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Rekhekhui.com
Jun. 18th, 2007 02:12 pm"Do I remember the 19th of February? Of course. I remember everything about every 19th of February." The old man said, leaning back in his comfortable looking overstuffed chair, the kind found at the executive level of a corporation, or around the tables in an airport VIP lounge.
"Well, you can access everything about the 19th of February. That's not really memory." The much younger man across from him pointed out. It was his first real assignment, an interview with the man who was considered one of the spiritual founders of the ubiqnet; a mental and technological link between the shared consciousness of the world. After all, he was a neophyte Digital Curator, lumped into a tiny specialty in Quantitative Trait Loci Data which provided constant and unurgent work.
Sitting in front of him, looking far more relaxed in an off-white suit and open throated grey shirt was Khnum Djehuty. The old man smiled at his retort, almost pleased by the challenge, timid as it might be. His lips traced a white smile across the dark folds and fissures of his face; a flicker-quick sign of amusement. "My dear boy, all memory is a personal cross-index; a curated set of data linked sometimes tenuously to other people. The reality is that my mind isn't confined to the salty brine of cerebral tissue, soaked in blood. It reaches past, into the deep realms of data available. If I pull up a football score from that date, it is the same mental process as drawing on the complete historical index at the National Archives."
"That's not personal memory though. It's a link into an existing database."
"What is personal, young man? In this day and age?" Djehuty's voice was smooth and deep; a tone that bespoke warmth and intelligence. "Identity is a construct of individual barriers. A point in which one must create the structure of themselves as directly influenced and guided by the specific experiences one can personally remember. The evolution of society has come each step further in the reduction of that rigid individual identity, into a deeper interconnection outside of individual experience, borne through shared knowledge."
"You're saying that knowledge involves the destruction of the individual?"
"No. Knowledge involves the transition of the individual. Individual. Solitary. These are not the things of civilization, young man." Khnum's fingers traced out imaginary designs in the air has he spoke, flickering with each word. "The most shallow idea is that the logosphere, of which you and I owe our existence to, was first conceptualized on the 19th of February, in 1997. The reality is that the first hunting story immortalized on a cave wall, or the first legend to explain fire that passed from one tribe to another was the birth of the logosphere; a shared repository of knowledge, accessible through the mediums of the time. Oral history turned to sculpture, which turned to writing, which turned to printing. Each step, each technology enlarged it. The concepts of religion, nationalism, law; all logospheric constructs of a collective identity."
"But in each of those things, it's been individuals that drive the changes in those institutions." The interview was rapidly getting away from his initial assignment; a quick interview with the man who has revolutionized the archival of digital media, the genius of the modern organizational format that had been as revolutionary as the cross index hundreds of years before.
"Ah, great men. Your Caesars, Einsteins, St.Augustians? Consider each of them. Each built on knowledge that had been acquired separate from their individual efforts. Alexander, Scipio and Hannibal begat Caesar's military brilliance. From Descartes and Newton do we find Einstein. St.Augustus was drawing from Aristotle and Plato as much as the Gospals." Djehuty's hands finally paused for a moment, as he raised a crooked finger straight up, to the level of his eyes. "Each 'individual' was shaped and nurtured by the existing logosphere of their time, amassing the knowledge from what was archived before, and adding to it. Their individual efforts are the result of a composite amassing of information in the accessible archives of their times."
"But's that's just society! I mean, cultures are based on history and science."
"And each is a continuation of what came before which can be accessed. So how are your thoughts truly individual, if the are based off those from a thousand years before? You know water boils at a hundred degrees because you were told; you read and accepted the proof, as opposed to checking for yourself with a thermometer." He smiled. "Belief in that which has come before is the basis of the logosphere, and with each level of complexity, the worth of individual experience becomes less. Each mental structure is based off of the data accrued by others, endlessly cross referenced and displayed. That is what digital curation is about, young man. Creating the right pathways of accessibility in a world where it is both impossible to know everything, and yet, unnecessary to be able to individually. Our knowledge is now a shared access; a mesh of data. A great Ma'at of our experience."
"A what--?"
"The final stage of our work, my boy. The transition of logosphere to noosphere, where experience is no longer shared by archive, but by the removal of the final barrier between each of us. The ma'at, or unification of mind and experience. We once used the word with the proper respect of what was to come." Khnum smiled, his sharp nose and dark face giving him an avian cast to his expression. "All power from a simple truth. Maktoub."
"It is written."
"Well, you can access everything about the 19th of February. That's not really memory." The much younger man across from him pointed out. It was his first real assignment, an interview with the man who was considered one of the spiritual founders of the ubiqnet; a mental and technological link between the shared consciousness of the world. After all, he was a neophyte Digital Curator, lumped into a tiny specialty in Quantitative Trait Loci Data which provided constant and unurgent work.
Sitting in front of him, looking far more relaxed in an off-white suit and open throated grey shirt was Khnum Djehuty. The old man smiled at his retort, almost pleased by the challenge, timid as it might be. His lips traced a white smile across the dark folds and fissures of his face; a flicker-quick sign of amusement. "My dear boy, all memory is a personal cross-index; a curated set of data linked sometimes tenuously to other people. The reality is that my mind isn't confined to the salty brine of cerebral tissue, soaked in blood. It reaches past, into the deep realms of data available. If I pull up a football score from that date, it is the same mental process as drawing on the complete historical index at the National Archives."
"That's not personal memory though. It's a link into an existing database."
"What is personal, young man? In this day and age?" Djehuty's voice was smooth and deep; a tone that bespoke warmth and intelligence. "Identity is a construct of individual barriers. A point in which one must create the structure of themselves as directly influenced and guided by the specific experiences one can personally remember. The evolution of society has come each step further in the reduction of that rigid individual identity, into a deeper interconnection outside of individual experience, borne through shared knowledge."
"You're saying that knowledge involves the destruction of the individual?"
"No. Knowledge involves the transition of the individual. Individual. Solitary. These are not the things of civilization, young man." Khnum's fingers traced out imaginary designs in the air has he spoke, flickering with each word. "The most shallow idea is that the logosphere, of which you and I owe our existence to, was first conceptualized on the 19th of February, in 1997. The reality is that the first hunting story immortalized on a cave wall, or the first legend to explain fire that passed from one tribe to another was the birth of the logosphere; a shared repository of knowledge, accessible through the mediums of the time. Oral history turned to sculpture, which turned to writing, which turned to printing. Each step, each technology enlarged it. The concepts of religion, nationalism, law; all logospheric constructs of a collective identity."
"But in each of those things, it's been individuals that drive the changes in those institutions." The interview was rapidly getting away from his initial assignment; a quick interview with the man who has revolutionized the archival of digital media, the genius of the modern organizational format that had been as revolutionary as the cross index hundreds of years before.
"Ah, great men. Your Caesars, Einsteins, St.Augustians? Consider each of them. Each built on knowledge that had been acquired separate from their individual efforts. Alexander, Scipio and Hannibal begat Caesar's military brilliance. From Descartes and Newton do we find Einstein. St.Augustus was drawing from Aristotle and Plato as much as the Gospals." Djehuty's hands finally paused for a moment, as he raised a crooked finger straight up, to the level of his eyes. "Each 'individual' was shaped and nurtured by the existing logosphere of their time, amassing the knowledge from what was archived before, and adding to it. Their individual efforts are the result of a composite amassing of information in the accessible archives of their times."
"But's that's just society! I mean, cultures are based on history and science."
"And each is a continuation of what came before which can be accessed. So how are your thoughts truly individual, if the are based off those from a thousand years before? You know water boils at a hundred degrees because you were told; you read and accepted the proof, as opposed to checking for yourself with a thermometer." He smiled. "Belief in that which has come before is the basis of the logosphere, and with each level of complexity, the worth of individual experience becomes less. Each mental structure is based off of the data accrued by others, endlessly cross referenced and displayed. That is what digital curation is about, young man. Creating the right pathways of accessibility in a world where it is both impossible to know everything, and yet, unnecessary to be able to individually. Our knowledge is now a shared access; a mesh of data. A great Ma'at of our experience."
"A what--?"
"The final stage of our work, my boy. The transition of logosphere to noosphere, where experience is no longer shared by archive, but by the removal of the final barrier between each of us. The ma'at, or unification of mind and experience. We once used the word with the proper respect of what was to come." Khnum smiled, his sharp nose and dark face giving him an avian cast to his expression. "All power from a simple truth. Maktoub."
"It is written."
