Two Ways of Looking at a Network 46
Two Ways of Looking at a Network
by Richard Thieme (rthieme@thiemeworks.com)There are more than two, of course, but let's start with two.
A computer network can look like a collection of stand-alone machines, just as a community of humans can look like a collection of individuals. It depends on the point of view from which you describe the system, whether you see individuals or the network, the parts or the whole. Without individuals, nothing gets done, but without networks, nothing endures. Networks organize and store information so it lasts longer than individual lives.
All high-level systems, from business systems to religious systems, store and transmit symbols. Some are preserved through rituals, some through narratives or records, some through one-on-one teaching. We preserve symbolic knowledge so it can be there like ripening fruit, so when we're hungry, we can eat it. Even symbols that have become stale or flat through habitual use can surprise us with visions of possibility beyond anything we imagined when we are hungry for what they disclose.
As individuals, we are always motivated by self-interest, but we can be gathered into systems that factor in that self-interest and go beyond it. Religious systems, for example, do not collect people who are "good;" they collect ordinary individuals who need a training program to become more fully human beings. They turn self-interest into mutual self-interest, transforming our possibilities for meaningful action in the process.
I was talking recently with Steve Straus, a personal performance coach, about "the new economy" and "giving it away" instead of selling it, but we weren't just talking about turning a commodity into a loss leader. We were talking about how things fundamentally work.
"It reminds me of the saying," I said, "give and it will be given to you. The more you contribute, the more you experience a feedback loop of amplified value."
My statement presupposed that there is "something" to give, that I can "own" whatever it is that is given away. As if what we give when we contribute to others in a dynamic system is a "thing" to possess. That's the way things look when we think "we" are individuals, bounded by parameters, when what we see when we look into a mirror is an edge, a boundary, a separateness.
"It's deeper than that," Strauss said.
I don't remember his exact words, but I think he said something like this:
When we participate in something larger than ourselves, we experience a more complex truth ... that the network really is the computer, that humans really are like cells in a single body. That, as Marvin Minsky said, a person alone (like a desktop computer unplugged from the network) is nearly useless, a brain in a bottle. A person who isn't connected to the information and power flowing in a network is like an abandoned infant raised by wolves in a cave, unable to speak the dialect of the tribe. The network is where humanity thinks.
So this is about more than managers morphing into coaches or organizational structures flattening into branches on taller fractal trees. It's as if we are staring at ourselves in that mirror, when suddenly, instead of seeing a hard-edge shape (created by minds designed to discern a foreground against a background), we see that we are part of a larger system of energy and information, one that's self-similar at all levels. Our edges blur, we see that the center is everywhere, the local focus of everything that exists. We see that the monitors on which we read these words are stems of the leaves that we are on a single tree.
Power in a network is not exercised by dominating or controlling, as it is in a hierarchical structure. Power in a network is exercised by contributing and participating.
Coding in a context of open source software is one sign of this larger truth. When we experience ourselves as part of the flow of energy in a larger system, we want to work like that all the time. We want the satisfaction of participating in something meaningful that's bigger than we are. We want life always to be what we discover it to be in those moments of real knowing.
When we lose ourselves, we find ourselves. That sounds religious, but this is not really about religion. Religion, in fact, is not about religion. It's about what's so. Religious symbol systems, emerging in digital media as they once emerged in speech, then writing, then print, are seeking suitable forms for storing digital symbols so that, when we are ready for their meaning, they will be available to us in ways that fit how electronic networks are teaching us to think and perceive.
Richard Thieme (www.thiemeworks.com) speaks, writes and consults on the human dimension of techology and the work place.
Utopia (Score:1)
hmm... (Score:1)
I think it's obvious that we use information obtained from other people. I mean, you wouldn't know what day you were born if you hadn't been told by someone else: you have no way of knowing in and of yourself. However I disagree about us being as connected as this article implies. If are all parts of the same tree, why do we all disagree with each other? It is still the human intellect that gathers and processes the information, in your head, apart from everyone else. Yes, you can be influenenced by others, but you can also choose to ignore those influences.
And yes, it is sorta religious: it's no different than the "New Age" religions, which aren't even that new.
So, having said all that: what's the real point of this? Is it really just, "we're all connected together, like fruit in a jello mold" or am I missing some deeper meaning?
I'm really interested in what consulting on the "human aspect of technology" means... if it's what I think you sit around and think about stuff like this all day...
Very well done -- we need an "Essays" category! (Score:1)
This would enabe those of us who enjoy this type of article to make special note, and those who find it superfluous to simply screen.
-- dtm
Long way of stating a short idea (Score:3)
The human race now has thousands of years of accumulated knowledge. From making a fire to making a computer. Somewhere we have all these little bits of information that (virtually) everyone has access to.
And because all of this information is shared, our lives have been much improved over living in caves and hunting and such.
Of course with all the intellectual property laws, sharing can be a bad thing too. Tell and idea - someone else uses it/patents it and makes millions. Ick.
But overall, sharing is a GOOD THING. That's the underlying reason Open Source works.
Danny
If all are One ... (Score:1)
"If all are One, all sex is masturbation. Let's have no more mehum metaphysics here."
-- Illuminatus!
Sure, we're all part of a gigantic energy- and information-exchanging network.
But we've always been. That's called "life".
Building blocks and cummulative effect (Score:1)
Sharing and distributing knowledge and means of achievement does indeed improve the lot of the whole community. Sharing is for the common good.
But there is an additional benefit to sharing. The distribution of the work among the individuals who make up the community, allows for bigger work to be done. This is certainly not an OSS concept, since H. Ford brought it to criticality in his assembly lines, but it does take on a new meaning in the 'gift culture'.
We are able to accomplish great things, and improve the common lot of our community by contributing small and individually insignificant bits of labour to the communal magnum opus.
Linus could never have written Linux (as it is) on his own. It's beyond human (single) capability. A single video driver for Linux, sans Linux, benefits no one - serving only as a programming etude to the author.
Given small, individual sized, contributions, pooled together for the common good and driven by genuine interest and honest good will, the 'gift cultire' is capable of performing industrial scope work through the sharing of experience and the completely organic and non-administated division of labor.
Speed of "Knowledge" (Score:1)
T1s for everybody. (come on xDSL and Cable)
Long way of stating a short idea (Score:1)
And another thing... (Score:1)
Unfortunate that the goal of the exersize is to try to show that the basis of life is what the group gains, without any value given to the individual. "...A person alone...is nearly useless, a brain in a bottle". Useless to whom?
Sounds like "From each according to his ability..."
Pornographic symbol systems and your silly brain. (Score:1)
A hundred stinging comments suggest themselves - you babbled like an overfed infant for a lot of this essay - but this section seemed to hold something worthy of response.
Religious systems and symbols are not privilaged in any way. They emerge from "the network" (ugh) just like pornography. "She felt so full." "God is in the good we do." There you have it - Religious-Pornographic systems emerging from the mist of cyberland like some kind of Gorrilas.
But what has this changed? How is this different from the meaningless cafe chatter it so resembles? That it is recorded? Nope. That it is "electroniqa"? So what! My brain is "cyber-elektrik" too.
All in all, I encourage you to unplug from "the network." You're obviously getting far too much. And for god's sake, don't listen to anyone describing themselves as a "personal performance coach" unless you want to sleep with them.
Good god y'all.
-SunKing
Cooperative / Good of Mankind models of business? (Score:1)
Perhaps we should (Score:1)
************************
More navel-gazing and endless pontification. (Score:1)
When we experience ourselves as part of the flow of energy in a larger system, we want to work like that all the time.
What is this stuff about myself as part of a flow of energy in a larger system? I experience that daily because I'm in a cold room at 15 C (approx 65 F), and heat is constantly flowing through my jumper into the ambient room, but I sure don't want to work like that all the time.
I am not `energy'. My programs are not `energy'. They are programs. I write some of them because their fun and I need them for various personal projects, and I wrote others because my employer needs them so the machine we're going to (hopefully) ship by the end of the year will do what our customers need it to do.
That, as Marvin Minsky said, a person alone (like a desktop computer unplugged from the network) is nearly useless, a brain in a bottle
This is completely false. My PS/2 Model P70 386 was quite functional unattached from any data network, thank you very much (although I was known to use an RS-232 link to my mum's computer downstairs with the printer). Most of what I do could be done on a machine without any network attachment. A computer is *very* useful, albeit not as useful as when attached to a network, unattached from a network.
I get most of my work done alone, and share it with others later. I am doing one of my largest current projects, OS/2+X integration, completely on my own, because working among the OS/2 community is so painful. Of course, it's more fun to live with people besides myself, and granted we are social creatures. But all this ``energy flow'' and ``social network system'' and ``virtual organic entities'' is, as I have said before, a glorified form of mental masturbation.
Cooperative / Good of Mankind models of business? (Score:1)
Mankind model of business. Are there any other ideas/books on this subject for
other areas (e.g., engineering)?
Yes. It's called "Not For Profit" business. The alternative high school I attended is a good example.
Geeks can be so myopic!
-sam
Cooperative / Good of Mankind models of business? (Score:1)
Yes. It's called "Not For Profit" business. The alternative high school I attended is a good example.
Geeks can be so myopic!
-sam
As individuals, we are always motivated by ... (Score:1)
This paragraph makes a couple of assertions, that are just not supported by the evidence we see in the world.
From an evolutionary stand point, one sees that we are motivated by the interests of the genes we carry. Said interests can often be totally at odds with the interests of the individual. Take parents risking their lives for their children.
Of course, there are clearly cases where factors other than gene propagation take the primary hand: Homosexuality tends to significantly reduce one's chances of passing on one's genes, and yet it still occurs.
Likewise, the assertion that religions tend to act in favour of their adherents is also unfounded. What they tend to do is act in favour of the memes that make up the core of the religion. This can sometimes benefit the carriers of the memes, but it can also cause them extreme hardship, or even death.
In both cases, the genes and memes act in their own self interests, not out of some universal compulsion to do so, but because the ones that don't haven't survived for us to look at.
Thus there are religions who's memes result in the belivers commiting mass suicide (against the interests of the individuals, the group, and the memes), but they tend to take their memes with them.
And another thing... (Score:1)
Most Eastern and Naturalist religions consider each person as part of a greater whole. It astounds me how readily most westerners can separate people, without looking at our collaborative society and how dependent on each other we are. Let alone how dependent on the rest of the planet we are...
haiku (Score:1)
no links [idt.net], Hesse [amazon.com] would cry, how sad [amazon.com]!
a formless haiku [geocities.com]
Memes. (Score:1)
This idea that there are all these self-organising energy systems where everything automatically comes out the best way is nonsense. The only way you ever get anything to work is by people working hard to make it that way (not that people working hard is guarantee of success). GNU and Linux did not arise out of some self-organising flow of energy between hackers. Instead, we hackers sat down at our displays and banged out code.
Cheers,
Joshua "I wish DHS would give me back my |||net domain [dhs.org]" Rodd
John Stuart Mill and censorship (Score:2)
If this list of replies is to be as human centric as the essay itself, I will dare to write the following.
In his book On Liberty, John Stuart Mill proposes the idea that no ideas should be censored so that the dialogue of ideas can contain the largest number of voices, and in turn encompass a greater amount of truth. In many ways, closed source software is self-censored software. How are we to know what great innovations (if any) are hidden within the code for Win 98 or NT (release xyz7000)? And more importantly, a point which JSM makes, what errors are there in the microso~ code? Bad programming habits, UI design, etc. that should have been weeded out a decade ago, but prolonged through the tacit nature of closed source.
Such timidity in admitting what exactly is done behind the black box that is a closed source product is exactly what makes the bugs and errors inherent in them so agregious. They could be fixed, if only they were allowed to be seen, discussed, and played with.
That is the beauty of open code software which lures the best coders (and users) to it. At least there is someone to complain to, and chances are, they will respond with something more than a busy signal or a request that you hold on for another ten minutes so that you can pay them $95 dollars for an incident (read bug) that they essentially wrote into their secret code.
-Rich
Check out carnegie [tunison.net], especially if you are in college.
Hive (Score:2)
Couldn't disagree more! (Score:3)
Now then. You can argue that the individual is made "better" with the addition of society -- like, to continue to analogy, a computer is made better with the addition of a network. But to inject meaning into the argument is to take it an entirely different direction, and please don't confuse the two.
As individuals, we are always motivated by self-interest, but we can be gathered into systems that factor in that self-interest and go beyond it. Religious systems, for example, do not collect people who are "good;" they collect ordinary individuals who need a training program to become more fully human beings. They turn self-interest into mutual self-interest, transforming our possibilities for meaningful action in the process.
Well no. Even if you agree with the teachings of any one religion, you stil have to admit that most religious people do not agree with you. So either all or almost all religions are bent on reducing the meaning of lives. A Muslim, for example, would say that Christian lives are meaningless, and vice-versa. If that's not enough of a counter-example, how about suicide cults that take "ordinary" individuals and destroy them? What is the "mutual self-interest" in eating the poison pudding?
Each individual seeks meaning in his or her life, and it is the individual meaning, not the collective meaning, that is important.
Suggesting that individuals have no worth? Fuck that kind of shit. Of course individuals have worth. Each individual perceiving this message is perceiving it in a universe entirely residing within their own brain. Collectively, they add their value to the whole and may -- or may not -- improve the whole, but the meaning of each individual's life is self-determined. You cannot determine my meaning and I cannot determine yours.
We are not like computers, all nearly identical on an identical network. We freely choose how to operate, which networks to join or not join, whether to act collectively or on our own, whether to think or not think. We choose which networks to associate with. We determine our values through our own thoughts. We improve the whole by collecting and concentrating individual efforts, yes, but we can also destroy the whole.
100 million people were killed by their own governments during this century. Were they improved by being a part of their network? Was their network improved? Did they perform the supreme sacrifice by giving their own lives for the world?
As humans, we have the greatest attribute possible: consciousness. Our very self-deterministic nature is what makes us better than apes, dogs, cats, mice, bees or borgs in a hive. The presence of the network does not reduce our consciousness one bit, and it is from that consciousness that meaning arises. And your meaning is, as should be obvious at this point, extremely different from mine.
Here's one last way to look at this problem using the network analogy. If individuals are meaningless without the network, and the addition of everyone into the network is what adds value, how do you explain the addition of AOL, or worse, WebTV? If it sounds like I'm being flippant, it's because I sorta am. But just like a lot of us feel AOL killed Usenet, so people's choice of networks is a part of their own concept of adding meaning. Many networks subtract meaning from my life, and I'm sure you can find similar examples in your life.
Our thoughts have meaning because we think them. Sometimes we add value to the whole because we share them. The whole is meaningless without every individual participating in it, but if we didn't have individual consciousness, the whole would be competely useless. Deathmatch games are only possible with people with NON-SHARED consciousness playing; if they think alike the game is worthless.
Well... (Score:1)
There is a vast difference between free exchange of goods and ideas and touting the idea that people are useful only if they play the sharing game. I agree with you in the fact that no man is an island, but to suggest (which I think the author has indirectly) that people exist to serve humanity is sick.
Maybe I am reading into it too much...
Well... (Score:1)
Simple thyought exercise, Someone finds the solution to all of the world's problems, and shares the secret with nobody. In time, that person dies. What is that person's value to you?
Another person figures out how to make monitors 5% cheaper and shares the idea (perhaps for money, perhaps freely), what is that person's value to you?
The point is, no matter how miniscule the value of person 2 might be to you, it's more than the first person.
Is our society that simple? (Score:1)
Let's face the truth. If OSS is ONLY based on the idea of give and share thru' network, OSS is DEAD already. Network lower the costs of sharing, and the costs of stealing knowledge. Which force win the race depends on the arrangement. If there's no punishment on participants to take without giving, sooner or later nobody is willing to give anymore. It simply doesn't survive.
It reminded me the Prisoner's Dilemma game. When two suspects are trial separately for once and for all crime, both of them have to incentive to confess such to reduce their own sentence. The outcome, a Nash Equilibrium, is simply inferior than the cooperative outcome by both denying. That's the dilemma. However, they can commit crime repeatly for infinite times, adopting a tit-for-tat strategy can make them settle at the cooperative outcome for self-interested.
For OSS to survive, we do need some kind of tit-for-tat strategies, rather than a religion of the goodness of OSS. Network is just a tool. GPL/LGPL may do the job (or does it?)
the above essay (Score:1)
the above essay (Score:1)
Errm... (Score:1)
to your chosen topics. I'd sketched out a lovely flame hinging on pgp-signed packages and now it's gone to waste.
K.
-
--
To the extent that I wear skirts and cheap nylon slips, I've gone native.
the point (Score:1)
On Topic (Score:1)
If you don't like the author, his writing style, his punctuation, or whatever, email him about it. I read the comments because I want to see comments and discussions of the points raised, not whining about the essay. If you don't like Thieme's essays, you can set up your preferences so you don't see any of them.
Unfair statement (Score:1)
"the 'network' analogy is just a way of, well, getting high philosophy into Slashdot."
I must disagree with this sentiment. Richard Thieme's "Islands in the Clickstream" articles were published in South Africa's biggest computer magazine (http://www.sacm.co.za/) for over a year. They have always been philosophical, yes, but they have always revolved around technology and computers. He has not changed his style or content at all. To presume that Thieme has modified his content in some sort of attempt to make it "fit in" with the 'Almighty Slashdot' (as if everyone is so desperate to be published on slashdot or something) is highly arrogant.
And another thing... (Score:1)
The automotive engineer, the farmer, the baker -- do you think they work for some nebulous "good"? Do you think they "cooperate" with some intention of bringing you their products? Hell, no -- they work in the expectation that they will receive fair compensation for that work.
As for how useful a person alone is -- you dodged the question useful to whom ?? I don't care if anyone is useful to me. I don't demand that someone produce on my demand, for my benefit. A person's life and effort is an end in itself, and not merely a means to your -- or anyone else's -- ends. Why should people be useful? Who says they have to share their work and their effort with anyone?
--
"Perfection is achieved, not when there is nothing left to add, but when there is nothing left to take away. "
hmm... (Score:1)
> >
> but you'll end up choosing according to biases imparted to you earlier by society's network.
Sorry, that's just too nice and neat for reality. If all our thoughts are caused by society there should be no new thoughts at all. There would be no innovation. Some will reply that innovation is the result of combining ideas from other societies, but that merely pushes the question back: who came up with the Original Idea(s?)?
Or maybe society just makes me think that way. So unless my society changes I guess there's no reason to argue the point.
Business Ethics and the Problems of a M$ manager (Score:1)
I have the questionable pleasure of attending a business school (I hate golf). It is appalling to see how many faculty members have forgotten about this basic truth: that free market economy is based on trust and mutual respect. The finance dep. is actually worse than marketing. They come up with all sorts of elaborate schemes of control. As an intellectual once put it: Trust is reducing complexity. You can see it works the other way around too.
Unethical business behavior can come back to hunt those who practice it. I think the problems M$ is facing clearly show that.
In my last CIS class - fortunately taught by a real techy - the future M$ Win NT product manager had a hard time. First I was pointing out that Sweden and France is going to sue M$ on privacy and Y2K issues respectively. He reacted by stating that there is an effort underway in Washington, DC to put a cap on what a company can be held responsible to. That drew a hearty laugh from the crowd. Later in class discussion I was pointing out that SAP ported to Linux and that I saw a lot of penguins at the CeBit. He reacted with the M$ standard line: "You pay what you get for." and I answered: "Sorry, but I am not going to buy it."
You can imagine I had a very good time that class. Just wanted to share that with you.
Many Ways to look at a Network (Score:1)
In Systems Theory you can talk about systems which are relatively open or closed. In healthy systems you have a balance between these two extremes. Dysfunctional families have "secrets" they try to keep. Treatment entails, among other things, making the system more open so information can flow in and out. Therapists, teachers and doctors are required by law to disclose child abuse, for example.
What determines the appropriate balance between open and closed systems? Fortunately we have a perfect test, and that is the human genetic code and it's expression, namely us.
Humans have an incredible ability to assess what Christopher Alexander called QWON or "Quality Without A Name," which inspired the software design pattern movement. Literally it is what is pleasing and elegant to the individual and community.
So we can talk about an elegant and pleasing balance between open source and proprietary code. Each has its place, and presumably there is an optimum balance between the two at any one time. Of course, this changes over time. Evolution doesn't really know anything about the future, it merely reacts opportunistically.
From a systems point of view, technolgy is a quite remarkable human achievement. 10 or 20k years or so ago humans domesticated animals and plants. Agriculture, technology and civilization was born and burst forth on the planet.
One problem however was that as soon as man domesticated animals, he also had the tools to treat other humans as cattle. So you had the ascension of royalty where the king could treat his subjects like cattle. And you have the ascension of Bill Gates who can continue to milk the masses just because he can.
It seems to me that this great invention of prehistory brought in a distinctly new kind of system or network. For a lack of a better label, the pre-technology sytem can be called the Village System since everyone lived in small clans most of their lives.
The new system can be called the Stranger or Bureacratic System since it can use technology to scale up to deal with a lot of people, some of whom it is not necessary to know personally. The King doesn't have to know all his subjects to control them. Bill Gates doesn't have to know his customers personally in order to extract tribute to him.
The Open Source Movement and the Internet is an example of a unique interface between the two systems. A Cyber-Community Village System on the one hand, it has evolved to interact and deal remarkably effectively with the larger Bureacratic/Stranger system, on the other hand.
Evolution in the genetic sense is purportedly "blind." It doesn't know, or even care, what will happen tomorrow. However, humans are capable of "conscious Darwinism." We can individually and collectively make decisions effecting the development of the Village and Stranger/Bureacratic systems. If it doesn't have QWON, we can change it!
We can send in our hired guns at DOJ to rummage through Uncle Bill's e-mails. Open up a dysfunctional system. Disclose family secrets which shouldn't be secret. Open the windows and air it out. Make public the api's and file formats. Stop him from using his pile of gold to buy more technology, giving the gold back to the stockholders instead, where it can be invested in more beneficial enterprises.
And in the chaos and dynamism of the bazaar, we can influence the larger system towards QWON in ways that we will see.
Michael Doherty
http://top.monad.net/~vsi
the worst concept ever conceived by humanity... (Score:1)
indeed, as the article says, humans are basically greedy and egocentric, but in a community greed and egocentrism become slowdowns. say, person A invents the wheel and patents the concept. person B invents domesticating horses, and patents that concept. person C then has the bright idea that you could make a cart using the wheel concept, and then let a domesticated horse pull it, but the idea can't be put in practice because person C can neither use the wheel nor the horse. and even if he were to gain the cooperation of person A or B then the other part would still be missing. if person A and B had not "owned" the concepts then person C could have carried out his improvement, and the whole community, including person A and B would have gained from that.
*sigh*... utopia... a beautiful country indeed...
)O(
the Gods have a sense of humor,
Long way of stating a short idea (Score:1)
read this:
ftp://ftp.sunet.se/pub/etext/gutenberg/etext98/