Philosophical study of life, death, and nature
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A pioneering work, published in 1993, before the commercial internet and portable phones, that anticipated today's chaotic cyber-society, using such terms as "community of anonymity," "consciousness interaction field," "conscioussness communication," and "dream navigator." (Telecom Social Science Award) This book was written in 1991-1992, and published in 1993. There was no commercial Internet seivices, or no mobile phones at that time. However, this book succeeded in predicting many aspects of today's cyber-society. In this book, I analyzed computer-mediated-communications from the viewpoint of deep psychology and sociology. I distinguished two concepts, "infomation communication" and "consciousness communication," and concluded that the latter would be greatly activated in the network society. As Niki Lambropoulos explains below, "consciousness communication" means "the communication for the purpose of social interaction itself," which is now prevalent in email communication through mobile phones and chatting on the net. This kind of communication was once called "consummatory communication" (Festinger, 1950), or "intrinsic use" (Keller, 1977). In this book, I added new meaning to these concepts, and proposed a new term "conscioussness communication." In consciousness communication, my consciousness flows out through the feeler of my personality, and gets mixed with other consciousness in the consciousness interaction field. I proposed the"consciousness interaction model" instead of Shannon and Weaver's communication model. I introduced the concept of "community of anonymity" where anonymous persons join and interact with each other. I argued that this kind of community would expand and prevail in cyber-space. In 1993, I was not able to find the concept "community of anonymity" in English books or papers, hence Consciousness Communication might probably have been the first to propose the concept. It is intersting to compare "community of anonymity" with Webber's "non-place community" (1967). In the last two chapters, I proposed the new concept of "dream navigator," and depicted possible future interactions among the subconsciousnesses of participants in cyber-space. People's consciousnesses and subconsciousnesses are guided by a dream navigator, and their collective imaginations create an unimaginable world of our collective dreams. This is the most provocative part of this book. Some people criticized it as a total nonsense, but the other people highly appreciated the description of a dream navigator. After the publication of this book, the words "conscioussness communication" and "dream navigator" have been repeatedly used by commentators and researchers in this field in Japan. Conscioussness Communication won the 1994 Telecom Social Science Award. Tassos Missouras This book is currently out of print. You can read the entire Japanese text on the web. This book was written more than 15 years ago. While Internet has significantly transformed itself, its fundamental characteristics seem to have remained the same as before. I believe this book should be rewritten in the future. Preface Part 1 Thoughts on Media Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Part 2 Dream Navigator Chapter 4 Dream Dreamt by Society
Chapter 5
Postscript Book Reviews Toru Nishigaki - "We can feel the author's eternal yearning for a shaman in an electronic age." (Sankei Simbun Newspaper, Jun.3, 1993) Editorial staff of Kyoto Shimbun Newspaper - "This is a stimulating book that provides a new sight on communications theory." (Kyoto Shimbun Newspaper, Jul.13, 1993) >> Pipi - "A world of science fiction, just like Solaris. An astonishing communications theory floating in the world of Matrix." (bk1 book review, Sep.30, 2003) >> Read more Niki Lambropoulos - "Morioka cited in Aoki describes this kind of use as "ishiki tsushin" (conscious communication). According to Morioka, it is the communication for the purpose of social interaction itself, which is distinguished from "joho tsushin" (information communication)." (Intelligent Dynamic Enquiry Methodology for Innovation Technology, 2004 ) >> Read more (pdf) Kumiko Aoki - " (....) In addition to the above mentioned communities, another kind of communities exist in computer networks, which can be called "communities of anonymity [tokumeisei no komyuniti]" (Morioka, 1993). These communities of anonymity are the communities whose members are anonymous and share virtual spaces for their self-expression which may not be possible in the situation that they have to identify themselves. In such virtual spaces, people play whatever role they want to play, knowing other people are also presenting created images of themselves." (Pacific Telecommincations Council 1994 Conference) >> Read more Book reviews also appeared in Asahi Shimbun newspaper, Nikkei Shimbun Newspaper, Mainichi Shimbun Newspaper, Yomiuri Shimbun Newspaper, etc.. Publication Data Chikuma Shobo, Apr.25, 1993 Out of Print Japanese website of this book
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