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7 July 2001
Simulating a Global Brainusing networks of international organizations, world problems, strategies, and valuesAnthony Judge, Nadia McLaren, Joel Fischer and Tomas Fulopp Paper for the First Global Brain Workshop: From Intelligent
Networks to the Global Brain
0. IntroductionHistorians of hypertext such as Boyd Rayward (1994) have recently identified one of the founders of the Union of International Associations (UIA), Paul Otlet (1868-1944), as being one of the key figures in envisaging what has subsequently become known as hypertext. His pre-computer efforts at the beginning of the 20th century were designed to give form to his vision of a "collective brain" (Otlet, 1934) -- through the organization of some 15 million filecards. These efforts were partly undertaken institutionally through the UIA (founded in 1910). A separate paper (Judge and Fischer, 2001) even explores the possibility that the "Union of International Associations" was originally, whether enigmatically or unconsciously, envisaged as a virtual organization that could be understood as a practical experiment in global brain simulation. The focus of the UIA since the 1950s has been on profiling international nonprofit organizations in every field of human activity. Associated profiles have been maintained on their meetings, the problems of concern to them (from 1972), the strategies envisaged in response (from 1986), as well as associated concepts of human development, values, and bibliographic references. This work was computerized from the mid-1970s. A major pre-web concern was to provide links between entites in any of these databases, as well as between entities in different databases. From 1996, increasing portions of this material have been made freely available on the web (http://www.un-intelligible.org/docs/overview.php#orga) in a manner which ensured that all links became hyperlinks. Most entities are held in such a way as to engender search queries to external web resources. As a historical footnote in relation to the "global brain" theme, and H G Wells' early pointers to it (1937, 1938), it is appropriate to note that Peter Hunot, the first post-World War II editor of the UIA's Yearbook of International Organizations (http://www.un-intelligible.org/docs/overview.php#orga), was the former personal secretary of H G Wells. In the case of the UIA, Otlet's initiative (more ambitiously articulated in Monde: essaie d'universalisme in 1935) subsequently provided a framework for its Encyclopedia of World Problems and Human Potential (http://www.un-intelligible.org/projects/homeency.php) now accessible on the web. 1.0 Current status and methodologyThe core activity is based on maintenance of profiles of international nonprofit organizations, whether governmental or nongovernmental -- in every field of human activity (some 800 subject classifications). Links between profiles, of different types, are also maintained as well as links to profiles in other knowledgebases -- since these organizations are usually associated with strategies on problems, articulated in meetings, in the light of values and in pursuit of some understanding of human development. The table below provides an overview -- and links to further information. Information is collected from international organizations (or the web) on a regular basis. The work is funded by sale of information services as indicated below, or through occasional projects (eg 1997-2000 through EU Info2000, DG-XIII).
A general commentary
on this project is available. Specific commentaries on issues arising from aspects
of this work are also available, as noted above where appropriate. For a statistical overview of the
development of the Encyclopedia databases, see:
2.0 Particular features relevant to the global brain themeComprehensiveness and the meanings of "global": It might be said that there are no biases regarding the areas of human activity on which information is collected for these knowledgebases -- or, better still, that the profiles produced each reflect the strong biases held by particular constituencies. However a significant bias is towards information that is of more than local or national significance. Other kinds of bias might be identified regarding the adequacy of representation of information from non-English, non-western, non-literal cultures -- even though such concerns are assiduously reflected in the preoccupations of many international organizations and the information they provide. Interesting questions might also be raised regarding the bias implict in the notion of "node" and the kinds of relationship possible. Currently ternary relationships (on which there is an extensive literature) are excluded. [for more on biases] With respect to "global" brain however, there are important questions as to the degree to which of the following is the prime emphasis:
In relation to these distinctions, the UIA has produced a database of some 600 integrative, transdisciplinary and unitary concepts (http://www.un-intelligible.org/projects/homekno.php). The web however provides an interesting bridge between all three of the above understandings of "global" (Judge, 1996). The UIA information collection focus relates primarily to entities that are integrative in the first sense, namely interrelating perspectives from different parts of the world. But the concern is to build into the access facilities features responding to the challenges of the third -- especially the challenge of coherence as suggested by the need for interdisciplinarity and comprehension of complexity (**). However a more radical question might also be raised as to whether a global brain should, at some stage, also reflect non-human intelligence. Interrelating different kinds of conceptual entity: To avoid the challenges of information overload, the focus of this work has been on a range of quite distinct, and specifically defined, conceptual entities that are handled in separate databases. Entities within each database may be extensively hyperlinked together in addition to hyperlinks between entities in different databases. For the puposes of the global brain perspective of this paper, these entities may be viewed as follows
Interaction with information sources: The knowledgebases are maintained through various degrees of interaction with providers of information, especially international organizations having issue and strategic preoccupations. International organization information is obtained annually via (email) questionnaires (as well as via the web) as a basis for the Yearbook of International Organizations and its electronic variants. To the extent that the universe of international bodies may be said to reflect deliberately organized responses to the complete range of human preoccupations, it can be said that they constitute focal nodes in a form of global brain through which facets of human social reality are perceived, defined, and given relative significance. Whether this is to be understood, as with any encyclopedic undertaking, as one precursor or a subset of some larger understanding of a global brain is clearly a matter of discussion. The web facility is being designed to facilitate and encourage continual amendments to profiles and links by interested parties, notably international organizations, whether through a comment facility or through online distance intelli-work. Hyperlink context and generated links: The knowledgebase is not designed as an isolated system. Every entity is named with titles rich in keywords that are used to enable query links to web search engines offering access to relevant resources. Experimentally such keywords are also used to pull into the profile visible to the user generated hyperlinks to entities in other parts of the knowledgebase. This technique is used where resources have not been allocated to providing hard links to selected entities in other databases. With respect to the global brain, this raises interesting issues about the values of associative links which may or may not be relevant. Hypertext editing: The databases are very much understood as knowledgebases. A major challenge is to provide links between entities whose relationship may often be neglected or represented only in secondary literature. Clearly when such links are explicit in accessible texts they can be incorporated. However many problems arise where link information is crudely given in the literature. An example would be if Entity A is described as directly linked to Entity D in one source when other sources make it clear that this link is only via Entity B and Entity C. Resolution of the class of challenges of this kind requires a combination of software and knowledge skills that will probably be the basis for a future profession through which the quality of a global brain will be maintained and enhanced. Effectively this is a process of synapse editing! Use of multi-media for conceptual integration: The quantities of information involved, and the manner in which the system is normally used in text mode, raise concerns about simply reinforcing user tunnel vision -- a concern fundamental to any discussion of a "global" brain.Whilst hyperlinks are usually present to points outside the user's immediate domain of preoccupation, there is a need to provide useful contextual frameworks to facilitate any desire for a broader overview. Several experimental approaches have been taken to this and made available to users:
In both these cases the features of the display are active in that users could either choose to obtain text profiles corresponding to nodes or generate a new structure centred on the selected node. Data sets have also been ported into proprietary packages:
Currently developments are focusing on the association of tones and music with spring maps in order to use sound effects to provide the user with a soundscape matching the visualization. The emphasis is on how users can themselves associate sound effects with complex structures in order to sustain integrative understandings of complexity. Such an approach has been justified for similar reasons in efforts (under the term "protein music" or "genetic music") to associate tones with features of DNA structures, notable by computational biologists. Web resources include: http://education.llnl.gov/msds/music/midi-dna.html; http://www.whozoo.org/mac/Music/index.htm; http://ndb-mirror-2.rutgers.edu/NDB/archives/MusicAtlas/proj.1.html. A useful discussion of such approach is given in http://www.whozoo.org/mac/Music/Sources.htm; http://www.aber.ac.uk/~phiwww/pm/. These efforts have given rise to a Nucleic Acid Database Musical Atlas (http://ndb-mirror-2.rutgers.edu/NDB/archives/MusicAtlas/index.html). Feedback loops: The major emphasis on hyperlinking conceptual entities means that these semantic networks can be analyzed to detect various characteristics, notably the presence of loops. Such loops may be an indication of possible errors but may more interestingly be a basis for shifting the level of analysis and understanding beyond the common focus on individual entities in isolation or simply as part of an unordered set. [see discussion] The notion of “loops”, and its relevance, requires some further explanation. As defined by Colin Eden and Fran Ackermann (Making Strategy, 1998) in describing the value of Decision Explorer : a loop represents a description of a chain of consequences that produces a dynamic outcome by feeding off itself (positive feedback = “vicious” or “virtuous” loops), or by controlling itself (negative feedback). Typically a feedback loop will be an important strategic issue in its own right. The purpose of detecting feedback loops is to raise the level of analysis of individual issues to a higher, systematic level. It is a technique which has the potential to add extra meaning to basic data, particularly relevant for policy makers (one significant user group for this product) and others concerned with understanding the interrelationships and root causes of environmental problems, notably those relevant to biological conservation. A self-reinforcing (“vicious”) problem loop, then, is a chain of Problems, each aggravating the next, and with the last looping back to aggravate the first in the chain. An example is:
Such cycles are “vicious” because they are self-sustaining problem cycles. organisational strategies and programmes that focus on only one problem in a chain may fail because the cycle has the capacity to regenerate itself. Individual “vicious problem cycles” also tend to interlock, forming tangled skeins of interlinked global Problems which implicate single environmental problems in chains and complexes of multi-sectoral issues. Without the means to untangle the relationships, the response to a conservation challenge may be ineffective, self-defeating or, even, harmful. It is important to recognise that it is precisely through the detection of such loops that attention can be drawn to defects in the pattern of relationships in the data. It is possible for some loops to be the result of incorrect relationships rather than being representative of genuine feedback, and so “accidental” loops appear. Detection of loops is therefore in the first place an editorial tool for hyperlinkage within a relational database. It raises questions as to the appropriateness of certain links which otherwise may go unquestioned. It also sharpens the discussion on how distinctions are made, using verbal categories and definitions, and how system boundaries are drawn grouping what is represented in this way. The results indicate this is a very interesting area for further exploration. An indication of the numbers of loops detectable (of different size) is given below for the case of problem entities linked by the "aggravating" relationship (namely Problem A aggravates Problem B):
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