If Gaia can be defined as a "consciousness" then it should follow that Gaia would like to communicate with "like minded" entities. Individual humans do not in any way possess minds which are like Gaias'. But it might be fair to say that humanity as a whole increasingly does.
Here is another way of putting it. If we envisage a "consciousness space", in which each point in the space represents a set of parameters which gives rise to consciousness, then the point which represents a Gaia consciousness, and the point which represents the global human consciousness (including all peripherals such as the internet etc) are closer to each other than a human consciousness is to Gaia. It might also be reasonable to say that the global human consciousness is traversing through points towards the point which is Gaia.
If we accept this then we can also ask - is there any way to communicate with Gaia? What kind of things are interesting to such a being? How would a message be transmitted? Are we capable of composing such a message?
We can for instance visualise Gaia as a closed consciousness only aware of itself. But this leaves it with no communication channels. If we make it dimly aware of its surroundings, then we can imagine it perceving positive and negative gradients towards and away from things which are good and bad for Gaia.
If we increase its awareness further then we can perceive of it forming plans, developing strategies and holding opinions, and so on.
Once we start looking at Gaia this way we can put humanity into a similar perspective.
A physical metaphor might be that humanity consciousness is a kind of phase-change for Gaia consciousness, like when a liquid turns into a gas. This transformation could be a runaway transformation towards a new. completely different, stable state.
Using a biological metaphor, perhaps humanity is like a malignancy; a consciousness which has evolved and now flourishes within a larger one, and has now reached a point where is it breaking the bonds and causing effects great enough for Gaia to detect.
If the physical metaphor is most accurate, then Gaia and humanity consciousness are not entities capable of communication but instead points along a reaction cycle.
If the biological metaphor is correct then maybe Gaia and humanity consciousness are able to communicate, in the same way a cancer makes itself known to its host. As the cancer becomes more evident and the host suffers, then the host can in turn communicate by attempting to cure the cancer.
I dont believe either metaphor is adequate. The concept of Gaia by necessity presupposes physical and biological systems as a basis. If Gaia was not something qualitatively more than a physical or biological system, then there would be no use for the concept.
You can see as we move from the physical to the biological metaphor that the level of communciation possible between Gaia and humanity consciouness increases. This means that if Gaia's relationship with humanity is richer than just biological, as I have suggested, then the potential for communication is also higher.
But I don't know what exactly it is.
Sunday, October 28, 2007
Wednesday, August 15, 2007
Hyperdemocracy
Modern-era democracy (as a corpus of human behaviors and beliefs) has passed through a number of stages of maturity.
One of the most important transformations was the development and integration of the Fourth Estate as a component of democracy. Structurally the Fourth Estate provided a relatively low resolution, macroscopic, or compressed reflexion upon the democratic processes it analysed.
It is relatively compressed because the technology of delivery of the fourth estate was for the most part limited to broadcast. This was a natural cap on the number of channels available for message delivery and necessarily implied massive compression, editorial, and analysis of the message. The Fourth Estate also evolved to be financed almost entirely by advertising creating a commensual relationship between the Fourth Estate and productive entities.
By providing a single, relatively simplified image of the democratic system back to itself, the Fourth Estate engendered a simple narrative to the data of democratic events, eventually resonating on broad wavelengths with the system it reflected.
In all, the Fourth Estate as a broadcast network system was well integrated into the democratic process, resulting in a large scale, relatively balanced system of positive and negative feedback.
This is no longer the case. The democratic narrative is no longer told in broad strokes to majorities of populations. We are accelerating towards a state where the number of narratives equals and then exceeds the number of listeners. This is an extraordinarily different system to the broadcast Fourth Estate democracy as described above. I call it hyperdemocracy but please don't assume I mean that in a good way!
A hyperdemocracy may be so multi-stranded that no human can follow its narrative, no matter how compressed. The question then is who, or what, will follow it?
One of the most important transformations was the development and integration of the Fourth Estate as a component of democracy. Structurally the Fourth Estate provided a relatively low resolution, macroscopic, or compressed reflexion upon the democratic processes it analysed.
It is relatively compressed because the technology of delivery of the fourth estate was for the most part limited to broadcast. This was a natural cap on the number of channels available for message delivery and necessarily implied massive compression, editorial, and analysis of the message. The Fourth Estate also evolved to be financed almost entirely by advertising creating a commensual relationship between the Fourth Estate and productive entities.
By providing a single, relatively simplified image of the democratic system back to itself, the Fourth Estate engendered a simple narrative to the data of democratic events, eventually resonating on broad wavelengths with the system it reflected.
In all, the Fourth Estate as a broadcast network system was well integrated into the democratic process, resulting in a large scale, relatively balanced system of positive and negative feedback.
This is no longer the case. The democratic narrative is no longer told in broad strokes to majorities of populations. We are accelerating towards a state where the number of narratives equals and then exceeds the number of listeners. This is an extraordinarily different system to the broadcast Fourth Estate democracy as described above. I call it hyperdemocracy but please don't assume I mean that in a good way!
A hyperdemocracy may be so multi-stranded that no human can follow its narrative, no matter how compressed. The question then is who, or what, will follow it?
Tuesday, May 01, 2007
Us vs Them...can't have one without the other
For the vast majority of the species' time on earth, human social evolution occurred in a world of little tribes which competed with each other for resources - co-operation within the group to achieve success in group competition.
From this origin arose the finest things about humans - advanced social skills, language, consciousness etc. And obviously a lot of the bad things arose from this origin as well - xenophobia, war etc.
In general our ever-growing cognitive skills have been able to rise above the instincts we inherited from the little tribes of our fore-folk. This is illustrated by the very existence of cities and states where strangers co-exist relatively peacefully, and by the onward march of ever increasing population.
However the "us vs them" instinct which helped tribes to grow and prosper in subhuman times has not gone away, and is not even deeply buried in our psyches. It is explicit and manifest in the cities and the states themselves, in the international institutions which acknowledge the rights of nations, in sport and in everyday life, and human relations everywhere on every level. It is an integral part of human nature, as instinctive as sweating.
However, we are now at an epochal moment in evolution when the "us" is becoming sufficiently large and integrated that there is no more "them". Infinitely fine networks of economics, communication and environment are enmeshing the lives of all together.
Beyond this moment the purpose of the "us vs them" instinct is no longer valid. The automatic desire to strive and achieve and own and control more than our neighboring communities no longer confers an advantage on our offspring - in fact it endangers them. We - "us" - cannot continue to profit at the expense of "them" because "they" are not there anymore. "They" are now "us".
Is it possible for human cognitive capacities to once again overcome ancient instincts, as has happened in the past? Fear of strangers was surmounted to create the city, acceptance of leadership by strangers allowed us to create the nation. But all of these earlier steps left some other "us" to be "them".
Humans are highly adaptable and I don't discount the possibility we can rise above this basic need for us-ness and them-ness. But its also fair to say this next step is altogether greater and different from earlier ones.
More likely I think is that we will identify something else to be "them"- and it's most likely to be extraterrestrial life. The discovery of Gliese 581c caused bookies to drop their odds of finding "them" from 1000-1 to 100-1. We are on a roll and things will only accelerate from here.
When extraterrestrial life is found the implications for ontology, teleology and religion generally are incalculable. Whatever differences people may perceive between themselves on religious, racial or other grounds will vanish to irrelevance in the face of life on another planet, let alone intelligent life.
With extraterrestrial life we will have another "other", a "them" for our "us". Our instincts (which evolution created, not us) will kick in once again and we will do what we have traditionally done with "first contacts" - hide behind a rock and see what we can make of them.
Then maybe all of us can sneak up on them!
From this origin arose the finest things about humans - advanced social skills, language, consciousness etc. And obviously a lot of the bad things arose from this origin as well - xenophobia, war etc.
In general our ever-growing cognitive skills have been able to rise above the instincts we inherited from the little tribes of our fore-folk. This is illustrated by the very existence of cities and states where strangers co-exist relatively peacefully, and by the onward march of ever increasing population.
However the "us vs them" instinct which helped tribes to grow and prosper in subhuman times has not gone away, and is not even deeply buried in our psyches. It is explicit and manifest in the cities and the states themselves, in the international institutions which acknowledge the rights of nations, in sport and in everyday life, and human relations everywhere on every level. It is an integral part of human nature, as instinctive as sweating.
However, we are now at an epochal moment in evolution when the "us" is becoming sufficiently large and integrated that there is no more "them". Infinitely fine networks of economics, communication and environment are enmeshing the lives of all together.
Beyond this moment the purpose of the "us vs them" instinct is no longer valid. The automatic desire to strive and achieve and own and control more than our neighboring communities no longer confers an advantage on our offspring - in fact it endangers them. We - "us" - cannot continue to profit at the expense of "them" because "they" are not there anymore. "They" are now "us".
Is it possible for human cognitive capacities to once again overcome ancient instincts, as has happened in the past? Fear of strangers was surmounted to create the city, acceptance of leadership by strangers allowed us to create the nation. But all of these earlier steps left some other "us" to be "them".
Humans are highly adaptable and I don't discount the possibility we can rise above this basic need for us-ness and them-ness. But its also fair to say this next step is altogether greater and different from earlier ones.
More likely I think is that we will identify something else to be "them"- and it's most likely to be extraterrestrial life. The discovery of Gliese 581c caused bookies to drop their odds of finding "them" from 1000-1 to 100-1. We are on a roll and things will only accelerate from here.
When extraterrestrial life is found the implications for ontology, teleology and religion generally are incalculable. Whatever differences people may perceive between themselves on religious, racial or other grounds will vanish to irrelevance in the face of life on another planet, let alone intelligent life.
With extraterrestrial life we will have another "other", a "them" for our "us". Our instincts (which evolution created, not us) will kick in once again and we will do what we have traditionally done with "first contacts" - hide behind a rock and see what we can make of them.
Then maybe all of us can sneak up on them!
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