1. Introduction.
The World Wide Web (WWW) has grown explosively in five years
from a novel
idea of Tim Berners-Lee to the nervous system of a new planetary
society. One wonders what to
make of this, and perhaps the various opinions correspond to
the historical paradigms. Here are
four of them.
A. In the paradigm of ancient Greece and the Middle Ages,
humans stood helplessly in an
autonomous harmony of forces, celestial and terrestrial.
Occasional divine disharmonies wrought
havoc. In this view, the WWW is seen as a new and suspicious god.
Whether like Zeus or Eros, only time may tell.
B. In the paradigm of the Renaissance, humans were
seen as potential partners of the gods,
able to harness divine forces to human will by magical means.
From this platform, the WWW is a
new partner for advancing our most ambitious or foolish whims.
By black magic as it were, or
white, only time will tell.
C. In the religion of the Enlightenment and its
derivative, modern science, humans create and
control all. In this view, the WWW is just another machine,
like the world economy. It exists
because we thought it might be useful to business.
D. In the postmodern worldview, of the
General Evolution Research Group, or of Rupert
Sheldrake for example, the terrestrial, human,
and celestial spheres are all in a process of concomitant coevolution,
as in the embryogenesis of a
new planetary society. In this habit of thought, the
WWW may be regarded as the neurogenesis of the global brain,
intrinsic to, and essential for, the
overall coevolution of the all and everything.
This paper belongs to this last paradigm. It is our view that
the WWW is essential to our further
evolution, but that in order for this further evolution to have a
favorable outcome, we must partic-
ipate in the emerging consciousness of the global brain, and thus,
we must visualize, observe, and
interact with, the explosion of the WWW. It is because of this belief
that we have developed the
tools of webometry which are described in this paper: the tools of
Web Watch. Morphogenesis requires self-reference.
The works of Eric Chaisson, Peter Russell, Ervin Laszlo ,
and Rupert Sheldrake (listed in the
bibliography) may be consulted for more details on this new paradigm.
|| Home ||
|| 1. Introduction || 2. Connectionism || 3. Visualization of massive neural nets || 4. Measuring the WWW || 5. Conclusion || Acknowledgments
Bibliography ||