E-books and e-publishing by Samuel Vaknin (summer reading list txt) 📖

to deserve a name”. He then proceeded to

describe the emergence of “Replicators” - molecules which

created copies of themselves. The Replicators that survived in

the competition for scarce raw materials were characterized by

high longevity, fecundity, and copying-fidelity. Replicators

(now known as “genes”) constructed “survival machines”

(organisms) to shield them from the vagaries of an ever-harsher environment.

This is very reminiscent of the Internet. The “stable things”

are HTML coded web pages. They are replicators - they create

copies of themselves every time their “web address” (URL) is

clicked. The HTML coding of a web page can be thought of as

“genetic material”. It contains all the information needed to

reproduce the page. And, exactly as in nature, the higher the

longevity, fecundity (measured in links to the web page from

other web sites), and copying-fidelity of the HTML code - the

higher its chances to survive (as a web page).

Replicator molecules (DNA) and replicator HTML have one thing

in common - they are both packaged information. In the

appropriate context (the right biochemical “soup” in the case

of DNA, the right software application in the case of HTML

code) - this information generates a “survival machine”

(organism, or a web page).

The Semantic Web will only increase the longevity, fecundity,

and copying-fidelity or the underlying code (in this case, OIL

or XML instead of HTML). By facilitating many more

interactions with many other web pages and databases - the

underlying “replicator” code will ensure the “survival” of

“its” web page (=its survival machine). In this analogy, the

web page’s “DNA” (its OIL or XML code) contains “single genes”

(semantic metatags). The whole process of life is the

unfolding of a kind of Semantic Web.

In a prophetic paragraph, Dawkins described the Internet:

“The first thing to grasp about a modern replicator is that it

is highly gregarious. A survival machine is a vehicle

containing not just one gene but many thousands. The

manufacture of a body is a cooperative venture of such

intricacy that it is almost impossible to disentangle the

contribution of one gene from that of another. A given gene

will have many different effects on quite different parts of

the body. A given part of the body will be influenced by many

genes and the effect of any one gene depends on interaction

with many others…In terms of the analogy, any given page of

the plans makes reference to many different parts of the

building; and each page makes sense only in terms of cross-reference to numerous other pages”

What Dawkins neglected in his important work is the concept of

the Network. People congregate in cities, mate, and reproduce,

thus providing genes with new “survival machines”. But Dawkins

himself suggested that the new Replicator is the “meme” - an

idea, belief, technique, technology, work of art, or bit of

information. Memes use human brains as “survival machines” and

they hop from brain to brain and across time and space

(“communications”) in the process of cultural (as distinct

from biological) evolution. The Internet is a latter day meme-hopping playground. But, more importantly, it is a Network.

Genes move from one container to another through a linear,

serial, tedious process which involves prolonged periods of

one on one gene shuffling (“sex”) and gestation. Memes use

networks. Their propagation is, therefore, parallel, fast, and

all-pervasive. The Internet is a manifestation of the growing

predominance of memes over genes. And the Semantic Web may be

to the Internet what Artificial Intelligence is to classic

computing. We may be on the threshold of a self-aware Web.

 

END OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK, E-BOOKS AND E-PUBLISHING