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Part 1
Frameworks and Methods
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Chapter 1.1
Conceptual Frameworks for a New Story
Human life expressed as civilization is the reflection of the Tools available and the sum of the Shells, Networks, and Settlements these tools have allowed us to build. We are both constrained and expanded by our Tools. Tools define Networks and Settlements.
Tools, Shells, Networks, and Settlements (TSNS) exist because humanity needs to existâthey are not merely extensions of ourselves, they are ourselves, they are the way we exist, and the means by which we exist and by which we protect ourselves, propagate our knowledge, and organize our groups, in order to leave a mark for others like us.
The TSNS Framework
Human life revolves around the tangibles that we have created as well as the one we have inherited. The tangibles of our manifest presence form the culture of our civilizations; they are both a burden and a purpose, as humans are destined to create and to maintain civilizations in order to survive. In the course of our history we have created Tools, Shells, and Networks, each of which is a reflection of the technological accomplishments of the times in which they were produced, as well as of the dreams of the people that created them. All summed up in the Settlements that contain our organized and purposeful social groups (Fig. 1).
Fig. 1. The TSNS Framework.
In the context of this framework, I have designated as Tools (T) all implements designed for the purpose of enabling or making possible the activity by which humans transform matter in purposeful and meaningful artifacts, with the intention of improving and nurturing the well-being of their society. I have designated as Shells (S) all systems that contain a human activity performed with or on tools, as well as housing, clothing, community structures, shops and markets, civic and business facilities, and large or small storage structures; and designated as Networks (N) all physical layouts, communication systems, sewage and drainage, transportation systems, food chains, and alike. Tools, Shells, Networks, and Settlements exist because humanity needs to existâthey are not merely extensions of ourselves, they are ourselves, they are the way we exist, and the means by which we exist and by which we protect ourselves, propagate our knowledge, and organize our groups, in order to leave a mark for others like us.
Human life expressed as civilization is the reflection of the Tools available and the sum of the Shells, Networks, and Settlements these tools have allowed us to build. We are both constrained and expanded by our Tools. Tools define Networks and Settlements. In the past, these Networks were in close proximity, as were Settlements, due to practical reasons like natural resource availabilityâwaterâeffort conservation, and so on. With the advent of the digital Network, digital data as a material and the tools it creates allows for the creation of Settlements unbound by physical proximity, bound only by social identity, scope and preferences.
Why Are Frameworks Important
Frameworks are important in the context of transformation because it is at the level of frameworks that transformation first begins. Our very structure is a deterministic construct in which the mind organizes reality, but frameworks organize the mind, and without altering the framework, transformation is all but impossible. Once frameworks are transformed, language also needs to be transformedâand Chapter 5.1, The Future of Knowing, deals with some of these aspectsâbecause language is used to describe and assign meaning to both the sections and modules of the framework, as well as the interactions within.
Before beginning a journey toward a richly augmented future, we need to understand the attributes of each section of the TSNS framework. Let us look at a few definitions:
Tools: a piece of equipment that you use with your hands to make or repair something; something that helps you to do a particular activity (Cambridge Dictionary).1
Shells: the basic outer structure of a building or vehicle, especially when the parts inside have been destroyed or taken or have not yet been made (Cambridge Dictionary).2
Networks: a large system consisting of many similar parts that are connected together to allow movement or communication between or along the parts, or between the parts and a control center (Cambridge Dictionary).3
Settlements: a place where people come to live or the process of settling in such a place (Cambridge Dictionary).4
The definitions above place the sections of the framework in the context of language and the meaning these words have in the Cambridge Dictionary. What is important in our context is not the linguistic definition of the words but defining the nature of the attributes they measure and represent.
What we seek to know is in what measure the nature of one section's attributes determines the nature of another section's attributes, what are the dependencies, and how they cooperate with one another in the construction of the framework. One more definition is now necessary: what is an âattributeâ? The Dutch philosopher Spinoza defines the term âattributeâ as âwhat the intellect perceives of substance as constituting its essence.â5 Spinoza makes a very important point about the dependencies of attributes to one anotherâalthough one attribute may be conceived without the aid of the otherâTools can be conceived without the aid of Settlementsâwe still cannot infer from that that they constitute two beings. Spinoza here is explaining something about the relationship among attributesâconceiving attributes independently is not evidence of the existence of independent attributes. While Tools can be independently conceived, they will eventually define themselves around the purpose they serve in creating, or being a part, of Shells, Networks, and Settlements. The attributes function as a whole, and so does the TSNS framework. Let us now look at how the intellect perceives the quintessence of Tools, Shells, Networks, and Settlements.
Tools
The nature of the Tool means its intrinsic capability to address materials, understanding that tools are material specific, and thus they have a limited opportunity to tackle a variety of materials. A knife can cut only something softer than the material it is built from. A turning wheel for clay can only produce round plates and cylindrical containers. A Tool is anything that has the capability of creating a new extension to our way of life, and that extension is contained in what I designated in this framework to be a Shell.
Tools create behaviors and the combination of tools and behaviors creates a disruption of the status quo. When this disruption is amplifiedâas exemplified in the chapter that followsâit creates further Shells which are containers of facts, ideas, methodologies, impressions, ways of doing things, all the results of the actions performed at the intersection of the tools which represent technology, and the behavior that has embraced them. Tools create other tools; a chair by itself has no meaning and no value if it is not designed for the purpose of allowing an individual to sit at a table, either to write or to eat. What gives value to both the table and the chair is the fact that both exist.
To make the table usable we create containersâShellsâin which the life necessities can be stored and transported, necessities such as water, grain, or even shallower shells that allow us to place food on them so we can eat. To complete all possible tasks that a particular tool can afford us, other tools are necessary: using a table for dining necessitates knives, forks, spoons, plates, and so forth.
The fundamental premise of the TSNS framework is that communities of people, and society and civilization in general, advance around the development of Tools. Tools create conditions for transforming nature into a habitable environment for humans, as well as conditions for creating storage vessels of various kinds.
Shells
A house is a shell that contains the life of an individual and his or her family. Clothing also falls in the category of shells, as it contains within it an individual's physical body, its characteristics, and his or her well-being. In the age of digital technology when data becomes a material, shells do not have to be physical constructs in order to contain something within. Any container is obviously a shell but less obvious is the fact that one's LinkedIn page is also shell, as it contains all the relevant information about that individual for others to see. In the same way, a Facebook page is also a shell which contains the aspirations as well as the achievements of that individual and his or her hopes and dreams. In both these examples, we can see that some human artifacts are hybrids in this framework, being at the same time part of more than one category of attributes. As illustrated in Fig. 2, quite a few modern artifacts are hybrids containing multiple attributes: a mobile phone is both a tool and a shell, an automobile the same, while a large department store is both a shell and a settlement.
Fig. 2. The TSNS Framework Detailed.
Networks
To bring all the goods to the table, we need to create networks, the roads for which we have to build transportation devicesâwhich qualify as both Tools and Shellsâand also we need the infrastructure, which is the electrical lines, the sewage, the gas pipelines, the water pipelines, and the means by which the materials and substances that we need for survival and comfort get transported from one location to another.
For Shells to become part of a Settlement, we need Networks. Settlements are made alongside networks or nodes connecting to networks. Alongside a network means the villages built alongside a river or cities built as nodes of communication along the seashore. As we discussed before in the case of tools, the nature of the network determines the nature of the settlement. A settlement built alongside the river is very likely to be populated by people involved in the exploitation of the riverâinvolved in either fishing or commerceâas would be the case with a settlement built using the sea as the network.
Settlements
Once the networks are in place, we now are ready to construct settlements, places where human life can evolve in the safety and comfort of a communal group, united by the same purpose.6 After we are settled, we create more tools, which in turn create more shells, which in turn make more networks necessary, and so forth. It follows that any settlement using the Internet as the network will have as its primary attractor the power of the network to simultaneously and instantly connect multiple users, giving them the same access to the same tools for participation and empowerment. The nature of the network that has created the settlement called Facebook is precisely described above: simultaneously and instantly connecting multiple users on the same platform.
As soon as settled on Facebook individuals will start creating more tools to increase the number of activities they can perform, and once these tools are created, they demand more shells, more places where we can store the new data that we just createdâshells like Instagram and WhatsApp.
The TSNS Framework in the Digital Era
In the past 20 years, a large number of tools have become digital, losing their physical attributes and being referred to as immaterial. Consequently, the TSNS framework now includes a variety of immaterial Tools, immaterial Shells, immaterial Networks (virtual), and immaterial Settlements. One's Facebook Page is an immaterial Shell, while Facebook as a platform is an immaterial Settlement.
Once becoming digital and data-driven, these components of the framework do not need inputs from users or even a user's physical presence in order to activate and function. The framework itself can now activate and function by itself, in a fully autonomous fashion. Fully autonomous Tools can augment themselves via artificial intelligence and machine learning and create in turn fully autonomous and augmented Shells, augmented to reinterpret reality through multiple layers of experience from which they can learn. These new layers of experience are now exemplified by products like Microsoft's HoloLens and Facebook's Oculus Rift, both redefining the notion of space which is so much at the core of the concept of Settlements.
The consequences of this augmentation and automation are connected to the disruptive potential of a framework being redefined at the philosophical level of what it really is and what it represents in people's lives, in the construct we call society. I mentioned in the introduction to this book that disruption challenges individuals at the philosophical level of life, and this is where the augmentation and autonomous nature of the TSNS framework is also presenting its challenges.
Tools, People, and Meaning in Life
Prior to industrialization, people's lives were not focused on tools with the exception of craftspeople, for whom tools were means of existence. The typical family in the city was not using tools to any extent. After industrialization, when machines were started being used widely, and we started needing to create for the machine, a number of toolsâdisguised as appliancesâinvaded the household, as well as regular workplaces where tools had no use before, such as accounting and administrative officesâdisguised as office equipmentâthings like typewriters, adding machines, duplicating machines, and later all their digital incarnations.
In the early 1900s, once machines start invading the household and the workspace, techniques are developed for the use of these machines in regular activities around the household and the office. A...
