The Why

It is nesting season. This is the time when vast numbers and species of birds, tired from their long journeys, stop to breathe, flirt, swim, breed and build. Some birds are hoarders, some are oppurtunists, their nests reflecting the strange melee, snatched from under their discriminating gaze, bits of fibre and fluff, their own poop and more often these days, long chained polymers indegistible by many that populate their ecosystem, a brown and gray complexity arising from the exigencies that are their daily lives.

This is not a wildly ambitous, technically savvy (and blind) attempt to provide solutions. All this blog is, is a fragile nest. It will assimilate and try and co-relate emerging patterns present in popular culture. It will make accessible science-fiction literature to new moms and dads. It will try to bring to light the essence of gaming and virtual worlds, hopefully settling once and for all erroneous information and phobias about them. It will try to be inclusive about emergent technologies and sometimes wander quiveringly into the realm of science. This blog will attempt to be a human-machine interface, where without trepidation we can say a machine is nothing more than an overbuilt algorithm. All comments and criticisms are welcome. And I hope, that you the reader, wandering into its weak gravitational pull, might say "hey this makes sense in my world".

I’m a reluctant blogger, as the world is increasingly meshed, I feel drawn to make sense of this complexity. Gone are the days when one invention completely dominated the public imagination, now there are a million small revolutions occurring every single day, and most of will change the face of communication as we know it today. We are not just talking about broadband speeds, or vocabulary, we are talking about our own personal commitment and type of involvement in this new superstructure. We are the fuel that is driving this Leviathan, we just don't know it yet.


As people we are likely to feel that THIS world is receeding from our grasp. The huge amount of data and connections, sensory and textual overload, the ability of obscure corporations in Palo Alto, India, Micronesia to affect how we buy our groceries, all this seemingly points to the fact that we are not in control. Readers of Gibson may remember something called “nodal points”. These are areas in our communications geometry where many diverse streams co-incidentally converge to create something that has a very large effect, a bit like the epicenter of a tidal wave. Most would believe this is the purview of Futures Trading, it is not, though it could well be. Those that can trawl the vast sea of information and the mindnumbing overload of data succesfully, will probably secure more than a modest future for themselves. For the rest of us, pinned like Gulliver by our habits, our future is totally out of our control. This is not necessarily a bad thing. We are on auto pilot, our plane will land, we will get our baggage, and that’s about all we care about. The fact is, our bodies want our brains to be small and economical, while our artifacts, language, culture, huge amounts of useless data, require us to have large brains which put a huge strain on our bodies. We will have to augument ourselves, it can be a simple thing as an Ipod carrying 40 Gigs of music (information) and it could be nano implants that regulate our melatonin, all this simply because we are on the cusp of great change, our artifacts require it.

Should we be passive consumers. Should we just indulge in the new technologies minimally, pay our bills, fill university applications, download music, blog ? What if instead we embrace it, believe that this new economy, and the technology that drives it, is far more inclusive than any before it. What if we look at the web as an enabler, an enabler that's not self-conscious about its innards, in fact it openly begs participation. What if you said, its not enough just for my kids, the next generation to immerse themselves in it, and be mindlessly driven to participate as if there was no option. What if, I the individual, the parent, the spouse, commits to learning the bricks and mortar that make up this mesh, and guide our children so they can make the right choices.

There are a couple of things we need to understand and well. These are quintessential to technology because it is quintessential to life as we know it. Fractal recursion is the basis of all life and diversity. It is the shape of the leaf you hold in your hand, the touch of a snowflake on your nose, the contours of a shell that lies on the beach, the very shape of the beach itself.
"In simple terms, the recursive definition is one that grows an awareness and clarity upon itself toward a conclusive end, with each recurrence contributing something new toward the end definition. The recurring theme or influence will strengthen the definition as it is repeatedly applied to itself, and will eventually arrive at a point where no more recurrence is required." - Wikipedia.
What does this tell us... it is self similar and it is an iterative process. It is a process that has been going on for 6 billion years, in every nook and cranny of the universe. It is a process, not just of the formation of rocks and trees and pretty computer graphics. It is a relationship, a relationship between us and our progeny. Secondly, everything alive in this universe runs on what is known as a Evolutionary Algorithm. Algorithm is not a word that we should be frightened of, it is why we are here. It is just a set of well defined instructions which terminate once a state is achieved. It is repeatable, and each time it will end in the same result. An evolutionary algorithm, simply put, is the assumption that if there are creatures that vary, and if there is a struggle for existence where most don't survive, and if the few survivors pass on to their offspring the very thing that helped them survive, then those offspring will be better adapted to their environment than their parents were. Genetically, it has been a mindless process of replication, emergent order from simple repetition, with no intelligence guiding it. No, we face a challenge where our artifacts will supercede us, how do we make sure that we still remain relevant, necessary.
So in conclusion what are we looking at
a) what is that thing that helps us survive
b) how do we translate this so our children can flourish
c) and most important how do we do this in a way that make them better human beings that can see value in all things animate and inanimate. And in doing so, we maintain sustainability and our humanity.
Instead of making artifacts that build other artifacts, why can't we create ones that make it easier for the elderly, the disabled, the disenfranchised and disaffected to enter into a new contract that can alleviate their present condition. No one left behind.