Holotopia: Collective Mind

H O L O T O P I A    P R O T O T Y P E

Collective Mind

Pitch

The Internet, the interactive media technology... Isn't that's the most modern part of our civilization? Isn't that what we are most proud of? We are not comparing that with a pair of handles?

Scope

What is at issue here is the way in which all that fancy technology has been used. More precisely—the very principle of operation of our 'collective minds', which this technology has enabled us to create, by connecting us together in a new way. Is it still using 'fire' (the way of functioning that the printing press as technology made possible); or does it take due advantage of the specific advantages that the new technology has to offer?

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Insight

Our civilization is like an overgrown organism, so poorly coordinated that it presents a danger to its environment, and to itself. It has recently acquired a nervous system, which could help its organs coordinate their action; but its cells have not yet learned how to use it.

Without thinking, we've adopted broadcasting (which suited the old technology) to be the way. But broadcasting leads to collective insanity—not to collective intelligence, as it was intended.

Federating the TITLE

Stories

V. Bush – Engelbart

The network-interconnected interactive digital media technology, which is in common use today, was created to serve as a collective mind of a new kind—and provide us with the collective capabilities we are now lacking, to be able to tackle our increasingly complex and urgent problems.

We used this technology to only broadcast information!

Douglas Engelbart

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I M A G E
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Myths and Errors

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"Interesting" means "relevant"

The myth (analogous to the myth of convenience) that we can relegate the choice of information to what feels interesting or attractive to people. And sidetracking the key question—what should information be like, and how should it be used so that our society, and our democracy, may function.

"Published" means "known"

The myth that when something is "published" (by broadcasting), it is automatically "known".

And the closely related myth that the book and the article are the information structuring formats.

Of course, both errors we've simply adopted from the traditional culture—without noticing that the new technology not only enables, but also requires a thorough re-design.

What keeps the contemporary 'Galilei in house arrest' is that (1) his ideas are confined to speculations, imprisoned in an inaccessible language in some inaccessible publication, and (2) lost in the "information jungle".