ICANNWiki:"Philosophy" essay by Marc Perkel

The Philosophical Basis for ICANN

What is ICANN and how does it fit into the story of the universe?

NOTE - This is in very early development. It wasn't supposed to be discovered yet. But enjoy and pass it around. Just don't edit it yet.

Thanks - Marc Perkel - marc@perkel.com

Officially ICANN is the Internet Corporation for the Assignment of Names and Numbers. Sounds fairly simple on the surface. Someone has to run the resource index. But the simplicity ends when you consider what the Internet is and the role of the internet in the evolution of humanity. In that context the role of ICANN is likely to be part of an ongoing process that might directly impact the future of human development.

If the Internet were seen as a fetus, ICANN might be compared to the first brain cells developing. In the course of human evolution this analogy might end up being spot on. If ICANN makes the right choices humanity might turn out far different than if ICANN makes the wrong choices at this critical juncture.

In these articles we are going to look at the universe as a whole. Where it's been, where it is now, and where it's going. We'll see that ICANN is actually part of the evolution of the universe. We'll see that right and wrong decisions are not subjective but that we can derive the right course through a scientific process and that our decisions can be measured and tested against objective standards to determine if we are actually on the right course. We'll see that the multi-stakeholder model might become the blueprint for the future of human society and that we have both the opportunity and responsibility to get it right.

None of the concepts in this article are in themselves that much of a radical idea. But the way it is all connected and structured is somewhat new. Because this is a different way of thinking about our role in the universe and how the Internet is humanity's future, it might take a lot of thinking and discussing to grasp the big picture. For comparison, this is as strange as when Einstein suggested that time itself is relative. The physics community at the time had a hard time grasping it. But eventually they did, and it was a breakthrough in the way we think about reality. To that end these are the important concepts.

• ICANN might be for more important in the future than people realize.
• The Internet has put humanity in a state of hyper evolution.
• Global society is an emergent property of the Internet.
• ICANN must stay the course for the global public good.
• The multi-stakeholder model might become the basis for future society.
• The positive evolution of the Internet will define the positive evolution of humanity.
• Humanity's future has two paths, positive evolution or extinction.
• Right and wrong can be scientifically derived and decisions can be objectively checked through testable standards.

Big History and ICANN

You might be asking yourself at this point, "What the heck are you talking about? How can ICANN possibly be that important?" To answer that question I ask you to expand your perspective to view the universe from the perspective of Big History. Big History is the story of the universe from the Big Bang to the present, and possibly beyond. ICANN is actually something that the laws of the universe predicts must happen.

To explain what I mean let's look at the properties of the universe. The universe is driven by a simple formula, evolution. Evolution is randomness that selects on survivability. That which survives continues to evolve. That which doesn't survive is out of the game. Evolution creates two paths, to continue to improve and survive, which is called Positive Evolution, and extinction.

Consider this; life evolves on some planet and thrives. Over billions of years it evolves greater intelligence. As this life gets smarter the individuals develop language allowing their minds to work together and build a society. Written language allows information to be stored and replicated so that the individuals in the society get the benefit of knowledge of others. The society builds a knowledge database and social software to develop and improve society.

Eventually these aliens discover electricity. Then they develop the transistor. That leads to the invention of computers. Computers lead to computer networks, and the first thing you need for a computer network is a symbolic name to resource translator. You need DNS, and to have DNS you need someone to manage it.

Thus life on another planet at the same level we are at would need to have an ICANN. The name of the organization would be different but the function is the same. Like our Internet their Internet would be the start of a global community. ICANN is a necessary step in any evolutionary process and it is important to understand that because if ICANN is effectively prophesied by the evolution of the universe, then what is ICANN's role for the future? Where is this all heading? And what should we be doing to realize our mission and do what we are supposed to do?

What is the Internet?

What is the Internet really? Is it just a bunch of computers connected together? Is it a toy to be played with? Is it a passing fad? Because it just sort of evolved out of nowhere it seems that we don't appreciate it. It's kind of counter intuitive that something that's really big and important "just happened" without anyone realizing the magnitude of something that spontaneously occurred. We went from a system that hardly existed 20 years ago to something that is so vital to humanity that if you turned the Internet off millions of people would likely die. These days everything is controlled over the Internet. It is central to humanity. And it all formed without a plan, without anyone in charge, and without a government.

Like what is happening in computer memory and processing power the Internet is expanding exponentially. The power of computers increases allowing computers to do more things and server more people. The infrastructure expands and more fiber is laid, more satellites launched, more data centers built. The expansion of capacity and the extension of reach and the lowering of cost allow for more and more of the human population to participate in the network.

Some day soon humanity and the Internet will be as inseparable as bees are to the hive. In reality, although we are individuals humans are more socially interdependent than bees are. As the Internet expands the Internet becomes an extension of who we are. It is a common mind that we all share. When I write this article my thought are instantly in front of the whole world within milliseconds after I click on "Save Page". Once out there other minds can evaluate these ideas, test them, and improve upon them.

ICANN's Role in the Internet Present and Future

You might be asking yourself, "What does all of this have to do with ICANN? ICANN is just DNS and names and numbers. It's a technical group for geeks and policy people with big egos and too much time on their hands." And you might be ultimately right.

However ...

Since an ICANN like organization is actually something that would be predicted by the evolution of the universe as being at least one of if not the earliest Internet service, it is in a position to be the institution where an emergent Internet Governance function might form.

For example, Back in the 1990s I was in the software business writing network control programs for Novell Netware networks. I would talk to guys who were heads of their IT departments and they would tell me stories about how that got that job. Generally it was something like this. "Back in 1979 I was a salesman for the company and I bought a TRS80 computer and a printer at Radio Shack so I didn't have to retype everything and because I was the only one with a computer back then I ended up becoming head of the IT department."

I can see the same thing happening here. ICANN already has a world wide infrastructure and is way ahead of the United Nations or any other entity on the planet and might act as the seed where the crystal grows. In fact we can make it that seed by creating the right kind of infrastructure where the future is a place where humanity can thrive and prosper. ICANN already accepts that it's role is for the Global Public Good which is the right goal to have. All we have to do is build out on that idea and actually define what the Global Public Good is using objective testable standards. And how hard could that be?

The important point here is that we may be at the nexus of an extremely important point in human evolution where taking the right initiative could determine the course of human evolution. We might have a unique opportunity to put humanity on the right path to the future and if this is so - should we not take it on?

What is Humanity and what makes us different?

Until humans evolved a species was mostly defined by their hardware. Their DNA determined how strong they are, how smart they are, if they have claws or sharp teeth, and what firmware they were born with so they knew how to hunt food and avoid being eaten.

So what makes us different? We have adapted the ability to share information. We don't have to all start from scratch. Our knowledge is cumulative and we have evolved and adapted to be completely on the knowledge and experience of others. Our societies are really a form of software created through evolution and as true with all evolution that which works tens to survive. That which doesn't work tends to go extinct. Not the most efficient way to develop software but nonetheless it shows that software is an emergent property of human networking. Our software is cumulative, that's what makes humans different. When we learned to talk we became something different than anything that previously existed. We created a new evolutionary paradigm where our software became dominate over our hardware.

For example - today's humans are genetically identical to humans 300 years ago. But today humans can fly. Humans can communicate across the world. We can see 13 billion years almost back to the beginning of time itself. We can take the heart out of one person and put it into another. Yet we are genetically identical.

The difference is in our software. When someone invents something we all share in that. Others can improve on it and we share in those improvements. The more we develop the more humanity improves itself. And the more effectively we can store and share information the faster our development accelerates.

Language was that start. Humans could tell each other things and the information was passed on. But when language started to be written then information could be stored externally to the minds and in a stable form that didn't suffer the distortions of human memory. Written language accelerated human software evolution.

Similarly radio. television, advances in transportation increased our ability to cooperate and communicate. Slave labor has now been replaced by machines. But when we invented the transistor we crossed yet another line because soon came logic circuits and the computer. (Yes, I know early computers predated transistors)

With the computer we could offload mental processes to machines. They could calculate far faster and more accurately than humans, and had more accurate memory for data and could compare and manipulate it for us much faster. These machines made it possible to offload a lot of our thinking the way machines allowed us to offload physical labor.

The Internet causes Humans to experience Hyper-Evolution

But when computers started to be networked even new emergent propertied surfaced. The networked computers were far more than the sum of their CPUs, memory, and storage. It allowed computers to be optimized for special functions that they made available to the whole network and if any part of the Internet had a new ability then they whole of humanity had that ability. And those abilities combined together to form new abilities as an emergent property of the network.

For example, I used my cell phone app Fandango to look up a movie. It accessed information about the movie from publishers and then accessed where it was playing from data that came from theaters. After selecting the movie I could then buy a ticket. The ticket sale talked to a credit card clearing process and the ticket was sold to me and that sale was communicated back to the theater along with a process that divided up the money to everyone getting their cut which was electronically deposited into their respective accounts.

The app then asked me if I wanted to add it as an event to my calendar, and I touched "Yes". The calendar sent the data to Google where it knew both when and where the movie was, and where I was in relation to the theater. It also picked up traffic data to know what the roads were like and then calculated how long it would take me to get there and subtracted that from the start time of the movie to send me an alert telling me it's time to head that way.

This process demonstrates the emergent properties of the Internet which is a construct that humanity created for itself to evolve forward. But because of the rate of technological advancement and that our own evolution is tied to this advancement, it through humanity into a form of hyper evolution, which is where we are today. And because we are moving so fast it seem to me that we need to understand who we are, how we got here, and where we are going so that this thing doesn't go so fast that it runs off the rails and crashes before we figured out what is happening. We need to get out ahead of it and figure it out so that we are in control of our own evolution and our own destiny.

Right vs. Wrong - How do we know if we are on the right track?

An age old philosophical question that seems on the surface to be nearly insurmountable. Philosopher have been working on this problem since the dawn of time. But because of the Internet and a deeper understanding of the universe a new philosophy is emerging that actually answers that age old question. We are at a point where we can answer the questions, "Wat is the meaning of life?" "What is the purpose of humanity in the universe?" And we can answer those questions in an objective scientific context without the need for any subjective assumptions. We can then derive a value system from these conclusions to determine what right and wrong is and create objective testing to determine if humanity is on the right track.

This is all very new and in a primitive state but the nature of the universe and the formula for evolution itself reveal to us a set of foundational principles that are logically provable. I will now discuss these principles and propose that they become the foundation for ICANN policy as well as for any proposed Internet Governance. We can then build an infrastructure based on these principles that will act as an operating system for humanity itself.

The two Paths - Positive Evolution or Extinction

At any moment all life in the universe can go on two paths. We are either evolving forward or we are heading for extinction. That is the mechanism as to how evolution works. Some people ask, "Why are the dinosaurs extinct?" The correct answer is, "Because they failed to develop a space program." If they had a space program they would have been able to push that asteroid out of the way and it wouldn't have hit the Earth. And every time a ig asteroid whizzes by the universe is asking us, "How's that space program coming?"

Some people might argue that maybe the Earth would be better off without humans and that maybe humanity should go extinct. But if that happens then we are out of the game, excommunicated from reality altogether. We cease to exist. So if we accept the axiom that to exist is better than to not exist then extinction would be considered the wrong path.

Static existence is also the wrong path. We can't just keep things the way they are and just sit here maintaining. We know in 4 billion years the Sun will expand and the Earth will be vaporized leaving only the 2 Voyager spacecrafts to act as a tombstone to let the universe know that we ever existed. In order to stay in the game we have to embrace positive evolution as a necessary step to continuing to exist. What is positive evolution? It is acting in the Global Public Good; something that ICANN has already figured out.

It's not a coincidence that ICANN came to this same conclusion because evolution is a property of the universe and after a billion years of evolutionary survival our minds are encoded with this evolutionary software to intuitively understand this principle. But we don't have to rely on this intuition anymore now that we understand where the intuition comes from. We can just accept as part of an objective logical infrastructure that extinction is bad and we need to do what it takes to avoid it.

Living in Right Relationship with Reality

Humanity has no choice but to learn this important key concept. We need to live "In right relationship to reality." What does this mean? It means that we live in a real universe that is quite frankly really hostile to life and this planet is like living on the surface of a soap bubble. This is a bad time to screw up and go extinct after getting this close. After all, we have evolved to the point where we know the size and age of the universe.

For example, it's pretty obvious that a full scale nuclear war is a really bad idea. Because we know this we have to make choices to make sure this doesn't happen. But the same thing applies to anything and everything else that might lead to our extinction like if we overheat the planet, poison the planet, or overpopulate the planet.

Similarly, we are looking at how the Internet will be structured in the near future. For example, do we as a world community allow nation states to spy on us, record our phone calls, read our email, and exert domination over us by creating a two level society where there are the watcher class and the watched class? Where does that model lead? Is that in the interest of positive evolution or the global public good?

This kind of activity could create global slavery where everything we do is watched and scrutinized. A world where inspired innovation stops and be become part of a global hell that only good science fiction can depict.

By creating the right kind of moral infrastructure we can have the language to make the arguments as to why an Orwellian society isn't our best choice and we can make that argument in objective terms that link back to the positive evolution of humanity and what that objectively means.

Testable Outcomes and Values

So how can we test objectively to see if humanity is on the right track? There can be many tests. I suggest one of them is Moore's Law. Computing power doubles every 18 months. What if all of a sudden after some serious change in social structure that computing power quit increasing? If there were no technological reason for that then one might wonder if this were an indicator that we are on the wrong track. That wouldn't of course be the only and final indicator but is an example of something that should continue on course.

There are also general values that tend to lead to a healthy society. These include:

• Innovation - People inventing things is a good sign
• Free Exchange of Ideas
• Anonymity - the feeling you are not being watched
• Exploration
• Space Programs
• Scientific Research
• Arts and Culture
• Respect for Reality
• Increase in knowledge over time

A Tale of two Koreas

As an example of why making the right decision is better that making the wrong decision we can look at Korea. Korea was one nation split into two and went on very different paths from a common starting point. One can use east and west Germany as a similar example. Generally it is accepted in retrospect that South Korea has made more progress and is a more productive and healthier community than North Korea. Similarly West Germany did far better than East Germany.

These are examples of the comparison between making the right choice versus making the wrong choice. But what makes one choice right and another choice wrong? By what universal yardstick can we claim what the word better means and how to measure it?

Because most all unbiased observers would agree is there some universal principle that we all instinctively realize that allows us to perceive what better means without having better formally defined? And would we get a more precise understanding if we put out the effort to determine what those universal principles are so that when we are faced with conflicting interests we can determine the right course from the wrong course before having to learn by suffering the consequences of our mistakes?

And since the Internet is evolving and growing at an exponential rate would it not be prudent to get out ahead of it to make sure that it is going in the right direction? And in order to do that won't we have to be able to define precisely what the right direction is in terms of universal axioms?

If the fundamental axiom for right and wrong is whether humanity is advancing and going extinct then we can build a philosophical infrastructure around which to frame the debate on any issue for which must be resolved. If we don't know what right and wrong mean because we don't have a philosophical infrastructure then our choices might be determined but money, power, corruption, and influence.

ICANN, for example, has a meme that it should act in the interest of the Global Public Good. By defining the Global Public Good as a standard then debate about issues is tested against this meme. Is my position more in the Global Public Good that your position? And that elevates the debate even if we haven't precisely defined the word "good". Wouldn't we make better choices if good is defined?

Multi-Stakeholder Buy in

All stakeholders should want to buy into this model on the basis that what is good for humanity is good for everyone.

For example - if humanity goes extinct - that's bad for business. But a thriving humanity is good for business. The business just needs to buy into a long term perspective and then the good fortunes of humanity will trickle down on them.

Extinction is also bad for governments because if we go extinct there will be no one to govern.

What I want to see ICANN do

Because of the nature of the Internet a new global community is forming, has formed, and is inevitable. Just as the invention of the automobile lead to paved highways and traffic laws this new global community will continue to grow and dominate the social paradigm. As the Internet grows some kind of structure will form. That structure will be Internet Governance.

Right now the Internet is like the wild west. Other than ICANN and the IETF there is no Internet authority. What structure exists how developed organically shaped but organizations like ICANN, IETF, the Electronic Frontier Foundation, Linux Kernel development, commercial developers, political websites, and individuals with good ideas. But how do we move forward? What kind of future will the Internet have? It raised questions.

• Will the Internet continue to evolve organically with minimal governance as it is now?
• Or - will the Internet turn into an Orwellian Police state where everything you do it watched and if you get out of line a death chip in your brain puts you down.
• What will the role of existing nations become in an Internet dominated society?
• What roles and responsibilities will law enforcement have?
• How will incompatible laws between nations be resolved?
• How can we protect Intellectual Property without overprotecting it?
• What are the rules of war on cyberspace?
• How do we protect the rights and dignity of individuals in the new world community?

These are all big questions and they deserve big answers. We not only should get it right - but we have to get it right. And the best time to get it right is now in the very beginning, while it is still forming, while it is still a zygote. But who is going to do this? The short answer is ICANN.

Why ICANN? How many other organizations are in a position to do it. Just like the example of the salesman with a TRS80 computer becoming the IT department ICANN is just at the right place at the right time. Someone had to be the one to be at the right place at the right time and ICANN is it.

One might ask, what about the United Nations? Yes they are bigger and older but the UN is a World War 2 relic that was create mostly to deal with nations going to war with each other. Their job is to try to solve unrest before it becomes a world wide crisis. It is completely dominated but governments with the exclusion of NGOs and the 5 nation security council is the seat of power. Hardly compares with ICANN's milti-stakeholder model where a broader number of kinds of voices are heard. ICANN's structure more closely matches and is in tune with the organic development of the Internet. ICANN is also a technical organization that can process the complexities of technology. If ICANN isn't suited for the job it is as close to suited as we have.

If we don't do it - who will? There's a saying - if you want something done right - do it yourself.

What I want to see ICANN do is to put together the intellectual infrastructure for Internet Governance. I want to see it developed in a way that has structure, much the way software has structure or physics has structure. That way new ideas added to the structure are logically consistent.

Even if ICANN never "rules the world" (which isn't really what I'm looking for) if this were done only as an intellectual exercise it could become the foundation for a values structure for the real thing. And that is worth doing.

Power and Authority - where does it come from?

Some people my be asking, "Why ICANN? Who died and made us God?"

The short answer is - no one. But power and authority doesn't come from being elected or appointed. Sometimes you're just the person or organization that is in the right place at the right time. Sometimes you're just first in line. Sometimes it's like being the lottery winner and wondering, "Why me?"

But - before excessive egos kick in we're not talking about being king or president of the world here. This is more like being system administrators to the world. ICANN might look at themselves as the world's IT department. And that is reflected in the multi-stakeholder model. If you have a company the admins don't tell you what to do. When the rest of the company agrees that they want some new feature then the admins make it happen. When people at the company are still arguing about what software to get and not agreeing on what they want the admins just sit back until they work it out.

Human Software and Human Networks

The invention of computers and computer networks has given us a new philosophical perspective on who we are as people and how we functions as a society. Computers and computer networks run on software. There is software that resides on each computer, and there is software and functionality provided by the network. Computers now have interface software built in so that the first thing they do upon being activated is to connect to the network to receive updates and reprogram itself. Some computer boot off the network and the only thing they know is how to go out and get an operating system, and some diagnostics.

Humans are not unlike computers in this respect and the computer give us insight as to who we are. We are individuals, but we are also part of a network. We have evolved to the point of being so dependent on the network that we need the human network in order to survive. If an individual is isolated from the network they usually don't survive and if they do don't live a life much different than any other animal. In fact isolation is considered to be cruel and unusual punishment in some countries.

One could consider one's personal behavior to be running one's personal software. But your software interfaces with the software of the society you are attached to or a member of. For example, when we drive cars we stop at red lights and we go on green lights. That's because we as a society agreed to these rules so that people aren't killed as they drive through intersections.

The human software model of understanding human behavior is a good model for understanding the Internet which is an artificial network created by humans for the purpose of expanding who we are as individuals and as a society. If we understand this in terms of software then we can understand that the better the software, the better the systems of society run. Historically this software has been developed through evolution. Over thousands of years cultures tried different things and that which worked survived and that which didn't tended to fade away.

Now however we are on the verge of a new paradigm where instead of the slow process of evolution developing the software of humanity humans are reverse engineering themselves and reverse engineering the universe to understand the reality that we exist in - and to determine what we need to do to stay part of reality. That is - to not go extinct. This new paradigm is engineered evolution.

Engineered evolution is having an understanding of the big picture from a big history perspective. We can then determine our role and our goals and with an increase in knowledge and wisdom we can set a course from where we are to where we need to be. Thus the software for the societies of the future can be developed today. Human software can become yet another open source project that humanity can develop.

The Internet is also blurring the distinction between the software of humanity and the software of machines. Take Facebook for example. Is Facebook human software or machine software? Or is machine software an emergent application that runs on human software? And will human software eventually run on machines?

These questions illustrate the purpose for this article. If humanity's network is merging with the Internet - humanity need system administrators. And that is the connection to ICANN.

Define Human Rights

Similar to the United Nations Declaration of Human Rights we should start with our own declaration of human rights first defining everyone as equal and entitled to the same fundamental rights.

We don't need to duplicate the UN declaration as it focuses on slavery, forced marriages, torture, law, persecution, torture, and issues more appropriate to what they do. We can recognize them by a reference statement including it as a whole within our declaration.

Instead we should focus on the online world relating to issues of freedom of expression, anonymity, online harassment, control of your personal data, the right not to me monitored, tracked individually, to keep one's files secret. Rights to privacy. To keep war off the Internet. Reasonable protections of intellectual property.

Write a philosophical preamble to the bylaws to define our mission in big picture terms

The preamble defines the overall mission. It's like the preamble to the US constitution.

We the people of the United States, in order to form a more perfect union, 
establish justice, insure domestic tranquility, provide for the common defense, 
promote the general welfare, and secure the blessings of liberty to ourselves and our 
posterity, do ordain and establish this Constitution for the United States of America.

ICANN should include:

• A commitment to the progress of humanity.
• Everyone is included
• Everyone has fundamental rights
• Everyone is considered equal

Internet Engineering Task Force