One of the many cool things that will happen at #RLTM Realtime NY on June 6: the launch of Ajit Jaokar’s new book, Meditation in the Age of Facebook and Twitter.
The author, Ajit Jaokar is a highly-respected London-based mobile and web industry author, blogger, publisher and teacher.
Jaokar defines meditation as the sense of presence and focus required to achieve seemingly-impossible things. Landing a plane on the Hudson, for example.
This is not a book about monks living in caves, but about what can happen when people connected into an enormous number of inputs learn how to process that information to make informed decisions and put the increasing complexity to practical use.
You know: kind of like curating an awesome Twitter newsfeed. But at a level exponentially more sophisticated, and even more intensely networked.
This book has serious geek credentials. The first chapter, which Jaokar will be distributing to attendees at Realtime NY on June 6, touches on social networks, neural networks, Ray Kurzweil, Moore’s law, E.T., Mendelian genetics and simulation games.
His main thesis is that we are entering an era where meditation is two-sided: involving both a traditional disconnection from the external world–and a simultaneous connection to an exponentially increasing number of inputs via the growth and spread of technology-based networks. It is an era where
“meditation becomes a technology that will cause an exponential uptake in human intelligence and evolution. The starting point for this exponential uptake of human intelligence is the brain nad the mind. More specifically, the exponential uptake of intelligence could be brought about by a connectivity and enhancement of minds through networks and technology. In that sense, meditation is a ‘transhumanist’ technology and networks are the underlying paradigm of the fourth age of meditation.”
To anyone who has been awe-struck by the incredible power of tools like Twitter to instantly connect you to the experience of millions of other people in realtime, this is an intriguing idea, and one that Jaokar explores with a serious, scientific and business-like purpose. What will the impact of the evolving technology-based hyper-connectedness be on individuals, societies and on organizations? I look forward to reading the entire book when it is released, and to spending some time with Jaokar at Realtime NY!
Jaokar will be signing copies of his first chapter during the lunch break at #RLTM NY, and will also be participating in our panel discussion on the future of realtime applications, platforms and value systems.
