Will the Internet manifest itself in a less external manner, combining itself with the human race at a biological level? I’ve always wondered about the effects of all this binary data that is tearing through our bodies. Will we evolve to be able to hear this information, as we evolved to listen and interpret sound waves? What if we develop the ability to send as well as receive data? We’ll be walking operating systems, or maybe we’ll have grown out of physical activity by that point, and we will finally have a version of telepathic communication.

Maybe we’ll fast forward through Nature’s own plans and install mechanical devices that hook straight into our central nervous system. Maybe we’ll all be mind readers by the year 2020. Maybe we won’t survive to see any of this because, like the dominant species on the planets before us, the ride is over and we have to join the back of the queue again.

I digress… partly because I’m feeling lousy today, and partly because I went to a theme park the other day and wanted to sneak this into the conversation somehow.

An important thing to consider, is that the future of the Internet is in our own hands. It can be a way to help us manage our overflowing jar of identities. It can be the future city in which our virtu-self will live for eternity (or until someone pulls the plug). It can be the key to connecting the human race and sharing information in ways that we never thought were possible. It can be all of the above, or whatever we want it to be.

I suspect this is a knock on effect on the way our particles work at a subatomic level, how either something will exist in a particular state, or it doesn’t exist. But then if research into quantum physics points to an alternative suggestion, where the world of binary results doesn’t necessarily apply, then maybe the way we look every day interactions should be changing too.

If someone was to ask me if I preferred the bitter salty taste of olives over a delicious Snickers bar, my answer would be a resounding no. But my binary response would fall flat on it’s face if that person then brought me a seafood pizza covered with small chunks of peanuts, chocolate and caramel…. “What?! I thought you didn’t like olives”.

I really do hate olives, I find them repulsive… but if I was to choose between a sandwich made with either plain or olive ciabatta bread, then I’d probably choose the latter. If we choose to live in a binary world, this makes me a hypocrite… but in a world where multiple contradictory statements exist in parallel, I’m just as normal as anyone else.

I wonder if it’s easier for us to manage ourselves, if we can categorise everything we think into tidy little packages… or if it’s easier for us to interact with the outside world if we present a consistent and predictable character to the people we meet?

If life for you, is a quest to define yourself as a person, remember that we aren’t always just one thing. We’re a big crazy bowl of Atomic Soup, which responds to the constantly changing environment. It changes, you change.

Sometimes I have to tell myself that it’s OK to have a love/hate relationship with olives, depending on how I feel at the time; I’ll either eat them, or start a protest march to facilitate the plants demise.