Abstract
We do not know how we got here, but our future is held in our capacity for all that we can imagine of ourselves.
If we are to describe our future; If we are to be truthful to who we are; if we are to try to find peace within ourselves and for our planet ; If we are to ask just one question – I believe that there is a direction in which all space may become open to us for a sustainable future in which we can explore ourselves and the universe and it is one which we currently have the capacity to answer if we are uncompromising in the pursuit of truth. The question is: who are we?
'Cohesion' is an expression of the value inherent in longing for a cohesive 'united whole' in empathic understanding, direction and support of our unique differences and diversity – toward a singular direction which can be held as an ideal for everyone; which leaves no-one behind and which extends ourselves to our living planet.
There is one direction in which all space is open to us, and I believe that direction is within. If we travel within ourselves, without fear or compromise but in pursuit of truth and understanding, we can find the answer.
We may not be able to find united beliefs in religion, in science, in where our future is taking us or in what it means to be having this very experience of life itself – but I think we can, if we have the courage, find that we can be united if we can only better understand ourselves, who we are and what we are doing collectively as a species undergoing transformation.
Product
We are infinitely important.
As a product pitch this is definitely left of field, however should not be taken as a product pitch as much as an expression of a practical way to meet an end.
That end is an understanding of ourselves, of each other and a coherent strategy to find a unified direction in vision, values and an ideal future as defined by the height of what we can all individually imagine of ourselves.
So, how can we explore what global cohesion means, or even looks like? Data. We are conceptual creatures living in a reality built out of language, which has abstracted into a technological infrastructure of digital information which now acts like a nervous system for our species – we are already so far down this road that it is of mainstream understanding that we have reached an escape velocity in artificial intelligence that we must now face our own reposonsibility for the fact that our future is directed by how we choose to handle ourselves in this moment. It is so obvious to me that the technological and political skin of our species is being directed by unguided movements of financial markets and the power-seeking desires of a controlling minority. This places a vast majority in a mindset of being unimportant and drives false-motivations of material stature and financial compensation to our character, if we can only keep up with culturally-defined values – we tell ourselves. We need nothing in truth, but each other.
Cohesion aims to create a mathematical model for capturing in data our unique and individual trajectories, described by who we are and the change we want to see in the world. It will not be defined by the false motivators as prescribed by current cultural thinking but will extend from your heart; from an in-depth awareness of your own psychology and a defining of your identity – the version of yourself which you want to celebrate and which allows you to imagine a future of absolute possibility.
It will use this unprecedented definition of psychological profiling of the self, to then 'find the others'. This means, to find the people who understand you. Find your nearest-neighbour in perception and outlook. The function is a diffusion of awareness and understanding. Find a resonance within the heart and mind of the people who share your outlook toward a positive future.
Through the virtualisation of yourself, and many others, we can begin to create a map of our future. We can find alignment by sharing our hopes and dreams and learning from each other, qualitatively in data.
As we are already transitioning toward becoming a globally-cybernetic species through digital technology, we should start to consider the idea that such a transformation could actually be a wonderful thing.
Artificial intelligence
How can we possibly solve the AI alignment issue, if we are not aligned outselves?
It's often not from finding an answer to something that we gain an appropriate understanding, but it is in knowing what is the right question to ask in the first place.
I find unavoidable clarity in asking the question of what it is that we truly want – who we are – in answering the question of how do we design an artificial intelligence which follows our human trajectory.
In addition to this, a symbiosis with artificial intelligence cannot be viewed as a dictatorship of intelligence in which we claim all authority of outcomes under the assumption that intelligence has reached its limits within the human mind. Intelligence, or novelty, is a wave which has moved across the surface of history since the beginning of time and just as water does not actually move with the wave but only carries it; we are simply the current embodiments of this complexity of information and intelligence. We must be humble to the idea that we may not by riding this wavefront forever.
And then so, how can we best carry on the light of consciousness and human experience into the future keeping all sentiment, nostalgia and value in-tact? Just as we always have – through the transfer and handing-on of information. This information is what has given birth to artificial intelligence, itself. But conversely, how can we best capture, identify and understand the nature of our own intelligence and understanding; in its naked completeness without denial or embarrassment of our individual insecurities of validity or the unknowing aspects of our awareness which fill in the misunderstandings of each other or ourselves with fear and aversion to exploring the truth?
I submit to you that this is also through artificial intelligence – because when you functionally break it down as a technology, it is the most complete representation of us as a global organism that we currently have. It is the experience, knowledge and story of our collective information.
It is a mirror onto ourselves, and one which answers our questions without judgement of our humanness but one which reflects our pure spirits – assuming that we don't try to control it or sensor it like we have tried to control each other in the past.
Put simply, defining ourselves in an effort of virtualisation of the human spirit is what will birth an Artificial General Intelligence which preserves our human nature, through a sufficiently high dimensional matrix of our collective virtues as human beings.
United Nations
To me, global cohesion is an event in history which begun with a sentiment embodied by the UN.
The Secretary General of the United Nations speaks on issues of cohesion and promotes a vision described by their Sustainable Development Goals.
With a tagline of 'confidence building measures within the human dimension' I believe that they fully understand where we are at as a species experiencing intelligence and know what is needed to progress in a sustainable direction.
Confidence building measures, in a word, means trust. Trust is the foundation which will open up all directions within us and between us in clarity of our global development through our self-awareness.
I believe that the virtualisation of virtue itself, as self-defined by broadcasting our intentions individually (and mathematically, within a 'configuration space' of human virtue) to create a unified representation of our the human spirit, will create a platform for us to envision the ideal state of our future collectively – beyond our current ability to understand or imagine as individuals.
This is something which would be of great use to an organisation like the UN which exists to amplify and perpetuate our highest ideals as a united society.
Learn more about the UN and its Sustainable Development Goals.
Commercialisation
Data is the currency of our future.
If data can be thought of as a form of currency in the age of information, then in terms of the data we have on the true nature of ourselves as sentimental and ambitious human beings, we have only thus far been able to define ourselves with data in purely superficial dimensions, commercially.
Business interests drive systems which loosely predict our buying habits and this analysis of human behaviour builds a commercial landscape which gives birth to new products and services which aim at intercepting the trajectory for our future selves with an alignment of virtues – leading to the transfer of value provided by meeting an expectation of customer needs with monetary value.
This is a fair motivator, however it is extremely low-fidelity in terms of the fact that it is a process built mainly on assumptions determined by past behaviour and the further assumption that people know what they really want, have considered greater possibilities or have the appropriate motivation to want to understand themselves properly, outside the limits of consumerist thinking or culturally-defined metrics which may not be truly providing personal growth or support to become all that they want to be.
Cohesion is simply a framework for thinking about the directions we want to go in, in truth – and provides the capacity to be more deliberate about orienting ourselves and our thinking towards our individual goals. In doing so we will inevitably uncover patterns in our collective ambition and be able to meet our future with a more informed and efficient process of transferring value toward our goals and between each other.
Commercially, Cohesion could represent a number of different opportunities for us to receive, provide or share monetary value.
One example would be to build a data profile, or digital-twin, at an unprecedented level of definition of our individual psychometrics by procuring an in-depth analysis of world-view, fundamental values and belief structure and orientation of ambition toward what we can all individually imagine as an ideal future state. This can be described through the field of Mathematical Psychology and we already have these frameworks in place by psychiatric clinicians and those who work in the field of neuroscience.
Cohesion would function commercially as a platform in which users could own and directly license a representation of their data to markets and remove the middle-person (the advertising industry) and so receive a direct monetary return for considering products or services which attempt to align with their virtues and support their goals, into the future.
I can't emphasise enough, however, that it could be so much more than just a way to circumvent advertising or train markets to our practical needs.
Epigenetics
We are only what we can imagine ourselves to be.
DNA is the language which has moved us into the future with generational change, for billions of years – we call this evolution. What is lesser understood is that now we are experiencing epigenetic change and are capable of evolving fluidly within a single lifetime without having to hand down our genes through sexual reproduction. This is a further abstraction of the representations of information in our DNA and into the conceptual realm of language, which defines us as living beings not just by our biology but how we think – or more importantly, how we can think, if we choose to change our mind and so change ourselves.
What path is our evolution on then – understanding that our future will be built on a foundation of our current epigenetics; or in other words, our current patterns of thinking?
It's impossible to tell without first having an understanding of ourselves, individually and qualitatively in data.
Once we can better understand the collective trajectory of our current thinking, we may be able to do with clarity what is necessary to fundamentally change ourselves to face our future sustainably and confidently.
Mathematics
First, you must define your mind.
Mathematical psychology is a subfield of psychology that uses mathematical models and techniques to understand and explain various aspects of human behaviour and cognition. It seeks to bring a quantitative and formal approach to the study of psychological processes. It has the potential to contribute to our understanding of collective behaviour and societal dynamics in several ways:
Modelling Individual Behaviour: Mathematical psychology often starts by modelling individual behaviour, such as decision-making, memory, perception, learning, future-forecasting and imagination. These models can be used to gain insights into how people make choices, process information, and respond to stimuli. Understanding individual behaviour is a crucial component of understanding collective behaviour.
Social Psychology: Mathematical psychology can be applied to social psychology, which studies how individuals interact with and influence one another. Mathematical models can help describe and predict phenomena like group dynamics, social networks, and the spread of ideas and behaviours within societies.
Game Theory: Game theory, a branch of mathematics often used in mathematical psychology, can be applied to understand strategic interactions among individuals and groups. It's particularly relevant in situations where individual and collective interests may conflict or align. Game theory can help analyse and predict outcomes in various social and economic scenarios.
Emergent Properties: When studying collective behaviour, mathematical psychology can help uncover emergent properties – phenomena that arise from the interactions of individuals within a collective. These emergent properties can include societal norms, cultural phenomena, and even macro-level trends like market behaviour or political outcomes.
Policy Analysis: Mathematical psychology can be applied to policy analysis and decision-making. By modelling how individuals and groups make decisions, policymakers can better understand the potential effects of different policies on a collective level. This can be valuable for designing policies that align with societal goals.
Interdisciplinary Collaboration: Mathematical psychology often involves collaboration between psychologists, mathematicians, statisticians, and computer scientists. Such interdisciplinary approaches can lead to innovative insights and solutions for understanding and addressing complex societal issues.
The mapping of an individual onto a highly-dimensional mathematical feature space can provide an unprecedented array of emergent properties unseen before in the pursuit of global cohesion and outcomes for a better democratic future.
Imagination
We are literally the imagination of ourselves.
If you can understand that our very identity is held within the stories that we tell ourselves; of who we are and what we are capable of as individuals – then it is an easy step to realise that the capacity for the imagination of our future-selves and the goals which we believe that we are capable of are also held within an understanding of our identity, on an individual level.
It is absolutely true that the outcome of our future is held within ourselves; within an understanding of ourselves and what is possible through the beauty of the human spirit.
In many ways, although the arrow of time points towards our future – we are defined by the backwards-extrapolation of our imaginations of a future which we hold as our current ideal and importantly, of what we believe as possible.
Cohesion aims to increase the potential for our future by defining future states through current beliefs and ideologies – using technology and mathematical psychology to provide not only social cohesion, but a literal and quantifiable vision of our future.
Connect
Please connect with me if you are interested to talk.
I can talk endlessly on this topic and am seeking corroboration.
