Semantic Web Development is Really about Creating Virtual Realities

The Future is not about tomorrow, it is about today

In the final chapter of In Place of Fear, Aneurin Bevan wrote that ‘progress is not the elimination of struggle but rather a change in its terms’ (1952: Chapter 10). Since 1952, that struggle and its terms have indeed changed, and science has in no small part provided the motive force.

I have just read Liam Byrne’s excellent article in Renewal, “The left's agenda for science” ……..and although I might like to take issue with his contention that Necessity is NOT the Mother of all Invention, he does appear to be calling for Change and it will be interesting to see if Government can use Invention, when and as it is presented to them to initiate and drive Change.
Conventional Wisdom, has however shown, that conservatism is the preferred, pragmatic approach adopted by any Government and this does unnecessarily confine us to a very narrow band of expectation and just reward, which is unfortunate because it does so stifle Innovation and Invention.

This article is a parallel, mirrored response to the implied Negativity which Liam chronicles and is its foil in the Mother of Invention. It is a Positive Reinforcement of his comments and in issues that he raises.

Both articles may touch upon the sad indictment/catalogue of our failings to Communicate our Intelligence through what we can Imagine and Create [Invention] and Produce [Economy].

The failings which he mentions, stupidity and envy, apathy and evil, secret opposition and open conflicts of interest, are the normal human failings characterized and epitomized in what are popularly known as the Seven Deadly Sins and are completely incidental to, and bear no relationship to our ability to Create, other than blinding us to the Possibilities put forward by those who can Think to Dream that they Can. It therefore follows, that if we can open up Communications to bypass those who would work in the pay of the less than virtuous, Progress can be made.

Semantic Web Development, working within the Virtual Networking Worlds of the Internet, is such a Communication channel and I choose to think of no better place to start than within this Realm of Communication and for no other simpler reason than that it is a Virtual environment and therefore not Real and therefore we are free to do as we see fit. And when we can Create a Communication that everyone can hear/see/feel, we will be able to hear/see/feel their response and so re-tailor the Communication in response to their Semantic wishes…..their Input.

In the Worlds within Semantic Webs, collected raw Data/Metadata is king and within the industries and technical laboratories manipulating and mainstreaming Digital, that raw Metadata can be/is processed and transformed by the simple removal of any negative Input. We extract and discard Negativity. We send it to the Waste bin. This is a very simple process whereby a negative response elicits a question as to why the negativity…… so that we may understand and prepare ourselves to change the situation. It invariably/will always resulting a positive step in the right direction by all parties which can only help to bring everyone into line with any Proposal.

A Proposal is of course, a Plan, and a minor proposal can only expect to make a minor adjustment. In fact, it is hard to see if any Proposal or Plan will make any Great difference at all, unless it specifically proposes to do so. And any Proposal to change the face of Government is invariably met with the usual, initial, clarion calls in support of maintaining the status quo from the sadly, intellectually challenged and the more interesting, intellectually challenging. It is a simple fact, that in order to initiate Change it is necessary that you encompass the thought that it will necessarily cascade/filter through to change Everything. And it is an easier premise to Think to Change Everything in order that small changes to existing structures and methodologies can be considered as appropriate to deliver the Big, Bigger Picture. Although the instinct to plan may be, as Crosland noted (1957, p50), but one of some twelve strands of British socialism, and a ‘late development’ at that, it is one of our more influential traditions. A “late development” it may be, but it is stronger because of it and it is fitting that new Plans be seen as being mature and not reckless.

This statement… But the market is so important because of the importance of decentralising control over the innovative process….is not one which I can wholeheartedly agree with. As an innovator, control of the process is not served well by decentralisation because it only results in fragmentation and loss of original focus. Innovation/invention requires a decentralisation to the markets ONLY to serve the needs of the innovation/invention and it will be the case that the Innovation in Creating the Future will require inventions and industry in the present to serve the Future Vision presented. And it is much more a battle within our own minds and imaginations than any other. To understand how simple it is, necessarily means that you accept the premise that we are able to change/predict the Future…by the simple virtue of thinking to do it.

And to all those who would immediately say that you cannot create a Future, that presupposes that you think it cannot be done and that no one has done it before, and yet as we go about our daily work, someone thought it a good idea, for example, that I pay for a fuel from the Middle East with a plastic card and that card will control what I can do. That was someone’s vision or a collection of visions for the Future at a Time or Times in the Past. The Future does NOT just happen; it is driven by Visionaries, Prophets, Scientists, Philanthropists and Explorers. It is driven by men and women who do not accept what we have because they seek to find what is yet to be discovered. Invariably, it is knowledge which they seek and they are not confined or diverted by what we have already discovered.

“Nowhere is this seen more clearly than when we consider the question of what should constitute the left’s agenda for science over the next two decades. Given what we can forecast about the future development of science, what does the left need to get right?”

That is perfectly clear to me…….What the Left, Right and Centre need to get right is the Scientific Development of the Future. And the prosperity of a country or countries and their peoples is entirely dependent upon the value its Governments put into the efforts to help/finance such Innovations and Inventions.

So although the market will be fundamental in driving science forward, the role of government will be critical to effective market performance. Indeed, endogenous growth theorists – and we know there are a few in the Treasury – have argued that in a situation when one country begins with a greater stock of knowledge capital, it will accumulate knowledge more quickly than its trade partners, ‘perpetuating and even adding to its productivity lead’ (Grossman, Gene and Helpman, Elhanan, 1993). But government intervention – and a sufficiently large subsidy to R&D – can be used to overcome the disadvantage, and, once a country has ‘caught up’, the policy can be removed without reversing the effect – the temporary policy has permanent effects.

The above statement referencing “endogenous growth” does not play out the scenario where Great Britain may have “a greater stock of knowledge capital” and that greater stock of knowledge capital can be Socialist in Nature and Capitalist by Persuasion. It is in this scenario that I play. But as we talk of Futures, it is unhelpful to be confined by such emotively negative terms as Communism or Marxism or Leninism for such Socialist experiments have not proved to be successful despite their laudable utopian aims/dreams, which may indicate an undoubted Worth yet an unacceptable Impracticality. Let us rather consider an Equalism, which unites both socialist and capitalist values. Such a scenario could present immense Shared Wealth through Spending. ……A Socialism which builds in a Capitalistic Future in order to maintain and redirect “the Markets” and which has no need for any obscene, personal Wealth, only the adequately generous, trappings and tools to allow for its Creation. The Wealth created is a Gift for Governments to pay out to those who have need of it....the People..... and to those who can assist in its Perpetuation.....the Wealth Creators, who can also be those who are in the pay of Government, Business and Industry. The boundary which keeps them separate is removed so as to allow them all to assist one another. And rather than waste any time or effort in seeking to conceal wealth, in order to avail oneself of it, through any self-serving and paradoxically, counter-productive tax avoidance/evasion instrument, a wiser and more forthright system/man will donate all of his wealth as a store to be used by a New Government Model and for which he will be well rewarded with his every need to perpetuate the Supply of Wealth.

To find such an Investment Opportunity opens the door to a Pay as you Go Entrepreneurial Joint Venture with a minimum of Government financial investment, despite the fact that Government money is a virtual commodity anyway and vast sums are regularly “misappropriated” and/or “lost”. An Interesting Win/Win situation, do you not think? Or would the Government rather the private sector play as a second Government and seek to push forward with its ideals, which appear to be somewhat less inclusive ……. And therefore, selfishly divisive.

What credentials does the Government possess…..Socialist or Capitalist. Or can they consider New Socialist or New Capitalist to be one and the same….. Equalist …..and a Change worthy of their endorsement and whole-hearted support. If an idea is not taken up by Government in its service of the People, it will be taken up by the private sector whose “donations” to Government can be severely curtailed because of the private “overheads” that they serve.

What is it to be? A Government ready to galvanize the private sector and reap the benefits of its investment in the Mind/Minds of its own citizens, who seek to Innovate/Invent /Create or the private sector and the Government falling over itself to claw back what is feels it is entitled to but did not have the courage to invest in.

Once upon a time the ‘heroic’ school of invention held that progress was driven by the one-off acts of genius. Diffusion of invention is potentially more important than the original invention, because of the ‘autocatalytic process’, and the potential for recombination of innovation…. Now, should the “heroic” school of invention be an insight into the genius in Semantic Quantum Communication, it does bode extra especially well for the “autocatalytic process” does it not?

Creating the Future is Perpetual Motion and a Time Machine, which we are led to believe is, if not impossible, at least unreasonable. At yet we still dare to think about it. Does that mean that it is not so unreasonable?

And Semantic Quantum Communications are the development of Hierarchical Accessed Communications Channels through Secure Open Networking. At its more advanced levels in Positive Semantic Immersion, effective Teleportation of combined, mutually sympathetic Thinking occurs. It is an Effective Thought Control, which allows for a Unity of Common Purpose to be shared down the chain of Communication/Command/Control. It is a New Controlling Communications tier built upon existing Global structures and thus is communicable Open Source as we build the Open Resources Framework to share/duplicate/mirror/replicate the Controls we use in the Building of the Future. And, as these Controls are presently Computerised and Digital, it will call for expansion in all aspects of the markets which serve them. And it is no coincidence that such ideas as are extolled here have been shared before in a parallel Thinking document entitled the dDutch Initiative. Valid new ideas always come full circle thus validating their suitability and credibility for adoption and thus proving their worth as being something sustainable and benign and beneficial. What more can one ask of something that we wish to Create?

And they are Global and are always based upon a Vision of the Future which we can show, understand and follow. Sometimes the hardest thing is the first step, getting the message across, but when it gets there, be prepared to reap the harvest in what you sow.