Unravelling 21st Century Riddles – Universal Network Visions from a Human Perspective

Abstract

Networks are omnipresent and universal. Mankind, for example, forms a social network. Today, information and communications technology (ICT) exponentially accelerates the interaction between the human nodes of this global social network. In that way, ICT appears to evoke a phase transformation, similar to the physical phase transitions of a thermodynamic system which characterise the transformation of matter. Finding that networks are omnipresent and universal, gives a cause for optimism! Indeed, we can profit from the network knowledge in the ICT sector by translating this knowledge horizontally to, for example, other nodes in the sector network of our economy and society. Transferring the knowledge vertically to networks on other aggregation levels, such as the human network, could reward us with astounding insights into the developments for the next 100 years. In addition, awareness of the possible scenarios for the 21st century, and keys for the choice between and control of them, come within reach. In this article, we postulate these exciting visions by travelling through time and on different aggregation levels, discovering some maverick phenomena of transient networks that deepen our understanding of the relevant riddles of our existence. The relatively new ICT sector, enabling connections between all communicating entities, obviously plays a crucial multifold role in this game.