Conversations from cyberspace

CONVERSATIONS FROM CYBERSPACE

Richard had had a hard day. He fixed himself a Scotch on the rocks and decided that he would relax by surfing the net. He loved his ‘den’ and had stacked it up with all his favourite things. A classical vase from Greece , statuetts of Devdasis from India , the Buddha in tranquil meditation from Srilanka, corals from the Great barrier reef, all stood in relief against the light and shadows he loved so much to play around with. A mountain of books was loosely stacked up on the octagonal walls.

At the center was his alter and the window to the inner world . He switched on his friend Shiva and as the screen lit up, he transcended the barriers of the physical world. Past present and future stood still in anticipation. What was it going to be today? What connections would he make?

This was unconditional life in its true meaning, where he moved with the ebb and flow. He believed in the philosophy which said that all knowledge was structured in the consciousness. You just had to tap into it and somewhere ,someone, would respond. Only the naïve believed that the connections were only between a web of servers. A billion minds were connected . Neurons danced on the electronic waves and everyone was joined in the mind-space of connected consciousness.

Shiva was Richard’s pathway to the superhighways. He would have conversations with people around the world and exchange ideas. Something interesting always turned up and Shiva had never failed him.

“Hello Richard” the mail shouted, “ enjoy a Carribean paradise and ……”. Richard deleted the mail without opening it.

He deleted the next two messages without further fuss and was going to open a mail from Lisa his ex girlfriend , when something caught his eye at the bottom of the screen .

“The Ant and the Grasshopper” , Shiva shouted.

“This must be it for today “ , Richard thought as he clicked it open in keen anticipation. On what journey would he be taken this time. It was from Miriam his cyberfriend from South Africa. She had simply passed it on. This had been passed on a hundred times on the web. There was no mention of the author. Richard loved it when it started this way , with connections from anonymous minds he considered the purest form of cyber-touch.

Richard took a deep breath and dived into the wonderworld of the ancient parable. It was simple enough. Something that he had known as a kid. But as he read on , he was sure that this this was the beginning of yet another inner journey.

Richard started reading the classic parable of the concientious ant and the presumtious grasshopper.

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The ant works hard in the withering heat all summer long, building his house and laying up supplies for the winter. The grasshopper thinks he's a fool and laughs and dances and plays the summer away. Come winter, the ant is warm and well fed. The grasshopper has no food or shelter so he dies out in the cold.

Below this precis of the parable , the anonymous author had wound a web from our own world.

The ant works hard in the withering heat all summer long, building his house and laying up supplies for the winter. The grasshopper thinks he's a fool and laughs and dances and plays the summer away. Come winter, the shivering grasshopper calls a press conference and demands to know why the ant should be allowed to be warm and well fed while others are cold and starving.

Top TV networks show up to provide pictures of the shivering grasshopper next to a video of the ant in his comfortable home with a table filled
with food. The country is stunned by the sharp contrast. How can this be, that in a country of such wealth, this poor grasshopper is allowed to
suffer so?

The Frog appears on talkshows with the grasshopper, and everybody cries, then they sing "It's Not Easy Being Green." The president and the first lady make a special guest appearance on the Evening News to tell a nation
that they will do everything they can for the grasshopper who has been denied the prosperity he deserves by those who benefited unfairly during the "Temperatures of the 80's."

Community leaders stage a demonstration in front of the ant's house where the news stations film the group singing "We shall overcome". They have the group kneel down to pray to God for the grasshopper's sake.

The vice president exclaims in an interview that the ant has gotten rich off the back of the grasshopper, and calls for an immediate
tax hike on the ant to make him pay his "fair share". Finally, the EEOC drafts the "Economic Equity and Anti-Ant Act", retroactive to the
beginning of the summer. The ant is fined for failing to hire a proportionate number of green bugs and, having nothing left to pay his retroactive taxes, his home is confiscated by the government.

The first lady gets her old law firm to represent the grasshopper in a defamation suit against the ant, and the case is tried before a panel of federal judges who were appointed from a list of single-parent welfare recipients who can only hear cases on Thursday's between 1:30 and 3:00 PM when there are no talk shows scheduled. The ant loses the case. The
story ends as we see the grasshopper finishing up the last bits of the ant's food while the government house he is in, which just happens to be the ant's old house, crumbles around him since he doesn't maintain it.

The ant has disappeared in the snow. And on the TV, which the grasshopper bought by selling most of the ant's food, they are showing the President
standing before a wildly applauding group of supporters, announcing that a new era of "fairness" has dawned .

The grasshopper is found dead in a drug related incident and the house, now abandoned, is taken over by a gang of spiders who terrorize the once
peaceful neighborhood.

End of the modern parable.
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Richard found the parable intriguing and wonderfully complex. He loved complexity and the mind curves that he roller coastered on ; never straight and simple , never one cause and an effect. The initial conditions were just right . This was the world of possibilities. He decided to forward the parable to five of his cyberfriends in different parts of the world. He glanced though the other messages in double quick time and decided to give Shiva some well deserved rest and then call it a day. He was not looking forward to the early morning meeting with the IT Manager, the venerable and ever farting Fat Fundament.

Next evening , Richard opened Shiva . A message was waiting for him from an old friend ,Deepak based in Calcutta , India.

Deepak : Richard , I found the parable of the ant and the grasshopper interesting and though I can understand the political context in which it has been written , it becomes interesting outside of its original context. Do you seriously think that the ant would have had an end as the modern version tells us?

This was wonderful stuff. This conversation was like a butterfly developing from its cocoon. Richard began typing on Shiva’s keyboard. Thousands of miles of space and time were bridged as the message entered the realms of cyberspace.

Richard : Ants live in 'closed' communities and protect their territory , their way of life and modes of reproduction (the queen) with their life. Our modern world is moving more and more into interdependence and societies are no longer completely closed. Even Japanese society , the closest to ant society I can think of, is changing fast. Thus according to the theory of evolution, the ant species should be subject to some change. Some undesirable mutants may also develop along the way. Grasshoppers and butterflies will also change in the melting pot. What do you think?

Within a few minutes, Deepak replied.


Deepak :I do not see why you think ants are overdue for evolutionary change any more than others. Aren’t they splendidly geared for survival?

I feel they are ahead of us Homo sapiens. Ant societies all over the world have organized themselves more or less similarly. To them, the overriding purpose of existence seems to be survival of their species. For them, individuals per se do not matter, except as an element of an unending stream. Ants come and ants go but the species go on. . Homo sapiens are still living in an uncertain world. The purpose of existence, if there is any, seems to elude them. Therefore, we are still very far from reaching an optimal societal organization model designed to serve that end.

The current model of global trade driven ‘free ‘ market democracies is the latest offer on the subject. Its market rules which call for production only by the most ‘capable’ and its consumption only by those who can afford the prices that the producer cartels set (look at oil, you would know better), is no doubt making a serious pitch to establish itself as the predominant model. There is no alternative, just as socialism had attempted a few decades earlier.

Only time will tell how long this paradigm will retain its glitter. The fact that it has run into serious opposition so early (so serious that the G8 must now meet on remote islands, in fortresses or on mountain top retreats, where none of the ungrateful beneficiaries of their deliberations can reach them!!) leads me to wonder.

Richard led him on.

Richard: These evolutionary changes will take a very long time, as change does not occcur unless survival is at stake. A study done on mice revealed that, in a closed environment with a small population of mice and constant supply of food, a complex society thrived . It reproduced, supported each other and grew. The food supply was kept constant and was not increased with the increase in population. The mice community continued to expand. Now and then fights broke out. After a critical level of population density was crossed ,there was social turmoil and killings became common and the societal structure changed. A new species of canibal mice was seen to evolve. This happened , the researchers concluded, because the survival of the community was at stake. But in our largerworld, specially economically developed and areas with low population like the Americas or Europe, the critical survival threatening point lies far away. Thus coexistence of the two species will continue for a very long time. The battle will starts only when a critical point is crossed in a closed loop

Deepak : Unlike the specially 'bred' mice that you quote,the ant community is not under any great threat, are they ? Who would be foolhardy enough to launch an assault on the ant species all over the globe ? Not even the Japanese ,I would think!!

In the current human thinking, barring environmentalists, no one yet is prepared to consider survival as a serious issue at all. Homo sapiens are still busy debating matters such as the primacy of the individual, of consumption, of possession of property,costs and profits etc.. I find it odd that for over two thousand years we humans have been debating similar issues such as individual versus society, self versus selflessness (The Hindus have said"consume by renouncing, do not covet wealth, for whose wealth is it anyway ?" ) etc.. The Christian lore too has lots of ideas on abnegation of self. Islam has equality as a fundamental tenet. The socialists in recent history, have tried unsuccessfully to belittle individual interests in favour of supposedly greater communal interests.

Ants have probably gone through all that already. I have no doubt ants will evolve further, as improvement and finetuning go on all the time in evolution. But I do not see any great urgency for them to change, like the Japanese seem to have a need, according to you. Agreed that the Japanese are badly dependent on trade. Worse, they have no hope of shedding the monkey off their back. Will they go back to their old imperial strategy to overcome trade incapabilities ? Perhaps, at a later day, if and when the USA becomes weaker.

You talk about communication and interconnection among humans. How do we know that the ants don't have it among them ? Surely, many species of ants have migrated across continents all the time, haven't they? How else did they arrive at such a similar system of social organisation among all ant communities across the globe ? In any case, assuming ants do not have that, does it matter ? If in their world and priorities, consumption (barring for survival ) at the individual level is irrelevant, therefore, the market has no relevance nor trade of any form. In ours, these are still of paramount importance.

Richard : Evolution itself has evolved beyond Darwin. When a species evolves, it is based on two basic pillars - genes and nemes ( read Richard Dawkins, a fine exponent of neo Darwinism). Nemes are the mind and cultural equivalent of genes.

You may have implanted on you a neme for Economics which you acquired along the
way from your environment. Likewise, today, 'technology' is a neme factor . The tech neme will lead again to haves and have - nots. A new species ofhumans are on the evolutionary track with biological genes and tech nemes.

Deepak : I have read a few of Dawkins’ popular books. I would like to think of him more as a defender, spokesman and propagator of the Darwinian way , rather than as an original thinker.

Are you sure Dawkins on neme is not indulging infantasy ? Not being literate in biology, I find Dawkins difficult to follow. Darwin is simpler !! I have often felt that Dawkins takes the intuitive way, and marshals facts to support theories alreadyheld. Admittedly, the intuitive method is not invalid, but when one is on the fuzzy terrain of the mind and propagation of traits over millenia etc, the deductive way is probably more appropriate.

To me, Dawkins can argue persuasively about anything. I wonder how his fellow biologists rate him. popular writers of science tend to be glib, like Stephen Hawkins whose professional standing among physicists is probably not very firm,despite the fact that he occupies the chair named after Newton in Cambridge UK, no longer the mecca of science.
Hawkins is probably a wrong example, as his popular writings are hardly a model of lucidity.
I will grant that Dawkins is a highly skilled writer.

Richard : I agree that Dawkins is like a preacher. He has come upon us because still many ,even today ,believe that we were created from Adam and Eve in a few days. In conservative Islamist societies it is blasphemy to think otherwise. The debate still goes on in the Net( unbelievable when this is done by educated people ). But since Dawkins presents his arguments well , and not only in academic journals , it comes into the public domain. I do not fully agree with Dawkins on a number of issues , but I do like his presentation of the arguments, even if he is not the originator of the ideas. He openly says that he is only defending Darwin. But Darwin did not say it all.

First let me say that I have great admiration for ants. I do not see them as individual survivors. Look closely and one sees that the whole community acts as one individual body. There seems to be ONE stream of consciousness flowing through them. I see the same in shoals of fish and birds in migratory flight. A few years ago I was down in a submarine on the outer Great Barrier Reef. You could see a shoal of ten thousand of the same type of colorful fish , moving with the same precision , at the same time and direction , as every other fish in the same shoal. It is an awe inspiring sight to see thousands of fish turning right and then left, diving down and up, not one out of step and each doing its role. Just like ants do. However the whole shoal is what catches the eye and imagination. There seems to be ONE consciousness flowing through the whole shoal. Just like in ants. Human’s are a bit more complicated in that , unfortunately , the size of their brains have evolved to become somewhat big. The mind retains consciousness and intelligence , and we are still not really there in terms of group consciousness. We are still evolving , and to my mind , more than physical evolution , the evolution will be in mind and intelligent consciousness.

We tend to think in terms of links with each other in terms of trade (old paradigm), but the links will come in terms of joining consciousness ( humor my somewhat spiritual approach). On the physical plane , I can see this joining of consciousness , coming for instance through the connections of the worldwide web . Trade plays a minor role in this. On some scale , it is like neurons of our own brain and nervous system. I believe that this is only a first step in joining of minds and consciousness. Globalization in terms of trade , is part of the old nineteenth century industrial revolution century paradigm.
But is the purpose of life only survival? If it is , then ants have done a great job till now . So did the dinosaurs in their heydays.

Some external shocks and cataclysmic changes come to our fragile planet and it does not take long for the extinction of a species. Our species may not survive in the present form. Evidence points to interconnectedness as a survival tool. We all live in a fragile web , where each element is dependent on another. Because of this conscious interconnection , the whole seems to be greater than the sum of the parts. The sum tends to work in mysterious and unpredictable ways. I begin to wonder why humans have acquired a mind. Do we in fact represent the consciousness and life force of the Earth itself ? Is our purpose to protect the earth . We are after all, made from chemicals from this earth. Is our consciousness part of Earth’s own consciousness ? We are getting to understand in our own bumbling and experimental ways. In which case , ants may have the same purpose. So would fish and birds, each according to its own abilities. Some of us are good shoe-shines and others break the genetic code .

Like Shiva the destroyer , the old paradigm of trade and limits to resources , the basis for all trade, may and will change. For example , if cold fusion was a reality ( hasn’t happened as yet) , the limits set by fossil fuels would become irrelevant. Out of the destruction of old trade paradigms rises the next paradigm , in the sine curve of life. But this takes time, time when compared to our puny lifetimes. I feel that if the limits to physical resources were to reduce if not actually go away , consumption of these would become irrelevant. But I think there is a greater purpose in the life of our species, than basic survival.

Richard closed Shiva and went to sleep over the conversation he was having with Deepak.
Next morning , the early morning sun bathed his room . Richard woke up with a thought that had hit him. Shiva came alive and Richard typed in a small message to Deepak.


Richard : . There is a principle in nature called the Pareto principle ( or the 80-20 rule) named after its discoverer, Vilfredo Pareto , which continuously shows up in our society . The 80-20 principle is not to be taken literally . The principle may indeed may represent an application of 75-25, 69-31, 90-10 and so on. To exemplify , 20% of a population normally has access to 80% of the wealth, 20 percent of a company's products contribute to 80% of profits, 20% of students go to better colleges and jobs, 20% of companies contribute to 80% of market capitalisation, 20% of customers contribute to 80% of costs , the list is end-less. This is nature's non-linearity. Thus, whatever the welfare economists say, there will still remain disparities between on human and another and you will continue to have people who will shine your shoes. This is not idealism , but nature's reality.

Deepak : The Pareto principle that I know of is about optimality, not any thumb rule. I suppose the 80-20 rule that you quote is indicative of lack of optimality in the Pareto sense, i.e., a position from which it is possible to move to a more 'efficient' (optimal, win-win or more accurately, 'win-no loss') . The Pareto state. in other words, is not a desirable state. Whatever 80-20 or its variant thumb-rule may imply, it is hardly a natural phenomenon. True, it does surface in income distribution, product revenues , cost structures of firms and a host of other petty phenomena in modern feudal and capitalist systems driven by greed, inequality and naturally, lack of optimality. These have little relevance in nature's world where the rules are different. I wonder if ant societies suffer from 80-20distribution. do 20 % of ants do 80 % of the work ? I have no idea but I will be surprised if they do. all ants are fed well,' clothed' well and have roofs over them, in a manner of speaking. Nobody starves. nobody sleeps on the pavement. and nobody moans ( do they ?) either. do ants sing and dance as they feed the queen ? Do all ants have access to the queen's bed ? I hope so, but I'll look up Dawkins on that subject. After an honest days toil, a labor ant surely would deserve a few fleeting moments of bliss in the queen's bosom.

Richard : No , I wasn’t talking about Pareto optimality in the Economic sense. This was Pareto’s mathematical discovery. Perhaps the first insights into the mathematics of Complexity. Though he did not use it as it is used today. Nature is indeed complex and interdependent and highly non-linear. One cause does not have one linear effect. Things are not and never were , as simple as that. And 80-20 is not a thumb rule. In a simple way , it represents non-linearity which is the basis of the mathematics of complexity in the web that is life. Physics , meteorology , social sciences and now the life sciences ( my area of current interest) have all recognised Complexity and non-linearity.

This presently works within Chaos Theory. It works out in computer programs , in the branch of mathematics known as fractal geometry which really ,is the geometry of nature. This explains the shapes of mountains and clouds, why the fern leaf is shaped the way it is and why sea coasts replicate themselves over large distances. This is where science and art meet in probabilities and wondrous patterns.

I have not come across literature on observation and its application on ants , but I will keep a lookout anyway. However , an application of complexity and chaos , is itself dependent on a set of ‘initial’ conditions , and this leads me to believe that the goal of equality will continue to remain an utopia at least till the old paradigms run themselves out . Valid beyond that ? I wouldn’t want to guess.

In societies with 100 % literacy , non-linearity still works. This is why, the theoretical ideals of Marx and Engels , got overtaken by Lenin and Stalin .The dictatorship of the proletariat actually became a classic example of the application of non-linearity, as Gorbachov would have told us , sitting in his exclusive dacha. To me the loss of human lives and suffering during the Lenin/Stalin period is as bad as the greed, wastage and excess consumption of the free markets.

Where this will lead to, is a case for conjecture. But it is true that less than 20% of our co-journeymen on planet earth , will possess both the bio-gene and the tech-neme, and may inherit 80% of the goodies which will be on offer. So the shoeshine boy will still be on offer in street corners of Asian towns. He will not be made redundant and will not be eliminated. The powerful 20% will continue to employ his shoe shining ability, and may probably make his life easier through techno-chemical advances on the boot-polish and brush. The 20% will also give him a bank loan and get richer through interest received from the shoeshine trade. Both the 20% and the 80% will be better off than before, or at least no worse off.

Deepak : Supporters of eugenics had thought so. So did Hitler. So did the Hindus who had invented the abominable caste system as the earliest social system of division of labor in a feudal, exploitative world, where the 20 % ( or less ? ) had 'god'- given (tech-neme?) access to the lion's share of resources. So do winners of all zero-sum games such as insider traders, burglars( Hindu 'ethics' has a 'Dakait Kali' Goddess who is supposed to grant robbers their noble wishes !) and others of their ilk.

Richard : Hitler and the Hindu cast system, now considerably reformed, took basically interventionist , political postures. However , in a non-interventionist and communicative structure , non-linearity and complexity works ( analogy of the invisible hand) to divide and distribute resources, achievements, designs and patterns in an inequal way. We may find it repugnant . But that is reality.

And the original battle, of who makes or manipulates the law (God vs democratic mammon), will continue where a static equilibrium is sought to be reached, but will never will be and society will continue its dynamic dance, swinging like a wild pendulum ,the dance of Shiva.

Deepak: the ants made their own unforgiving laws. Humans have been making theirs ad nauseam. At the end of the day, I would like to think that the ants have probably got a better grasp of things. unlike us, they do not underestimate uncertainty and the primal need for reproduction in the survival race. Unlike us, they never encourage things which have the potential to eliminate their own species. They build societies single mindedly to ensure perpetuation of their species. We humans keep on producing enormous ,junk a lot of which have the potential for harming us. This they do for no other reason but greed. I would like to think we are much more vulnerable to extinction than others species. the cockroach and the ant seem to me to be better prepared to survive.
And why not ? After all, shall the 'meek' not inherit the earth ?

Richard : Hey ! Turn back to Evolution for a moment again. Since ants survive so well , they have stabilized . Perhaps because of this there will be no more need to evolve. They serve their purpose , whatever that might be. We humans are still in search , we go on the experimental route , sometimes producing junk and excesses , and sometimes through a drought of resources. This means , that for us , experimentation will go on , and with any experimentation there will be mistakes .

This is true for us since the time of Lucy (Australopithicus), the first human who came out of Africa and then migrated out to other continents. The chances of evolution into something different and perhaps higher , is distinctively greater with us. We are now a peculiar mixture of the animal and higher intelligence. The play on the balance will surely continue for eons to come. And I believe , that we are bathed in something greater than all of us , and all the knowledge that we seemingly ‘discover’ is already structured in the universe. We will continue to tap into it when the mental radio frequency is right.

And then what ?

The physical world will continue its relentless journey. Our sun will cross the critical level of temparature when it will be impossible for humans to survive in a physical form . It will not require the destruction of the sun or the milky way. We will have to search for a new home in a new part of the universe.

Who is ‘we’?

The collective energy and intelligence of all consciousness of this earth from the time intelligent life appeared on earth – that is ‘we’. This is the great energy of multitudes of lifetimes , struggles and battles and the totality of all knowledge acquired by the spirit of the earth. We will leave a burning imploding world , yet to self destruct , and begin the journey of collective souls into another world and another dimension. Who knows?


Richard was lost in his thoughts and did not notice a message waiting from Deepak on Shiva sent from someone else’s mailbox.

Deepak: I’ve crashed. Got hit by a Doomdianus virus. Would be weeks before I can get back to you. Will write soon.
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-- The end is only the beginning --