Deki, ctrl-C, email, bandwidth, brains, commons, carbon, Gaia

[maphew]

Here some real data on the posited global brain, and unlike KK's slice given above, it has nothing to do with technology other than the sensors used to record it: http://noosphere.princeton.edu/

"The Global Consciousness Project, also called the EGG Project, is an international, multidisciplinary collaboration of scientists, engineers, artists and others. We collect data continuously from a global network of physical random number generators located in 65 host sites around the world. The archive contains more than 10 years of random data in parallel sequences of synchronized 200-bit trials every second. Our purpose is to examine subtle correlations that may reflect the presence and activity of consciousness in the world. We predict structure in what should be random data, associated with major global events. When millions of us share intentions and emotions the GCP/EGG network shows small but meaningful differences from expectation. This suggests that large scale group consciousness has effects in the physical world. We need to know about this, and learn to use our full capacities for creative movement toward a conscious future."

[sniggy]

great post and discussion fits the project we're working on. nice

[joerasmussen]

Whoohoopa-phreeeeoor! A place for HUGE ideas.

This thread slept for three months, and I stopped looking - but it's back with a vengeance. So many new jump-off points I don't know where to start - many thanks to all, and I take it all back. Seriously don't know where to start - maybe I'd better sleep on it - except perhaps to say:

I've got my second baby coming any time this week. I want this planet fixed. I want it fixed NOW, and I want you guys on it.

[joerasmussen]

Hey, Maphew I love the links to the 'world is one computer' stuff - many thanks.

But I want to pick up on Steve's post about actors and membrane:

for the "membrane" to be in control, it must act to some degree on what it lets in and what it doesn't let in. If it lets in everything, then it's useless--just as a person who always agrees with you, that's why we need dissenters like openmind. On the other hand, if it blocks everything, it essential kills the world as perceived by the actor, which will in all likelihood kill the actor itself.

Yet, it occurs to me, there is another role the membrane can play. Deki is a completely transparent membrane. It does filter out information. However, it's not useless as per the statement above, because it "augments" information with meta-information. It turns chronological events into a precise historical record. A record that can be recalled and acted upon by the actors based on new stimuli that made it through the membrane. Hence Deki must be neither actor nor membrane. Then what is it?

... not entirely sure I've got full grip of what you're saying but here goes:

Seems to me we've become more conscious of the power of voting. This can be at a simple level like trying to work collaboratively on a t-shirt slogan. But it's also the engine of growth for successful organisms like Deki. Effectively, the world is voting for Deki (like crazy!) and Twitter, and Mozilla, and Linux, and Wikipedia and so on.

The argument for market economies (as opposed to planned) runs a similar way. Say you buy a plastic trinket for $1.50. The trinket came to your continent from a different continent in a shipping container. The ship runs on a type of oil called 'bunker'. Far away on another continent, a bloke has an administrative role in the company that buys and sells bunker. This guy likes bananas - not in any excessive way, but when they are in season, he and his family would usually buy a bunch per week. The bananas are grown on a fourth continent by a farmer named Aaron.

When you buy the trinket for $1.50, you VOTE that Aaron should grow bananas and not paw paw. The weighting of your vote is 20-25 orders of magnitude less than the $1.50, but Aaron gets dekillions of similar votes, and so, for the moment, he's sticking with bananas.

Actor or membrane? The decisions about the farm are made by the actor, Aaron - but the membrane, with its purchases of $1.50 trinkets, is steering him in all sorts of subtle ways. The beautiful thing about this in terms of governance is that it does not have to feel fascist to Aaron. He can grow paw paw if he wants. If he wants, he can neglect the farm and spend his time doodling around in the middle of the night on collaboration websites.

I'm interested in the capacity of the membrane to pull governance off governments. In Wikipedia there's a piece of common law called Beans. Beans expresses a deep wisdom - one of the many things that a collaborative encyclopedia needs to run smoothly. Sure, the concept had it's origins with an individual actor (Xiong), but it gets it's current status because the community voted for it.

And now, if you try to write a wikipedia article on how to build a nuclear weapon, the membrane will approach you and say, 'Hey, you know - gentle reminder: Beans'.

I'm in love with this kind of law. Human, funny, wise, succinct, not written in legalese, policed by the community and POWERFUL without being fascist.

So I think it's all membrane (the good bits, anyway) actors are an illusion. Neurons think they are actors, but we can see the web they're tangled up in.

[joerasmussen]

Hi All,

I'm building a cloud site based on the ideas in this thread. http://aliveconsciousandverysmart.cloud.mindtouch.com/. Contributors wanted!

[maphew]

thanks Joe. I'm in

[crb]

No, it's quite out of date, as is the MindTouch article.