mindnet

the following two passages are the result of watching the intro videos at spacecollective.com, which i ended up at from a post by bob stein (macarthur-certified genius, dan's "boss") on the if:book blog. if i could give these pingbacks, i would, but blogger sucks, so i can't, sorry. i recommend the videos, but they're not really necessary. it's a lot of loose ideas, not very refined. anyway, enjoy. it's kind of out there.
__________________________

thoughts after watching videos at spacecollective.com while half-drunk*

If people had chips implanted in their brains that allowed them to access all the information and other people on the “mindnet”, would they, and how?

The information, yes, people would, but how do you format information for a mind? One approach is a HUD sort of thing that would impose itself on one’s field of vision. This is a child of the book-based linear way of thinking. Another option is by emulating the way we think, which seems at first to be the optimal way. Unfortunately, this is actually not much better than a radio over which you exercise control. Instead, we need some sort of way for people to experience data; while this may start with a sort of virtual reality, it can extend far beyond the conventional conception of such a thing as a mere recreation of the physical world. It could equally be a mental browser or a yet unimagined medium.

As for people, whether people would and how they would are directly interrelated. One possibility is for one to literally hear (or see) the others thoughts; essentially two minds within the same (two) brain(s). The problem with this is that it does not allow one to consider what to say; there is literally no such thing as privacy. Thus, this seems like the sort of thing one would only want to do with those people closest to them, such as significant others; certainly not business associates.

A more conventional possibility is to allow the sending of thoughts, similar to an IM. However, the formatting of such a task becomes very difficult. How would one revise their thoughts for “publication”? We do the same thing over IMs, but in this case we have a screen on which to compose. How would one compose in their mind? What do we want a virtual screen to be?

A big issue in this is privacy. A lot of people have the capability for video chats, and yet rarely use it, as an IM or phone/audio chat allows them to multitask and do other things or consult other information while simultaneously conversing. What form would such a silent reference take within one’s mind? The ability to send such a reference, made possible by the hyperlink, would of course be augmented, but how does one hold a conversation and consult media at the same time within one mind? With the existence of Second Life and such worlds, would it actually be possible for one being to thus live in multiple universes at the same time? How? Would this interface be an extension of tabs, as in Firefox, OS X’s dock, or Window’s start bar? or is there a better way to format multiple sources for the mind?

More generally, how does one deal with language and images? We really only have two useful senses in this sense, hearing and sight. Thoughts often take the form of one or the other. However, we often need a medium to convey thoughts which reach beyond a purely aesthetic creation into the reglemented framework of logic and language. How can we use language within the mind? How do we use it already? Is there a way to expand the ways we use language, to a sort of sixth sense purely within the mind? While thought contains the possibility of such a sense, it currently reflects only our senses, though arguably also our intuitions (by which I mean non-logical and usually non-language based thoughts). Intuition seems to be one such way of expanding the thought-verse, but are there additional ways of sensing that could contain or even allow the expansion or subsumption of language? For me, the attainment of such a sense (or perhaps any useful sense) is truly what is required to become superhuman.

In a sense, this is the greatest formatting problem possible: how do we naturally format things? How could we format things within this natural system? What role should language play in this artificial interface with the natural?

* 1. yes, i'm legal here. don't bug me.
2. well...yes. i'm as peculiar a drunk as i am a person, but i like it that way.
_________________________

what is a networked mind? is it one thing, or multiple? if two people can hear all of each other’s thoughts, are they “one”? what happens to identity in such cases? what is the link between thoughts and the will? what is the divide between conscious, linguistic thought and less/sub/un-conscious willing that creates action? how far can two people cohabit the same mind–only on a conscious, linguistic level, or could they control each other’s bodies? what happens in the case of conflicting wills? would this actually neurally or otherwise destroy the people in question?

We get a simplistic model of a networked mind in Aeon Flux, where the resistance movement is organized in a virtual world that exists within the networked minds of the members. However, this world is merely a recreation of earth (with nice visual effects). There is also the idea of a message in a liquid which presents itself directly in the mind via a superimposed voice, imitating thought. The liquid is a physical extension between unnetworked minds, a sort of thumb drive. The formats of the information communicated, though, are rather simple–an audio recording and an audiovisual earth-type virtual world. As it was necessary to present this intelligibly in a movie, though, the attempt at all is quite impressive.