NMR ISSUE 31

Abhisheka
An Urban Wicca
Astrological Forecast 31
Caterpiller, Bobcat, Emu & Camel
Charge of the God
Editorial 31
Esoteric Symbology of the Tarot
History is a Lie
Home Schooling
Imagination or Mystical Experience
Letters 31
Magical Flute III The Materials
Orion
Primordial Tones:
The Colors of the Aura
The Dreamer from Lemuria
Where Do the Sacred Fires Burn?

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The Editorial

By Scot Rhoads

The Infotainment Superhighway

People are already beginning to poke fun at the Information Superhighway—joking about road kill and choked on-ramps etc. This is not surprising considering the hype. But I feel that this hype is only premature, not inaccurate. We will not impress an impatient public this century, or perhaps early in the next; but eventually the reality will make the hype look narrow-minded.

TV is still suffering from being a new medium. It now enjoys disdain similar to that which many now respectable genre suffered in their youths, among them: radio, movies, theater, poetry and even writing itself. Part of the problem is its youth—it takes a while to build a reservoir of good work. Part of the problem is the expense and difficulty of creation and distribution. Time is curing the former problem and technology the latter. Even with the vaunted several hundred cable TV channels, a viewer is limited to what these channels and the local video store are able to offer. But the Superhighway (better named the Network) will eventually be able to offer everything that at least a few people want (text, music and video) on demand. Then broadcasting, if it survives at all, will be limited to things like news and interactive programs. TV, as we grew up with it, will go the way of clipper ships and the pony express. There will still be an endless supply of garbage, much as there has been in books since Gutenberg, but there will also be more outstanding art and information than one can absorb in a lifetime. Anyone hooked up to the net can have the best the world has to offer on any subject at any time. And they can make their own creations available in return.

This is the promise that one sees in today's hype. One worry is that most of the information will be junk. It is now, so what? The problem is not that there will be junk out there, but having to filter through it all. Pop media pundits recently got their kicks talking about how information is the wave of the future and that information is now a commodity. That is to be expected, but it becomes a cheap commodity soon after it hits the networks. It will become increasingly difficult to protect and manage. As the proliferation of information becomes the `virtual dirt' of the Network, information management, the tools needed to move that dirt around to build things, will become critical. Now we can only see a hint of this. For instance: The Encyclopedia Britannica could fit on a CD ROM disk—but the software needed to access its information could not. Many Computer Bulletin Boards have over 1 Gigabyte (1,000,000,000) of files available—it can take hours to sift through the myriad files of just one BBS. There are several networks of BBS's that can generate hundreds of messages in one section in one day. It is impossible to handle all this information on one's own.

We already filter much of what we have to deal with. We choose the newspapers, magazines, TV programs, junk mail, etc. that will take up our time. Now, the inefficient among us can probably barely afford to read through each bit of junk mail and watch each disappointing movie to its disappointing end (still hoping it may yet be worth it, until the names of the key grip and best boy roll up the screen). But the volume of information on the Net will force us to make choices consciously beforehand. We will each have to set up our own system to filter out what we don't want. (We will even be able to create viral programs to go out on their own into the Net and seek certain things—much like an artificial Elemental!) While this brings up the worry of alienation and withdrawal, this will only be possible by choice. Those who want to be a part of things will be able to participate more than ever before.

Most people will probably have a general awareness of what's going on around the world equivalent at least to what the Evening News provides. But, when a story captures someone's interest, they will be able to immediately pursue it in-depth. People may not have more in-depth knowledge than they do now, but they will have access to whatever in-depth knowledge they need at any time.

The rationing of time will become the defining factor. When you can do almost anything you could want to with your time, you should choose what you most want to do. This can be a Darwinian selection process that can lead to a vital creation that I call `virtual Sesame St.'

I once heard a teacher complain that Sesame St. was a disastrous program. She said that it leads children to expect learning to be fun and left them with no attention span. This is a serious indictment. But in a larger picture, perhaps it is not so bad. Abraham Lincoln was one of the first to recognize that attention spans were shortening. Each day he received many telegrams from Generals all over the country updating the progress of the war. He was exposed to the future of communication; and he recognized that people weren't going to linger over a ponderous tome when that meant falling behind on the important data pouring in. It was impossible. Thus we have the Gettysburg Address— terse, powerful, brilliant. What of the more conventional speech that some famous orator gave beforehand? About the only thing anyone remembers is that it was long. Very long. A long attention span has become the equivalent of not knowing to get out of the rain.

This means that the two selecting factors will be the importance of information and its entertainment value. People are willing to suffer through boring speeches and bad scientific writing when the information is important to them. And everyone likes to be entertained. But when you can do both, you address two needs for the price of one. With access to nearly everything ever done, and nearly everyone on the planet being able to create for everyone else, the selection pressures will be enormous. This doesn't mean that people will feel under pressure (unless they are driven to succeed, but that's not the Net's fault), but that there will be a huge reservoir of material to choose from and the cream will rise at the speed of electronic transfer. We can expect to be able to fill every moment with entertaining and culturally/politically/scientifically/etc. important programs if we choose. Another drive people seem to have is exploration. The Net will look like a 17th Century map of the world—or a fractal. From a distance, we will have only general ideas of what is where, but if we choose an area, we can go into it in great depth and detail. We can meet the natives of that area and learn their secrets. We can join them for as long as we wish. And we can try to share the knowledge there with others.

What does sharing the knowledge mean on The Net? The information is always there for whoever wants to access it. The problem is that most people will not be aware that they want to access it. How do you get past people's filters? Two ways: 1) make it interesting; 2) communicate on the personal level. It is unlikely that many people will be able to draw much attention to unusual information on a global level, but those that can, will be adding to the store of very interesting and very entertaining files. More often attention to information will pass on a personal level. We all have friends (and virtual friends) and they have friends, etc., ad infinitum. When a friend recommends a book or a video that we might otherwise have ignored, we consider it more seriously. Thus, formerly obscure information can find its way anywhere.

Simply because it is what people want, the Network will provide endless beauty and knowledge through a chaos of information. It is not difficult to imagine what it can be like for the individual once we broaden our perspective. But what will it be like on a larger scale? Interestingly, there is already a similar chaos of information that we can look to for inspiration. We find a multitude of individuals in instant communication with each other in the human brain. We don't think of it in those terms because we are aware of only the unified consciousness that results (and, if we are savvy, a dark and mysterious subconscious that still seems outside our selves). But if we take an off-planet perspective, we can see humanity as a whole coming up with ideas and focusing on certain goals on a global scale. But our brain cannot be separate from our body—most of its activity is, of necessity, dedicated to its needs. Similarly, humans do not exist without a planet; we are learning now (the hard way) that we must attend to its needs.

We still have a tendency to think of Earth as our planet; perhaps as a brain cell might think of inhabiting its body. But from our perspective, the cell's idea would be absurd. Similarly, while we go about living our individual lives pursuing our personal goals the same as we ever did, perhaps we can consider ourselves to be Gaia's brain and our collective thoughts to be Gaia's consciousness. Which we can access on the Net.

How absurd is the idea of a planet having a consciousness? Consider this progression: Starting (arbitrarily) with atoms, they cooperate to form molecules, which cooperate to form cells, which cooperate to form organisms, including us. We see this as the zenith of consciousness because that is the level that our consciousness is now on. But individuals cooperate in groups, and groups are part of a cooperative biosphere. How can we continue to reserve consciousness only to us through tortured Cartesian philosophy? If consciousness exists, we should be open to the idea of extending it up and down the scale. (Though it would obviously not be human consciousness in anything other than humans!) By itself, Occam's razor compels us to assume this is the case until we have contrary evidence. (It is simpler to assume everything has some consciousness to it than to try to explain why it's restricted only to sufficiently developed humans.)

There is a psychology of crowds, cultures, governments, organizations—any group. Many have noticed that they have a life of their own. I read a great article in a revisionist history magazine long ago about the psychology of war. The author noted such things as the correspondence of drumbeats in martial music with an excited heart rate. My favorite story was about Kaiser Wilhelm on the eve of WWI. Germany had directed Austria-Hungary to demand excessive reparations of Serbia after the assassination of Archduke Ferdinand. When Serbia acceded to most of the demands, the Kaiser said that all reason for war falls away and told his ministers to direct Austria-Hungary to accept. His ministers acted as though they had not heard him. They urged Austria to declare war, contrary to the Kaiser's wishes. The ministers, and the country, were ready for war. Not even the Kaiser could stand in the way of Germany's will.

We can see this more subtly in cycles of war, economics, fashion, etc. We are part of larger social and biological organizations, and we can describe their actions as consciousness. But they are not a sapient consciousness (as far as we can tell) yet! With the creation of the Network, this can change. Once each of us is aware of our place in the Net and immediately aware on a global scale of our individual actions, this may be sapience. And since the Net (through its users) is an integral part of the earth, this could be Gaia's awakening.

Blessed Be