Distributed networks: Thoughts, one subway ride

By James Curcio


Thoughts, one subway ride. It is always concerning to me how much the El in Philly smells like an electrical fire. When you're in a metal box hurtling at 50mph, it seems to me that you don't want it to smell like an electrical fire. 

We are distributed networks within distributed networks within... Ad infinitum. The network runs across each scale as a slice but also between all scales. That's how it works. "Real" was an enlightenment era misnomer, which sought to stake out an unmoving point or common ground (axis mundi) within that everchanging mess, or even the hope of emergence.

Maybe real can mean many other things too, depending on the context. But the point at which real had any sense, any, er... real sense... died with the Enlightenment. (See also The Immanence of Myth if you care about this line of thought because I'm about to drop it.)

Why? Because, that's beside the point, I don't want to totally miss my train of thought -- or my stop -- but yet so is this. There was an asian girl sitting across from me that made my heart skip a beat, and the homeless man behind me smelled of mouldy old cheese. Talk about cognitive dissonance. I see so many beautiful people every day in this city, so beautiful that I just want to cry. And so many broken, twisted things that exist purely on pity or hate. It's all so confusing. And the electric system was messed up as usual so the stop announcements were all reversed. 15th street... 30th street... Was time going backwards? The signs not lining up with the actual stations was weird to me too, though no one else in the car seemed phased. It happens all the time. It shouldn't be weird. It just felt significant somehow but I pinched myself, no I mean I really did, and reminded myself that this was all a red herring. Don't lose the original thought.

Is the emergent consciousness (in the case of the distributed networks of our bodies, the "I") centralized, or is it an autonomous illusion required at a certain level of complexity to apply a will to that one network node?

Let's bring it back to ourselves again though. See...The hard part is, remember when that cell in your lip died? Me either. That's what we are, as a node in the distributed network within network within network.

The flip side is this. Any node can, theoretically, access from the others. As we evolve, if we evolve, we can call on the greater organism more, and more. That is the main optimism I hold for the future, though it feels to me that the challenges we face in the next century we just aren't prepared for.

Still, if humanity has a future, that is it: understanding the true power of distributed networks, and recognizing both our power and relative insignificance. And I won't even begin to conjecture what that would need, aside from the thought that the NWO myth of it occurring through fascism and control have already been proven false a million different ways. Look instead to ant colonies, and to bee hives.* When will humanity act, for the most part, toward the common good of the hive? If never, then it truly will be 404. File not found.

I reached my stop, and scattered out and about like all the other little ants, doing our important unimportant chores, having evolved to the point where we can see a top-down view if we see fit to do so. But then I  think about all the torture we inflict upon one another, sucking our planet dry so that we can kill one another -- and my mind goes blank. 

* This was also talked about at length in The Immanence of Myth. 


[Check out some of the books, albums, and soon movies produced by Mythos Media and our various media partners.]

Netwar- the swarm, 2.0, and its effect on conflict.

The rand corporation published this white-paper on the subject that I think many of you may find interesting. (Not surprisingly, many of these are ideas I played with liberally during the creation of Fallen Nation.)

"Editors’ abstract. As with other new modes of conflict, the practice of netwar is ahead of theory. In this concluding chapter, we suggest how the theory of netwar may be improved by drawing upon academic perspectives on networks, especially those devoted to organizational network analysis. Meanwhile, strategists and policymakers in Washington, and elsewhere, have begun to discern the dark side of the network phenomenon, especially among terrorist and criminal organizations. But they still have much work to do to harness the bright side, by formulating strategies that will enable state and civil-society actors to work together better."

The use of "bad guys" and "good guys", used so liberally throughout, is rather comedic. However, the central premise is sound.

Also of particular note:

Why have the members assumed a network form? Why do they remain
in that form? Networks, like other forms of organization, are held together by the narratives, or stories, that people tell.

The kind of successful narratives that we have in mind are not simply rhetoric—
not simply a “line” with “spin” that is “scripted” for manipulative ends. Instead, these narratives provide a grounded expression of people’s experiences, interests, and values.

First of all, stories express a sense of identity and belonging—who “we” are, why we have come together, and what makes us different from “them.” Second, stories communicate a sense of cause, purpose, and mission. They express aims and methods as well as cultural dispositions—what “we” believe in, and what we mean to do, and how.