Colin Harper sent me a lengthy and thought-provoking response to my Rulespace presentation.

Colin is a full-time business strategy guru at Sapient who I had the
privilege and pleasure of working with. He’s also a part-time network theory nut, who can actually back up all of the amazing ideas he has with a background in
scenario planning and futurology.

He’s kindly given me permission to post the mail he sent me up on this here blog. It’s really set me thinking some more as I looked into ‘holons’ many years ago for my college dissertation, and once the events of tomorrow (see above) are out of the way I’ll be sure to start chewing on this again…

“This is one of the more interesting things I’ve seen recently (OK its the
only interesting thing I’ve seen recently)

I’m not sure of the audience, and it seems churlish to criticise (especially
when I’m no expert on the content) but here goes:-

Information architecture in a grand context:-

I’d thought there’d be more on how the online world fits into the offline
world – information exists in both places and it’s the combination which is
really interesting – a theme which I’ll labour throughout…

I like the scaling (although the metaphor is somewhat overpowering!) – puts
me in mind of the fractal nature of things (there’s a good overview of this
in James Gleick’s Book ‘Chaos’) – where the perceived shape of an object is
totally dependent on your perspective (what does a VW beetle look like
from outer space / though an electron microscope) .

I personally dislike processifying the ‘magic’ (p13) OK, it’s not magic,
it’s largely knowable stuff, which can be analysed and worked out, but the
essence of any human endeavour (whether it’s information architecture,
Apollo astronauts working out how to bring a stricken spaceship to earth by
way of the moon and the inside front cover of the flight manual) is
creativity – which I hope is not just process. It is the product of knowing
what we don’t know and researching (much like the early alchemists tried to
turn lead into gold and invented paper along the way) and exploring what we
don’t know we don’t know…

The connections thing brings me to networks. I’ve got a load of stuff on
networks (there’s an emerging calculus for that, too) and what causes
networks to behave differently. Love to share it with you if you have the
time or the inclination – and I’ve failed to get it on-line…)

The other big idea is the scaling itself. Do you know Ken Wilbur’s book – a
brief history of everything? This covers holons – a holistic view of the
world – atoms make molecules make cells make organisms make tribes make
society. Lots of things can be viewed like this (he says everything can be
viewed like this). The point being that the higher scales transcend and
include the lower scales, but are fundamentally different in structure (moth
=/ chrysalis =/ caterpillar, but the DNA is the same)

It’s interesting to look up the difference between engineer and architect.

architect
-noun a person who designs buildings and in many cases also supervises
their construction.
-a person who is responsible for inventing or realizing a
particular idea or project: the architects of the reform programme.
-verb [with obj.] (usu. be architected) Computing design and make (a
program or system).
-ORIGIN mid 16th cent.: from French architecte, from Italian architetto, via
Latin from Greek arkhitekton, from arkhi- ‘chief’ + tekton ‘builder’.

engineer
– noun a person who designs, builds, or maintains engines, machines, or
public works.
– a person who controls an engine, especially on an aircraft or
ship.
– N. Amer. a train driver.
– a skilful contriver or originator of something: the prime engineer
of the approach.
– verb [with obj.] design and build (a machine or structure): the men who
engineered the tunnel.
– skilfully or artfully arrange for (an event or situation) to
occur: she engineered another meeting with him.
– modify (an organism) by manipulating its genetic material: [as
adj., with submodifier] (engineered) genetically engineered plants.
-ORIGIN Middle English (denoting a designer and constructor of
fortifications and weapons; formerly also as ingineer): in early use from
Old French engigneor, from medieval Latin ingeniator, from ingeniare
‘contrive, devise’, from Latin ingenium ; in later use from French ingénieur
or Italian ingegnere, also based on Latin ingenium, with the ending
influenced by eer

Can’t slip a fiver between them in many respects – I like
architect = chief builder;
engineer = contrive / devise…

…which is the other way round from today’s colloquial usage (i.e.
architect is a higher holon than engineer – not the case from the roots of
the words, perhaps)

So!

When you get to your continuum bit (which again, is a great way of thinking
about it) I’d prefer to see how online nests with offline (they being
extensions of each other) to form an extended experience. I also think
there may have been room for a non human dimension (e.g. cue discussion on
where AI is going – Kubrick / Speilberg ask the question and don’t really
answer it, Ray Kurzweil is maybe closer. If you buy continuums and holons,
conscious machines may be possible sooner rather than later)

And by the time you get to the point, about context, my old online / offline
point gets me again. Maybe there’s a whole parallel story we could tell
with the same slides?

Would that be fun?”