Heisenberg Society
One of the most important characteristics of the 21st century is change. The world we live in is changing so fast that it is almost impossible to keep track of what is under way. Some, like Ray Kurzweil, argue the rate of change in society is accelerating exponentially. This situation drives the need for a new physics for civilisation. It has led Vernor Vinge to propose a technological singularity. This has been a great concept for science fiction writers and has produced some good reading. I am not a science fiction writer though. In physics, when the rate of change starts to interfere with measurement we turn to Heisenberg. So did Joshua Cooper Ramo of the Foreign Policy Centre in his article "The Beijing consensus". This is where I first encountered the notion of "Heisenberg society". The article is long but well worth a read if you are into geopolitics.
A lot of things in a society depend on its information systems; the way in which information is disseminated, who are able to spread what information and who can access it. With the advent of the internet, mobile phones and other information technologies, our communication networks have reached a tipping point. Human society is rapidly becoming a globalised interconnected whole. We are the first society in history with the ability to learn from societies remote from us in space and time. But also the first in which changes on the other side of the world can have a big influence in real time. Though many people say the world has gotten smaller, I think it fair to say the world of today's individuals has become a whole lot bigger.
Since so much in our lives depends on communication, changes in the very basis of our communications structures have a large impact on society. For example the invention of the scientific method and modern representative democracy depended critically on the invention of the printing press. In a similar way, network science is evolving hand in hand with computers and the internet in strange, symbiotic relationship. In the terms of network science, the networks giant connected component is starting to encompass the entire population. The network is undergoing a phase change, becoming less localised (though still highly clustered) and more connected. With ever fewer degrees of node separation, it now has a "small world" topology.
Most likely what we think we know about civilisation is wrong or over-simplified to the point of irrelevance, blasted away by the shock of the new. The pace of change means that the world is not what it seems; The world "... cannot be reduced to generalities, because it is not today what it appeared to be yesterday. It is, to pick up on an idea of Heisenberg, a place where engagement inherently changes the outcome, where speed interferes with measurement." So with contemporary society. The longer you stop to look at one aspect, the more certain you can be that when you lift your head society will have moved on to other things.There is no ceteris paribus any more, and that destroys traditional analysis. We must content ourselves with frameworks inside of which we allow pieces to move around with some unpredictability. The statistical physics used in the developing field of network science lends just the kind of flexibility required. So does interparism. I believe the rise of both is no coincidence. Both fields are driving a lot of the changes going on, and thrive by them.
Tags used in this posting
change, communication, geopolitics, heisenberg_society, history, information, internet, interparism, mobile_phones, network, network_science, singularity, systems, tipping_point
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Posted by in Dreaming @ 05 01 06 | No comments / No trackbacks
