Thursday, February 25, 2010

Emergent contingency

I went to the NTT R&D forum 2010. I met with several very interesting people, and encountered exciting lines of research.

It is interesting how the progress of time sometimes brings about a dramatic contextual shift in society. The mobile phone network, originally constructed as a infrastructure for voice communications is now rapidly becoming an infrastructure for information other than voice.

The key word is "out of the box" experience. When a user buys a device, he or she does not have to enter a contract with a carrier explicitly. The financial arrangements are taken care of behind the scene. When a consumer buys music, text, video while online, a small portion of the money would go to the carrier, without the consumer noticing it. This is convenient for all the parties
concerned. And it gets rid of transportation in the physical domain, reducing carbon dioxide emission, and reducing garbage.

I gave a one hour speech in which I discussed the significance of emergent contingency. The information network that we are constructing is all about the nurturing of interesting contingency structure in which the human brains can learn, interact, and explore. I am convinced that we are living in a very exciting era. The only limit is the imagination.

4 comments:

kirai said...

Another interesting aspect of the convergence of all networks and communication on the Internet and mainly in the Web is how it is making stronger our "global human consciousness". In the old times in order for a feeling of a society to move around the world would take months or even years when we only had paper. Right now, if something bad or good happens at the other side of the world, people would start tweeting about it and if the message is powerful enough it will spread in seconds affecting the minds of millions of people and their mood. Could we model a global "mindset" analyzing all social media information that is created in real time, see how memes replicate etc? Our minds are more connected than ever, we are just part of the network ;)

Anonymous said...

Dr Mogi,
now I am experiencing a feeling of incompetence around my study and also my private. Your essay arrives every morning is beautiful but sometimes too beautiful for me because I am too poor; I feel the essay is too expensive for me.
I am sorry today's my thoughts are negative.

Yuzu said...

Dear: Mr.Mogi
I also would like to convinced that we are living in a very exciting era.

Anyway my wish is your circumstance to get better,
even your qualia journal's.
May I write a comment in here?
I can't write like SK.
I wish more people who are like SK join in your world.
I will swear to join in your world in my faith.

Anonymous said...

When foreign businesses were more interested in the Japanese market years (perhaps decades) ago, the enthusiastic businessmen who try to crack the Nippon market open with all their excitement and hopes would eventually begin to experience a strong sense of irritation and frustration (regardless of the degree of their actual success or failure) towards a certain distinctive, culturally driven character of our country, which I would now after all of my years of experience would summarize in one word - "indirectness". A most prominent example from a business standpoint is the multiple layers of primary, secondary and many more layers of local distributors who would typically come in between the supplier and the user, essentially standing in the way to collect margins before allowing the products to go through the complex distribution channels. Sadly enough, I believe that even the media, is like that in our country. Such frustrated challengers would not only concern foreign businessmen, but should also include our country's own ambitious entrepreneurs who have the courage to take the risk to defy the tradition and start something new. Having said that, what happens now with the new world of cyberspace and mobile carriers? My pessimistic view is that, so long as the society as a whole continues to maintain its cultural "indirectness" and the exploitation of "directness" in cyberspace ironically tends to turn into something extremely vulgar and childish as an antithese, I am doubtful of the prospects for us to truly be able to suddenly turn into the "direct" communicators with sophisticated creativity and imagination and make great use of the miraculous environment that is certainly in its making at a global level.
SK