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Lemmon Dr., Columbia Mo 65201 USA - prossman@socket.net-
http://ecolecon.missouri.edu/global research
I
weary of conferences where participants listen to each other read papers,
a process that takes most of the
time.
I hope everyone can have a copy of this paper to scan so that we can use
the 40 minutes assigned to
discuss,
criticize and use whatever can make a contribution to joint work and discussion.
The FAQ definition of the Global Brain needs in time to be enlarged and enriched but it is helpful for our discussion here; even though the future is sure to be full of surprises. For example, the Internet is going to evolve into something we perhaps cannot anticipate.Since I believe that the GB will be a partnership between human brains and computerized `whatevers’ (we cannot yet for sure anticipate them either), it is in our human interest not to let it evolve without our active planning , participation and institutionalization..
1.
But who?2.What form of institution?Governments
and government agencies will be involved, also the dreamers and planners
in all disciplines, professions and NGO’s especially as we propose
that the GB will help us solve our great problems, first perhaps those
that lead to crises and disaster; then those in problematic areas that
limit our ability at present to enrich human life for all—and expand
our horizons to move into new universes.
3.
So a question today is: what is to be the role of universities in the emergence
and development of the GB?Especially
the emerging `global virtual university’ which is empowering the long
existing `invisible universitas which consists of all research oriented
scholars and institutions. . .but especially the major research institutions,
scientists and scholars who are engaged in efforts to preserve, pass on
and create knowledge and wisdom.
This,
I suggest may well be the who
and beginning of needed
institutionalization.The GB is a
partnership with six billion, soon to be ten billion human beings. We may
only dream of what may be possible when we educate and coordinate all that
intelligence.
First,
all must be educated, and now with distributed distance learning we can
do that.
Second,
however, GB development is in the hands of educated researchers who are
involved in the peer review process and collaboration to do together what
none can do alone. The GB began before we had information technology, but
IT and the Internet can now enable and empower great strides ahead, as
we begin to see in the potential of Internet2 and the interconnecting of
thousands of supercomputers. . .and other technologies which are just the
beginning.
.Third,
we need great visions and dreams, as those of H.G. Wells in his day when
he lamented the unnecessa4y duplication of research and scholarly work
by scholars who did not know what others elsewhere in the worldwere
doing. Rayward (see archives) cautions against the political
(see Loeb), social (see Glenn,Por,
Kaplan, Judge) and philosophical
(see Heylighen) assumptions of Wells, which can help us be more aware of
our own.
I
have been haunted by the suggestion of Bill Gates that everyone’s portal
to the Internet should perhaps be an encyclopedia, the `emerging worldwide
electronic encyclopedia.’That encyclopedia
cannot alone be the GB, nor can the universal higher education system,
no matter how they emerge.Indeed,
perhaps all that we can envisage in 2001 are only parts of what may become
the GB. So I propose a bit of science fiction below, as a way to begin
to examine the contributions of such an encyclopedia and higher education
system.
(Perhaps
the word `encyclopedia’ too much suggests written and printed text—the
preservation of the past--, so another word . `Cosmopedia’ has been suggested.I
have in mind a living, interactive bringing together of all knowledge,
so that anything known can be accessed by clicking on any word, idea, musical
sound, segment of film or other graphics, any math formula, meme or gene,atomic
or chemical term or whatever. Further it will not only record the past
and present, but will at every point anticipate the future; that is, a
primary function will be to list all of the problems, questions, controversies,
criticisms and needed research
in relation to every item in the cosmopedia.And
the data, information and wisdom included will be presented not merely
in words, but through illustrative images, filmed case studies and much
much more.Each item would lead
to a web of information. (For example if one clicks on Mark Twain, one
would be led to texts and films of all of his writings, to all criticism
and writing about him and his cultural background and life history, indeed
all that is known about him.
This
also reminds us that the `global electronic cosmpedia’ is an interactive
connection of all online encyclopedias, reference books, dictionaries,
data bases, TV news and documentaries and more, including the history and
data of every person and community on earth.The
global virtual university and cosmopedia should both, perhaps, be organizednot
only around Jim Miller’s `living systems’ but also around the UIA’smost
serious human problems.)
So
I present this too brief science fiction game in order to enlist your creativity.
It is July 6, 2022. Our planet is overwhelmed by inter-related crises: millions are hungry; violence, terrorism and crime are rampant; a billion are seriously ill from new diseases and a deteriorating environment: bad water and soil, a sick ocean, polluted air; desertification and massive crop failures, and other crises. Many think that the very survival of human life on the planet is at stake. So a more educated population is motivated to act politically.
Humanity
has powerful new technologies, such as the ability to link thousands, even
tens of thousands of supercomputers to do things that have never been possible
before--out pacing any human mind--yet this fantastic machine intelligence
cannot seem to cope with the moral,
ethical and political problems that underlie the crises.
The
leaders of the G13 nations call upon the world’s universities (who else
could) to mobilize and coordinate efforts to bring together hundreds of
thousands, perhaps millions of human minds (collective intelligence) through
the powerful `sequel’ to WWW and Internet--to cooperate
with the machine intelligence to find holistic solutions to
the crises; for all of them are seen to be inter-related: for example,
food production is limited by farmer health, weather, poverty, ignorance,
environmental sickness and more. So it finally occurs to key political
leaders of major nations that no one of the crises can be tackled alone,
they all must be resolved together.
(1)
The effort to link and coordinate all human knowledge is enlarged. A global
electronic cosmopedia and dictionary become the primary gateway to all
human data and knowledge.
(2)
The cosmopedia is alive, increasingly intelligent and continually growing.
It is each day updated so each `essay’(monograph seems too textual and
linear also) becomes the definitive draft of all that can be agreed upon
and verified through a transdisciplinary process of peer review by scientists
and scholars in each area of each discipline, with a careful listing and
detailed description of all disagreements,
of all that needs to be researched. These areas of needed
work are expanded by dialog with all other disciplines in a quest for holistic
solutions. (As in the Yale Human Area files, these `definitive essays’
can be reduced by the elimination of all duplication and essays can be
clarified with graphics, models, maps, simulations and so forth.) While
as scholarly as possible, the essays are enlivened by computed-assisted
constructions of reality, simulations of possibilities linked to the largest
possible models of the physical and social world, and of the universe.
(3)
Every word each definitive `essay’ is linked to possible meanings in the
global dictionary—which links the equivalent of the Oxford English Dictionary
in every language-- that defines every shade of meaning in every language
and dialect, with each word used in the essay coded to a specific use and
meaning.(A numerical part of the
coding, for example, might attach a number to each word (for example: church1,
a building; church2, a congregation, church3, a denomination, church4,
a mystical universal church, and so forth, wherever the word “church” appears
in an essay. (Note the University of Calif. OceanStore system where each
fragment of stored knowledge has a “globally unique identification tag.”
The cosmopedia, of course, will have much more sophisticated codingyet
to be developed.)
(5)
In every case every research team and university is asked to give some
time—in relation to each scholars’ bit of knowledge and research-- to solving
fundamental human crises and their sub-problems (such as those defined
by the UIA.) See Sinnot in references below)
(6)
So who does the continuing
GB work? Every graduate student’s thesis, dissertation, term papers, et
cetera, are related to the updating and researching.Undergraduate
and secondary school students have access to the cosmopedia and are encouraged
to bite off a small piece of some cosmopedia defined problem to work on
in each course, or as the beginning of a lifetime scholarly calling. (Secondary
school students at Dalton School have been preparing a CD-Rom history of
New York City as each year’s class picks up and expands the term papers
prepared by students the year before.)H.J.A.
Goodman of the World Brain group of the American Association for Information
Science proposed that every retired scholar and scientist might be employed
part-time to work at updating in his or her field.) Thus collective intelligence
is mobilized, if first only in collaborative work, for example to create
interactive indexes and links.
(7)
To capture the imagination of children and to inspire and motivate the
political will of the public, every `living essay’ in the `global brain
cosmopedia’ has attached stories (with graphics and films) and case studies
to show needs and what is being done about them; with links to action groups
and their publications and projects. Every individual in the world is invited
to have a lifelong hobby interest in one area of needed action.Also
the cosmopedia includes inspiration from art, music and so forth to empower
and motivate responsible action in relation to evil or research-and-action
need in relation to each cosmopedia `essay.’
The
daily updated (from research and feedback) electronic online textbooks
in every subject--and at every level of learning -- is founded upon and
linked to all of the definitive (daily updated and linked) encyclopedia
`essays,’ with tutorials adapted
to the age and level of information of each learner. (McGraw
Hill publishers has launched a network of interactive electronic online
textbooks.Perhaps every word and
paragraph in them should be linked to a web ofresearch
and graphic illustrations, appropriate to the age and knowledge level of
each reader.)(8)
Education is a major concern of the GB. The virtual university is a lifelong
learning and research institution, with seamless relationships to educational
activities of each individual from birth to death. Essential learning is
available on the sequel to Internet2 (which will have become a grid, a
matrix and perhaps more) when needed by each individual for each profession,
job, individual task.Lifetime learning
is related to a continually enlarging profile
of each individual’s gifts, talents, limitations, handicaps,
opportunities, and so forth. Each person is empowered with an electronic
memory (a lifetime of learning can now be recorded on one disk), instantly
accessible, indexed by job and personal and professional interests.Each
of these personal electronic memories can be plugged into the universal
cosmopedic memory for corrections and to meet specific needs, and can also
belinked to the electronic memories
of others in a work team research project or whatever.
Finally,
if humanity is going to explore and then perhaps colonize outer space,
and if human intelligence is part of and connected to the intelligence
of so many aspects of the universe, should we speak of a Universal Brain
instead of a Global Brain?
Arbib,
Michael. 1997.“A Brain for Planet Earth,” paper for World Brain Workshop
at the University of Calgary, June 12.
Bailey.
James. 1996. After Thought: The
Computer Challenge to Human Intelligence.
New York: Basic Boois.
Dertouzos,
Michael. 2000. The Unfinished Revolution:
Human Centered Computers and WhatThey
Can Do For Us.New York: Harper/Collins.
Duderstadt,James.
. 2000.A University for the 21st
Century. University of Michigan Press.
Floridi,
Luciano. 1995. “The Future of Organized Knowledge.” UNESCO Philosophy Forum,
and 1996. “The Internet as a Disinformation Superhighway.”Spectrum.
Goodman,
H.J.A. and Anthony Debons. 1997. “The Senior Scholars State-of-the-Art
CumulativeOnline Continuously Updated
Statement (SAS) System, University of Calgary.
Kortwright,
Enrique. 1997. “Developing a Worldview for Modeling and Simulation: An
ExerciseinApplied
Philosophy.” Transactions,
March.
Gerschenfeld,
Neil. 1997. When Things Start
to Think. New York: Henry Holt.
.Hanss,
Ted. 2001.”Digital Video: Initernet2 Killer App or Dilbert’s Nightmare?” Educause,May.
Levy,
Pierre. 1997. Collective Intelligence:
Man’s Emerging World in Cyberspace. New York: Plenium.
Mesarovic,
M. D.et al. 1996. “Cybernetics of Global Change.” UNESCO.
Sinnot,
J. and L. Johnson. 1996. Re-Inventing
the university: A Radical Proposal for a Problem-Based
University.Norwood, N.J.: Aplex Publishing.
Simon,
Hubert. 2001. “The Steam Engine and the Computer: What Makes TechnologyRevolutionary.” Educause,
May.
Webb,
James. 1969. Space-Age Management:
The Large Scale Approach. New York: McGrawHill.
Personal
Note. If one pursues and
elaborates my sci-fi essay, where might it lead? Within the framework of
my limited possibilities, I am undertaking a beginning experiment. My web
page is by the fall of 2001 intended as experiment to create the beginnings
of a regularly updated textbook -- free to everyone on the planet -- in
this case a textbook on the future of higher education -- which hopefully
can reveal some of the problems and possibilities of a `global brain definitive
encyclopedia’ gateway with links to all the most useful data and information
and latest research on a topic as electronic footnotes. It is not yet a
cosmopedia experiment, as it lacks the possibility of graphics, sound,
films—but perhaps it soon might be linked to CD-Roms.
Part
of it is online <
http://ecolecon.missouri.edu/global research>,
not yet revised or updated, at the University of Missouri in relation to
the CARES project which is making available the satellite photos of every
neighborhood (beginning with Missouri and Korea) and is adding layers of
data from census, education, culture and much more, to
provide a holistic picture of each place to provide data essential
for problem solving. (The satellite photos are of such detail that they
can show a farmer how to put different kinds of fertilizer on different
parts of a field, and that his pig pen will not pollute a creek if he moves
the pen to the other side.)
I
solicit the help of all who read this `science fiction’ paper, especially
to call attention to errors and providing web page links as the best method
for continual updating this experimental text.