Sustainable Digital Environments: What Major Challenges Is Humankind Facing?
Abstract
:1. Why Do Digital Environments Call for Special Attention?
1.1. The Social Dimension of the Digital Revolution Is Not Yet Well Understood
1.2. Computers Become More Than Tools: The Coupling of Cells and Digital Devices
1.3. Computers (ED) Will Become a Mind: A Coupled-Systems Perspective
E | Environment (of a human system H) defined as the atoms of the universe minus the atoms constituting a specific human system H |
Em–abio = Eabio | Material, abiotic environment (the atoms belonging to the abiotic environment of a human system) |
Material, biotic environment (the atoms belonging to the biotic environment of a human system), the biotic environment is a union of the (“natural”) non-digital biological and bio-computers (and other prospective hybrid, digital technology-based biotic entities) | |
Social, epistemic, cultural layer of the biotic environment | |
The digital environment is a union of the (upcoming) biotic digital environment (i.e., biocomputers) and of the abiotic digital environment | |
Material environmental layer conceived of as the material composition of the material environment without computers, the (traditional) abiotic computers, the biotic environments without biocomputers, and biocomputers | |
Es | Socio-epistemic-cultural layer of the environment of a human system |
H | Human system (ranging from the cell, cell systems, organs via the human individual, group, organization, institutions, societies, supra-societal systems to the human species) |
Hm | Material human system defined as the activities of cells of the (a) individual; or (b) of subsystems of an individual; or (c) the activities of members of a human system that are assigned to a human system H and of the interactions of these cells |
Hs | The socio-epistemic-cultural layer of human systems H |
HEDS | The coupled human–digital environment system |
1.4. The Vulnerability of Coupled Human–Digital Environment Systems (HEDS) Should Be Understood
1.5. Do Social Systems Show Sufficient Adaptive Capacity to Cope with the Rebound Effects of this Rapid Transition to a Digital Environment?
1.6. The Structure of the Following Sections
2. What Episodes from the History of the Human Mind Hm Enabled Digital Environments?
2.1. The Brain Is Phylogenetically Changing Slowly, but Cultural-Environmental Impacts Are More Greatly Affecting the Individual’s Brain Structure
2.2. What Is Gained and What Is Lost by the Cascade of Abstractions Forming the Digital Environment ED?
3. The Techno-History of Digital Machines and Digital Environments ED
3.1. Approaching Machine-Based Computing
3.2. Digital, Analog, and Bio-Computing
3.3. The Exponential Development of the Velocity/Density of the Central Processing Unit Is Coming to an End
4. Discussion
4.1. Digital Technologies Mitigate Natural Mutation-Based Variation and Become a Means of Evolutionary Intervention with Large Societal Impacts
4.2. Biocomputers Open New Horizons of Computing: Computers Get a Mind
4.3. The Biophysical Impacts of Living in Digital Environments Have to Be Monitored.
4.4. The Destruction and Emergence of Social and Economic Structures of the Digital World Require Effective Resilience Management
4.5. Protecting the Human Individual‘s Privacy Calls for a Comprehensive Vulnerability Analysis with Respect to Big Data Threats
5. Conclusions
Acknowledgments
Conflicts of Interest
References
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Time Scale (Thousands of Years Ago) | Brain Size (cm3) |
---|---|
3,000,000 | 500 |
100,000 | 1500 |
10,000 | 1500 |
today | 1300 |
Time Scale (Thousands of Years Ago) | Type of Abstraction | Core Idea | References |
---|---|---|---|
6000 | Invention of numbers | Measuring magnitude by numbers of pieces | Wußing [111] |
2600 | Invention of “0” and place value numbers | Place value numbers for numerical calculation | Ifrah [101] |
500 | Binary numbers | A maximum simplified number system for calculation | Kaplan [103] |
393 | Mechanization of computing | The idea of a digital calculating clock for digital adding and subtracting (Wilhelm Schickard) | Wußing [111] |
196 | Programmable computer | Taking punched-card mechanisms as operation and variable cards/inputs | Babbage [112] |
169 | Symbolic logic | Formalizing reasoning | [104] |
79 | Abstracted model of structure and stepwise processing of computers | Algorithmic, controlled, memory-based processing of inputs which transform an initial to a final state (output), Turing’s state machine; John von Neumann’s architecture | Turing [107], Von Neumann [113] |
78 | Symbolic representation of technical systems | Applying symbolic language to relays and circuits | Shannon [106] |
70 | Inventing flexible technological memories | Utilizing electron properties for storing rewritable memories with (analog) technology (patent 1946) | Lavington [114] |
68 | Developing an algorithmic language | Going above machine code, creating the language PlankKalkül (Plancalculus) | Zuse [108] |
10–20 | Biocomputing | The operations of the cell and/or the structure of DNA, etc. are used as processing and storage units | Various researchers since ca. 1995 |
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Scholz, R.W. Sustainable Digital Environments: What Major Challenges Is Humankind Facing? Sustainability 2016, 8, 726. https://doi.org/10.3390/su8080726
Scholz RW. Sustainable Digital Environments: What Major Challenges Is Humankind Facing? Sustainability. 2016; 8(8):726. https://doi.org/10.3390/su8080726
Chicago/Turabian StyleScholz, Roland W. 2016. "Sustainable Digital Environments: What Major Challenges Is Humankind Facing?" Sustainability 8, no. 8: 726. https://doi.org/10.3390/su8080726