Over a year ago I created a monster…

It was a 4 processor 3.0Ghz Linux box. Strung unto its many available ports were over 12 terabytes of mounted data. I struggled with what exactly to call the beast until finally turning it on for the first time.

While the hum of all those drives and all that cooling equipment left me somewhat hypnotized, I was immediately aware that all the lights in the house flickered into that dim, please-give-me-more-power, state.

Thus was born, “darken.infophobia.net.”

For the last year “darken” served its 12 TB, also providing a nice extra desktop through VNC. Last night though, I came in to the smell of electric fire. It seems ole’ “darken” just couldn’t handle the heat (and being a computer obviously could not get out of the kitchen; err bedroom). Sad.

And so, I must explore an alternative solution to serving my 12 terabytes, as “darken”’s processor melted down at 5:10pm, January 16th, 2008. Perhaps I’ll buy the latest XPS from Dell that uses the new liquid cooled H2C system.

Until then…all now a moment of silence for my once mighty Core 2 Quad that overheated last evening, creating with its death, the worst smell of electric fire I’ve come across.

Darken… you will be missed!

Well, thank goodness for this news that the Fermi Paradox is back with a vengeance. And, its such an amazing question to think about: How come, despite billions of years of time, millions of light-years of life-supporting space, and all the complexity of the Heavens, the Universe is filled with what we can call the “Great Silence”? As Fermi put it, “Where is everybody?” What are they doing? Why can’t we detect them? Why can’t they detect us? No one seems to know.

A number of prominent futurists, a list that includes Ray Kurzweil and Hans Moravec, have speculated that the destiny of advanced intelligence is to re-work the cosmos itself. This has been imagined as an intelligence explosion as advanced life expands outward into the cosmos like a bubble. The entire Galaxy would be re-organized with much of its matter converted into computronium. Eventually, it is thought that the laws of the Universe will be re-tuned to meet the needs of advanced civilizations.

Interestingly enough I myself am writing a science fiction novel with the working title “Tether.” And, its about human beings discovering exactly this kind of cosmological engineering technology –Science moving at the speed of fiction…

Unfortunately, we do not appear to inhabit a Universe that even remotely resembles this model. The cosmos appears natural and unperturbed. This is reminiscent of the God problem and the presence of evil. We live in a Universe that is hostile, indifferent and pointless. If advanced ETIs had the capacity to re-engineer the Universe such that it was safer, more meaningful and paradisical they would have done so by now. By virtue of the fact that we observe such a dangerous Universe we should probably conclude that such a project is not an option.

This is all mostly true. But, of course the Universe appears dangerous to us, and the project seems as though its not an option. For one thing, and with this example its entirely a given: we would not be the species doing the cosmological re-engineering!

If this case were true, our Universe wouldn’t be tailored for us. In fact, given that, the Universe would appear especially in this case, dangerous and unperturbed as we observe it. Put another way, these aliens being different from us, would likely re-engineer a Universe that was not ideal for us.

Indeed, with clear reflection on this idea, one realizes logically, it is only because we have no working theory of Life, let alone for which this universe would be ideal, that we have no working theory in which the Universe could be re-engineered for life, to be ideal. Nor any theory to counter that notion directly.

What this does, is, give us more directions to go in. An interesting idea might be, as we see few species opt for technology on our planet as a means of solving evolutionary problems, that perhaps it is an indication of the success of species throughout the history of all life which opted for technology. In other words, perhaps technology is a bad thing to opt for. What if everybody was only ever able to engineer their own accidental destruction? Or, perhaps even more forward thinking, our accidental and eventual creation?

The idea of having a phobia probably causes most Americans to feel anxiety, that worry in itself though, in some cases, might just be another phobia — that is how I know, not all phobias are created equal. While the term phobia can mean having an irrational fear of something, lets not also exclude that it does also mean to have an irrational sensitivity to something.

Still, I feel warm considering the idea that “it all” began when I was just seven or eight years old, sitting behind a keyboard for the first time. Only because that idea itself, makes my progression over the last two decades, seem epic. Chances are, there was nothing epic going on. More than likely “it all”, as I so vaguely put it, was the result of a major case of infophobia.

Something we all suffer from… from time to time.

Now, I suspect, your mind will probably want to attack that word — infophobia — so allow me to do it first: there is no such word as infophobia, at least not in any English Dictionary that I have looked over.

Infophobia is not the battle-cry of some counterculture. Nor is it some industry’s new favorite buzzword. And, infophobia is not some fancy, underhanded term coined so that you’d land in the chair of a therapist either. In fact, infophobia is my very own term.

Let me clarify though, I don’t mean “my very own term” in the usual quaint sense. I mean, its my own term because I registered Infophobia as a trademarked business name. Surely though, shameless plugging is not the reason I brought the term up.

Infophobia describes the cause for (my) anyone’s irrational compulsion to know as much as possible at all times through as many mediums as he/she can find, and despite one’s physical limitations. The term is used to describe the cause for why someone seeks sources of information and information itself, only compulsively.

So, now you know what I mean, when I say, Infophobia. But, does it really mean anything — does such an “illness” exist?

Yes, it does.

We know this kind of behavior/phenomena has occurred in the past, because today, we see the results of the typical symptoms. For instance, one can directly correlate the advancements of information technology with a progressive trend toward open syndication of information. That is, starting with the advent of the Internet, one can find countless examples, on and including, the World Wide Web, or, through the birth of the Open Source Software Community, later leading to Web 2.0 philosophies of free use and collaboration — where one observes the complete transformation of these venues into Infophobic platforms. Clearly, members of these social networks are compelled, through the fear of missing some bit of data, and are motivated to stay connected, in order to remain having a sense of relevance — this is the very nature of popular culture.

We can consider almost any amount of demand in almost any form, with the purpose of information syndication, a typical result of one, or any combination of Infophobic symptoms. This demand is driven by what we can call the Principle of Ideal Preference. Simply stated that is, that the majority of the embodiment of a demand will always tend to prefer ideal results.

The best, simplest example is the “market shopper.” As consumers in a market, the embodiment of the demand is the ideal purchase of ideal products. No one goes shopping with the preference of buying something less than ideal, or in a less than ideal way. Even if it were suggested someone wanted to purchase something already broken, or from some far away place — already broken, or far away are restrictive and define the criteria by which the consumer has entitled the item, or the process ideal.

This is not simply a case of curiosity not so easily dismissed, either. Infophobia is a more deeply rooted part of the human pathology. And, understanding Infophobia, the fear of informational uncertainty itself, or of an awareness that avenues of information are potentially being missed, is integral to understanding the mindset applied during the development of innovative concepts. These fears, worries, and/or concerns invoke thought processes which help to sure up errors found at design time.

Infophobia promotes many of our current, and especially are most effective, analytical, human behaviors. Beyond just analysis, it is this pathological process that motivates, and re-enforces what would otherwise be a fleeting curiosity, and cements these impulses into evolving, problem-solving behaviors.