Simulating a Global Brain: using networks of international organizations, world problems, strategies, and values

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Paper for the First Global Brain Workshop: From Intelligent Networks to the Global Brain
(3-5 July 2001, Vrije Universiteit Brussel, Brussels, Belgium ) [slide presentation as PDF] produced by Anthony Judge, Nadia McLaren, Joel Fischer and Tomas Fulopp

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Abstract

The paper reports briefly on the ongoing process of systematic information collection and web presentation by the UIA of networks of over 30,000 international organizations, 56,000 perceived world problems, 32,000 advocated action strategies, and some 3,000 values -- resulting in a total of 800,000 hyperlinks. These different entities constitute an interesting focal sub-system of whatever is to be understood by an emerging global brain - for which the "problems" might be understood as "neuroses", if not "tumours". This is followed by a description of implemented features to improve the way in which organizations can use this facility to articulate the collaborative networks within which they collectively develop strategic responses to subsets of the network of problems (perceived in the light of networks of partially shared values). The concrete challenge is the manner in which this network of features can become self-aware via its web representation, at least to a degree that is less dysfunctional in partially coordinating world system responses. Steps taken towards facilitating cognitive coherence include dynamic self-organizing visualizations (and sound equivalents) of these network features. The approach is being designed to maximize the degree to which providers of information become users of the resulting knowledge patterns with which they can interact, notably as a means of evoking richer patterning of the complexity reflected in "synaptic" hyperlinks. The conceptual challenge of developing improved hyperlink editing tools and supportive knowledge management methods is addressed, as well as associated tools through which coalitions of users can derive more coherent patterns of meaning from what they access in the light of often significantly incompatible perspectives. The more fundamental concern of the paper is to highlight the conceptual difficulties of providing information in a form that needs to be variously ordered according to user "bias" whilst providing a non-intrusive, facilitative cognitive framework that can maintain some degree of coherence, or allow for its emergence. A particular concern is the dynamic between the necessary diversity of (often strongly held) preferences for meaningful knowledge representation and the need for (often overly simplistic) coherence within coalitions whose consensus is fundamental to any concrete global response. These challenges raise questions about integrating intelligent sub-systems into a global brain, especially if some of the networks might be understood as sub- intelligent from a global perspective. The paper also reports on steps to shift the level of analysis, and representation, from isolated entities to the multitude of feedback loops buried within such patterns of information.

Relevant interlinked knowledgebases: https://www.un-intelligible.org/docs/overview.php#orga
Relevant papers on knowledge organization: https://www.laetusinpraesens.org/themes/aadocnd4.php
Project introduction page: https://www.un-intelligible.org/projects/homeency.php with links to commentaries

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