Friday, January 2, 2015

A “Bridge-Like” Mind

H.G.Well wished the world to be such a whole "as coherent and consistent as possible."
Digital means flow, the mind flow, the information and knowledge flow. Everything starts from a point, a thought, a drop.... and later when it flows, it keeps getting added values or similar thoughts and at the end, we get a result we chase continuously. Like drops of water when it starts flowing it may not know that one day it can also reach the ocean but when few drops like that keep getting added each time it becomes a river and few rivers when flows together it can reach the ocean continuously concentrates only on flowing irrespective of situations. An interesting dimension to explore is the psychological drivers behind a desire for such massive flow and connectivity--or the resistance to such an existence. It should be remembered that the most creative solutions come mainly from mixed teams while respecting the diversity of gender, ethnicity, and multiculturalism, of different generations. The mixed teams will be the riverbed for creativity, and more importantly, the “bridge-like” minds are on demand to oversight the "sea of thoughts," recognize the cognitive difference and provide insight into the trade-offs of diverse philosophies and approaches.


There are many concepts seem to be opposite, indeed, they are complementary to keep the world balanced. Such as: simplicity & complexity; simplicity is the ultimate level of complexity; but every intelligent thing has certain level of complexity, the world is composed with both; individualism vs. communitarianism: individualism is about the rights of the individual, it seeks to let each person grow or fail on their own, but communitarianism is about the rights of the group or society. It seems to put the family, group, company, and society before the individual; they are not completely opposite, but complementary to sustain the prosperity at both individual and societal level for the long term. It is true of the economic system as well, some are capitalist, some are socialist; some are corporatist, some are mercantilist. Most are a mix of those distinct economic systems. There is nothing absolutely right or wrong, but more often the silo or polar (extreme) thinking and black & white perception make the world divide. The hyper-connectivity of digital should bridge multiple views to make the world not just flat, but round as it is.


Economic and political models provide some insight into the trade-offs associated with either approach (massive individuality vs massive collectivity). On the one hand, someone could be richer for all the positive inputs from the collective--but we know that all inputs would not be objectively positive. And what do positive and negative mean in this context? there would be the--likely competitive--interests of the individual and the collective, and how to leverage them. Now the insightful discussions and dialogues involving the best brains in the world can clarify and bridge such differences. Discussions are often conducted with the primary goal of increasing clarity and understanding of the issue with the assumption that we are working with a stable reality. In the discussion, individual contributions often center around “rightness” and being valued for it. In “dialogue,” one submits one’s best thinking, knowing that other peoples’ reflections will help improve it rather than destroy it. Dialogue calls for temporarily suspending judgments. Dialogue reveals assumptions and biases for reevaluation. Dialogue causes introspection on one’s own position. It is the rich resource of the internet to hold human's minds together in something like a common interpretation of reality, and with the possibility to bridge the difference.


H.G.Well wished the world to be such a whole "as coherent and consistent as possible." World Brain is a collection of essays and addresses by the English science fiction pioneer, social reformer, evolutionary biologist and historian H. G. Wells, dating from the period of 1936–38. Throughout the book, Wells describes his vision of the World Brain: a new, free, synthetic, authoritative, permanent "World Encyclopaedia" that could help world citizens make the best use of universal information resources and make the best contribution to world peace. He wished the world to be such a whole "as coherent and consistent as possible." He wished that wise world citizens would ensure world peace. ”Though never using the actual term knowledge management, describes his vision of the ’World Brain,’ which could allow the intellectual organization of the sum total of our collective knowledge. The World Brain would represent ‘a universal organization and clarification of knowledge and ideas.’ Wells anticipated the World Wide Web, albeit in a utopia idealized manner when he spoke of this ‘wide gap between… at present unassembled and unexploited best thought and knowledge in the world… We live in a world unused of misapplied knowledge and skill.’” Wells (1938)

Let the world as a whole run in a harmonized way by adopting the BEST of two global hemisphere -East & West.
East or west, moral values are same. Love or hatred both are defined and understood similarly in east and west philosophy. The difference is in culture and the ways of life. Thanks to development in media, there is no limit to sharing of knowledge. We can always study and adopt the best at the individual level or at social forums of similar minded people. Not all westerners think alike; not all Easterners think alike. And there is a lot of overlap with other factors besides east/west involved. In IT, techies seem to think alike when in the same discipline. Some of each culture think hierarchically from a hierarchical database culture. Some of each culture think relationally from that database culture. But still, when the world is leaping to the digital hyperconnectivity, the differences are shrinking and all cultures can be adapted to the more agile or universal way. But the merging of philosophies should happen in such a way that it should not hurt one's belief or trust or the ego or the sentiments. Awareness brings knowledge and food for thoughts and people will start thinking in that direction to see if western and eastern views can be synergized to come to a common ground and a process found by which human beings can learn to stay away from afflictions and negativity thus making the world a better place to live.

The world is still full of puzzles. It needs the “bridge-like” minds to connect the dots: Is scientific knowledge superior to spiritual knowledge? Are our advances clearly superior to those of previous cultures, while recognizing that we have taken discoveries of earlier cultures and applied them to allow us to make new advances? Interdependence and co-operation rather than domination are the only way to advance business communities; where prosperity is valued for its ability to offer a new world order that seeks the common good and overcome the challenges facing humankind.

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