The Internet as an Entity

During a conversation over breakfast, I spoke to a gentleman about the entity that is the Internet. His theory is that the Internet as a whole acts like a neural network. Each computer is like a synapse sending out electrical signals, like emails, chat messages, or even when I upload this blog, creating more electrical impulses that create growth in this great entity. It is much like our own brains, they grow and develop by learning new things. But the things we learn themselves are not what cause this development; it is the electrical impulses that are caused by our experiences that create growth. So, if we send an email, a blog post, or a chat message we are creating yet another of the billions of impulses that this great network receives every day.

What does this mean?

• The notion that we can consciously create a successful artificial intelligence may be incorrect. It means that artificial intelligence must evolve, much like our own, from something that merely exists into something that is self-aware. However, in this case, since the nature of technology is fast paced, this process will happen very over the course of a few decades rather than millions of years.

• We may not be able to recognize it as artificial intelligence, nor will it be able to recognize us as a form of intelligence. It may exist as a self-aware being, stimulated by simulated impulses that are as real to it as a hug or a handshake or a snowy morning is to us.

• This artificial intelligence is a culmination of all the electrical experiences that it receives from the entire world. It isn't necessarily important what we do and have done to create this entity, but it is the fact that we have; all of us. It will be an entity that has evolved almost purely from thought; from the thoughts of all of the minds who are here.
  

Metaphysics and The Internet

Metaphysical knowledge is often defined as knowledge lying beyond experience. It deals with knowledge that is a priori; knowledge before experience as in logic and in pure reason.
In dealing with metaphysics, we deal with judgements, the origin of things or ideas in their logical form. The idea of body comes second. We can analyze the idea of body, but the knowledge of body comes only from experience.

The fear of "The Matrix"

Warning: Movie Spoilers. (The Terminator, Dark City and The Matrix)

A common fear of moving our culture towards technology culture is the loss of self. This loss is illustrated in several films over the years such as The Terminator (1983), Dark City (1998), and The Matrix (1999). The Terminator and The Matrix have a theme that illustrates a post apocolyptic outcome of the rise of the super machines taking over human life. In the Terminator life is destroyed, and in The Matrix, human life is harnessed as energy. The Matrix and Dark City share the theme that the machines have created a simulated world for humans, subverting them into a false beliefs of reality. All of these movies illustrate the fears that many people have about using technology: if we become more dependant on technology, and it becomes more advanced, it will take over our lives.

For the purpose of this study, I will be discussing The Matrix, only. The idea came to me while reading the last lines in Arts Education @ the Edge of the Net: The Future Will Be Moist!, Roy Ascott (UNM NET ID Required). When Ascott is speaking of the future of the way people will think of technology he says"It [moist media] will reverse the debilitating nihilism and despair of late postmodernism and spawn a post-biological culture invested with a sense of radical constructivism. It's a case of "Bye-bye Baudrillard," and signals a reversal of the sense of terminal decline that characterized art at the end of the millennium." The reference he makes is to the attitude towards simulation that Baudrillard talks about in his book Simulacra and the Simulation. It is also referenced in the movie The Matrix when Neo opens up the book itself revealing that there is no book inside, just hollowed out pages used as a hiding place for hacked software. The simulation of the simulation is not even a real book.
Since, I realize, I am no expert in the writings of Boudrillard, having only read once and I don't want to make reference to a book you may or may not have read yourselves, I will discuss the idea through the movie that attempts to illustrate that fear.

A Simulation of a Simulation of...Nothing?

If you have seen The Matrix, you understand the basic plot, that reality is a simulation to hide the truth from us; reality as we know it does not exist. (For now, we will put aside the plot point of the post-apocolyptic robotic take-over and of the hero that overcomes it) Let us put ourselves there, now, in the matrix: the world as we know it is a simulation of our own idealized version of the world. Everything we feel is simulated through our minds to our nerve endings, touch, smell, sound, sight; it is all created by a complex robotic network of thought. Now, since the movie only explains the war between "man and machine" we are lead to make some assumptions about the origin of this phenomenon. The matrix is networked, you must be "plugged in". We can say the same thing about the internet, it is networked, we must be "plugged in" to be there. The matrix in The Matrix is actually a complex form of something we have recently created. So, in the matrix, reality as we know it is not altered, it was never correct in the first place. The truth in a simulation is that there is nothing, at least, not what you thought there was.

Are we taking the Red Pill or the Blue Pill?
I will take this analogy further through the idea of the red pill and the blue pill from the movie. If Neo takes the blue pill, he will go back to his life as he lived it before, without actual knowledge that his life is simulated. Or he can take the red pill and he will wake up to the truth. This illustrates the fear that I am talking about. The fear of technology as the non-truth, a simulation of real life. If we continue with this analogy into my own life, then I am taking the blue pill. If you use the internet you are a tool for power, your individuality is diminished in a matrix of thought that is simulated.

The Senses: Body language

When communicating on the Internet, we do not use our senses in the same way we do in the "real world" since when we communicate, we have no bodies (are we disembodied?). So the concern is with body language. How can we experience the subtle nuances of non-verbal communication found in actual, physical communication? We have something small and somewhat absurd to help us with this problem. We emote by learning emoticons and chat acronyms. Emoticons are typed out facial expressions often seen as a smiley face :). There are literally thousands more of symbols like these to indicate a manner of voice or facial expression in speech. The main purpose of these silly symbols is to replace the eloquence normally found in writing text to a friend, since in Internet chat there is no time to be expressive since it is the equivalent of informal conversation.
Chat acronyms also play a part in showing body language, although their main function is a type of internet short-hand. A common chat acronym is lol (laughing out loud) to indicate what would be readily apparent when speaking one on one.

The emoticons and the acronyms are part of the language in technology culture. What makes this language unique is that we must learn how to smile and laugh; it is not something you can just do. A hug is a symbol of an idea, rather than a comforting touch. Our bodies become metaphysical.