Fascinating talk on emergence

Here is a talk by Prof. Bonnie Bassler on the phenomenon of emergence in bacteria and how they "communicate". This demonstrates how simple interactions combine to create complex behavior.

The beginning of Web 3.0 : Wolfram Alpha

In a previous post, we discussed the current paradigm of “search-and-click” as the principal paradigm of information retrieval over the web. Search, while (and very laudably) making information available, is far from making it usable. As Einstein is reported to have said, “Information is not knowledge”. The next goal of the web should be to make this information-glut usable as “knowledge”.

In this post, we discuss Cognika’s ideas on what the next-generation of web can and should be. We believe that next generation systems should address the four “C” s of information retrieval:

1. Contextual
2. Customizable
3. Composite
4. Complete

Unfortunately, current search technologies are far from meeting such requirements. However, a fascinating effort called Wolfram Alpha (of Mathematica and Mathworld fame) seems to be along the lines of we at Cognika have been working on.

Nova Spivak of Twine describes it thus:

“In a nutshell, Wolfram and his team have built what he calls a "computational knowledge engine" for the Web. OK, so what does that really mean? Basically it means that you can ask it factual questions and it computes answers for you.
It doesn't simply return documents that (might) contain the answers, like Google does, and it isn't just a giant database of knowledge, like the Wikipedia. It doesn't simply parse natural language and then use that to retrieve documents, like Powerset, for example.

Instead, Wolfram Alpha actually computes the answers to a wide range of questions -- like questions that have factual answers such as "What is the location of Timbuktu?" or "How many protons are in a hydrogen atom?," "What was the average rainfall in Boston last year?," "What is the 307th digit of Pi?," or "what would 80/20 vision look like?”

We believe while computing the answers to scientific questions as Wolfram Alpha apparently does is amazing and potentially world-changing. However there are far simpler approaches that make information usable for the average user. At Cognika we are developing technologies towards that end, and you can view the Cognika XI demonstrator preview we have created to illustrate what we mean. There are very many lower hanging fruit, which could lead up to tools like Alpha. As described earlier, we are big believers in the concept of emergent semantics, and are positive that such "knowledge" could arise out of much simpler approaches and interactions. Alpha apparently does this by hiring a horde of scientists and researchers to codify the scientific knowledge, but to do this on a web-scale is a different matter altogether. Here the idea of emergent semantics is likely to help develop knowledge on a web-scale.

Having said that, we are very eagerly looking forward to Alpha's due to be release later this year. This promises to be a game-changing tool and move the web to a completely new paradigm of information retrieval. Exciting times lie ahead!

Is consciousness an emergent phenomenon?

This is a fascinating Scientific American article on emergence as the root of consciousness. It asks the interesting question if a bee hive is conscious because of the emergent behavior of individual bees. Similar questions could be asked if shoals of fish, or flocks of birds display some measure of consciousness in a manner similar to how a collection of human cells perform microscopic tasks and yet collectively display sentience.