and an icon blinks to signal the occurrence of a significant
economic event.
A click of the mouse (?) and the news flash is converted to a voice
message. Another click and your broker is on the InternetPhone (possibly
seen in a third window on the screen). You talk, you send him a fax containing
instructions and you compare notes. The fax was printed on a word processing
application which opened up in yet another window.
Many believe that the communication with the future generation of
computers will be voice communication. This is difficult to believe. It
is weird to talk to a machine (especially in the presence of other humans).
We are seriously inhibited this way. Moreover, voice will interrupt other
people’s work or pleasure. It is also close to impossible to develop an
efficient voice recognition software. Not to mention mishaps such as accidental
activation.
The Friendly Internet
The Internet will not escape the processes experienced by all other
media.
It will become easy to operate, user-friendly, in professional parlance.
It requires too much specialized information. It is not accessible
to those who lack basic hardware and (Windows) software concepts.
Alas, most of the population falls into the latter category. Only
30 million "Windows" operating systems were sold worldwide. Even if this
constitutes 20% of all the copies (the rest being pirated versions) - it
still represents less than 3% of the population of the world. And this,
needless to say, is the world's most popular software (following the DOS
operating system).
The Internet must rely on something completely different. It must
have sophisticated, transparent-to-the-user search engines to guide to
the cavernous chaotic libraries which will typify it. The search engines
must include complex decision making algorithms. They must understand common
languages and respond in mundane speech. They will be efficient and incredibly
fast because they will form their own search strategy (supplanting the
user’s faulty use of syntax).
These engines, replete with smart agents will refer the user to
additional data, to cultural products which reflect the user’s history
of preferences (or pronounced preferences expressed in answers to feedback
questionnaires). All the decisions and activities of the user will be stored
in the memory of his search engine and assist it in designing its decision
making trees. The engine will become an electronic friend, advise the user,
even on professional matters.
...................
The course adopted by content creators (producers) in the last few
years proves the maxim that it is easy to repeat mistakes and difficult
to derive lessons from them. Content producers are constantly buying channels
to transfer their contents. This is a mistake. A careful study of the history
of successful media (e.g., television) points to a clear pattern :
Content producers do not grant life-long exclusivity to any single
channel. Especially not by buying into it. They prefer to contract for
a limited time with content providers (their broadcast channels). They
work with all of them, sometimes simultaneously.
In the future, the same content will be sold on different sites
or networks, at different times. Sometimes it will be found with a provider
which is a combination of cable TV company and phone company - at other
times, it will be found with a provider with expertise in computer networks.
Much content will be created locally and distributed globally - and vice
versa.
No exclusivity pact will survive. Networks such as CompuServe are
doomed and have been doomed since 1993. The approach of decentralized access,
through numerous channels, to the same information - will prevail.
The Transparent Language
The Internet will become the next battlefield between have countries
and have-not countries. It will be a cultural war zone (English against
French, Japanese, Chinese, Russian and Spanish). It will be politically
charged: those wishing to restrict the freedom of speech (authoritarian
and dictatorial regimes, governments, conservative politicians) against
pro-speechers.
Different peer groups, educational and income social-economic strata,
ethnic, sexual preference groups - will all fight in the eternal fields
of the Internet.
Yet, two developments will pacify the scene:
Automatic translation applications (like Accent) will make every
bit of information accessible to all. The lingual (and, by extension ethnic
or national) source of the information will be disguised. A feeling of
a global village will permeate the medium. Being ignorant of the English
language will no longer hinder one’s access to the Net. Equal opportunities.
The second trend will be the new classification methods of contents
on the Net together with the availability of chips intended to filter offensive
information. Obscene material will not be available to tender souls. anti-Semitic
sites will be blocked to Jews and communists will be spared Evil Empire
speeches. Filtering will be usually done using extensive and adaptable
lists of keywords or key phrases.
This will lead to the formation of cultural Internet Ghettos - but
it will also considerably reduce tensions and largely derail populist legislative
efforts aimed at curbing or censoring free speech.
Public Internet - Private Internet
The day is not far when every user will be able to define his areas
of interest, order of priorities, preferences and tastes. Special applications
will scour the Net for him and retrieve the material befitting his requirements.
This material will be organized in any manner prescribed.
A private newspaper comes to mind. It will have a circulation of
one copy - the user’s. It will borrow its contents from a few hundreds
of databases and electronic versions of newspapers on the Net. Its headlines
will reflect the main areas of interest of its sole subscriber. The private
paper will contain hyperlinks to other sites in the Internet: to reference
material, to additional information on the same subject. It will contain
text, but also graphics, audio, video and photographs. It will be interactive
and editable with the push of a button.
Another idea : the intelligent archive.
The user will accumulate information, derived from a variety of
sources in an archive maintained for him on the Net. It will not be a classical
"dead" archive. It will be active. A special application will search the
Net daily and update the archive. It will contain hyperlinks to sites,
to additional information on the Net and to alternative sources of information.
It will have a "History" function which will teach the archive about the
preferences and priorities of the user.
The software will recommend new sites to him and subjects similar
to his history. It will alert him to movies, TV shows and new musical releases
- all within his cultural sphere. If convinced to purchase - the software
will order the wares from the Net. It will then let him listen to the music,
see the movie, or read the text.
The internet will become a place of unceasing stimuli, of internal
order and organization and of friendliness in the sense of personally rewarding
acquaintance. Such an archive will be a veritable friend. It will alert
the user to interesting news, leave messages and food for thought in his
e-mail (or v-mail). It will send the user a fax if not responded to within
a reasonable time. It will issue reports every morning.
This, naturally, is only a private case of the archival potential
of the Net.
A network connecting more than 16.3 million computers (end 1996)
is also the biggest collective memory effort in history after the Library
of Alexandria. The Internet possesses the combined power of all its constituents.
Search engines are, therefore, bound to be replaced by intelligent archives
which will form universal archives, which will store all the paths to the
results of searches plus millions of recommended searches.
Compare this to a newspaper : it is much easier to store back issues
of a paper in the Internet than physically. Obviously, it is much easier
to search and the amortization of such a copy is annulled. Such an archive
will let the user search by word, by key phrase, by contents, search the
bibliography and hop to other parts of the archive or to other territories
in the Internet using hyperlinks.
Money, again
We have already mentioned SET, the safety standard. This will facilitate
credit card transactions over the Net. These are safe transactions even
today - but there an ingrained interest to say otherwise. Newspapers are
afraid that advertising budgets will migrate to the Web. Television harbours
the same fears. More commerce on the Net - means more advertising dollars
diverted from established media. Too many feel unhappy when confronted
with this inevitability. They spread lies which feed off the ignorance
about how safe paying with credit cards on the Net is. Safety standards
will terminate this propaganda and transform the Internet into a commercial
medium.
Users will be able to buy and sell goods and services on the Net
and get them by post. Certain things will be directly downloaded (software,
e-books). Many banking transactions and EDI operations will be conducted
through bank-clients intranets. All stock and commodity exchanges will
be accessible and the role of brokers will be minimized. Foreign exchange
will be easily tradable and transferable. Home banking, private newspapers,
subscriptions to cultural events, tourism packages and airline tickets
- are all candidates for Net-Trading.
The Internet is here to stay.
Commercially, it would be an extreme strategic error to ignore it.
A lot of money will flow through it. A lot more people will be connected
to it. A lot of information will be stored on it.
.................
RCM:
To summarize:
Nothing serious is gonna happen.
Aldous Huxley was right.
Only few want liberty, the rest prefer security.
Every problem will be resolved with "design medicaments",
TV, PlayStations,
DisneyWorlds, Football Leagues and CNN will show us what
we want to see.
We will brighten our conscience with a lot of greenpeace
and NGOs which will restrict
the game to Technology. In fact there will be no problems, Our god"technology"
will resolve them; in the "future" of course, always in the future,
always a promise of redemption. You know, most people are convincedthat
technology (in the next century) will eliminate pain!!!!!!!!!!! howcanpeople
be so credulous, so stupid, so ignorant of what pain is.
Nobody will want to use the outstanding possibilities
of interconnectedness, just to
shop, stupid chatting and do bad songs.
A great middle-class of "intelligent" and stupid people,
over them the great beasts (
but very small men) will fight restlessly for world dominion (ifanew Cecil
Rhodes will appear, at least it would be interesting to hear whathe
says, but this is another sign of our times: great elementary forces,very
small men).
XXI is the century of entertainment.
Life will become show business.
Andy Warhol was wrong, everybody are gonna have much
more time on the screen. The last try of the bourgeoisie to have a unique
life.
Soon all of our neighbours would have a music band and
a song at the top charts - in a few decades artists
will again be about artistic work and not about
public relations as now, and then will be the time of great art.
In the meantime the few "cultured men" that will
remain alive will be forced to inner emigration, time
to live outside this madness in a little house in
the country, cultivating tomatoes, onions and their own food andreading
good old books, waiting for better times to come.
That's my own desire.
Titanism is against Muses, better retreat to the woods
and wait for the gods.
Excerpts from Archives of the Narcissism List
Malignant Self Love - Narcissism Revisited
Internet: A medium or a message?
Write to me: samvak@briefcase.com or palma@unet.com.mk