There are two kinds of animals in this world: Constructors and Transporters. Constructors modify the things that already exist to convert them into some sort of products. Transporters move products from one location to another location. Slight variations of these two major functionalities are also possible.
Definition: Construction may involve abstract as well as concrete things. For example, a computer program and a computer both are products. A mathematical theorem is also a product as well as a physical mathematical model.
After the above definition no qualifier is needed around the concept of transportation. Since product itself can be abstract, transportation itself can also be abstract. For example: when a preacher is preaching, she is actually transporting some idea, a product of her mind, using speech as a medium to the mass. And Constructors and Transporters are not necessarily distinct and mutually exclusive entities. An entity can both be constructor as well as transporter.
There are over 6 billion humans and trillions of other species in this World. We are not even counting the atoms and molecules that are constantly in motion. Some of them are constructors and some are transporters. There are practically infinitely many combinations of constructors and transporters possible. When possibility of how individual transporter interacts with other constructor or another transporter and vice versa, the possibilities explode. These unimaginably large number of interactions produce 'things'. With every new thing produced, the mode of interaction among the entities change. This change in modality of interaction again creates new constructor-transporter combination. Thus the cycle continues. We perceive this continuation of cycles as time.
Lets see if we can counteract this. There are four possible combinations of Constructor and Transporters.
i) No Constructor and No Transporters: Since nothing is being modified and nothing is being moved from one place to another. Everything is at standstill. Nothing changes. As time is manifested in change. No time passes.
ii) No Constructor and Only Transporter: It is impossible. Transportation is accompanied by construction. A transporter is inherently a constructor. So, we can not have a situation where we have transporters and no constructors.
iii) Only Constructor and No Transporter: As in the previous case, it is impossible. Construction means current configuration has to be changed and rearranged in some way. Change and rearrangement require movement and that is transportation. As we are saying there are no transporter, no constructor can also exist.
iv) Both Constructor and Transporter: This case has already been discussed in the main paragraph. Above discussion already shows that in this case, time exists.
This discussion shows there are two kinds of animals in this world: Constructor and Transporter.
I have a dream. A dream where everyone is connected by various equal sized pipes such that at any given time amount of information that can flow between any two entities is equal, restricted only by the enthusiasm of the entities to use the pipe. Noone is preferred over anybody when it comes to information access. Everyone has equal access to the pertinent information.
Problems of the world stemmed from unequal access to information. Information is power. Individuals and organizations want power. Control of an entity to information is directly proportional to the power and influence the entity currently has. Power and influence do not start to snowball until an entity has a critical amount of information.
In hindu society, women didn't have access to various religious texts. This was after the ancient times and before the modern era. Such restriction resulted their having to follow various rites that were especially formulated to keep them out of other worldly affairs thus reducing their influence in those worldly affairs. This resulted in reduction in their access to the information. As information access has now become relatively easier, hindu women are fighting for their right of equal access.
Geographical and temporal expanse makes equal information access a daunting task that everybody likes to not heed to, of course except when talking about 'digital divide'. But 'digital divide' is simply a very tiny part of the bigger issue. According to politically correct definition of the digital divide, it acts over the concept of national and economic boundaries. Whereas issue of access to information is an micro-sized issue in terms of both spatial and temporal boundaries.
Inside a family, a husband buys a gift to his ex-girlfriend without his wife knowing where the money from tax return went. That is lack of information access from wife's point of view. There is a fight between a nymphomaniac wife and a cheating husband that the neighbor is unaware of. A teenage daughter is sleeping with a gangster that parents' are unknown about.
A new library is opened in one county that another county is unaware of. A country is researching about developing a new nuclear weapon that rest of the world do not know anything about. There are simply too many broken or blocked information pipes that hinder the proper flow of information both ways. I have a dream of fixing those pipes so that everyone will have equal access to the information.
A war waged ten years ago results one of the cronies of the president becoming a billionaire. Citizens of the country, who rallied behind the president during the wartime, are unaware of the multi-billion dollar defense contract granted to the friend of the president without public notice. This is information spanning temporal boundary.
There are questions of privacy. There are questions of familial and national security. There are questions of personal security itself at the forefront. But by having proper protocol in place in the pipes that guide the flow of information, a proper information network can be designed. Whatever information is needed and whenever it is needed, it can be garnered without the current restriction imposed by access to the pipes themselves. Restrictions will only be imposed by the willingness of the concerned party.
One day, we will have a world where everyone will be connected by equal sized pipes with each other, every house, every town, every village, every country, and the entire world will be connected. Then we will not have to organize conferences on 'digital divide'. We will then live happily ever after.
MANIFESTO OF A "PIPE"-DREAMER v0.0
I have a dream. A dream where everyone is connected by various equal sized pipes such that at any given time amount of information that can flow between any two entities is equal, only restricted by the enthusiasm of the entity to use the pipe. Noone is preferred over anybody when it comes to information access. Everyone has equal access to the pertinent information.
Problem of the world stemmed from unequal access to information. In hindu society, women didn't have access to various religious texts. This was after the ancient times and before the modern era. Such restriction resulted their having to follow various rites that were especially formulated to keep them out of other worldly matters. As information access has become easier, now hindu women are fighting for their right of equal access.
Geographical expanse makes equal information access a daunting task that everybody likes to not heed to, of course except when talking about 'digital divide'. But 'digital divide' is simply a very tiny part of the bigger issue. Digital divide acts over the concept of national boundaries and economic boundaries. Whereas issue of access to information is an micro-sized issue.
Inside a family, a husband buys a gift to his ex-girlfriend without his wife knowing where the money from tax return went. That is lack of information access from wife's point of view. There is a fight between a nymphomaniac wife and a cheating husband that the neighbor is unaware of. A teenage daughter is sleeping with a gangster that parents' are unknown about.
A new library is opened in one county that another county is unaware of. A country is researching about developing a new nuclear weapon that rest of the world do not know anything about. There are simply too many broken or blocked information pipes that hinder the proper flow of information both ways. I have a dream of fixing those pipes so that everyone will have equal access to the information.
There are questions of privacy. There are questions of familial and national security. There are questions of personal security itself at the forefront. But by having proper protocol in place in the pipes that guide the flow of information, a proper information network can be designed. Whatever information is needed and whenever it is needed, it can be garnered without the current restriction imposed by access to the pipes themselves. Restrictions will only be imposed by the willingness of the concerned party.
One day, we will have a world where everyone will be connected by equal sized pipes with each other, every house, every town, every village, every country, and the entire world will be connected. Then we will not have to organize conferences on 'digital divide'. We will then live happily everafter.
Localization and Globalization
I have this feeling that an individual now is not smarter than any other individual thousand or may be ten thousand years ago. Capability of individual brain has not increased at all. Only the interconnection made possible by all the communication technologies has enabled us to share experiences and knowledge. Such sharing has created a sense of superiority over human beings of bygone times.
Geographical expanse hindered the communication among people living in different places. Lingual difference accentuated that hindrance. Both of them are caving in front of the technological advances in communication and computational technologies. Emergence of English as a standard language of the world is also reducing the hindrance caused by the difference in languages.
From language to culture, everything has become globalized. There is almost nothing that is local anymore. Even the local problems have global manifestations due pervasive interconnectivity, either via youtube, google, facebook, terrorism, television, internet, email. There are simply too many ways of such manifestations.
There is another explanation to it. In stead of saying globalization, we can say we all have become localized now. There is no 'here' and 'there' anymore. Everything is 'here'. We are simply a part of a bigger whole, the World. The World operates because we as individual parts do our jobs and we interact with other parts using certain rules and share results of our jobs. This way, in stead of saying that 'local problems have global manifestations' we can say 'local problems are no longer local. In stead they can be solved by global participation'.
Last night, I was reading "How to Write and Publis...
Last night, I was reading "How to Write and Publish a Scientific Paper" by Robert A. Day to boost my morale about dissertation proposal. Day writes: Write your thesis to please your major professor, if you can figure out what turns him or her on. This one sentence made me feel very good about myself. The book goes into length to discuss about the process of formatting, writing, submitting, and finally publishing a scientific paper. For anyone in this field of scientific discourse, I will recommend this book. Newer the edition better it is. I checked out second edition the day before yesterday from my university library. This edition was published in 1983, so it has old-fashioned ideas about means of formatting and submitting a paper. This was way before computer and the Internet became two major means of publication.
A "Pipe" Dream
I have a dream. A dream where everyone
is connected by means of equal sized pipes, where everything is connected by means of equal sized pipes, such that at any given time, amount of information that can flow between any two entities is equal, only restricted by the enthusiasm to use the pipe. Nobody is preferred over anybody when it comes to information access. Everyone
ha
s equal access to the pertinent information.
Problem of the world stemmed from unequal access to various information. In earlier times, in hindu society,
women couldn't have access to
various religious texts. Geographical expanse makes equal information access
a daunting task that everybody likes to not heed to, of course except when talking about 'digital divide'. But 'digital divide' is simply a very tiny part of the bigger issue. Digital divide acts over the concept of national boundaries and economic boundaries. Whereas issue of access to information
is an issue of micro-size.
Inside a family, a husband buys a gift to his ex-girlfriend without his spouse knowing where the money from tax return went
. That is lack of information access. There goes a fight between a nympho wife and a cheating husband that the neighbor is unaware of. A teenage daughter is sleeping with a gangster that parents' are unknown about.
A new library is opened in one county that another county is unaware of. A country is researching about developing a new nuclear weapon that rest of the world do not know anything about. There are simply too many broken information pipes that hinder the proper flow of information. I have dream of fixing those pipes so that everyone will have equal access to the information.
There are questions of privacy. There are questions of familial and
national security
. There are questions of personal security itself at the forefront. But by
having
proper protocol in place in the pipes that guide the flow of information, a proper information network can be designed. Whatever information is needed can be garnered without the current
restriction
imposed by access to the pipes themselves.
One day, we will have a world where everyone will be connected by equal sized pipes with each other, every house, every town, every village, every country, and the entire world will be connected. Then we will not have to organize conferences on 'digital divide'. We will then live happily everafter.
What is society? What is community? What is an individual? What is Education? What is success? Is society homogeneous, consisting individuals only of same species? Has there to be a bidirectional dialogue between various species inhabiting the society?
