Holographic Unity

Towards a Technology of Holographic Unity

By John Taylor; 2009 Jan 31, 11 Sultan, 165 BE


Theodor Holm Nelson is a pioneer of the internet; he coined the word "hypertext," which later became the basis of the links we use constantly for surfing on the World Wide Web. One of the fellows who sat in on his master classes at Berkley wrote the "Idea Processor" program that I use all day in my writing, Maxthink. In a recent interview Nelson said,


"I have long been alarmed by people's sheeplike acceptance of the term computer technology -- it sounds so objective and inexorable -- when most computer technology is really a bunch of ideas turned into conventions and packages." (quoted in "In Venting, a Computer Visionary Educates," By John Markoff, New York Times January 10, 2009, <http://www.nytimes.com/2009/01/11/business/11stream.html?th&emc=th>)


Nelson believes that the computer should transform the printed page first, and that the received design of the programs we use is "the arbitrary result of business practices and not the inevitable result of technology evolution." Certainly, the history of communications bears him out on that. For example, the major religious traditions of the past developed their own language and script to express that selection of the truth they found most useful. It is reasonable to expect that as the world fuses many cultures into a universal one, that computers and software will change radically. They will stop following old ways of doing things and start new paradigms entirely.

I am thrilled by the prospect of in the near future of everyone having an internet-connected robot as a work partner. The real hyperlink should be built between us and our robot buddies, not between us and our computers.

Most literature on robots was devised before there was an internet. As a result, it was assumed that robot intelligence would come out of some kind of souped-up positronic brain backed up by a magnetic memory, all packed into the head of the machine. Unfortunately, that has not been as quick and easy as we had hoped. Computers, even supercomputers, in spite of geometric growth in some aspects of processing capability, have not progressed much further than that of the brain of the average insect. It is entirely possible that computer intelligence will hit insurmountable barriers and never will be of much use on their own. But if we can only bring them to a level of intelligence where they can connect our brains to the already impressively advanced "world brain," the shared intelligence of all human beings mediated by the Internet, our efficiency in every endeavour will be amplified tremendously by having such a work partner. It would unite personal experience with the experience of many minds.

A human-robot-world-brain partnership would change the professions into something entirely different. An old school accountant or farmer would be as different from the new kind as they were from the hunter-gatherers of pre-history. Even more broadly, eventually the present chasm between the individual and the collectivity of all human beings would start to break down. We know this intuitively. It must happen because it is of the nature of the universe. Consider what the Master said, "Unity is the expression of the loving power of God and reflects the reality of Divinity." (Promulgation, 13) He envisioned everything following the model of the divine gardener and a beautiful garden. The following, which He said at the building later named Carnegie Hall, I think of as His "holographic unity" passage, since the smallest part of a hologram can be cut out and it will still reflect the entire picture.

"The favors of God are unending, limitless. Infinite bounties have encompassed the world. We must emulate the bounties of God, and just as each one of them -- the bounty of life, for instance -- surrounds and encompasses all, so likewise must we be connected and blended together until each part shall become the expression of the whole.


"Consider: We plant a seed. A complete and perfect tree appears from it, and from each seed of this tree another tree can be produced. Therefore, the part is expressive of the whole, for this seed was a part of the tree, but therein potentially was the whole tree. So each one of us may become expressive or representative of all the bounties of life to mankind. This is the unity of the world of humanity. This is the bestowal of God. This is the felicity of the human world, and this is the manifestation of the divine favor." (Promulgation, 13)


--
John Taylor

email: badijet@gmail.com
blog: http://badiblog.blogspot.com/