Between Caves: From Plato to the Brain through the Internet

2017 ◽  
Author(s):  
Javier Echeverria ◽  
Adolfo Plasencia
Keyword(s):  
Binary System ◽  
The Internet ◽  
Digital Revolution ◽  
The World ◽  
Evolutionary Step ◽  
Control Technologies ◽  
The Brain ◽  
The Universe ◽  
Modern Computing

In this dialogue, the philosopher of science and mathematician Javier Echeverria, begins by explaining how Leibniz created the first modern binary system, in which ‘1 and 0’ is capable of expressing everything, - something that marked the beginning of all modern computing and the subsequent digital revolution -, and why there would be no Internet without this language. He then argues why everything that is intelligible cannot be digitized. After, he explains why digitization is part of the invention of writing, how it transforms the world and might imply a great evolutionary step forward. He then rationalizes why we should speak of “intelligences”, in the plural, rather than just one intelligence and why, for him, intelligence is a question of degree. Later in the dialogue, he reflects on collective and “biosocial” intelligence, as well as explaining his vision of the Internet as Plato’s Cave, why he thinks metaverses are possible, and why he believes in the possibility that the universe is a huge hologram. Finally, he describes how our brains are starting to become bionic (“techno-brains”), thus enabling control technologies, and why this digital revolution poses a great challenge for the humanities

scholarly journals Notes towards an anthropology of the internet

2004 ◽  
Vol 10 (21) ◽  
pp. 15-40 ◽  
Author(s):  
Keith Hart
Keyword(s):  
World History ◽  
The Political ◽  
The Internet ◽  
Digital Revolution ◽  
The Third ◽  
Human Creativity ◽  
Third Stage ◽  
The World ◽  
History Of ◽  
The Universe

What might an anthropology of the internet look like? It require a combination of introspection, personal judgment and world history to explore the universe of cyberspace. This world is not sufficient to itself, nor is it 'the world'. People bring their offline circumstances to behaviour online. The virtual and the real constitute a dialectic in which neither can be reduced to the other and 'virtual reality' is their temporary synthesis. Heidegger's metaphysics are drawn on to illuminate this dialectic. Before this, the internet is examines in the light of the history of communications, from speech and writing to books and the radio. The digital revolution of our time is marked by the convergence of telephones, television and computing. It is the third stage in a machine revolution lasting just 200 years. The paper analyses the political economy of the internet in terms of the original three classes controlling respectively increase in the environment (land), money (capital) and human creativity (labour). It ends with a consideration of Kant's great example for a future anthropology capable of placing human subjectivity in world history.

Messiah with the Microphone? Oral Historians, Technology, and Sound Archives

2012 ◽  
Author(s):  
Robert B. Perks
Keyword(s):  
Oral History ◽  
First Century ◽  
The Internet ◽  
Digital Audio ◽  
Digital Revolution ◽  
The World ◽  
Technological Skills ◽  
Twenty First Century ◽  
The Relationship

For decades, oral historians and their tape recorders have been inseparable, but it has also been an uneasy marriage of convenience. The recorder is both our “tool of trade” and also that part of the interview with which historians are least comfortable. Oral historians' relationship with archivists has been an uneasy one. From the very beginnings of the modern oral history movement in the 1940s, archivists have played an important role. The arrival of “artifact-free” digital audio recorders and mass access via the Internet has transformed the relationship between the historian and the source. Accomplished twenty-first-century oral history practitioners are now expected to acquire advanced technological skills to capture, preserve, analyze, edit, and present their data to ever larger audiences. The development of oral history in many parts of the world was influenced by the involvement of sound archivists and librarians. Digital revolution in the present century continues to influence oral history.

scholarly journals Using the NASA/IPAC Extragalactic Database (NED) and Federated Virtual Observatory Archives for Multiwavelength Studies of AGNs

2002 ◽  
Vol 184 ◽  
pp. 379-388
Author(s):  
Joseph M. Mazzarella ◽  
Keyword(s):  
Present Status ◽  
Research Tool ◽  
The Internet ◽  
Virtual Observatory ◽  
Primary Research ◽  
The World ◽  
Multi Wavelength ◽  
Globally Distributed ◽  
The Universe

AbstractWe live in an exciting era that offers increasing opportunities for people all over the world to make discoveries about the Universe using interconnected archives on the Internet as a primary research tool. We review how NED (http://ned.ipac.caltech.edu) can be used in concert with globally distributed online archives to perform multi-wavelength, crosscorrelated studies of AGNs and other galaxy types. The present status and planned evolution of NED capabilities are discussed.

Semi-Structured Data Extraction from Heterogenous Sources

2000 ◽  
pp. 83-102 ◽  
Author(s):  
Xiaoying Gao ◽  
Leon Sterling
Keyword(s):  
Knowledge Management ◽  
World Wide ◽  
Data Extraction ◽  
Research Problem ◽  
The Internet ◽  
Web Pages ◽  
Accessible Information ◽  
The World ◽  
Machine Readable ◽  
The Universe

The World Wide Web is known as the “universe of network-accessible information, the embodiment of human knowledge” (W3C, 1999). Internet-based knowledge management aims to use the Internet as the world wide environment for knowledge publishing, searching, sharing, reusing, and integration, and to support collaboration and decision making. However, knowledge on the Internet is buried in documents. Most of the documents are written in languages for human readers. The knowledge contained therein cannot be easily accessed by computer programs such as knowledge management systems. In order to make the Internet “machine readable,” information extraction from Web pages becomes a crucial research problem.

scholarly journals Human Development XI: The Structure of the Cerebral Cortex. Are There Really Modules in the Brain?

2007 ◽  
Vol 7 ◽  
pp. 1922-1929 ◽  
Author(s):  
Tyge Dahl Hermansen ◽  
Søren Ventegodt ◽  
Isack Kandel
Keyword(s):  
Cerebral Cortex ◽  
Brain Activity ◽  
Sensory Cortex ◽  
Biological Information ◽  
Human Consciousness ◽  
Primary Sensory Cortex ◽  
Sensory Maps ◽  
The World ◽  
The Brain ◽  
The Universe

The structure of human consciousness is thought to be closely connected to the structure of cerebral cortex. One of the most appreciated concepts in this regard is the Szanthagothei model of a modular building of neo-cortex. The modules are believed to organize brain activity pretty much like a computer. We looked at examples in the literature and argue that there is no significant evidence that supports Szanthagothei's model. We discuss the use of the limited genetic information, the corticocortical afferents termination and the columns in primary sensory cortex as arguments for the existence of the cortex-module. Further, we discuss the results of experiments with Luminization Microscopy (LM) colouration of myalinized fibres, in which vertical bundles of afferent/efferent fibres that could support the cortex module are identified. We conclude that sensory maps seem not to be an expression for simple specific connectivity, but rather to be functional defined. We also conclude that evidence for the existence of the postulated module or column does not exist in the discussed material. This opens up for an important discussion of the brain as functionally directed by biological information (information-directed self-organisation), and for consciousness being closely linked to the structure of the universe at large. Consciousness is thus not a local phenomena limited to the brain, but a much more global phenomena connected to the wholeness of the world.

Measures of Network Structure

2010 ◽  
pp. 41-49
Author(s):  
Ani Calinescu ◽  
Janet Efstathiou
Keyword(s):  
Neural Networks ◽  
World Wide ◽  
The Internet ◽  
Network Architectures ◽  
Production Networks ◽  
Related Research ◽  
The World ◽  
Research Questions ◽  
The Brain ◽  
Theoretical Results

Networked systems, natural or designed, have always been part of life. Their sophistication degree and complexity have increased through either natural evolution or technological progress. However, recent theoretical results have shown that a previously unexpected number of different classes of networks share similar network architectures and universal laws. Examples of such networks include metabolic pathways and ecosystems, the Internet and the World Wide Web, and organizational, social, and neural networks. Complex systems-related research questions investigated by researchers nowadays include: how consciousness arises out of the interactions of the neurons in the brain and between the brain and the environment (Amaral & Ottino, 2004; Barabási, 2005; Barabási & Oltvai, 2004; Neuman, 2003b) and how this understanding could be used for designing networked organizations or production networks whose behavior satisfies a given specification.

Causality and Filling the Ignorance Gap

2016 ◽  
Author(s):  
Sara E. Gorman ◽  
Jack M. Gorman
Keyword(s):  
Particle Physics ◽  
Hadron Collider ◽  
The Internet ◽  
Daily Lives ◽  
The Public ◽  
Intravenous Drugs ◽  
The World ◽  
Full Capacity ◽  
The Universe ◽  
Two Bodies

There is an old adage: “What you don’t know can’t hurt you.” In the science denial arena, however, this adage seems to have been recrafted to something like: “What you don’t know is an invitation to make up fake science.” Before it was dis¬covered that tuberculosis is caused by a rather large bacteria called Mycobacterium tuberculosis it was widely believed to be the result of poor moral character. Similarly, AIDS was attributed to “deviant” lifestyles, like being gay or using intravenous drugs. When we don’t know what causes something, we are pummeled by “experts” telling us what to believe. Vaccines cause autism. ECT causes brain damage. GMOs cause cancer. Interestingly, the leap by the public to latch onto extreme theories does not extend to all branches of science. Physicists are not certain how the force of gravity is actually conveyed between two bodies. The theoretical solutions offered to address this question involve mind-boggling mathematics and seemingly weird ideas like 12 dimensional strings buzzing around the universe. But we don’t see denialist theories about gravity all over the Internet. Maybe this is simply because the answer to the question does not seem to affect our daily lives one way or the other. But it is also the case that even though particle physics is no more or less complex than molecular genetics, we all believe the former is above our heads but the latter is within our purview. Nonphysicists rarely venture an opinion on whether or not dark matter exists, but lots of nonbiologists will tell you exactly what the immune system can and cannot tolerate. Even when scientific matters become a little more frightening, when they occur in some branches of science, they register rather mild atten¬tion. Some people decided that the supercollider in Switzerland called the Large Hadron Collider (LHC) might be capable of producing black holes that would suck in all of Earth. Right before the LHC was scheduled to be tested at full capacity, there were a few lawsuits filed around the world trying to stop it on the grounds that it might induce the end of the world.

How representation works is more important than what representations are

1995 ◽  
Vol 18 (4) ◽  
pp. 630-631
Author(s):  
Shimon Edelman
Keyword(s):  
Cell Assemblies ◽  
The World ◽  
Functional States ◽  
The Brain ◽  
The Universe ◽  
Hebbian Cell Assemblies

AbstractA theory of representation is incomplete if it states “representations areX” whereXcan be symbols, cell assemblies, functional states, or the flock of birds fromTheaetetus, without explaining the nature of the link between the universe ofXs and the world. Amit's thesis, equating representations with reverberations in Hebbian cell assemblies, will only be considered a solution to the problem of representation when it is complemented by a theory of how a reverberation in the brain can be a representation of anything.

scholarly journals The ancient poet and philosopher in M. Arnold’s dramatic poem “Empedocles on Etna”

2020 ◽  
pp. 18-25
Author(s):  
Natalia I. Sokolova
Keyword(s):  
Ancient Greece ◽  
The State ◽  
Main Character ◽  
Predominant Role ◽  
Victorian Era ◽  
The World ◽  
The Relationship ◽  
The Brain ◽  
The Universe

„Empedocles on Etna”, called by Arnold „dramatic poem”, was not meant to be staged. In a work with three actors (Empedocles, his pupil Pausanias and the poet Callicles) there is almost no action, the predominant role is given to the monologues of the famous philosopher. The article analyzes the image of the main character of the poem. The state of the man of transition era in Ancient Greece, suffering from disappointments, doubts, loneliness, Arnold considered consonant with modernity. Lonely, disillusioned in the world Empedocles is contrasted in the poem with Callicles, who joyfully accepts life. Episodes of Ancient Greece mythology are interwoven into the text of the poem, contributing to the understanding of the image of Empedocles, the nature of the relationship between the characters. Empedocles’ monologues touch upon the problems relevant to the Victorian era, connected with the new attitude to the universe, to nature, to the problems of faith. Empedocles with his “congestion of the brain” is close to the author (according to Arnold himself). Thus, without deviating from the facts of the biography of the ancient poet and philosopher, Arnold, in essence, creates a portrait of his contemporary.

Measures of Network Structure

2010 ◽  
pp. 926-932
Author(s):  
Ani Calinescu ◽  
Janet Efstathiou
Keyword(s):  
Neural Networks ◽  
World Wide ◽  
The Internet ◽  
Network Architectures ◽  
Production Networks ◽  
Related Research ◽  
The World ◽  
Research Questions ◽  
The Brain ◽  
Theoretical Results

Networked systems, natural or designed, have always been part of life. Their sophistication degree and complexity have increased through either natural evolution or technological progress. However, recent theoretical results have shown that a previously unexpected number of different classes of networks share similar network architectures and universal laws. Examples of such networks include metabolic pathways and ecosystems, the Internet and the World Wide Web, and organizational, social, and neural networks. Complex systems-related research questions investigated by researchers nowadays include: how consciousness arises out of the interactions of the neurons in the brain and between the brain and the environment (Amaral & Ottino, 2004; Barabási, 2005; Barabási & Oltvai, 2004; Neuman, 2003b) and how this understanding could be used for designing networked organizations or production networks whose behavior satisfies a given specification.

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