Living in parallel worlds

In the bricks and mortar world, information and knowledge can be gained by attending conferences or listening to and taking part in discussions at meetings. Because of a need for a physical presence, only one of these can be attended and only one speaker can be listened to at a time. This sequential exposure to the information and knowledge means that it may be necessary to sit through much uninteresting or irrelevant discussion before reaching anything useful or interesting.

In the world of the Internet, discussion takes the form of e-mail. This makes it possible to not only take part in many discussions at the same time but to be able to tune in to or tune out of any of the conversations at will. Not only would you be able to attend different meetings and listen to several people all "talking" at the same time, you could also hold any number of simultaneous conversations. It would be exactly as if it were possible for you to exist in many different parallel worlds at the same time.

The concept of parallel worlds greatly changes the nature of the gigantic cafe with millions of people. If you can have multiple existences, you can join in several group discussions at the same time. You can have multiple simultaneous conversations.

If everyone has multiple existences you can get the people you have built up relationships with to send one of their existences over to sit at a table with you. You could have these clones sitting around in different groups, at different tables, discussing different aspects of your problem. Because of the parallel worlds effect, you can effectively sit at each of these tables at the same time.

The ramifications of this are not intuitively realised because it is an experience quite unique to the environment of the Internet. The trick is to use a paradigm shift to see yourself at the centre of many hubs of communication. As an individual, connected to several hubs (i. e., being a member of several email discussion forums and groups) you can act as an intelligent interactive channel between them.

An idea brought up in one discussion forum can be transferred to a different group for qualification or expansion. This allows you to start with a basic idea and by means of steering it through different discussion forums be able to gradually hone and develop that idea to where it can become of practical use. On the way through, you can pick up new ideas, discover interesting branching and maybe even gather together a useful group of fellow co-operators to carry through a project. In this way you can develop and evolve a fresh idea from conception through to maturity.

Not only can you steer an idea from one group to another you can also take an idea around a number of groups then bring it back to the group where it started. In this way you can create your own feedback loops to take ideas or projects through many generations of evolution.

Not only will you benefit from the development of the idea, but, so also will the groups through which you present and pass through the ideas. Effectively, by transferring thought and ideas from group to group, the groups are being cross fertilised with knowledge. As this techniques is also used by others, the groups become nodes for all kinds of ideas to breed, develop and evolve.

It is this dynamic, interactive feature of email discussion groups that allow them to be used as tools in the hands of all participants over and above their obvious use as information sources and places to meet and make contact with people.