Internet Consciousness
Andrea Chen
One of the Chenian trolls (which like many Chenian trolls contains
at least a fragment of serious thought) is to create an I-net
group mind or more accurately to make our group behaviors (which
are so often predictable) "conscious".
In this context "consciousness" means watching and understanding
behaviors, the interactions in threads and building useful models
(with some predictive capacity) of what is going on. I have touched
on this theme in many posts and am too hurried to go into detail, but
successful communication requires some redundany so I repeating a
small fragment of previous essays.
Bead theory, buttons, McGowan "nodes" and memes are all terms used
to help us dileneate this process as the behavior of somewhat measurable
symbols (we can (especially with the help of pattern finding programs)
observe the occurence of specific symbols). It is my belief that by
articulating such behavior we can alter it (hopefully in productive
ways) just as knowlege of the "troll" has significantly (in the last
year) reduced the noise created by such "meme beings".
This post has been written to help new readers (within the last
two weeks) to this group understand that something serious and
important is going on and that many apparently disassocatiated
fragments are part of a larger purpose. One should note that this
group is producing at several levels. This is a "meta level" which
explains the reason for many posts which are part of the "glass bead
game" the the neu neu topian revolution is inflicting on I-net. There
is far more order than one might think and also far less.
-ac-
p.s. This post is consistent with the Chenian tradition of making all
conspiracies (trolls) public with the confident certainty that people
will fall for them anyway.
drieux, just drieux
wrong Answer Oh Revisionist Toady of Reactionary Reasoning!
there is NO reason that any of this should be Serious,
let alone taken seriously!
Forgive me for returning a very Old Phrase:
"What are they gonna do?
Cut My hair and Put me on the Beach with the Marines?"
I've had the misfortune of knowing the fool who once said:
"What are they Gonna Do?
Send me to Phu Bai?"
and by the end of the hour he was visiting Wonderful Down Town Phu Bai!
But I'll hazard it all, being happily on dry land!
We can no more make an internet consciousness any more than
the PinHeads on the outside can Make of US a culture. I offered
one journalist a momentary flash of reality by pointing him at
the understanding of looking back over the 'Jazz Age' and how
important it was that a minority musical schema was in place
and profitable only when the Wider White Culture was willing to
PAY for it. I see no reason to worry myself with whether or not
I make a 'living' at all of this, I just want to make Jazz.
ciao
drieux
---
This is Not a .sigfile addendum to the Post.
You are just reading beyond the edge.
Andrea Chen
>We can no more make an internet consciousness any more than
>the PinHeads on the outside can Make of US a culture.
Since this is a poetic group, one can use the concept of metaphor.
Since no one knows what "consciousness" is, then you can prove your
claim that no one can "make" it. But a poem about the ocean captures
aspects of the ocean and often from that poem we learn to see things
that we never heard before in the whispering of the white foam.
Mimimalist definitions of mind are possible. "Freewill" is a random
number generator and at least two paths. Certainly not complete, but
it captures an aspect.
Consciousness watching the behaviors of brain (including the filtering
of senses) and taking action on them. I should really archive more of
my stuff (and the others who play with this theme), but I trust in
the capitalists who are saving everything for CD ROM (don't trust in
the Interet itself, it seems few groups are archived).
Anyway I shall attach one of the earlier papers on the subject. Hopefully
Paul Murphy will show up and describe how "His Light In A Vacuum" troll
generated self correcting behavior despite repeated attempts to throw it
off. We are talking new levels, new forms of communication here, perhaps
not new, but vast enough documented enough to be examined for pseudo
mathematical features and be adjusted through feeding variables through
parameters. Mind and brain both share these features and they are metaphors
I like to use.
You have made the positive assertion that we CAN'T use this metaphor,
we can't make I-net mind. In a moment I shall give you some grist
with which to start proving it, but since our BS generators are
infinite, prepare to spend your life doing this while more and
more people believe we actually have.
> I offered
>one journalist a momentary flash of reality by pointing him at
>the understanding of looking back over the 'Jazz Age' and how
>important it was that a minority musical schema was in place
>and profitable only when the Wider White Culture was willing to
>PAY for it.
My point exactly. Thinking of American authors Emily Dickenson is
the only really great one (off the top of my head) who didn't write
for profit. Money is going to be poured into this medium whether
we like it or not, my claim is that artists should be canny and
try to own the means of production rather than take stipends from
Bill Gates. You call this "reactionary".
> I see no reason to worry myself with whether or not
>I make a 'living' at all of this, I just want to make Jazz.
Yes, and you are an old man waiting to die satisfied with things
and a nice lump in your wallet. You always boast how people like
you built this thing, but the problem is your Unix Internet concepts
of text have not yet got up with the TRAC notation (Moers & Deutch
ACM '65) or Snobol (Griswald). In fact, the last I checked the
Catspaw version of Spitbol (speedy implementation of Snobol) was
an order of magnitude faster than Perle with a much richer and simpler
(unless you like C-Unix) notation. The fact that some of us draw our
technological inspiration from the sixties rather than the eighties
may make us reactionary, but lets face facts, even Ritchie has
walked out on Unix. It makes DOS look elegant (and yes we have
32 bit DOS for quite a few years now, its just Bill Gates does
not sell it).
Anyway I will post an article that will let you play with the analogy
of I-net as mind and prove it to be total nonsense.
::note:: this is part of an improv series in programming the
"group computer" brought to you by the neu-neu-topian society for
more borg like behavior. One technique of this experiment is to
attach terminology to "obvious" things so that when certain
events occur, people will have symbols with which to class and
analyze them thus furthering the goal of a more "conscious"
Internet "mind".
::INTERNET BUTTONS::
(A first foray in a very important topic)
Using the metaphor of "thread as synapse" and post as "neural
pulse", the "button" is an unusually powerful set of symbols
which often takes control of the thread and may spawn others. In
some cases a few buttons may take control of an entire group.
Most obvious buttons have a strong emotional base which drives
individual users (metaphorical neurons) to react with a limited
degree of control.
One intriguing area for research is a response to Thad Floryans
claim that alt.alien.visitors regularly "went to hell" between
October and December, the respondents claim being that a
(supposedly documented) increase in certain male hormones during
this period might explain at least some of this observed pattern.
I myself remain agnostic on this issue, but if further study
corraborates it then it might have practical uses beyond Internet
including the movement of United States elections to some other
time of year. While purely speculation at this point (Thads
claim has not been firmly established even for aav much less any
other group), this does indicate that study of the Internet can
be useful in helping to understand and improve the "macro
mind(s)" we call society.
-1- ::GENESIS OF THE BUTTON HYPOTHESIS::
"Buttons" are something that we are aware of. They can be found
in the typical grade school exchange of "You father wears high
heels" followed by "your father swims out to meet troop ships"
sometimes escalating into a bleeding nose. Yet very often the
most important aspects of our lives are under our noses. They
are things we pass every day and barely bother to notice.
My own fixation on buttons was a gradual process and started
after one of my periodic invasions of the alt.syntax.tactical
newsgroup. John Kordic (a cofounder of this group) buttonholed
me and somewhere in our conversation remarked that the quickest
way to get some groups going was to post "I am a fundamentalist
Christian and I support the clipper chip to keep child
pornography off the net" <<*>>
For some reason this statement remained in my mind and slowly
gathered little bits of observation and analysis around itself.
This started to gather together in a pseudo coherancy when I
invoked the name of alt.syntax.tactical on aav.
(For those who don't know the philosophy behind the ast "flame
invaders", they are poor tortured people driven to nihlism
because their utopian dreams of Internet were smashed by the
often dreary reality and who seek to press buttons to the point
that victim groups often self destruct. They are a semi
conscious, partially organized example of that which arises
spontaneously in many individuals (often keyed in by pre-Internet
forces). Although we civilized neu neu-topians seek to use
buttons and other techniques to evolve rather than distroy,
should remember that the origin of some of our "high level"
techniques can be traced to "primitives".)
To return to my main thread, certain behavior of certain
individuals made me suspicious that they were about to re-invoke
flame wars which just a month earlier had engulfed aav in silly
arguments and "this group is going to hell" threads (well before
Thads speculated October beginning).
The response to my innocent speculation was astounding. There
were public denials <<**>> followed by a series of claims that I
was some kind of "disinformation agent" and even (so I have been
told) an underground mail campaign which warned people that I was
a "bitch demon" and that reading my material would result in me
taking control of ones dreams. Being more than a little naive
about "real world" Internet behavior, I must admit that I was
shocked. The resulting trauma caused many ideas to crystallize
and although "buttons" are only a small part of my Internet
"theories", their triggering role makes them a logical beginning
for this course of studies.
The main thread of this article continues a page down after the
nested footnotes in A SEMI-FORMAL APPROACH TO BUTTON BEHAVIORS.
::*:: This Kordic "button" consists of at least 3 buttons
(Fundamentalist, clipper, child porn), and indicates that a
button is not merely a single token, but is best looked at in
terms of nested set theory where in some cases the empty set
(null) can be a button. Use of empty set buttons was
demonstrated by a certain Mr Blake on aav by sending a large
number of nearly blank posts, an event which makes his name a
heavily charged "button" on that group to this day.
::**:: When I expressed my sincere concern that aav was being
"invaded", the result was more than bizarre accusations directed
at me, my very assertion was "morphed". While I had specified
alt.syntax.tactical (a charge which John Kordic himself latter
assured me was absurd), those who felt accused seemed to think I
had said "Legions Of Doom". In the complex information ecology
of aav, this is possibly important. The recognized "net diety"
of the group mysteriously dissapeared after leaving a thread
called "El Legion" (evidently a collection of super heroes).
Following this the Hastings Society Of Scholars (HU Society)
posted a number of posts in which comic book characters were used
to illustrate a number of points <<***>>. When I accidently put
certain individuals into stress, they fell into self definitions
which placed them into this modern North American pantheon. A
number of possible insights arose from this.
A. Individuals who set out certain symbolic structures, may be
created systems of "low key buttons" into which people press
themselves "naturally". In addition to "hot buttons" explored
in this essay we might propose "subliminal buttons" (and perhaps
a wide variety of others). Use of conjunctions and disjunctions
of these various "button types" might allow us to set up very
complex patterns of stimulus and response in which the actors in
the Internet drama behave like puppets. There is some
experimental evidence (which can't be disclosed at this time for
fear of ruining the experiment(s)) which adds plausibility to
this hypothesis.
B. Individuals did not just fit themselves into any old idea
cluster, but around an "archetypical cluster", a modern North
American form of the mythical structures that Carl Jung wrote so
much about. For "new age pycho-beablests", the ramifications
are immense and I hope to touch more deeply on them in the
future. Another interesting aside is the role ast had in my
own understanding of button theory. There may be a certain
"symbolic synchronicity" here. Even if one does not buy notions
of an Internet "collective unconscious", an exploration of
Jungian themes might give one useful ideas for pattern searches
within and across newsgroups.
::***:: eg. superman approaches the speed of light and acquires
near infinite density which creates a "black hole" breaking out
into this 3 dimensional (spatial) universe where the possible
creator of it all is a 2 dimensional fictional character who can
travel freely in the 3rd/4th dimension (time) since pages and
film can be played in reverse.
--2-- ::A SEMI-FORMAL APPROACH TO BUTTON BEHAVIORS::
I will be the first to admit that button theory is in the "pre
scientific stage". I am not sure that it will ever become a
science. Quite possibly the programming of the human/machine
symbiotic called Internet will remain, like classical computer
programming, an "art".
The following is only a quick sketch of some ideas that I think
are worth exploring. I should note that these are only a
fraction of my thoughts on the subject. I believe this area of
study violates certain taboos and (as with dreams), insights are
quickly repressed unless one takes special care to keep track of
them.
Having spent five minutes thinking about it, I have decided that
breaking the common social prohibition against discussing the
programming of people is the "right" thing to do. Whether we
like it or not we are programmed by salespeople and we program
ourselves.
The Internet is a hotbed of people unconsciously and half
consciously tweaking it into all kinds of wierd forms. An
objective analysis of the behaviors involved makes us more self
aware (a potential advantage in all parts of our lives) and it
promises the possibility of semi aware ("pseudo conscious?")
Internet group mind which can look at and adjust its behavior.
The following is only a brief sketch and scratch on the subject.
In the future I hope to develop it more fully and I hope others
will join me.
--2.1-- ::THE FIRST EXPERIMENTAL SUBJECT::
When the "interface" into a computational device is a human, one
is dealing with a highly mixed, complexly connected domain. To a
certain extent, buttons can be abstracted ("objectified") and
their effects studied, but by definition this is an "incomplete
reality". The textual record catches only parts of what is
happening. Fortunatly we all have an instrument for studying the
hidden behavior of Internet buttons. This is our "self".
All of us are subject to having our various buttons pressed. And
there are some out there whose major purpose in life seems to be
pressing them. By watching what we react to and how, we can
insight on the various net behaviors we wish to study and/or
influence.
One particularly useful goal is to acquire the "Zen of neu-
kibology" in which one detaches oneself from the flux and bustle
while watching and acting without attachment. The great master
of this art was the gentle "John Wisdom" (known as John Winston
to net denizens) whose masterful work will live as long as
Internet. Legend has it that he has entered into the very
Internet infrastructure (underworld) of this electronic being and
soon his spirit will emege with every posting.
--2.2-- ::CYBERNETIC BEHAVIORS OF BUTTONS::
Directing the flows of group dialogues is a tricky and inexact
business. Complexes of words are not formal logics with clearcut
meanings and the processors (people) who react to such complexes
follow a wide variety of "logics". The art of controlling the
group mind (Internet) is inexact and will probaly remain a matter
of probabilities and rough directions with a lot of random idea
generators flipping the process into unexpected directions.
Still there is some basis for believing that we can apply
Wienerian concepts to group interactions and use them to at least
partially explain what we see.
This study is still in its infancy. Scholars are going to have
to analyze many actual exchanges and many new concepts will have
to be introduced. The following is only meant to show that there
is some basis for this approach and that models used in a wide
variety of other systems may be applied to the communication
going on in newsgroups.
--2.2.1-- ::TRIGGERS::
One form of classic Internet trigger is called a "troll". The
creator enters a text button which is virtually guaranteed to
bring a certain predictable response. Studies of various
triggers and their responses (which may vary from group) is still
limited, but hopefully in the future, a comphrensive catalog
will be produced. A trigger is a simple button.
--2.2.2-- ::LOOPS::
A more complex button is to introduce a troll which produce a
response which will trigger a counter response resulting in a
flame war in which two or more participants repeat the same thing
over for a number of cycles. A great deal of research needs to
be done in finding out how to create a certain number of cycles
and how to limit or amplify the amount of new information created
in each.
Logically the structure is if A (first troll), then B, then A
(non troll). One can hope for structures of the form If A, then
B, then C, then .., then N. Once again a great deal of research
and analysis is necessary.
--2.2.3-- ::STOP SIGNALS::
Often buttons get out of control. Kibology has discovered a list
of words with a high probality of stopping a thread. Hopefully
somebody will tag that list onto this thread. It has also been
my observation that good posts can drive out bad so if you enter
a post that is one subject and introduces new ideas, then there
is a good chance that thread expansion will be stopped or
reduced.
--2.2.4-- ::JUMPING BUTTONS::
The controls dealt with so far are similar to the protein
controls in Monads "Chance And Necessity" (a classic on the
cybernetic nature of life). This fourth logic is similar to
McClintocks "transpons". In certain cases, a button will jump
to other threads or even groups. Trying to figure the whys and
hows, along with how buttons combine with and mutate each other
is a promising field of study for the Internet scholar.
--2.3-- ::REAL WORLD USES OF BUTTONS::
We of the neu neu topian faith regard the Internet as our temple,
a first imperfect neural system for Gaia. Like the attendants of
Horus we must feed it fresh rat and imp when necessary. The
"button" is one of the means by which we can raise newsgroups to
their full potential, we can use it to help doctress the weak and
chronically boring.
As stated before, this paper can only be a brief introduction to
button theory (in part because the theory is not yet developed),
so I will only list a few possible uses of this wonderful
(possibly fictional) tool.
--2.3.1-- ::FINE TUNING::
It is not uncommon for a new user or a trouble maker to drop a
message into a group which immediately sets of a deluge of
responses. A chain letter is one example, but there are
numerous others (one might want to contact ast for more details).
Such behavior can distort a group.
One way of visualizing this group is as being oversensitive,
certain stimulus act like pain and overwhelm all else. One
wishes to lower and smooth the response. To a large extent, this
has already been done by those who love noise for the sake of
noise. Most people have learned that hyperactive responses to
"wasted bandwidth" waste more bandwidth than the original. Still
in examining a group, one must always be aware that a little
fine tuning is necessary. If uncertain how to do this put "kibo"
in one of your posts and she or one of her helpers (James Parry
is the most famous) may give you advice. This is one of the
Internet services that many new users are unaware of.
--2.3.2-- ::ISOLATION BACTERIA::
In many groups there is a small set of individuals who love to
engage in throwing acid and disregarding the advice of Smokey the
Bear. In theory, a small number of carefully placed buttons can
get this subset involved in endless loops which occupy all their
time. If you engage in this method be prepared to have perpetual
slanders thrown at you, for once you get such things going, some
people will never stop. Several people in aav have responded
that way to me even though I periodically throw out peace feelers
and useful psychological advise meant to help them understand
their dysfunctions.
--2.3.3-- ::DIRECTING DISCUSSION FLOWS::
One of the neu neu topian goals is to search out a kinder and
gentler set of buttons, to make a thousand lights blossum in
every group. Buttons need not only act on the emotions, they
can act on the intellect and if emotional, they can be soft
rather than harsh.
Taking time to analyze a group, using tools such as redundancy
to seed ideas, working hard for gradual, but real improvements
these are the goals of the neu neu topian.
--3-- ::CONCLUSION::
Programming the Internet with its millions of neurons (humans) is
still a rough and imperfect art. We have only scratched the
surface and I am convinced that our methods must be pluralist.
There is no "right" set of concepts which will make things easy.
For some buttons will click and suddenly their power of creating
and directing communication will increase. For others, an
entirely different approach will be necessary.
In the future, I hope to touch upon other approaches, on other
ideas which give us a way of looking at what we are creating.
Those who find none of my ideas useful should think of their own
approaches and post these.
For in a fundamantal, but poorly understood way "the medium is
the message". And we are part of the medium. To think about
the behaviors that go on about us is to create a sort of Chan
(Zen) meditation where "awareness" looks as the rest of us
performs actions (including thought). It is a sort of meta
consciousness which if developed may lead to Internet becoming
the first "real AI" (of a symbiotic form).
Andrea "Doctress Neu Neu Topia" Chen
This concludes this broadcast.
NO CARRIER
Schwann
I recommend we prescribe liberal dosae of spiritual LSD to his troll.
Maybe then he will remember.
schwann cyber-shaemon
mike.k...@gmail.com
Schwann Cybershaman