UTOPIAN COMPUTER NETWORKING America's New Central Project A Visionary Manifesto written in response to the book Higher Creativity: Liberating the Unconscious for Breakthrough Insights by Willis Harman and Howard Rheingold, Jeremy Tarcher, 1984 by Bruce Schuman PO Box 23346, Santa Barbara, CA 93121 http://www.rain.org/~origin/ucs.html November 19, 1988 CONTENTS Preface 1. MACHINES OF LOVING GRACE Vision of the Network Collective Computation Cybernetic Optimization: the Long-Range View 2. UTOPIA OR OBLIVION The Deprogramming of Babel Utopian Engineering 3. THE CREATIVITY HARVEST The Integrative Paradigm Power Tools for the Mind Convergence Towards a Universal Language 4. THE QUICKSILVER STREAM Fraternity of the Cathedrals The Central Projects of Nations The Drive to Unity References PREFACE Because of the interconnectedness of all minds, affirming a positive vision may be about the most sophisticated action any one of us can take. -- Higher Creativity, p. 215 The WELL ("Whole Earth 'Lectronic Link") is an online computer conferencing system in Sausalito, CA, at (415) 332-4335 (voice), and (415) 332-6106 (modem). The WELL is operated by the POINT Foundation, publishers of The Whole Earth Catalog and Whole Earth Review. This essay is a commentary on a book published by WELL Conference Host Howard Rheingold, and discusses a number of issues related to the task of organizing a socially beneficial national or international computer network, with the long-range objective of coordinating and correlating the "collective wisdom of the human race." 1. MACHINES OF LOVING GRACE The dream of the network nation has inspired creative intellectuals and social visionaries for almost twenty years. Peter Goldmark's articles in the early seventies on the "wired city" (Scientific American, 9/72), Simon Ramo's early writings on electronic democracy (Cure for Chaos. Century of Mismatch), the poem "All Watched Over by Machines of Loving Grace" (by Richard Brautigan), the emergence of the computer system Resource One (Lee Felsenstein in San Francisco), and the book Network Nation (about the EIES system), were seminal influences on a school of ambitious utopianists who have felt deeply that in this newly emerging technology, there might be found an approach to the solution of socially-fragmenting problems that threaten the overall welfare of national and international society, and prevent the full realization of of our joint human potential. Higher Creativity, Liberating the Unconscious for Breakthrough Insights by Willis Harman and Howard Rheingold, published by the Institute for Noetic Sciences and Jeremy Tarcher, is a deceptively complex survey of factors associated with the emergence of a new consciousness. The authors consider a wide range of factors ranging from the psychology of creativity to the phenomenon of "channeling" to the spiritual and mystical influences which guided the founding and initial growth of the United States of America. Much more than an informative survey of recent research into creative processes, or a cookbook account for maximizing individual creativity, it is also a philosophic statement of position and a call to action, which summarizes their research and platform in the book's last pages, with these sentences: There is a magnificent truth about ourselves which can be discovered. Something about it can be shared, under appropriate circumstances. When an individual makes the discovery, it can change a life. When a growing network of people share the discovery, it can change history. This book has been about that discovery -- about the breakthrough to our own creative potentials that has been, is, and will be possible for all of us. Much of the book has been about the significance of this discovery to the individual; the last portion has been about the crucial role in offering hope for the Earth. Ultimately, our concerns as individuals are meaningless without an equal concern for our human family. It is a peculiar fact of life for those of us alive today, of all the generations since our ancestors descended from the trees and began to shape rocks into tools, that without a near-future breakthrough into a true realization of our familyhood, there will be no future generations. Let us envision utopia, and thus bring it into existence. There is no reasonable alternative. In their final chapter, "The Harvest", discussing the problems that face the world today, particularly the threat of nuclear war, they address the question "What can I do?". Part Two of this section suggests, "Say 'yes' to the evolutionary transformation that alone can bring to the world sustained peace and common security" -- and at the top of p215, they state that, "Because of the interconnectedness of all minds, affirming a positive vision may be about the most sophisticated action any one of us can take." Vision of the Network As someone new to the online "virtual community" of the WELL, I want to take this means to outline what motivates my drive towards computer networking, and how I feel such network processes can vastly accelerate "creative breakthroughs" of the kinds which we, the entire human family, truly need if we are to survive into the next century. And I want to outline how computer networking can help us realize the full inner potential of the "Divine Unconscious", contained within all of us, and awaiting the proper invocations and opportunities to blossom. For fifteen years, since I wrote my first essay on electronic democracy, or what I called then "The Optimization of the Online Self-Control of Social Systems", I have been persuaded that well-programmed interactive online processes can do for the human community what no other medium in history has been able to do: assemble and correlate the collective wisdom of the human race. And not only can such a network mediate this marvelous and unprecedented "assembly of enlightenment", but it also can, in the same breath, so to speak, by virtue of its two-way interactive information flow, deliver that wisdom in a perfectly formatted and custom-fitted way, right to that critical point in the sociological spacetime grid of the civilized "homosphere", where today some innocent person is being spiritually mangled by forces of sheer mindless ignorance. It may be true that in today's electronic environment, computer conferencing can be somewhat cumbersome and time consuming, and perhaps a bit too expensive, but it seems clear that as programming technology improves, the proliferation of inexpensive personal computers continues, and teleconferencing continues to grow in influence and significance, this process will assume expanding importance in the intellectual and spiritual life of national and international society. As a speculative utopianist, I have envisioned for years the emergence of computerized "homeostatic control dynamics", electronically distributed across the planet, which would combine spiritual insight with high technology and politics in a way that could coordinate social harmony and mediate conflict resolution. I believe that the intellectual work required to develop new teleconferencing technologies, particularly at the international level, can motivate scientifically important discoveries in language design and interpretation. I believe that the ambiguities and vagaries of "natural language", such a bane in the word of computerized "natural language processing", can be overcome through the conscious and intentional design of highly disciplined forms of natural discourse, -- which could assist in weeding out of everyday consciousness some of those unfortunate habits of thought which too often leave our fundamental world views ill-defined and confused, and which render tenuous higher-level communication across the categorical borders of minds or scientific disciplines or nations. I am writing this essay for the avant gard participants on the WELL conferencing system, because they, perhaps better than any single group in teleconferencing today, are in a position not only to recognize the merit of visionary utopian design, but to assist in strengthening and building any such design into the socially-unifying and inspiring scientific power a truly integrated network could become. Collective Computation In the evolution of scientific and academic disciplines, we are experiencing today an unprecedented cross-pollination of the disciplines, as increasingly interdisciplinary projects and categories are synthesized by creative researchers. Just as the drive towards increasingly narrow specialization has expanded the knowledge horizon into an incredible diversity and breadth and variety, new integrative and synthetic categories, such as Cognitive Science, are emerging today, which combine elements of this diversity into experimental new disciplines of extreme generality and breadth of application. A recent article (Dec., 1987) in Scientific American discusses "collective computation in neuron-like circuits", and expands on the thesis that "electronic circuits based on neurobiological models are able to solve complex problems rapidly. Their computational properties emerge from the collective interaction of many parts linked together in a network". There are striking and clear comparisons one can draw between the biological and computational models discussed by these authors, and the properties of modem-linked microcomputer teleconferences, and it seems to me likely that the general mathematical descriptions developed by these researchers are directly portable to teleconferencing design. In the words of the Scientific American authors: Neurons, or nerve cells, are complex, but even a highly simplified model of a neuron, when it is connected with others in an appropriate network, can do significant computations. A biological neuron receives information from other neurons through synaptic connections and passes on signals to as many as a thousand other neurons. The synapse, or connection between neurons, mediates the "strength" with which a signal crosses from one neuron to another. One can readily build artificial "neural" circuits from simple electronic components. Strikingly, both the simplified biological model and the artificial network share a common mathematical formulation as a dynamical system -- a system of several interacting parts whose state evolves continuously with time. The manner in which a dynamical system evolves depends on the form of the interactions. In any neural network the interactions result from the effects one "neuron" has on another by virtue of the connection between them. Thus it is not surprising that the behavior of the neural circuits depends critically on the details of the connections. The particular circuits we have studied have connection patterns appropriate for computing solutions to optimization problems, a class of mathematical problems that involve finding a "best solution" from among a very large number of choices. The computational behavior exhibited by such circuits is a collective property that results from having many computing elements act on one another in a richly interconnected system. The collective properties can be studied using simplified model neurons, in much the same way as it is possible to understand other large physical systems by greatly reducing the details of their basic components... By simplifying in this way, we were able to discover the general principles by which one can understand collective computation in these circuits. To comprehend how collective circuits work, it helps to take a very broad view of the essence of computation. Any computing entity, whether it is a digital or analog device or a collection of nerve cells, begins with an initial state and moves through a series of changes to arrive at a state that corresponds to an "answer". The process can be pictured as a path, from initial state to answer, through the physical "configuration space" of the computer as it evolves with time. In a collective-decision circuit the process of computation is significantly different [than in a digital computer]. The overall progress of the computation is determined not by step- by-step instructions but by the rich structure of connections among computing devices. Instead of advancing and then restoring the computational path at discrete intervals, the circuit channels or focuses it in one continuous process. These two styles of computation are rather like two different approaches by which a committee makes decisions. In a digital- computer-style committee the members vote yes or no in sequence; each member knows about only a few preceding votes and cannot change a vote once it is cast. In contrast, in a collective-decision committee the members vote together and can express a range of opinions; the members know all about the other votes and can change their opinions. The committee generates a collective decision, or what might be called a sense of the meeting. The nature of collective computing suggests that it might be particularly effective for problems that involve global interaction between different parts of the problem... The analogies to microcomputer networking that one can readily draw from this discussion are suggestive and illuminating, and for those who are willing to consider such analogies, it seems likely that the mathematical generalizations these researchers have developed could be applicable to any isomorphically-analogous network-based logic flow, whether found in neurons, computer logic gates, logic flow in a computer programming language, or logic flow in a teleconferencing process. There are certain significant mathematical conclusions that seem evident: "collective computation" is a highly effective and fast way to approach the solution of complex problems, particularly, as the authors of the Scientific American article state, when the problem involves "global interaction between different parts of the problem". It seems clear that the development of computer-based conferencing processes that are designed around mathematical problem-solving principles, such as those described in this article, can lead to a technology of global problem resolution that is far -- vastly -- superior to any other technology or method hitherto devised for the self-governance of large social groups. But today, we are far from seeing the emergence of such sophisticated systems, and most of the work developed thus far in computer conferencing technology has centered on getting the systems operating at all, rather than on designing "optimally structured conferencing formats" based on cutting-edge research in cognitive psychology, the theory of concept formation, and synthetic language design. Thus, it seems evident that strong and visionary leadership is required in the definition of these programming formats, and that intentionally developed purposive designs will prove far more useful and effective than those which evolve "by themselves" under random adaptive drive. Formats for highly structured, linearly integrated, and complexly interlinked "top-down" teleconferencing processes are mathematically feasible and can be defined, and I would argue that work should certainly proceed to develop conference formats of this sort. Additionally, I would suggest that not only should conferencing formats evolve within the framework of some intentional and conscious design, but that otherwise independent conferences should be interlinked, under the rubric of some common and evolving discipline -- such as a general-purpose "teleconferencing language" that works very much like "natural language", but incorporates principles of scientific discipline, and otherwise eliminates much of the ambiguity of reference that ordinary human discourse so often contains. Cybernetic Optimization: the Long-Range View In general and intuitive terms, the evolution of international computer networking could eventually lead towards what might be described as "homeostatic relaxation control", a kind of cybernetic web extending across the planet, interlinking a highly sophisticated and scientifically-grounded metaphysics/theology/ psychology with an awareness of the "state" of any number of variables monitoring social conditions, in an evolutionary and convergent iterative process. Over an evolving series of cycles, such a system could "relax" through a defined path towards an optimal solution as described in the Scientific American article, in a fashion highly analogous to the iterative algebraic "relaxation methods" for the solution of complex systems of linear equations. Though these design proposals are highly preliminary, the real issue facing network visionaries today lies in recognizing that if the mathematics of optimal networking is feasible, it ought to be possible to build and operate the corresponding actual network -- despite sociological studies which may suggest that such convergent optimality is a pipe-dream. To these critics, I must reply that the fact that the initial or contemporary design of these systems does not express their full potential today in no way curtails what they can eventually become, when their design realizes its full maturity. As a "long-distance thinker", I affirm my faith in the beauty and transfiguring potential of accurately and wisely programmed integrative networking processes. I believe we have in our hands by far the most powerful tool for the collective self-enlightenment of humanity that has ever been available to the aspiring human spirit -- and I say, let us seize this tide in the affairs of men, and make of this opportunity the inspired blessing and grace for the entire human family that with our efforts it certainly can become. 2. UTOPIA OR OBLIVION As network dynamics continue to evolve, and sophisticated formats make computerized communication more accessible and "user friendly", it should eventually prove possible to interlink complex intellectual dialog and debate through a kind of "interdependent thematic partitioning", which will be capable of controlling structured dialog on a far higher and more complex plane than has ever been previously possible. This potential, for high-level programming control, or "structured conferencing", contains tremendous and as-yet untapped possibilities for mediating a powerful new class of creative insights, which can contribute mightily to the general overall welfare of the joint human family. There are a number of new computer-based "power tools for the mind" that directly amplify the powers of the creative intellect, and foremost among these are the new hypertext and outline processing-based programs, that provide a linked format for a kind of random free-association. These programs allow a tremendous "simultaneity of cognitive bandwidth" to be held in the consciousness of a creator all at once, assisting in breaking through some of the limits described in the famous "Magical Number Seven Plus or Minus Two" article of psychologist George Miller. WELL participants have seen these programming formats discussed for several years, and a number of writers involved with WELL teleconferencing have commented on the use of these programs in their own work. I, too, have found my own outline program to be a very significant step forward in my efforts to organize a complex and bulky array of interrelated "sub-topics", which I have long believed could be nested or integrated within the context of a single holistic and "synthetic" context. It can be argued that a major direction of analytic theory in our present time is towards very broad mathematical generalization -- or the synthetic assembly of analytic diversity within an integrated conceptual format, employing a common language, and a common holistic context. Just as the elephant in the famous metaphor is neither solely tail nor ears nor legs nor trunk, but at once all of these and more, so does the epistemological context of the scientific enterprise embody an implicit, unconscious and as-yet incompletely defined holistic framework, which synthetic theorists, in the interest of integrity and unity and conceptual integration, must seek to weave into a single seamless fabric. It is this new synthetic conceptual integration which can provide the scientific and philosophic foundations for an enlightened New Age, based on a simultaneous (or "parallel") awareness of all aspects of a complex body of abstract relationships. The Deprogramming of Babel The tendency in today's scientific communities yet remains towards towards diversity, fragmentation, and narrowness, and contextural independence of perspective, language, and concept system. For any number of reasons, most researchers are not motivated to strive for an integrated conceptual framework, within which the scientific enterprise can be viewed as a single and unified but multi-faceted activity. But opposing this tendency, there are those persons of vision and ideals, who tend to instinctively recognize that the fragmentation, narrowness, and alienation of traditional scientific specialization, with its "context free" development of independent "sub-disciplines" without regard to related topics, is a socially fragmenting tendency which must be consciously and actively resisted. In the larger context, this same drive, towards fragmentation, narrowness, and competition, results in a universal conceptual Babel, which splinters the underlying common ground of the joint human enterprise, and "separates brother from brother" on the basis of distinctions which are anything but primary. In an age when the pressure on our mutually shared biosphere is increasing from a hundred interlinked and simultaneous angles, it seems likely that in the long view, our choice may indeed eventually evolve to that of "utopia or oblivion". Though our actual choices may not be so dramatic, it seems intuitively clear that as ecological and economic pressures continue to mount on this one small planet, failure to resolve the superficial differences which fragment the unity of human interaction, waste shared resources in mindless overlap and competition, and result in toxic misinterpretations of one another's motives, cannot continue as a viable and survivable lifestyle for the human community. A powerful, central technology for achieving common vision and joint understanding must eventually emerge, and this technology, its primary underlying message perhaps the fundamental basic truths of the "Perennial Philosophy", must reach out to the entire human community, through a massive and unitary linkage of the entire body of humankind, creating as it were one giant living organism. The international telecommunications network, with its thousands of computers and millions of sophisticated users, is certainly the medium for the realization of this linkage and unification. Not only is there no other agency remotely capable of processing what this vastly powerful two-way channel can today accommodate, but this network can go far beyond the essential first step of providing means to overcome the devastating weaknesses of social fragmentation and mistrust. Not merely a vastly sophisticated and life-saving "crisis management" system can we make of this network, but far more than this: through well-programmed international networking, we have the potential to make our world divine. Utopian Engineering The fabulous resources of human knowledge and wisdom can be combined through modern information science technology, to create the most authoritative voice for spiritual truth and insight which has ever existed on this planet. The vast resources of illumination and enlightenment which have been released to the human community in a flood of valuable and unquestionably authentic but somewhat diverse and competing metaphysical, philosophic, theological, and religious literature from all corners of the world, East and West, can be gathered up by methods of systematic scholarship, organized by underlying thematic invariants, conceptually recoded into a uniform and unified analytic/conceptual language -- and made into a single towering "lighthouse of hope" that can illuminate for the entire world the true spiritual path back to harmony and freedom and love, those ideals which all classical religious traditions have always advanced. The choice of utopia, rather than "business as usual", is not the idle fantasy of a frustrated psychology; it is truly the most responsible and honorable hope for any informed human being of faith and justice and compassion. It may be true that in undertaking the design and implementation of a conscious and intentional computer-based "international network of light", we choose an ambition of greatest magnitude and complexity. But no more ambitious and complex is this vision than many others which have been successfully brought to completion in this century -- and examples certainly include such engineering marvels as the Golden Gate Bridge, the space shuttle, the Suez Canal, or, indeed, the proposed "Strategic Defense System", with its fabulous complexity and expense, advocated by President Reagan. Not "Star Wars Defense" do we most truly need, but "Star Peace Synthesis". With far less expense, and far more promising and to-the-point consequences, we can jointly engineer a massive and tremendously powerful centrally integrated communications network, that organizes the collective knowledge and insight and illumination of the human race, provides means to mediate and negotiate our apparent differences, and directly communicates this jointly defined insight to every focus of divine light and intelligence on this planet. 3. THE CREATIVITY HARVEST On page 15 of their book, authors Harman and Rheingold initiate their theme of the "creativity harvest". They quote creativity researcher John Curtis Gowan: Heretofore we have harvested creativity wild. We have used as creative only those persons who stubbornly remained so despite all efforts of the family, religion, education, and politics to grind it out of them. In the prosecution of this campaign, men and women have been punished, flogged, silenced, imprisoned, tortured, ostracized, and killed... If we learn to domesticate creativity -- that is, to enhance rather than deny it in our culture -- we can increase the number of creative persons in our midst by about fourfold. That would put the number and percent of such individuals over the "critical mass" point. When this level is reached in a culture, as it was in Periclean Athens...and our own Federalist period, there is an escalation of creativity resulting and civilization makes a great leap forward. We can have a golden age of this type such as the world has never seen, and I am convinced that it will occur early in the twenty-first century. But we must make preparations now, and the society we save will be our own. The authors then go on to say in their own words: Suppose it turns out to be true that the tools of Western science and the wisdom of the East could be applied to this goal of a worldwide "creativity harvest", that the technology of breakthrough is available to everyone. Consider then, what your life and the condition of the whole world would be like if it were true... Harman and Rheingold are not referring here specifically to computer networking, but to a loose body of insights they have gathered together from various sources, which they feel can be combined to form a kind of "technology of breakthrough", and which they believe can and should become the common property of the entire human race. The Integrative Paradigm Seeing in networks ways to accomplish for humanity that which Humpty-Dumpty and all the king's horses and men could not, I sense the possibility of a profound "bisociation of categories" (in the words of Arthur Koestler, in The Act of Creation). Through a combination of conscious design, and the hungering imagination of thousands of contemporary independent researchers linked today by a loose and semi-conscious communications network, we move together towards the realization of the most powerful central conceptual integration in the history of the human mind. Interdisciplinary study is too often taboo in academia. But for those persons whose conception of science is not limited by traditional categories, it seems increasingly evident that opposing the naturally divergent drive towards analytic specialization, there exists today a powerful counter-tendency towards central integration, conceptual holism, and theoretical synthesis. The unification of science is not the fantasy of a few ivory tower philosophers, but is a vital and essential force for intellectual regeneration, and the "healing of the analytic categories". We see in this tendency, which may find its most general form in cognitive psychology, mathematical system theory, and the general theory of languages, a search for what might be described as a kind of "intentional resynthesis of primal unity". Such conceptual integration would have not only a profound effect on the world-wide scientific enterprise as a whole, but could directly transform individual consciousness at the personal level. This would not be solely a "scientific revolution", but would have positive impact at all levels throughout society, by defining ways to bring "alienated" human beings into a closer relationship with their "divine ground of being", in ways which have seldom been possible within the framework of a society that discounts spiritual idealism, and tends to idolize highly refined and socially fragmenting specialization. Speaking of the "creativity harvest", Harman and Rheingold state (p14): It appears that we are in the middle of yet another such transformation of our thinking. This time, though, the subject is not the shape of the Earth, or the energy at the heart of the atom, but what might be the most awesome puzzle of all -- the source of human creative power. Because this emergent field of knowledge is intimately related to our ideas about our limits and abilities, the changes in our personal lives and in our entire society are likely to be scientifically valid methods for cultivating breakthrough experiences. The current change is happening at a much faster rate than previous systemwide transformations. It took tens of thousands of years for hunters and gatherers to stop roaming and start farming. The Industrial Revolution took half a dozen generations to totally reconfigure ten millenia of agricultural civilization. The latest change will probably become evident to everyone in less than a generation. Investigators from many different fields -- psychiatrists, neuroscientists, psychologists, sociologists, anthropologists, computer scientists, educators, even quantum physicists -- are putting together a new picture of human capabilities, motivations and inhibitions. The outlines of this picture are still hazy; grand unifying theories are lacking, and experimental findings in many areas are fragmentary. But the fragments are fitting together more and more often, and even the preliminary research indicates we must make radical changes in our present beliefs about the limits of human creative capacity. Those who contributed to this convergence of knowledge were scientists and mystics, therapists and yogis, shamans and historians, as well as some of the greatest creative minds of history -- but those who will reap the benefits are likely to be the majority of ordinary people who are not full-time scientists, mystics, or inspired artists. The ultimate beneficiaries of the creativity harvest will be businessmen, accountants, homemakers, schoolchildren. Power Tools for the Mind Even the simplest computer outline processing programs represent a tremendous advance in the technology of creativity. This is true not only because the speed and ease of word processing liberates the creative worker from so much of the drudgery associated with the production of coherent and readable documents, but because the information-manipulation potentials of software programs like outliners and "hypertext" systems, offer the creative researcher a means to radically amplify the "simultaneously contingent conceptual dimensionality" of his free-association processes. Such programs thus render feasible design projects that would utterly overwhelm the traditional researcher, armed only with his typewriter, pencil, and stack of file cards. In the words of John Curtis Gowan, we must learn to "domestic creativity", and just as hypertext and outline processing software is amplifying creative potential at the personal level today, analogous programming designed for joint teleconferencing processes can greatly amplify the creative breakthrough dynamics of group interactions and "brainstorming". And the unconscious but awakening drive towards disciplinary integration is leading towards a powerful new "grand unifying theory" that can connect the diverse and loosely associated theoretical fragments being generated in the science and research laboratories of today. We can forsee a convergence towards a highly disciplined form of natural language, that can interface "down the language hierarchy" into the computer programming languages of today, and can reach up the intuitive language hierarchy, to the highest and freest levels of human creative thought. Though perhaps it is true that such powerful central theories have generally emerged throughout history as the creative brainchildren of somewhat isolated visionary theorists, it seems evident that in the interaction of tightly knit or "convergent" group dynamics, involving the coodinated work of many people through a network, and carefully programmed in accordance with some emerging central theory, many of the psychological and philosophic mysteries of language and cognition may be resolved in the emergence of powerfully revealing new central insights. Convergence Towards a Universal Language One of these scientific areas most ripe for breakthrough is the general subject of "synthetic language design". Positioned right at the core of the "general interdisciplinary intersection", the general theory of language is receiving intense developmental scrutiny in research laboratories and information science facilities around the world. Directly pertinent to technical problems involved in large-scale teleconferencing design, the general theory of language has an astonishing range of applicability, and as work on high-level general-purpose programming languages continues, we may experience a kind of sweeping conceptual integration that has seldom been seen in the history of the mind. The problems of Babel extend far beyond the common problems of international language translation. Computer networking processes are also beset with problems of "incompatible codes", and whether this problem is experienced at the level of direct computer-to-computer interfacing, where the machines of one manufacturer cannot be directly linked to the machines of another, or whether at slightly more abstract level, where programs cannot be exchanged, the world of computer communications still remains somewhat mired in problems flowing from a lack of universal coding standards. But at an even higher level, a broad view of the entire concept of language and coding suggests a yet far more powerful potential integration, which might well be approached and studied within the context of teleconferencing-based creative processes. Though this idea may seem new and controversial to some, to me it seems clear that many or all aspects of the human intellectual enterprise involve "coding", and as such, it may be possible to interpret the entire body of mathematics, as well as all other classes of intellectual inquiry, as interrelated and semi-compatible bodies of code. From my studies of "conceptual dimensionality", the form of cognitive organization, and the foundations of mathematics, it seems clear to me that an astonishing central conceptual integration, which might display all elements of human epistemic activity as branches of a single central form, is becoming increasingly feasible. I have been interested for a number of years in developing a generalization of what I perceive to be a "universal coding hierarchy". Highly analogous to the coding hierarchies which characterize computer operating systems, and which are described in the book _The Cognitive Connection_, by Howard Rheingold and Howard Levine, such a code hierarchy might be built on the algebraic and conceptual foundations of the theory of continuity and sets, expand from there to an algebraic theory of scientific epistemology and code/concept structure, pass through a somewhat "reformed" model of classical philosophic epistemology, and extend from there in increasingly high levels of abstraction, through philosophy to theology to esoteric metaphysics and beyond -- into the great unknown of "the other side". It is a common habit of many intellectuals to criticize language, as though there were some innate quality of language itself which renders it inadequate for the description of experience, or the conception of highly refined categories. Yet in the broad spectrum of human understanding, if a word is not precisely represented in one "natural language", it is quite likely to be found in another. A general theory of concept formation, based on the internal semantic structure of concepts, might readily generalize the entire matter of the interpretive encoding of reality and its abstract partitioning, formally synthesizing a new synthetic language of great generality and internal simplicity. Computerized communications can eventually provide a medium for the resolution of international conflicts, and it may be possible to develop a universal "lingua franca" for international electronic diplomacy. Based on the world-wide dominance of the English language, it is possible that a refined and disciplined version of English, perhaps defined in some universal algebraic syntax, could provide a "natural language-like" formal conceptual framework for conducting high-level, high-tension discourse. Such a language would be capable of dealing with complex multi-faceted issues without the customary ambiguity, misinterpretation, or necessity for "reading between the lines", with all the potential for paranoid misinterpretation such ambiguity creates. The synthesis of such a language could be organized within the framework of a teleconferencing system. Beginning with initial definition-hypotheses, participants could "nominate" words, develop refined definitions, and correlate these definitions against the critique of other participants. There are any number of other meaningful opportunities for research into natural and synthetic languages that could be conducted within the medium of online teleconferencing. Given the proper programming formats, and the interest and participation of concerned conferees, such research might develop powerful new insights into those fundamental problems of international communications, which must be resolved if the human community is to overcome divisive and dangerous mistrust, and realize the far more "efficient" world of international cooperation and freedom. 4 THE QUICKSILVER STREAM In their discussion of the Perennial Philosophy and the "Quicksilver Stream", Harman and Rheingold offer an account of the influence of esoteric philosophy on the political history of civilization. Because their discussion is so immediately and directly relevant to the purpose and message of this present essay, and because I am convinced that social and historical drives towards "integrative networking" represent a profoundly significant spiritual force, with some few editorial liberties taken in the arrangement of text, I here reproduce an extended composite taken from their account, pp 150-182: Has the unconscious idea processor produced breakthrough insights in these areas that have tended to share common themes across cultures and throughout the ages? One might be tempted to assume that such is not the case, given the great variability and dissension that exists between the outward form of the different religions. And yet, as we shall see, there are certain universal insights that seem to have been passed on and continually rediscovered since before the dawn of history. We are not the first to claim that this question can be answered in the affirmative. From the esoteric core of the world's spiritual traditions (which, of course, come partly from channeling and partly from mystical experience), we can distill a highest common factor. Aldous Huxley referred to this "highest common factor" by the term the Perennial Philosophy, and wrote of it: "Rudiments of the Perennial Philosophy may be found among the traditional lore of primitive peoples in every region of the world, and in its fully developed forms it has a place in every one of the higher religions. A version of this Highest Common Factor...was committed to writing more than twenty-five centuries ago... Of course, this perennial wisdom is not a philosophy, in the strict sense, and even to define its core is not easy, but those who have studied it agree that it does have a distinct, if indefinable form. Huxley discussed this aspect of the perennial philosophy, too: "Philosophia Perennis -- the phrase was coined by Leibniz; but the thing -- the metaphysic that recognizes a divine Reality substantial to the world of things and lives and minds; the psychology that finds in the soul something similar to, or even identical with, divine Reality; the ethic that places men's final end in the knowledge of the immanent and transcendental Ground of all being -- the thing is immemorial and universal. Ultimately, for the time being at least, no complete answers are available or even possible in the transcendental realm. The explorers of this world might use the same technique for the same period of time, but there is nothing to guarantee that they will all achieve the same depth or even kind of spiritual insight. However, many scientists are now beginning to recognize, as did Edgar Mitchell, that such knowledge cannot be dismissed. But the central question of how to regard transcendental data remains the central question to be answered by a future science of religion. Various scholars have theorized that the unconscious may be setting its own priorities on where humanity's attention needs to be directed at different stages in our social, psychological, and cultural evolution. Certainly it does not strain credulity to suggest that if the unconscious can solve mathematical theorems and determine the individual's deepest needs, it might be able to do the same for humanity's needs as well. In which case, then it might be worth examining the track of the perennial wisdom as it winds its way in and out of history in an attempt to determine what effect the collective urgings of humanity's unconscious might have played in the shaping of our destiny and the guidance of our evolution. We have chosen to focus here on the more recent cultural manifestations that led to the creation of Western civilization -- the Judaic, Christian, and Islamic traditions. As we have seen, within each of these traditions an esoteric core has always existed, and hidden teachings have always been passed down directly from master to initiate. Because liberation (from ego illusion, cultural hypnosis, self-limitation, separation from God) is at the core of all these systems, the implications not only for the exoteric popular religions, but for Western history have been profound. For the kind of liberation that sages talk about is, as we shall see, inextricably bound up with the kind of liberation that political figures also talk about. Indeed, one of the most startling conclusions that can be inferred by our examination of the history of these breakthrough states is that the modern political beliefs in the importance of "liberty, equality, and fraternity", which form the base of our most cherished values, are directly related to the same mysterious experiences that many people regard as "superstition" or "insanity" when they are voiced by ordinary individuals rather than prophets. Therefore, our examination of these unorthodox elements of Western religious thought covers not only what these traditions have to say about human consciousness and creativity, but what the relationship between personal liberation and political liberation is as well. The esoteric spiritual wisdom of Western civilization, far from existing solely in the form of cryptic writings or secret rituals, is still to be found in some very public places -- for anyone who knows where and how to look. Fraternity of the Cathedrals One event that seems to have been a vehicle for the transmission of the older knowledge of the East and the transition to the establishment of a newer, Western knowledge system was the sudden appearance in Europe of a new kind of architecture. During the early phase of the Gothic style, bands of faithful enthusiasts -- ordinary layfolk under the guidance of architects or assisted by craftsmen -- could be found trekking from site to site, carting the brick and mortar to build another cathedral in honor of the Holy Virgin or God. Many of the cathedrals of northern France were built by this spontaneous lay movement, the "Gothic crusade". They were built in a great wave of mystic fervor... The cathedrals are works of art inspired by visions, not merely buildings, but they are artistic creations in which the technological accomplishment was of the highest degree. Nevertheless, the vision was always the decisive factor. As Manly Palmer Hall, one of the foremost scholars of the esoteric movement writes: "The direct descendent of the essential program of the Esoteric Schools was entrusted to groups already well-conditioned for the work. The guilds, trade unions, and similar protective and benevolent societies had been internally strengthened by the introduction of a new learning. The advancement of the plan required the enlargement of the boundaries of the philosophic overstate. A World Fraternity was needed, sustained by a deep and broad program of education according to the "method". Such a Fraternity could not immediately include all men, but it could unite the activities of certain kinds of men, regardless of their racial or religious beliefs or the nations in which they dwelt. These were the men of "towardness", those sons of tomorrow, whose symbol was a blazing sun rising over the mountains of the east... The Invisible Empire, integrated and ensouled by Bacon and his so- called literary group, was the archetype of those democratic Societies which directly and indirectly precipitated the era of revolution. Thus, the way was cleared for the first great experiment in practical self-government." Where did science, technology, democracy, and revolution originate? Were these characteristics of the modern world brought into being by the acts of well-known historical figures and the intersection of social forces, as traditional history books insist? Today, sources outside the mainstream of orthodox history suggest there was a conscious, perhaps quasi-secret effort to bring about the birth of an entirely new way of looking at human nature and the nature of human institutions. When the cathedrals were finished and an international core of seekers had experienced higher levels of education and states of consciousness, the uninitiated population was ready for a grander design: Nations were ready to be built. For one of the most important breakthrough experiences in Western history did not occur to an individual or a small group of cultists, but to the entire population of Europe. The perennial wisdom and the states of consciousness associated with it, through its influence on a small avant-gard, eventually effected a less drastic but far-reaching change of consciousness on a larger scale. Quite simply, the new idea was that the human mind is an instrument capable of being trained. If the deep intuition, the unconscious idea processor, does indeed slowly feed certain humans with revelations appropriate to their time and space, with the ultimate purpose of evolving towards higher and healthier levels of consciousness, then it is at this level that it manifested itself in Europe over the centuries which we are discussing here. To suggest as we do, that there might be a connection between the perennial wisdom, spiritual revelation, the deep unconscious, and phenomena like the idea of democracy and the founding of America, may seem at first outrageous. But if Carl Rogers and others are right, then humanity can only achieve its full potential and lead healthy, constructive, creative lives in a condition of "external freedom". The Central Projects of Nations At critical points in history, those rare, dedicated few who discovered, remembered, or were taught the way to open the channel to their deep unconscious (to their idea processor) seem to have been intuitively led to spread their knowledge where it might do the most good. Central projects are means of focusing the energies of a population during an evolutionary transition to a higher level of culture. The pyramids were such projects. The great megalithic monuments of Europe and temple complexes of Asia, and other massive architectural ventures were also such projects. Perhaps the most recent central project was the Apollo project that culminated in Neil Armstrong's famous footstep on the moon. We are just dipping into the hidden task of the perennial wisdom here in an effort to show the relationship between states of consciousness, breakthrough experiences, the events of history, and the continuing evolution of human culture. As one delves deeper into this secret history, turning to those accounts which have not been so much disputed as neglected by historians, it gradually becomes clear that many of the aspects of the modern world, and the most magnificent reminders of ages past, have meanings and significances different than or beyond those we are taught in school. Science, or natural philosophy, as it was known, had been locked into a static form for thousands of years when the reformers came along. The publication in 1620 of Rene Descartes' "Discourse on Method" was a milestone in the dissemination of the "new method for determining truth" that Descartes claimed to have found. (The title of Descartes' landmark work was "Project of a Universal Science Destined to Raise Our Nature to Its Highest Degree of Perfection.") At the same time in England, a remarkable man by the name of Francis Bacon was saying publicly for the first time that "knowledge is power." The influence of Sir Francis Bacon on Western thought and institutions was formidable. He proposed that science could bring into our realm of knowledge entirely new and powerful truths from the "hidden realm" of nature. Bacon proposed that entire populations of scientists be trained in the new method of thought-- their observations, theories, and experiments could grow into a body of knowledge far greater than that attainable by any one person. More than perhaps any other individual in history, Bacon consciously bridged the older esoteric traditions and the newly emerging ideas that were transforming the external institutions of the Western world. In 1627, Bacon published The New Atlantis, A Work Unfinished, in which he gave what scholars consider a veiled description of the goals of the esoteric schools and showed how the carefully guarded knowledge could now become public. In accordance with his plan, he summoned the wise men of all nations to form "literary groups" and "invisible colleges", which grew out of the Masonic lodges and fraternal guilds, and grew, in turn, into the royal societies of England and France, the Virginia Company and other New World colonies. "I rang the bell that drew the wits together," Bacon later wrote of these activities. Now the "central project" of the humanists and the "reformers" had become nothing less than the creation of a new kind of human in a new kind of society. Through the Freemasons and Rosicrucians, several "new" principles of thought laid down the logical foundations for science. Equally important social principles, centered on the radical concepts of liberty, equality, and fraternity, laid the foundations of the present democratic political systems. The blossoming of Utopian thought and literature, coming at the same time that entire new continents were opening up for colonization, led to the boldest central project ever undertaken -- the United States of America. The emergence of nation building as a central project, spearheaded by groups with a close connection to the perennial wisdom, was not necessarily solely a matter of individuals who conspired together to make their visions a reality, although some evidence suggests that such conspiracies did exist. Unarguably, many -- perhaps most -- of the people who eventually joined in the collective endeavor had no knowledge or participation in these conspiracies. They became part of the general movement because of an urging for freedom, or the reasonings of their intellects, but uncontrovertibly there was also some sort of collective urge on the part of the whole of European culture at that time towards freedom, reason, and the values that were about to transform, not just individuals or individual nations, but the whole continent. Every American customarily carries a symbolic reminder of the central project rooted in the idea of reformation of public consciousness, towards which the United States of America was dedicated nearly two centuries ago, and from which we seem to have strayed in recent years. That reminder is the reproduction, on the back side of the dollar bill, of the Great Seal of the United States. That these symbols on the dollar bill should come from the traditions of Freemasonry is puzzling if one imagines that they were originally chosen by a simple citizenry of farmers, shopkeepers, and country gentlemen. But on further investigation we discover that both Benjamin Franklin and George Washington were active and high-ranking Freemasons, and of the fifty-six signers of the Declaration of Independence, approximately fifty were Masons. Offshoots of the secret Masonic societies of Europe had transplanted to the New World with the founding fathers 150 years before the Revolutionary War with the arrival of the Virginia Company (of which Francis Bacon was a founding member), whose membership included many inheritors of the perennial wisdom like the Rosicrucians and the Masons. Against this background let us examine the symbolism of the great seal, bearing in mind that it is the essence of any powerful symbol that it says many things to many different levels of the mind, so that any single explanation of its meaning is necessarily a dilution and a distortion. ...The banner the eagle holds reads "e pluribus unum", or unity from many, referring to the nation made up of states and pointing to a higher unity as well. The "glory" over the bird's head traditionally symbolizes the cosmic vision. The most conspicuous Masonic symbol occupies the central portion of the reverse -- the unfinished pyramid capped by a radiant triangle enclosing the all-seeing eye. Whatever other meanings this ancient symbol may have...it clearly proclaims that the works of men -- both the individual's inner development and his external works -- are incomplete unless they incorporate divine insight. The Drive to Unity In his book, America's Assignment With Destiny, Manly Palmer Hall concludes with these words: There are two motions in human society. One is toward understanding, and this is the unifying force. The other motion is towards misunderstanding, and this is the dividing force. Each human being advances the universal destiny to the degree that he overcomes within himself the impulses to divide and separate. It is not always possible to defend the conduct of groups or individuals or to cooperate with that which is obviously perverse. Too often, however, division is due simply to prejudice or to those egocentric impulses which tend to isolation through a false conviction of personal superiority. All institutions, sacred and secular, are composed of human beings. As these grow and unfold their natural consciousness, they verge towards each other by simple convictions of fraternity. Every possible effort should be made to encourage good feeling between sincere persons of different beliefs. This is only possible when all are generous and find justification in the realization of the pressing need of united effort. The pages of history reveal the irresistible unifying force operating in human affairs. The story of man is the record of the struggle upward and forward from isolation to unification. No one can go against this motion without betraying himself, his world, and his God. All good things have come to those who have learned to work together, for this simple procedure is a symbol of civilization. Cooperation is the Great Work, the social alchemy which produces the Universal Medicine. It is recommended that the sincere truth seeker examine the various organizations which have risen in human society, and determine by their works rather than by their pretensions which ones are dedicated to the advancement of World Fraternity. Such associations, whether they be actual instruments of the Secret Schools or simply groups of sincere persons, are laboring in the light and for the light. Once convinced of the reality of the Great Plan, the individual also receives a vision of realities which enable him to conduct his own affairs in harmony with the larger destiny. The esoteric tradition, first embodied in its adepts and later incarnated in the whole body of humankind, brings the kingdom of heaven to the earth. A regenerated human society, unfolding under the disciples of the Mysteries, fashions the Eternal City, which bears witness to the laws of heaven. Who shall deny that this vision of things possible to man is the noblest and most wonderful of human dreams? And who shall deny that man has within himself the power to make his dreams come true? Progress builds solid foundations under dreams. The trestle board of the Mysteries is the divine dream for humanity. The Mystery Schools were the sacred colleges, and the first graduates of those secret institutions were the adept-builders. These initiate-builders were skilled in the arts and sciences required to transform the dream of universal brotherhood into the temporal fact of the divine commonwealth. The initiate Jesus, personifying the Great Plan, declared its simple rule when he said (Matt. 17:30): "He that is not with me is against me." Today, in a conjunction of electronics, information science, and the profound mysteries of Mind and Spirit, we hold in our hands an unprecedented potential for beneficial world transformation. Working together, we can indeed today "do what has never been done". In the unfolding of the Mysteries which I believe are before us, let it be said of us, as Francis Bacon said of his role in assembling his enormously influential literary circle, "We rang the bell that drew the wits together..." Initiating a small process today, reaching out with systematic determination, faith, and good work habits, and working together, we can undertake the development of a spiritual process the likes of which has never before been seen. We have the computing power, we have the spiritual insight, and we have the technical ability. Ours now becomes the task of working faithfully, creatively visualizing what our dream can become, as from a most modest seed our network grows, reaching out across the planet to every source of truth and love. Working together, and starting now, we can create a universal communications interface based on truth, and through this interface, in the name of love, we can gather to our central sun all those children of the light who across this planet yearn for freedom, and who, with us, will make of this Terra a star... REFERENCES Gengle, Dean (1984) The Netweaver's Sourcebook, A Guide to Micro Networking and Communications, Addison-Wesley, Reading, Mass. Hall, Manly Palmer (1951) America's Assignment With Destiny, Philosophical Research Society, Los Angeles Harman, Willis, and Howard Rheingold (1984) Higher Creativity, Liberating the Unconscious for Breakthrough Insights, Jeremy Tarcher, Inc., Los Angeles Hiltz, Starr Roxanne, and Murray Turoff (1978) The Network Nation, Human Communication via Computer, Addison-Wesley Publishing Co., Advanced Book Program, Reading, Mass. Huxley, Aldous (1970) The Perennial Philosopy, Harper and Row, New York James, William (1958) The Varities of Religious Experience, A Study in Human Nature, New American Library, Mentor Books, New York Levine, Howard, and Rheingold, Howard (1987) The Cognitive Connection, Thought and Language in Man and Machine, Prentice Hall Press, New York Martin, James (1977) Future Developments in Telecommunications, Second Edition, Prentice-Hall, Englewood Cliffs, NJ Peled, Abraham, et al (1987) "The Next Computer Revolution", Scientific American Magazine (special issue on parallel computing), October, 1987 Sowa, John F. (1984) Conceptual Structures: Information Processing in Mind and Machine, Addison Wesley, Reading, Mass. Tank, David W., and John Hopfield, "Collective Computation in Neuronlike Circuits", Scientific American Magazine, December, 1987, pp104-114 Winston, Patrick (1979) Artificial Intelligence, Addison-Wesley, Reading, Mass. ----------------------------------------------------------------- Links to the "24 Hours of Democracy" Essay Project: Prev|Next|Index] 24 Hours Mailing List Newspaper Without Paper