Remote Sensing Tools

A number of years ago, a close friend and I used to talk well on for hours — dreaming of a day when we would potentially become our own “entities” through the Internet. The advent of XML technologies allowed us to establish concepts in our imaginations that it could be possible to integrate a full matrix of activity, sharing, and learning, by communicating through the ether as data-sovereign entities. Once established, the obvious step forward would be full model integration with mobile technologies, which would enhance the utility of the network to acheive unlimited objectives simply in its inherent design. A fully organic methodology in deployment and concept. An enhancement to our inherent state of material consciousness.

As my Google homepage loaded tonight, I noticed a new feature announcement — Google’s Web History. I quickly became excited seeing this announcement, and logged into my account to see the options. This is truly where that dream a number of years ago begins to see form and fruition as its infancy emerges before my eyes, and sooner than I could have ever hoped. It’s a pleasant surprise that my favorite search engine has now come to the fore of such technology. Now I only imagine an ether much as I had envisioned with a friend those number of years ago — and with thoughts in mind toward the benefit of integration into the geographic context of visualization and study.

In a geographic mapping sense, this poses an interesting analytic objective for the future. Recently, as several social debates had become sparked by recent events covered by the media — I naturally jumped in to set-out in gaining an understanding of the model of such debates. It seemed to be another one of those rare moments in history when society had suddenly become aware of a variety of topics all at once. What I came away with in my observance, whether having been honest in the opinions I injected in the discourse, or playing devil’s advocate in some instances in order to see where a response or ways of thinking might lead, I realized the potential for an interesting social mapping experiment.

Initial Concept

1. Source Data Input

The initial concept, is to utilize a social input platform in order to ingest ideological and moral conclusion into the system — generating a storage platform to represent the social ‘collective matrix’. This isn’t necessarily a unique term given, as its source comes from modern Buddhist reference to collective societal consciousness — talked about by spiritual and wellness leaders such as Deepak Chopra. I have a few friends who studied under Chopra, and these discussions came up many times in our conversations.

2. Visualization of Geographic Context

The information that could be gained from an input source could then be pulled into context of an organically evolving geographic map — a border concept that disregards current international, country, and political borders of region. A confluence perspective of social conscience and beliefs, generating these new borders. Factors such as race, ethnicity, nationality, etc would also be taken out of the collection of data — the borders would be purely based on the social ‘collective matrix’. A true universal mechanism to draw sociological points of view in a new geographic and regional context — to further understand the social ‘collective matrix’.

Caveats

I ran into a problem, or more of an epiphany in this process of conceptualization, however. The problem that exists for me at this time, and at least in my thoughts, is that due to geopolitical and governmental structures that do exist — the experiment could be considered futile, and due to the actual control that governments have over participation over the Internet. Thus, the experiment may have potential to not represent society even under the most generalized of realizations, the concept that was intended.

It is an interesting thought — but in this conclusion, or epiphany, I’m caused to understand now that under current pressures and tensions that might exist, and factors inherent in government supression of citizen participation, universally, internationally — it has an inherent probability toward failure or inaccuracy. One cynical thought as well, is that such information could ultimately become useful for government agencies to exploit datas in order to use against society to bend the collective will toward a centralized agenda. Corporations are not limited to such exploitation as well.

Conclusions

The idea of this experiment interests me in terms that a higher, more conceptual way of approaching our data could be utilized and graphically mapped into a context that creates a universal awareness. The borders which would emerge may surprise us, or they might frighten us, or they might allow us to ask questions and open a dialogue among our neighbors on this great planet where we might find compromise and understanding. I have no question that such a project could be built at this time — simply that I hold doubts whether anyone would feel it was worth it to explore, as well as retain the responsibility to prevent it from becoming exploited for less than honest pursuits.