Digital ecology

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

This article may need to be wikified to meet Wikipedia's quality standards.
Please help improve this article, especially its introduction, section layout, and relevant internal links. (help)

The cutting edge of modern evolutionary biology is suggesting that all life forms are networks. The pioneering work of Lynn Margulis is important here as well as the speculations on her work made by the cultural historian William Irwin Thompson.

In the early stages of development, simple cells act in a random chaotic way and there is no creative development because the highly individualistic behaviors cancel out each other. It's like a static bump and grind, pure helter-skelter actions and reactions.

But at some point, perhaps by sheer accident, the cells fall into an entrainment or union that networks or yokes their behaviors into some common purpose. For example, a bunch a quivering shaking cells may suddenly find that they all pointing in the same direction. Now, with each cell's tail wagging behind it, the whole group (herd, gaggle) is propelled through space creating the function of directed (non-chaotic) motion which maybe very important for locating new food sources or getting away from enemies.

Once a function is established by evolutionary advantage it becomes firm and will be included and built upon in future developments creating an endless process of transcending and including. As these functions are networked into increasingly complex and coordinated behaviors, life forms emerge and maintain vitality so long as they can "hold it together." What we refer to as "death" is simply the loss of union. To be "alive" means that there is a functioning network of information and behaviors.

By Digital Ecology we mean the fusion or union of the virtual (digital information) and the real (basic life forms), megabytes and a mouse. At first there is much chaos and randomness of individual behaviors. Then the individual comes to see advantages in networking -- often it can be little more than the search for friends by isolated and alone people -- communities and functions are born. This is the principle reason for the success of goggle's Orkut which is especially potent within a culture that places high value on relationship and cordiality, such as Brazil.

In this context, creative intelligence can be defined as the ability to interact. The advantage will fall to those whose ability to adapt to and evolve with changing conditions is greatest. The new paradigm of the information age simply gives higher priority to networking and process than to ownership and property. The maintenance of established forms (property) is essential as a tool but, as is the case for a wise carpenter, it is important to know when NOT to use the hammer. The maintenance and defense of established forms may be so energy depleting that the advantage lies with those who can move enencumbered into the flow. This is the game plan of the free culture, open source, creative commons crowd. But it is not an either-or situation. It is, rather, a shift of emphasis and attention away from possessiveness toward creativity. The activitst of the Information Age is simply placing faith in an evolving creative intelligence that can be made firm in a network.