[iDC] Notworking online collaboration in science and education

[John Hopkins]

Hallo Stephen

>>You cannot have a truly distributed creative system without there
>>being open channels between (all) nodes.


>I don't think this is true.
>
>Imagine an idealized communications system, where links were created 
>directly from person to person. If all channels were open at any 
>given time, we would be  communicating simultaneously with 6 billion 
>people. We do not have the capacity to process this communication, 
>so it has the net effect of being nothing but noise and static. Call 
>this the congestion problem.

...snip...

by open channel I do not mean that it is a fire-hose of 'data' 
flowing in it -- a channel represents a  potential (for exchange). 
Without open channels, the actual exchange cannot take place...  I 
placed the parenthesis around "all" to signify simply that 
participants in the distributed system must engage to be a part the 
system...

networks are dynamic configurations where flows are always variable 
in time, duration, and intensity...

which is in agreement with your long thesis and conclusion, I 
think...   (although my mind is not so clear after a 9-hour day of 
live network facilitation with 25 people...)

jh