Hybrid futures, Knowmads and the Notion state
Project: Polytopia

or The rise of the Cyber Unified Civilization (part 4)

“Today, after over fifteen years of planning, construction, delays and drama, the Large Hadron Collider began doing what it was built to do: colliding particles.
Just before 13:00 Geneva time, physicists guided two beams of protons moving at 3.5 TeV into collision points around the machine's 27 km ring. Moments later, cheers erupted from the control rooms of the machine's four main experiments, as shrapnel from the collisions flooded into the detectors.” Nature"

Going live:
“How is the LHC performing?”
“ Amazingly well.. I am almost speechless, it is the start of a great adventure”



As I am writing the last lines of this post I am simultaneously listening to the amazing live webcast of the most formidable experiment in human history, the collision of 7TV beams at Cern LHC, a project which outcome may very well revolutionize our understanding of the basic laws of physics. Mimicking the big bang , the systematic exploration of nature, is nothing less than a total revolution in our penetration into the very fabric of matter, of time, of space, and as I am listening to the words of the scientists, the engineers and the huge array of a diverse population all working together I cannot but be emotionally moved in hearing the exclamations of the speakers, the celebration, the bottles of wines and champagne being opened and the cheers of success.
However the important issue here from my standpoint is that it is broadcasted live, to millions of people all over the planet, simultaneously, we are all together watching and listening when a small percentage of our specie provides for us a possible explanation of mass, of bosons, of super symmetry, as one of the interviewees said:
‘it’s a new physics, a new model, a new beauty.. we are mapping the unknown, and waiting for the unexpected, stay tuned..”



It is in fact a:

A collective overcoming of tribal inhibition mechanisms

This is nothing short of the most difficult project for humanity for it pushes us to the limits and urges us to overcome our old prejudices, it is a competition as well as a collaboration, a truly fundamental step in shedding light not only on the first moments of the universe but probably on the first moments of our hybrid futures, our knowmadic being and our future notion states.

"Philosophy needs a nonphilosophy that comprehends it; it needs a nonphilosophical comprehension just as art needs nonart and science needs nonscience”

Deleuze and Guattari (What is Philosophy?)

1. The Knowmad

The Knowmad casts aside the commonly held monumental and hierarchical order of higher and lower and transmutes said order into the possible flow of events; and if indeed, as I assume, the bogus cosmic order is finally being cast aside for a flow of events, the old status conferred by the no-longer holding-sway command is no longer valid and in consequence a new method of status and value appreciation need be resolved.
For a Knowmad in this case there is no rightful place as was held by the ancients, a fact which in itself allows for a fresh undertaking of the concepts of liberty and democracy.
In fact it will not be untrue to state that the old questions of “how one should live his life?” or indeed “how one should act” are being transformed in the Knowmad state into a new set of questions, fundamentally resolving the two issues of knowledge and hyperconnectivity.

The Knowmad in this sense not only sees herself dissociated from the old tradition but realizes that the potentiality embedded in the hyperconnected reality holds a new set of truisms for which a different mindset is required. The new set of paradigms such as the factuality of hyperconnectivity, mobile communications and virtual or augmented realities, imply a fluid mindset that sees at any given point not equivalence of times but the superiority of elegant futures.

These futures are potential scenarios to which the Knowmad will claim no credit nor belief but simply experimentation and exploration.
It is my view that the state of the Knowmad could not have been anticipated by past philosophers for the simple reason that certain critical and necessary parameters of the Knowmad state could not have been predicted.
Chief amongst these parameters are the Internet hyperconnected reality and the newly emergent technologies of reality augmentation, these in tandem create a new existential situation for which no philosophy was prepared and anticipated.

When Nietzsche obliterated god and eliminated our transcendent morality basis he did not anticipate that the hyperconnected reality would in a very special sense come to our rescue. Instead of getting lost in a chaotic abyss of non-restraint we are founding right now a fresh transcendence, which is nothing short than a virtuality of non-transcendence .
Of what substance is this virtuality made that it may allow us to answer the basic questions of life?

Fundamentally it is made of an emergent property (and no it is not the wisdom of the crowds- a concept to which I am not attracted) of the hyperconnected reality, the emergent phenomena of multiple co-dependent personas each carrying a set of knowledge characteristics pertinent to the appropriate virtuality in which it resides. (See Topos- a topos in a polytopia, what is)
The main point to look at here is the fact that a topos does not hold a judging function and thus does not demand a justification for its perceptual virtuality. What this implies is that the new questions and the new mindset do not have, or perhaps do not carry the metrics of outsidedeness; in other words there is no universal mechanisms (or truths or values ) to judge the trustworthiness say, of a given persona in a given virtuality at a given time, the mechanism for value realization is thus inherent in the topos itself and is not automatically transferable to other nets (or other topos). However if the value cannot be transferred to other topos how is a polytopia to operate a large-scale multidimensional value assessment?



The answer to that may be found in understanding the real life happenings of networks and cross network pollination and eventual cross-fertilization. A system developing on its own, and though based on the provided technology of the platform results in the rise of the Knowmad state.

2. The Knowmad State

note: Bullets are marked 1 to 6 - the quotes before each and every bullet point are for reflection and emphasize- adding what I believe is a hypertextual backbone to the concept of the Knowmadic state.

"There is no evidence that the world is becoming more virtual. The cyber-prophets were wrong here. The virtual is becoming more real. It wants to penetrate and map out our real lives and social relationships. We are no longer encouraged to act out some role, but forced to be “ourselves” (which is no less theatrical or artificial)."

(Geert Lovink- MyBrain.net -The colonization of real-time and other trends in Web 2.0)

1. For a Knowmad confines are observational tools, to be upgraded, smoothened, changed or indeed virtualized and redesigned at will according to the needs of the infocology the Knowmad partakes in and co-depends upon.

"Changing our way of thinking about the world is a necessary first step, but it is by no means sufficient: we will need to destratify reality itself, and we must do so without the guarantee of a golden age ahead, knowing full well the dangers and possible restratifications we may face."

(DeLanda (2005: 274))

2. The knowmadic state embodies the dynamical symbolism of radical digital Darwinism, in practice this implies the freedom to resist quick assimilations and challenge broken perspectives. The knowmadic state is soaking in a flowing multitude of objects and sensations, info visuals and knowledge dimensions.

"For Deleuze, a nomad does not have to move… a nomad can practice nomadology whilst being in one place. It is the nomadology of thought - the journey to new territories through processes of deterritorialization and reterritorialization. "

(Vikki Hill: What is Nomadic thought in Gilles Deleuze & Rosi Braidotti)

3.The Knowmad can be said to be both a-temporal in the sense that the belonging of said mind couldn’t be implied upon a particular time, and a-spatial in the sense that the belonging of aforesaid mind cannot be implied upon a particular space or location.
The Knowmad state thus is the embodiment of an infocology and a manifestation of a Topos.

"Decoding and interpreting signals, packets, gestures etc. is what we call communication. Since the birth of the computer, that viral mechanism has established a symbiotic relationship with their creators, to the point where humans cannot longer function as a society without them. As we merge and augment our senses, our machinic self takes over a majority of functions that we once considered essential for survival, including memory, the control of vital organs and appendices. Carbon and silicon, en route to the next evolutionary stage, collaborate to bring about the inevitable transformation. Telecommunications and the internet have become mobile. We are the nodes, the packets and the modems. We are still the storytellers, and we wish to share the magic around the digital fire. As we pull the curtain we discover that the Wizard is Us."

(Arturo Sinclair: The Wizard is Us: Symbiogenesis by Networking Part 1)

4. The Knowmad state is the ultimate knowledge Shaman, a modern day techno actuator, and a polytopian in action; embedding and embodying a multi-sensorial modality of thought and act, a living virtual manifestation of mind. Knowmads recount the story of the freedom of information and knowledge as manifested in matter and immediacy.

"A random scrap of information can trigger just the right conceptual collision. It’s hard to know which scrap might do the trick, but that’s the beauty of social networks — they constantly produce potential sparks, for free."

(Brendan I. Koerner: How Twitter and Facebook Make Us More Productive)

5. The Knowmad state epitomizes the serendipity of knowledge and random fluctuations in infocologies. The embodiment of motion and flow, within a given asymmetrical infocology is the primary activity of self-mapping Knowmads. (for an extended view see: self-mapping in complex infocologies)

"In network theory, a node’s relationship to other networks is more important than its own uniqueness. Similarly, today we situate ourselves less as individuals and more as the product of multiple networks composed of both humans and things."

(Kazys Varnelis: The meaning of network culture)

6. For the Knowmad the state of affairs of existence is a networked flow of events. The mind of Knowmads does not attach importance to the possession of an idea, or to the particular manner in which embodiment is produced and manifested. Knowmads travel in and upon information seas, creating temporary habitats as infocologies, without bias and no denomination. Knowmads are evolutionary agents, creating, designing, partaking and co-depending on infoflows.

post update Apr 15:

7.To be a Knowmad is to be a different kind of being, a different way of being, a facilitator of cultures, against monoculture and mono-linguistics, we need creative templates for the next kind of freedom to come forth.

8. Knowmads are different in as much as they are an embodiment of the progress of the evolutionary principle in culture. Knowmads are inclusive beings, ordering chaotic flows of information into cultural phenomena.

9. The Knowmad is the proactive stance of the hyperconnected player in the infosphere, she moves, he surfs, we collaborate, we actively engage and indeed pattern new potentials into new forms of existence.

10. Knowmads excel in ambiguous situations, demystifying mythologies, enhancing syntax and semantics conversion into actual adaptation of new forms of meaning, these in turn change the very meaning of enmeshed existence.

Interlude

Knowmads are substantial agents of change, who drastically alter the infocologies they interact with. The level of freedom implied by the knowmadic state is a new existential virtuality that pushes into the real, in the process transforming and meshing the different dimensions in which our minds operate. Existing as non-localized behaviors of information processing, Knowmads are not consumers and cannot be looked upon as capital. Knowmads are the innovators of thought and vision, using an insight mechanism based on correlated data-spheres of complex infocologies.
Knowmads do not care for labels of old style paradigms, such as gender ,creed, race or indeed status, what Knowmads care about are the pleasures derived in forming new connections, mash-ups and provisional options, innovative solutions for the next step in human evolution.
Our complex neuro-mesh firing in tandem, has produced this amazing property we call conscious awareness, with the advent of 21st century tech, augmented reality apps, visually stunning info-graphics, virtualities at our finger tips, p2p technologies availability and the like we are becoming Knowmads. The value of the Knowmad state is thus in providing a fresh framework and a new narrative to fill our old storytelling needs in our ever-increasing process of self-description.


shortly to be continued.. (with notion states and hybrid futures)


endnotes:
# this is part 1 of part 4
image 1, 2 from Cern
image 3 from Wayne Levin Images

Wed, Mar 31, 2010  Permanent link
Categories: culture, polytopia, collective intelligence, Futures, Evolution,Knowmad,
Sent to project: Polytopia

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