Friday, September 21, 2007

Essence of Web Evolution, A View of Web Evolution, Series No. 9

essenceA consequence of the last corollary is the recognition of the essence of web evolution.

Corollary 6: the evolution of World Wide Web is essentially the evolution of Web-resource-operating mechanism.

If every stage transition of Web evolution begins with an qualitative upgrade of WebROM, the progress of Web evolution must be synchronized to the progress of WebROM evolution. By this mean the progress of WebROM is the essence of Web evolution.

If WebROM is such a crucial character in Web evolution, by the Corollary 3 we must be able to find a mapping from it to a fundamental character that is the essence of huamn growth. Indeed there is one, the WebROM is respect to the self-consciousness.

Self-consciousness

self-consciousnessSelf-consciousness (or self-awareness) is "a personal understanding of the very core of one's own identity." Self-consciousness represents a person's recognition of which resources belong to oneself. We can hear people saying such as "this is my hand" or "this idea is at first thought out by me" or "I can do it". All of these comments point to one critical value of human beings---the recognition of self, or self-consciousness.

At the philosophical level, a person is not a random collection of various personalities, capabilities, and friendships. If we randomly put a set of personalities, capabilities, and friendships together, it is not a person at all. A person to be a person because of the existence of self-consciousness. "These are MY personalities; these are MY capabilities, these are MY friendships. To be together, it is ME!" Self-consciousness is the deepest concern of self. Self-consciousness is the most fundamental identity of individuals.

In similar, the philosophy beneath WebROM is to claim the authority over particular collection of Web resources. A random set of Web resources does not necessarily mean anything. Only if a set of Web resource is properly allocated based on the guide of certain WebROM, such a set of Web resources constitutes a proper meaning. This is what WebROM is really about. (see the following figure)
explanation of self-consciousness
The origin of human self-consciousness is still in mystery. Fortunately, this is not what we need to know to study Web evolution. By contrast, we do need to know that the maturing of self-consciousness is essential to human growth. This claim has been suggested by varied psychologists and anthropologists (e.g. here). The maturing (or evolving) of the self-consciousness allows humans to be master of resources with higher and higher quality. For example, children can handle only simple emotions such as like and hate, or simple behaviors such as do and not do, or simple interpersonal relations such as friend and enemy. Adults, by contrast, can handle complicated (higher quality) emotions such as love and irksomeness, or complicated (higher quality) behaviors such as devote and quash, or complicated (higher quality) interpersonal relations such as ally and rival. Thus, the growth of humans is essentially the maturing of humans' self-consciousness. By the Corollary 3, the evolution of WWW is essentially the progress of WebROM.

The next: Completion of a Stage Transition

2 comments:

Anonymous said...

Hello, I am sorry this is a little random, but i want to know about the painting with the rose petals and picture frame under the heading of self-consciousness. The art is so beautiful. where did you get the image? Do you know the artists name? thank you for your time. :)

Yihong Ding said...

Hello,

This artwork is indeed astonishing. I found it when I explore the topic of self-consciousness on the Web for my article. And then I found that it really shows what I thought.

The name of the artist is Mirjam Laater. And she is a young artist with great gift. She currently lives in Estonia.

Yihong