TimeScales And The Historical Role Of Conferences For The Emergence Of Global Brains

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Time-Scales And The Historical Role Of
Conferences For The Emergence Of Global Brains
Gottfried Mayer-Kress
gxm21_at_psu.edu, http//www.personal.psu.edu/faculty
/g/x/gxm21/
Pennsylvania State University
Complexity Digest www.comdig.org
National Taiwan Normal University
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Time Scales Defined by Complex Exponentials

• x(t) e(g iw)t

• g growth/decay rate,
• doubling time, half life
• w frequency/period

Universal Principle of Least Action All Else
Being Equal, The Fastest Growing Species Wins
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Binding Events

• Synchronous Activation of Neuronal
  Cell-Assemblies During Perceptual or Cognitive
  Processes
• Examples
• Associative Learning
• Pattern Recognition
• - Hebbian Learning

or Un-Learning (Dreaming)
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Role of Neuronal Cell Assemblies Confirmed
Characteristic Time Scale 25ms round-trip time
between connected neurons (W. Freeman) -40Hz
activity Gamma band
G. Mayer-Kress, Localized Measures for
Non-Stationary Time-Series of Physiological Data
, Integrative Physiological and Behavioral
Science, July-September, 1994, 29, No.3, 205-210
Varela et al. 1999 -
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Conferences as Binding Events

• Create Deadlines Focus
• Short-Cuts in Small-World Networks
• Representatives of local clusters connect
• Humpback whales
• Fireflies
• Fairs and markets

Typically in Breeding Grounds Help to exchange
genetic ideas

• Or they can evolve into Old Boys Travel Clubs

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Other Global Binding Events

• Movie Release
• Rock Concerts (Role of Music)
• Political Conventions

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Characteristic Time Scales Related to a Global
Brain

• Human Scales Prevent Singularity
• Synchronous (talk, video-conference) 300ms
  (Instantaneous)
• Information Retrieval min (Library)
• Attention hour (Lecture)
• Asynchronous (e-mail) day (Sleep over it)
• Publication week, month (Peer Review)
• Half-Life of Collective Activity (active
  use/update of website), year

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Time Scales Related to Going to a Conference

• Travel Time day
• Registration/Orientation hour
• Finding/Going to Lecture 10 min
• (Critical for Parallel Sessions)
• Listening to Lecture 10 min hour
• Attention Span hour
• Communicating Home 10 min hour
• Finding Peers (??)
• (Name tags, message boards, )

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Future Role of Conferences

• Challenge Global Broadcasting of Local
  Conferences (week)
• Integration of presentation (Interaction) and
  presented material (Content)
• Current Implementations
• Presentation Builder
• - WEF
• - HBS
• Scalable Binding Events
• Structuring of Parallel (BoF) Sessions Critical
  Scheduling Problem

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Historical Events on the Way to Global Brains
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WWW Document Can Be Seen as Part of a Cell
Assembly
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Timescales and Phase Transitions
NSFNET backbone traffic normalized by the
number of Internet hosts for each of the
information services WWW, Gopher, and WAIS
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Generically Asymmetric Rates
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(Subtle) Pitchfork Bifurcation Power Laws

• Example Largest Branch in Bifurcation Sequence
  of Logistic Map

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Power Law is the ubiquitous law of learning A.
Newell and Rosenbloom (1981)
Absence of Timescales or Multiple
Timescales? (Fast - Slow is common)
Learning data in a mirror tracing task (adapted
from Snoddy, 1926, Figure 3).
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What will a Global Brain be like?

• Are we all going to be Borgs? (centrally
  controlled without individual intelligence).
• Many people will choose not to be part of it.
  (Most cells didnt go for that multi-cellular
  fad.)
• Some will belong to many GBs (We are intelligent,
  neurons are not)
• Can it be designed or will it evolve?

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Internet Provided First Efficient, Global
Interaction Framework

• Short Communication Delay (300 ms)
• Multi-Level, Multi-Media Communication
• Instant Archiving (e-mail)
• Shared Long-Term Memory Network (web sites,
  10years)
• Distributed I/O and Computation

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Evidence for Precursors

• Global Super-Encyclopedia (H.G. Wells)?
• Intelligent Network Computer?
• Distributed Knowledge Systems to beat Stock
  Market? (Solve Global Problem?)
• SETI People link together to search for ETs
• Napster Music always vehicle for collective
  experience, Goal? (ask Humpback Whales)
• Complexity Digest, www.comdig.org
• Global Bird Brain

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McAffee World Virus Map
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Global Bird Brain

• 25 of US Citizens are (live) Bird Watchers
• There is huge market for biodiversity if people
  can participate directly and share their
  observations.
• Direct Link to Global Eco-System
• Migration of Birds
• Eco-backyards instead of lawn
• Environment where birds recover is also good for
  humans
• Taiwan today shoot birds instead of watching
  them
• We dont want to be remembered as the biggest
  extinction event since the end of the dinosaurs.

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Coming Technological Developments

• The Semantic Web
• Adaptive Recommendation Project
  http//www.c3.lanl.gov/rocha/lww/
• The Global High Speed Wireless Network
• Integration of
• Geographic Information, Sensors, Computation,
  Communication
• Distributed Real Time Simulation of
• Traffic, Weather, Air-quality,
• Smart Product Labels
• Know what you buy, its origin, producer,
  environmental impact, (see CyberFarm, food
  labeling)

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References

• The Global Brain as an Emergent Structure from
  the Worldwide Computing Network, and its
  Implications for Modeling , G. Mayer-Kress, C.
  Barczys, Tech.Rep. CCSR-94-22, The Information
  Society, Vol 11 No 1, 1-28, (1995)
• Messy Futures and Global Brains , G. Mayer-Kress,
  in Predictability of Complex Dynamical Systems,
  Yu.A. Kravtsov, J.B. Kadtke (Eds.) Springer
  Verlag, Berlin, 1996 (CCSR-94-26)
• Remarks on Whale Cultures from a Complex Systems
  Perspective, G. Mayer-Kress, M.A. Porter,
  Commentary on Rendell, L. Whitehead, H. (2001)
  Culture in whales and dolphins. Behavioral and
  Brain Sciences 24 (2) XXX-XXX.
• Time Scales in Motor Learning and Development,
  Karl Newell, Yeou-Teh Liu, G. M-K, Psychological
  Review, 2001, Vol. 108, No.1, 5782
• Perception's Shadow Long-distance
  Synchronization of Human Brain Activity,
  Eugenio Rodriguez, Nathalie George,
  Jean-philippe Lachaux, Jacques Martinerie,
  Bernard Renault Francisco J. Varela, Nature
  Nature 397, 430 - 433 (1999)