TNA-GOLD 1/TNA-GOLD - Volume 1.iso/24hours/utopia.txt

Text File | 1996-03-11 | 70KB | 1,244 lines

                        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 [phone] (voice), and [phone]
(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