From Apps to
a map of the Meta-App
version 24 juni
2011
Will the
present flood of apps, most of them of a fairly trivial nature and geared toward
personalization of the data-mountains we face in this information age, lead to
a philosophical or psychological breakthrough? Such a question seems not very
relevant for the hundreds of thousands developers, companies and users of apps. They rather talk about
monetization, business models, viral marketing and what will become the
best-selling app next week. We think it is useful to contemplate on where do apps sit in the development tree of our sense-extensions,
as M. McLuhan described media. When in history could we combine touch, speech,
sound, image and movement in an interactive connection to (nearly) everyone and
(soon) everything using the massive amounts of stored knowledge, art and entertainment?
Are apps bringing back the dialogue and interactive quality that already
Socrates (Plato, Phaedrus 245-250) noted as lacking in the written world? Will
Internet use, with the help of apps, grow more towards the exploration or even
use of the unknown, the “unseen”and the metaphysical?
Does this promise to ultimately yield the Meta-App that will bring happiness,
connectedness and consciousness to us, the brave new app-worlders?
Looking
through the list of apps, one sees a jungle that has grown so fast it’s hard to
see the trees from the forest. In general, apps now are ways of customizing the
access to what we call information. This information is in fact no more than
the massive mountain of digital noise with some useful, touching or
entertaining bits here and there. Our search is trying to find out what hits
us, as “a bit is only information if it bytes you”.
Apps are
really handy: you can get location based indication of what is happening, what
to do, you can get the distraction that fits you anytime, anywhere, you can
have your life and experiences fit the fashionable model of the day. It has,
however, this air of superficiality. What looks like individuation is in fact
nothing but compliance; you will find what you (or your search engine, which is
nothing but a common denominator agglutinator) are
looking for, not what you really need, or even beyond – ,
access to true novelty. The Google-isation of search,
i.e., of tacitly limiting our search to what the system accepts and allows, is
like looking for the lost keys there where the lamp’s light is shinning, as in
the Sufi tale. The complexity of our needs is not mirrored in the search and
archiving methodology of the present Internet, even as it is evolving fast
towards multimedia metadata and semantic based searching. A tag-cloud is a refreshing way to look at
something or someone, but hardly opens the door to deeper levels.
It can be
assumed that new generation(s) of digerati will develop new senses, habits,
capacities or tools to get what they need out of the data mountain, creating
new sports, challenges, art-forms and media, selfhelp
and psychological tools and medical at-a-distance therapies. Your apps will
soon control whatever is controllable in the material world via IPv6
addressing. But the driven searchers for meaning will undoubtly
go further, finding or inventing tools not unlike what the Tarot, the I Ching or age-old Magic have offered us. A couple of decades
ago Cyber-paganism had already become a reality with proponents like Mark Pesce and Sarah Reeder, the cyber-coven an easy meeting
place for virtual rituals. Myths and mysticism have claimed their place in cyberspace,
from multiplayer adventure games to Skype meditation
and chanting sessions. The present day Second Life or diehard Facebook user, or hard core gamer can be seen as a
cyber-hermit usually not bothered to engage in much physical contact.
Apps are an
interesting new kid on the block, but distributed processing, dumb terminals,
thin clients, central databases, mainframes, agents, bots and Software as a
Service have been around for a long time, and so has Cloud computing. Apps did
bring all this together, with the help of touch-technology, the mobile
(digital) device giving the needed push to accelerate it, and by now, apps are
infiltrating our worldview like rodents, multiplying and sneaking in
everywhere. The “app in the browser”
trend, allowing an app to be started and used from within the browser
environment and thus on all platforms and devices, will widen the scope of the
app even more.
Most normal
activities, like shopping, buying-and-selling, content-access, navigation,
dating, payments, medical monitoring, art and very soon military actions will
become apps. Participating in cyber-wars via malware
and bots (a kind of guerrilla app) is already app-oriented, soon you’ll be able to be a
for-hire soldier guiding tanks or planes in real-life wars thousands of miles
away. Augmented reality is the new
keyword, but is the lack of real contact between the cyber-soldier guiding
unmanned aircraft bombing targets in
The horizon
Such a
widespread use of apps calls for a philosophical assessment: where are we
heading? Where is this new movement going, is it just a practical
digital tool, or can we discern an impact that surpasses that of the invention
of the wheel, the alphabet and the atomic bomb, and which will lead us to new
forms of cooperation, communication and well being?
In physics
(the old description, Natural History, much better describes what in Plato’s
days was understood to be a dynamic, development oriented model of nature -- Phusis), we went
from atomization to relativity to quantum uncertainty and now consciousness as
a dimension within it.
We have
exteriorized our experience and memory of the world to the extent that now our
history, our personal identifiers and our archives are increasingly online. We
have put our soul online and why not: as the believers in AI and computer consciousness
would state, computers can better deal with many practical aspects of life than
we, mere humans can. But then there is the other side, the fear that we are
losing control and giving power over ourselves and our identity
to an anonymous system.
The rise of
the app in this respect is quite a step, as apps are like the Swiss army knife
in cyberspace, handy, fast and comfortable (our passport to cyber-happiness?) Should we welcome this development or just
see it as another step towards an atomized, reductionist
elimination of true connectedness, a rationalization of information, and thus a
far cry from the integration of the consciousness dimension in our lives?
We believe
apps are a stepping stone to a much wider use of digital technology, as their
integration of the senses, notably that of touch and movement, really opens a
new vista, a mega jump.
So where
are we heading, and what can we expect from this development? Is there a map
towards the ultimate app, the meta-app that satisfies not only our basic emotional
and physical needs (dating-eating-sports), and the cognitive and intellectual
ones, but – ultimately, also our needs
for finding meaning and purpose, our thirst for beauty?
In the
nineties, the New Edge movement of Mondo 2000,
bridging the gap between the different New Age communities and the digital
Frontier, Virtual Reality exploration, Extropians,
and psychonauts, was heading towards a truly holistic
approach. For a short period, a creative
confrontation of the rational and the magical, the “seen” and the “unseen”,
seemed possible; Virtual Reality was (not in public or the scientific world, of
course) compared to the psychedelic experience (the recent Avatar movie
illustrates this beautifully), and cognitive scientists like Francisco Varela
came close to the position of quantum physicists like Nick Herbert, but this
movement has more or less died out. VR is now a commercial moneymaker and technical tool, like 3D, no longer
a psychological stepping stone for understanding the psyche.
Sound and audio-technology, at that time seen as a
major inroad into the sub- and unconscious via binaural and hypnotic
techniques, are used today as forms of escapism, not as tools for mind
exploration and the spiritual quest.
Apps are,
in their present form, and in the context of the quasi-freedom mobile
technology provides, quest-killers, they take away the adventure of finding out
for yourself. Mobile connectivity, the always on-always connected-always quasi-safe sedation and
numbing of the underlying fears, is an anti-depressant that flattens our
experience of reality. It focuses us on the good, white, obedient one of
Plato’s twin horses, and denies the wild, black, creative one, that wants to go
its own way. This focus has many aspects, not all positive.
Jaron
Lanier’s serious warning against Digital Maoism (i.e., that the omnipresent access
to free and publicly created information like in Wikipedia
will foster the mediocre and status-quo codification and canonization of
knowledge) should be paid due attention. The “bad” horse of Plato is necessary
to have progress, to prevent
the ossification we have noticed in societies, organisations and
systems that tried to limit individuality in order to promote the collective
interest.
The more than rational
The less
rational dimensions of our lives are now beginning to pop up in the digital
realm as well, the Internet moving not only towards “the internet of things” but also becoming a tool for the expression
of emotions and the aesthetic experience. Beyond the mere consumption of art we
see applications that help create, combine and remix art, where new senses like
touch and movement (the Kinetic wave) offer new possibilities. As for emotions,
blogs have been a real stimulus to express oneself,
and research by people like Sepp Kamvar
of Stanford with that we are learning to be more emotional in our online
communication. His website, We Feel Fine,
traces and combs blogs for expressions of emotion and
provides a way to explore the emotional contours of cyberspace interaction. On
this level, and beyond Weizenbaum’s classic Eliza
program, we now see much more interest in the use of the Internet for
therapeutic contact, like psychotherapy delivered through electronic devices,
and it is clear that this can benefit patients (and save a lot of money).
Distance therapy, for many medical disciplines, is a reality, an anaesthesiologist
watching, monitoring and treating multiple patients at the same time via
electronic media is
common practice now.
And yet,
cyber magic is also there, we all know that some of us get more, better and
faster results out of computers than others, that mind over matter works in
cyberspace too. The short lived rise of what Bruce Eisner coined Mindware in the late 80s, will have a revival in the
apps-age, we expect. We will get bored with the data-oriented apps, the
filters, aggregators, and other agents that take over the adventuring, the
psychological rewarding process of trying, failing and learning we need to
experience in the real world in order to grow and develop. Artificiality, now
so prevalent in the social networks, not yielding the happiness results we
expect and seek, will give way to a new interest in the Other, the unknown dimensions beyond
and within. We will have magical apps, tools to help us have visions, all kinds
of spells, digital auguries, and random generators intended to render a
connection to the unseen, the future, the subconscious. Far beyond the I Ching looms the ultimate future engine, not only interpreting
the present, extending past trends, following telltale signs and extended
scenarios in a mechanical way, but really connecting us to the manic and divine
connection that Plato ascribed to the prophets.
Understanding
the deep realities, the gnosis that encompasses the real and the virtual, all
the dimensions, is what life is all about, at least for those that venture
beyond the purely material. By tapping the connections between the seen and the
unseen worlds, knowing and using what the old sages called correspondences,
what in the Vedas is indicated in the phrase Ya Evam Veda, is the challenge ahead. People like Lynn McTaggart and movies like The Secret are showing us the importance of
intention in mind-matter interactions,
and this idea is now resonating with the cultural creatives who look beyond the obvious. They don’t want just a cool computer, they
want it to be their friend, companion, guide and confidant, stimulating and
sometimes confronting, ultimately the pocket-guru if not their
cyber-lover.
This sounds
like a far out projection, but it is how media and tools in general usually
evolve. As a means of communication and an access medium to what is known, computers
are a great tool. They seem limited to the very “hard” digital, but just as the
stones of a church establish a safe and sacred place where one can address the
otherworldly, now we see applications that go beyond the purely digital realm
and make the computer into a sacred object of some sort. The concept of the computer
or smart phone as a magical tool, comparable to the wand of the sorcerer, seems
a bit weird, but observe how much psychological attachment the average
user has to these new magical possessions!
If we see the apps as the oil that lubricates digital connectivity and
pervades our social lives, how long before it crosses the borders of the
tangible? No doubt with a lot of quasi wizardry, but the initial outlines of an
info-theistic trend can already be traced, the Church
of the Digital is already emerging (see Ben Goertzel’s
A new step in consciousness
Are apps a
major step in this techgnosis development (see Erik
Davis’ Techgnosis: Myth, Magic, and Mysticism in the
Age of Information), offering us themes (tech memes) equal to the genes and
memes that now anchor our lives? Is there a map towards the ultimate app, the
Meta-App that bridges the realm of art, where emotions are central, with
psychology, and our need for self-realization, growth and the connection to the
all and everything?
Such an
app, probably a combination of many apps and in itself ushering a new paradigm,
more powerful than the Conscious Computer dreams of Ray Kurzweil,
has the potential to bridge the now separate worlds of religion/belief and
science, but we have also to watch out for its dangerous counterpart, the Big
Brother, surveillance and control mechanisms and tendencies that loom in the
background. Tools always have two sides, and the shadowy one is normally
overlooked.
The
negative physiological effects of extended computer use, especially in
concentrated applications like gaming, are recognised. The mouse interface is
connected to the Carpal Tunnel Syndrome and most of us have some doubts about
the radiation of all this new technology, but more recently its general effects
on the brain are being studied. Nicholas Carr in The Shallows indicates that
potentially our brains are negatively influenced and effects like addiction
(mostly to gaming) might result. On the other hand, studies at UCLA show that
for older people, regularly using the computer and the Internet might help
their cognitive functions.
The dark side
of the cloud and app movement is also that we yield control of our data, our
communications and our privacy to large corporations with close ties to
government organizations in countries like the US, that feel free to do
whatever they want with it. The system takes over, or rather we let it take
over, as it is more convenient, cheaper and gives us bonuses or points; we go
along with the game, happily put our most private and precious moments on YouTube, Facebook and are then
surprised that marketers and government are looking over our shoulder.
It is not
by accident, that it was Apple that made apps the significant trend of
data-processing in recent years; it has been a company that valued more the
form (the appearance, the mask) -- in contrast to an older ICT-giant like IBM,
where content was more the focus. Apple was and is different, it
appealed to the cultural creatives, the
individualists, and has led them into the new land of the western frontier,
into mobile digital Autarkia. Providing applications
to personalize that content, they made the app the new snake oil of
Cyber-exploitation, the neoliberal and individualistic
ego trip business.
Apple
exploited the Us-Them divide paradigm brilliantly, although there are ethical
questions related to that approach, for by offering a shiny, fashionable,
friendly and noticeable “superiority environment” to those in need of covering
their inferiority feelings, it has had a phenomenal success. However, since the
Third Reich we know that this approach is also the hallmark of the fascist
mindset, and it has less than favourable side effects towards those not willing
to jump on the bandwagon. By now, having an iPhone or
an iPad on you makes you a badge-carrying member of the digital party, the
bitten-off Apple a hypnotic symbol referring to the Tree of Knowledge.
And yet,
the apps now bring a new dimension of connectivity and interface modalities to
the user with touch, movement and even emotions and feelings: a horizontal
workspace with far more intuitive appeal that the vertical screen we have
associated with information work for the past few decades. We already see apps
that use these new possibilities in never dreamt of uses, contacts and
applications, and there is more to come.
2011 by Luc
Sala & Zarko Almuli