Is the Global Brain a good idea?
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Aleksandar Malečić
Sep 25, 2016, 1:16:49 PM9/25/16
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If not, why not? https://sites.google.com/site/gbialternative1
joseph simpson
Sep 25, 2016, 4:54:24 PM9/25/16
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Not good...
Provides a single point of failure...
Take care be good to yourself and have fun,
Joe
On Sun, Sep 25, 2016 at 10:16 AM, Aleksandar Malečić <ljma...@gmail.com> wrote:
If not, why not? https://sites.google.com/site/gbialternative1
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Joe Simpson
“Reasonable people adapt themselves to the world.
Unreasonable people attempt to adapt the world to themselves.
All progress, therefore, depends on unreasonable people.”
- George Bernard Shaw
Lenard Troncale
Sep 25, 2016, 6:05:20 PM9/25/16
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Global Brain. This is a fantasy. We cannot even understand the most basic physiology or molecular biology of a simple neural net (how it becomes and maintains itself as a net from a plethora of previously connected neurons; also how it connects with other neural
nets among billions or represents anything outside the brain at all) so how could we hope to assemble a global brain? I would label this vapid, nonsensical New Age terminology with prejudice and unapologetically.
I would hope that this group would depart form discussion of politics as well as New Age phrases or dreams like Global Brain and get back to the basics of understanding real systems. If we do not get the basics to consensus first, we will continue
to be a group that “believes” in systems, but cannot deliver systems or advice about systems because we are an unfounded, untested belief system, not a researching system. Leave, for now, the meta-applications to the New Age visionaries.
IMHO, the current quasi-stable world system is approaching a tipping point not only of climate, but of so many other dysergic crises simultaneously that it is most probable that a century from now we will not even have what we have now. Sorry
to be so pessimistic; or is it just another prophecy in a long line of same that will come about anyway……….
Len
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Hillary Sillitto
Sep 25, 2016, 6:12:49 PM9/25/16
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Picking up on Len's last point, those who have not yet seen it might like to look at the 'Planetary Boundaries' work at the Stockholm Resilience Centre. 9 critical thresholds in the planetary system's ability to maintain homeostasis that we either have already crossed, or are speeding towards.Sent from Gmail Mobile
Paola Di Maio
Sep 26, 2016, 7:36:42 AM9/26/16
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Thanks Alaksander for sharing
I dont consider the GB an 'idea'
but something massive and important that we can observe as happening
(includes this discussion group)
JS should elaborate more on sincle point of failure\
(dont see how the concept is applicable here)
and disagree with LT that its a new age thing
the GB is a big thing happening, and we should understand it more, if at all possible
:-)
pdm
On Mon, Sep 26, 2016 at 4:54 PM, <syss...@googlegroups.com> wrote:
- Read Ahead Material For The Saturday, October 1st SMP Video Conference - 1 Update
- Is the Global Brain a good idea? - 4 Updates
- Is antiglobalism good from the systems perspective? - 5 Updates
- CSER 2017 Call for Papers - 1 Update
joseph simpson <jjs...@gmail.com>: Sep 25 09:55PM -0700
Team:
Please see the attached documents for a session overview and general
outline of the topics to be covered.
The SMP open source software is moving along nicely.
The SMP open source software capability will be one of the main topics this
month.
Take care, be good to yourself and have fun,
Joe
--
Joe Simpson
“Reasonable people adapt themselves to the world. Unreasonable people
attempt to adapt the world to themselves. All progress, therefore, depends
on unreasonable people.”
George Bernard Shaw
If not, why not? https://sites.google.com/site/gbialternative1
joseph simpson <jjs...@gmail.com>: Sep 25 01:54PM -0700
Not good...
Provides a single point of failure...
Take care be good to yourself and have fun,
Joe
On Sun, Sep 25, 2016 at 10:16 AM, Aleksandar Malečić <ljma...@gmail.com>
wrote:
--
Joe Simpson
“Reasonable people adapt themselves to the world. Unreasonable people
attempt to adapt the world to themselves. All progress, therefore, depends
on unreasonable people.”
George Bernard Shaw
Lenard Troncale <lrtro...@cpp.edu>: Sep 25 10:05PM
Global Brain. This is a fantasy. We cannot even understand the most basic physiology or molecular biology of a simple neural net (how it becomes and maintains itself as a net from a plethora of previously connected neurons; also how it connects with other neural nets among billions or represents anything outside the brain at all) so how could we hope to assemble a global brain? I would label this vapid, nonsensical New Age terminology with prejudice and unapologetically.
I would hope that this group would depart form discussion of politics as well as New Age phrases or dreams like Global Brain and get back to the basics of understanding real systems. If we do not get the basics to consensus first, we will continue to be a group that “believes” in systems, but cannot deliver systems or advice about systems because we are an unfounded, untested belief system, not a researching system. Leave, for now, the meta-applications to the New Age visionaries.
IMHO, the current quasi-stable world system is approaching a tipping point not only of climate, but of so many other dysergic crises simultaneously that it is most probable that a century from now we will not even have what we have now. Sorry to be so pessimistic; or is it just another prophecy in a long line of same that will come about anyway……….
Len
On Sep 25, 2016, at 1:54 PM, joseph simpson <jjs...@gmail.com<mailto:jjs0s...@gmail.com>> wrote:
Not good...
Provides a single point of failure...
Take care be good to yourself and have fun,
Joe
On Sun, Sep 25, 2016 at 10:16 AM, Aleksandar Malečić <ljma...@gmail.com<mailto:ljmal...@gmail.com>> wrote:
If not, why not? https://sites.google.com/site/gbialternative1
--
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Joe Simpson
“Reasonable people adapt themselves to the world.
Unreasonable people attempt to adapt the world to themselves.
All progress, therefore, depends on unreasonable people.”
George Bernard Shaw
--
The SysSciWG wiki is at https://sites.google.com/site/syssciwg/.
Contributions to the discussion are licensed by authors under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 3.0 Unported License.
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Hillary Sillitto <hsil...@googlemail.com>: Sep 25 11:12PM +0100
Picking up on Len's last point, those who have not yet seen it might like
to look at the 'Planetary Boundaries' work at the Stockholm Resilience
Centre. 9 critical thresholds in the planetary system's ability to maintain
homeostasis that we either have already crossed, or are speeding towards.
http://www.stockholmresilience.org/research/planetary-boundaries.html
--
Sent from Gmail Mobile
Jack Ring <jri...@gmail.com>: Sep 25 08:17AM -0500
First you all would be wise to agree on what you mean by ‘the economy’ and ‘not the economy’
"Ferris, Tim" <Timothy...@cranfield.ac.uk>: Sep 25 04:20PM
Everyone,
I have recently noticed a tendency in this group to open discussion of matters which are inherently political. Given the room for extreme emotional reactions to expression of political views, and the fact that the majority of the participants here are specialists in other fields who may think they know something about the technical fields of these discussions I do not see these discussions as particularly helpful.
Discussion tends to get very emotive when people start talking about things they do not really understand.
It would be more helpful for most participants here if the discussion focused on how to understand complex socio-technical systems when there is an intention to make some kind of systemic intervention in the situation.
Dr Tim Ferris
From: syss...@googlegroups.com [mailto:syssciwg@googlegroups.com] On Behalf Of Jack Ring
Sent: Sunday, 25 September 2016 2:17 PM
To: Sys Sci <syss...@googlegroups.com>
Subject: Re: [SysSciWG] Is antiglobalism good from the systems perspective?
First you all would be wise to agree on what you mean by ‘the economy’ and ‘not the economy’
On Sep 25, 2016, at 2:03 AM, 'Hillary Sillitto' via Sys Sci Discussion List <syss...@googlegroups.com<mailto:syssciwg@googlegroups.com>> wrote:
I think the key globalisation issue is whether the economy exists to serve society, or vice versa. With rapidly increasing inequality it starts looking like the latter, and that threatens the moral legitimacy of the current economic order.
On Sunday, 25 September 2016, Steven Krane <sk5...@gmail.com<mailto:sk57ca...@gmail.com>> wrote:
It seems clear that the struggle is for profit. Whose? How?
Whose (principles) = humanity, ref. The Declaration of Independence USA, among others, slavery notwithstanding. Not > dollarized shareholder.
How: A system designed to idealize the principles.
There may be others, but in terms of longevity and adherence to the principles of liberty and justice, the US govt is pretty good, relatively speaking. Although, there are many corrosive forces at work and it is uncertain whether the Republic, the system, can withstand them without itself being corroded, there is reason to believe that men and women of goodwill can bring liberty and justice for all, by action, alone. Reason is inert.
On Sep 24, 2016, at 4:52 PM, Aleksandar Malečić <ljma...@gmail.com<javascript:_e(%7B%7D,'cvml','ljmal...@gmail.com');>> wrote:
"Trust" is the key word. It's potentially dangerous/destructive in the long run if people don't trust each other, or when they are fake and shallow. One candidate (the US elections) talks about bridges, so what the hey, the other one will talk about bridges. Etc.
Aleksandar
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Steve Wallis <swa...@sbcglobal.net>: Sep 25 12:11PM -0700
I think that this will become one of the most important questions of the
21st century. Without (one of) the greatest drivers of political unions
(the military threat of other unions), I suspect that we are on the cusp of
a new age. only time (and good scholarship) will tell what happens next.
From a systemic (and a-political) perspective (to the extent that such is
objectively possible for me), it seems reasonable to say that all
nations/states/etc. are inescapably part of the global socio/economic/etc
system (sub-systems, etc). The (inter-related) questions becomes (imho)
what part do they play in the system and "how systemic" are the
relationships within and between those systems? of course, if some region
were to opt for complete isolationism, that would cause certain problems.
The "right" of self-determination sounds wonderful. Can it be taken "too
far?" On a micro-scale... What about those individuals in the USA who want
to be considered "sovereign individuals?" Does that mean that the US
should/might/must negotiate a new treaty with every individual? Or, is
there some kind of generic treaty already in place so the US can say "sign
here and take the rights and responsibilities of citizenship... or move
somewhere else."
On the meso-scale, would it be possible/desirable for cities or small
geographic areas to set themselves apart from their parent nation? A ton of
paperwork... but might there be some benefits to renegotiation?
When we think about Brexit, that is (in some way) the situation. The UK is
saying "we are out." And, now, all sides must renegotiate their
relationships. Yes - a paperwork nightmare. But when the dust settles, my
guess is that a few things will change and most relationships will remain
the same. Does the UK have the resources to renegotiate everything with
everybody from the ground-up? I wonder. more likely, they will start with
existing EU agreements and work on a few key points... and rubber-stamp the
rest. Sure, if regional groups (Chechnya, Catalonia, California, etc.)
want to disconnect from their formal parents, that will certainly cause
some issues. But... what will "really" change (open to substantive and
carefully considered intellectual conversation!)?
But isn't this one of the most important aspects of systems? Where agents
have the ability or perhaps the requirement to renegotiate their
relationships with other agents. And, in the process, create a more
effective/mutually beneficial system? Seems to me, this is the kind of
situation where systems thinkers have the opportunity (and the ability) to
do some of the fundamental thinking and to lead the way into the 21st
century of global politics (if the USA had a lick of sense, the government
would scrap an aircraft carrier or two and use the money to fund an awesome
cadre of diplomats that would repay the cost many times over... but that is
another story).
We don't have "the" answer yet (or a more useful collection of answers) but
this topic would be worthy of a book or a few special issues for journals.
What is the history of nations/regions/cities forming and disconnecting?
What does the world look like from a systemic-political perspective... and
how has looked through time? What are the benefits/detriments of a large
number of unaligned states, what are the benefits/detriments a small number
of mega-states at war (or threat of war, etc). Does Orwell's 1984 figure
into this? If California (for a local example, for me) were to leave the
US, would that weaken the US to the point that other states around the
pacific rim would form a union sufficient to invade and thus threaten both
California and the US? What about a more flexible set of military/economic
treaties to enable the collective adaptation for such situations? it seems
that systems thinkers should be on the policy staffs of nations (ant their
sub-components) everywhere.
As long as we are careful to keep this within our systemic expertise and
not be taunted by our personal prejudices, we can make a powerful
Thanks,
Steve
On Saturday, September 24, 2016 at 12:28:16 PM UTC+2, Aleksandar Malečić
wrote:
Steve Wallis <swa...@sbcglobal.net>: Sep 25 12:24PM -0700
Oh yes... on an only slightly related note... I'm not sure that
"anti-globalism" is quite the same thing as regional independence.
I suppose it is possible for a separatist region to "build a wall" around
itself to completely separate itself from the other nations of the world.
That would certainly limit the benefits of the global systems. That,
however, would also be destructive (as most people with an understanding of
systems would understand).
And (if I may toss a note to Russia) there are probably way to support the
(relative) independence of various regions that would enhance the economic
strength of Russia!
Thanks,
Steve
On Saturday, September 24, 2016 at 12:28:16 PM UTC+2, Aleksandar Malečić
wrote:
Steven Krane <sk5...@gmail.com>: Sep 25 12:50PM -0700
Many interesting links in the reading lists on X-archys. IMO, systems thinkers avoiding discussions about systems of governance because they are perceived to be too emotionally charged is a dereliction of duty. Who else will lead the way? It is very simple to discuss the subject without reference to the individual actors who come and go and are themselves produced by the systems of interest.
http://www.panarchy.org/gall/systemantics.html
James Martin <mart...@gmail.com>: Sep 25 10:50AM -0400
Paper deadline has been extended to Nov 1st for the Conference on SE
Research.
http://viterbi.usc.edu/sae/cser2017.htm
IMPORTANT DEADLINES
-
*October 2, 2016: Full papers due (Extended to November 1 2016) *
- *December 15, 2016: Notification to authors*
- *February 1, 2017: Final conference papers due*
--
James
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Aleksandar Malečić
Sep 26, 2016, 12:20:33 PM9/26/16
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Isn't a single ideology or infrastructure also a single point of potential failure? If there is a need for renewable energy or some other change of infrastructure (physical or virtual or both), people should better be sure that other people will be willing to use it and that it actually is renewable and sustainable (For how many years? Is there a need for smart grids (supply chains, the internet of things...) and how smart it should be?). And replaceable somehow (with something else) if it fails to be sustainable.
Elgg and Ning are "platforms" I can think of that might resemble attempts of the Global Brainon the Web. If something starts resembling that single point of success or failure, what to do the next time someone tries to "kill" it? http://www.forbes.com/sites/forrester/2011/06/30/is-google-going-to-kill-facebook/#6468cd64667d
PDM
Sep 27, 2016, 5:10:22 AM9/27/16
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Actually
I also wanted to add that I agree with LT that we should adhere to a system engineering and system theoretical
approach, and that I think it can be applied to understand the GB,
Maybe doing so, could help us further systems thinking towards the General Systems Theory.
The GB may have already existed, albeit in tacit form. Now thanks to the www. its beoming explicit
albeing in unstructured, creative and chaotic form. This is good, but still of limited efficacy in terms
of solving human global level problems.
When we develop better knowledge systems, we
may be able to see something new and powerful
PDM
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