Hey everyone!
Isn't it amazing how everything is interconnected? I was looking at the slide show "Social Network Analysis" (http://www.slideshare.net/DERIGalway/valdis-krebs-social-network-analysis-19872007) and it was fascinating to see all the different contexts that networks can be formed in. In particular interest to me was the protein and Jazz networks considering that they looked so similar to one another and yet they are completely different phenomenons formed from seemingly different circumstances - like the opposite sides of the same coin. On the one hand you have a system that has been created through billions of years of evolution crafted from countless stimuli acted upon organic compounds. And on the other hand you have a system or network that was created in far less time and was not created through evolution save for the biological need for humans to socialize. This got me to thinking about why a social network would mirror a protein network. So like an intrepid explorer (yea right! :) ) I took to the NET and eventually stumbled upon a picture that captured my imagination (for about as long as it takes me to type this blog). The link to that picture is here: http://images.google.com/imgres?imgurl=http://www.news.wisc.edu/newsphotos/images/Zhang_neural_stem_cells04.jpg&imgrefurl=http://www.news.wisc.edu/newsphotos/zhang.html&h=225&w=300&sz=1101&hl=en&start=3&um=1&tbnid=xQQxtTx-1Skc5M:&tbnh=113&tbnw=150&prev=/images%3Fq%3Dneural%2Bcells%26svnum%3D10%26um%3D1%26hl%3Den.
I don't know about all of you but when I think of the human brain I think of it as some different part of me. A thinking part, but a separate entity all the same. It takes me a few moments to realize that the mass of neurons displayed in the picture on the above link is me. It contains everything makes me unique; my fears, dreams, likes, emotions, and memories are all stored within gray cells that look like weird microbes. What is truly compelling about that image is how much it looks like all the other networks that were shown in the slide show or the simplified diagram in the "Six Myths" article. I think that there is a definate correlation between our biological networks and the human networks that we design. Think about it: every network (biological or human) are contain peripherals, central connectors (and bottlenecks) and subgroups.
Could we have built our society (physically and socially) based on our evolution as a species and biological community on Earth? Maybe throughout the eons our DNA evolved to compel us to build an existence based around an apparently stable biological network. I would like to think that there is some elegance to the way the universe works; from the largest galaxies to the smallest molecules... there's something rather romantic in that, wouldn't you say?
Sunday, September 9, 2007
Mimicing the Master Plan?
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3 comments:
Wow, that is some deep stuff there. But to some extent, I agree. I struggled sometime in science imagining the components of a single cell and how millions of them make up a nerve, for example. The body, if you think about it, is one giant network working together and separately to get its job done - keep us alive, moving, and healthy. But this "networking" is something I would say most of us don't think of on a daily basis.
The same can me said for social networking. The connections we have, and the people that connect us are perhaps not thought of on a daily basis. The lines that ties us together and make us who we are are often hard to draw. Understanding and getting an accurate picture of a social network can be equally complex.
after our last class i was talking with a friend about what we thought of social networking. personally, i often take it for granted, as well as the complexity of all the networking in our bodies. coming from a small island in the caribbean i have never found myself with a problem when trying to reach someone, the links between people are often very easy to track down. there is always someone that knows someone that knows the person you are looking for.
it is not until i came to college three years ago that i have come to understand how complicated networking can really be and how difficult it is to trace the connection between a group of people.
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