We're "connected" in how our actions affect each other. It's a small world after all, as the saying goes. Our small-world connectivity falls within the other popular phrase of "six degrees of separation". How does that work?
Credit: Daniel Tenerife/Wikipedia, CC BY-SA 2.0,
Systems of complex structuring and organization form from small individuated parts that form larger wholes. This applies at the atomic level to form elements, elements to form molecules, molecules to form larger composite substances like cells and emergence of life with greater complexity. The system of ecology is a vast network. The mammalian brain has networks of neurons. We also have complexity in the structuring of society and interaction with each other and other animals.
The human world has created other complex levels of interaction, like the traffic systems of roads or subways/metros, the power grids, as well as the vastly interconnected World Wide Web of the Internet. This this all a coincidence? Or is there a common underlying mechanism that drives the emergence of complex interconnected structures in reality?
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A study from 2017 published in Scientific Reports looked at these questions. It turns out there is a common mechanism at play that leads to the emergence and maintenance of networked structures: network diffusion. Network diffusion is the spreading of something within a network. This can happen with diseases within a population where biological information flows and diffusion as a contagion, or viral media in a social network where digital information transfers and spreads.
Small-world topology is a common component to the formation of network structures. When information flow is present in the evolution of a system, network organization and connectivity emerges naturally. Small-world network connections happen when the nodes or neighbors in a network can be reach each other within a small number of hops or steps.
Credit: The Opte Project/wikimedia, CC BY 2.5
This is how the networking infrastructure of the whole Internet works. If you open a command-prompt and "traceroute" a website domain or IP address, you will trace the route it takes for your computer to reach the destination. When I "tracert" google.ca, it takes me from my computer to my router, then out to my ISP, then out to various other routing networks on the infrastructure of the Internet to eventually make it to an IP the is resolved from the domain google.ca in 12 steps or hops. Routers, switches and hubs in hardware networking allow us to be quickly connected to others in local networks like companies (intranets), or globally through the Internet.
The small-world network allows information to move faster with nodes being more interconnected. Imagine a network of 12 nodes in a circle. If node1 wanted to contact node6 with only one node connected to the next node, then communication would have to pass from node1, to node2, to node3, to node4, to node5, then to node6. But when nodes are interconnected, node1 can maybe be directly connected to node6, and if not, then it's connected to another node that is already only one or a few hops a way from node6. Instead of going through 5 steps, node1 can talk to node6 in 1 or 2 steps maybe.
Credit: Schulllz/Wikimedia, CC BY-SA 3.0
In the emergence of complex network structures, adaptive rewiring can take place to change how nodes are connected to each other. The network structure adapts and short-cuts are created between nodes to improve network diffusion and reduce useless traffic routes. This creates small-world structures, and the concept of six degrees of separation.
At first the Internet was small, but over time new routing nodes were built and more people became connected, and more quickly as more nodes were built. Over time the connection became more direct. The same thing happens in the brain with neuronal networks as we learn new information or stop using old pathways for things that are no longer useful or used less often.
The small-world structures of nodes are each centralized and hierarchical to themselves with everything around them being decentralized and modular with varying pathways to reach a destination. As network diffusion increases, adaptability increases, so that when one node goes down for instance, then another pathways can be used to diffuse the information without much disruption in the overall networks connectivity of one one point to another.
The more that diffusion is possible, the greater the configuration of a small-world network and adaptability with equilibrium in the network state. Blockchains function similarly. If one witness node goes down, the diffusion of information continues as there are still others to take it's place and maintain the equilibrium of the network state.
In small-world networks, most nodes are not direct neighbors to each other, but because because neighbors are all connected, then one node can reach another far away in a few hops or steps in a short period of time and allow the diffusion of information to be done quickly. If everything was connected in a ring or straight-line topology, then one node going down would mean the whole network would be at a stand-still or move in only one direction ans much slower.
Credit: Ministère des Transports du Québec/Wikimedia, CC BY-SA 4.0
The subway/metro systems allow moving between lines faster when one line connects to another through a sharing a station in common, and people can moves faster, and even allow people to move around if one station is down in one line. The same happens with power grids, the Internet and our brains. Six degrees of separation often happens because nodes are so interconnected that they are only separated from each other by 6 or fewer hops or steps.
References:
- Six degrees of separation: Why it is a small world after all
- Network Diffusion & Contagion
- Small-world network
- Six degrees of separation
- Nicholas Jarman et al, Self-organisation of small-world networks by adaptive rewiring in response to graph diffusion, Scientific Reports (2017). DOI: 10.1038/s41598-017-12589-9
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Technology makes the world smaller in the same way interconnected subways makes the cities beside each other.
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This is deep...
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I'm considering building a real-time economic network map and collaboration platform for Steemit similar to what you have shown with the Opte Project. I've been thinking how to holistically represent community "performance" information based on the blockchain data to increase quality community interactions and promote collaboration.
Steem Community Tags as Social Network Nodes
I think there is a substantial opportunity to build a social layer into Steemit for increased author/curator interaction and collaboration. With an operational model similar to that of an incubator, I think steemit could adopt a similar role as Kickstarter, but allow for project funding in real-time.
Steemit natively meets most of the organizational needs map. If we would be able to close the loop for 6/6 with the addition of a trust-based social layer, it could be a world-changing technology.
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sounds pretty nice, I've been thinking about that for a year, can't say I ever could put it into a comment, always ranted and thought about it, but always got halfway, hah I'm lacking in Structure, Infrastructure and Incentives :P even my Process is weak :D from time to time
? ... humm interesting,
Utopian and the analytics provided by people like @paulag are invaluable in such cases, enough about that
I have to agree and would like to see that as a case, I'm not sure the corrupted markets and relationships will be ok with going away tho, everything seems to fighting for survival and dominance, steem is turning into a market day by day, it can't be silenced at the moment, but it can be bought and forked... but that's a trouble for another day :D
Great Idea, it's nice having new people pop up with interesting thinking :)
I like the structure and to be fair it's worthy of a few posts for itself, so thanks for keeping it short and concise.
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Interesting, sounds like quite the task. How do you accomplish this?
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The neural network structure is one of the core success of modern information system. As u discussed, if we were connected by chain mechanism then failure in one block would completely shut down the rest of the system. Building this complex network system allows us the flexibility and also helps in terms of troubleshot a defect.
Ur article simplifies the complex networking system and provides a general overview of this internet network. A good explanatory writing for the beginners or people in general.
Cheers!
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Thanks, glad you liked it :)
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I guess we need superman to help the sitiation....
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For me, there are no coincidences, and everything happens for a reason. The Universe follows synchronicities,are and since we are a part of it, we cannot help but emulate that.
Looking at these transmission grids however, also shows me Humans' penchant for overcomplicating life in the wake of plentiful self-limitations.
The more complex a system is the more prone it gets, with ever more factors that need to be contemplated in order to keep it intact. So in the event of an eventual system fallout, the repercussions will most naturally be multiplied. This is why I always emphasize that relying on technology to the extend we see it here on Earth, is rather short-sighted, because any kind of dependence leaves us vulnerable. All the data we entrust AI with, while at the same time the decay of libraries is greeted with indifference.
Ok, Earth consciousness is ever more shifting towards technology, and people want to experience themselves this way. Humans are masters of adaptation.
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yes, technology is a good extension of ability, but as a crutch it can make us impotent to survive on our own int he event of a systemic failure.
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Network spread everywhere. All animals know to use it.Human understand it the best
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When I saw the title I silently hummed that Disney song "It's a small world after all" and then associated it with the game Six Degree's Kevin Bacon.
Then you went technical with nodes and made it easy for non techies to understand the concept using a tracert.
I like how you tied in the witness nodes in your discussion.
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Hehe. Glad you liked how I "networked" many parts together to explain it ;)
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The six degrees I'm familiar with. Does Subways in the internet do help to make our world feel smaller and more interwoven thanks @krnel
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Welcome back.
There are networks all around us. I wonder when and how exactly blockchain will play into them. Less centralized nodes means less points of failure... but there must be a lot more to it than that.
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I do believe there are universal patterns and what you are talking is probably one of them.
Do you know the documentary called "Thrive"? It talks about universal patterns but with a different perspective as the one on this article.
Cheers man!
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Yup, informational system benefit greatly from having diffused connectivity to promote speed and efficiency.
I've seen that docu years ago yes. Lot's of speculative things, but potential ideas for the future... who knows. ;)
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I do like Jack Fresco's designs but I can't say I'm liking the new Venus projections
Thrive kind of looked like that, but more foreign somehow
I've forgotten most of it by now
Have you though about how much potential is dormant in steem, overlooked and missed posts valued at 0.00 ...
it's probably easy to search with some parameters, dead accounts, small number of posts, lots of characters, little or no imagery, then sift through the 100k posts :D now that's getting me to think how many posts there are :D comments should count in those parameters
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The world has shrunk into a global village, thanks to technological innovations. Still, more possibilities are yet to be seen.
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Our proverbial 'The world is not as wide as the leaves of kelor' advises that the opportunities and opportunities around us can be sought after if we fail because the choices in this world are many.
But the real meaning of the world around us has recently been scientifically researched through a study conducted by the University of Leicester and KU Leuven, Belgium. They examine how the small world appears spontaneously in all types of tissue around human beings, including neural and social cell tissues, leading to the phenomenon of the famous "six degrees of separation".
Many systems show complex structures, which are typically small network organizations. They appear in the community as well as ecological and protein networks, mammalian brain tissue, and even man-made networks such as the Boston subway network and do not miss the World Wide Web which is a skateboarding tool in cyberspace.
The researchers began to examine whether it happened to happen that such a structure was so wide or was there a general mechanism that suggested the emergence of the phenomenon?
A study recently published in Scientific Reports by an international academic team from Leicester University and KU Leuven shows that this remarkable structure is achieved and maintained by network diffusion, ie traffic flow or information transfer that occurs on the network.
This study presents a solution to an old question, that is why most of the tissue around us (WWW, brain, road, electrical grid infrastructure) may have a strange yet common structure, a geometric relationship that connects the constituent elements of the network (topology ) 'small world'.
The study shows that these structures appear naturally in systems in which the flow of information is recorded in their evolution.
Nicholas Jarman, who recently completed his PhD in the Department of Mathematics, and is the first author of the study, said, "The algorithm that leads to a small world network has been known in the scientific community for decades. The Watts-Strogatz Algorithm is a Good Example, the Watts-Strogatz algorithm, however, was never intended to address the problem of how small world structures emerge through self-organization. The algorithm only modifies the already highly organized network. "
While Professor Cees van Leeuwen, who led the research at KU Leuven said, "Network diffusion leads to the evolution of tissues leading to the emergence of complex network structures. This emergence is driven by adaptive adaptation that is a progressive adaptation of structures to use, creating shortcuts where network diffusion. The overall diffusion intensity controls system adaptation, creating a bias of local or global connectivity patterns, and the latter providing a preferential attachment regime for adaptive adaption. The diffusion and adaptive rewiring model is universally a small world structure. As a result, small-world structures shift accordingly between decentralized (modular) and centralized. In their critical transition, the network structure is hierarchical, balancing modularity and centrality - a characteristic found in, for example, the human brain. "
Dr Ivan Tyukin of the University of Leicester adds, "The fact that diffusion through network graphics plays an important role in keeping the system in a rather homeostatic balance is very interesting. Here we can show that this is a diffusion process, no matter how small or large it causes a small world network configuration that remains in this strange state in long intervals of time. At least as long as we can monitor the progress of the network and continuous evolution. "
The study examined how small-world networks occur within larger and complex structures. Alexander Gorban, Professor of Applied Mathematics, University of Leicester commented, "Small world networks, where most of the vertices are not close to one another, but most of the vertices can be reached from each other node with a small number of steps, described in mathematics and found in nature and human society for a long time, in the middle of the previous century. "
"The question is, how this network evolves naturally and society remains not completely solved despite much effort applied over the past twenty years. Jarman and co-authors found a new and realistic mechanism for the emergence of such networks. The answer to the old question becomes clearer! I am delighted that Leicester University is part of this exciting research, "added Gorban.
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Mesh networks FTW!
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I was thinking, as I read, about the way my mind works, about the "neuronal networks". When I'm processing information, especially when I'm being creative, it doesn't feel linear, it feels more like a burst of statically connected impulses. Out of it, something new may arise--insight. How does that happen? How do all the neuronal networks come together to create something different from the information that was delivered on the system? Anyway, that's what I was thinking. Thanks for the exercise :)
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Extension into new areas can be done, but I suspect they are based on modifications of previous infromation gained to allow a extrapolation into a new form. Can you give an example?
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You're probably right--it's more synthesis than creation, but it is something new. It is connecting unrelated ideas in a way that is new to me. My academic training, for example, is in comparative literature and history. All the strains of different ideas, from different cultures--it's like a soup of related and unrelated bits of information. That's what I mean about statically connected impulses. They come together when I'm working on a project, or even when I'm engaged in a mundane chore. And then there's a moment of insight.
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neurons form neural networks, at least that's how it's usually called
Other than that, the brain is interesting, people are building supercomputers to understand it :D
I'd suggest going through a course on coursera called Learning how to Learn, it's pretty basic, the gist of it being, learning to efficiently manage the brain, the simple way of showing the left/right way of thinking there is calling it focused and diffuse ways of thinking, one is using data and stringing it together, the other is using more data and meshing it, you get one when you are working on a goal and towards a topic, you get the other when you are daydreaming or doing something unrelated while the mind is working on organising and digesting the topic,
so yeah you must be more artistic :P
or your mind is just developed and working :D
that's how you get insights and developments, pretty much how you said it, even AI is working like that, although it needs lots of data and lots of logic, something we are pretty much doing subconsciously and not even realising :D
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That's a fascinating response--a great way of explaining a chaotic (but delightful) experience. I think sometimes I'm addicted to the "high" of the moment when everything comes together, but perhaps I am sacrificing efficiency. Checked out Learning How to Learn (University of California). Will have a longer look later and see if it has anything to offer. Maybe it will lead to another moment of insight :) Thanks for the feedback.
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the high is great, you feel amazing, something so profound :D
but it wanders off and if you don't know how to move with the flow...
It's a easy course, takes 2 weeks, I learned everything in school, be bored and doodle :D then go do something fun and succeed
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We share that: school was tedious, except for a few remarkable instances, mostly because of inspiring, flexible teachers. Did most of my learning in free reading. University was different. I attended in a very progressive environment--many choices, no attendance requirements, even some grade-free courses. It was like being at a banquet without a set menu. I sampled freely.
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I kind of did the same, although I haven't yet been to university to get a degree :D too much money too much time, I learned around 5 times more on my own... Still have to figure it out and do something with it :)
Probably have to get there at some point too, people think that matters much, although I'm not so convinced. Uni is great, but if you don't learn by yourself it's pointless, plus I was kind of forced into a job anyways and those two don't link together that well
Cheers
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Best to you. The adventure continues...
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grammar policing :P
now I understand how connections form and networks work :P
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Haha, woops!
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