Are we ready for Polytopia?
Project: Polytopia

This is part I of a two-part post on my thoughts on the Polytopia. In this first one, I will aspire to present the challenges we will face in Polytopia. In the next post, I will examine possible vaccines and counterpoints that could be built into the architecture, as well as possible constructive uses that could help all of us grow.

Statement:

I think the exponential growth in technology and its affect on the way we live, communicate, and interact with our environments have far exceeded the change that's necessary in human consciousness to inhabit the Polytopia to its greatest advantage and native use.

Question:

What paradigm shifts will the human race encounter with the coming change?

Those who do not learn from history are doomed to repeat it.
- George Santayana

Entering the Polytopia requires a shift in thinking. At the moment, where we're heading is towards constructing a reality that will have all the same problems that we have now.

Lets take Second Life, the most popular metaverse software out there at the moment. It's becoming a macrocosm of what we already live. People buy, sell, fill up their spaces with their objects, create an identity based off of appearances - just through a different medium than our own reality. But its pretty much continuing in the same vein (some might take issue with me here, but the change that I want to see is a complete one).


And what about ID in the Polytopia? I feel this is a major issue in which much thought is already being devoted to, I'm sure, within both organizations and governments. OpenID already exists. Must we register our "person" in order to access? This will become even more serious when digital terrorism starts being able to profoundly "disease" our own personal existence in Polytopia. Who can be excluded? Will you be able to be "banned"? How might access to the Polytopia be used to exclude parts of the human population (through the physical or through the access to the metaphysical)? In an argument for an ID system, it could be said that once "agents" or "bots" become saavy enough to impersonate a human being's presence in the Polytopia, should there be a way to identify them as such? I do not know if I'm for an ID system or against it, but it is a major issue.

If we start inhabiting the Polytopia now or in the near future (I'm talking about the majority of the population - that's why I feel comfortable bringing these issues up in this community), I say we will create the same "society" that we already live in.

Lets not go too deep into the Singularity, uploading our consciousnesses, etc. etc. We know that's on the horizon, and approaching quickly. but that brings up a whole other set of problems - for instance, what does a computer virus become when it starts infects our consciousness? To tell you the truth, I don't know if we'll get to that point. We're too immature as a whole. I find it amazing that in the last 100 years, we've gained the ability to destroy our world using nuclear technology, and we haven't yet.

As Buckminster Fuller said (I'm paraphrasing), when we're born and grow up, we adapt to the technology available to us. These new generations are growing up with the reality of our technology, as a given. The human mind will adapt.

By the time we have the possibility to inhabit this Polytopia (and before we're able to upload our consciousness), we will still be reliant on our bodies - basic things do not change - we still need to be born, develop physically, eat, shit, procreate (if its so desired) and die.

The ability to create human-based avatars within the metaverse software is a handicap, in my opinion. We need to have the freedom to leave behind our bodies in the physical world, not just create new ones in the virtual.

We are not this body.

This does not mean that we leave behind our bodies, but rather establish what the relationship is between the two.

I think the growth of our access to and interaction with information, the physical world, communication, and social interaction will profoundly change how we answer the question,
who am I?

This is by no means a complete breakdown of the challenges. Why I post this here is to create an active discussion about it. Let us use our collective intelligence to first of all, be aware of the challenges that we face and to design an architecture that forces us to address these issues, not enter with blinders on. Our idea of what the Polytopia needs to be is already behind where current technology is leading us. We need to get ahead. And fast.

I propose to start a project here on SpaceCollective which is devoted to exploring the possibilities, challenges and architecture of the Polytopia.

I'm looking forward to hearing your thoughts.

Sun, Sep 14, 2008  Permanent link
Categories: polytopia, metaverse, future
Sent to project: Polytopia

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Towards a Polytopia
Project: Polytopia

After reading through the posts on Polytopia, we realized that our research has led to the right place.

NotThisBody has been doing research to do with the creation of a 3d, hypermedia, collaborative sense-making environment (whew). Most of Wildcat's ideas and thoughts, we agree are necessary in this new platform.

Here are some things that we have run into along the way - what NotThisBody is interested in is becoming involved with a community who's desire it is to be the first inhabitants the Polytopia.

What sparked the beginning of research was a desire for a virtual black space, where audio, video, text, etc. could be added in, links could be made between objects, and could be used by many users at the same time.

Compendium

Research led to Compendium, a concept mapping program which is pretty much exactly what we were looking for, except not in 3d. It is a flow-chart creator on your computer. By far the best program that we found, among the many out there. You can create a node, edit the content of that node, and link to any type of file, web page, photo, sound - but they can not necessarily be viewed within the program. There is a language that links them together called IBIS (issue-based information system) where you can specify the relationship between nodes - supports, denies, challenges, relates to, etc.

NotThisBody already uses this program to organize all of its research and to allow further discovery and thoughts on all of this.


Cobalt


The desire for a 3d space like Compendium led us to Cobalt, a metaverse operating system still in development. Based off the programming language Squeak, this is a scalable, collaborative 3d environment in which media can be added within the landscape - video, audio, web browsers, and portals into other spaces. Still very early in development, this program does not just exist on the web, it encompasses the web. Here is a post we added on the google group Cobalt highlighting what we think are the current needs of Cobalt.

I see Croquet as having so much possibility, and would love to help it's development any way I can.

Compendium is where I get my reference for this from - it's a program that has a very strong and user-friendly functionality. It's open-source. You can download it athttp://compendium.open.ac.uk/institute/

I'm not a programmer, therefore would have no idea how to add this functionality.

Pretty much, this is how I would the added functionality working in Croquet -

say you have a file, note, reference, whatever, that you bring in.

The first part of it, I believe, could be user-created - out of the blank spheres or shapes, etc. These would be the different types of nodes (this is not a complete list - some of them appear in Compendium, some don't - Compendium allows for a user-created "stencil" allowing users to add their own types of nodes - although I believe it would be important to have an as-completed-as-possible set, for reasons I will explain when it comes to structure.

Fact
Idea
Opinion
Question
Answer
Pro
Con
Argument
Agreement
Reference (can be video, sound, website, etc. - since croquet already has this, it would just be a matter of being able to identify it as
Reference)
List (almost like a portal)

This is by far not a complete list - but I think this would set a good basis. Compendium has "maps" which already work in the way of portals - infinitely expandable and shortcuts from one map to the other.

Okay. So we have our set of nodes. Next is the information contained in these nodes. The functionality would work in the same way that Croquet has different 'actions' that are on top of an item. At the moment you guys have the Hand, +,-, X, and arrow.

Compendium is set up in much the same way - except there are more options. On the four corners of the Node, you have

Star
Tag
Views (other maps/portals it appears in)
# of Items it holds (for maps/portals)

I will go through these one by one.

STAR

When you double-click a node, there you have

"Contents"
Where you can add notes - also where you can see when it was created, see in what "maps" it appears (if more than one), etc.

When you add a note, and close the Node Contents view, a small star appears. Move your cursor over it, and you can read a piece of that note.

TAGS

You can also add tags - this is tied into the different types of nodes above. Compendium has them as:

ActionItem
Closed
Communication
Group
Knowledge
Location
Object
Open
OpenIssue
Opportunity
Problem
Requirement
Resource
Role
Task

As I look at this list - I realize that it's less important to create the different visual types of nodes as explained above than to create a well-constructed "tagging" system (though a visual representation of the tag somehow would be very useful)

VIEWS

This is fairly self-explanatory. There is a small number in one of the corners, and by scrolling over it you can see, and if you want, jump, to any other views where this node exists.

# OF MAP CONTENTS

How many nodes are in the map/portal - self-explanatory. Added functionality could be added to this function, to be linked with searching, possibly. (i.e. how many portals it holds, the links to other places.

Actually, thinking about it, this could be a place for a visualization of the Contents - tho I have no idea how. Maybe you see how it fits into the overall metaverse view.

Next - IBIS (issue-based information system)

Compendium includes this system to link objects together. First of all, they use a directional arrow - it can be to/from, from/to, or both ways. or no arrow, just a link. Compendium is also used to great effect for live dialogue mapping, which I think relates to Croquet's collaborative creation. (sorry to reference Compendium so much, but as I said, my research on 3d visualization started with finding a 3d version of Compendium, and it seems quite well-formed)

This system includes:

Responds to
Supports
Objects to
Challenges
Specializes
Expands on
Related to
About
Resolves

These are all color-coded. As well there is the functionality to add a more precise definition of the link, by adding text to it.

Okay. Now we get to the hardest part, in my opinion. As Matt said, there is a big difference between the structuring of elements in 2d vs. 3d. And when it would come to a world, I don't think you could rely on users creating this structure, especially in a 3d space. I know that in Compendium, I have my own way of structuring my knowledge to make it the clearest for me, and it's sometimes a struggle. In a 3d space, I doubt if I could keep it clear.

This is why I think it would need a structuring program for this type of work - possibly based on geometric shapes - I'm not sure - this is where I get hazy. But the implications that that would have would be that the metaverse would need a structuring program working full-time
- a program written to keep it as clear as possible - this is why I think one based on geometry might work.

The closest thing to this structuring program I can think of is a game that I saw, used with a multi-touch system - You have a series of connected nodes, and you have to "solve" the geometry by dragging nodes in and out - like a game of cat's cradle, in fact. I guess some of the structuring method could also be based on the "tags" and "node types" to further specify how it's structured.


The Bridge Project

I found this just recently. The project is from 2006, and it seems as if the author is now spending most of her time in Second Life.

She seems to have a good handle on creating it, as well as the ideas of the Polytopia discussed here. She also discusses rhizomatic growth, which is of interest.


The purpose of this post is for others to share information on what they ahve found that is out there and available so we can try to find a platform to support Polytopia. To us, so far Cobalt is the closes thing we've found, but has quite a long way to go. We'd like to hear other's thoughts.

Fri, Sep 5, 2008  Permanent link

Sent to project: Polytopia

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