Comments on: The Internet and its hierarchy of needs https://blog.p2pfoundation.net/the-internet-and-its-hierarchy-of-needs/2008/03/31 Researching, documenting and promoting peer to peer practices Mon, 31 Mar 2008 08:50:16 +0000 hourly 1 https://wordpress.org/?v=5.5.15 By: Sepp Hasslberger https://blog.p2pfoundation.net/the-internet-and-its-hierarchy-of-needs/2008/03/31/comment-page-1#comment-208158 Mon, 31 Mar 2008 08:50:16 +0000 http://blog.p2pfoundation.net/the-internet-and-its-hierarchy-of-needs/2008/03/31#comment-208158 re simply not there yet. As Kaila says: <blockquote><em>Level 4 is where we get into semantics: interpreting content and deriving meaning therefrom... How will it happen? I have absolutely no idea. RDF, OWL, semantic search, standards… who knows?</em></blockquote> Level 5 is even more strange. Kayla's discussion of it reminds me of trying to figure out - in a conceptual way - what the “next” dimension would be after the three we all know. How does the fourth dimension look, I agonized. The realization was that it isn’t "a dimension". We need to overcome thinking in dimensions and realize that space doesn’t have just three directions in 90-degree orthogonal relation to each other. It has what I would call “omnidirectional extension”. I arrived there by imagining a system of orientation based on the tetrahedron instead of the cube. Different from the Cartesian co-ordinate system with its x,y,and z orthogonally arranged axes, the <a href="http://www.hasslberger.com/phy/phy_6.htm" rel="nofollow">tetrahedral system</a> would be based on four non-orthogonal axes and it would even have some advantages over the Cartesian kind in all-space orientation. Anyway, the upshot here is we don’t know what the next level of the internet will be until we have overcome the present one. I have a feeling that the semantic web and the level of actualization will have something to do with a ubiquitous network that interconnects and empowers all users directly, without the intervention of central servers or any of the components we think so important today. A living net of networks, pulsing and self-organizing. Something we can’t imagine until it finally emerges.]]> Very interesting discussion, although levels 4 and 5 are – by necessity – quite skimpy. No wonder – we’re simply not there yet. As Kaila says:

Level 4 is where we get into semantics: interpreting content and deriving meaning therefrom… How will it happen? I have absolutely no idea. RDF, OWL, semantic search, standards… who knows?

Level 5 is even more strange. Kayla’s discussion of it reminds me of trying to figure out – in a conceptual way – what the “next” dimension would be after the three we all know. How does the fourth dimension look, I agonized.

The realization was that it isn’t “a dimension”. We need to overcome thinking in dimensions and realize that space doesn’t have just three directions in 90-degree orthogonal relation to each other. It has what I would call “omnidirectional extension”.

I arrived there by imagining a system of orientation based on the tetrahedron instead of the cube. Different from the Cartesian co-ordinate system with its x,y,and z orthogonally arranged axes, the tetrahedral system would be based on four non-orthogonal axes and it would even have some advantages over the Cartesian kind in all-space orientation.

Anyway, the upshot here is we don’t know what the next level of the internet will be until we have overcome the present one. I have a feeling that the semantic web and the level of actualization will have something to do with a ubiquitous network that interconnects and empowers all users directly, without the intervention of central servers or any of the components we think so important today. A living net of networks, pulsing and self-organizing. Something we can’t imagine until it finally emerges.

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