Michael B., I think that it will be a while before the mainstream press truly understands what’s going on in a way that they can write coherently about it. It’s one thing to notice that technology is creating a revolution. It’s another thing entirely to really embrace it, understand it, and use it to the fullest. Just in the last few weeks, my understanding of how to use technology has shifted dramatically. RSS, Gmail, Flickr, del.icio.us, and desktop Wikis have all caused me to rethink my options for collecting and managing information. I’ve said for years that we’re still in the dark ages when it comes to computers. I think we’re a long way from living in a mature world of computer and network technology, much less really understanding it. I’m not sure many people really can see where this is going. #

For instance, I’m working on a new project. I’m attempting to create a new kind of online history book. I’m developing a wiki where the narrative and encyclopedic entries about characters and events will be developed simultaneously. I’m doing this on my own right now, but will soon open it up for others to contribute, much as Wikipedia has been built by the efforts of a large community. As I develop this project, I realize that there’s really no limit to what can be included in or linked to from this wiki. My long-term goal would be to have original source material for every aspect of the period I’m studying available online – a one-stop-shop, if you will, for people interested in this historical event. #

Now, I’m not way out there on this. Others (like Michael Brooke, it seems) are working on similar “deep resource” projects. How will this impact culture? We’re going to move from the idea that knowledge is something filtered and parsed by individuals to something that is created and managed by the group. I think this core idea has always been true, yet the methods we’ve had to deliver content – books, radio, television, and so on – have mostly been filtered through the narrow perspective of one person or one organization. It hasn’t been practical in the past to develop and disseminate group-think. Once a book is printed, that’s it until the next edition, if there is one. Any mistakes remain; ideas aren’t reconsidered in the light of new evidence. Moreover, sources remain unavailable to the media consumer in many cases, so independent evaluation of an author’s conclusions are impossible. #

However, group-reviewed, dynamically updatable resources are available now, the tools to create these are starting to mature, and more of these resources will come online when people start to see how powerful and useful they are. Libraries are starting to digitize content like Shakespeare’s quartos and Lewis Carroll’s scrapbook. The balance of power in cultural filtering is shifting. It’s as if gold went from being something only prospectors could locate in far-off locations to something anyone could create with their own personal alchemy machine. #

(I’m also seeing a shift in the way we perceive top-down hierarchies in general. In business, for example, there are some who suggest that the wisdom of the group is more valuable and “right” in many cases than the wisdom of the manager or the CEO.) #

Culture will change – back, perhaps – from something you consume to something you participate in. I’ve already seen a couple of wikis that attempt to facilitate group-created stories. More will follow. #

Technologically speaking, we are in the midst of a mini-revolution in which computers move from being separate machines with discreet installations of data and programs (analogs of our personal experience) to “network appliances” connecting us to a world where applications data, and experience reside on the network and are easily shared. Everything will interconnect, and we will develop tools (like RSS readers) to help us manage the torrent of information. Experiences, expertise, and ideas will be shared freely. #

Raymond: What can digital do? It can make all this possible. People won’t simply consume. Portability and interconnectivity will open humans up to a level of collaboration that was previously impossible. Wikis and social bookmark sites like del.icio.us are the tip of the iceberg. This isn’t a subtle shift. Once people start to grasp what’s possible in an interconnected world, the sky’s the limit. It’s no small thing, for instance, to consider digitizing the Library of Congress so that the information contained therein is available instantly and everywhere. #

Perhaps I wax rhapsodic. I tend to believe that people will use new tools in the best, most culturally enhancing way possible. It’s just as likely, I suppose, that people won’t. However, I am optimistic that once the infrastructure and tools are built, creative people will be called upon to use them. Culture will grow, as it always has, in the proper medium and conditions, and I like to imagine that this new medium is fertile indeed. #

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The old ways are dead. And you need people around you who concur. #

Hugh continues: #

That means hanging out more with the creative people, the freaks, the real visionaries, than you’re already doing. Thinking more about what their needs are, and responding accordingly. It doesn’t matter what industry we’re talking about- architecture, advertising, petrochemicals- they’re around, they’re easy enough to find if you make the effort, if you’ve got something worthwhile to offer in return. Avoid the dullards; avoid the folk who play it safe. They can’t help you any more. Their stability model no longer offers that much stability. They are extinct, they are extinction. #

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Here are just a couple of random things that jumped out at me: #

And I do tend to think that, given the upsurge of the religious right over the last couple of decades, these are the last spasms of those dinosaur organisms. #

Why do you think that? #

Because they are standing in the way of history, trying to turn everything, politically and spiritually, back to a medieval vision of the world. Whereas they’re perfectly entitled to have whatever worldview they like, I would suggest that humanity is moving in a forward direction. And that any attempt to turn the clock back to a mythical, simpler, or better age would probably be about as effective as Britain’s ancient King Canute, who famously sat on his throne along the tide line and ordered the waves to go back. #

Sacrilege! #

How quickly we forget! [Laughs.] But, yeah, people’s heads are stuffed with a fantastic amount of information, and I think all too often they cannot assimilate, digest or connect up that incredible amount of data into a coherent worldview. #

You’re saying we might not be able to recognize human beings of the future that well. #

Yeah, it could be a quantum leap, a sudden, massive and unprecedented leap. Boiling point is a good analogy, because what you have before that stage is water. What you have after it is something that does not behave at all like water; it’s a completely different substance altogether. And that’s what I see looming for society—and it’s probably necessary, probably inevitable, probably scary. #

Really interesting, stimulating article. Thanks for nudging me back over there. #

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I decided that I needed some help, and lo and behold, on my bookshelf were a couple of books I had looked at but never really seen before – How to Write and Sell Historical Fiction by Persia Woolley and The Biographer’s Craft by Milton Lomask. Aside from the nice surprise of having them in my collection, the books were a comfort in that it seems like most of what I’m doing at this phase is just what the books suggest – research, organize, and write as inspiration strikes. With a few tweaks and some shifts of emphasis, I feel like I’ll be back on track. #

Here are a few quick hits from today’s reading: #

• eu·he·mer·ism, n. A theory attributing the origin of the gods to the deification of historical heroes.
• Two major questions to ask when considering a biography are: Who will want to read it? and What makes it unique? (Woolley)
• “Truth… makes bad fiction, but fiction should read like truth. Similarly, fiction makes bad biography, but biography should read like fiction.” (Lomask, p. 2)
• The “and” biography links two or more individuals or an individual and an event, institution, or historical period. (Lomask, p. 3)
• “There are no rules for composition,” Claude Debussy said, “but every composition makes its own rules.” (Lomask, p. 5)
• “Residue” as regards biographical subjects relates to the impact of the individual on present day or the interest which the individual holds for us. (Lomask, p. 10)
• When you send out your biographical manuscript, an editor will want you to list what books on the subject are still in print. Consult Book Review Digest for help in finding these. (Lomask, p. 11)
• “If you can’t travel, read.” (Lomask, p. 16)
• Don’t quote so much. “Good note-taking is précis writing.” You’re not a file clerk, you’re a writer! (Lomask, p. 23)
• Good reference material: Guide to Reference Books; Dictionary of American Biography, Notable American Women (both for dead persons); Current Biography , National Cyclopedia of American Biography, Who’s Who in America, Biography Index (for live persons); American Genealogical Index, Who Was Who; and especially Writings on American History and Writings on British History.

• “Man is not what we think he is,” André Malraux wrote. “Man is what he hides.”

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Now, Tootie experiences this sensation, but has no mechanism to understand what is happening to her. She experiences falling through the third dimension, but once she’s back safely at home, she can’t point to where she was, she can’t describe it to her friends, and she can’t mentally process her adventure. She is built to understand the world in two dimensions only. #

If Tootie’s race of two-dimensional beings is anything like our own, they’ve probably developed storytelling, myth, and philosophy to try to make sense of their existence. While someone from our world could look at a 2D world and explain it easily, Tootie and her kind can only hope to approximate such a description. #

I think of this example in relation to our own attempts to make sense of the world. Heinrich Zimmer said, “The best truths cannot be spoken, and the second best are misunderstood.” And, as Joseph Campbell says, the third best are the things we talk about every day – science, sociology, history, and so on. Philosophy, mythology and storytelling try to point the way to that dimension that is beyond our reach and understanding. #

Dreams

Oh, and it’s animated. Linklater shot and edited the film on digital video. Then, a team of artists used a computer process similar to rotoscoping to animate the film. The result is that the philosophical themes of the movie are discussed in a dreamlike milieu, dancing and darting in and out of the viewer’s conciousness. #

The movie is very much about the question of perception. Do we really communicate meaningfully? Are we really here? Are we dreaming, or are we awake? Can we do both at once? Can we control our dreams, our thoughts, our destinies? What are we becoming? Waking Life’s animators, working separately on whole scenes rather than on particular characters or elements, were encouraged to bring their personal styles to the project, and so as an audience our visual understanding of the real world of the movie is constantly shifting, even as the characters are constantly trying to explain the world around them. #

To my mind, this is an appropriate metaphor for the real world that I live in. Time moves on, and reality changes, and the rest of us scramble to explain and understand it. #

Memes

Memes are reproducible ideas that leap from person to person, shaping the way we think and respond to the world. As Adams says, a meme is to culture what a gene is to biology. Memes are tiny, bits of cultural/social code that are passed on more-or-less intact from generation to generation. The ultimate result of memes, according to some of the top thinkers in memetics, is that we’re so at the mercy of memes that we have no free will. #

Adams finds this extreme position hard to take, and I agree with him. I tend to think that we have free will if we believe we have free will. If we think we’re victims of fate, then we are. As Professor Robert Solomon says in Waking Life, existentialism says that you are in control of your life, you are responsible, and your life can be whatever you want it to be. #

That said, memes may explain a few things about how we’re influenced by each other. I have this feeling that we’re a lot more like ants than we believe ourselves to be. In the same way that ants can build incredibly complex societies with what must be very few, very simple rules, so we humans have built vast civilizations that are beyond the capacity of any one or any few of us to even comprehend. Fashions, fads, and trends come and go without rhyme or reason. Thoughts or ideas catch fire, urban legends proliferate, stock markets fluctuate, all as if by Adam Smith Unseen Hand. #

As individuals, we’re simply small parts of an incredibly complex chaotic system, yet we are not powerless. We are at the whim of forces beyond our control, yet we also have reason and intellect and can choose our actions. In fact, chaos simultaneously pushes us into action, and responds to our choices. Like a rock, we are shaped by the wind even as we bend the wind around us. And so our actions have an effect, even though we can’t imagine what that effect might be. #

Perhaps these forces of chaos press on us from a dimension beyond our understanding. Perhaps, like Tootie, we can navigate our conscious world, but will remain by our very nature forever powerless to describe the unseen dimension. And so, this is the reason for our hunger for philosophy and storytelling. We must constantly invent ways to understand the forces that act on us, to prevent being swept away by them. And we must reassure ourselves that we do matter. #

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