May 2009 Archives

Many will say, and perhaps wisely, that it is impossible to step out of a network of which we are a part, and thereby know it.  So academics will say why bother asking the question, and others will assign God.

But what if consciousness is from a different network?  And we find in the human species an intersection of two networks, a network of consciousness and of biology, neither of which is particularly restricted to this planet, but exist in their own network planes.  In this scenario we could state that the act of searching for other solar systems and planets, is really about the search for other nodes of a third network, a planetary one.

This leads to the question of what an intersection of networks would look like?  Well, I am always amused by, and often in awe of, the synchronicity in my own life.  So about a week after I started up this blog, I found out about, and went to, NASA's Astronomy Picture of Day site, highly recommended by the way.  I decided to go to the picture for the day of my first blog post here, and ta-da, a picture of the intersection of stellar networks, colored blue by our perspective.

Interesting yes, but what would the intersection of different types of networks look like?  Could they even exist on a plane where they could intersect.  A universal plane?  I fear that my thinking/writing today is starting to sound a bit sophistic, so will give it a rest.

I have to confess to a temptation to turn this writing into a blog about the emerging field of Network Science. Fortunately, my abilities and talents are not in mathematics but in macro thought, to coin a phrase (however, Network Science by Ted Lewis is high on my reading list (funny Amazon only has 3 left in stock, it appears I am not alone)).

It is clear from some of the early work in this field, that looking at individual nodes may not give much, if any, indication that the node is even part of a network, and if part of a network, how communication between nodes occurs.  One can only assume that this phenomena must be magnified if the observer is a "cell" in this network residing in one of its hubs.  So if the earth is a hub in some kind of biological network of universal scale, it would be very, very hard for us i.e., the cells, to "know" this.

Of course the classic search for hubs is the planetary search now underway in astronomy.  However, if this is really a biological network, rather than a planetary one, perhaps we are either searching in the wrong places, or using the wrong "language" for our search. I keep coming back to the concept that networks only appear to have form when viewed from outside the network.  How can we, inside this network, step outside, however briefly, to gain an awareness of it?

So it turns out, with virtually no "conscious" thought for the most part, we humans do networks just like nature.  It is fascinating to me that we see the same efficient "hub" based network design virtually everywhere, six degrees of separation, the Internet, cell function, airline hubs. It seems that even that galaxies may have this characteristic. So at some fundamental level it appears that there is a universal propensity to gather or coalesce that facilitates the functioning of the entire universe. 

This is an interesting point of view. Let's assume for a moment, that we are at/in a hub looking outwards, what would we see?  Probably not much, since by their nature, hubs are surround my areas of far less density.  So for me, the most almost blindingly obvious hub is the earth. It is just due to scale factors, and the fact that we reside in a hub, that we can't see the network of which the earth is a node.  There is absolutely no reason that I can think of, that this elegant design of nature would somehow be suspended for the planet.

So lets take this assumption to the next step.  So as we have seen in virtually ever other network, hubs facilitate communication within a network, they serve as a clearinghouse of information, that can be passed to other nodes without having to poll every node.  Or to state this in another way, if I am just a normal node on the network, where do I go first for info, to a hub node e.g., for the Internet network they would be sites like Amazon.com, google.com etc....

So here are some questions based on the above assumptions.  If the earth is a hub, could we look for who is polling earth?  If the earth is a hub, what does a normal, non-hub node look like?  What does communication between nodes look like?   There are "easy" answers to these questions but my guess is that any true insight into this area has to take into account the perspective and scale of the organism (humans) that are doing the "looking".  I think it is only when this "corrective lens" of perspective and scale is applied, will we gain any meaningful insight.

Or not. Maybe all species are obsessed with themselves, humans certainly are, and maybe that is how biological systems work.  One would think there is a word or term of art in biology that goes to this concept of species self-focus, and probably books discussing how relentless species focus is an evolutionary necessity (perhaps you can tell I am not a biologist).

But certainly humanities relentless focus on the species does call into question whether our awareness of things greater than the species is severely limited by this tendency for species-centeredness.  One wonders if there is even some principle about inherent lack of awareness of all species "higher" than themselves, however one might define "higher".  It is interesting that we seem to so readily assign anything that might be "higher" as God or spirit, and essentially unknowable. Well maybe, maybe not, as alluded to a couple of posts ago.

Then there is what I will call species time scale limiting. Recognizing that our lack of time breath severely, severely limits what we can know.  Our individual lives represent what, perhaps 1/2 of 1/2 of 1/2 of 1/2 of 1/2 of 1/2 of a blink of an eye.  Our entire species existence probably represent the blink of an eye.  I mean really, what can we be expected to know?

Perhaps it is a good humbling experience, to realize what a small piece our species most likely plays in the universal dance, and how invisible and inconsequential we are as individuals.  Or, we could flip this one around, and go for the ultimate in species self-centeredness, and think that some universal consciousness has decided to use our species to build a physical manifestation of itself, sort of reverse Matrix concept.  No wonder we, the human species, are so tool/technology proficient.

Is "connective technology" (the Internet as an example) leading to a rise in consciousness? We think of the technology as non-biological.  On a biological level we are of course, so connected, as we develop from sperm/egg into a human form that then returns to the earth as, for the lack of a better phrase, disembodied cells. But with the next generation carrying forward our individual signature in the grand experiment that is evolution. 

As humans application of technology starts to mature, we are starting to see technology look more biological, and CT could certainly be thought of as a connector of human "cells".  There are just about a million takes on this topic in popular media.  For the sake of argument, let's assume that CT is evolving something that is more biological looking, and that the line between nature's work and the human "invention" of CT becomes more and more blurred.  In fact, if true, our CT might start to look more and more like nature's version of it, probably starting to mirror how mammalian brains are wired.

So coming full circle, is CT actually simply an extension of "natural" evolution, that our obsession with differentiation, i.e., biological versus non-biological is really just that.  That an extension of this line of thought might lead us to start to become aware of, and look for, the beginnings of a new consciousness that is part of us, the human species, but an expression of the collective us, something that each of us as individuals, might not be able to see via direct observation, but only by looking at collective human behavioral changes.  Since no other "biological" species seems to have the tools to create CT, we really don't have a model for knowing where to look for this "new" creation, or what it might look like.

Of course, CT could just as easily stand for conscious technology.

As alluded to in the previous post, I really want to avoid god discussions here, mainly because we all have such preconceptions, god/spirit are really loaded terms, so I will continue to talk about [blank] as something between our known consciousness, and the unknowable, which many call god/spirit.  But I readily admit than many will simply slide this discussion into their god/spirit slot, and saying that any difference is simply semantics.  Maybe, maybe not.

What IF there is a greater consciousness that resides in a space between the two?  Why is it that we, as a species, so readily assume that human consciousness is the highest consciousness around, and that anything "above" us must be god/spirit?  It certainly is easier that way, but it also strikes me as somewhat arbitrary.  Why do we assume that all these beautiful systems that we are built from, dna, cells, the constant birth, death process, end with us as "the processes" final form of conscious expression?  It seems almost as primitive and self-centered as the Ancient Greek philosophers placing the earth in the center of the universe.

The best popular piece that I have seen recently, that plays with the general issues of scale and consciousness, is the movie "City of Ember" which is based on a 2003 novel by Jeanne Duprau of the same name.

So we are each cells in the body of [blank].  This [blank] is something humans can not easily see (be aware) because we are such small parts of a larger whole.  Some may place this line of thought in the category of spirit/god, but for the sake of this piece, I pose that this is some kind of entity that is as real as a human body, but on such a grand scale that our awareness of it is sketchy. I would also maintain, for the sake of this piece at least, that this is not a replacement or competitor to god/spirit, but exists in the world between what we think of as god/spirit and our own more tangible world.

So, assuming that we can't really see this [blank] due to its scale. One question might be what does it look like?  Another question might be, as an individual cells, where do I reside in this [blank] i.e., am I the equivalent of a cell in the foot, brain, heart and so on?  Another scale type question might be, could each cell be defined, not as an "individual" human but as species.  So then the question would be, where does the human species reside in [blank]? What does time look like to this [blank]?  If the scale is so large as to be virtually unknowable, would time work differently? While galactic scale seems to immense to us, in reality, all scale is relative, so maybe our earth is a cell, or our solar system, or our galaxy?

I guess it's going to be hard, due to the nature of this topic, to avoid epistemology.  There is an interesting correlation between the rise of materialism, technology and wealth, which one could interpret as having the potential to bring large scale damage to the planet, and a decline in the reproductive success of the species. I contrast this with mere overpopulation which is frequently encountered in nature and dealt with with the usual natural tools of famine, pestilence and disease.

So much of what we encounter in our nanosecond of life in this form, is simply nature's endless tests, adaptions, and retests, kind of like what we see on a greatly exaggerated scale in viruses like H1N1.  We humans of course, in our specieal [sic/made up derivative of species] hubris, call this "free will".  What has intrigued me is the question of whether or not the growing power of technology fits into this ebb and flow of natural process, i.e., species testing in another guise, or whether it is something new introduced into the natural system by or with humans.  Something that the natural system, and I mean this not just on a planetary basis, but also on a universal one, has not seen. 

This of course can and does lead to some great sci fi writing, but is an important question none the less. If technology is truly new universal system of some kind, it has profound implications, not just for this planet, but I fear for the universe itself. However, if technology is just another test, like a virus switches out genes, then it will be dealt with in the power of the natural system that operates on a universal scale over eons of time. 

A couple days ago we had some of the highest sustained winds here, that I have ever seen, (having not lived in hurricane country). Our lawn is littered with whirligigs, as the trees spread their seed with more intensity and volume than I have seen in many seasons. As we are often reminded, in our personal lives and in nature, change is not linear, it is often born during upheavals, volcanic explosions, comets ripping into planetary objects, tsunami's and hurricanes ripping into coastlines.

So as Hubble is fixed, yet again, and our vehicles are roving Mars, our human debris litters our moon, our satellites leave our solar system, and our radio telescopes look far and wide, I wonder if the human species are the whirligigs being strewn to the far corners of the universe by some cataclysmic explosion that we as yet, are not aware of, and may never be.  Far fetched, perhaps, but worthy of pondering I think.  We are, as a species, if nothing else, prolific progenitors.

Ahh, but if we are the seeds, what are we to grow?

So our earth is in a solar system that is one of millions of stars (and probably solar systems) in a wing or arm of a minor galaxy. On our earth, our species is but a blip in long cycle of this planet. So what are we to make of our situation? Our own "individual" existences are so short as to be almost invisible on any scale but our own. In fact, our probable species duration is so short as to be almost invisible on any scale but our own.

The constant hum of birth and death, rebirth, redeath, on a individual, species, planetary and galactic levels anon, is the real "background noise" of the universe. Because the confines of the consciousness we feel sure about, i.e., the individual, is so short, so almost irrelevant, that it really calls into question what we can really know about our surroundings, it may very well be that we are severely limited by forces we either can not know, or are very dimily aware of my virtue of our smallness. 

As a species, we appear to be driven by a search for certainty, perhaps propelled by this inner knowledge of how small we really are.  If there is any significance to "us" it will need to be a collective us, if for no other reason than to become visible in such a massive scale of time and space.