Back to the
TrAC Home PageTo cite this article please refer to the printed edition of TrAC: Trends Anal. Chem. 14 (1995) 379
The growth of traffic on the Internet in mid-1994 jumped a factor of 6, to over 30 TB/month. Much of that has been due to WWW. Obviously as voice/video conferencing matures the demand for bandwidth will increase, stressing existing systems.
Often forgotten in an almost erotic obsession with technology is the fact that we are dealing with human sensory systems that were designed for quite different environments; a brain structure that has yet to adapt to the Industrial Revolution, let alone the Information revolution; and antiquated conventions and abilities for conducting interpersonal communications and relationships.
Some psychologists suggest humans can handle about 24 very close personal relationships before saturation. Others observe that we have a great deal to learn about the cognitive psychology of learning in the electronic environment. Surfing the Internet can be an educational and entertaining experience. We have yet to evaluate the long term effect on knowledge and reasoning ability and the production of new ideas by the next generation of scientists. It is easy to exceed the bandwidth of human auditory sensors that might possibly be capable of responding over a range of 30 KHz, and visual sensors that may possibly process the equivalent of 30 Mb/sec.
What does a freshman student "see" in a molecular CAD depiction of a docking experiment in molecular biology, or in a helicopter ride over a thin film as observed by a force field microscope? It is difficult to argue against any visualization aid that services a computer oriented generation of students with poor symbolic manipulation and mental visualization capabilities. Many suspect that mental filters are pulled down into the visual recognition stream to limit the material that has to be digested. If so, does a trained biochemist or surface chemist see different things than the new student? Is it possible that the wrong message is being received, and that the "Medium is NOT the Message".
Much attention has been recently given to the future of virtual conferencing and idea sharing, of a facilitation in the creativity process. Despite the importance, and hype, of several seminal efforts, it is by no means clear how effective the communication has been, or what new ideas have resulted from the electronic intercourse. One virtual conference report suggests that more questions were asked about the methodology of implementation than the scientific content of the papers involved. On the other hand, those scientific questions asked appeared to be subjectively more mature than might be expected in vis-a-vis meetings.
The military focuses on C3, command, control, and communications. The C3 of Internet, communication, collaboration, and cohesion, are not really new ideas. They have been discussed at length by Gottfried Leibniz (1646-1716), Martin Heidegger (1889-1976), and more recently (1993) by Michael Heim in his excellent exploration entitled The Metaphysics of Virtual Reality.
Leibniz developed, concurrent with Newton, the calculus. He commented on the subjects of force and dynamics when these were only shadows on the landscape. He also struggled with the concept of language, communication, and creativity. Heidegger, among his other philosophical analyses, also looked at the subject of language and communication of ideas. Although not a scientist and polymath like Leibniz, he had sufficient scientific training to bridge the gap seen between the two cultures described by C. P. Snow, science and the humanities.
Scientists in general are not philosophers, and metaphysics is viewed as an impure subject in most of their vocabularies. Yet it combines ontology, the nature of a being and its relationships, with cosmology. Throw in epistemology, the study of knowledge, and we have the elements that can be bound together by the Internet.
It might be interesting to compare your ideas on these matters with some thoughts from ca. 300 and 100 years ago. In the following paragraphs the quoted sentences and phrases are derived from Leibniz (L) and Heidegger (H). They have undergone translations from the French and German of their origin, and may have been slightly paraphrased. One admits the truth in Leibniz's comment that "they do not know me, who have only experienced my writings". But the words speak as well today as they did when first shared with the world.
Let's look at some Internet topics, and metaphysical annotations:
"We need to bridge the gulf between groups in the service of commerce, and to advance the pace of scientific discoveries." (L) The latter motivation primed the Internet. Many are concerned over its commercialization, and whether the infrastructure can keep pace with the rapidly increasing demand.
"Facilitating the production of new ideas would require coordinated efforts by learned academies from all parts of the world." (L) These academies have an obvious analogy with the nodes on the emerging global electronic village. You are a node, an academy.
"We read (and write) to know that we are not alone." (C.S. Lewis) The solitary loneliness of the creative process might disappear through the Internet, if we could communicate more efficiently.
"Language is a lens that intervenes between the mind and world- one that can either distort or magnify our comprehension." (L) Language and symbolism can deceive not only ourselves, but those we communicate with, particularly if they are working in a different area with different vocabularies and meanings.
"Specieuse Generale is a collection of calculi whose principal object is the formalization of patterns of inference in knowledge." (L) Is it possible to develop a more useful, universal form of expression? This has happened in the EU arena in one area. It is interesting that the acronym for the superb digital mobil cellular telephony standard within Europe is GSM. It is fanciful to think that the acronym derives from Generale Specieuse Mobile, although the published origin is the more prosaic Groupe Special Mobile.
"The universal language would be easy to learn, common, and capable of being read without any dictionary. It would be made of many geometric figures...and of a kind of pictures." (L)
Certainly the icons, MPEG and QuickTime visualizations accompanying many Internet presentations have followed this precept.
"If we find characters that express our thoughts exactly, we could do all that we can do in arithmetic and calculus, except for errors in facts." (L) There is fear that uncontrolled and unreviewed or unrefereed deposition of facts in Internet databases will rapidly lead to concatenating and exponentially dangerous situations as browsers with poorly developed critical senses use the material without discrimination.
"Method consists entirely in the order and disposition of the objects towards which our mental vision must be directed."(H) Obviously the trend towards object orientation is not new.
"The effect of a work does not consist of itself, but a change in the unconcealment which results from the work." (H) Unconcealment is as close as one can get in English to the concept of openness, sharing, revealing, unfolding and revelation that is conveyed by the original word. The 1989 Tiananmen Square incident was a classic example of unconcealment by fax and the Internet. Heidegger used a quote from a German poet to convey the essence of his thoughts on language and collaboration:
Man has experienced many things and many things has he named,
Since the time we are in dialogue and able to hear one another.
The Internet provides us the mechanism to transmit, but we are still responsible for establishing the dialogue.
"The mind is where thought and reality meet in language. The impression is that man is the master, but the truth might well be that the language machine (sprachmaschine) manages the language and masters the human essence." (H)
This is a serious concern, an apprehension also expressed by Descartes (cogito..ergo sum) who, commenting on the type of world we envisage the Internet might bring, said "that such profound changes in human traits would require that the order of nature be changed, so that the world turned into a paradise, something possible only in a fairyland". Let's illustrate this matter with juxtaposed quotes from (1) an article in Today's Chemist At Work on Information Technology (IT), and (2) more skeptical comments from an anonymous reviewer of groupware for the scientific laboratory:
Successful research teams will use integrated tools to access large numbers of sources. This scenario will not be an option, but a requisite for keeping pace. Data from the past are as important today as when generated. No longer can researchers work in isolation. New methods in IT are overcoming a major obstacle for many researchers - ACCESS. (Today's Chemist at Work, Feb. 27, 1995, p52)
Sharing is a radical denial of intellectual property. Open access to even embryonic ideas would diminish the motives for doing the work to bland necessity, like in socialist countries abroad. (Industrial) managers deliberately instruct group leaders to prohibit narrative and interpretive comments in records ...and allow only remarks needed to establish intellectual propriety (sic). (anonymous reviewer)
This Pro/Con dichotomy represents one dilemma Internet faces, as reactionary, conservative, isolated minds refuse to meld with a changing external environment. The other problem involves perception vs. reality. Let's return to metaphysics and Leibniz's view of the ultimate non-subdividable entity that he called a monad. Whether you view this as a mind, or an idea, is immaterial.
"The monad exists with a surging drive to achieve its own goals, by its own means. What the monad sees are projections of their own appetite." (Heim). MONADS HAVE NO WINDOWS." (L) Their view is not through a clear glass, but a dark screen INTERNET INTERFACE: "The monad knows through the interface. The interface represents things, simulates them, and preserves them so they can be manipulated. MONADS DO HAVE TERMINALS." (Heim) So does Internet!
Leibniz viewed a monad as an everchanging set of representations created internally as a result of perceptions. The monad changes itself as a result of perceptions alone, not because of external forces. Each monad sees the world differently. Heim says "These different perspectives arise from the varying degrees of clarity and intensity in each monad's mental landscape. The appetitive impulses in each monad highlight different things in the sequence of representational experience. MONADS RUN DIFFERENT SOFTWARE."
The concepts of the Internet and its potential consequences are thus not new, but 100-300 years old. In this humbling position some thought should be given to what might be done to overcome Descarte's skepticism and the reactionary and isolationist views of our anonymous reviewer. Sharing is a natural human trait. It involves developing team skills, with an increased emphasis on the integrated product of the team effort. Industrial laboratories experimenting with this concept are trying to cope with the need to share skills and information, and yet respond to other natural human instincts - individualism and competition. Survival is also a powerful force in animals and institutions. Facilitation of the discovery process is essential to economic competitiveness in today's laboratories.
It is possible that the Internet, with its different interaction mechanisms, may allow human competitiveness and human sharing to find some equipoise. Although a few adapt to the medium naturally, for most it is a trip that requires a good guide and mentor. The future is a foreign country, they do things differently there. Educators and mentors have an increased responsibility. They must instill a better critical judgement in their students. Even the best maintained net will have some pollution that will corrupt interpretations unless carefully screened out. Current and future contributors must develop the self-discipline to reduce egocentric facets in their material. Sharing becomes inefficient and error prone when the senses are saturated. Each monad must try to articulate its own perception in a cogent manner. It seems bizarre that we have achieved the ability to technically intercommunicate freely and quickly just at a time when most personal communication skills are at an ebb. Each monad must have the ability to deal with objects using well honed logic and inference. Replacing the concept of "need to know" with a veneration of "like to know" is certainly a step in the right direction. However, synthesis and integration of each new element is essential. Drifting through hyperspace, and having exposure to an object, can easily give the deceptive feeling of understanding. The trip may be pleasant and entertaining, but it must be much more. The goal is reality, not an escape from it.
Monadology admits to one real universe. The Internet is a mechanism by which each isolated monad can come into harmony with that cosmos. The Internet is also a mechanism by which each monad can create its own chaos. Heim comments "People today shy away from the R-word. REALITY used to be the key to a person's philosophy." Good practices and a dash of metaphysics may help guide the scientist.
For those wishing to pursue these subjects further one can access very readable versions of the above philosophies in the following:
RDESSY@chemserver.chem.vt.edu
©1995 Elsevier Science bv