Comments on: Facebook Is Not A Brain, And Other Failed Metaphors

By: Joselle

Joselle — Wed, 11 Aug 2010 22:29:25 +0000

I get the criticism, and it’s a fair one. The way you’ve defined the value of metaphor is very nice. But I think you threw out the baby with the bathwater as they say. I believe that part of what Wright is saying is that the internet user (the individual) may not be aware of what the internet collective is doing, or where it’s going, but he/she is helping it to get there nonetheless. I think a big part of his hypothetical is that this web of electronically connected streams of images, information, activity, conversation, gaming, and who knows what….may be developing its own internal design in a way that its members cannot actually see. It’s complex structure may also have lots of extraneous little hairs and Facebook may be one of them. But the way it is developing is some reflection of our own thought processes, and we don’t really understand those either. Finally, one can build on the perspective Scott Turner explores in his book The Extended Organism, that the structures an animal builds should perhaps be viewed as external organs or extensions of the animal.

By: Dating Pamela

Dating Pamela — Tue, 03 Aug 2010 13:45:56 +0000

Why would Facebook ever be considered a brain? Hopefully the facebook fad will phase out like the AOL fade.

Love,
Pamela

By: Sister Chromatid

Sister Chromatid — Tue, 13 Jul 2010 11:08:31 +0000

This article reminds me of this xkcd comic: http://xkcd.com/762/ –ha!

By: Sister Chromatid

Sister Chromatid — Tue, 13 Jul 2010 11:07:03 +0000

I think of the internet as being more akin to a superorganism with areas of specialization like Facebook, Youtube, Google Crag’s List, etc. . It is an emerging phenomenon that “evolves”. Its replicators are memes coded in computer code, languages, and pictures –copied by humans who are evolved information processors, mutators, and replicators. Robert Wright has always been a little garbled for my tastes.

By: Ford

Ford — Fri, 09 Jul 2010 22:42:21 +0000

Hear, hear!

A city isn’t a superorganism either, because the traits that make it succeed or fail aren’t transmitted to daughter cities with the copy fidelity of ant (or human) DNA.

On the other hand, a piece of software that promotes its own transmission among host computers, has high copy fidelity, and is subject to copying errors (mutations) that change how successfully it reproduces in a given software/network host environment may usefully be called a virus.

By: Chris

Chris — Fri, 09 Jul 2010 20:44:46 +0000

Ultimately it’s all data. Your decision to bound the definition what’s a super-organism and what’s not should not be limited by anthropic biases (for example, is a virtual anthill of sufficient complexity a superorganism?)

Metaphors allow us to collapse a complex idea into a smaller representation, such that we can chunk more data into our “decision making” processes. (I like that term, by the way!)

If you can think of a better metaphor for facebook, or these human/technology collectives, I’d be eager to use it. Otherwise, from antfarms to cities, super-organism seems to be a leading choice.

I worry, though, that you’re just being territorial.

By: Martin g

Martin g — Fri, 09 Jul 2010 18:20:45 +0000

I think the notion that Facebook may be in the process of auto-brain-forming is at least as credible as the idea that we – us humans – can be thought-of as a giant molecules.
As a starting point to examine this intriguing concept see :

http://improbable.com/2010/06/05/inside-the-iohtd-part-2/

as explained by Libb Thims, at the Institute of Human Thermodynamics.

By: Full Metal Links « Evolving Thoughts

Full Metal Links « Evolving Thoughts — Fri, 09 Jul 2010 01:16:14 +0000

[...] Zimmer, who apparently sold his soul to the Science Communication Devil, has yet another good post taking down the claim that anything electronic might be a superorganism. [On another note, I [...]

By: Kathleen

Kathleen — Wed, 07 Jul 2010 15:15:52 +0000

I’m glad you wrote this counter. I’m sick of journalists, on TV and in print, using “snazzy” words completely out of context solely for the purpose of adding more flash to their piece. If it’s not interesting enough to write about without creating / redefining words then it’s probably not worth writing about at all. Or someone else should write it.

By: david ropeik

david ropeik — Wed, 07 Jul 2010 14:35:09 +0000

Classically you’re right. But humans are social animals, and ‘emergence’ – complex systems and behaviors that result from simple inputs – is a phenomenon of social animals, and tools that facilitate new or more or different social interactions contribute to the emergent macro behaviors of the whole. So how about this? These techno tools are like new pheromones among ants, or even new proteins and enzymes in a colony of bacteria, creating new signalling pathways which in turn create new forms of society, which in turn shift the macro behaviors of the whole.
Like…here I am talking to you, and we’ve never “met”, the old way.

[CZ: Well, there was a time I got letters in the "mail" from readers. And I never met them either. Emergence is an acceptable, but squishy way of thinking about this stuff. But it's a long way from what Wright is claiming.]