Religion, Society, and Technology: Session Notes

The Religious (Christian) Response To The Social Impact of Science and Technology

Telecosm: Communication & Information

Agenda
Telecosm [Gilder]: one possible sacred cosmos
- Gilder's vision: teleology
  1. all optical network, without electronic switching -- the fibersphere
    - millions x copper
    - personal freq number per person
    - real-time image streaming
    - video conferencing
    - latency
      - scientists and engineers have squeezed inefficiencies out of info transmissions, until now they encounter c
      - latency to geosynchronous orbit (23,600 miles -- the Clarke belt) = 250 msec
      - latency for low orbit satellites: down to 5 msecs
      - latency on the land net is router processing: ave. 150 msec
      - the only way to overcome c is to get closer -- "storewidth", a metric describing size of storage and how close to user
      - in abundant bandwidth, latency is the residual delay -- the speed of light + wait time in queues and buffers
  2. new abundance: bandwidth
  3. new scarcity: delay or latency constrained by c
  4. wireless mobility access to the fibersphere at infrared freqs [chp 8]
  5. satellite can make global: the ethersphere [chp 9]
  6. Storewidth: "To catch and cache the big bang of photonics and bring it to intelligent life on earth, the explosion of bandwidth requires a complement of storewidth" [p.133]
    - accessible data
    - distributed data, mirrored and replicated
    - broadcast data to multiple servers
    - content access points (CAPs)
  7. ubiquitous access to all information, by everyone, rich and poor, developed and underdeveloped.
  8. Law of Telecosm: use bandwidth to simplify everything else
  9. the internet is a global computer
- Gilder's sacred cosmos
  - God
    - Is there God, the Utterly Other, in this teleology?
    - The creator is the genius of visionaries: e.g., Elias Snitzer (WDM), Robert Metcalfe (Ethernet)
  - Cosmology
    - Nothing beyond the telecosm
    - The Cybercosmos
    - The 20 Laws of the Telecosm
      1. The Law of the Telecosm
      2. Gilder's Law: Bandwidth grows at least three times faster than computer power.
      3. The Black Box Law: Networks will become black boxes
      4. The Law of Bandwidth Efficiency: Bandwidth usability, measured in digital efficiency, grows roughly by the square of the move up spectrum to higher frequencies.
      5. Shannon's Law: Digital communications efficiency declines as power increases
      6. The Bandwidth-Power Identity: ... bandwidth is a replacement for power
      7. The Glass Mansions Law: In the cities of the world, fiber trumps both copper and the airwaves.
      8. The Yellow Pages Law: The telecosm demands better and better directories ...
      9. The Law of Telecosmic Price Elasticity: One unit decline in bandwidth price yields a five unit rise in demand.
      10. The Law of Instantaneous Information: ... the companies that save their clients time will profit in the telecosm.
      11. The Law of Wasted Bandwidth: ... waste bandwidth
      12. Amadahl's Law in the Telecosm: ... system speed is determined by the slowest component in the datapath
      13. The Single-Chip Law: ... the Telecosm requires single-chip systems.
      14. The Law of Hand-Held Devices: When bandwidth is infinite, and the network is ubiquitous, digital cellular teleputers prevail.
      15. The Law of Network Computing: In the telecosm, the network becomes the computer.
      16. Huber's Law of Geodesic Networks: The Telecosm will be "geodesic" networks: short-connection, multipoint, dense arrays.
      17. The Low-Latency Law of Satellites: Satellites will move from far and fast to low and slow.
      18. The Law of Television Obsolescence: Television ... will die.
      19. The Law of Journalistic Victory: Profits will migrate toward newspapers and magazines.
      20. The Law of Conduits and Content: ... divorce content from conduit.
    - A "Matrix" cosmology?
  - Epistemology
    - unfettered capitalism
    - "Governing the light is this law of resonance. Supply creates its own demand, and the supplies and demands in themselves create a market." [p.262]
  - Anthropology
    - "... what is happening is no more or no less than a hypertrophy of networking. This is the prosaic matter of transferring information from one person to another. It is less than divine redemption, but more than most other activities it defines us as human ..." [p61]
      - transferring info defines us as human
      - is this so? are we basically info processors/generators?
      - are we humans without info transfer and thus disconnected?
      - is info transfer the primary connecting act?
    - Time
      - "But as the prime fact and canonical scarcity of today's economy, [time] is an absolutely new concept." [p246]
      - "In the old economy and a holdover in the new, a key rule of commerce was: Waste the customer's time."
      - "The new rule is: The customer is sovereign and he knows what he wants: It is not your product; it is time."
      - "Suffice it to say that the concept of the customer's lifespan as a crucially scarce resource, indeed the most precious resource of the information economy, has not penetrated to many of the major business and governmental institutions in the U.S., let alone overseas." [p.248]
      - "The Internet saves the customer's time." [p.250]
  - God and the Human
    - Embodiment
    - no time for God
    - social cyborgism
    - telecosm as God
  - soteriology
    - "Needless to say that the Internet will not solve all the problems of human life ..." [p.255]
    - "It is technological and entrepreneurial progress, impelled by deregulation and low tax rates, that brings once rare products into the reach of the poor, who are always the world's largest untapped market." [p.157]
  - hamartology
    - what/where is sin? technical sin : using current technology when new is available -- basically being a telco
  - theodicy
    - "universal service socialism" -- the copper colossus of twisted pairs, RBOCs, regulators, and politicians will fall before the rise of spectronics [p155]
  - Society
    - "Many observers fear this increase in advertisers' knowledge as an invasion of privacy. this view misconceives the nature of privacy. Invasions of privacy reflect inadequate knowledge, not excessive knowledge... By leaving a trail of encrypted information about purchases and activities, even if much of the data is captured by businesses that want to sell them goods and services, people can maintain control of the truth of their lives." [pp.254-255]
    - "... light is not evenly distributed ... the glow radiates most ardently and at highest frequencies in domains of freedom and technological creativity ... The radiance is a reflection of political and economic freedom, immigration and the spirit of enterprise." [p.263]
    - "At the millennium, the incandescence is diffusing around the world, offering a promise of new freedom and prosperity from Santiago, Chile, to Shanghai, China ... the radiance is increasingly eroding the powers of despots and bureaucracies, powers and principalities ... to stifle links to the global communities of mind and liberty entails increasingly brutal and obvious repression and incurs rising costs of economic stagnation and retardation. Within the market space of the net, anyone anywhere can issue a petition or publication, utter a cry for help, broadcast a work of art. Anyone can create a product, launch a company, finance its growth, and spin it off into the web of trust." [pp263-264]
  - Eschatology
    - See vision on pp250-253
Cybergrace: The Search For God in the Digital World
Jennifer Cobb
- The divine is woven throughout all of reality in the form of creative, responsive love and evolutionary becoming. In this sense, the divine permeates the very fabric of the universe. p. 12
- When the creative potential of computation becomes a part of our spiritual awareness, we may find that cyberspace begins to participate in our lives in a deep and meaningful way. p.13
- internet + humans = co-evolving
- Cyberspace incarnates the Platonic realm of pure and perfect forms (p.31)
- Cyberspace is an abstract reality that allows us to live in a communal realm of knowledge and information
- God is in the connectedness:
- ... the spiritual basis of the universe is understood as creative events unfolding in time. (p. 43)
- Creative process forms the soul of cyberspace. (p.44)
- If grace is the experience of the divine flowing in our lives, then experiencing the creative process is grace and experiencing it in cyberspace is cybergrace.
- The net is emergent: its whole is greater than its parts. p 49
  - cyberspace > software + hardware + people => cybercosmos
  - divinity is in the dynamic of the process of feedback loops
- cybercosmos contains life: the moment by moment unfolding of creativity (p. 55) that is the transcendence of novelty
- The cybercosmos defines its own possibility space. p. 68
- orthogenesis: evolutionary force that directs change towards increased complexity and consciousness -- the divine spark (p.83)
- evolution: physiosphere -> biosphere -> noosphere (p.84)
- noosphere is the sphere of the mind & consciousness: the collective organism of mind.
- cybercosmos instantiates the noosphere
Biblical and Theological Reflections: The Kingdom of God
1. Is the teleology of the telecosm/cybergrace the Kingdom of God? or Pandæmonium?
2. The Kingdom of God
  - Shalom: Peace, Justice, Freedom
  - Interconnection
  - Compassion: to be in "passion" with
  - Emmanuel: God With Us
  - Incarnation/Embodiment: in the world, but not of it
  - Stewardship
  - Forgiveness
  - Responsibility!
3. Embodiment
  - Time to Do Everything -- Except Think; Newsweek; April 30, 2001; David Brooks
    - State of perfect wirelessness
    - mobile phones that download the Internet, etc.
    - Palm handhelds
    - Global Positioning System readouts
    - wireless laptops
    - do any computing anytime, anywhere
    - "Never being out of touch means never being able to get away."
    - worse: adapted to the tempo of wireless life -- every 15 seconds, something new to respond to
    - everything done fast (and sloppily)
    - Can't stop and smell the flowers!
    - addicted to the perpetual flux of the information network: speed freak; info junkie
    - overcommunicated world: too many Web sites, too many reports, too much information -- all competing for our attention
    - our main scarcity is time
    - all of this undermines creativity
    - creativity isn't done on demand
    - often occurs when you are doing something else -- casually
    - and if you are in the same information loop as everyone else, you have no difference to stimulate your creativity
    - no time for contemplation or reading or ...
  - Pervasive computing (Imagine a planet run by computer; Kevin Coughlin; Star Ledger; May 4, 2001
    - Social cyborgism
      1. sensors to monitor stair climbing
      2. "vision chips" to warn of backyard intruders
      3. toasters that call your cell phone when the crumb tray is full
      4. "The walls have eyes and ears", Michael Bianchi
      5. pervasive or ubiquitous computing: lots and lots of microprocessors, embedded in every facet of modern life, all linked together
      6. web-surfing cell phones; chip-laden kitchen appliances; satellite navigation systems in cars; wireless computer networks in airports
      7. nomadic computing: consumers tell devices what they want and what to do.
      8. integrated and seamless -- and invisible
    - identity theft ==> identity stewardship
      1. how much privacy will consumers sacrifice for more convenience?
      2. your identity entirely defined/profiled on the distributed computer
      3. tough laws to protect from identity theft
  - How are we embodied in the Telecosm (personhood)?
    - is to be fully human to be fully networked?
    - avatars?
    - what of our "true" identity?
    - is our free will set free to invent ourselves?
4. information: The Truth Shall Make You Free
  - Jn 8:32
  - Not just info; but discernment
    More than bare facts
  - what do we do with information?
  - how do we ascertain its truth?
  - what sort of society does high quantities of information create?
    is truth cheapen?
5. community: The Digital Divide
  - the haves and have nots
    - those who have access to info
    - those who know how to capitalize on info
    - what of those who cannot or are incapable of capitalizing on the info?
    - people vs government: Big Brother vs appropriate government
  - compassion
    Can one have compassion without physical presence?
    Are we on the verge of loosing physical presence?
    Or are we on the verge of transcending to a higher presence?
  - God-with-us
    Is God immanent on the WWW?
    Is God's immanence physical?
  - Gilder's response [pp150-151]
    - top 20% of households (approx 50M people) begin using bb internet in vol.
    - this is happening now
    - they pay for all the false starts and bugs
    - bringing down the learning curve
    - now everyone else can get it @ ¹/₄ "The rich provide the investment and the rest reap the rewards."
  - With Telecom deregulation, will rural people be sidelined?
    - "universal service socialism" -- the copper colossus of twisted pairs, RBOCs, regulators, and politicians will fall before the rise of spectronics [p155]
    - "It is technological and entrepreneurial progress, impelled by deregulation and low tax rates, that brings once rare products into the reach of the poor, who are always the world's largest untapped market." [p.157]
6. Responsibility: Righteousness
  - "what does the Lord require of you but to do justice, and to love kindness, and to walk humbly with Your God [Mic 6:8]"
  - what action do we take in regard to what we learn?
  - what action do we take in regard to the social and spiritual impact of the WWW?
  - cross and resurrection:
    turning the internet to a tool of shalom and a community of shalom
7. telecosmolatry
  - is the telecosm the Kingdom of God?
  - is it a path to the Kingdom?
  - is it a road to hell?

Cybercosmos: The organized, interactive, seamless milieu of God, humans, and machines

Cybercosmos
organized, interactive, seamless milieu of God, humans, and machines bioelectronic ecosystem: organic and interconnected; an electronic web of life emergent co-creativity and collective consciousness co-evolving: technology and humanity co-dependent orthogenesis cybergrace process

Need to carry information on the EM spectrum: voice, data, video, ...

Speed of light, c
- absolute
- the same speed in a vacuum always, never at rest.
- 300 million meters per sec = 300,000 km/sec

Electromagnetic Spectrum: Maxwell's Rainbow

The continuum of all electromagnetic waves arranged according to frequency and wavelength
Electromagnetic energy:
1. stream of massless particles moving at the speed of light (often produced by a vibrating electrical field, such as in a radio antenna or phone)
2. a photon (the massless particle) is a bundle of energy
3. depending on the amount of energy, the rate (frequency) and wavelength changes
4. the only difference between different types of EM radiation is the frequency and wavelength
The frequencies and wavelengths are classified into bands:

Some Number Terms: 1 Hz = 1 cycle/sec
10⁰ hertz (Hz)
10³ kilohertz (kHz)
10⁶ megahertz (MHz)
10⁹ gigahertz (GHz)
10¹² terahertz (THz)
10¹⁵ petahertz (PHz)
10¹⁸ exahertz (EHz)

Some Number Terms: 1 Hz = 1 cycle/sec
10⁰	hertz (Hz)
10³	kilohertz (kHz)
10⁶	megahertz (MHz)
10⁹	gigahertz (GHz)
10¹²	terahertz (THz)
10¹⁵	petahertz (PHz)
10¹⁸	exahertz (EHz)

International Radio Consultative Committee (CCIR) Band Designations
Band	Frequency Range	Designation	Description
2	30 Hz-300 Hz	ELF (extremely low frequencies)	power distribution signals (60 Hz); telemetry
3	0.3 kHz - 3 kHz	VF (voice frequencies)	human speech; telephones
4	3 kHz - 30 kHz	VLF (very low frequencies)	submarine communications
5	30 kHz-300 kHz	LF (low frequencies)	marine and aeronautical navigation
6	0.3 MHz - 3 MHz	MF (medium frequencies)	commercial AM radio (535 kHz to 1605 kHz)
7	3 MHz - 30 MHz	HF (high frequencies)	short waves; two-way radio; citizen band
8	30 MHz-300 MHz	VHF (very high frequencies)	mobile radio; marine and aeronautical communications; commercial FM broadcasting (88 MHz to 108 MHz); television channels 2-13 (54 MHz - 216 MHz)
9	0.3 GHz - 3 GHz	UHF (ultrahigh frequencies)	television channels 14-83; land mobile communications services; cellular phones; radar and navigation; microwave and satellite radio (>= 1 GHz)
10	3 GHz - 30 GHz	SHF (superhigh frequencies)	microwave and satellite radio
11	30 GHz-300 GHz	EHF (extremely high frequencies)	only used for specialized applications
12	0.3 THz - 3 THz	Infrared light	heat; heat-seeking guidance systems; electronic photography; astronomy
13	3 THz - 30 THz
14	30 THz-300 THz
15	0.3 PHz - 3 PHz	Visible light	human sight; optical fiber systems
16	3 PHz - 30 PHz	Ultraviolet light	Not used for telecom
17	30 PHz-300 PHz	X-rays
18	0.3 EHz - 3 EHz	Gamma rays
19	3 EHz - 30 EHz	Cosmic rays

Modulation/Demodulation
1. Information, such as voice, is often too low a frequency to be transmitted
2. Thus, "modulate" information onto a higher carrier frequency
3. Carrier signal is varied proportionately to phase, frequency, or amplitude:
  
  v(t) = V sin (2 pi f t + p)
  v(t) = time-varying sin wave of voltage
  V = peak amplitude (volts)
  f = frequency (hertz)
  p = phase (radians)
4. frequency modulation (FM)
5. amplitude modulation (AM)
6. phase modulation (PM)

Digital

modulating information signal is +/- 1
carrier signal is analog
digital reduces the effect of noise
on an analog modulating signal, noise obscures modulations of the wave and the modulations are harder to recover
for digital, easier to recover binary high and low modulations relative to the carrier -- more noise tolerate
computer information already digitized
analog information digitized by:
- sampling analog amplitude along the wave
- converting the sampled amplitudes into 8-bit numbers

One digital modulating signal: Binary Frequency Shift Keying (FKS)

v(t) = V_c cos ((w_c + (v_m(t) Dw)/2) t)

v(t) = binary FSK waveform
V_c = peak unmodulated carrier amplitude
w_c = radian carrier frequency
v_m(t) = binary digital modulating signal, e.g. +/-1
Dw = change in radian output frequency

Bandwidth and Information Capacity
1. bandwidth = max frequency - min frequency of a wavelength
  - passband: the range from min to max freq in the communication channel
  - the information signal cannot change at a greater rate than the bandwidth of the communications channel
  - the higher the carrier frequency, the larger the b/w possible
  - For FKS,
    
    B = f_m - f_s + 2/t_b
    B = bandwidth
    f_m is the mark (logical 1) frequency
    f_s is the space (logical 0) frequency
    t_b is the time of one bit per second
    and
    
    Df = abs(f_m - f_s)/2 = 1/4t_b
    Df = change in frequency
    f_m is the mark (logical 1) frequency
    f_s is the space (logical 0) frequency
    t_b is the time of one bit per second
2. information capacity
  - Hartley's Law: information is directly proportional to bandwidth times transmission time
  - a proportional increase in bandwidth and/or a decrease in time of a single bit (increase bit rate) results in an increase in information
  - Shannon's Law:
    
    I = B log₂(1 + S/N)
    I = Information capacity
    B = bandwidth
    S/N is the signal-to-noise power ratio
Multiplexing
- multiplexing more than one information signal onto a carrier signal
- frequency division: FDM
- time division: TDM
  - interleave in the time domain
  - multiple channels
  - time for one sample of every channel is the frame time
  - fixed time slot
  - T1 = 24 channels (1.536Mbps = 24 channels x 64Kbps (= 8 bit sample x 8K samples per sec))
  rate channels capacity
  T1 24 1.536Mbps
  T1C 48 3.152Mbps
  T2 96 6.312Mbps
  T3 672 46.304Mbps
  T4M 4032 374.176Mbps
  T5 8064 560.16Mbps
- Wavelength division: WDM
  - dense WDM (DWDM)

Gæa BIOSPHERE: the Trolls
1. scientists
2. engineers
3. inventors
Cyber PHYSIOSPHERE
- CPE: PCs; Cable Modems; Integrated Telephony Cable Modems; DSL Modems; 56Kb Modems
- Distribution Medium: twisted pair; coax; fiber; fixed wireless; mobile wireless; fiber nodes; power nodes;
- Transmission Medium
  - electrical, voice (and w/ DSL RF) freq: copper (twisted) pair
  - electrical, RF: coaxial cable
  - light: optical fiber
    - very high bandwidth
    - laser light: synchronized (collimated or parallelized), monochromic light
    - Sonet/SDH
    - wavelength division multiplexing (WDM)
  - RF: air
- Network Access: Modem banks; DSL modems; Edge routers; Local Digital Switches; Servers; Firewalls; Base stations
- HFC access
- wireless access
- Backbone: Fiber rings; High end routers; Tandem switches; ATM switches; WDM switches; Satellites
- Fibersphere: moves the intelligence for the network to the edge; the fibersphere with infinite bandwidth simply allows all messages to move at will on the fibersphere [Gilder, p67-68]
- Ethernet is a precursor of this.
Gæa BIOSPHERE: more Trolls
1. craftspeople
2. engineers
3. developers
Cyber PHYSIOSPHERE to Cyber BIOSPHERE: ISDN; xDSL; ATM; tcp/ip
Cyber BIOSPHERE
- e-mail
- browsers
- portals
- LOTUS Notes
Gæa BIOSPHERE
1. consumers
Cyber BIOSPHERE to NOOSPHERE http; ftp; smtp; PICS
NOOSPHERE
- internet content
- e-commerce
- e-publishing
- webrings
- chat rooms

rate	channels	capacity
T1	24	1.536Mbps
T1C	48	3.152Mbps
T2	96	6.312Mbps
T3	672	46.304Mbps
T4M	4032	374.176Mbps
T5	8064	560.16Mbps