How would a billion year old civilization look like?

One of the most ancient and perhaps the most enduring questions that humankind has been asking since picking up the first stone and striking fire has been around the topic – are we alone? Why does loneliness bother us is very simple – we evolved as social creatures, comforted in each other’s company and yet prone to slaughter each other if things get too crowded either physically or intellectually…

But the question does keep us engaged – are we alone? And what if we are not, and then what would other intelligent life look like. Would we even recognize it if it was sufficiently advanced? Would it even be biological in nature anymore? What kind of energy would it be harnessing? Oh, there are so many questions and the exciting part is that we are at least now beginning to be able to “speculate” about it. With only a couple of centuries out of savagery (some argue that we are not come out of that even today), we have indeed covered much ground in terms of being at least able to think about it.

Most the general chatter on the net seems to suggest that we would, in all probability, be unable to recognize it for what it was… and that should not come as much of a surprise to many people. Would a bacterium be able to speculate regarding the thought processes of a human? Personally, I doubt it.

Chris Manning opines – “All sorts of things that we assume without even realizing that we are doing so may no longer be true. Civilization may not consist of discrete entities. They may not exist in a well-defined region of space. They may not even be in space as we understand it. In Isaac Asimov’s short story “The Last Question”, the super-computer gets more and more advanced. It reaches a stage at which it is located in hyperspace and made of something which is neither matter nor energy. Perhaps the billion-year-old civilization will be something like this”

SUSAN SCHNEIDER – thinks – “I do not believe that most advanced alien civilizations will be biological. The most sophisticated civilizations will be postbiological, forms of artificial intelligence or alien superintelligence.” Mysterious universe presents an interesting view based on her work - https://mysteriousuniverse.org/2017/10/aliens-may-actually-be-billion-year-old-robots/

According to EarthMysteryNews.com – The astrobiologist Paul Davies of Arizona State writes in The Eerie Silence “I think that biological intelligence is a short-lived phenomenon. If we ever face artificial intelligence, I believe it is post-biological in nature”.

With the advances in technology, it seems that most of the thinkers and those who bother to opine on the net seem to be gravitating towards the “beyond biological, immortal, beyond matter” kind of beings so much beyond our comprehension as to be incomprehensible… well almost!

And then there are others who are speculating about a billion-year-old civilization on earth itself although, in my opinion, that is a separate issue altogether. What do you think? Let me know with your comments!

Humour and Human Civilization

Humans throughout the centuries have pondered and discussed on what sets apart a group of animals and a society. In my opinion, one of the essential ingredients of any successful civilization or society is humour and its ability to laugh at itself. The more tolerant a society, better the quality of humour.

Wikipedia defines humour as – “Humour or humor (see spelling differences) is the tendency of particular cognitive experiences to provoke laughter and provide amusement. The term derives from the humoral medicine of the ancient Greeks, which taught that the balance of fluids in the human body, known as humors (Latin: humor, "body fluid"), control human health and emotion”.

Erma Bombeck made the most fundamental and yet simple statement about civilization when she said - "When humour goes, there goes civilization.". Mind you, society of a kind does exist without humour, but it is not the one where ideas and the human spirit prosper and grow. Victor Borge also remarked that "Humour is something that thrives between man's aspirations and his limitations. There is more logic in humor than in anything else. Because, you see, humor is truth."

Of course there have been some very serious attempts at understanding humour (pun intended) and mostly it has to do with understanding the human psychology. Dr. Chaya Ostrower in this PhD study and the book – “Without humour we would all have committed suicide", has taken a serious side to the study of humour. But humour is a complex phenomenon and more often than not, it has been extremely culture context specific. There are some important questions to identifying what is funny and humorous against sterile and stressful or even plain obscene.

One might start by asking what is the purpose of humour? Why do we laugh?

According to Dr. Chaya Ostrower - Humour is a complex phenomenon. There is no general theory of humour or even an agreed definition. When we try to define exactly what counts as humour and what does not, or how humour operates, we find it quite difficult.

According to him - Humor is comprised of three components: wit, mirth, and laughter. Wit is the cognitive experience, Mirth the emotional experience, Laughter the physiological experience. We often equate laughter with humor, but there are many instances of laughter (tickling, nervousness, etc.) that clearly have little to do with humor. Similarly, there are many instances of humour that do not result in laughter (due to the mood of the appreciator, the social context, etc.). Humour is a quality of perception that enables us to experience joy even when faced with adversity. Stress is an adverse condition during which we may experience tension or fatigue, feel unpleasant emotions and sometimes develop a sense of hopelessness or futility. You cannot feel stress, angry, depressed, anxious, guilty, or resentful and experience humor at the same time. Like beauty being in the eyes of the beholder, humor is in the funny bone of the receiver of the experience.

This makes it extremely difficult to define what would constitute humour and this very quality has been often taken in various science fiction stories, such as Star Trek for instance, where both the Vulcan Spock and later the android Data, display considerable difficulties in understanding human context of humour. Different cultures have different expectations of humour so comedy shows are not always successful when transplanted into another culture.

Hence you’d find the humour of one culture totally incomprehensible to someone from another culture.

Mark Twain, a giant in American literature, in Following the Equator: A Journey around the World, said - “There are many humorous things in the world; among them, the white man's notion that he is less savage than the other savages.”

There is of course a systemic view of humour, which is sort of, let’s say, non-humorous.

Philip Dorrell defines humour as – “Most people think of humour as something that exists for the sake of entertainment, or for adding spice to social occasions. But humour is an aspect of the human mind, and as such, is almost certainly part of a system for information processing. So what sort of information is being processed when we laugh at something funny?”

According to him - most humour follows a pattern like this:

First we think that something is true, based on clues given to us, But then we are presented with further evidence, which shows that we were wrong, In fact we were so wrong, that there was something wrong with the thought processes that lead to the initial conclusion.

And at the end of this process, we feel pleasure

Conveyance of Humour, though not necessarily confined to the territory of books alone, is the cornerstone of what we would recognize as a truly tolerant civilization or society. I loosely refer to society and civilization in the same context although there are people who would enjoy spending an evening differentiating between the two. The fact that humour is an essential ingredient of a successful leader and hence helping lubricate the functioning of a society was captured by Dwight D. Eisenhower when he said - "A sense of humour is part of the art of leadership, of getting along with people, of getting things done"

Humour would be pointless if not conveyed to the masses and it is here where the role of an author or a writer becomes important. Albert Camus once said - “The purpose of a writer is to keep civilization from destroying itself.” The importance of books in the development of humanity & spread of humour cannot be understated".

Barbara W. Tuchman has very aptly captured the thought - “Books are the carriers of civilization. Without books, history is silent, literature dumb, science crippled, thought and speculation at a standstill. Without books, the development of civilization would have been impossible. They are engines of change (as the poet said), windows on the world and lighthouses erected in the sea of time. They are companions, teachers, magicians, bankers of the treasures of the mind. Books are humanity in print.”

Thus, in a sense, humour defines our identity as a species apart from the general animal kingdom and also defines our species. Without humour, we'd rather be animals herding together in vast numbers. In some parts of the world, this is still true to some extent :-)

Long Term Implications of Longevity on Humanity

As I sat down after my initial indignation at the callous attitude, rather to be more accurate, retarded and inefficient approach towards solving a real life problem by AMEX travel counselors, my attention drifted towards more abstract thoughts.

The idea of extremely long life has been a fascinating one. Immortality (or eternal life) is the concept of living in a physical or spiritual form for an infinite or inconceivably vast length of time. As immortality is the negation of mortality—not dying or not being subject to death—it has been a subject of fascination to humanity since at least the beginning of history.

To present day science, it is not known whether human physical immortality is an achievable condition. Biological forms have inherent limitations — for example, their fragility and slow adaptability to changing environments, which may or may not be able to be overcome through medical interventions or engineering.

However, as of 2009, we do know that natural selection has developed biological immortality in at least one species, the jellyfish Turritopsis nutricula, one consequence of which is a worldwide population explosion of the organism.

According to Wikipedia - Biological immortality is the absence of a sustained increase in rate of mortality as a function of chronological age. A cell or organism that does not experience, or at some future point will cease, aging, is biologically immortal. However this definition of immortality was challenged in the new "Handbook of the Biology of Aging", because the increase in rate of mortality as a function of chronological age may be negligible at extremely old ages (late-life mortality plateau). But even though the rate of mortality ceases to increase in old age, those rates are very high.

Biologists have chosen the word immortal to designate cells that are not limited by the Hayflick limit (where cells no longer divide because of DNA damage or shortened telomeres). (Prior to the work of Leonard Hayflick there was the erroneous belief fostered by Alexis Carrel that all normal somatic cells are immortal.)

However, there is definite agreement on one fact at least - The immortality of a single cell has never been observed.

That would be the day!

If it were possible to have immortality in a single cell – this would naturally lead to immortality of a being – steady-state – never decaying, never dying – perpetual existence in a locked state.

Not even regeneration would be needed. Now, what would a time lord think of that idea?

The absence of aging would provide humans with biological immortality, but not invulnerability to death by physical trauma: According to 2002 statistical data, the odds of an individual being traumatically killed are once in every one thousand and seven hundred years.

Some life extensionists, such as those who practice cryonics, have the hope that humans may someday become biologically immortal. This would not be the same as literal immortality, since people are still susceptible to death through external circumstances (either deliberate or accidental).

But is immortality really desirable?

Let’s take a look at some arguments in favor of undesirability of immortality.

Physical immortality has also been imagined as a form of eternal torment, as in Mary Shelley's short story "The Mortal Immortal", the protagonist of which witnesses everyone he cares about dying around him. Jorge Luis Borges explored the idea that life gets its meaning from death in the short story "'The Immortal"; an entire society having achieved immortality, they found time becoming infinite, and so found no motivation for any action.

Here, one of the stories written by Jonathan Swift (author of Gulliver’s travels). He too had basically written against immortality. Of course – everyone assumes that to live forever means to live forever in a state of youth. Swift was rather astute to point out that this may not always be the case. Immortality trapped in an old body is worse than a curse!

Humans being social animals - to really live, alone, for a long time – is quite undesirable indeed.

Ethics of immortality

The possibility of clinical immortality raises a host of medical, philosophical, and religious issues and ethical questions. These include persistent vegetative states, the nature of personality over time, technology to mimic or copy the mind or its processes, social and economic disparities created by longevity, and survival of the heat death of the universe.

The social, emotional consequences of achieving extremely long life can very really hard to imagine. We have, in our times, experienced the average human lifespan increase tremendously. Today we do not find it odd to observe and expect that an average human – not subject to disease or trauma would at least live to be beyond 75 terrestrial years. Of course the average lifespan vary by region of earth and type of human gene pool as well.

However, our social customs and society is geared very so much towards the old medieval concept of aging. The so called “middle age” has steadily shifting towards 50s and we have a chance of really observing 80s as being called the middle age factor!

But what of the world population? The social consequences of people continuing to live the way it is done today – with its associated tremendous pressure on the resources of this planet.

There are of course religious viewpoints in this very sensitive subject – but I will deliberately restrict myself from venturing in that direction.

In my view, this planet cannot afford to have extremely long lived humans with their current pattern of consumption at figures of billions. We either need to find a new habitable planet to expand to or vastly change the way we live and consume from the environment.

In my future posts, I will concentrate more on emotional and social consequences of extremely long life spans…

Internet and mankind

Sleeping on something sometimes produces profound thoughts… or so I have heard. During my well earned afternoon siesta today after a rather hectic week at work… the dreams hit on a theme we usually ignore – the internet and its potential impact on our society, culture and civilization.

Over the next several hundred years, as mankind grows in numbers, progresses in technology, and generally, learns how to control its environment with more accuracy and efficiency, the structure of society is likely to change in some very significant ways.

According to Wikipedia –

Prior to the widespread internetworking that led to the Internet, most communication networks were limited by their nature to only allow communications between the stations on the network, and the prevalent computer networking method was based on the central mainframe computer model. Several research programs began to explore and articulate principles of networking between separate physical networks. This led to the development of the packet switching model of digital networking. These research efforts included those of the laboratories of Donald Davies (NPL), Paul Baran (RAND Corporation), and Leonard Kleinrock's MIT and UCLA.

The research led to the development of several packet-switched networking solutions in the late 1960s and 1970s, including ARPANET and the X.25 protocols. Additionally, public access and hobbyist networking systems grew in popularity, including unix-to-unix copy (UUCP) and FidoNet. They were however still disjointed separate networks, served only by limited gateways between networks. This led to the application of packet switching to develop a protocol for inter-networking, where multiple different networks could be joined together into a super-framework of networks. By defining a simple common network system, the Internet protocol suite, the concept of the network could be separated from its physical implementation. This spread of inter-network began to form into the idea of a global inter-network that would be called 'The Internet', and this began to quickly spread as existing networks were converted to become compatible with this. This spread quickly across the advanced telecommunication networks of the western world, and then began to penetrate into the rest of the world as it became the de-facto international standard and global network. However, the disparity of growth led to a digital divide that is still a concern today.

Following commercialization and introduction of privately run Internet Service Providers in the 1980s, and its expansion into popular use in the 1990s, the Internet has had a drastic impact on culture and commerce. This includes the rise of near instant communication by e-mail, text based discussion forums, and the World Wide Web. Investor speculation in new markets provided by these innovations would also lead to the inflation and collapse of the Dot-com bubble, a major market collapse. But despite this, the Internet continues to grow.

Because, of its already noticeable impact on the every day lives of many people, the Internet has attracted attention as something which may well bring about significant changes. The tendency of the Internet to promote connectedness between individuals and its ability to disseminate large and diverse quantities of information has led many theorists to advocate the concepts of the super organism and global brain as descriptions of future human society.

Bill gates, one of the visionaries of our times (and the richest individual for a long time on Forbes Listing) outlines the importance of Internet as –

“The main advantage of any new technology is that it amplifies human potential. In the 20th century, electricity, the telephone, the automobile and the airplane all made the world more accessible to more people, transforming our economy and society in the process. The Internet has the same revolutionary impact--individuals and businesses can overcome geographical, cultural and logistical barriers and improve the way they live and work. Because it amplifies our potential in so many ways, it's possible that the long-term impact of the Internet could equal that of electricity, the automobile and the telephone all rolled together. The Internet brings people closer together. Before the Internet, it was possible to keep in touch with relatives and friends across the country or around the world--but it was also expensive. Today, communicating with a friend in Japan is as easy and cheap as communicating with a friend across town, and families regularly use the Internet to keep in touch with far-flung relatives. Millions of people with shared interests--no matter how obscure--exchange information and build communities through Web sites, email and instant-messaging software. Using innovative accessibility aids, people with disabilities can use the Internet to help overcome barriers that prevent them from leading more productive and fulfilling lives”.

However, the internet is being thought of being much more than just bringing connectedness. What this interaction between individual “cells” represented by individual people and the global mass populations as super organisms has profoundly greater potential than being recognized as such.

Ideas of the human super organism and global brain first appeared in modern form in Herbert Spencer's The Principles of Sociology (1876-96). The super organism idea gained scientific support from the work of the notable Russian biogeochemist Vladimir Vernadsky. He performed groundbreaking studies of the large scale biochemical processes of the earth, and was the first to think of the Earth and all living things as a single biosphere.

While the biosphere concept deals with the Earth as a whole, Vernadsky also coined the term, noosphere, which more specifically denotes "the network of thoughts, information and communication that englobes the planet." This network could only be a phenomenon attributed to humans, and in 1955, Pierre Teilhard de Chardin published his work, The Phenomenon of Man, in which he popularized the term, noosphere, and the concept of the human superorganism and the global brain. Since then, a wide range of thinkers has taken up these concepts and developed them using today's knowledge of the world and humanity.

The most straightforward way of approaching the concept of the human superorganism is through trend. By examining a significant trend throughout the development of living creatures and humanity, in particular, it is possible to extrapolate the development of the human superorganism. This trend has been for systems of single entities acting separately to combine into systems of many entities acting in cooperation. The many-entity system can then be viewed as a single, larger entity, often with significant qualities which cannot be attributed to the individual entities making up the system.

In evolutionary terms, this tendency of individual entities to combine to form larger, more complex entities manifests itself further in the structure of multicelled organisms. The single cell organisms, which existed before the development of multicelled organisms, realized a distinct survival advantage by cooperating with other single cell organisms to satisfy their basic needs. The level of cooperation between single celled organisms evolved until the cooperative units could be viewed as single entities or multicell organisms.

Speculating about the future development of humanity, proponents of the superorganism concept notice this same trend in human societies with modern free market economies. In these societies, individuals acting for their own benefit often find that cooperation with another individual serves to further the individual interests of both parties. Indeed, this concept has been developing for millennia and has reached the point where people spend the majority of their lives specializing in one area of expertise. People provide work in narrow areas that somehow benefit others and contract with others to provide for their needs in all other areas.

The incredible rate at which scientific discoveries and technology advances are made today ensures that the need to specialize will only increase. As humans become even more specialized in narrow fields of expertise, the need for cooperation becomes even greater. In general, the more a person has specialized in one field, the less they know about other fields, and the more they must rely on others to provide knowledge or services in other fields. In this manner, the complexity of societal interactions and cooperation is constantly increasing with developments in science and technology.

Thus, we are reminded of the single cell organisms whose level of cooperation increased to the point where all cooperating cells could be seen as a single, more complex multicell organism. In the same way, if one assumes that the progress of humanity will continue in the manner we have seen throughout history, we can extrapolate the development of a human superorganism. Such a superorganism would result from the highly complex interactions and cooperation of the human individuals as they each act naturally in their own best interests.

The guiding intellect of this human superorganism can be defined as the global brain. This global brain is likely to have qualities which cannot be attributed to individual humans. Just as a cell cannot comprehend the concept of a human or of sentience, we may not be able to fully understand the nature of the superorganism and the global brain. However, one can hope that our sentience and investigative nature might give us more success than the cell.

To understand the influence of the Internet of the global brain it is necessary to understand the current state of the global brain. As witnessed to by all the present strife in the world, it is evident that the global brain, if at all existent, is still in a very primitive form. While there is a reasonable level of cooperation among members of some countries, cooperation among member of different societies is still quite limited by language and cultural differences. We see fighting, terrorism and general strife in many parts of the world in the name of language, religion and culture. Also, at least half of the people in the world are not in political or economic situations in which they can participate in a superorganism and global brain. Clearly, humanity has far to progress and many obstacles to overcome before the global brain can emerge as a coherent entity.

The advent of the Internet in the past decade has caused quite a stir among thinkers sympathetic to the global brain concept. It is thought that the Internet might be the ingredient needed to bring about the emergence of the global brain as a coherent entity. The reason the Internet inspires such optimism is due to its likeness to human brains and to its globalness.

Firstly, the organization of information on the World Wide Web in hypertext format closely resembles the associative connections formed by neurons in the brain.

Secondly, the Internet network encompasses the entire globe, holding the possibility for linking all humans with a means of virtually instant interaction.

Thirdly, it could conceivably store all human knowledge and provide instant access to that knowledge to its users.

This is an unparalleled trend in human evolution. Never have we, as a species, had instant access to such amount of information. Besides simply noticing the trend of today's civilization toward developing a global brain, some thinkers have suggested specific ways in which this might come about through development of the Internet. This is important for the healthy development of the global brain. The global brain must develop as a natural process that benefits individuals and never as an end in itself. This helps to guarantee that human individuals will not find themselves being oppressed for the "good" of the global brain.

Various information gathering mechanisms can be viewed as ways of improving the efficiency of interaction between people who are cooperating to perform various actions. The knowledge provided by a person with a certain specialty is more readily available for use by others who might need it. As such, the Internet, by dramatically increasing the level of cooperation between individuals, could possibly lead to a solidification of the global brain as a coherent entity.

In fact, some thinkers argue that the advent of internet may have even more profound impact on humanity than splitting of the atom!

“The fact that everything is possible on the Internet reveals mankind's true essence, the aspiration towards freedom.” Pierre Lévy, “Collective Intelligence: A Civilization”

The ubiquity of computers and access to the Internet has put the greatest libraries, image databases, and interactive tools at the fingertips of most artists working today. As a result, traditional artistic practice is exploding as artists explore the potential of these new technologies and incorporate them into their working methodologies.

I-Mod talks about the concept of Meta-brain - Mankind and it's Meta Brain, the Internet.

There is however, as usual, a contrary view as well as this article on cracked.com highlights it - 7 Reasons the 21st Century is Making You Miserable… or this one - Internet: Amazing tool of mankind in the 2lst century but…

As Bill Gates puts it - The Internet has already revolutionized the way we live and work, but it is still in its infancy. In the coming years, a combination of cheap and powerful computing devices, fast and convenient Internet access, and software innovations could make the Internet as common and powerful a resource as electricity is today.

Mankind would never be the same again… although that may not always be a good thing all the time. But as history of dinosaurs has shown us… what does not evolve, perishes!

Lemuria!

The other day, a television channel was showing the discovery of the now underwater palace of an ASUR king dating back to Ramayana period. The so called archeological “find” was in the Indian Ocean.

Lemuria is the name of a hypothetical "lost land" variously located in the Indian and Pacific Oceans. The concept's 19th century origins lie in attempts to account for discontinuities in biogeography. The concept of Lemuria has been rendered obsolete by modern understanding of plate tectonics. Although sunken continents do exist in the Pacific and the Kerguelen Plateau in the Indian Ocean — there is no known geological formation under the Indian or Pacific Oceans that corresponds to the hypothetical Lemuria.

According to a Wikipedia entry - Though Lemuria has passed out of the realm of conventional science, it has been adopted by writers involved in the occult, as well as some Tamil writers of India. Accounts of Lemuria differ, but all share a common belief that a continent existed in ancient times and sank beneath the ocean as a result of a geological, often cataclysmic, change.

The world wouldn’t be the place what it is today without mythology. Every culture has had its own set of mythological beliefs and one of most enduring and long lasting one has been relating to Lemuria and Mu!

I am not going to debate the authenticity of such legends and myths – but they do have a role to play in human culture. Without them, the world would be such a dull place.

And more often than not, every myth has at least a grain of truth behind, however much it has been distorted due to passage of time and with every telling.

Lemuria was an ancient civilization which existed prior to and during the time of Atlantis. Physically, it is believed that Lemuria existed largely in the Southern Pacific, between North America and Asia/Australia. Lemuria is also sometimes referred to as Mu, or the Motherland (of Mu). At its peak of civilization, the Lemurian people were both highly evolved and very spiritual. While concrete physical evidence of this ancient continent may be difficult to find, many people "know" that they have a strong connection to Lemuria.

There is a curious timeline of Lemuria which can be found at this location. It starts at about 35 million BC and shows progress from Etheric – Reptoid/ Dinod through Hybornea and Lemuria around between 900,000 to 25,000 BC. That’s an incredibly long period of time for a civilization. A society has to be incredibly resilient and stable to have survived that long a period. That’s, in some cases, longer than the lifespan of certain species on this planet!

Take the case of our civilization – the modern civilization as we call it and its roots are no more than 2,000 years and there also there are so many gaps!

Throughout history, various authors have attempted to uncover, unravel, understand and remember the civilization we know as Lemuria. This is no easy task. Any kind of Lemurian "factual" information is based on assumed information of which the source could be virtually anything. Not only that, but Lemuria existed so long ago that it is amazing any information at all can be gleaned from history. Books about Lemuira generally fall into two categories: those that try to investigate the existence of Lemuria using some kind of scientific method, and those that try to remember Lemuria through past life recall, channeled information or other metaphysical approach. Both methods have value, and can offer the seeker of truth valuable information.

The methods & information channels described above may be controversial to say the least. However, as readings in mythology, they are a fascinating study.

There is an excellent FAQ about Lemuria at this location.

Now you may be, and rightfully so, wondering why I am “wasting” my time writing about myths and legends. If the truth be told, there is a touch of romance with history that one indulges in while going through such pseudo historical readings. Like I said, the world would be a dull place without such myths and there is some evidence of that. Now that we have “grown” as a civilization and consider the old myths as well – myths – we are inventing new ones – the so called techno-myths – outbursts about aliens, techno wonders, etc are an extension of this collective sense of longing for something beyond the mundane world that we live in…
In my coming posts, I will explore a little bit more about mythology and its origin

Virtual worlds and their evolution…

As humankind progresses, there are different avenues for social interaction which are becoming possible. The basic intrinsic need of human beings – is to interact. Higher from basic food and nourishment needs, arise the need to interact with fellow beings or fellow intelligences…

The need to interact with intelligence or sentient being is progressively seen in our search for intelligences from beyond our own world. Search for extra-terrestrial life is an extension of humankind’s desire to seek intelligence. In a manner, this direct result of our deep seated, is almost base fear of being alone.

Earlier, the speed of communication was as fast as one could run or as far as one could shout and carry his own voice – of course I am not counting telepathy here since majority of human beings are denied this facility. This changed with the technological revolution (not OUR technological revolution) in form of mastery of fire. This afforded, among other things, the ability to send out signals through fire and smoke which could be seen over large distances. Domestication of horses also helped to a large extent. The speed of communication was the speed of the fastest horse!

Things have advanced consideration from that point. Today, we have reached a stage where we have almost instantaneous communication with anyone on the planet is possible. First the telegraph, then the radio and telephone brought about an unprecedented revolution in the way people communicated.

They coupled with email (considerably later), were in fact, the ‘killer applications” of the 19th and 20th century!

Development and literal explosion of computing age coupled with networking capabilities have taken this to the next level. Now we have computers talking to other computers – almost instantaneously and the social consequences could not be far behind.

With the coming of gaming industry onto computer platform, we have witnessed another social revolution, of a sort, in terms of virtual worlds.

A virtual world is a computer-based simulated environment intended for its users to inhabit and interact via avatars. These avatars are usually depicted as textual, two-dimensional, or three-dimensional graphical representations, although other forms are possible (auditory and touch sensations for example). Some, but not all, virtual worlds allow for multiple users.

According to an article on Wikipedia – “The concept of virtual worlds predates computers and could be traced in some sense to Pliny. The mechanical-based 1962 Sensorama machine used the senses of vision, sound, balance, smells and touch (via wind) to simulate its world. Among the earliest virtual worlds to be implemented by computers were not games but generic virtual reality simulators, such as Ivan Sutherland's 1968 virtual reality device. This form of virtual reality is characterized by bulky headsets and other types of sensory input simulation. Contemporary virtual worlds, multi-user online virtual environments, emerged mostly independently of this virtual reality technology research, fueled instead by the gaming industry but drawing on similar inspiration. While classic sensory-imitating virtual reality relies on tricking the perceptual system into experiencing an immersive environment, virtual worlds typically rely on mentally and emotionally engaging content which gives rise to an immersive experience. “

I won’t go much into the detailed history of virtual worlds – there is sufficient literature already available in the article quoted above. But the core philosophy behind virtual worlds is that the computer accesses a computer-simulated world and presents perceptual stimuli to the user, who in turn can manipulate elements of the modeled world and thus experiences telepresence to a certain degree.

As virtual world is a fairly vague and inclusive term, the above can generally be divided along a spectrum ranging from:

- massively multiplayer online role-playing games or MMORPGs where the user playing a specific character is a main feature of the game (World Of Warcraft for example).

- massively multiplayer online real-life/rogue-like games or MMORLGs, the user can edit and alter their avatar at will, allowing them to play a more dynamic role, or multiple roles

Some would argue that the MMO versions of RTS and FPS games are also virtual worlds if the world editors allow for open editing of the terrains if the "source file" for the terrain is shared. Emerging concepts include basing the terrain of such games on real satellite photos, such as those available through the Google Maps API or through a simple virtual geocaching of "easter eggs" on WikiMapia or similar mashups, where permitted.

Such modeled worlds may appear similar to the real world or instead depict fantasy worlds. The model world may simulate rules based on the real world or some hybrid fantasy world. Example rules are gravity, topography, locomotion, real-time actions, and communication. Communication between users has ranged from text, graphical icons, visual gesture, sound, and rarely, forms using touch and balance senses.

There are many different types of virtual worlds; however there are six features all of them have in common:

1. Shared Space: the world allows many users to participate at once.

2. Graphical User Interface: the world depicts space visually, ranging in style from 2D "cartoon" imagery to more immersive 3D environments.

3. Immediacy: interaction takes place in real time.

4. Interactivity: the world allows users to alter, develop, build, or submit customized content.

5. Persistence: the world's existence continues regardless of whether individual users are logged in.

6. Socialization/Community: the world allows and encourages the formation of in-world social groups like teams, guilds, clubs, cliques, housemates, neighborhoods, etc

There is a virtual plethora of information available on virtual worlds at the virtual worlds review.

The use of virtual worlds in training arena is picking up fast, including military training. Simulators for various types of aircrafts are, at the end of the day, a kind of virtual world only.

If we speculate further, the kind of social revolution that has come about due to virtual worlds is tremendous. People can meet over media which is more immersive than ever and I think I have seen the future of virtual worlds as well – for those who are followers of the Star Trek – holodeck is the ultimate expression of virtual world!

Personally, I eagerly await the development of virtual world technology to holodeck level. It would afford those who are infirm or otherwise unable to travel due to certain kind of disability – to visit people, culture and places they would otherwise have never dreamt of…

The Web, then and now and beyond… Web 2.0!

Following commercialization and introduction of privately run Internet Service Providers in the 1980s, and its expansion into popular use in the 1990s, the Internet has had a drastic impact on culture and commerce. The Internet has touched lives profoundly all over the world. It has led to an almost revolution in the way world operates. And it has brought humanity closer.

In the 1950s and early 1960s, prior to the widespread inter-networking that led to the Internet, most communication networks were limited by their nature to only allow communications between the stations on the network. Some networks had gateways or bridges between them, but these bridges were often limited or built specifically for a single use. One prevalent computer networking method was based on the central mainframe method, simply allowing its terminals to be connected via long leased lines. This method was used in the 1950s by Project RAND to support researchers such as Herbert Simon, in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, when collaborating across the continent with researchers in Sullivan, Illinois, on automated theorem proving and artificial intelligence.

I am not going to rant about the history of internet here. This is covered in a very comprehensive and lucid way in this excellent article at Wikipedia. Another great article, starting a little earlier than the 1950s… Roads and Crossroads of Internet History.

Walt Howe’s discourse about the history of internet is also very interesting to read.

Another interesting aspect is Al Gore’s contribution to the growth of internet.

The commercialization of the Internet brought extraordinary, almost to the point of being irrational, wealth to a few individuals. The euphoria created by sudden connectivity, unleashing the power of individual creativity and bringing it onto a world stage with very little cost was also paralleled in an irrational exuberance in the stock markets. This is also commonly known as the Dot Com Bubble.

It all started during the mid 1990’s. The Stock Market soared on technology and Internet stocks, IPOs were all the rage, and the sky was the limit for stock prices. The masses believed there was a new world upon us, and the internet was to become the future of business. Then reality set in when the hype didn’t live up to its promises and the stock market crashed. If you take all of this for only its face value, all you see is what happens when a stock market gets overvalued and crashes, but if you look deeper you can find plenty of timeless lessons that every investor should learn.

Ian Peter’s History of the Internet - the Dotcom bubble nicely summarizes the Internet and Dot Com Bubble.

Web 2.0 is a buzzword that exploded in popularity sometime in 2005. In 2004, software guru Tim O'Reilly founded the Web 2.0 Conference, held annually in San Francisco. It has since expanded from a conference into a way of thinking, a new approach to doing business on the Internet. There is no standard definition for web 2.0, as it is a cluster of ideas rather than anything clear-cut. However, O'Reilly's comments on the topic are seen as having special authority, and rank among the top Google search results for the term.

According to Tim O’Reilly – “Web 2.0 is the term used, in the technology field, to refer to some exciting developments that promise to bring us to a new and improved internet experience. For developers this means learning new technologies and frameworks to provide better, faster and more sophisticated features”.

The concept of "Web 2.0" began with a conference brainstorming session between O'Reilly and MediaLive International. Dale Dougherty, web pioneer and O'Reilly VP, noted that far from having "crashed", the web was more important than ever, with exciting new applications and sites popping up with surprising regularity. What's more, the companies that had survived the collapse seemed to have some things in common. Could it be that the dot-com collapse marked some kind of turning point for the web, such that a call to action such as "Web 2.0" might make sense? We agreed that it did, and so the Web 2.0 Conference was born.

Paul Graham describes Web 2.0 as an idea that was meaningless when started, but has acquired a meaning during the intervening period. He then goes on to describe the various components that contribute to the new revolution.

According to Wikipedia - Web 2.0 is a term describing changing trends in the use of World Wide Web technology and web design that aims to enhance creativity, secure information sharing, collaboration and functionality of the web. Web 2.0 concepts have led to the development and evolution of web-based communities and its hosted services, such as social-networking sites, video sharing sites, wikis, blogs, and folksonomies. Although the term suggests a new version of the World Wide Web, it does not refer to an update to any technical specifications, but to changes in the ways software developers and end-users utilize the Web.

The first premise of web 2.0 is leveraging the power of the user. For example, fluid user tagging of content would be used instead of a centralized taxonomy. Web 2.0 entrepreneurs often consider the Long Tail, which is basically an observation that the vast majority of the attention market is based on niche content. Web 2.0 is radically decentralized, as in the case of BitTorrent, a collaborative downloading co-op that consumes a serious portion of all Internet traffic.

Blogs are considered web 2.0. Instead of centralized "personal home pages", blogs let people easily post as much or as little as they want as rarely or as frequently as they want. Feed aggregators ensure that people only need to visit a single site to see all the feeds they subscribe to. Comments are enabled everywhere, allowing people to participate rather than passively consume content.

Web 2.0 technology encourages lightweight business models enabled by syndication of content and of service and by ease of picking-up by early adopters.

O'Reilly provided examples of companies or products that embody these principles in his description of his four levels in the hierarchy of Web 2.0 sites:

- Level-3 applications, the most "Web 2.0"-oriented, exist only on the Internet, deriving their effectiveness from the inter-human connections and from the network effects that Web 2.0 makes possible and growing in effectiveness in proportion as people make more use of them. O'Reilly gave eBay, Craigslist, Wikipedia, del.icio.us, Skype, dodgeball, and AdSense as examples.

- Level-2 applications can operate offline but gain advantages from going online. O'Reilly cited Flickr, which benefits from its shared photo-database and from its community-generated tag database.

- Level-1 applications operate offline but gain features online. O'Reilly pointed to Writely (now Google Docs & Spreadsheets) and iTunes (because of its music-store portion).

- Level-0 applications work as well offline as online. O'Reilly gave the examples of MapQuest, Yahoo! Local, and Google Maps (mapping-applications using contributions from users to advantage could rank as "level 2").

Non-web applications like email, instant-messaging clients, and the telephone fall outside the above hierarchy

Web 2.0 websites allow users to do more than just retrieve information. They can build on the interactive facilities of "Web 1.0" to provide "Network as platform" computing, allowing users to run software-applications entirely through a browser. Users can own the data on a Web 2.0 site and exercise control over that data. These sites may have an "Architecture of participation" that encourages users to add value to the application as they use it. This stands in contrast to very old traditional websites, the sort which limited visitors to viewing and whose content only the site's owner could modify. Web 2.0 sites often feature a rich, user-friendly interface based on Ajax, OpenLaszlo, Flex or similar rich media.

Second life and similar platforms provide an immersive environment where users can interact with each other in a father richer way than was possible through the web 1.0 tools such as chats, emails, etc.

In my next post, I’ll be talking more on how this new revolution is touching lives and what may be in store for humanity with this medium… almost bordering on the science fiction!

Climate Change and civilizations…

In my previous post on the topic of global warming and its impact on planet’s climate, I had delved into the causes behind global warming and varying opinions of different authority figures. This time, I would like to trace the effects of climate change on the evolution of humanity.

I came across an interesting article by Dr Nachiketa Das – where he discusses the topic of climate change and its effect on river Ganges.

He is of the opinion – “Global warming, now in 2008, is real, and upon us. How will global warming affect the rivers in India; will they all dry up? Can the holy Ganges, the river that has shaped and sustained Indian civilization through the ages, who we Indians revere as the life-giving mother, run dry! Many climate experts and environmentalists, in the last ten years, have been making dire predictions of the Ganges becoming seasonal. Some doomsayers have even gone to the extent of boldly predicting the river to be ephemeral by the year 2035, which is barely a generation away! Is it really possible that the Ganges will run dry by 2035! Is this calamity an inevitability that should be accepted as fait accompli, or is there anything we, the people of India, collectively can do to save the holy Mother Ganges from extinction”.

The concerns are valid. The Ganges originates from Gangotri glacier, which is one of the largest valley glaciers located in western Himalayas. 30.2 km long and 0.5 to 2.5 km wide Gangotri lies recumbent at the altitudes between 4,120 and 7,000 m above sea level. The total area occupied by the glacier complex (in 2001) that feeds Ganges, is 260 square km, which contains 40 cubic km of ice (in 1999). During a 60 year period between 1936 and 1996, Gangotri has receded by as much as 1,147 m, 850 m of which happened during a 25 year period between 1971 and 1996. In a three year period between 1996 and 1999 Gangotri retreated by 76 m. When this result is contrasted with the 2,000 m retreat over the last 200 years, the significantly accelerated rate of retreat has become obvious.

Also, Global warming does not mean uniform amount of warming at each and every place on the globe. Although vast majority of the places on this earth will become hotter due to global warming, however strange it may seem, certain parts will in fact become cooler.

Why? Well, it has to with how the weather and heat transfer systems work on our planet. Unlike the frozen wastes of Mars or lead melting surface of Venus, our planet is blessed with a very complex, yet delicate ecosystem.

The Gulf Stream is a vast oceanic current that carries warm waters from the tropics to the temperate regions of northern Europe and North America. This ocean current originates in the Gulf of Mexico, flows past the east coast of the USA and Newfoundland in Canada, and then crosses the Atlantic Ocean. It then branches into two, with the northern stream moving to northern Europe. The Gulf Stream is about 80 to 150 km wide and a 1,000 m deep river of sea that transports 1.4 petawatts (1 petawatt is 1,000 million megawatts) of heat, which is equivalent to almost 100 times the current energy demand of the entire world. Around Cape Hatteras on the coast of North Carolina in the US, the Gulf Stream transports water at the rate of 80 million cubic meter per second, and is much bigger than any river system of the world; in fact the combined release of all the waters from all the rivers flowing into the Atlantic is only 0.6 million cubic meter per second.

The Gulf Stream has significant localized effects on the climate of the east coast of Florida and Massachusetts in the US; and the west coast of Britain, which is a good few degrees warmer than the east coast. The warming effect of the Gulf Stream is most dramatic in the western islands of Scotland, so much so that the small township of Plockton (latitude 57.33oN) that is located east of the Isle of Skye, has a mild climate that allows sub-tropical cabbage-palm-trees to grow. The local climate in Plockton in the absence of the Gulf Stream would be freezing cold as latitudinal it lies further north of Moscow (latitude 55.45oN) by almost two degrees.

Due to global warming, there is every possibility that the Gulf Stream may change course or it may lose its strength. In fact in November 2004, it completely stopped for full ten days, and there are reports saying that in the last 50 years (since 1957) its deep return flow has weakened by as much as 30%. Any change in the characteristics of the Gulf Stream, would cause significant localized cooling in Scandinavia and Britain. At a time of global warming, the western islands of Scotland will experience substantial cooling.

The effects on human population and civilization can be imagined.

This, however, is the not the first time that climate change has affected humanity on such a scale.

The river Sarasvati for example, is widely considered to have supported the Harappan culture. Movement and ultimate decline of the Harappan culture are often attributed to climate change and its ultimate effect on river Sarasvati. Some Rigvedic verses (6.61.2-13) indicate that the Sarasvati River originated in the hills or mountains (giri), where she "burst with her strong waves the ridges of the hills (giri)". It is a matter of interpretation whether this refers not merely to the Himalayan foothills like the present-day Sarasvati (Sarsuti) river. The Sarasvati is described as a river swollen (pinvamānā) by other rivers (sindhubhih). Another reference to the Sarasvati is in the geographical enumeration of the rivers in the late Rigvedic Nadistuti sukta (10.75.5, this verse enumerates all important rivers from the Ganges in the east up to the Indus in the west in a strict geographical order), as "Ganga, Yamuna, Sarasvati, Shutudri", the Sarasvati is placed between the Yamuna and the Sutlej, consistent with the Ghaggar identification. It is clear, therefore, that even if she has unmistakably lost much of her former prominence, Sarasvati remains characterized as a river goddess throughout the Rigveda, being the home river of the Puru and later on, the Kuru tribe.

While Sarasvati River might still be remembered, its influence on Indian history cannot be discounted. Nor can its decline be overlooked.

However, climate change need not always be so bad for human culture. After all, our present day humans ascended to our current position in evolutionary terms due to ending of an ICE AGE.

Sahara desert, the largest one on our planet, used to be a very lush and green place before the change in climate led to its present state and forced a lot of human tribes into the valley of the Nile, leading up to its fabulous civilization and myriad dynasties.

Sustenance played a crucial role in the founding of Egyptian civilization. The Nile is an unending source of sustenance. The Nile made the land surrounding it extremely fertile when it flooded or was inundated annually. The Egyptians were able to cultivate wheat and crops around the Nile, providing food for the general population. Also, the Nile’s water attracted game such as water buffalo; and after the Persians introduced them in the 7th century BC, camels. These animals could be killed for meat, or could be captured, tamed and used for ploughing — or in the camels' case, travelling. Water was vital to both people and livestock. The Nile was also a convenient and efficient way of transportation for people and goods. The Nile played a major role in politics and social life.

But at the end of the day, it was climate change which led to rise and fall of these civilizations….

So what are we worried about?

It’s just that we humans are much more numerous now and spread of more area of the planet than at any time in our history. So climate change this time, turns out to be very inconvenient indeed and because it might lead to decline of our current global civilization and ultimately bring misery to untold billions, that we are so concerned.

We humans seem to be standing too much in the way of nature to be left unscathed by the fury that will be unleashed by the current spell climate change, arguably induced by our actions only…

Our Fragile Global Economy…

“Greed is good,” insisted Gordon Gekko in the 1987 film Wall Street. Most of us disagree. Recent events in the mortgage lending industry prove us right.

The “subprime loan crisis” has been making headlines since it began in August. It refers to the fact that a relatively high percentage of mortgages offered to people with significant probability of default have gone sour.

The moniker is a bit misleading, though. The crisis we are witnessing starts from risky loan deals but will extend to all varieties of credit and risk: consumer loans, credit cards, businesses, and so on. It is just about to heat up but the roots of this crisis were laid years ago.

It’s a credit crisis, but credit per se is not the problem. The problem lies in how credit was traded from one hand to another on an unprecedented scale. This was done through financial innovations called derivatives.

In recent memory – translated as in the last few weeks of media glare – we have noticed and witnessed a US and to some extent global financial meltdown of historic proportions. Most of media and the people quoted (as experts by media) are calling it the greatest threat to “world” economy since the Great Depression of 1930s.

Addison Wiggin and Bill Bonner wrote the classic, must-read, “The Empire of Debt”. The US Empire, the book surmised, had grown economically weak and unsustainable. It has burdened itself with too much debt. Its collapse is imminent. From the roots of this book has emerged one of the most talked about documentaries: “I. O. U.S.A.” (the “O” as in “owe”) which highlights the extraordinary debt levels of the US government. A debt that is estimated at USD 410,000 per full-time worker in America – about 9x the average annual per capita income in USA.

So here we are yet again in the midst of another "global economic crisis." From the hilltops of Davos, Switzerland, Morgan Stanley's permabear Stephen Roach has shouted warnings of potential economic "Armageddon." Superinvestor George Soros designated the current state of the global economy "the worst market crisis in 60 years." Bill Clinton labeled it "the biggest financial crisis since the Great Depression" -- even as global stocks responded by slumping 7.7% in January -- the worst start to an investing year since Morgan Stanley began publishing data in the 1970s.

It seems that certain quarters had been warning of this for a long time. In it’s public pronouncement – “Global systemic crisis / September 2008 - Phase of collapse of US real economy” - LEAP/E2020 – had predicted – “the end of the third quarter of 2008 will be marked by a new tipping point in the unfolding of the global systemic crisis. At that time indeed, the cumulated impact of the various sequences of the crisis (see table below) will reach its maximum strength and affect decisively the very heart of the systems concerned, on the frontline of which the United States, epicentre of the current crisis. In the United States, this new tipping point will translate into a collapse of the real economy, final socio-economic stage of the serial bursting of the housing and financial bubbles and of the pursuance of the US dollar fall. The collapse of US real economy means the virtual freeze of the American economic machinery: private and public bankruptcies in large numbers, companies and public services closing down massively,...”

It has a dire warning – “On the occasion of the second anniversary of the publication of our famous “Global systemic crisis Alert” which toured the world in February 2006 (4), LEAP/E2020 wishes to remind that we are now resolutely stepping into an era with no historical precedent. Our researchers insisted on that many times in the last two years: any comparison with the previous crises of our modern economy would be fallacious. It is neither a “remake” of the 1929 crisis nor a repetition of the 1970s oil crises or 1987 stock market crisis. It is truly a global systemic crisis, that is to say a crisis affecting the entire planet and questioning the very foundations of the international system upon which the world was organised in the last decades”

So wasn’t anybody paying attention?

Looks like it. Although some institutions/ people did see…

As far back as April, 2008 – IMF warned – “Credit Crisis Is Broadening”. The widening and deepening fallout from the U.S. subprime mortgage crisis could have profound financial system and macroeconomic implications, according to the IMF's latest Global Financial Stability Report (GFSR).

"Financial markets remain under considerable stress because of a combination of three factors," said Jaime Caruana, head of the IMF's Monetary and Capital Markets Department. "First, the balance sheets of financial institutions are weakening; second, the deleveraging process continues and also that asset prices continue to fall; and, finally, the macroeconomic environment is more challenging because of the weakening global growth," he added.

The most profound aspect of this meltdown is that the crisis has weakened the capital and funding of large systemically important financial institutions, raising systemic risks.

So how did it begin?

According to an article on Wikipedia - The subprime mortgage crisis is an ongoing economic problem which became more apparent during 2007 and 2008, and is characterized by contracted liquidity in the global credit markets and banking system. The downturn in the U.S. housing market, risky lending and borrowing practices, and excessive individual and corporate debt levels have caused multiple adverse effects on the world economy. The crisis has passed through various stages, exposing pervasive weaknesses in the global financial system and regulatory framework

The crisis began with the bursting of the United States housing bubble and high default rates on "subprime" and adjustable rate mortgages (ARM), beginning in approximately 2005-2006. For several years prior to that, an increase in loan incentives such as easy initial terms and a long-term trend of rising housing prices had encouraged borrowers to assume difficult mortgages in the belief they would be able to quickly refinance at more favorable terms. However, once housing prices started to drop moderately in 2006–2007 in many parts of the U.S., refinancing became more difficult. Defaults and foreclosure activity increased dramatically, as easy initial terms expired, home prices failed to go up as anticipated, and ARM interest rates reset higher. Foreclosures accelerated in the United States in late 2006 and triggered a global financial crisis through 2007 and 2008. During 2007, nearly 1.3 million U.S. housing properties were subject to foreclosure activity, up 79% from 2006.

Major banks and other financial institutions around the world have reported losses of approximately US$435 billion as of 17 July 2008. In addition, the ability of corporations to obtain funds through the issuance of commercial paper was affected. This aspect of the crisis is consistent with a credit crunch. The liquidity concerns drove central banks around the world to take action to provide funds to member banks to encourage lending to worthy borrowers and to restore faith in the commercial paper markets.

Who is to blame?

According to LEAP/E2020 - It is always a repeated astonishment for our team to see the degree of incapacity of these same experts and managers in understanding the specific nature of the phenomenon currently unfolding. According to them, this crisis would only be a usual crisis but bigger. As a matter of fact that's how the financial media reflect the dominant interpretations of the ongoing crisis. According to our team, this approach is not only intellectually lazy; it is also morally guilty, because it has for a main consequence to prevent their readers (whether they are simple citizens, private investors or public or private organization managers) from preparing for the upcoming shocks.

They continue their forecast of doom - For this reason, in opposition to all what can be read in the mainstream media always eager to conceal the truth and serve the interests of those who rule them, LEAP/E2020 wishes to remind that it is first and foremost in the United States that the systemic crisis is taking an unprecedented shape (the « Very Great US Depression » as our team decided to call it in January 2007) because it is around this country, and this country alone, that the world got progressively organized after the second World War. The various issues of the GEAB extensively described this situation. In short, it appears to be useful to make clear that neither Europe nor Asia have a negative saving rate, a full-scale housing crisis throwing millions of citizens out of their homes, a free-falling currency, abysmal public and trade deficits, an economic recession and, on top of all this, a number of costly wars to finance.

So is there a silver lining for Asia and Europe?

Time will tell… for now, we, as individuals, can do little except watch this unprecedented systemic crisis unfold and reshape the financial landscape of this planet. The tectonic shifts in balance of financial power due to collapse of pillars of US economy (such as Lehman) is definitely reshaping the world order – but not with war this time, but with economics… Asia’s rise was anyway foretold… :-)