scientific cool

Is there objective value to the vernacular assertion that human communities are somehow "more cool" than communities of non-sentient metazoans, which are themselves somehow "spiffier" than communities of microbes alone? If so, a more scientific definition of the assertion's meaning might be needed for a start.

Imagine that "cool" in the vernacular applies to things that in some positive way show evidence of unexpectedness i.e. KL-divergence from ambient or correlation-surprisal in bits. These might include:

• a blank or low-noise canvas (e.g. provided by that new carpet or that freshly painted fence),
• smart engineering (e.g. found in that Mercedes-Benz or that new i-phone),
• informed/evolved connections (e.g. discovered at a school reunion or in a new job),
• and what else?

Other synonyms for cool which might be considered in this same context include:

• keen, nifty, rad, amazing,
• appealing, spiffy, neat,
• just right, fashionable, in sync,
• correlated, together, unflustered,
• less random, chilly, heat sink,
• and what else?

The simplest quantitative measure of coolness as unexpected harmony may be the surprisal of throwing N heads on the first toss of N coins. This is guess what: N bits! Other more familiar practical quantities that also show this quality of unexpectedness include:

• available work e.g. in the form of food and gasoline,
• the variety of species and number of niche-layers in a community,
• and what else?

This might be a good place to expand futher on what these important quantities have in common.

multilevel public square

Recent developments in the transmission of ideas between citizens have included things like the vote, the opinion poll, and more recently the blog. Through such tools, communities draw strength from the logical and perceptual tools of all members.

Regional task-focused wiki's, added to this sequence, can (possibly with local government support) help create multiscale versions of the public square by nurturing real-time (24-7) constructive internal-community discussion about topics of shared interest. Such discussion might for instance take the form of unofficial but jointly-edited:

• event notes for the specific audience at hand,
  
• task protocols e.g. for getting something done like:
  
  • getting a tree removed,
    
  • avoiding a speed trap,
    
  • meeting occupancy requirements,
    
  • and what else?
  
  
• observation notebooks about processes of community interest like:
  
  • traffic hazards,
    
  • flooding,
    
  • questionable activity,
    
  • "brown tap water",
    
  • and what else?
  
  
• educational information on locally-specific matters e.g. like:
  
  • selling electricity to the grid,
    
  • getting certain plants to grow,
    
  • and what else?
  
  
• strategy discussions e.g. on making sure that a new electrical-transformer substation in the area is safe for residents,
  
• and what else?
  

The big picture

What if science not only took a tolerant view of belief systems, but saw them as an important part of the physical structure of communities. Indeed nature has been telling us for a long time that subsystem correlations are a key physical part of the world around.

For example science already recognizes the ordered energy that powers our vehicles, our appliances, and even ourselves. It also recognizes the mutual information associated with species diversity on our planet.

The next step may be recognition of layer-multiplicity in niche-networks as just one more ad hoc measure of subsystem correlations (i.e. net surprisal or KL-divergence with respect to ambient) that we'd like to nurture as best we can. Work that each of us is doing to support correlations looking inward/outward from the physical boundaries of skin, family & culture fit into this picture.

This is one way that science might provide us with a picture so big that all residents of our solar system could enjoy making it better, and more quantitative, over time.

Multiscale objectives

In spite of our primate origins, prestige among apes is important but not the only meaningful goal in life.

Trick question

Are polarizing questions more likely to: (a) be ill-posed and not bear repeating, or (b) show others to be much stupider than you?

Winning hearts & minds

Sell democracy by showing not that it has bigger bombs but that it works better sustainably.

In this context niche-network layer-multiplicity might serve as a cross-disciplinary measure of how well democracy works.

Like available-work & species-diversity, NNLM is a measure of complexity defined by the standing crop of correlated-subsystems.

Seen this lately?

Idea makes hay while bad guy catches glare! Where is this sometimes a problem?