That is a very interesting subject for a thesis. I would appreciate getting
a copy when your work is finished.
>To be sure, industrial and post-industrial societies face complex
>problems; to date, coping with them has required specialised knowledge
>and expert understanding. For this reason, information systems have been
>designed primarily to provide experts with such needed technical
>information, efficiently and effectively. Yet it is generalists, not
>specialists, who make the important decisions of society.
I wholly agree.
>Will the Internet ever be a tool for solving complex problems?
In my view, as expounded in my paper "The World-Wide Web as a Super-Brain"
(http://pespmc1.vub.ac.be/papers/WWWSuperBRAIN.html), yes. Similar views
are defended by Gottfried Mayer-Kress in his discussion of the Internet as
a Global Brain useful for modelling complex problem, though he is less
explicit in the precise mechanisms through which this may happen. You can
find a link to Mayer-Kress' home page with a list of all his papers (and to
pages of other participants in the Vienna symposium on Cyberspace) on
http://pespmc1.vub.ac.be/cybspasy.html.
>Is it right to call the Internet a Global Brain when it excludes
>approximately 99% of the global society?
>I am referring to your inspiring articles from the Cybernetics and
>Systems meeting in Vienna this year
There is such exclusion as present, but we all hope that this will change.
Though the number of people using the Internet will undoubtedly increase
spectacularly, there is the danger that a large class of poor or less
educated people will remain excluded. This will require specific policy
measures. I would not call the internet a global brain at this stage
anyway, even if everybody would be connected. As explained in my paper , it
would first need to undergo some major transitions to the levels of
learning and thinking.
>I am trying to establish some
>sort of electronic discussion regarding this interesting subject. After
>all, this is one of the main purposes when designing the Internet...
Perhaps such a discussion might take place on the PRNCYB-L mailing list?
(see http://pespmc1.vub.ac.be/mail.html). There certainly are quite a
number of PRNCYB subscribers who would be interested in this topic. It
would require you to subscribe to PRNCYB too, though.
Another possibility would be to create a special purpose mailing list,
which would include people who may not be members of PRNCYB at present but
who are working actively on the subject. A provisional list of such people
and their main publications on the topic of global brains/super-organisms
can be found at http://pespmc1.vub.ac.be/SUPORGLI.html. I was considering
organizing some sort of contact group with these people, but I haven't yet
had the time to discuss this with them...
>PS I will also take the opportunity to encourage you on your great work
>with the Principia Cybernetica Web which I find of great usefulness and a
>positive way of showing what the Web can be used for besides corporate
>marketing and commercial interests.
Thank you for the encouragement. We certainly plan to continue developing
and improving the PCP Web, but we don't have the money and the amount of
labour that commercial organizations can put into such a task. But on the
other hand, we have probably a much deepeer understanding of web
organization than they do...
>Department of Informatics, Mid Sweden University
>phone: +46 (0)63 16 55 47 fax: +46 (0)63 16 55 05
>e-mail: svh9204@bach.it.mh.se
________________________________________________________________________
Dr. Francis Heylighen, Systems Researcher fheyligh@vnet3.vub.ac.be
PESP, Free University of Brussels, Pleinlaan 2, B-1050 Brussels, Belgium
Tel +32-2-6292525; Fax +32-2-6292489; http://pespmc1.vub.ac.be/HEYL.html