The Philosophical Significance of Twitter: Consciousness Outfolding

NOTE: This is my latest post for Consider This News, a new site I've launched with conservative blogger Patrick Hynes focusing on news and newsmakers.

As with any new phenomenon, a wave of curiosity, criticism, mockery, and adulation follows. The Twitter meta wave is cresting.

Now, attention is focused on Twitter's practical applications in the disputed Iranian election and its unique capacity to harness real-time events. In the larger picture, the most intriguing thing about Twitter is not how it is different from other online communication mechanisms, but how it is the same: one more technological innovation enabling the outfolding of consciousness -- the collective turning-outward of human thought.

In Embryos, Galaxies, and Sentient Beings: How the Universe Makes Life, an exquisitely written and astonishingly insightful book, Richard Grossinger writes about 'infoldedeness', stating that "the universe is comprehensible only as a thing that has been folded many times upon itself." Reversing Grossinger's idea: the outfolding of the human mind, the collective sharing of our thoughts, myriad thoughts from the inane to the mundane to the profound, enabled by technology, is changing our perception of reality and thus changing reality itself.

The explosion of online communication/networking tools this decade seems teleological; it is as though human evolution has a clear destination and the vehicles to get there are appearing and being adopted at lightning speed. In The Revolution of the Online Commentariat I wrote about the political ramifications:

For the first time, we are thinking aloud unfettered and unfiltered by mass media gatekeepers. Events, information, words and deeds that a decade ago were discussed and contextualized statically in print or through the controlled funnel of television and radio, are now subjected to instantaneous interpretation and free-association by millions of citizens unencumbered by the media's constraints, aided by the optional -- and liberating -- cloak of anonymity.

This is transformative, not just because it is a web-driven enhancement of traditional political and social mechanisms (as we've seen with organizing and fundraising) but because it is a radically different way that the world processes information and understands itself. If there's one thing that makes the 2008 election an inflection point, it is this: that the context, perception, and course of events is fundamentally changed by the collective behavior of the Internet's innumerable opinion-makers. Every piece of news and information is instantly processed by the combined brain power of millions, events are interpreted in new and unpredictable ways, observations transformed into beliefs, thoughts into reality. Ideas and opinions flow from the ground up, insights and inferences, speculation and extrapolation are put forth, then looped and re-looped on a previously unimaginable scale, conventional wisdom created in hours and minutes.

Twitter is the latest instance in this ongoing process of pouring the content of hundreds of millions of minds onto a global cyber-canvass, the commixture becoming something new and unpredictable. This outfolding is at an early stage, and eventually the various ways in which it is manifested -- solipsistic profiles on Facebook and MySpace, instantaneous mass communication on Twitter, mind-melding on blogs, self-broadcasting on YouTube, virtual identities in Second Life -- will merge. At that point, we'll be wearing our brains on the outside, metaphorically.

Moses Ma waxes poetic about the significance of this evolution:

We're all interconnected now -- each of us acting like a single neuron in humanity's brain, firing bits of electricity at one another, slowly coadunating and collectively struggling toward a great awakening. That awakening could turn out to be the next stage in our evolution, and a single tweet the butterfly's wings that eventually leads to a big bang of global meta-consciousness.

To me, the twitterverse is like a river of human awareness, composed of billions of tiny 140 character molecules -- each a snapshot of life or a thought or a reflection. A river of pure information that equals energy, according to the laws of quantum thermodynamics and stochastic processes. A river of life flowing by us as we meditate at its bank like some Siddhartha wannabe, in tattered jeans and Oakley sunglasses instead of orchid robes and begging bowl. And now, after long last, we see.

His reference to quantum theory is apt, as there is a curious parallel between what's taking place on Twitter (and other similar platforms) and quantum entanglement, that bizarre and quasi-spiritual correlation between remote particles, a complementariness that defies our conception of time and space. Analogously, spatial separation of minds is increasingly unimportant. Online communication/networking is demonstrating our own interconnectedness more convincingly than ever before.

It's easy to get overexcited about the near term potential of the medium -- and for cynics, it's easy to be dismissive about things with quirky names like 'Twitter' and 'blog.' But something important is going on and though we're too close to the beginning to know how it unfolds, we're far enough along to realize it will reshape us.

Cross-posted at CTN

Comments

[wild2]

To tweet, or not to tweet, that is the question.

We can twitter away our time and lives and live vicariously through the lives of others. We can ponder our bellybuttons while playing on the Internet searching for something outside of ourselves and our communities. We can engage in acts of collective narcissism...Or

We can choose meaningful lives, communicate meaningful exchanges of information and feelings that invoke insight, compassion, inspiration and action in our own lives, in our own communities. We can help each other care for each other and the environments we live in, and help steer our governing process. And then begin to change the world around us. And, have fun in the process, by making the process fun.

It's not the medium, it's the message.

We are the technology, let's tweak ourselves.

Thank you for the article Peter Daou

[Merily4977]

Whew! I haven't read such intellectual and perceptive insight since I read some of the claasics in my twenties.

[CulturalMuse]

Peter, I love your perspective. In my own writing at CulturalMuse.com I have been lamenting the lack of perspective we have, as a society, on what we are making here. It is so refreshing to see some of that perspective returning to our discourse, in your writing and some of the others you cite. I think the challenge of perspective in this area, for us as humans, is that this "collective tool set" is so compelling, and so close to us, that perspective, of any value, is difficult to achieve. It feels like we as a species, were traveling along a path, and found a shiny new object that fascinates us. Let's hope that object is not a shiny hand grenade.

[Jimboy17]

It is more likely a credit card.

[antonyadolf]

What this insightful post overlooks is the "dark side" of social media: before, the powers that be had to pry to get in our lives and minds, now all they have to do is look-- its free and we reveal all so wilingly. How long before the ACLU gets involved? See "The Auto-Invasion of Privacy Epidemic" http://oneworldmanypeaces.typepad.com/one_world_many_peaces/2009/02/the-autoinvasion-of-privacy-epidemic.html

[overd0g1]

Whether a bunch of hairless apes communicate better or not doesn't affect reality.

[nyceve]

Great piece, Peter! My next "voyage" is figuring out Twitter.

[nyceve]

Great post, Peter!

Figuring out Twitter is my next major undertaking. But I think Twitter 2.0 (or whatever you call it) will hopefully be about using Twitter for really important societal purposes, things like community organizing.

[lastpost]

Peter:
The effect you have identified, is capable of developing exponentially from that point. Fanning out to form an alternate perspective, through which to re-evaluate what is currently accepted.

For example: “changing our perception of reality and thus changing reality itself”

Can we ever change reality, or only embellish it?

When, and if, we ever attain a complete understanding of what is and isn’t possible. Wouldn’t we have to achieve the impossible in order to change reality? In contrast to merely utilising reality for our own ends.

[Winning09]

Twitter is inane.

[DrManisha]

Twitter twitter twitter ??

[blakeart]

I wrote in January about a related topic that parallels this very interesting and informative post by Mr. Daou, you can read in depth with related links here:

http://blameblakeart.wordpress.com/2009/01/27/facebook-is-changing-the-way-i-dream-in-theory/

Technology and everything Man creates, at one point in linear time, were just Ideas, all the way back to the Wheel and the stone chisel. All can be used for good or bad—case in point the Corporatocracy that has a stranglehold on the so-called MSM.

What is happening in Iran is that a grand example of how our new Ideas can be used to shape the actual Truth of reality for the good, instead of what the Corporatocracy wants to Present—they have their own group of "Neo Con-esque" leaders who want them to believe their fear agenda as well.

Daou Touches on this new Consciousness—I agree and say that all of us create our own reality, and these Social Apps in the "Intranets" are the New Chisels and Wheels of the mind that are now tapping into What Has Always Been—the benevolent, infinite Positive Thought Structure(tm) and eternity in general. This is "No Thing Knew(tm)." "Everything Exists At Once Forever(tm)"—we are the new pioneers, driving our covered wagons into the wilderness of the "Omniversal Mind(tm)".

Just think if we made this technology available for each and every one another... what potential could Man Kind create?

Let's...!

[CherokeeGirl]

This is the last judgement, where all are paraded before us, lies exposed for all to see and learn.

God is not judging us in this final judegment as mentioned in the bible, we are judging eachother.

During this age of online mass conciessness and info exchange, the liars can't hide anymore.

Our choices of right and wrong become clearer on each issue we ponder. The hypocrites, liars, warmongers' actions are exposed for all to see. By our choices we make this new world.

Now is not the time to acquiesce.

[carolrhill814]

The only thing that drives me nuts about twitter not enough space for the amount that I have to say.

But over all I think it is fun.

[TwistedNibbler]

Have you ever read the opening of Aldous Huxley's Brave New World: Revisited? The Introduction is begins with an essay on brevity and its evils, and also the need we have for it at times.

Having had the same thought about Twitter (honestly it is the only non-cycnical thought I'd had about it until this Iranian election crisis; now I feel like I am discovering CNN during the first Ira war all over again. let me mention my deeper reaction to the limit it imposes:

Maybe some of us long-winded people need to change the way we communicate to adapt an ability to effectively abbreviate our thoughts. This is an argument that runs contrary to my typical philosophies on life, but the ability to conceive and address overly complex thoughts is useless in a world where time is always (or at least frequently) lacking to communicate those thoughts.

In other words, knowing lots of big words ain't no good in a room full of children, or idiots, or people who speak english as a second language, etc, etc...

Now, how is THAT for a hypocritical response?!?! Such a long-winded post to say what was said. Durned HuffPo Liberal Hypocrites!! :)

[JoDeeVa]

This brave new world enabling such inter-conn­ectiveness may never be totally inclusive of all of humanity's potential while a lack of access is exclusionary. My life changed when I gained the monetary capability to buy my laptop, iPhone w/ prerequisite coverage that allowed me to join the flow of that "outfolding of the human mind, the collective sharing of our thoughts."

Still, there are some in my circle of friends/ family with whom I cannot enjoy {or not;} that flow. At the same time, I can blog to my heart's content, tweet news from Iranian twitters, make a new MySpace friend in Russia and comment on strangers' posts on HufffPost. It IS exciting, but I can't help feeling that it is a somewhat biased reflection of what the world has to offer simply because of what can't be included due to circumstances disallowing such a luxury. The caveat for great potential being that unless it is available to all, we risk the danger of following that flow into an elitist..certainly not representa­tive..cons­ciousness, "collectively struggling toward a great awakening." Not everyone will be awakening, even if they wanted to...

Thank-you, Peter Daou for such a thought-provoking post. It is imperative that we broach the chasm of those being excluded, as we embrace the idea that "something important is going on and though we're too close to the beginning to know how it unfolds, we're far enough along to realize it will reshape us."

[MJ Stark]

The article and responses both - full of weighty wordiness about something called Twitter. Maybe it's my sick side that finds that pretty funny, or the side that suggested Twitter would/could be some aspiring sociologist's PhD thesis.

But the more I think about it, because of well thought out articles such as the above, it occurs to me - Twitter is bringing the circle home to completion. The world is too big/small. Our ability to communicate is too rich/poor. We are smarter/dumber because of our tentacles into the world, but most often we access that world through our own biased pages/blogs/Twitter paths.

What the hell is my point? That Twitter brings us back to the neighborhood. It's like talking to your over the fence neighbor that you know, but not really well. Twitter is millions of fences and billions of neighbors.

I remember the awe and wonder when I, in Florida, 'talked' to a boy in the Marshall Islands almost 20 years ago via my computer. I was stunned. The other day, I was stunned again to realize that a generation exists that finds that laughably normal. I'm still stunned.

(true: I loved it when I heard the news early this morning that rebelling Iranians were using Twitter to keep the protest over the election going. My cyncial side sees it as a US pushed business, but until whoever the US wants in turns into a Hussein, Amin, et al, it will be okay, right??).

[Jimboy17]

To be stunned by the novelty of a conversation. But what of the quality? Dialogue is only transformation when it goes somewhere...when it is genitive, to paraphrase Plato, or when there is transcendence (after Levinas). All that we have done is narrow the alleys, bring the fences closer together, shrink space and time. But the proximity of the distant is not necessarily the promise of a revolution in one's consciousness, rather it is the likelyhood of the banal and the mundane seeping into every crevasse of one's life. The extraordinary cannot be produced by the medium, it must be generated in the hearts and minds and bodies of those who communicate. To twit is not necessarily communication...but rather regurgitation.

[paulmedina]

Spot on!