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INFOWAR: Re: Information wants to be free
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ARS ELECTRONICA FESTIVAL 98
INFOWAR. information.macht.krieg
Linz, Austria, september 07 - 12
http://www.aec.at/infowar
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From: "Ramsey, Shafer" <SRamsey@tusd.k12.az.us>
Subject: RE: the behavior patterns of information
[Ramsey, Shafer] It has been argued that information wants to
be free. This position has been attacked with the argument that
information can't want anything because it is a thing dependent on the
people who use it. I would like to suggest that information appears to
answer all of the questions we pose to any new life form and that
information can be said to be at least as alive as any virus.
Information, like a virus, requires a host to reproduce. It
alters the host at a structural level and does so permanently as new
synapses are formed or strengthened in the brain. Information alters
behavior patterns which in turn alter the host even further. As a host
behaves in accordance to the information that abortion and use of
contraception is wrong the host causes children to be born thus altering
the future of the host for decades to come if not for the rest of the
host's life.
Once it has obtained a host, information attempts to infect
other hosts through procelytic activities which are behavior patterns
embedded in the information. These activities may at first be difficult
to observe such as the above example of contraception and abortion
issues. This has in it the embedded behavior pattern of creating
children and as such has all of the behavior patterns embedded in the
information virus of Birth and Labor which includes raising children.
So the info-virus which says that contraception and abortion is wrong
doesn't need to blatantly say, "Go and teach others this." because it
subtly calls on behavior patterns of other info-viruses which will, if
followed, result in several new hosts being created and raised (or in
other words infected) with the info-viruses.
Just as a biological virus requires a host to survive, alters
the host at the physical level, and uses the host to infect other hosts,
Information behaves similarly. Does information 'want' to be free? Does
it want anything? I can't say that it does or doesn't. All we do know
is that it behaves as a life form creating symbiotic and parasitic
relationships with its hosts. It actively causes the infection of other
hosts through subtle behavior pattern changes and ultimately can be seen
as not native to the human brain.
It has been said in the past that the brain is a curious thing
in that it is curious about its environment and actively seeks to learn
and acquire as much information as possible. However, I would like to
take the stance that this is not so. That human beings as a species do
not actively seek information nor relish learning. If they did mothers
would not have to force their children to go to school but instead
teachers would have to force all of their students to leave school and
go home. If people relished in new ideas and learning they would not
harm each other or even murder each other in the name of dogma. Count
the number of lives and careers crushed by a violent majority of people
who simply will not tolerate new information which threatens their own
beliefs.
This is not the behavior one would expect from a rational ape it
is, however, in conformance with what one would expect from an host
fighting off infection of yet another virus. With this in mind the
question is begged, can we now structure new info-viruses which, when
infected in an enemy, will cause behavior patterns in that enemy such
that any military conflict with the enemy will be shorter, less bloody,
more easily won, if not out right stopped in advance. We have seen this
type of conflict occur in the past with the cold war (at least on a
crude level) where various states infected each other with created
info-viruses designed to stop the other states from attempting to begin
a military conflict. For nearly half a century the states of the world
have been in an active Info-War with each other in an attempt to stop
military activity from happening, or at the least control it if it
breaks out.
M. Shafer Ramsey
Ph.D. Candidate University of Arizona
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Date: Wed, 29 Apr 1998 21:22:03 +1000
From: melinda rackham <melinda@subtle.net>
To: infowar-en@aec.at
Subject: Re:
Felipe:
>Information does not want anything. It cannot want anything, it has no
>will.
>Information does not want to be free, but I (and maybe you) want it to be
>free.
information has agency.. code has intelligence in the same way DNA does.
its mission is to replicate and infiltrate.. we have let it assume a
power base and it now seems we humans have to shift our perspectives to
accomodate it.. or at least that is what we as a global society are
choosing to do..
otherwise we would turn the computers, printing presses, radios and
televisions off now.
is anyone doing that?
melinda
melinda rackham
http://www.subtle.net
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