vol II chap 8 sect 3
Previous: 8.2. Energy transformations in photocells and in Light Emitting Diodes.
8.3. Anthropological spaces for the development of collective intelligence.¶
This section contains information obtained from Paul Levy´s book Collective intelligence. Mindkind´s emerging world in cyberspace (2004) where he describes four anthropological spaces. All excerpts taken from this book are written in between quotation marks.
Levy defines anthropological spaces as “cultural manifestations of the dynamic evolution that tends to the construction of intelligent communities.”…”An anthropological space is a system of proximity (neighborhood) that defines a space and is anthropological because it is proper to humans. It depends on techniques, meanings, language, culture, conventions, representations and human emotions determined in the social spectrum.”
Each space is characterized by a specific transformation which is indicated in parentheses: the Earth (the matter), the Territory (the borders), the Merchandises (the flows) and the Knowledge (the knowledge). These spaces are associated with navigation instruments, objects of knowledge (the figures of the space) and certain technological supports.
In what follows we first present Lévy´s definitions of collective intelligence and of anthropological space as well as the characteristic phases of the development of collective intelligence. Then, in four Tables we indicate for each anthropological space its main Conceptual developments and Technological applications.
Concerning the meaning of collective intelligence Lévy mention that “Collective intelligence only starts with culture and increases with it. Certainly, we think with ideas, with languages, with cognitive technologies received from a community.” …. “Let us remember that collective intelligence is an intelligence distributed everywhere, constantly valued, coordinated in real time, which leads to an effective mobilization of skills.”
Anthropological spaces do not exactly correspond to specific time periods described in timetables; they refer to states of development that can evolve in different moments with diverse types of manifestations. According to Lévy the following seven phases characterize the dynamical development of the collective intelligence:
“Listening: Pay attention that manifests itself visibly or audibly both in the community environment and within it, in relation to: facts, ideas, arguments, knowledge, evaluations, inventions, relationships, resources, skills, experiences, demands, proposals, projects .... Dependencies created by official languages, codes or rigid structures must be overcome; authorize singularities and encourage dialogues, rather multilogues. Without limiting ourselves to the passive recognition of differences and the juxtaposition of discourses, it is about understanding the creativity that emerges from the collective.”
“Expression: Expose in an open and plural way the most important problems of the community, take a position and argue each individual position to contribute to collective elaborations that allow exploring alternative individual solutions to such problems, according to the multiple criteria that operate in the community and that are manifested in debates in which all its members participate.”
“Decision: Make visible the collective effects of one's own resolutions to reinforce the feelings and practices of responsibility of individuals and groups in the community, in order to maximize such responsibility, be aware of its consequences and have the ability to make judgments about its legitimacy.”
“Evaluation: Value the exploration of alternative individual solutions to the problems of the collective, so that the forms of evaluation are also the subject of permanent debates with responsible and committed participation of community members.”
“Organization: Define and distribute functions and attributions to individuals and entities within the community, to share tasks, affect resources and streamline processes, as well as to regroup forces and competencies in order to increase the visibility of the social.”
“Connection: Promote contacts between senses and human relationships without going through representatives; although disorganizing factors may appear, unforeseen regroupings may arise, desires for collaborations and new exchanges that promote virtual worlds of shared meanings.”
“Vision: Emergent and global phase of listening that does not correspond to the fixed image of the future, but to the birth of a collective perspective that comes from the previous phases and emerges from the interactions and contacts that arise in common projects; cyberspace allows an indefinite exploration and a deployment in hypertextual mode of virtual images that express the dynamics of the collective.”
Conceptual developments and technological applications on energy.¶
Next, Tables 8.1 to 8.4 describe the main characteristics of each anthropological space and present a selection of Conceptual developments and Technological applications that are representative of each anthropological space. For the spaces of the Earth and the Territory we consider conceptual aspects related to the development of languages and the processes of writing and printing, technological applications concern developments in agriculture, arts and crafts.
For the space of the Merchandises the conceptual developments are related to relevant publications describing concepts, models and theories connected with energy; the technological applications start with the industrial revolution and deal with devices and instruments useful for transportation and information transfer as well as for understanding and using energy. The space of Knowledge presents some conceptual developments and technological applications that have generated significative advances during the last century.
| Table 8.1. The space of Earth. | |
|---|---|
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• Characterized by language, technique and complex forms of social organization. • Oral traditions contribute to the creation of myths and rites. • Identity is inscribed both in the link with the cosmos and in the relationship of filiation or alliance with other men. |
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| Conceptual developments | Technological applications |
|
Music produced by humans and creation of maps. Astronomical inscriptions record lunar motions. Cuneiform writing and wall paintings in caves. Calendars are employedfor registering time. Numerical calculations include position notations. Hammurabi code as the first known sets of laws. Horoscopes set out the positions of planets. |
Sewing needle and woven clothes. Bow and arrow for hunting. Soldering to join sheets of gold. Standard weights employed in trade. Building of a tunnel below a river. Water supply for interior bathrooms. Chariot wheels including spokes. |
| Table 8.2. The space of the Territory. | |
|---|---|
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• Created from the Neolithic with agriculture, city, state and hieroglyphs writing in tablets. • Wealth comes no longer from gathering and hunting, but from the possession and exploitation of fields. • The axis of existence is no longer participation in the cosmos, but the link with a territorial entity defined by its borders. • Based on writing: history begins and the development of systematic, theoretical or hermeneutical knowledge. |
|
| Conceptual developments | Technological applications |
|
Alphabet created by Phoenicians. Writing of books on papyrus and on paper. Torches are used in a sort of optical telegraph. Development of the atomic theory of the elements. Creation in Greece of the Academy and Lyceum. Abbeys control and disseminate certain culture. |
A primitive plow is employed in agriculture. Ox-powered water wheel irrigation uses gears. Development of glass work and pottery. Matches invented for cooking and heating. Extraction of natural gas from wells. Catapults operate on the principle of torsion. |
| Table 8.3. The space of the Merchandises. | |
|---|---|
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• Developed after the sixteenth century when a world market is established on the occasion of the conquest of America by Europeans. • Wealth no longer comes from the dominance of borders, but from the control of flows. • As the new engine of evolution, the organizing principle is the flow of energy, raw materials, merchandises, capital, labor and information. • Printing and machines become important in the development of industrial revolution. |
|
| Conceptual developments | Technological applications |
|
Copernicus, Galileo and Newton explain motion. Paracelsus: *Archidoxis magica on divination*. J. Leupold: *Theatrum machinarum generale*. B. Thompson, Count Rumford: *An Inquiry Concerning the Source of Heat Which is Excited By Friction*. J.R. Mayer: *The Mechanical equivalent of Heat*. J.P. Joule: *On the Production of Heat by Voltaic Electricity*. N.S. Carnot: *On the Motive Power of Heat*. R. Clausius: *On the type of motion termed heat*. W. Thompson (Kelvin): *Heat and Thermodynamics*. H.L.Helmholtz: *On the conservation of energy*. J. Tyndall: *Heat as a mode of motion*. M. Planck: *The Second law of thermodynamics*. |
Movable type printing. Ships on wheels transport across a river road. Windmills carry water from inland to the sea. Production improved in mining and smelting i. Flying machine designed by Leonardo. Navigable submarine powered by rowers. Steam engines pump water out of mines. A motor driven by the explosion of gunpowder is build. Transportation in steam locomotives. Building of a steam powered dirigible. Invention of a storage rechargeable battery. Automobiles work by combustion engines. Steam turbines generate electric power. |
| Table 8.4. The space of the Knowledge. | |
|---|---|
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• Referred to equipping oneself with the institutional, technical and conceptual instruments to make information navigable. • Everyone can locate themselves and recognize others according to interests, competences, projects, means and mutual identities in the new space. • Numerical networks, virtual universes and artificial life and intelligence. |
|
| Conceptual developments | Technological applications |
|
Classification of particles as fermions or bosons. Self-field and entanglement quantum processes. Origin and evolution of the universe. Conservation laws associated with symmetry properties. Brain functioning and artificial intelligence. Chaos, nonlinear dynamics and dissipation phenomena. Complexity and emergency in designing materials. Science as collective research and applied activities. |
Lasers knives, clamps and scissors. X-Rays, NMR resonances and holography. Radio, television, cinema and cellular phones. Faxes, photocopiers, and scanner machines. Transportation by airplanes and spaceships. Experiments with nuclear fission and fusion. Satellite global systems and radio telescopes. Computer applications in cybernetic networks. |
The content of the conceptual developments and technological applications included in previous Tables is not in chronological order; it indicates a selection of significative steps in their corresponding evolution process. Much of this information has been taken from The Timetables of Science. A Chronology of the Most Important People and Events in the History of Science (1988).
REFERENCES¶
LÉVY, P.. Collective Intelligence. Cambridge, MA: Perseus Books. (1997).
LÉVY, P. Inteligencia colectiva: por una antropología del ciberespacio. Biblioteca virtual en salud. Washington, D.C. Organización Panamericana de la Salud. (2004). Consulted in april 20, 2009 in http://inteligenciacolectiva.bvsalud.org.
FEYNMAN, R. P., LEIGHTON R. B., and SANDS, M. The Feynman Lectures on Physics. Mainly Mechanics, Radiation of Heat, Volume I. Reading, MA: Addison-Wesly. (1963).
HELLEMANS, A, and BUNCH, B. The Timetables of Science. A Chronology of the Most Important People and Events in the History of Science. New York. Simon and Schuster. (1988).
Physics Nobel Prizes
MLA style: Kai M. Siegbahn – Facts. NobelPrize.org. Nobel Prize Outreach AB 2023. Wed. 3 May 2023. https://www.nobelprize.org/prizes/physics/1981/siegbahn/facts/
MLA style: Kai M. Siegbahn – Nobel Lecture. NobelPrize.org. Nobel Prize Outreach AB 2024. Fri. 26 Jan 2024. https://www.nobelprize.org/prizes/physics/1981/siegbahn/lecture/
MLA style: Press release. NobelPrize.org. Nobel Prize Outreach AB 2023. Wed. 3 May 2023. https://www.nobelprize.org/prizes/physics/2014/press-release/
Popular Science Background: Blue LEDs – Filling the world with new light.
MLA style: Popular information. NobelPrize.org. Nobel Prize Outreach AB 2023. Wed. 3 May 2023. https://www.nobelprize.org/prizes/physics/2014/popular-information/
Scientific Background: Efficient blue light-emitting diodes leading to bright and energy-saving white light sources.
MLA style: Advanced information. NobelPrize.org. Nobel Prize Outreach AB 2023. Wed. 3 May 2023. https://www.nobelprize.org/prizes/physics/2014/advanced-information/
Light-emitting diode. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Light-emitting_diode
Next: 9.1. From a theoretical proposition to an experimental demonstration.