Welcome to the Imagination Age

I was recently commissioned by PROBOSCIS to create a Diffusion book, "Welcome to the Imagination Age," two pages of which are shown here. I sent a copy of the book to my friend Todd Gailun before sending it off to Giles Lane of PROBOSCIS. Todd's response is filled with so many incredible links that I posted it in its entirety below.

Excerpt from "Welcome to the Imagination Age:"

Incentives for taking part in The Imagination Age are many. Economic development, however, will serve as the greatest motivational force and as the agent that binds the global workforce as the process of personal and cultural transformation unfolds.

New currency systems, including virtual payments and purchases, are creatively employed in The Imagination Age. This creates a global lab for economic experimentation the same way meaningful participation in the digital culture forges an opportunity for authentic self-awareness.

Rita:

Your book is great!

While I am not usually someone who is detail-oriented, or really interested in the semantics of details, I wanted to ask you how important you think it is to define "technology" and "transformation?" Depending on your audience, those words can be scary and/or exciting. To this end, I suggest you scan or read this essay written by Brian Arthur. He just published a book called "The Nature of Technology: What it is and how it evolves." Eric Schmidt, CEO of Google, an early employee at Sun Microsystems, says of Arthur, that the Java operating system was "launched based on Brian Arthur's ideas." Also, John Seeley Brown, who was the former director of Xerox PARC, where the computer revolution was essentially birthed, said "hundreds of millions of dollars slosh around Silicon Valley every day based on Brian Arthur's ideas."

Here is an interview he recently gave to Edge.org (my favorite website for thinking bigger than big)

I would also love to talk to you more about what is a "Soul," and what is the value of "Intuition." I don't think there is any technologist or Imagineer who has a better Intuition than Steve Jobs. But can anyone understand his mind, never mind measure it?

Douglas Hofstadter, one of the most preeminent thinkers on Artificial Intelligence and Identity, uses the word "Soul" to describe "Consciousness" in his new book, "I am a Strange Loop." Here is an interview he did where he discusses the use of "Soul." I can also share with you my experience of the definition of the word, "Soul," from my study of The Bhagavad Gita, where it is said that the nature of the Soul is experienced only when we understand the origin of the Soul - how the universe was created.

In reviewing Hofstadter's book, Peter Kramer, the famed psychiatrist, says of it, "It's through EMPATHY that we develop a rich sense of self. Nor is the self neatly demarcated. We contain multitudes."

There just so happens to be a talk this Wednesday at the Harvard Club by Franz de Waal on his "The Age of Empathy."

And, regarding "Transparency," you may want to check out an essay that one of your, and my, favorite thinkers, Larry Lessig, wrote about Transparency. This one is about the PERILS of it. ;-/

Bismillah Raven

Imagination, Co-creation, Mash-up, Transformation.

La Reppublica journalist Elisa Pierandrei refers us to this excellent example of The Imagination Age: Native American stylized art with an interwoven Arabic message. The art is by Canadian artist "Free Lion." The text "Bismillah" (also a lyric in Queen's Bohemian Rhapsody) means "in the name of God."

The importance of art as both a vehicle for and catalyst of cultural understanding should never be underestimated.

Hat tip: Islamicate.