Grappling with identity will never be easy — those who consider it “solvable” represent a danger to society. The identity community is entangled in code (the technologically possible), law (the legally available), and norms (the socially acceptable). There is no separation of these societal concerns. No reductionism. Life is complex and will remain so. And yet such understanding provides, I think, the perfect foundation to create something wonderful together.

1. Interpersonal data,
identity, and relationships
— in pursuit of collective minds
Philip Sheldrake
engineer, web science
philipsheldrake.com
@sheldrake
AKASHA Foundation
AKASHA.org
!1ssimeetup.org · 1 April 2019 · CC BY-SA 4.0 International (see image credits)

2. SSIMeetup.org
SSIMeetup objectives
1. Empower global SSI communities
2. Open to everyone interested in SSI
3. All content is shared with CC BY SA
Alex Preukschat @SSIMeetup @AlexPreukschat
Coordinating Node SSIMeetup.org
https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/

3. Coming up …
The AKASHA Foundation
Co-operative + self-organizing
(Inter)personal data
Identity
Beware
Collective minds
!3

4. AKASHA
A non-profit foundation born at the
intersection of blockchain and collective
intelligence.
We nurture projects helping individuals
unlock their potential through open
systems that expand our collective minds
at local, regional and global scales.
See AKASHA.org.
!4

5. Co-operation + self-organizing
!5

6. !6
Life did not take over the globe by
combat, but by networking.
Lynn Margulis, biologist

7. The ultimate information technology
challenge is the care and maintenance
of a digital infrastructure that can help
us rise up to so-called super wicked
problems, collectively.
Sustainability requires healthy,
distributed networks, with both diversity
and individual agency, to facilitate the
emergence of collective intelligence.
!7
Sheldrake, Global Peter Drucker Forum

8. Life organizes around identity.
Every living thing acts to develop
and preserve itself. Identity is the
filter that every organism or system
uses to make sense of the world.
New information, new relationships,
changing environments — all are
interpreted through a sense of self.
!8

9. The 6 circle model
!9
Traditionally, organizing / system
change has been attempted with a
focus “above the green line”.
Research has shown however that
change can only be initiated and
sustained when equal attention is
paid above and below the line.
See Leadership and the New Science, Margaret J. Wheatley.
INFORMATION
(flowing → knowledge)
RELATIONSHIP
(interdepending)
IDENTITY
(narrative)
STRUCTURE
(forms)
PATTERN
(strategies)
PROCESS
(operations)
HUMANEXPERIENCE

10. !10
The 3 conditions
INFORMATION
(flowing → knowledge)
RELATIONSHIP
(interdepending)
IDENTITY
(narrative) THE SENSE-MAKING CAPACITY
OF THE ORGANIZING
Of the selves that organize and
the “self” that gets organized.
Defined in terms of history,
present decisions and activities,
and sense for the future.
THE MEDIUM OF THE
ORGANIZING
Life uses information to organize
itself, i.e. when a system assigns
meaning to data.THE PATHWAYS OF
ORGANIZING
Required for the creation and
transformation of information,
the expansion of the
organizational identity, and
accumulation of wisdom.

11. !11
The 3 conditions — reciprocally defining
INFORMATION
(flowing → knowledge)
RELATIONSHIP
(interdepending)
IDENTITY
(narrative)
Identities assemble from who we
know (relationships) and what
we do (personally and socially
material information).
Information is contextual to
individuals in relationships.
Relationships are formed with
information exchange between
identifying individuals in
identifying organizings.

12. I am not a thing — a noun.
I seem to be a verb, an
evolutionary process – an
integral function of the universe.
Buckminster Fuller
!12
“
”

13. !13
It is necessary to begin with the event
as a basic concept, and later to arrive at
the object as a continuing structure of
related and ordered events.
David Bohm
“
”

14. (Inter)personal data
!14

15. !15
data-as-property

16. !16
“
”
There might well be a market for
personal data, just like there is,
tragically, a market for live human
organs, but that does not mean that
we can or should give that market
the blessing of legislation. One
cannot monetise and subject a
fundamental right to a simple
commercial transaction, even if it is
the individual concerned by the data
who is a party to the transaction.
The European Data Protection Supervisor, 2017

17. !17
my data data about me
over which I have agency,
through which I have agency,
with which we become.

18. !18
data-as-property
data-as-labor
data-as-reputation
data-as-public-good
data-as-me
data-as-data
https://medium.com/radicalxchange/the-interpersonal-data-at-the-heart-of-all-human-digital-systems-including-markets-6316701184a9

19. Personal data
Any information relating to an identified
or identifiable natural person – one who
can be identified, directly or indirectly, by
reference to a name, an identification
number, location data, or other identifier,
or to factors specific to the physical,
physiological, genetic, mental, economic,
cultural or social identity of that person.
General Data Protection Regulation
!19

20. !20
And yet we’re social animals.
Unsurprisingly, the vast
majority of personal data is in
fact interpersonal data.
Alice, Coffee
Store Street Espresso, Store Street
Monday, 1 Apr 2019
from 17:30 to 18:00
Bob, Coffee
Store Street Espresso, Store Street
Monday, 1 Apr 2019
from 17:30 to 18:00

21. !21
PERSONAL DATA INTERPERSONAL DATA
legal natural
data subjects humans +
node-centric edge-centric
control agency
tree-like rhizomatic
facsimile cache
privacy privacy + collective intelligence

22. !22

23. Identity
!23

24. Descartes didn't say
‘I have a birth certificate,
therefore, I am.’
Phil Windley

25. !25
IDENTIFYING IS …
ACQUIRING
CORRELATING
REASONING
APPLYING
SECURINGJoe Andrieu

26. !26
NOUN-LIKE RIGIDITY
BASED ON ESSENTIAL PROPERTIES THAT DON’T CHANGE
VERB-LIKE CONTEXTUAL CORRELATING
RE-IDENTIFYING WITH A CERTAIN PROPERTY — DIACHRONICITY
trait
E.G. FINGERPRINT, IRIS, FACE, DNA
government
BIRTH CERTIFICATE, CITIZEN ID, PASSPORT, ETC.
username + profile
CORROBORATED WITH A PASSWORD E.G. FACEBOOK ID
private key
DIGITAL ‘FINGERPRINT’ BUT HARDER TO COPY AND EASIER TO LOSE
physicality
CONTAINED BY ONE'S SKIN
social
YOU’RE NOBODY UNTIL YOU’RE SOMEBODY TO SOMEONE
behavioural
YOU ARE WHAT YOU DO
transcendental
THE ERASURE OF EMBODIMENT
cartesian
PERSISTENT SENSE OF SELFHOOD; COGITO ERGO SUM; NARRATIVE
CONTROLLING? ENABLING?

27. !27
EVERYONE WORKING ON “DIGITAL
IDENTITY” IS A SOCIOTECHNOLOGIST
SOCIO
TECHNICAL

28. Beware
!28

29. !29
BEWARE:
THE OPTIONAL BECOMING THE COMPULSORY

30. !30
BEWARE:
INCLUDING IS ALSO EXCLUDING
claudo
From Proto-Italic *klaudō, from Proto-Indo-
European *kleh₂u- (“key, hook, nail”). Cognate with
Ancient Greek κλείς (kleís, “bar, bolt, key”), Old
High German sliozan (“to close, conclude, lock”).

31. !31
BEWARE:
THE CLEAR, SIMPLE, AND WRONG
to be fair, one of these is from Bojan :-)

32. !32
BEWARE:
SELF-INTEREST BEATS SYSTEM-INTEREST
“Moving reputation from one
system to another helps me.”
Enabling universal reputation
scoring is dystopian.

33. !33
BEWARE:
WE’RE DESIGNING PATH DEPENDENCIES

34. !34
BEWARE:
THE FRICTIONLESS
Friction is an important system property.
Failure to re-engineer appropriate frictions
in our sociotechnical system may lead to
very poor social outcomes.
Likely requires a blend of legal and
technical codes.

35. !35

36. !36
NOUN-LIKE RIGIDITY
BASED ON ESSENTIAL PROPERTIES THAT CANNOT CHANGE
CONTROLLING?
trait
E.G. FINGERPRINT, IRIS, FACE, DNA
government
BIRTH CERTIFICATE, CITIZEN ID, PASSPORT, ETC.
username + profile
CORROBORATED WITH A PASSWORD E.G. FACEBOOK ID
private key
DIGITAL ‘FINGERPRINT’ BUT HARDER TO COPY AND EASIER TO LOSE
physicality
CONTAINED BY ONE'S SKIN
IF WE GET
THIS WRONG

37. Collective minds
!37

38. !38
A mind is not a name for a thing, a
substance, but rather a collection of
cognitive processes, dispositional
states, meaning-making, and
behavioural characteristics. It is not
easily delimited and definitely not
in terms of “what’s in your head”.
AKASHA about us webpage

39. !39
Gregory Bateson has clearly
shown that what he calls the
‘ecology of ideas’ cannot be
contained within the domain of
the psychology of the individual,
but organizes itself into systems
or ‘minds’, the boundaries of
which no longer coincide with
the participant individuals.
Felix Guattari
“
”

40. We’re focused on collective
minds to enhance human
agency in co-operation to help
produce a fairer, more peaceful,
more intelligent, sustainable
and regenerative future.
!40
INFORMATION
(flowing → knowledge)
RELATIONSHIP
(interdepending)
IDENTITY
(narrative)

41. Next … (call to action)
!41

42. !42
DECENTRALIZED
DATA TRUST
INTERPERSONAL DATA
TECHNICAL ARCHITECTURE

43. Interpersonal data architecture
• The data surrounds us
• Nesting and interpenetrating
• Privacy-preserving and socially meaningful
• Neither individualistic nor collectivized
• Distributed and disintermediating
• ‘Intelligence’ is invited to the data rather than
requiring the data go to the ‘intelligence’
• About mutual value creation not property rights
• Markets don’t transform personal data so much
as interpersonal data transform markets
• Identity will be contextual, local, verb-like, and
digitally co-emergent with interpersonal data
!43

44. Decentralized data trust
The Open Data Institute defines
a data trust as “a legal structure
that provides independent
stewardship of data.”
A decentralized data trust entails
a decentralized trust structure
governing for fairness in the
social context the facilities for
decentralized, social sense-
making of interpersonal data.
!44

45. !45
Thank you.
We chat here:
• https://discordapp.com/invite/JqqKasJ
We blog here:
• https://akasha.org/blog
Slides available at:
• https://ssimeetup.org
• https://akasha.org/blog/2019/04/01/
ssimeetup-webinar
ssimeetup.org · 1 April 2019 · CC BY-SA 4.0 International (see image credits)

46. Image credits
Painted face, by Sharon McCutcheon
Colourful corridor, copyright Shutterstock
Lichen, by Annie Spratt
The Earth, by NASA
Photo of Time Magazine cover of Buckminster Fuller, by Hilary Mason
Sunflower dance, ink drawing on paper, by Jos van Wunnik
Water, by Imleedh Ali
Woman on bus, by Dan Bøțan
Coffee, by Joshua Ness
boypoolrhizome, slide 21, copyright Mark Ingham, reproduced with permission
René Descartes, via Picryl
Stream, via Free Nature Stock
Intermingling colours, by Daniel Olah
Car tire, by pngimg
Wavering curves, by David Jorre
One of several wolves, slide 38, copyright Marc Ngui, reproduced with permission
Coral, by Sagar
Amazon product co-purchasing network, slide 43, copyright Dr. Christophe
Hurter, reproduced with permission
!46