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16th July 2006Hyperaction through Hypercomprehension and Hyperdrivenecessary complement to proliferation of hypermedia in hypersociety- / - Introduction IntroductionThis is an exploration of a necessary response to the proliferation of knowledge in various forms through hypermedia, beyond the many simple measures to limit exposure to it. The constraints on such a response are reviewed, notably the mortality of proponents of particular views and their theories, the variety of preferences, complacency and the misguided efforts to mobilize others in support of a particular perspective. In this context, attention is seen as the primary scarce resource. This raises questions about the implications for "wisdom" of future hyperconnectivity, and any associated hyperintelligence, in a world increasingly dominated by hyperreality. The focus is on possible forms of hypercomprehension, informing appropriately subtle hyperaction, capable of responding to the hyperproblems of the times -- including hyperexploitation and hyperviolence. This hyperaction is seen to be dependent on a new form of hyperdrive -- hypermotivation -- calling for a quality of creative thinking and innovation analogous to that currently deployed in relation to hyperdrive physics. The emphasis here is on "hyper" as indicative of a qualitatively higher order rather than on some normative measure of greater, even dysfunctionally excessive, quantity. A model of hypercomprehension is proposed in an annex that explores the "plucking" of tensed strings (as analogues to the polarities that destabilize coherent responses). This highlights the possibility of significance associated with particular intermediate positions between the polar extremes. It points to a musical metaphor for the integration of more complex forms of value-based choice-making. Information overload and information underuseNothing further needs to be said about the proliferation of information in a knowledge society. The theme of "Information Overload and Information Underuse" was a focus of a United Nations University project in 1985 -- prior to the development of the web. With the web, the challenge of "hyperconnectivity" has become more evident. Hyperconnectivity is the enabling technology that has been responsible for the success of the web in making the internet accessible to all (cf Mark A. Sportack et al. High-Performance Networking Unleashed, 1997). The challenge will certainly increase with the emergence of the semantic web. Opportunity and solicitation: Now that many individuals and groups can create websites, there is the opportunity of visiting such sites -- possibly in response to solicitation by them -- as indicated by invitations to:
Increasingly we are faced with a knowledge space of innumerable wikis, listservs, blogs (>27 million), etc all somewhat desperately seeking and inviting input. These knowledge "space ships", whatever their size, orbit, trajectory or mobility, are successful to highly varying degrees at "flitting" or "trundling" around the universe -- imaginatively prefigured by science fiction media representations (Star Wars, Battlestar Galactica, Farscape, Star Trek) . Many may attract no visitors over extended periods -- as isolates in the knowledge universe. Others may be the subject of automated cross-postings -- possibly even extended in the way that Google's gmail affixes advertisements to e-mails according to their content. Application of filters: There is necessarily a range of strategies through which to excuse any failure to respond to such opportunities. These include:
Implicit and explicit boundaries: Such procedures effectively establish a sense of relevance and irrelevance. Most elements of knowledge, and their associated information sources, necessarily become mutually irrelevant to varying degrees. What links to follow? Where? Why? and When? What is selected and relevant to whom? The consequences have been explored elsewhere (cf Dynamically Gated Conceptual Communities: emergent patterns of isolation within knowledge society, 2004). In effect everybody ends up cultivating their own "secret garden" -- a knowledge garden. Ignorance and amnesia: Ironically every act of creativity in some part of society effectively renders the rest of society more ignorant -- until the new insight diffuses through knowledge space to them. Although ignorance is not a valid plea before the law, the proliferation of legislation is a form of collective creativity in governance that similarly increases ignorance in the population. Creativity, as exemplified by the development of a new web site, is therefore intimately related to the proliferation of ignorance. An associated phenomenon results from forgetting the value or location of certain knowledge -- exemplified by a web site -- or the loss of browser bookmarks. Whereas there is wide recognition of the tragedy of individual memory loss associated with alzheimer's disease, little is said about collective memory loss within a group or culture (cf Societal Learning and the Erosion of Collective Memory: a critique of the Club of Rome Report, 1980) Questionable pressure to know "everything": This is illustrated by several phenomena:
Arbitrariness / ContingencyMortality: In this context of knowledge "busy-ness", it is worth remembering that:
The life span (or half-life) of theories is recognized as being relatively short. In fact theory, or paradigm, displacement is associated with the advancement of knowledge. The half-life of religious beliefs is far longer. However, it is nevertheless sobering to recognize the number of "dead gods" in whom people have believed. Variety of preferences: The range of interests, views, agendas, and preferences of any kind in any society needs no description. Whether or not any single view or preference is considered the most desirable, the right to hold a wide spectrum of views is upheld in various international agreements. Beyond acceptance of such variety is the recognition that people are variously nourished by "satisfiers" of every kind -- from the most tangible to the most subtle. These may not lend themselves to ready definition. The coherence of a group, seemingly based on agreement on tangible well-defined satisfiers, may be undermined and destroyed by these more subtle differences. Variety of knowledge bases: Depending on educational background and related influences, people clearly develop different sets of knowledge by which they guide their behaviour and decisions -- different orientations (cf Paul Feyerabend, Against Method: outline of an anarchistic theory of knowledge, 1975). This is as true in the case of manual skills as in the case of highly specialized education or of hard won survival skills (eg street wisdom). These skills may be most subtly manifest in "people-skills" and decision-making skills. They may be distinguished in terms of the theory of multiple intelligences Difficulties of course arise when those with a particular set of skills claim their superiority over others -- who contest that judgement. Further difficulties arise in the case of various forms of extremism and exceptionalism. Complacency: Problematic circumstances do not necessarily evoke any sense of urgency. Strategies to be noted are tendencies to be satisfied with:
Misguided efforts to mobilize others: The dynamics of this context of arbitrariness are further destabilized by efforts, possibly vigorous (even absurd) efforts, to persuade others to subscribe to a particular belief or mode of action (of which this paper is merely another absurd example). However honourable they may claim to be, these efforts seek to ensure that people:
Complex dynamics: Within the above setting, typical dynamics for an individual or a group, include:
Attention as the primary scarce resourceEach of the above represents a facet of the challenge of managing the ultimate scarce resource, namely attention. Umair Haque (The Attention Economy, Bubblegeneration: the strategy and economics of innovation, 2004) notes that:
This may be expressed in terms of (lack of):
It could be argued that this "attention management" challenge is effectively avoided by reducing attention span -- possibly to a degree indistinguishable from what might otherwise be diagnosed as attention-deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD). At what point is a group's focus on "short-term issues" -- and collective avoidance of medium and long -term issues -- to be construed as effectively a form of attention deficit disorder? The tendency of governments to focus on short-term issues has been widely remarked, if only in relation to their status in frequent opinion polls but certainly in anticipation of the next election. A similar phenomenon is noted in relation to corporations preoccupied by financial reporting cycles and their stockmarket implications. In a different way it is noted with respect to the framing of academic research or social development projects -- dependent in each case on responsiveness to short-term, "flavour of the month", institutional funding priorities. How is scarce attention time to be managed and allocated in response to competing demands? Are individuals and groups effectively to be characterized as having their own private "developing worlds" to which very little attention is accorded, despite having been "colonized" and "exploited" by them at some stage? How is the erosion of collective memory to be prevented? As noted above, whereas there is wide recognition of the tragedy of individual memory loss associated with alzheimer's disease, little is said about collective memory loss within a group or culture (cf Societal Learning and the Erosion of Collective Memory: a critique of the Club of Rome Report, 1980). How is the capacity to engage with longer-term cycles to be cultivated (cf Engaging Macrohistory through the Present Moment, 2004)? Especially significant is the fact that the hourly cost of professional attention time may be of the same order as the annual income of many in need of such services in order to navigate in an increasingly complex soceity. As a resource issue, even an energy resource issue, the management of attention resources could potentially be reviewed in the light of principles of economics. In a sense the conventional financial currency of economics -- through which confidence is attributed to particular tokens -- could be considered as but a particular instance of the more generic or fundamental energy of attention. This suggests the possibility of an interesting way of reframing the conventional economic transactions of "import" and "export" in attention terms, namely in relation to "important" and "exportant". ***** Beyond knowledge: "wisdom"?In this context of knowledge surfeit and attention scarcity, what kind of coherence can be usefully sought or advocated -- if any? What sort of whole does one seek to make of oneself -- or of one's group? For whom? Or is the challenge in the dynamic -- the dance -- rather than in any structure? The challenge is dramatized in the legacy obsession of leaders of countries, dynasties, religions and schools of thought. What kind of monument is to be left -- for whose appreciation? How different is that from the preoccupation of the pharaohs with the construction of monuments to themselves and the decoration of their tombs? The challenge is further dramatized in the concern about "dying with dignity" -- and the various legislative measures to prevent this, strongly supported by religious groups. Whereas knowledge may enable humanity to travel to the planets, it has proven inadequate to the challenge of determining the conditions under which prolonging life painfully is inappropriate. A striking demonstration of "wisdom deficiency"? This of course contrasts with the amount of intelligence and resources diligently applied for purposes of "defence" to ensure the painful termination of life on a massive scale -- and with any subsequent process of "commemoration"? A number of spiritual disciplines attach meaning to the process of "dying to the world" -- as an indication of wisdom. This reframes the interesting challenge of what is "left behind" as a consequence of what evangelical Christians might choose to label as "rapture". What is the "remainder" that wisdom does not encompass and "raise up"? The question is further reframed by the experience acclaimed in the Hindu tradition as mahasamadhi, namely a yogi's conscious leaving of the body at death and total merging of any conscious attachments with the divine. Irrespective of any individual exemplification of "wisdom", how is the dynamic amongst the "wise" to be characterized and distinguished from any dynamic of a lesser order? (cf Council of the Whys: emergent wisdom through configuration of why-question dynamics, 2006 ) "Hyperconnectivity"Mark Pesce, as an Australian futures consultant, asks the vital question "what happens when we are all connected" -- namely the effect on "hyperpeople" as a consequence of "hyperconnectivity". He focuses on the nature of "hyperintelligence" (Mark Pesce, Hyperintelligence, 2 June 2006) in the light of the explosive growth of Wikipedia as a collective knowledge phenomenon:
An alternative perspective is offered by Peter Voss (Why Machines will become Hyper-Intelligent before Humans do, 2001). There is a need to clarify any distinction between hyperintelligence and "hypergifted" -- namely beyond "supergifted". Hypergiftedness has been tentatively defined as an IQ of "four+ sigma", namely in excess of 180 (The Role of the Hyperbright in a Rational Society) [more]. A question is then, given the possibility of hyperintelligence, what is to be expected from supergifted and hypergifted groups -- "hypergroups"? Research consideration has been given to a "collective intelligence quotient" (or "cooperation quotient"). Pointers include:
There is however little direct reference to a "collective intelligence quotient". How might such an assessment be made in the light of available data. Possibilities include:
One approach takes the form of a Harnessing Team Intelligence Scorecard. Another emphasizes emotional intelligence in teamwork [more | more]. There is widespread concern with "business intelligence", notably in relation to "competitive intelligence", but seemingly no sense of how it is to be assessed -- or how it is related to "team spirit". Exceptions include:
At issue is the possibility of establishing a scale from extremes of "collective stupidity" to extremes of "collective intelligence". A test of this scale might be the capacity to position on it the "intelligence failure" recognized in relation to detection of "weapons of mass destructiuon" (cf Report on the U.S. Intelligence Community's Pre-War Assessments on Iraq, 9 July 2004) [more | more] And yet -- without surprisingly high levels of collective intelligence becoming evident -- it could be said that forms of hyperconnectivity already exist:
These examples help to contrast distinct connotations of the prefix "hyper" in the argument that follows:
In practice, use of the prefix "hyper" in a particular case may emphasize any one of the above connotations. Type 1 variants will tend to obscure Type 2 variants, and those of subtype (a) will tend to obscure those of subtype (b). The potential significance of uses of "hyper" cited below needs therefore to be considered in terms of all variants -- but especially Type 2b. In the case of "hyperconnectivity", for example, this may be considered as pathological when there is potentially dysfunctional misconnection of some form (as with autism or potentially problematic emergence of "supernodes"). On the other hand, when the creative challenge is to "connect up the dots" in an unforeseen higher order pattern of new significance, hyperconnectivity is much to be welcomed -- unless it is a case of groupthink (cf Groupthink: the Search for Archaeoraptor as a Metaphoric Tale, 2002). This is especially the case where the essential nature of challenging problems of society lies not in the fact that they are "mega-problems" or "super-problems" in a quantitative sense but rather that they are "hyperproblems" of a higher order -- the "crisis of crises" as first envisaged by John Platt:
However the point with respect to "hypercomprehension" in what follows may well be the need to "think curved" -- or at least laterally -- rather than "think straight" as recommended by Platt. "Hyperreality"?It has also been suggested that the hyperconnectivity catalyzed by the web is accelerating the emergence of a form of "hyperreality". In semiotics and postmodern philosophy, this can be described as a symptom of an evolved, postmodern culture, namely the way the consciousness interacts with "reality" (cf Umberto Eco, Travels in Hyperreality, 1975) [more]. Specifically, when consciousness loses its ability to distinguish reality from fantasy or simulacra, and begins to engage with the latter without understanding what it is doing, it has shifted into the world of the hyperreal. For some writers it refers to the idea that it is no longer possible, in a media-saturated world, to distinguish between what is real and what is not (what is, in essence, a simulation of "reality"). Hyper-reality, therefore, is a situation in which nothing and everything is "real"; it is a situation in which we have lost the ability to distinguish reality and fiction. [more] However this understanding raises fundamental issues about what can be considered real as opposed to a simulacra [more]. This is explained by Nicholas Oberly (reality, hyperreality, 2003):
The nature of the hyperreal world is characterized for some by an "enhancement" of reality. Hyperreality may then be understood as "more than real". Described in the words of Izel Sulam, for example, hyperreality is:
Writing as a physicist, Alan D. Sokal ensured the publication of an article For Transgressing the Boundaries: towards a transformative hermeneutics of quantum gravity (Social Text, 1996) as a purportedly serious contribution to the debate on postmodernism. The author then revealed the article to be a hoax (A Physicist Experiments With Cultural Studies, Lingua Franca, May/June 1996), to the embarassment of many exploring this intersection, and reinforcing the view of sceptics (cf Sokal Hoax, The Sceptics Dictionary) [see Sokal Affair]. An entry in the FreeDictionary on the Sokal Affair however points to limitations in any comments by a qualified physicist on philosophical issues on which he is not comparably qualified (and makes no claims to be):
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