November 6, 2009
- Interplanetary Spacebased Internet System -
Just a shot in the dark with that title…
As pointed out this article in Wired UK (found via Klint Finley’s Mutate!), Google recently unveiled that their NAdroid phones will use a new internet protocol known as DTN (delay tolerant networking, something created with the help of the JPL). This is an alternative to the current TCP based internet that we all know, love, and run rampant on every day. As the Wired UK article points out, Google was “eventually forced to acknowledge that TCP simply couldn’t cut the mustard, with massive delay and data loss caused by celestial motion rendering TCP useless.”
“There was a little problem called the speed of light,” joked a typically playful (Vint) Cerf, as he outlined the idea to the OpenMobileSummit conference in San Francisco. “When Earth and Mars are closest, we’re 35 million miles apart, and it’s a three and a half minute trip one way, seven minutes for a round trip. Then when we’re farthest apart, we’re 235 million miles – 20 minutes one way, 40 minutes round trip.“
So Google went looking for something that didn’t need a reliable connection. DTN was just the thing, as it sets up to buffer (you know what that is if you’ve ever watched a video on the internet) all communications until a stable connection is established. Basically, it’ll hold your email to Mars until it’s sure the Martians are able to pay attention.
Exciting stuff; the idea of a space based internet system is a good one. Although the Wired article claims that “most people don’t have a need for regular satellite communication”, not everyone thinks so. In fact, DARPA is looking to build just such a (albeit groundbased) system for inter-satellite communication by 2012. A recent (and lengthy) comments conversation with Reclusland regular Speedbird explores the topic from a slightly different angle. If you want to read through the conversation, you can start here.
We (or at least I) tend to get a bit overly mystical when talking about this stuff, but that’s just a personal penchant for trying to clarify connecting patterns seen between the “post-information-scarcity” technology revolution we find ourselves in the midst of, and older, mystical/numinous ways of seeing the world and our place in it. There are too many parallels between the two for me to ignore them. Maybe it’s just an attempt to see the dharma through the age of a new lens, but hey, I enjoy it.
Anyway, one conclusion drawn from that discussion, that’s relevant to this post, is the idea of a sort of global wi-fi/ubiquitous/ambient computer network. Sure, anything like that seems to be too far away in the future to dream about, but technology has a funny way of evolving way quicker than our common sense expects it to. This points to “a truly distributed field where all the computers can access all the other computers equally at all moments. Each computer would be a holographic representation of the entire internet, because the entire connected net of other computers would be accessible instantaneously from that one computer. The whole internet reflected in a dewdrop, so to speak. Do that, make the computers something that can be carried on a person at all times, that can interact with each other wirelessly in real time regardless of distance, and make file exchange near-instantaneous, and bam, thats it.”
“It” being an idea that’s been bounced around a lot in the more fringe cultures in the past few decades. Marshall McLuhan called it an “echoing land” or “global village”, when all of humanity would share enough of a common culture to have it’s subconscious aspects manifest more directly within it, as it did/does in smaller isolated tribes. I like to think of this as something akin to the Australian Aborigines’ “Dream Time“. Teilhard de Chardin called it the Noosphere. I’ve also drawn parallels to the Age of Aquarius as well, where man pours water out over the world, water being a symbol for mind (And Aquarius supposedly rules electronics as well, for what that’s worth).
Basically, with such an easy and instantaneous way for people to interact and communicate, enough of the outside worries are taken care of that the inside can manifest itself more fully into the consciousness. Sort of shot at a Mass-Maslow-self-actualization. That’s the dream anyway. And you know what Google says about dreams: “When a great dream shows up, grab it!”
See also this short back and forth on twitter:
integralmath: With new ideas,lifestyles,& possibilities like never before, no one can objectively claim their course is “right”.
reclusland: @integralmath thank you, internet.
Comment by Ian — November 6, 2009 @ 4:58 pm
Mars? WTF?
Actually I don’t understand that tweet either. Feeling a bit slow over here, must be jetlag ;D
Comment by speedbird — November 7, 2009 @ 4:39 pm
Yeah, apparently Google is planning to market their new phones to the Martians. :)
As for the tweet, the integral math guy is saying that there are too many options (ideas, lifestyles, personalities) out there now for any one person to claim that they are “objectively right”.
And I’m saying, in reply to him, that this is thanks to the internet.
The twitter language does take some getting used to. Jetlag, eh? More traveling?
Comment by Ian — November 9, 2009 @ 11:41 am
Yeah but no but, I mean, I know what it /says/, I’m just not sure what it /means/. It seems to imply there’s no ‘wrong’ or ‘right’ any more… woo, thanks internet?
Comment by speedbird — November 9, 2009 @ 1:42 pm
Sorry about that. Twitterese kind of threw me for a loop until I started using it, so I just assumed…
Anyway, as for what it /means/, it’s not so much that there isn’t ANY “right” or “wrong” anywmore, just that no one can claim to have the ONLY (or the BEST) “right” or “wrong”. Post-modernism seems to have taken us to the point of no one ever being able to be right ever again, but in order to move beyond that, it’s important to see that “rightness” is something best worked out in-the-moment-that-you-are.
Don’t copy off someone else’s paper, so to speak, because every paper’s different.
And thanks to the internet, we are finally getting a chance to really understand what’s on everyone else’s paper, as well as having a better record of our own paper (to stretch the metaphor a bit).
That’s my take on it, anyway. ;)
Comment by Ian — November 9, 2009 @ 3:32 pm
Actually I have my own disclaimer; I’m halfway through this (awesome):
http://www.amazon.com/After-Virtue-Study-Moral-Theory/dp/0715636405/ref=sr_1_10?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1257841400&sr=8-10
which is all about how, when the Enlightenment ‘fixed’ natural science by throwing out Aristotle (stuff like ‘stars travel in circles because circles are perfect shapes’), they ‘broke’ any subsequent concept of right action. The author supports a return to an earlier mode of thought along these lines:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Telos_(philosophy)
Comment by speedbird — November 10, 2009 @ 3:39 am
Nice. Will have to pick up that book at some point as well. Looks like “post-modernism” might just be the wasteland left after the nuclear fallout of the enlightenment…
And as for “:teleos”, I love it. That’s the kind of thinking that lead to McKenna’s great attractor at the end of history, that the result/purpose is what draws the action to its conclusion. And there’s something magickal about it, in how the focus is on a result created according to the will. In fact, in this case, result and will are really the same thing.
I also really like this distinction:
That’s science contrasted to magic there, and it also points out that teleos is something totally apart from media (since I consider techne and media to be pretty closely related).
I think this might be tied in with the concepts of involution and evolution, but I don’t really understand those terms well enough to figure it out.
Comment by Ian — November 10, 2009 @ 10:56 am
Or maybe it goes back even further than that:
- John Wycliffe (via fuckyeahphilosophy)
How to reconcile “every (hu)man should be lord of the universe” (which is true) with the fact that there are “a number” of us. That’s the big question right there.
Comment by Ian — November 10, 2009 @ 11:55 am
Interesting Wycliffe quote, not heard of him before.
*
May or may not be related: (1) back in the day, Europe used to have a thing called the ‘common market’. (2) those countries of the British Empire who are still friendly post-empire have become known as the Commonwealth of Nations.
Comment by speedbird — November 10, 2009 @ 5:03 pm
Yeah, I’d never heard of him either, but I do like the quote. That site has a lock of great, pithy little things like that.
Also, found this description in an unrelated search this morning, but it applies here, I think:
“will lose their doubts, and the torrents of their cravings will be cut off: free from all misery they will manage to cross the ocean of becoming; and, as a result of Maitreya’s teachings, they will lead a holy life. No longer will they regard anything as their own, they will have no possession, no gold or silver, no home, no relatives! But they will lead the holy life of chastity under Maitreya’s guidance. They will have torn the net of the passions, they will manage to enter into trances, and theirs will be an abundance of joy and happiness, for they will lead a holy life under Maitreya’s guidance.” (Trans. in Conze 1959:241)
Comment by Ian — November 11, 2009 @ 9:25 am
“… what education in the virtues teaches me is that my good as a man is one and the same as the good of those others with whom I am bound up in human community. There is no way of my pursuing my good which is necessarily antagonistic to you pursuing yours because /the/ good is neither mine peculiarly nor yours peculiarly – goods are not private property.”
- Alasdair MacIntyre, ‘After Virtue’.
Comment by speedbird — November 16, 2009 @ 1:13 pm
Oh man, that is an excellent quote. The good / goods thing is genius. The good that should be pursued is the good of all. I’m saving that one…
Comment by Ian — November 17, 2009 @ 2:17 pm
NASA Engineers Bring the Internet to Astronauts
Comment by Ian — February 4, 2010 @ 12:18 am
The “good of all” though is a really hard thing to pursue. First of all its kind of presumptuous and arrogant even delusional to think one person could know what that is for everybody. I think everyone should just work towards their own good, be very skeptical of anyone who claims to know what the good of all is and to be very careful of not giving your power away to such people/institutions.
So I guess that’s what that guy was saying earlier about no more objective right and the internet?
Because I think the problem is less with dictators thinking they know and more with everyday people assuming others know, or that by maryring themselves sacrificially in certain ways they can serve “the greater good” over their own good.
As far as conflict though, I think there should be.
Comment by Ted — February 8, 2010 @ 10:13 am
I mean “martyring themselves”
Comment by Ted — February 8, 2010 @ 10:35 am
I see your point. But often it’s easy to see when one person’s ‘good’ is hurting another.
I seem to remember the argument of the book is that ‘the good’ was traditionally approached not directly by a dictator declaring what it was (because of course you can’t), but by a system of ‘virtues’ (tacitly?) agreed on by the society. If my idea of ‘good’ is hurting others it is less liekly to be virtuous. Interestingly the history of the virtues shows that they were fluid as societies changed from agrarian to metropolitan etc.
Been a while since I read this now. Might have to revisit. I think the key phrase is this:
‘There is no way of my pursuing my good which is necessarily antagonistic to you pursuing yours’
If it is ‘necessarily antagonistic’, it can’t be good.
Comment by speedbird — February 8, 2010 @ 10:41 am
How do relatively educated middle class people that read a lot of books hurt other people though?
occasional infidelity? Gossip?
besides that what? Speaking harshly to someone?
I think morality is just a game we play. Its mostly about judging other peoples behavior rather than our own,too.
Persuing your own good can seem like it puts you in conflict with people pursuing theirs because a lot of people are confused about what they want and not very assertive.
I think its god to be skillfully selfish, in that case.
Comment by Ted — February 8, 2010 @ 11:20 am
Being “skillfully selfish” though is kind of like being a boxer that has become cautious through getting beaten.
I think ideally it would be better to pusue your own good spontaneously by following what gives you joy and makes you feel alive. The problem is you get a little beat up naively just doing that. I think if everyone just joyfully spontaneously followed their own good though, things would work out (after a little haggling) for everybody.
Comment by Ted — February 8, 2010 @ 11:27 am
I think the point I took from this is that the good that I want isn’t necessarily antagonistic to the good that you want. In fact, if it’s truly THE Good, there shouldn’t be any antagonism.
I don’t agree with that at all. That’s legality, things written down and held as dogma. What you’re describing is not true morality, it’s a social moral code, which yes, can sometimes devolve into mere gossip and name calling.
As soon as you leave all that behind and try to act freely in the world, you run into the fact that other people exist, and that they are not you. There is conflict there, and morality is the skillful resolution of that conflict to the benefit of as many people who are involved as possible. And it can be a great struggle, but the more conscious effort put into trying to resolve things to everyone’s benefit, the better the long term effect, karmically speaking.
We can’t make up a rules about this, it has to come out the actual situation we find ourselves in. All participants have to be taken into consideration as much as possible, and an attempt made at resolving the matter to everyone’s optimal benefit.
And that’s a really general guideline and even it’s not exactly true. Words mean absolutely nothing without a context.
Comment by Ian — February 8, 2010 @ 12:49 pm
I don’t think we have the responsibility “to benefit as many people as possible” I think that’s insane. I agree that there is skill involved in negotiating through life, due to the fact that other people exist, each with seperate agendas.
I am not caling for solipsism. But I think a type of “reverse solipsism” is present in most common forms of morality and that its simply insane.
Its totally nuts. We just accept it because its so common. Part of this insanity is played out in our representative democracy. We have the insane idea that there are people who can actually discover, understand and work for “the common good” on our behalf. nuts!
Most things in life function smoothly without our understanding of how the operate. We mostly just have a illusion of control.
Comment by Ted — February 8, 2010 @ 12:59 pm
The idea of a “common good” only becomes insane when its posited as an absolute. I think there are economies of scale at play here that are important. I think various groups of people can have a common good. Like a kite flying club or somethng.
They all want to fly kites, so they want parks to fly kites in. So Their club has common goods common to their members. Other people want to walk dogs, sun bathe etc. in the parks, so the dog walkers and the kite flyers and the sun bathers all have some negotiating to do.
But as far as them all having some “absolute common good” they all need to conform to first in order to each get what they want, i don’t believe in the existence of such a thing. I think they should all just concern themselves with getting what they want. They will no doubt have to compromise, but each person’s primary responsibility is their own good.
Comment by Ted — February 8, 2010 @ 1:08 pm
I found this helpfull: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Common_good
I think in a nutshell what I am saying is this: There might be a “common good.” I am agnostic on that. I do think, often there is a hidden order to chaotic systems and that there seems to be some correlation between chaotic societies and free societies. Centralized control is a big buzz kill for me. Give me a brawl, a clamorous debate.
Its like Powerful corporations having “free speech” now and being able to give unlimited spending on political candidates. Everything is a fight. You have to fight to be heard. If you get shut out you have to go underground and be Indy. If you can’t afford to express your views on aa t.v. ad you better spray paint it on a wall.
You have no “right to free speech” you have a RESPONSIBILITY to your self to speak your mind and be heard!
Comment by Ted — February 8, 2010 @ 1:36 pm
I didn’t say “to benefit as many people as possible”
I said: “to the benefit of as many people who are involved as possible.”
It’s along the same lines as your kite flying club metaphor, you have to see who else is in the park and figure things out accordingly.
Any search for an absolute common good as a first step is ludicrous. The absolute common good is synonymous with God.
Instead, I am suggesting that, once in an actual real life problem, the way to look for a solution is to search in the direction of the common good. It resolves things more completely, because there’s less resentment.
You seem to be trying to find a single rule for behavior, and that “direction of the common good” is, personally, the closest thing I’ve found.
Any thing based around any spelled out behavior or response won’t work, its too limited and we’re too likely to fall asleep into the single behavior we’ve adopted and not notice when it’s no longer appropriate.
Situations vary endlessly and any single rule that works at one point will just end up becoming a dogmatic belief at some other point. We have to learn to let go when necessary (and ‘necessary’ is dictated by circumstances).
All I know is that when I’ve found myself in trouble, I’ve experienced the best results when I try to understand and account for the other person’s point of view. Just making the conscious choice of thinking about the other person as well as myself seems to work better, in the end, even if it’s not obviously logical at first.
Comment by Ian — February 8, 2010 @ 2:10 pm
Well, normal healthy people are capable of empathy. That seems to be what you are describing.
I am responding to the philosophical line of discussion that elicited these quotes:
“… what education in the virtues teaches me is that my good as a man is one and the same as the good of those others with whom I am bound up in human community. There is no way of my pursuing my good which is necessarily antagonistic to you pursuing yours because /the/ good is neither mine peculiarly nor yours peculiarly – goods are not private property.”
and this:
““will lose their doubts, and the torrents of their cravings will be cut off: free from all misery they will manage to cross the ocean of becoming; and, as a result of Maitreya’s teachings, they will lead a holy life. No longer will they regard anything as their own, they will have no possession, no gold or silver, no home, no relatives! But they will lead the holy life of chastity under Maitreya’s guidance. They will have torn the net of the passions, they will manage to enter into trances, and theirs will be an abundance of joy and happiness, for they will lead a holy life under Maitreya’s guidance.” (Trans. in Conze 1959:241)”
Seems like these quotes are about being one with some grand impersonal absolute that then renders you supernaturally able to get along with everyone else, because you would then have no wants differing from some common good.
I call it “reverse solipsism.”
The fact is you are a person, you do have peculiar interests and desires and so does everyone else.
As far as not being an autistic or a socipath and therefore having empathy and recognizing the existence of other minds. I mean sure I can get with that. I operate from that perspective. But there seems to be some desire to get past the flipside of this, namely your own self interest. Can you have empathy and compassion for yourself? As an individual Can you compete with others, wrangle, negotiate, bargain etc and not feel guilty?
I am just skeptical that a person can arrive at the point of selflessness on the one hand and the wisdom on the other of knowing what is best for everybody.
Comment by Ted — February 8, 2010 @ 2:36 pm
seems like a desire to be God, wrapping itself up in a religious or spiritual idea of being unselfish.
I mean how can you presume to fully know what is best for yourself and what is best for another person and act to harmonize the two rather than just going after what you think is best for yourself and letting “God” harmonize things? I am not talking about hurting the other person, as in physically assaulting them or killing them.
I am talking about asserting yourself, acting in your own interest and leaving it to the other person to exert equal pressure and to act IN THEIR self interest. So that you arrive at a mutually agreeable solution, as a SIDE EFFECT, inadvertent on your part.
Comment by Ted — February 8, 2010 @ 2:44 pm
I am saying the internet showing everyone that “…With new ideas,lifestyles,& possibilities like never before, no one can objectively claim their course is “right”…..ends up basically as life looking like a big clusterfuck of people arguing their own perticular special interests. I am saying that thats as it should be.
Because otherwise you are trying to be God. You can neither act completely selflessly nor know what is best for other people. All you can do is join the clusterfuck and try to get what you want.
Comment by Ted — February 8, 2010 @ 3:05 pm
Ted, I think we agree here, but are splitting hairs when it comes to definitions.
For me, its a question of taking self-interest for granted. I can’t ever NOT act in my own self interest, at least in some way. So then, taking that, what else can I do to include other people’s needs as well? Its the flipside of the same argument, which ends in the same result, actionwise.
Comment by Ian — February 8, 2010 @ 3:07 pm
I don’t see how we agree if you liked those two quotes and agree with them and i disagree and dislike those quotes.
What do you think of this quote?
“And how could there exist a ‘common good’! The expression is a self-contradiction: what can be common has ever been but little value. In the end it must be as it has always been: great things are for the great, abysses for the profound, shudders and delicacies, for the refined, and, in sum, all rare things for the rare.”
That’s Nietzsche.
Comment by Ted — February 8, 2010 @ 3:17 pm
To be honest Ted, most of that conversation that you’re quoting from is from November of last year. I’m not in the same place I was then and I don’t remember what I meant by most of it.
In my last comment, I was trying to bring the conversation to a close.
I did see some commonalities between your “As far as not being an autistic or a socipath and therefore having empathy and recognizing the existence of other minds. I mean sure I can get with that. I operate from that perspective.” and my “For me, its a question of taking self-interest for granted. I can’t ever NOT act in my own self interest, at least in some way.”
They both involve starting from one side of the debate and moving toward the other. That’s all I meant by it.
You don’t see how we agree if I liked those two quotes and agree with them and you disagree and dislike those quotes. But I do. And I think Nietzche has a point as well, although within the context of this conversation he is being brought up in opposition to the other quotes, so yes, they seem to contradict each other. But they don’t have to.
I do not find them to be “necessarily antagonistic”. You do. And that’s OK.
Comment by Ian — February 8, 2010 @ 5:17 pm
Wow, we seem to have stumbled across a real question here. :)
I wondered if Nietzsche would pop up. In the book the original quote is from, the author actually says that the /only/ post-enlightenment philosopher who makes any sense morally is in fact Nietzsche. But then he goes on this historical quest to see what the enlightenment threw out (largely, any sense of human purpose), and comes to the conclusion that “a big clusterfuck of people arguing their own particular special interests” is in fact not as it ‘should’ be.
Just some context.
Comment by speedbird — February 9, 2010 @ 3:36 am
Well, My point is that there could be an overarching point of human existence. I am just sceptical that anyone would have the ability to figure this out for everybody else. I think that’s how people end up in cults. I think a lot of psychic vampirism goes on. I think there is a whole economy of energy feeding going on that most people have only a the vaguest intuition of.
I think as people become more and more sceptical its harder and harder to feed on peoples energy. The energy feeding is from creative energy through faith and belief. When you believe a lie given to you by a person you see as a spiritual authority it creates a psychic bond.
Two big Vampire institutions still in existence are the Mormons and the Roman Catholic Church. There are some other big cults like Jehova’s witnesses, The Unification Church (moonies) Scientology, probably there are cults overseas I am not aware of.
So anyway, in a global society its hard to create some big cult large enough to capture the creative energy of the entire human population. Maybe its impossible. I don’t think it would be a good thing anyway.
Comment by Ted — February 9, 2010 @ 12:08 pm
It all comes down to weather you think diversity is a good think diversity is a good thing or a bad thing.
I wrote that twice somehow. But I’ll keep it. That’s what it comes down to. If you think there are just too damn many languages, ethnic groups, sub cultures, belief systems, political ideologies, governments, religions…and you think this is just an impossible situation, that must be rectified…..seriously, I think that is Anti-Christ type energy.
For all intents and purposes that is what evil is. Its in all of us in various proportions.
Comment by Ted — February 9, 2010 @ 12:19 pm
I am sceptical of a moral compass but I think there is a love compass or a Joy compass or a Bliss compass or whatever.
Could humanity as a whole create beautiful things with our collective conscious creative energy? I don’t know. I hold that possibility open but I see it having lots of diversity, like all the species in the tropics creating a rainforest ecology. On an individual level it looks like chaos. bug eat bug.
Comment by Ted — February 9, 2010 @ 12:27 pm
Geologists from the University of Leicester are among four scientists- including a Nobel prize-winner – who suggest that the Earth has entered a new age of geological time.
The Age of Aquarius? Not quite – It’s the Anthropocene Epoch, say the scientists.
And they add that the dawning of this new epoch may include the sixth largest mass extinction in the Earth’s history.
The scientists propose that, in just two centuries, humans have wrought such vast and unprecedented changes to our world that we actually might be ushering in a new geological time interval, and alter the planet for millions of years.
Comment by Ian — March 26, 2010 @ 10:39 am
The upshot is it could be followed by a new Cambrian Explosion, after we learn how to genetically engineer new forms of life!
Comment by Ted — March 26, 2010 @ 12:05 pm
Some sort of explosion of new life would be nice.
I think its funny how much this lines up so closely with the whole “Age of Aquarious/2012″ meme, even though I’m pretty sure those 4 scientists don’t take that meme seriously.
Comment by Ian — March 26, 2010 @ 12:58 pm
In regards to an explosion of new life:
Scientists at the University of Liverpool have provided the first experimental evidence that shows that evolution is driven most powerfully by interactions between species, rather than adaptation to the environment.The team observed viruses as they evolved over hundreds of generations to infect bacteria. They found that when the bacteria could evolve defenses, the viruses evolved at a quicker rate and generated greater diversity, compared to situations where the bacteria were unable to adapt to the viral infection.
Comment by Ian — March 26, 2010 @ 12:59 pm
I heard there is not a lot of evidence for gradualism, beyond little tweaking type stuff.
Comment by Ted — March 26, 2010 @ 1:13 pm
OH, I almost forgot, I have a vistor on my blog from NASA. I thought this would be a good thread to tell you that.
Comment by Ted — March 26, 2010 @ 1:18 pm
I don’t know enough about that to say. Personally, I favor punctuated equilibrium, but that’s not based on any scientific evidence. As long as everything’s just theories, I figure I’m free to choose as I please. :)
Comment by Ian — March 26, 2010 @ 2:09 pm
http://www.dailygalaxy.com/my_weblog/2010/07/are-we-witnessing-the-birth-of-a-cosmic-internet.html
also:
http://reclusland.tumblr.com/post/776895898/electricity
Comment by Ian — July 6, 2010 @ 1:08 pm