Quantum versus Newtonian Process for Collective Intelligence

It's been years since I first started writing about the Wikipedia, Open Content, Open Source/Free Software, and initiatives that are similar in thought process. I wrote Standing on the Shoulders of Giants for WorldChanging.com over a year ago - in fact, on my 33rd birthday - and that was focused on not a defense of the Wikipedia, but the reality of 'expert knowledge' that we depend on in our daily lives. While some will say that the Wikipedia allows for errors, I drew the parallel that demonstrate that traditionally accepted means of sharing knowledge also have had errors.¹ Andy Carvin recently wrote about Nature.com's comparison between Wikipedia and Britannica, and I commented on that further here.

But this isn't about the Wikipedia versus the Brittanica. It isn't about Linux versus Microsoft Windows, or Mac OS X². It isn't about the Wikipedia Class Action Lawsuit attempt which is summed up well by Fifteen-minutes.net³.

What is this about? It's about linear processes becoming multilinear processes - the net result being a comparison between the antiquated Waterfall model and the Spiral Model/Product Lifecycle Management - except knowledge and the ability to access knowledge is not a 'product' as in an industrial product.

If it were an industrial product, what sort of fools would contribute to something that they would not get a financial reward for?

Who Moved The Bananas?

It should be increasingly apparent that the traditional structures of business, government and academia are the leading critics of Open Anything. And then, there are those who think that they are helping change things by culture jamming - be it calling an older idea by a new name, or promising that the desktop of an operating system will be ready when they will also say that it's not going to be reading in the forseeable future. All of these little intellectual cavitations, magnified by the media, only serve to confuse the public and actually work against identifying and solving the problems. There is a difference between making and selling cake.

If you're going to help, stop getting in the way. That almost sounds like something Richard Stallman would say - but there's a distinct difference. This isn't about making money, or freedoms, or rights - certainly they are at the core in most cases - this is about progress.

We have people getting together trying to improve things within the same processes that have limited what they are trying to improve. Experience should tell us that when you're building a house, the plastic hammer of childhood isn't of use. Yet it seems that we have lots of people running around with plastic hammers, and then we have people who being entrepeneurial decide that they will sell plastic hammers, and market them to specific groups. But in the end, they are plastic hammers, and are useless for the task at hand.

Every piece of knowledge - new knowledge - requires grounding; like planting fruits which fall from the tree of knowledge. Software is no different - in fact, software is the equivalent of mathematical integration - it gives us access to the volume of knowledge available. And that's why Free Software and Open Source is important, because it not only allows access to the wealth of knowledge in the world - it enables the definition of how we access and analyze this knowledge to be defined by anyone who chooses to - not just some legal entity with more privileges to defend it's rights than entire nations.

But these are dangerous ideas. Some would call them disruptive technology, some would call them revolutionary, but the reality is that these ideas are the culmination of ideas that have preceded us throughout the history of mankind, and oddly - the opposing view is similar, though has been limited to those who were the gatekeepers of knowledge.

Yes, this is a revolution. It's not called 'open source', or 'open content', or anything else like that. These are symptoms of a larger revolution, one which the internet and globalization are expediting. But unlike most revolutions, there aren't people acting in violence - there are people with keyboards. This isn't a war, it's a negotiation; it's a hostile takeover.

It's Einstein explaining the Theory of Relativity to Newtonian physicists. It's about a self managing process, which threatens the structures that have been put in place to manage the process. It's not about 'self organizing networks', it's about sentient systems. You can't manage the smaller system until you understand the context of the larger system, and most people haven't bothered stepping back and looking at the bigger picture.

Call it what you will, but there is one thing that one calls progress: Unstoppable. And the names of the supporters are written on the walls of the Internet.

This is mankind's knowledge, and mankind is taking it back one piece at a time from the structures that have become antiquated, dusty, and are having their death spasms. The future is coming, one second at a time.

¹ I think 'Standing on the Shoulders of Giants' is one of my better essays.
² Ever notice how Apple Computer doesn't talk about 'Desktop OS/X'? Maybe they are onto something that Linux people should clue in on. You don't hear Apple talking about Total Cost of Ownership either. Why? Because none of it is practical in discussion by way of generalization.
³Wouldn't it be amusing if Wikipedians decided to sue Jennifer Monroe for defamation of character, and why not toss in 'loss of pleasure'? Let's ask ourselves... who is Jennifer Monroe? Amusing, really.