musings on interesting ideas

One way of looking at human history is that we have been and are going through three major revolutions.

Firstly there was the Agrarian revolution. Before this revolution took place most people had no idea it was going to happen and what the effects would be. At the end of it, looking back, everything that happened seemed fairly obvious. What did people in the middle of it think?

The second major revolution was the Industrial revolution. As with the agrarian revolution it was a bit of a surprise when it happened. Also, looking back on it, it seems really obvious as most radical changes do. But what of the people in the middle of the revolution? Some could see where it all was going (or at least a part of it) and were wholeheartedly embracing it and encouraging it. Some were fighting tooth and nail for the “good old days” and doing everything they could to sabotage it.

Which brings us to the third revolution which I believe we are in the middle of right now. Some people have called it the I.T. revolution, in which case we are probably starting to approach the end of it. However we could view it as being an “ideas” revolution in which case we are only just starting.

Maybe the I.T. revolution has been necessary so that ideas can be transmitted cheaply, easily and rapidly all around the world. This would then be only a necessary precursor just as the printing press was for the industrial revolution.

So here we are in the middle of it. Some people want to go back and some people are starting to glimpse what it might look like at the end of it. Maybe t his could explain a lot of the seemingly diverse bits of stuff that are going on at the moment such as:

• A fascination with technology.
• The difficult time that conventional business structures are experiencing.
• The interest in some of the applied (and wacky) areas of psychology and pseudo psychology.
• Movements to free up and constrain the flow of information.

Surely this would be exactly what it would be like if we were going through such a revolution? If this is the case then what would the end of this revolution look like?

What is the difference between data and information? One way of drawing this distinction is as follows:

Data is just data e.g. £2 is data. It is by itself and is not connected with anything else.

You could then think of information as being data with “hooks on”. Information tells you something e.g. a beer costs £2. This may be useful or not depending on whether you want to buy a beer.

The interesting thing about bits of information is that you can connect them together with their hooks. So one bit of information might be “I want a beer” and another might be “a beer costs £2″. Join the two bits of information . If we could add another bit of information to this e.g. “I have £2 in my pocket” then we get yet another bit of information “I have enough money to buy a beer”.

The information that we have and the way we connect these bits of information allow us to do things. So some questions to think about are:

• What data do you have and how could you put some hooks onto it?
• What information do you have?:
  • Could you break this information into smaller bits of information?
  • How can you connect up your bits of information differently.
• Would it be possible to develop a theory of what data and information is and how information can be connected?

Great add from Honda about how hating something can be extremely positive!

hate something

And then choose “See the film” (at the bottom of the screen) and then “Watch the film”.

This idea originally came from a background in marketing but applies to other areas as well. The basic concept is that we should treat ideas as viruses. This would give us some interesting ways to help them to spread.

So what does a virus need to be successful?

• It needs to be transmitted. For example Polaroid cameras may have been successful because you could give someone the photograph you have taken of them nearly instantaneously. This spreads the virus.
• It needs “sneezers” i.e. people who are infected by the virus who will be so enthusiastic about it that they will happily tell everyone they can about it (e.g. this article).
• It will thrive best when there are no “antibodies” i.e. when it is a new idea. For instance, Pokemon spread like wildfire through the young people of the world whereas the following Digimon had only limited success. Perhaps people by then had built up antibodies.
• Viruses have a preferred culture. Flu’s tend to have more effect on older people just as Pokemon would only really work for young people. You need to choose your culture for your idea to spread effectively.
• How fast can the virus spread? This depends on the number of people each person who has already been infected comes into contact with. It also depends on how infectious the idea is and how easy it is to transmit.

This is only a very brief description of some of the ideas outlined in a book and website. For more information see http://www.ideavirus.com

We tend to think of events as happening in sequence. An event happens which causes another event which causes another. This may only be what is happening because we are traveling forwards in time and so have built up a whole way of thinking that makes this appear to be true.

What if all these events were happening simultaneously. If we were outside our normal experience of time then events would just seem to occur spontaneously. If this was true then by making an event happen in the future we would automatically have caused the events which were necessary (from a sequency point of view) to happen.

Arrows and Trees

Xeno’s (Zeno’s) Paradox (Sequency)

Xeno’s paradox brings out some of the difficulties in thinking in a sequential mode. An example is that of firing an arrow at a tree. Some time after the arrow is fired it will have reached a point half way between the bow and the tree. This will take a finite amount of time. The arrow must then get to a point where it has covered half of the remaining distance. Again this takes a finite amount of time. Xeno argued that you can continue this process infinitely i.e. 1/2,1/4,1/8,1/16,1/32 etc. Therefore the arrow takes an infinite number of finite (they may be small but they are still finite) amounts of time to reach the tree.

Xeno then argues that an infinite number of finite amounts of time must be an infinite amount of time, therefore the arrow never reaches the tree!

Our Experience (Simultaneity)

Have you ever had the feeling when throwing a stone at a rock, that you actually know that it is going to hit the rock? You may have experienced this feeling when playing a sport or in some other area of activity. It is as though the stone has already hit the rock.

If we could get that level of focus into other areas of our thinking wouldn’t that be useful? I think that dropping the whole idea of sequency would be very useful in many situations. If we could think in a simultaneity way things would become an awful lot easier.

I went to a very interesting presentation last week by James Cherkoff of Collaborate Marketing.

The basic idea is that the web has totally changed conventional marketing and branding approaches.

My comments in writing about his ideas would probably not do them justice so it is probably best to look at his website.

A lot of what he was talking about was how Eric Raymond’s paper The Cathedral and the Bazaar can be and is being applied to marketing and branding approaches.

See also a previous article on this blog Copyright and Copyleft.

How one Canadian guy started off with one red paperclip and by repeatedly trading it up for more valuable items has finally bought a house.

For the full story see: one red paperclip

So nothing is impossible!

A very confusing face:

The reason why is is so difficult to look at is because of the way our brains do face recognition.

When we look at a face our brains measure a (very small) number of distances such as the difference between the eyes and between each eye and the nose. In this picture their are two faces superimposed on each other. So when your brain tries to make the measurements it gets confused with which feature it is measuring from.

I find this interesting because when we recognise a face we are not looking at it in any great detail just measuring some key points. Also it is interesting because it suggests that when we come across highly unusual images we may not be seeing them with any accuracy at all.

Once you have written something, either words or music, it is automatically your copyright. What people usually do is send a copy of the material to themselves by recorded delivery. At some later stage you can take this to a lawyer (unopened) and this proves that the material existed at that point in time. The idea of copyright is that it protects the author from other people stealing their material.

It is interesting to note that there is no way of protecting ideas themselves. There are patents but in most of the world (excluding the USA) they relate to how something is produced not the actual idea itself. Design marks cover the design of an article and trademarks cover letters or marks which are part of your brand.

As we move into an “ideas” economy these mechanisms seem to be coming under pressure. One group believes that we have to protect ideas but there is no consensus on how you would actually do this. Another group believes that ideas should be freely accessible and transmissible so that a new economy can take off.

One interesting variation of copyright is that of “copyleft”. Copyleft is the same, legally, as copyright and comes under the same protection. However copyleft (of which there are a number of versions) specifically states that:

• You can freely use the material in any way that you want provided that:
  • You leave the copyleft message on the message.
  • You do not make money out of the material.
  • You must submit any improvements and corrections back to the author.

This is interesting because it allows for the free flow of information and for its use. It also means that the author gets some pay back in that the material is constantly improved and their name always appears on it.

Oh - yes - and most of the web exists because of copyleft - apache, linux, perl, etc.

Copyleft and copyright reminds me of the ongoing argument on whether it is better to censor some information or have it all freely available.

Another default alternative that has perplexed me for years is the way people behave when trying to get in and out of shops.

If a shop has a number of doors and one of them is open then people will queue at the open door rather than open one of the other doors.

The default alternative here seems to be “always go through a door that is already open”.

If you have any other examples of default alternatives please send them to: blog@treepax.com