Immeasurable Value and the Next Egypt (archive from Posterous)
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Immeasurable Value and the Next Egypt
March 5 2011, 5:05 PM by Angela Min
I am a big fan of Seth Godin, his posts are at once inspiring, practical, and to me, pretty profound stuff if you're inclined to read deeply into things. My comment to his post, below:
"Is something important because you measure it, or is it measured because it's important? Does our new ability to see things with web data make the previously overlooked now visible, or are we giving weight to things merely because we've measured them?" http://sethgodin.typepad.com/seths_blog/2011/03/importantmeasured.html
This to me, is the question of all questions, of life. What constitutes meaning/importance? What is the yardstick by which we "measure"? In economics, it's the unanswerable conundrum, how do you define and measure Value?
My opinion is this: that the second we notice something, it takes on personal value in our minds. Because until that point is reached, our mind somehow filters it out of our field of noticing such things, out of our consciousness. But it doesn't mean it wasn't important because we failed to notice it until that moment. The question then becomes, how does a person come about to finally noticing something? Because, we tend to only notice things, when they are somehow already deemed important enough to notice, in our minds. A bit of circular logic, but such is the self-fulfilling characteristic of belief.
In any case, the question is, how does a person come about to finally noticing something? The answer, as the blog post alludes to, is because it comes high up on Google search (or is on the internet in some shape or form).
I specifically bring up search however, because the folks at Google ask themselves these questions everyday: what do humans consider important? And by extension, how will they then will behave? Because what we consider important tends to dictate how we will behave. Finding the answer to this issue is the internet's holy grail, that is, to figure out the algorithm-of-all-algorithm s - the DNA of human behavior.
The problem with computer-generated algorithms of behavior is that it only considers the past, in order to predict the future. It is a somewhat pessimistic view of humanity that says we are only as capable of doing as what we have done in the past.
And yet, who could have predicted Egypt? Not me, and certainly not some computer algorithm. And being the consumer of products of computer algorithms as I am (ie, a user of Google et. al.), I have carried my own admittedly pessimistic views of the region and would never have predicted such a thing to happen, at least not this soon.
And yet it happened. And the world sat back, amazed. Amazed and humbled by the power of the spirit to defy the entrenched, cynical notions we have come to have about the region. Like the rest of the world, I was thrilled, inspired and moved at the power of the human spirit to overcome tyranny as I witnessed these small acts of defiance, collectively creating something that bigger than the sum of its parts, a sum that defied description --- or prediction.
An algorithm cannot predict the unpredictable. But true that for the most part, everyday human life runs on the predictable. We are creatures of habit, culture, societal mores, peer pressure, etc. This makes us highly predictable in many ways, and measurable. And yes, these daily things are very important. But in and of themselves, they are not the whole story, neither of who we are as individuals, nor citizens of the human race.
And so, I posit, it is precisely the things that we do NOT notice, that are the doorways for opportunity and evolutionary change to happen, e.g., Egypt. It is the unknowable that makes the unpredictable possible, and it is that which makes all the trials of everyday human life, infinitely and immeasurably worth it. And that it is precisely this quality of Being Human that sets us apart from all other species of animals, that is, our ability, to perform the Miraculous.
And in that moment of the miraculous, do we defy the predictable, the rational ... and the knowable. We then come to know, how little we really do know, about the human spirit. We also come to accept the "fallible" (ie, non-rational) nature of the human spirit ... and how very necessary, that fallibility is, to progress as human civilization. Change-with-a-Capital-C doesn't happen by following the playbook and taking the rational, predictable course of life. It happens because something falls out of the norm, usually, something very unpleasant. A mistake, a failure. An immeasurable tragedy. Something that forces us to Question our heretofore compact and well-defined understanding of the world. Suddenly we must consider other possibilities --- because certainly,seeing things in the way we have always seen/noticed them before, isn't going to solve the problem, and in fact, may have caused the problem in the first place. As such, it is precisely the previously unnoticed/unpredicted thing, which becomes the doorway out. It is the thing which existed outside our normal sphere of understanding -- that becomes the exact point of leverage to go to the next level, effect change, or start a Revolution.
Science can predict that a gene may mutate as a theoretical possibility, but it cannot predict the how/when/where/why. Neither can an algorithm nor any autocratic entity, predict the catalyst for change that will compel the human spirit, to unshackle itself from generations of oppression. The moment an individual begins to notice worlds heretofore unnoticed, we open the gateway for new possibility, namely, that their own voices now be noticed too ... and deemed, finally, Worthy.
Google, Twitter, Facebook and the internet overall have done wonderful things in bringing the once "unnoticed" into our sphere of everyday consciousness. However, from this point on, we must proceed with caution. It is easy at this point to hand over the keys to say "now go find thee, oh great Internet and All Knowing Being, and deliver unto us another revolution-in-the-making to which I will then stop the daily course of my life to momentarily pay attention."
But the second we do that, the revolution will have ended before it had even begun. We will have handed over the keys of not only how we consume information, but of our personal and individual values as Human Beings, in our own individual worth, meaning, importance and value. No one entity, nor all the collective brilliant minds driving the Internet have the intellect or power to measure or predict the human spirit, nor when the next miracle will surface next to astound the World. Nor should they.
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