Semantic Web vision paper

The Web is probably the richest information repository in human history, but most of its information is passive and unstructured. The Web doesn't know what it carries and for what purpose, and the users cannot specify what they want from it. There are some sites that use structured information storage and queries, but they are just little islands of order in the chaotic sea of information, not communicating to each other.

The Web should be aware of the content and purpose of its documents and links, and interests of its users, and make the best use of all encoded knowledge. Open semantic standards and communication protocols will allow creation of various services for knowledge gathering, storage, and distribution, as well as user-friendly client-side utilities that would communicate with these services and provide intelligent content selection, processing, and representation functions.

Automated Collaborative Filtering and Semantic Transports

This essay focuses on the conceptualization of the issues, comparisons of current technological developments to other historical/evolutionary processes, future of automated collaboration and its implications for economic and social development of the world, and suggestions of what we may want to pursue and avoid.

Automated Collaborative Filtering of information (ACF) is an unprecedented technology for distribution of opinions and ideas in society and facilitating contacts between people with similar interests. It automates and enhances existing mechanisms of knowledge distribution and dramatically increases their speed and efficiency. This allows to optimize knowledge flow in the society and accelerate the evolution of ideas in practically all subject areas. ACF also provides a superior tool for information retrieval systems that facilitates users' navigation in the sea of information in a meaningful and personalized way.

Semantic space ?
The number of parts in various systems was studied; subsystems were treated both as parts of systems and as independent systems built of their own parts. First,the average number of parts was estimated for various systems. This average number [geometrical average, since multiplicative approach seems natural for making relative comparisons and studying hierarchical systems] was found to be close to number pi or its integer powers for many different systems.
First,the research was continued on taxonomic structures using for each taxon the latest and most reliable descriptions; no special classifications were made. The average decimal logarithm of the factor for all 40000 genera of world fauna with world surveys available was found to be 0.497 (lg(pi) = 0.49715). The order of the error is equivalent to the one expected from rounding of decimal logarithms to the second digit used in hand calculations. Then, other structures were studied. The analysis of all 111 plays of ten most famous Russian drama writers showed that the average factor, derived from numbers of acts in plays, scenes in acts, appearances in scenes, actors and remarks of each of them in appearances, was different from pi only in the third digit.
We can agree that the subject of our studies is The World As We See It! The only thing that we have available.

So what is that famous 'Pi'? Are there semantic rules in behavior of world?
Are rules the same in micro, macro and global world? How many rules are there.
Is there only one rule?

Is privacy natural?
The nice thing about animals is that each of them attempts to protect its own privacy, and never runs around forcing others to hide their activities. This feature seems remarkably universal among all species - except humans, that is.

A complete history of humans and technology
One of the very recent phenomena is that the external tools are starting to get better in communication than the human symbolic abilities. Written language is a wonderful and information-rich form of knowledge representation. Unfortunately, the human brain processes much slower than the physical signals. One of the important reasons for proliferation of symbolic communication until recently was inefficiency of external information storage and transmission media that could not handle more than letters and digits. With the inventions of radio, telephone, movies, and GUI interfaces humans return to processing what they handle well - physical images. This doesn't mean decline of symbolic information processing - on the contrary, it is exploding and taking over analog processing. This process, however, is going on in the media that handle symbols well - and this doesn't include the brain. So the new media are bypassing the human symbolic I/O and taking it upon themselves.
A growing number of humans is finding themselves of little utility even as tool operators, no matter how hard they try; as humans are losing comparative advantages over distributed and non-biological systems, the shrinking number of them are needed - usually those with particularly strong or unique skills.
What will happen to humans as the result of this process may be unclear; However, I would expect that the human share of *input* into the growing network of material artifacts and knowledge will dramatically diminish over the next generation or two, with most people falling out of the process.
Actually, tragic as it sounds to me, most humans probably won't care, as they have already no sense of, and no interest in understanding, the development of the global process. (Or did they ever?)

Watching SF...

• while real weapons are known to grow smaller, quieter and more accurate, the SF weaponry's main effects are energy-wasting bursts of noise and fire, and in most cases it misses the target- only to let it stay there for subsequent spectacular shots;
• looking at Star Trek's Data, one can assume that it's much easier to produce a robot with high intelligence and even some human emotions, than to make it turn its head smoothly, or paint its face pink (of course, it is needed only to explain some interesting - though not new... - 'robot' problems, while supporting the familiar 'cyborg identity' for the unsophisticated audience);
• many spaceships in childrens'[?] SF cartoons have *horns* (while everybody should know that at those speeds an armored bump is no harder than a rotten tomato);
• While future definitely belongs to GLOBAL long-term PLANNING, the SF heroes spend their time resolving various LOCAL CRISES - with a few exceptions, like Asimov's Foundation epic, but even there the global issues serve merely as a background for hot-selling local activities...

Here are some of the issues, situations and concepts that *I* would like to see addressed in SF:

• the future state, basic structure and life of the civilization AFTER the technological revolution is over;
• possibilities of existence of non-biological - and non-material - thinking entities - like sciences, morphic fields etc., and how they may feel and think and whether they could be contacted;
• ethical, cultural and psychological problems that will arise when the humans have an opportunity to considerably alter/improve their bodies and minds (very soon, BTW) - at the expense of identity...;
• the ultimate stages of human evolution - merger with (or turning into) God? ; possible conflicts - will there be any? with whom?; Timing?

All of this lies beyond the scope of current scientific research, is too vague for conventional futurology, and offers lots of opportunities for all kinds of dreams and fancy conflicts - which seems to make it an ideal ground for *intelligent* SF... - but where is it?

I would be very grateful to anyone who provides me with reading advice on these topics - or expresses any reasonable ideas on them, not necessarily watered with any adventure stuff.

I think that there is a group of people, so powefull, that they don't want to loose their privileges towards the others. If they don't want to loose privileges, they have to keep them. And to keep them they have to do something about it. So their only yob is to maintain status quo as long as possible. Don't forget, they are the most powerfull of all of us. The easiest way to maintain status quo on earth is having stupid people on earth, who will do everything like their leaders will tell them.
Is it possible that SF has fell under that same influence like all the world. Making money not happines. Making new things, new technologies, but only that kind that cannot help people in whole, those wich could help people and earth in whole are hidden or destroyed, by those individuals (powefull), who would loose by them.
Following that logic SF had to fell under that influence, beacuse dreamers, better say those with big immagination (those who wrote SF), had from allways fictioned how some things could be done but they cannot be right now beacuse of tecnologys state.
And todays SF is telling us that we are at the top, that from here it goes only down.
Let's say that until technology was helping peolpe to be more productive, and those at the top were more powerfull every day, they were leting it be. Now when tecnology has done something for the people like telecomunications and internet, when for the first time in human history a man hungry of knowledge can get it allmost instantly. Now when for the first time in history we can easily get general agreement between all people. Now they turned against science and fiction, presenting them in this way that you're saying, or worst.
gape