A brief preliminary brainstorm on the subject of open-source social operating systems (systems of governance), from the perspective of systems theory. This is just to put down a few thoughts that immediately pop into my mind in regards to this subject...  More >

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SMN can be thought of as a Universal System Integrator that can enter into any computational space and integrate its various systems and processes into higher level systems and processes that allow us to interact with the low-level functionality in more intuitive and complex ways. Hence, within any electronically controllable environment we could create an SMN process that integrates that environments systems and processes into higher-level systems and processes.

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Excerpts from brainstorming notes related to SMNDesignView

For more information on SMN see SMN on Anandavala.

I am exploring the idea of developing a Netbeans 6.0 module, either as a plugin or as a rich-client application.

Things to consider:

I need a good vision of what I am building before I start designing it.

What is it that the SMN functionality seeks to provide the application user? What will people want the whole application or plugin to do?

What sorts of things will people want to be able to do with the GUI and with the model and with the simulation space itself via the GUI? How best can the GUI facilitate this?

If developed as a plugin then how will the SMN functionality be integrated into the rest of Netbeans?

If developed as a rich-client application then how will it come together as a single whole application?

How best to implement the matrix itself? As some kind of table? It needs to be programmatically controlled and not set in the code – we may want more or less rows or columns, we may want different types of elements altogether (e.g. instead of text fields they are buttons perhaps).

The matrix-view is a small window that allows for detailed access, but for large models we need a lower resolution but broader scope view, we could have subsystem / supersystem viewing levels for the matrix. One could view systems at the atomic scale, or as a single whole system, or at many different levels between these. The designer can click on systems (either by row, column, vector element or rowOp) and choose to collapse all sibling subsystem and show only their supersystem. Or they can drill into a supersystem and show all or selected subsystems.

The state vector needs to be represented somehow in the matrix-view so that the system designer can visualise the current state of the model. The multiple system viewing levels apply to the state vector as well.

Whether an SM or an SV element, at each level there is some screen graphic to represent it to the designer. If the element is an atomic system it shows a text field to display and edit the data. If it is a conceptual system then there is an icon that displays the subsystems as small squares within the element.

When the designer double-clicks on an element they drill into the system and reveal all subsystems. There is also a right-click option on elements that brings up a dialogue box for selecting which subsystems to show.

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Excerpts from earlier brainstorming notes that are still relevant

For more information on SMN see SMN on Anandavala.

In the matrix/vector view the designer can click on any matrix or vector element or any matrix row to receive a dialogue presenting a range of ways that they can interact with that element. E.g. Change an SVElement's data value or define a rowOp or select a pre-made virtual system from a palette and deploy that within the model.

There is a palette on the side of the interface – when you click on an SVElement the palette displays the list of all known components that can usefully go into this element. When selecting a row it shows all the predefined rowOps. If some element is already selected the designer can click onto the object within the palette to insert it into the element. There will be some means of selecting multiple elements and then clicking on a palette object.

When the object is inserted into the element the designer can click on the object to set its properties and attributes. There is some means to select and deselect systems for viewing. The matrix and vector adapt accordingly with rows and columns appearing or disappearing. This gives control over what is shown in the limited viewing space of the matrix/vector view. For a large model you couldn't fit it all comfortably into a web browser window and having to scroll over the whole flat model would be cumbersome and disorienting. Instead have it so that the view registers with various systems and synchronises with their state. Only when registered is there a row/column and vector element for this system.

These viewer-objects (row/col/svElem) can be arranged in any manner that suits the designer – they can be moved around easily – just right-click on a view-object (i.e. element, row or column) and then click “move to” and then click the view object that is in the destination location and the selected view-object is inserted in the destination location. The other view-objects adjust around it. In this way the designer has a controllable view into the model through which they can edit the model.

As described so far it has no allowance for coding of new systems but only the reuse and re-configuration of pre-made sub-systems presented in a context sensitive palette for insertion into the model and then customisation. If the application is developed as an IDE plugin (e.g. Eclipse, Netbeans, etc) then the IDE allows the designer to code the atomic systems in various programming languages and the SMN plugin can incorporate these into its system palette.

We start with very simple systems and using these we build more complex systems, which are then added to the palette. Then from these we make even more complex systems and so on.

If the palette can draw on any web repository of SMN systems then the range of available sub-systems can grow rapidly through collective development. www.Anandavala.info can provide an initial open virtual space and open system repository. People can create and play with systems in the open virtual space and they can save their creations to the repository so that other people can reuse them. This could become an open-system development community (rather than open-source).

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Here's a posting to let you know what I'm up to lately. Like I said in the post on What exactly is SMN and how does it connect with other technologies? I've been focussing on concrete implementations lately, rather than on discussions. One project was an artistic collaboration with Glistening Deepwater, called Mystic Visions. I've explored quite deeply into semantic and web 2.0 technologies. I've implemented the core algorithm for SMN in Java and the system simulation engine now has full functionality and the models can be imported or exported as XML files (this is still in further development but will be available for download soon).

But the current project on my mind is the idea of a System Oriented Modelling Paradigm. To give you some idea of what I mean, below are some excerpts from recent design documents – they are just a brainstorm at present. If these ideas make sense to you and you want to get involved then contact me – it will soon be released as an open source project.

The project involves an analysis of general computational processes and general systems, which re-orients system modelling practices upon a coherent metaphysical foundation rather than on a commonsense naïve realist foundation. Traditional modelling practices are seen in a new light and minor optimisations are proposed that can considerably extend the potential and overall functionality of designed systems. A detailed example is given in the context of software engineering.

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There are technologies that could replace our dependence on oil, coal, gas and nuclear but for financial and geo-political reasons they have been suppressed. However the motivation is growing amongst various power structures to release these technologies.

This is where AERO comes in.

From the website: http://www.aero2012.com/en/about.mhtml

This is the latest initiative by Steven Greer, the founder of The Disclosure Project. Quoted from its website: "The Disclosure Project is a nonprofit research project working to fully disclose the facts about UFOs, extraterrestrial intelligence, and classified advanced energy and propulsion systems. We have over 400 government, military, and intelligence community witnesses testifying to their direct, personal, first hand experience with UFOs, ETs, ET technology, and the cover-up that keeps this information secret.

See this video of a recent (2007-08-20) presentation by Steven Greer about AERO and the imminent disclosure and large scale development of energy technologies and the social impact of this, it is well worth watching:

For other related videos see the sidebar at google videos.

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I have recently begun to take a new approach, not focusing on explanations but instead on concrete demonstrations, instead of producing essays about ideas I'll focus on producing concrete products such as ontologies, software, etc.

I have also been looking into ways to get the message across. I have decided to look into developing SMN and thereby giving the mass consciousness what it wants - this will help to get its attention.

Understanding New Technology

First a quote from an article about XML, B2B and The XML/edi Group...

/quote
Gerry Galewski, a philosopher on information technologies, gave a provocative explanation on why it often takes years to truly appreciate the full potential of new technology:

"... when a breakthrough in technology is achieved, it takes us a while as a culture to figure out what we really have. New developments are culturally assimilated often based on what has come before. We can't help but place the new developments within an historical context.

"Here's an example: In 1844 Samuel Morse invented the ability to transmit information coded into electromagnetic pulses. He sent the first message of dot dash dot dot dash from Baltimore to Washington DC, and therefore people called this telegraphy.

"That first message Morse sent was 'What hath God wrought.' Telegraphy became ingrained into the cultural consciousness. It was easy to understand and deploy.

"Fifty years later, Marconi made a technological breakthrough. He broadcast electromagnetic waves through the air. But what did he send? The ability to modulate a signal was well understood. But Marconi sent dot dash dot dot dash. That is what was ingrained into the cultural consciousness of the time. So people called this wonderful new tool, simply "Wireless Telegraphy." Within their frame of reference, they didn't know what they really had. It took another twenty years for Lee Deforest to apply practical knowledge that had been around for decades. Deforest had the Eureka event, and gave us radio.  More >

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This is a brief discussion that touches on Turing machines, neural networks, universal computation, system theory, system matrix notation, cosmic consciousness, individual consciousness, systemic evolution and holistic science.

I previously mentioned the mathematics and its computational implementation that arose from my metaphysical research in the article IT Revolution. Here I'll discuss how this fits in with system theory, consciousness, metaphysics and the evolution of systems from particles to civilisation, but first I'll begin by saying a little more about the mathematical / computational process by describing a simple way of thinking about it in terms of Turing machines and neural networks - it is computationally equivalent to a massively parallel network of neurons but we can work towards it by thinking about Turing machines. Let me explain in 4 steps:  More >

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IT Revolution

I've been scanning Flemming Funch's news log - he's collected some fantastic things there!!!!

Our minds are following similar tracks but he is much more aware of what people are doing in the world whilst I've been off in solitary contemplation for many years. I've hardly payed any attention to the rest of the world until the last couple months. It's good to have your help Ming in catching up :)

About the article Software is hard - Ming says:
"What is missing is really tools for modeling things to do... the general problem might only be solved at around the same time when most programming will no longer be necessary. I.e. you interactively work out the model of what to do in real-time, and when you're done, the software is done too. No separation between the specification and the doing. Would be great. There are systems that do that to some degree, but so far nobody's succeeded in making it general enough. The ultimate software project would be to invent a system that makes programming obsolete, by making it so simple that anybody can do it, very quickly. Unfortunately that's a hard."

Well I've been working on that one - more accurately it fell out of some metaphysical research into information systems theory and models of reality generative processes that could create realities like the one that we experience - or more accurately again, a vision appeared fully formed in the back of my mind in early 2000 and I spent a few years translating the vision into mathematics and software.

The mathematics works beautifully! I call it system matrix notation SMN because it uses matrix algebra to represent systems and generate virtual realities. It creates a mathematical information system theory and can totally revolutionise mathematical science - breaking it out of its empiricist rut that it doesn't even know it's in (see The Scientific Case Against Materialism - but that's another story). I have some proof-of-concept software implementations on my website, just to show that it works. See: http://www.anandavala.info/TASTMOTNOR/SMN%20Code.html  More >