One example of archetypal semiotic transference is the case of strong association between the mathematical symbols h-bar (ħ) and psi (Ψ) with the astrological symbols for the planets Saturn (♄) and Neptune (♆).  This example is best illustrated by taking note of the famous Schrödinger equation of quantum mechanics (below).  In this case, h-bar traditionally represents Plank’s constant, which is essentially the “smallest” boundary limit of an energy quanta (such as a photon), and psi represents the wave function, which is essentially the diffuse probability amplitude, and behaves like a wave.  H-bar (Planks’s constant) represents the extreme concrete and particular aspect of the quantum event, and psi (the wave function) represents the extreme abstract and non-particular aspect of the quantum event.

Clearly, the mathematical symbols have nearly identical visual morphology with the astrological symbols.  And even more, the meaningful interpretations for the symbols are nearly identical, and at least very similar.  In archetypal astrology, Saturn essentially represents boundaries, limits, contraction, and restriction; Neptune essentially represents the formless, intangible, invisible, diffuse, undifferentiated, and rules all forms of water and waves.  The direct association is actually quite perfect: as the planetary archetypes of Saturn and Neptune represent the tangible/physical and intangible/non-physical aspects of reality–and the mathematical quantum equations which use h-bar and psi typically involve descriptions of material and energetic aspects of reality.

Thus both the visual morphology of the symbols and the interpretive meaning of the symbols are semiotically very similar.  The question is: how did this happen?  Was the transference consciously intentional, or non-intentional and thus a literal “meaningful coincidence” (synchronicity)?  Certainly, the planetary astrological symbols were around (thousands of years) before quantum mechanics, and also well before the invention of these modern mathematical symbols and the corresponding mathematical functions.  If we look to the broad trend of western cultural history, it’s clear that the alchemical tradition borrowed from the symbols of astrology.  The alchemical tradition then ultimately lead into more contemporary chemistry, mathematics, and physics.  So it is feasible that the symbols made a gradual transfer from the astrological tradition, thru alchemy, and then into more contemporary expressions in modern science.  If this is the case, in the gradual transference thru time, the application of the symbols and their assigned meaning are made applicable in entirely different domains of knowledge, yet they maintain (and even augment) generally the same archetypal significance.

Interestingly, psi is also used in psychology to refer to the paranormal, supernatural, and extrasensory perception.  Again, this psychological interpretation of psi is directly associated to the archetypal meaning of symbolic Neptune: as a planetary archetype (of all the planetary archetypes) it is most strongly representative of the spiritual and psychic (commonly associated to dreams, fantasy, delusion, mysticism, telepathy, etc).

I intend to research the specifics of these instances of archetypal semiotic transference more … and will post updates here (along with other examples of archetypal semiotic transference).

A final point in closing: by the term “archetypal semiotic transference”, I intend “transference” to signify both literal transfer thru time, across physical space, and across conceptual or knowledge space, as well as refer to the traditional meaning of “transference” in psychology: how original psychological complexes from deep within an individual person’s past  can tend to be transfered (even projected) toward another person. Tho in this sense, the psychological transference is of archetypal nature and is thru the collective psyche.

Palantir

Some crafty engineers over at FaceBook recently created the Palantir open-source computer application (named after one of the powerful “seeing stone” orbs in Lord of the Rings) that visualizes live activity on the FaceBook social network. See a video of the application here.

Lexicon

The FaceBook Lexicon is an application that presents key word usage on member’s post pages, with all types of options for comparative demographics. Below is a sample image from Lexicon that shows the number of keyword posts for “Obama” from June 6 – Nov 31, 2008.  Accordingly, the “Obama” posts peak around election day.  Although males show a slight majority of keyword “Obama” posts in this graph, I had also done a different comparative graph that shows females posting “Obama” nearly twice as much as males around election day.

People Power

Here is a report on FaceBook’s greatest energy source: people power.  Literally speaking, the amount of energy people use burning calories while interacting with the social network (more than 2 billion minutes per day) exceeds the amount of electricity used to power the computer server network.

All together and more, these advents of information technology are literally beginning to bring increasing definition and expression to the multitudinous aspects involving the living, breathing, thinking, seeing body, mind, and spirit of the global collective.

Today, Homo sapiens is faced with a rapid modification of his environment, a transformation for which he is the involuntary collective agent. I am not implying that our species is threatened with extinction or that the “end of the world” is approaching. I am not preaching millenarianism. Rather, I would like to point out an alternative. Either we cross a new threshold, enter a new stage of hominization, by inventing some human attribute that is as essential as language but operates at a much higher level, or we continue to “communicate” through the media and think within the context of separate institutions, which contribute to the suffocation and division of intelligence. In the latter case we will no longer be confronted only by the problems of power and survival. But if we are committed to the process of collective intelligence, we will gradually create the technologies, sign systems, forms of social organization and regulation that enable us to think as a group, concentrate our intellectual and spiritual forces, and negotiate practical real-time solutions to the complex problems we must inevitably confront. We will gradually learn … to collectively invent ourselves as a species.

- From Pierre Levy’s principle work Collective Intelligence: Mankind’s Emerging World in Cyberspace

With the emergence of collective intelligence via the advents of the internet (web 2.0, 3.0, 4.0, 5.0, etc), an augmentation of symbolic language can be realized within the unfolding of a collectively engineered medium and universally orchestrated message.
[ originally published here: http://spacecollective.org/MichaelGaio/4258/The-OverLanguage ]

OpenSoundControl (OSC) is a protocol for communication among computers, sound synthesizers, and other multimedia devices that are optimized for modern networking technology. Bringing the benefits of modern networking technology to the world of electronic musical instruments, OSC’s advantages include interoperability, accuracy, flexibility, and enhanced organization and documentation.

OSC integrates within the set of other standard internet protocols.

Internet Protocol Mandala

 
It appears that OSC is intended to supersede MIDI in multiple aspects. For one, OSC uses standard ethernet cable to transfer more information, with more flexibility and control of the types of information, with much less latency (operating at broadband speeds). Since it uses TCP/IP Ethernet, various types of data can be transfered and synchronized between an assortment of devices and applications, and more—such transfers can happen over any network, local or non-local—including the internet. This could make for some very interesting and novel capabilities in group multimedia collaboration, and in multimedia interaction with internet data and APIs (such as real-time multimedia data interpretations of collective processes).

OSC is implemented with a wide arrangement of audio and multimedia creation software (such as CSound, Max/MSP, Quartz Composer, and Pure Data). There are also some interesting devices emerging that use the OSC protocol—such as the incredible multi-touch screen control interface, the Lemur, and an iPhone application.

The Lemur multi-touch screen control interface.

What is the extent of possibilities with this new technical protocol? Pierre Levy, in his principle work, Collective Intelligence: Mankind’s Emerging World in Cyberspace, speaks of the necessity of some type of new collective language:

We are thus in the situation of a species whose members … have not yet achieved the state of collective intelligence of the culture for lack of an articulated language. How do you invent a language that no one has spoken, for which there are no records, no examples, and when we lack even an idea of what such a language might be?

My sense is that OSC is yet another key technical advent in the gradual crossing of the threshold into the realization of such a language, the awakening of collective consciousness, and the first coherent articulations of collective intelligence.    

Now we may begin to collectively utter the early instances of an “over-language“. Such a language will not be on the same level as English, Chinese, or French. This meta-language, as a universal language of consilience, will transcend and include all preceding cultural contexts, and synthesize the diversity of our human strands. It will extend from our established media and data bases, yet somehow also surpass rational associations to the semiotic. It will engage us directly with an authentic immediacy and novelty that mimics the impulse of evolution itself. It will orient us, reflect our comprehension of ourselves, our reality, and our purpose in a type of synaesthesic hyper-poetry that continuously describes the nexus where each individual traverses the multitudinous terrain of collective being. It will arch like a rainbow across the noosphere, sprouting spontaneously upon the fresh and tender tongue of the collective psyche in astonishing response to sensing ourselves as a symphonic orchestration in participation with cosmic evolution.

Global IP feedback visualization.

[ Originally published here: http://spacecollective.org/MichaelGaio/4263/MetaLanguage-Technique-OSC ]