— or “Networks Redux”.
Whereas network theorists often begin with the assumption that definite pathing can be observed, assessed, and defined when studying social systems, I began with a look at the way individuals operate and interact and the resulting emergent systems.
Network theorists may believe definitive ‘networks’ exist connecting these individuals, but in so doing they often make the mistake of believing that what they have discerned to be stable routes and routings — i.e., networks — can be understood to exist regardless of the individuals using those paths. I.e., to define a network is to believe that such interaction between individuals is prefigured by the available routes of data transmission.
Furthermore, a corresponding faith in perpetual and definable concrete connection often lies behind the frameworks posited by network theorists. Connectivity is assumed to exist between persons who interact, yes, but such connectivity is thought to be resilient, perpetual, and largely unchanging (at least for a short duration, but often assumed to last for longer durations.)
—CGW, “Interlude: Static Visualized, Conceptualized”, Jan. 2, 2007.
Regular visitors to Dreaming 5GW and my personal blog Phatic Communion may be familiar with my skeptical arguments concerning the issues of “networks” and “connectivity”. In particular, Dan tdaxp of tdaxp — who is not only a regular reader but also a contributor to D5GW! — may remember a long, drawn-out debate which resulted from a post on PC called “Social OODA Loops / Networks”! The debate continued in “Some Words on Determining Social ‘Network’ ” — and Mark Safranski of ZenPundit even had occasion to remark on a PC post called “Rule Sets and the Revised OODA” this:
Important point though - “network” IS not an analogy or a metaphor as they relate to human social networks. They are an actual network subject to the same rules as a network on a smaller, nonhuman, scale.
I believe those three early posts, or at least two of them if memory serves, were not incredibly well-written and may have meandered. (I remember one of them with dread, from memories of trying to re-read it!)
Dan and I have even gone rounds on discussions of Christianity, particularly concerning some words attributed to Jesus, in a post I wrote for PC called “Water, Tao, and Jesus” — that item is quite related to the subject of these other posts and the subject of this current offering.
My skeptical quandary involved the difficulty I have had with reconciling observations of human interaction and individual human activity — the human, being — with the mechanics of computer networking: We see and may trace definite connections between computers — these are merely cause & effect chains — but if we run a hula hoop around individuals who are “connected in conversation” or “connected financially” we will see that they are not in fact connected in the same way. Computers are simple machines with a limited and simple support system — the things which allow them to connect, from electricity to wiring and even their own computer chips, and their very limited environment — when considered alone; humans are not so simply constructed and maintained. That is a severe abridgment of my skeptical point of view, however, or a bare summary meant to avert the sort of meandering my earlier entries exhibit. I have approached an exploration of said skepticism by revisioning the OODA loop, expanding the concept of EBO through a look at distinctions between the operation of reason and omnipresent cause & effect, and in many other ways, attempting to find what I mean.
More recently, I have claimed that “memes do not travel. They are not transmitted. They emerge”, and I have contemplated the possibility of “meme-based networks” — a term I first encountered at PurpleSlog — using the idea in D5GW posts like “Memes as Nodes in Complex Interactivity” and “Emersonian Circles.”
Yaneer Bar-Yam is a name you will find sprinkled throughout some of those previous considerations. In the post quoted and linked at the beginning of this post, I even used a finding Bar-Yam reported, concerning a kind of “shifting hub” involving email usage, to conclude:
These network theorists may finally be realizing that so-called networks do not lead to the emergence of activity so much as that activity leads to the emergence of networks — and that these actual connections are transitory, ephemeral, constantly changing. Any established ‘network’ may in fact be merely a fossilized account of activity rather than an ongoing account of real activity. We must not equate the architecture with the activity, because they are separate things.I wonder if the old “connection” is a prime example: The link I used when I originally quoted information about the report no longer leads to that item! “Page not found”. And of all things, the site is called, “The Cooperation Commons”! Perhaps the item has shifted to somewhere else….*
[CGW]
This post, itself, may be exhibiting such shift, since I’ve begun to meander although I did not intend to meander! So I want to conclude, for now, with a list of items for further consideration; these are things I meant to address here and now, but I’m short on time and my mind seems to be constantly contemplating them and unready to lay them out in a hierarchical, rationalist sort of way.
- I’ve previously brought into question the distinction between “open source” and “static” as used by theorists like John Robb (open source) and myself (static).
- I had a thought recently:
- Considering how modern religions may be Darwinian — i.e., survival strategies that have worked — just as other “-isms” might be survival strategies I suppose;
- and considering how shifting environments may mean that some ideologies, though once propitious, may ultimately fail in the face of new concrete paradigms;
- and considering the dynamism of OODA, in which meme-plexes may alter the concrete environment via human activity and altered environments may alter meme-plexes;
- and considering the dynamism of globalization — the many avenues, increasing in number, or channels and conduits for directing various concrete and real powers — as well as the growth spurt of new social networking mechanisms (so-called networking, that is);
- and considering the possibility that the dissolution of more rigid types of connection — well-delineated channels; conventional means resulting from severely limited means — may well mean that many old meme-plexes are simply no longer viable survival mechanisms (because they developed in collusion with old channels); for instance, this may influence issues of trust and loyalty, not to mention the much-derided notion of the nation-state; nor, rulesets; — not to mention, definitions of “family”; then…
- what will happen if the promise — let’s say, the latent potential — of such things as wireless ad-hoc networks (and of course, mobile ad-hoc networks) becomes a reality in fact?
- I wonder if the boys and girls of Trace Systems have already tackled this one; and am curious what Kurzweil’s response would be. I can guess John Robb’s response; I just wonder whether it goes far enough.
- If we are going to consider the possibility of meme-based networks, why not consider the possibility of gene-based networks? I throw this one out to Dan; heh. But seriously: If extreme technology-enabled “openness” of the communication/cognition type occurs, such that the only real “nodes” become memes; and if, as I’ve drawn in my revised OODA, a significant portion of the dynamic “new” information feeding into the Abstract OODA is genetic information; and if this information produces shift in meme-based organization; then we must consider how common genes and gene-plexes may create meme-gene-based networks. Or some such. Until, or unless, Shlok’s 6GW and 7GW emerge…
* Note: The link to the article reviewing Bar-Yam’s findings no longer works, but the paper itself, “From Centrality to Temporary Fame: Dynamic Centrality in Complex Networks”, can still be found: link to pdf. The opening introduction includes:
“Local hubs” have a power law degree distribution over time, with no characteristic degree value. Our results imply a significant reinterpretation of the concept of node centrality in complex networks, and among other conclusions suggest that interventions targeting hubs will have significantly less effect than previously thought.
—which should interest those who contemplate security issues for the future.
There are so many things going on in this post!
Is 6GW going to be Post-Singularity Warfare? I left that entire future discussion hanging.
Wow. Is this taking the Selfish Gene concept and crossing it with Network Science? Is a Gene-Based Network (GBN) a family or Kin-based network? Is a GBN below the level of human consciousness?
What would the Global Brain guy think of this idea?
Lastly, I have been one of those who has read your comments and criticism of Memes / Human Social Networks. Mostly, because I don't feel to confident on this subject.
Curtis, let me see if I have internalized your view correctly.
1) Memes do not pass from human to human.
2) Memes emerge from humans based on genetic, environmental, cultural, and situational reasons.
3) Humans who have memes interact with each other.
4) These interactions may create what looks likes networks and help similar memes from emerging in other humans.
5) These are not really meme-based networks of humans though.
6) The connections are solid going forward.
7) What we think as connections in a MBN are actually artifacts of previous interactions that don't exists anymore.
8) Correlation is being confused with Causation.
How close am I?
Oh one more on the Darwinian nature of religion...
Religions are Darwinian.
It is my view as a self professed post-catholic (future Purpleslog post TBD), that organized religions have some positives which include (but are not limited to):
1) Religious Communities lead to social capital accumulation for its members
2) Religious Communities can lead to Public Goods (TDAXP has covered this too) to benefit its members and their community
3) Religion can help humans organize themselves better in sense of rule-sets and institutions, and in cultural/cohesive ways then kin-based-networks or family units (this was what Peters was getting at in his article)
4) Religion can "Domesticate Humans" (a TDAXP idea I gladly crib).
The religions that are best at the above will give incremental improve the the ability of their followers to survive and flourish over that of others.
PSlog,
Generally, I leave 6GW and 7GW and 8GW....etc., to the future. Let future generations worry about those future generations. On the other hand, I recently had occasion to answer a colleague's question about whether 5GW will be the last generation of warfare: "Yes". (But total-destruction warfare falls outside xGW and could clean the slate.) My link to Shlok was tongue-in-cheek.
Interesting way of putting it. No, I think rather that Network Science, in its conventional form, needs to be left to slink into the past where it belongs. Or fade away. Bar-Yam's article is really interesting for me in the way it points up the possibility that thinking in terms of networks is old-hat. Lo! and Behold!: the "central nodes" of Network Theory are not so central; so he and others look for new dynamics to keep Network Theory alive. But the reason the shifting was found is simply that Net Theory is quite wrong for thinking about these things.
However, terminology has a way of evolving, so we might discuss gene-based networks or meme-based networks while retaining the word "network" -- They don't need to be networks in the conventional sense; i.e., "networks" can be used to describe a general relativity (or, relationship, or relationshipping) without keeping the baggage of the old Net Theory.
Nope, I think not, or not necessarily. Dan even goes to some lengths to consider race-based characteristics that, imo, might influence the creation of MBNs. Let's say, that any time procreative isolationism and procreative insularity operate -- even between cultural sects, as in Iraq perhaps -- there may be the development of common gene-plexes which in turn may have a great influence on the memes that form, if subtle.
My thought on the gene-based influence is a bit broader than that, however. For instance, the vast majority of individual humans will feel hunger if they have eaten very, very little or nothing for long periods: this, among many other things, shows how the great similarity in genetic features among all humans may push all, regardless of race, kin, and family, toward very similar meme-plexes. One might even postulate that humanity as a whole is operating in a limited and limiting "time zone" (heh) that is common to all. Or a system-zone, a meme-zone. Within which, the subtle variations on genetic features play a major role in tweaking meme-plexes this way or that. (Naturally, Shlok's prognostications could bear on this whole issue; so could genetic variation caused by various applications of genetic engineering, positive and negative.)
There are, however, some interesting considerations to be perused even if small variations in gene-plexing only tweak the paradigms. For instance, if homosexuality is some day found to be a result of genetic features, even if only in collusion with certain other environmental (concrete) features as well, then you may have the result that gays in all nations and all cultures may have some particular meme-plexes tweaked in identical ways across the broad spectrum -- ways that will not occur for heterosexuals across the broad spectrum. (Of course, there is the sex distinction as well: between men and women.) Another temporary gene-meme-based tweaking may occur between the young and the old; it's temporary for the fact that youth is fleeting.
Then, also, there are the genetic influences directly on cognition, such as that hypothesized recently by Thomas Barnett:
When geographic and national borders operate less as an influence on isolationism and insularity -- i.e., when the "openness" in the title of this post occurs -- MBNs based on habits and styles of thinking, perhaps greatly influenced by genetic features, may form. Oddly enough, this has me wondering if the many "new" disorders identified by psychologists are analogous or somehow related to Bar-Yam's discovery that hubs shift, requiring a reassessment of linear cause & effect "chaining" to explain things...I.e., that although the psychology profession is much further along in contemplating the genetic features of cognition, perhaps the multiplying of so-called "disorders" can be thought of as a round-about-way of discovering the bases behind MBNing?
Hmmm. Or is it really so encompassing, it is rarely noticed and considered on a day-to-day basis by most people? So we skip to analyzing and studying media and ideologies.
I'm going to have to put off responding to your 8 features of my own ideology. ;) I'll give them more thought before I address them.