Is Mahalo analogous to a massive Brain spanning across continents?
We know there are many similar systems out there and some are interconnected/ interdependant. What do you think this will evolve into in future?
here is a nice looking Global Internet map (think it's from 2005 and 2007) resembling a neural network.
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M$3 Answers
Mahalo behaves like what it is: a lot of ordinary brains. (Well, maybe a little better than ordinary!) It's great at spreading its attention out, which has advantages, but it doesn't do collectively what your brain is good at: fusing all of those separate attentions into a primary stream of attention.
The remarkable thing about the brain is that it's a lot more than the sum of its parts. The individual neurons that make up your brain aren't very smart. Individually, they actually do nothing at all. The amazing thing is the "emergent behavior" that makes vast numbers of irrelevant neurons act as something far more focused, a single "personality".
Mahalo doesn't have a personality; it really is just the sum of its parts. The parts are pretty remarkable, and the ability to sum those parts in one place makes for some pretty big wins. But it's too much to call it a brain in its own right. It lacks focus.
Could it one day get that focus? Maybe, perhaps. I'd tend to say "no" simply because the distance between brains is too big. Any thoughts I have and thoughts you have are separated not by miles (those have been reduced by the Internet) but by the fact that everything has to be translated into language, written, transmitted, read, and then imperfectly translated back into your head. It's too slow and too lossy to really make for a new entity with a personality in its own right.
To make an analogy: just bringing the ingredients of cake together in a room aren't enough. They have to stir and interact at a chemical level to make a cake. The cake is very, very different (and much nicer) than the sum of the parts, but only because they got to interact at a level much deeper than the bags separating the ingredients, no matter how close you bring those bags.
Perhaps one day we'll have even closer connections, without the inconvenience, slowness, and inaccuracy of language. You don't have to go all the way to "telepathy", but to really make that interconnection into something more than the sum of its parts will require much faster and more precise communication than we have now.
As it stands, we're not any better connected than a city is. Less so, because the people in a city are much more intimate in living physically close and exchanging all sorts of nonverbal communications with many people all at once. Maybe, one day, there will be more, but not today.
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M$I enjoy the unique points of view our neighbors from afar bring, but since the answers are in English, we do miss out from those whose primary language isn't English and may not feel comfortable trying to "cut and paste" a Google translated answer.
In my line of work, and in my previous career, I found some very interesting observations and sayings by those whose primary language isn't English.
In order for Mahalo to continue to advance, I'd suggest allowing human translations of answers given in a language other than English to be posted. If the system detects the answer is given in a language other than English, it can be sent to a queue to be reviewed / translated by someone fluent in that language.
Surely, there are enough people in the Mahalo community that would be willing to donate a moment or two to read and translate an answer in a queue for those who may not be able / willing to answer in English. :)
Many, many years working in fields where people's primary language isn't English.
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M$
So if you are talking about language barrier, it still satisfies my analogy. Human brain could only know one language.
That's actually something a friend told me once - she was born and raised in France. She learned English and Spanish fluently, but when I asked her when she thinks / dreams, what language is it in. She laughed, and told me she's almost always thinking in French during her down time but has to access the memory bank for English or Spanish.
Dream scenario is slightly different. scenes depend on what you dreaming about.
I can speak 4 languages, read/write 2 languages. So the language situation in my dreams depend on what the dream is about. if it is about my family, dream settings in my native language and so on.
But when we are talking about , Mahalo, I dont think Language is a barrier, in the sense it is like a person that communictes a single language. I hope it makes sense.
The wikipedia definition says:
"Collective intelligence is a shared or group intelligence that emerges from the collaboration and competition of many individuals. Collective intelligence appears in a wide variety of forms of consensus decision making in bacteria, animals, humans, and computer networks."
and can only exist with: Openness, Peering, Sharing and Acting Globally. (Don Tapscott and Anthony D. Williams, http://books.google.com/books?id=DVomiOeBg_YC&dq=Wikinomics:+How+Mass+Collaboration+Changes+Everything,+USA:+Penguin+Group&ei=sSB8SvO9AqP8yAS8w-zJDA&client=firefox-a
This effect can be seen everywhere in nature too.
Flocks of birds,
Wildebeasts,
The effect is everywhere..
This works great, as the collective is bigger and better than the individuals.
We just have to make sure we all never meet...
Wikipedia and others, plus my own opinion and knowledge.
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M$
I do think language is an issue, in the sense that a brain doesn't use language internally. That is, the parts of the brain don't talk to each other in language. A lot of the most remarkable things that the brain does, things that we've had an extraordinarily difficult time getting a computer to do, are things that don't involve language: recognizing faces, non-verbal communication, even walking.
Language isn't a hindrance; it's the only way we get the brain-like aspects that Mahalo does achieve. But it's not as good was what a brain does within itself, and so it acts like a lot of "little" brains instead of one giant one.
Nice work @phryne. I nominate you today for the August 7 : AotD contest !
Congratulations !
Good answer, I was thinking in the lines of certain areas of the brain focus on a particular function like vision, speech, etc. Same way, we all answer specific topics based on our expertise and this network is always awake - someone is answering some question at any moment in time because of our presence across different time zones. Maybe little less active. Like when we are asleep, there are certain body functions going on.
"Perhaps one day we'll have even closer connections, without the inconvenience, slowness, and inaccuracy of language. "
Are you saying language is a big issue here?