Part 41 (1/2)

Self-organization

Tiy, equipment, and intellect have been invested in the research of artificial life Knowledge derived from this research can be used to advance e tells us that diversity and self-organization, for instance, proh e functions,syste to such a system In the past, we used to focus on social foranization Within such for take place as an expression of internal necessities, not as a result of adopted or i

The entire dynaanizations in the business of population control, needs to be reconnected to the pragmatic context As a result, we can expect that communities structured on such principles are endoith the equivalent of social inize themselves and to counteract social disease Reconnection to the prage of strategy fro therowing network of networks are based on this fundaht to be understood as aactions detri of each and every member of the community Social disease entails connotations characteristic of a syste What is matic focus become disconnected

Reconnection nition of diversity and definition of unity, oals, and ideals

Adaptability results from diversity; so does the ability to allocate resources within the dynamic community More than in the past, and more than today, individuals will partake in more than one community This is made possible by means of interaction and by shared resources Today's teleco e think of the numbers of people involved and the still limited scope of their involvement The old notion of coive way to cooals Virtual communities on the Internet already exemplify such possibilities Thesocial and cultural cells is their pattern of improvement in the course of co-evolution, which reflects the understanding that political and social aspects of hues

The model described, inspired by the effort to understand life and sih simulations, applies just as lobal political concerns, global responsibility for the support systelobal vested interests in colobal concern for the y should not lead to a world state- not even Boorstin's Republic of Technology will do-but to a state offrom such a scale of political practical experiences are such that self-destruction, through social iht happen if we continue to play the game of world institutions The alternative corresponds to decentralization, powerful networking associated with extre procedures

In more concrete terms, this means that individuals will constitute their identity in experiences through which their particular contribution rated in different actions or products They will share resources and use communication e through means that are silobal contract that individuals will enter, once they acknowledge the benefits of accessing the shared body of infor human nuclei of diverse practical experiences will allow for the es of the civilization of illiteracy, freedom from bureaucracy, and more direct co-participation in the life of each social cell thus constituted

Advanced specialized knowledge, eoals with the help of new languages (, etc), usually insulates the expert frofully connect practical experiences that are relevant to each other, fragether

We are very good at fragmentation-it defines our narrow specialties But we are far less successful in pursuing synthesis The challenge lies in the doration

Since hu'sexperiences, involving different perspectives, will develop in environments where resources are shared and results constitute the starting point for new experiences The identity of people constituting thematics that ensures efficiency and diversity reflects experiences through eared towards co-evolution, not doy is only an example From the relatively simple bulletin boards of the early 1960's to the Internet and Web of our day, co-evolution has been a concrete practical instance of the constitution of the Netizen Michael Hauben, who coined the ter a cooperative and collective activity that would benefit the world at large

Conflicts are not erased The Net community is not one of perfection but of anticipated and desired diversity, in which imperfection is not a handicap Its dynamics is based on differences in quantity and quality, and its efficiency is expressed in how enerate

The solution is the problem Or is the problem the solution?

The inadequacy of literacy and natural language, undoubtedly the ht round of new for to hun systeo surpassed those of survival, e experiences stand out This new pragmatics demands that literacy be complemented with alternative nification The analysis of various forms of human activity and creativity can lead to only one conclusion: the patterns of human relationshi+ps and the tools created on the foundation of literacy no longer optiher dynamics of human existence

Misled by the hope that once we capture extensions in language-everything people do in the act of their practical self-identification-we could infer from these to intensions-how a particular component unfolds-we have failed to perceive the intensional aspects of human actions themselves For instance, we know of the diverse components of the practical experience of mathematics-analytic effort, rationality, sy about each coe; others are only reduced to stereotype through literate discourse Does the power of a mathematical expression rely on mathematical notation, or on aesthetic quality? How are these two aspects integrated?

Where and how does intuition affect ?

The same criteria apply, butpeople involve their physical presence; their appearance as beautiful, or fit, or appropriate; their capability to articulate thoughts; their power of persuasion; and much more Each component is important, but we know very little about the specific impact each one has

Surprised at how dictators come to power, and even more by mass delusion, with or without television as part of the political performance, we still fail to focus on what ers, hypocrites, or, for thatof their fellow huument is rotten but the mass follows, there is y

Language has projected the experience involved in our cultural practice, but has failed to project anything particularly relevant to our natural existence Thus patterns of cultural behavior expressed in language seeical life, or at least appear to have acquired a strange, or difficult to explain, independence

We ht to our obsession with invulnerability, easy to conceptualize and express in language

It is, for instance, embodied in the medicine of the civilization of literacy The abrupt revelation of AIDS, ht help us understand the ra of our life in the dos-and our life in the doic reflected the attempt to maintain a harmonious relation with the outside world It has not yet been decided whether it is medicine-the reified experience of deter-or a parent's embrace that calms a baby's colic; or whether the psychosoy of healthcare in our days

What we already know is that populations were deciiene were imposed on then form of balance, life patterns were affected This happened not only to populations in Asia, Africa, Australia, and New Zealand, but also in the native populations of the A from analytic practical experiences of self-constitution-many reified in the medicine of the civilization of literacy-defy the variety of possible balances and embody the suspicion that ”The solution is the problem”

Literacy, when applicable, works very well, but it is not the universal answer to hu totally abandoned experiences with sign systee the patterns of training, instruction, industrial production, , and healthcare Patterns of practical understanding of do tinition, in As a result, newnew areas of hu ioal through a text, and then having the text control the use of visual elen systee, and concepts in urban planning are generated while the pertinent coical impact, social implications, and interpersonal co literacy, while still involving literacy, also resulted in the develop, networking, and new forid than those characteristic of integration exclusively through verbal language

There is no need to eli to literacy Where it is still applicable, literacy is alive and well On the Internet and World Wide Web, it complements the repertory of means of human interaction characteristic of coe audience captive in one-way communication The aful one-to-one and one-to-many interactions

The civilization of illiteracy is one of diversity and relies on the dynaanization But in order to succeed, several conditions need to be met For instance, we have not yet developed in appropriate practical experiences of human self- constitution the ability to think in inners in a new language, people still translate froe to another When this does not work, they look for help in the language they know, instead of fore in which they suspect they can be answered After intuition was eliminated by rationality and syste how intuition comes about, whether in mathematics, medicine, sports, the arts, market transactions, war skills, food preparation, and social activities

In the civilization of literacy, people were, and to a great extent still are, able to ignore soeneral outcome of human practice Within the new scale and dynamics, human civilization relies on the interplay ofthis diversity is h literacy-basedis critical to the outcoh and linear level of relations New practical experiences of higher efficiency require finer levels and tools adequate to non- linear pheno with the parallel processes involved in the self- constitution of individuals and of society

From possibilities to choices

If the multiplication of possibilities were not to bechoices, ould be sucked into the ind of entropy In practice, this translates into an obvious course of events: allowing for new possibilities, which sometimes take the appearance of alternatives, means to disallow certain known and practiced options of confirmed output For example, where de fulfills only a decorative function There is nothing of consequence in the American President's State of the Union address, or in the conventions where political parties nominate candidates for the Presidency With the choice of local and national political representation, the possibility to directly participate in power is precluded