Archives for My Proposals

Nowism — A Theme for the New Era?

DRAFT 1 — A Work in Progress

Introduction

Here’s an idea I’ve been thinking about: it’s a concept for a new philosophy, or perhaps just a name for a grassroots philosophy that seems to be emerging on its own. It’s called “Nowism.”… Read More “Nowism — A Theme for the New Era?”

Video: My Talk on the Evolution of the Global Brain at the Singularity Summit

If you are interested in collective intelligence, consciousness, the global brain and the evolution of artificial intelligence and superhuman intelligence, you may want to see my talk at the 2008 Singularity Summit. The videos from the Summit have just come online.… Read More “Video: My Talk on the Evolution of the Global Brain at the Singularity Summit”

Peace in the Middle East: Could Alternative Energy Be the Solution?

I have been thinking about the situation in the Middle East and also the rise of oil prices, peak oil, and the problem of a world economy based on energy scarcity rather than abundance. There is, I believe, a way to solve the problems in the Middle East, and the energy problems facing the world, at the same time.… Read More “Peace in the Middle East: Could Alternative Energy Be the Solution?”

Minding The Planet — The Meaning and Future of the Semantic Web

NOTES

  • Master Copy can be found at this URL or http://tinyurl.com/yynb93
  • Last Update: Tuesday, November 7, 2006, 10:17AM PST
  • License — This article is distributed under the Creative Commons Deed. If you would like to distribute a version of thisarticle, please link back to http://www.mindingtheplanet.net
Read More “Minding The Planet — The Meaning and Future of the Semantic Web”

Using DNA to Send Messages into the Distant Future

This article discusses recent research into encoding short 100 word messages into the DNA of living organisms. The error-correcting characteristics of DNA enable such messages to be passed down without degrading across generations. By embedding short messages into hardy organisms such as particular strains of bacteria, it may be possible to preserve information over longer timeframes than by using any other known storage media.… Read More “Using DNA to Send Messages into the Distant Future”

How to Save the Amazon Rainforest

I read the an article today about how Brazil is gradually losing the fight to save the Amazon. The worlds’ rainforests are a global resource — not only are they
directly important to the air we all breathe, they also harbor a huge,
still untapped, reservoir of species diversity which could be of
profound importance to science and future medical and pharma research.… Read More “How to Save the Amazon Rainforest”

Use of Role Classes to Define Predicate Semantics: Proposal for Semantic Web Best-Practice

This article proposes a design pattern for ontologies and the Semantic Web based on the concept of formally defined Roles as a means to richly express the semantics of relationships among entities in ontologies. Roles are special types of n-ary relations, and thus the use of Roles is a subset of the Semantic Web best-practices recommendation for N-Ary Relations.Read More “Use of Role Classes to Define Predicate Semantics: Proposal for Semantic Web Best-Practice”

My "A Physics of Ideas" Manifesto has been Published!

Change This, a project that helps to promote interesting new ideas so that they get noticed above the noise level of our culture has published my article on “A Physics of Ideas” as one of their featured Manifestos. They use an innovative PDF layout for easier reading, and they also provide a means for readers to provide feedback and even measure the popularity of various Manifestos.… Read More “My "A Physics of Ideas" Manifesto has been Published!”

Idea: Driving Through Virtual Soundscapes

This is an idea for a new way to navigate interactively through large audio sets, such as collections of thousands of music tracks, and to automatically or interactively learn and evolve interesting trajectories through such spaces.

Idea: GRASP — The Statistics Portal

If you’ve ever tried writing a business plan, you know what a chore it is to locate statistics about industries, markets and products. While there are many market research firms that charge huge sums for their reports on particular segments, one quickly realizes that the wide degree of variance in their statistics means that just getting reports from one source is not very useful — one really needs to see all the statistics normalized across all the sources that project them about a market.… Read More “Idea: GRASP — The Statistics Portal”

Messages in DNA: You Saw it Here First

In August of 2003, I posted an article that suggested the SETI folks ought to look at our own DNA to see if there happens to be a hidden message from aliens in there waiting to be discovered. Putting a message in human DNA, particularly in the junk DNA regions, is guaranteed (a) not to degrade significantly over long periods of time and (b) to be found by humans when we reached a suitable level of technological development, and (d) to go with each of us wherever we went on earth and beyond.… Read More “Messages in DNA: You Saw it Here First”

How to Save the Upcoming Elections from Terrorism Alert Manipulation

There has been much recent discussion lately about alleged evidence that the Bush administration is issuing terrorist alerts for political gain. While I am not taking a position on this issue, I do have a suggestion that could eliminate any doubts, and in the process protect our upcoming elections.… Read More “How to Save the Upcoming Elections from Terrorism Alert Manipulation”

A New Blogging Feature: Automated "Social Syndication" Networks

Here’s an idea I’ve had recently that is related to the Meme Propagation experiment (see posts below on this blog for more about that ongoing experiment). The concept is for a new, meme-based, way to syndicate content across blogs. Here’s how it might work:

1.… Read More “A New Blogging Feature: Automated "Social Syndication" Networks”

Proposal For A New Constitutional Amendment: A Separation of Corporation and State

by Nova Spivack
Originally published on July 28, 2004; Updated on October 10, 2011
http://novaspivack.com

Should there be a Constitutional Separation of Corporation and State?

Today our American democracy faces a new threat to its integrity, a threat even greater than terrorism in the long-term.… Read More “Proposal For A New Constitutional Amendment: A Separation of Corporation and State”

A Physics of Ideas: Measuring The Physical Properties of Memes

by Nova Spivack, http://www.novaspivack.com

Original: July 8, 2004

Revised: February 5, 2005; February 28, 2010

(Permission to reprint or share this article is granted, with a citation to this Web Page: http://www.novaspivack.com/science/a-physics-of-ideas-measuring-the-physical-properties-of-memes)

This paper provides an overview of a new approach to measuring the physical properties of ideas as they move in real-time through information spaces and populations such as the Internet.Read More “A Physics of Ideas: Measuring The Physical Properties of Memes”

Superdistribution is the Solution to Digital Piracy and Marketing — and a Venture Opportunity too!

Forget about DRM and legal action to prevent piracy — there is a better way: Superdistribution harnesses basic human drives to save money and make money. It’s more powerful than copy protection, more powerful than ethical arguments, and more powerful even than fear of legal prosecution.Read More “Superdistribution is the Solution to Digital Piracy and Marketing — and a Venture Opportunity too!”

Can Messages Be Sent Backwards in Time?

Is it possible to send messages backwards in time? This may actually be a testable hypothesis today. Here is a possible way to test it. Let’s assume this is possible and that at some point in time in the future, humans on earth develop this technology.… Read More “Can Messages Be Sent Backwards in Time?”

Smarter Tail Lights for Cars

The “stop” lights on the back of a car should change color from red to green depending on whether the car is decelerating or accelerating. This way they can function as both “stop” lights and “go” lights. This is an idea that was also recently mentioned on Should Exist.… Read More “Smarter Tail Lights for Cars”

How to Build a Network Automaton

Here is a cool new kind of complex system I am thinking about a lot that we might call a “network-automaton” or a “graph automaton” — a system that evolves networks (graphs) over time. This rule is similar to cellular automata rules such as the famous “Life” rule discovered by John Conway, however instead of computing the states of cells on a grid, it computes the shape of a network.
Read More “How to Build a Network Automaton”

How to Make a Smarter Spam Filter

I have been using Earthlink’s built-in spam filter on my personal email — it works really well. It is basically a whitelist system: Any messages from pre-approved parties get through to me while anything else goes into a “suspect email” folder for me to look at and potentially approve or delete.… Read More “How to Make a Smarter Spam Filter”

A New Way to Find Patterns in Distributions of Numbers

Mar 26, 2004

This evening I had an interesting idea for a new way to look for patterns in the distribution of numbers such as the prime numbers and the digits of Pi. In a nutshell I propose that there may be patterns in these number sequences that might not be evident to a computer but could be evident to the human eye and human intelligence, which among other things is tuned to find order in chaos, even when that order is “fuzzy.”… Read More “A New Way to Find Patterns in Distributions of Numbers”

Neuromarketing and Memetic Attenuation

This article discusses new research in how the brain makes buying decisions and other choices — what is now called “neuromarketing”. Neuromarketing researchers seek to discover, and influence, the neurological forces at work inside the mind of potential customers. According to the article, most decisions are made subconsciously and are not necessarily rational at all – in fact they may be primarily governed by emotions and other more subtle cognitive factors such as identity and sense of self.… Read More “Neuromarketing and Memetic Attenuation”

Social Networks, Physics, Civilizations — Do they All Obey the Same Underlying Rules?

I am having an interesting conversation with Howard Bloom, author, memeticist, historian, scientist, and social theorist. We have been discussing network models of the universe and the underlying “metapatterns” that seem to unfold at every level of scale. Below is my reply to his recent note, followed by his note which is extremely well written and interesting…

————
From: Nova Spivack
To: Howard Bloom
Subject: Re: Graph Automata — Is the Universe Similar to a Social Network?

Read More “Social Networks, Physics, Civilizations — Do they All Obey the Same Underlying Rules?”

Graph Automata — What Can Social Networks Teach us About Underlying Physical Laws?

Hello all, I have been thinking about the general problems of social networks on the Internet. It occurs to me that these issues are closely related to digital physics. For more on digital physics see the work of Ed Fredkin, Stephen Wolfram, Norman Margolus, Tomasso Toffoli, and other pioneers of the field of cellular automata.… Read More “Graph Automata — What Can Social Networks Teach us About Underlying Physical Laws?”

Optimization of Social Network Architectures Using Tiling Rules

Here’s an interesting follow-up thought on my suggestion of some Hypothetical Laws of Social Networks.

What if in fact there is an entirely new way to design social networks, based on the mathematics of tilings? A tiling is a method of filling a space with geometric shapes.… Read More “Optimization of Social Network Architectures Using Tiling Rules”

More on Auto-Caching of URL's on Weblogs: Need for a New Service and API

I blogged about this earlier, but here are some new thoughts about how it should work.

I would like my Weblog provider to auto-cache every URL I link to from my blog. When I put a URL into the content of a posting, my Weblog engine should strip it out and replace it with an intermediary URL.… Read More “More on Auto-Caching of URL's on Weblogs: Need for a New Service and API”

A New Solution to Spam: "The Internet Member's License"

I keep hearing about various half-baked proposals for solving spam, so I couldn’t help but add my own half-baked proposal into the mix. Actually my proposal may be more than half-baked — It might be the solution we’ve all been waiting for.… Read More “A New Solution to Spam: "The Internet Member's License"”

How to Make the iPod Better

Well I finally made the leap and got a 40 Gb iPod recently. Thanks to RipDigital the process of digitizing my nearly 1000 CDs took only 1 day and I got it all back on a nice new 250 Gb Maxtor external drive (as well as a stack of DVDs containing a backup of all the new MP3s).… Read More “How to Make the iPod Better”

Using Nanoparticles to Augment Human Brains…?

CNN posted an article today about the potential risk of nanotechnology on the human brain. Basically some research shows that nano-scale particles such as industrial waste, or even components of nanotechnologies, can migrate through the human circulatory system and eventually lodge in the brain.… Read More “Using Nanoparticles to Augment Human Brains…?”

Humans Should Intentionally Seed Life on Mars. Why We Must Start Now.

Here’s a wildly unexpected proposal that just popped into my brain: Humanity should intentionally contaminate Mars with Earth lifeforms — as soon as possible! The benefits vastly outweigh any concerns to the contrary. Indeed, it may be the smartest thing our species ever does.… Read More “Humans Should Intentionally Seed Life on Mars. Why We Must Start Now.”