Tom Munnecke’s Eclectica

random jottings and links I have collected through the end of the month.
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I was fascinated by the notion of multiscale entropy in Dante Chialvo’s “Unhealthy Surprises” The chart seemed similar to my Asilomar givingspace chart on scalability of “transformational energy” and raised some interesting questions about what is going on with the notion of scale. How do we link between objects of widely different scale? I am playing with notions of “fractalinks” as an extension to “hyperlinks” and “fractalscope” as an extension of “hyperscope.” This would allow discovery between objects in spaces independent of specific scale…

I asked David Brin about this article and ways of linking between scale, and he said, “Terrific. Fascinating. Now can you tie it to the famous curve comparing longevity to metabolism, which has the amazing result that most mammals, from mice to elephants, wind up getting the same total number of heartbeats? Humans are the exceptions. We get 3x as many!… See Lee Smolin’s concept that the meta universe features ‘evolution’ of universes. See also the chapter in my own EARTH in which I describe fetal brain development as replicating evolution. That which is competitive at one level becomes seen as commensal from the level above. ”

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Christy Chin is Director of Strategy & Programs at the Skoll Community Fund in San Francisco www.skollfund.org has asked me to invite my fellow fellows and the general public to a session they are supporting called “Bridging the Cultural Gap: Business and Nonprofits,” Bishop Auditorium, Stanford Business School, 518 Memorial Way, Stanford, CA Wed, Oct. 16, 2002, 4:00 PM – 8:15 PM

I talked with Doug this morning, asked him for ways to “chunk” his vision into projects which could be handled by students, as suggested by Paul Saffo in last week’s phone call. Good description of Doug in “Loneliness of the Long Distance Thinker” and at his Bootstrap Alliance Page Doug said that he would make it to the lecture tomorrow night, and come by the Digital Visions Fellowship program Weds Oct 2 at 10 to talk more about it.

Doug mentioned the following projects:
(my comments are italicized)

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At Stu Gannes’s suggestion, I called Paul Saffo to get his advice on how best to work with Doug Englebart’s vision. I had met Paul at some previous Institute for the Future meetings, and had been impressed at his ability to pull together futures-related stuff for more general consumption.

Paul opened the conversation by saying, “I see windmills on your horizon” and i told him I was considering adopting the title, “Chaser of Windmills” He suggested that I work with “chunking” Doug’s vision into pieces which could be addressed by students or fellows, and focus on Doug’s vision, rather than his specific software implementation.

http://www.munnecke.com/stanford/englebart.htm

My first seminar at the Program was called “Creating a Path of Least Resistance to a Better World”