[p2p-research] the end of theory-driven science?

Sun Jun 29 19:20:20 CEST 2008

It's worth mentioning that their is no science without theory. The human
mind is wired for creating theories. That is why there is a neural network
built into our brain/mind system. It was self-built to consider the
un-manifested.

That being said, what Kevin Kelly describes is a lot like Stephen Wolfram's
"A New Kind of Science". Not exactly the same, but closely related.

In both cases: a *search* based science. Not that science didn't already
have "search". But now you can start to create billions of possible
combinations of simulations and then search through them. So it is
simulation/search based.

This is what I was propsing in our discussion about circuit design:
Evolutionary/simulation/search-based research

You can compress thousands, or even millions of years or human trial and
error into this type of research. Plus, you walk away with billions of
potential variations on your design, and ready ways and building blocks to
adapt and change your design, and data about how different variations work
under different conditions. You have a design DNA.

Right now, I use databases like google as a kind of bionic brain extension.
So, I say bring on the new databases, the computer clusters, the algorithms.
As long as we all have equal access to them.

The question for me is: what comes after search? When knowledge bases reach
the exabyte level, or higher, and there are algorithms searching/crunching
through them and finding patterns, relationships, testing all of the
possible combinations, etc, how do handle and process what the machines are
outputting?  How do we avoid becoming a cybernetic society?

An even more fundamental question is: what can you create with all of this
data, and/or with the systems that are used to collect and analyze it? How
can it be used as a medium for expression? What are the new ways to "see"
and "feel" the data?  How can the data systems be grounded as an ecology
that is self-balancing, so that it doesn't overrun our existence like a form
of digital toxic pollution, and cause ill effects on living systems, like
people being ruled by algorithmic output that is too much in one direction?

Another consideration: When we see that entities like google are the only
ones that can wield and harness resources like those that process and hold
petabyte databases, then we still have the potential for a power imbalance,
where those who can hold and process the most data are the "wealthiest" in
terms of capability, adaptability, access to knowledge.

I wonder how many people realize that existing technology possesses the
building blocks to allow p2p networks to exceed the capability of any one
entity like Google, etc?

I can see the possibilty of something simple, and elegant on a basic scale,
that can scale-up easily, that provides a social utility for anyone who
accesses it, using the combined resources of millions, or possibly even of
people for storage and processing, that cannot be controlled for any
specific exclusive purpose by any one person, and that could be controlled
democratically by people opting out of participation should they not like
the direction things are going in. We could have this today, and some people
have already done it on a limited basis with things like SETI at Home, etc.
What we need is more evolution in this area, more ways to use swarm
super-computers, ways that are accessible by many people. A way to turn
swarm super computers into an open social utility. This would is not out of
our reach right now. We don't have to wait until networks are totally
decentralized to build this into our social systems. We all have computers
and operating systems, free cpu cycles, internet connections with extra
bandwidth, and likely ideas about what we could do with those resources.
There are already clients like http://boinc.berkeley.edu/, and systems like
http://ceph.newdream.net/ or even http://www.bittorrent.com/ as building
block upon which to improve. http://www.bittorrent.com/ could even work if
enough people participated.

The point is, a p2p social computing/data utility could exist today even
with just BOINC and bittorrent. I am now in discussion with communities,
like http://socialsynergyweb.org/oardc/startpage about how they could apply
evolutionary computing, simulation, datamining, and other modelling and
search to local food systems. (see
http://socialsynergyweb.org/oardc/local-food-systems-computer-modeling-gis-datamining-group
)

A BOINC/bittorrent system could be used with applictions like
http://www.urbansim.org/, http://code.google.com/p/optimaes/  and countless
other open source simulation systems, not to mention datamining, GIS
analysis, etc This can give local communities access to pwoerful research
and development facilities. It could also be used to render and crunch
numbers on design/ FEA (finite element analysis) etc.

The question is, why isn't this already happening? Probably primarily
because we get a minimum of what we need from free/ad-based systems like
Google. But we could have a lot more, even right now. There is a huge amount
of inherent wealth and untapped commons available right now.

On Sun, Jun 29, 2008 at 7:17 AM, Michel Bauwens <michelsub2004 at gmail.com>
wrote:

> http://www.kk.org/thetechnium/archives/2008/06/the_google_way.php
>
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