Just discovering this now,but think its worth recirculating. A talk that explains and offers new understanding/insight surrounding people's difficulty in embrace the fuller impact of the web metaphor as it replaces the tree...similar to galileo expressing that earth not the center of the universe Manuel Lima makes a great case for loosening our attachment to centrality in favor of complexity
Exciting, creative, and important explanation of the current paradigm shift from the "Tree of Life" to the "Web of Life" taking place today. The word needs to get out about this, and become widely understood. Imagine how robustly we will all survive and thrive when we understand this!
'To know a little bit about everything' - I think humanity is moving even beyond that. We know a lot about every area of knowledge or aspect of reality. Especially generations which grew up with a computer and internet.
LOVE this. Chaos and complexity theory are heavily involved in studying networks. We should be thinking in terms of these new structures as our technology accelerates. We are able to play with them and understand them more and more through our computer tech. I believe we are emerging out of the ancient "tree hierarchies" our ancestors have lived in since civilization began. Thanks for posting.
The comparison at the end of the mouse's brain to the universe was absolutely incredible and so beautiful. Blew me away. Been waiting so long for another one of these, thank you!
You're right to question the idea of universal structure, yet it is useful to look at patterns and structures across disciplines, even as we examine how the analogies break down, to further refine the way our mind and the field of science maps onto complex reality. Doing this visually as well as conceptually is great, I hope we can bridge between pure computer simulations of reality and these formats blending art and philosophy with science.
Good presentation. It then means that communication is equivalent to networking and in a network, the person with the most connections has the most influence. Co-creation is emphasised, negotiation is continuous and productivity is higher.
so glad someone else has made that connection between the brain and the universe. I found the actual imaging of the drawn pictures, and noticed the similarities. I am excited that I am not the only one who has noticed this.:]
I was a bit reticent to what the conclusion was gonna be. But it was great! Not only the similarity between the micro and macro giving, a evolutive perspective not always understood and accepted. And of course, in the real world, the true advantage that comes from knowing a little from everything or from many sciences. Not overwhelming but quite inspiring. Thanks again RSA and thanks Manuel Lima!
"the need for a new way of thinking (...) we are almost going back to the renaissance man mentality; that is not about being specialist in one area, you need to know a little bit of everything (...) is really important that we actually make that mental shift" ❤
When I look at this and then think about our attempts to 'attribute' success in web analytics, I wince. Our shiny new toys are all clinging up at the tip of an iceberg of motivation.
This is making me think about how out-dated our school system is.. everyone is learning the same thing, everyone needs "common knowledge".. for what? we need people to interact with specialities! - it is those who are highly specialised that comes out with the new ideas and features to our world, those who challenge their specialised knowledge with others' specialised knowledge!. Common knowledge is like the tree, everyone agree's with root and the log, but as you see in the video, everything connects! so be specialised, and share that specialised knowledge with others specialities, and you might just create something.. Not with everyone having the same knowledge and thereby agrees with one another. It might have gotten us to where we are, but we need a different strategy to reach further.. Atleast that is what I believe! :)
Even Deleuze and Guattari emphasize specialization in a Thousand Plateaus on the chapter about the BWO. They clearly state that the most effective changes and transformations take place through a rigorous focus on specific areas and zones. They encourage specialized creativity in a sense.
the problem with too many specialists is if people are too specialized they may not see more abstract and less obviously connections existing between the specialties.
Can we forget our existence (trunk) in favor of our "being" (crown), in a connect/disconnect attitude? Is this human? Is our ability to interact with our eco and knowledge "crown", the key for difference among equals? Is knowing what to ask more important than the answer? I understand this is "just" a new way to represent knowledge... I'm just exploring... Congratulations Manuel!
Recently I've read an interview with a biologist (sorry, can't give a link 'cos it's in Russian) who was explaining that the genetic code of any mammal is about 90% formed by the small parts of various bacteria's genetic code. He was explaining that the evolution is a process of setting network relations which is much more complicated than it was thought before.
Throughout life we rebuild and establish networks and connections in our brains in different ways so that eventually we consider things similar that have little similarity. For example, a Doctor would have a million items in a list of symptoms but to accurately diagnose, based on epidemiology, and other factors, such as details about their patients, they need to remodel knowledge and build a cognitive map that serves the ultimate purpose. This is our evolutionary advantage.
A tremendous amount of information crammed into such a short video. Will have to watch it over a few times It actually made me think about the intertwining of all of life forms, knowledge, history, science, technology etc., and now we have to power to pull it all together through modern technology. I feel that as far as understanding web science and the relationship between all entities and disciplines, we are only at the start of a very exciting and fruitful journey (The industrial revolution was only the start of a more organised society re means of production and the adapted life style)
I agree. Most religions are built on, or absorve, one or more philosophic principals or schools. That alone makes the study worth. Besides, the impact it have on our society and history is undeniable. Some people say religion is bad philosophy. I don't think I would put it like that myself, but I can see their point.
I'd say it's more a limit of human cognition. Our challenge as a species is to learn how to comprehend systems that don't easily map into our wet-ware. That takes more than just *illustrating* complex ideas, which intentionally simplifies reality to be comprehensible. The state of discourse on issues like climate change and terrorism reflect our addiction to over-simplifying an issue to understand it, and then forgetting it's just an illustration ... and solving the simplified version!
Search for "Alan Watts - Web of Life". For full lecture, start with "Alan Watts - Web as Mutuality - (Web of Life Lecture Part 1)". He said this shit (and explored it more deeply) well over 50 years ago. Glad people like Manuel are finally catching on.
The synthesis of trees and networks have been formalized in mathematics in bigraph theory! Check out Robin Milner's "The Space and Motion of Communicating Agents" for the exploration of that space!
Brilliant! It has helped me immeasurably to present views, which I have always instinctively known to be true, in a far more articulate and structured manner. Thank you!
@omfg4all: Excellent comment. The emporer, or network architects, wears no clothes. Staffor Beer warned us as far as 1973 in his book “Designing Freedom” (or Tyranny) that computers could be gravely misused. Instead of using the computer’s capabilities to amplify control variety or attenuate incoming variety, computers could be used to proliferate the systems variety, therefore rendering impossible any form of individual human control.
Everything is a network or a network of networks. Wow this blew my mind and made me think I cannot find a single thing I do or interact with that does not share network similarities - My neural network is overloading.
wow, amazing. while watcing this video it came up to me that rsa helps in all videos by teaching some sort of spacial cognition with the drawings, very interesting, we get smarter in that way too while watching rsa. our brains learn how to draw space and experience designed thinking.
I found an article on Scientific American by Melinda Wenner titled "Humans Carry More Bacterial Cells than Human Ones" that explains it fairly well. Basically, saying that the human body is "made" of bacteria seems a tad misleading. Rather, the human body contains 10 times more bacterial cells than our own human cells. These bacterial cells exist in a symbiotic relationship with our body, but our bodies are not "made" of them.
Great topic. The idea of networks (rhizome) vs trees (hierarchy) is a true shift of the whole paradigm. Right now we are facing the huge change in social practices that can be explained only through this idea. Though there is some Marxist (or to some degree Hegelian) dialectics in that ;)
I know it's fun and I started to read up on it but not much 'till now. Well, thanks for your time. I guess, pi and e do contain a good deal more information than perfect randomness, while still being potentially normal (not yet known, obviously), so yeah, that's probably the answer. Strings that define, for instance, transcendental (or maybe irrational is already strong enough) numbers.
Its bit fast, but considering he condensed knowledge from milleniums to current day in 9mt is quite commendable, a brain tickler. Summarising that we are in beginning of a new era, the network thinking-a bit of everything,not specialists is my take away message..Very good animation,brilliantly conceived &presented
There are (at least) two basic theorems anyone who talks about complexity should be aware of: any unstructured logical schema can be represented by a structured one and any tree can be represented as a binary tree. What matters is how one represents in a computer that network - and the author should learn to design and manage databases, and should master concepts such as the adjacency matrix, and all basic structures. References: Fundamentals of Data Structures Hardcover - June 1, 1983 by Ellis Horowitz (Author) , Sartaj Sahni - a classical book that any physicist should read. Concepts are great, and that of complexity is not new; the challenge is to manage these notions in applications. And so far all that beautiful theory hasn't gotten an inch away from Horrowitz and Sahni's book when it comes to applications. Good luck with complexity- I vote for a theory of simplicity as I believe in Einstein;s words: "Make everything as simple as possible, but not simpler".
Are you suggesting rhizomatic structure of the society is the future of human kind with the hierarchy overthrown or narrowed to minimal necessity? I saw a talk on TED, where a programmer suggested applying the principle of Github (where ppl collaborate) to law-making process. This is a great way of visually representing information. I imagine if all the dry theory one reads through or any lecture one has to sit through was animated like this. This would be way better than reading wikis.
That has to be the biggest ad for basic income grant. Trust the networks - Instead of building hierarchys (and entrusting some people with power to prevent a misuse of power, that was given to people because of the misuse of power - and so on).
Human, you just made my day! The illustration is amazing and the conference substantial and appealing. Though, I'd love to know what arguments are invalid (untrue) on the commentary, apparently you already took the time investigate.
i have been lucky, because my teacher (sadly only one) aknowledges that this is more crucial information than most of what is told by other teachers. and i feel the same.
It's as if we're confined to world of degrees between two extremes, which themselves are merely degrees. Each world between the two extremes of two degrees, like the many world's interpretation, are relative in spatial dimensions to themselves: an infinite number of worlds, an infinite number of degrees, an infinite number of extremes.
How to tell between complexity and complication or network contra-diction must help tell where some of the puzzles dont fit, like the difference between heirarchy from oligarchy if you get my drift.
I think a network based on technology is determined by wires. Web life is based on open communications with no wires. {Maturana-Varela (The Tree of Knowledge) conceives an ongoing conversation, or ongoing coordination of actions. Conversation is a meshing of language and mood or emotion}
Another great talk. The animation does help with comprehension but I would request adding text to emphasize the talk. When a large amount of text is used, I find it distracting from the point being made.
![Megan Thee Stallion - Roc Steady (feat. Flo Milli) [Official Video]](http://i.ytimg.com/vi/HozPPyqW0dY/mqdefault.jpg)
This is the most amazing thing I have seen today!If you want to stay happy continue learning!
Just discovering this now,but think its worth recirculating. A talk that explains and offers new understanding/insight surrounding people's difficulty in embrace the fuller impact of the web metaphor as it replaces the tree...similar to galileo expressing that earth not the center of the universe Manuel Lima makes a great case for loosening our attachment to centrality in favor of complexity
this has got to be the greatest animation i've ever seen. it blows my mind.
Exciting, creative, and important explanation of the current paradigm shift from the "Tree of Life" to the "Web of Life" taking place today. The word needs to get out about this, and become widely understood. Imagine how robustly we will all survive and thrive when we understand this!
'To know a little bit about everything' - I think humanity is moving even beyond that. We know a lot about every area of knowledge or aspect of reality. Especially generations which grew up with a computer and internet.
LOVE this. Chaos and complexity theory are heavily involved in studying networks. We should be thinking in terms of these new structures as our technology accelerates. We are able to play with them and understand them more and more through our computer tech. I believe we are emerging out of the ancient "tree hierarchies" our ancestors have lived in since civilization began. Thanks for posting.
The comparison at the end of the mouse's brain to the universe was absolutely incredible and so beautiful. Blew me away. Been waiting so long for another one of these, thank you!
I am going to have to watch it a few more times to understand it all. Big thanks to RSA!
You're right to question the idea of universal structure, yet it is useful to look at patterns and structures across disciplines, even as we examine how the analogies break down, to further refine the way our mind and the field of science maps onto complex reality. Doing this visually as well as conceptually is great, I hope we can bridge between pure computer simulations of reality and these formats blending art and philosophy with science.
Good presentation. It then means that communication is equivalent to networking and in a network, the person with the most connections has the most influence. Co-creation is emphasised, negotiation is continuous and productivity is higher.
so glad someone else has made that connection between the brain and the universe. I found the actual imaging of the drawn pictures, and noticed the similarities. I am excited that I am not the only one who has noticed this.:]
"I think there's immense benefits that can come from this networked outlook of the world itself". Covers it quite well.
I was a bit reticent to what the conclusion was gonna be. But it was great! Not only the similarity between the micro and macro giving, a evolutive perspective not always understood and accepted. And of course, in the real world, the true advantage that comes from knowing a little from everything or from many sciences.
Not overwhelming but quite inspiring.
Thanks again RSA and thanks Manuel Lima!
"the need for a new way of thinking (...) we are almost going back to the renaissance man mentality; that is not about being specialist in one area, you need to know a little bit of everything (...) is really important that we actually make that mental shift" ❤
Yes! This is the best way to visualize spoken information I have ever seen. It would be awesome if this were to be done for much more things!
When I look at this and then think about our attempts to 'attribute' success in web analytics, I wince. Our shiny new toys are all clinging up at the tip of an iceberg of motivation.
You are right man! What a huge challange.
We watched those videos in my world history class. They are truly amazing!
This is making me think about how out-dated our school system is.. everyone is learning the same thing, everyone needs "common knowledge".. for what? we need people to interact with specialities! - it is those who are highly specialised that comes out with the new ideas and features to our world, those who challenge their specialised knowledge with others' specialised knowledge!. Common knowledge is like the tree, everyone agree's with root and the log, but as you see in the video, everything connects! so be specialised, and share that specialised knowledge with others specialities, and you might just create something.. Not with everyone having the same knowledge and thereby agrees with one another. It might have gotten us to where we are, but we need a different strategy to reach further.. Atleast that is what I believe! :)
Even Deleuze and Guattari emphasize specialization in a Thousand Plateaus on the chapter about the BWO. They clearly state that the most effective changes and transformations take place through a rigorous focus on specific areas and zones. They encourage specialized creativity in a sense.
the problem with too many specialists is if people are too specialized they may not see more abstract and less obviously connections existing between the specialties.
aka collaborate
These videos rock.
Extensive reading assignment: The web of Life - Fritjof Capra
This is utterly fantastic. Well done Matthew Taylor and the RSA!
Not just Relevant, but also fully descriptive!!!
Can we forget our existence (trunk) in favor of our "being" (crown), in a connect/disconnect attitude? Is this human? Is our ability to interact with our eco and knowledge "crown", the key for difference among equals? Is knowing what to ask more important than the answer?
I understand this is "just" a new way to represent knowledge... I'm just exploring...
Congratulations Manuel!
This is internet gold and the reason I subscribed!
Most elegant. Exceptional execution. Simple, understandable, beautiful. Thank you.
I had been waiting far too long for this and it delivered.
Recently I've read an interview with a biologist (sorry, can't give a link 'cos it's in Russian) who was explaining that the genetic code of any mammal is about 90% formed by the small parts of various bacteria's genetic code. He was explaining that the evolution is a process of setting network relations which is much more complicated than it was thought before.
omg. this animation is too good! RSA plz put out more of these
Throughout life we rebuild and establish networks and connections in our brains in different ways so that eventually we consider things similar that have little similarity. For example, a Doctor would have a million items in a list of symptoms but to accurately diagnose, based on epidemiology, and other factors, such as details about their patients, they need to remodel knowledge and build a cognitive map that serves the ultimate purpose. This is our evolutionary advantage.
I love this animation. So much knowledge packed into a short amount of time.
A tremendous amount of information crammed into such a short video. Will have to watch it over a few times
It actually made me think about the intertwining of all of life forms, knowledge, history, science, technology etc., and now we have to power to pull it all together through modern technology. I feel that as far as understanding web science and the relationship between all entities and disciplines, we are only at the start of a very exciting and fruitful journey (The industrial revolution was only the start of a more organised society re means of production and the adapted life style)
Quite interesting presentation of how life really is .... meanwhile, it makes God believers more impressed of the marvels of God's creation!!!
I agree. Most religions are built on, or absorve, one or more philosophic principals or schools. That alone makes the study worth. Besides, the impact it have on our society and history is undeniable. Some people say religion is bad philosophy. I don't think I would put it like that myself, but I can see their point.
First I thought it was about computer networks but this is more fascinating.
Hi Olimario,
Thanks very much for the compliment!
Prints and PDFs of our RSA Animates can be purchased on the Cognitive Media website.
- The CM Team
I'd say it's more a limit of human cognition. Our challenge as a species is to learn how to comprehend systems that don't easily map into our wet-ware. That takes more than just *illustrating* complex ideas, which intentionally simplifies reality to be comprehensible. The state of discourse on issues like climate change and terrorism reflect our addiction to over-simplifying an issue to understand it, and then forgetting it's just an illustration ... and solving the simplified version!
Thank you for sharing this visual primer on classification systems.
Search for "Alan Watts - Web of Life". For full lecture, start with "Alan Watts - Web as Mutuality - (Web of Life Lecture Part 1)". He said this shit (and explored it more deeply) well over 50 years ago. Glad people like Manuel are finally catching on.
Complexity made simple, love this.
The final state of the white board is amazing ! You could print posters :)
Best thing on the internet.
Also, I'd love to have a panoramic print of this talk to hang on my wall.
MAKE IT SO!
me enculo!! this is the BOMB, my mind is blown, thank you for giving me this piece of the puzzle! Great things will come soon...
The synthesis of trees and networks have been formalized in mathematics in bigraph theory! Check out Robin Milner's "The Space and Motion of Communicating Agents" for the exploration of that space!
Brilliant! It has helped me immeasurably to present views, which I have always instinctively known to be true, in a far more articulate and structured manner. Thank you!
@omfg4all: Excellent comment. The emporer, or network architects, wears no clothes.
Staffor Beer warned us as far as 1973 in his book “Designing Freedom” (or Tyranny) that computers could be gravely misused. Instead of using the computer’s capabilities to amplify control variety or attenuate incoming variety, computers could be used to proliferate the systems variety, therefore rendering impossible any form of individual human control.
That was absolutely badass. Watching these videos is an amazing way to kickstart the brain in the morning before work :-)
Education should no longer be about what I know but what WE know, and how we can use that knowledge to improve the world.
Everything is a network or a network of networks. Wow this blew my mind and made me think I cannot find a single thing I do or interact with that does not share network similarities - My neural network is overloading.
Very beautiful, but what I enjoy most, is seeing the process of it being drawn, which has significantly decreased over time.
wow, amazing. while watcing this video it came up to me that rsa helps in all videos by teaching some sort of spacial cognition with the drawings, very interesting, we get smarter in that way too while watching rsa. our brains learn how to draw space and experience designed thinking.
Highly inspirational and motivational, thank you Manuel!
I found an article on Scientific American by Melinda Wenner titled "Humans Carry More Bacterial Cells than Human Ones" that explains it fairly well.
Basically, saying that the human body is "made" of bacteria seems a tad misleading. Rather, the human body contains 10 times more bacterial cells than our own human cells. These bacterial cells exist in a symbiotic relationship with our body, but our bodies are not "made" of them.
Defiantly tunes me in more with the artwork animation!
Great topic. The idea of networks (rhizome) vs trees (hierarchy) is a true shift of the whole paradigm. Right now we are facing the huge change in social practices that can be explained only through this idea. Though there is some Marxist (or to some degree Hegelian) dialectics in that ;)
I know it's fun and I started to read up on it but not much 'till now.
Well, thanks for your time. I guess, pi and e do contain a good deal more information than perfect randomness, while still being potentially normal (not yet known, obviously), so yeah, that's probably the answer. Strings that define, for instance, transcendental (or maybe irrational is already strong enough) numbers.
Its bit fast, but considering he condensed knowledge from milleniums to current day in 9mt is quite commendable, a brain tickler. Summarising that we are in beginning of a new era, the network thinking-a bit of everything,not specialists is my take away message..Very good animation,brilliantly conceived &presented
This is pretty much old news. There is some great work done by Ken Wilber on the Integral perspective. Ref: "A Brief History of Everything"
Warren Weaver's article was actually named "Science and Complexity", if you are interested.
Excellent video: nicely entertaining, well paced, fun to watch and (most important) very informative. Thanks.
it will be great that this can be published as poster
There are (at least) two basic theorems anyone who talks about complexity should be aware of: any unstructured logical schema can be represented by a structured one and any tree can be represented as a binary tree. What matters is how one represents in a computer that network - and the author should learn to design and manage databases, and should master concepts such as the adjacency matrix, and all basic structures. References: Fundamentals of Data Structures Hardcover - June 1, 1983 by Ellis Horowitz (Author) , Sartaj Sahni - a classical book that any physicist should read. Concepts are great, and that of complexity is not new; the challenge is to manage these notions in applications. And so far all that beautiful theory hasn't gotten an inch away from Horrowitz and Sahni's book when it comes to applications. Good luck with complexity- I vote for a theory of simplicity as I believe in Einstein;s words: "Make everything as simple as possible, but not simpler".
I want to propose to some of my teachers playing this type of videos during classes
How was this done? It's still killing on finding out how they were able to have the artist draw this big piece.
Are you suggesting rhizomatic structure of the society is the future of human kind with the hierarchy overthrown or narrowed to minimal necessity? I saw a talk on TED, where a programmer suggested applying the principle of Github (where ppl collaborate) to law-making process.
This is a great way of visually representing information. I imagine if all the dry theory one reads through or any lecture one has to sit through was animated like this. This would be way better than reading wikis.
James Burke proved all this stuff on his Connections TV show in 1978 how things are interconnected and similarities.
i really appreciate the work you put into this video presentation. the clip is even suggested for a module i have in systems thinking
A very important perspective. Thank you.
That has to be the biggest ad for basic income grant. Trust the networks - Instead of building hierarchys (and entrusting some people with power to prevent a misuse of power, that was given to people because of the misuse of power - and so on).
cos we always ask for the whole board after the video, they actually showed it this time = D
Thanks
I
I just love these animations combined with great talks! Thank you! But where are the credits for the artists?
I so appreciate this! great Job guys
Human, you just made my day! The illustration is amazing and the conference substantial and appealing. Though, I'd love to know what arguments are invalid (untrue) on the commentary, apparently you already took the time investigate.
Wow what a great experience.
i have been lucky, because my teacher (sadly only one) aknowledges that this is more crucial information than most of what is told by other teachers. and i feel the same.
Really liked this video, different from what teachers have taught me at school
It would be really nice to be able to download the final image and/or buy a poster of it!
It's as if we're confined to world of degrees between two extremes, which themselves are merely degrees. Each world between the two extremes of two degrees, like the many world's interpretation, are relative in spatial dimensions to themselves: an infinite number of worlds, an infinite number of degrees, an infinite number of extremes.
finally another animate!
I absolutely love these.
nice video....
we are quantum observers of the universe and ourselves
It reminds me of the song by the Beatles
Within and without you ....
Fucking awesome RSA. Great talk, and one of the best animates too cogmedia, good job.
Excellent animation, a great learning tool!
Thanks!
Yes, this is why I subscribed!
How to tell between complexity and complication or network contra-diction must help tell where some of the puzzles dont fit, like the difference between heirarchy from oligarchy if you get my drift.
those drawings are just awesome ;) best ones ive seen from RSA for some reason :)
I want that finished poster so much!
I think a network based on technology is determined by wires. Web life is based on open communications with no wires. {Maturana-Varela (The Tree of Knowledge) conceives an ongoing conversation, or ongoing coordination of actions. Conversation is a meshing of language and mood or emotion}
Perfect, as usual
Totally Relevant!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
Been waiting forever for one of these :3 :3
truly impressive.
Another great talk. The animation does help with comprehension but I would request adding text to emphasize the talk. When a large amount of text is used, I find it distracting from the point being made.
this is simple and easy to understand.
We've already got one! You can download our Android app here - thersa.org / iphone
Absolutely inspiring!
This video is so brilliant!
I wouldn't be surprised if this animator was the architect of my dreams.
I love your videos! Thank you for sharing! They are awesome.
Dear What tool you are using to make these videos.? I'm Soo impressed
the flower of life is a great afterpiece to this video :D