Wish Machine

How can efficient communication practices and communication tools help us reshape the world from the individuals' practical wishes (and needs, obviously) up to an emergent, manifold, creative and fluid society ?

In a few words

The so called Wish Machine is a piece of software (a functional prototype, downloadable here) designed to inform wishers of which wishers are wishing wishes that are satisfactory answers to the wishes that are listed in their wish lists. Mind you, we are talking about concrete, practical wishes, here, not about some wishy-washy kind of stuff !

The approach chosen for this algorithm takes advantage of the inherent coherence of our languages and of our mere everyday communications. We will simply feed our wish machine wishes written in our common natural languages.

The big and simple idea here is to ask the wishers to formulate each of their wishes in at least two different manners (either using different languages or synonyms in the same language), and to append to each of these wishes (unless they wish to find people wishing the same wish) examples of wishes that would be adequate answers to them (yes, wishes answer other wishes, because one wishes to give, also, and to share), those examples also formulated in multiple manners.

Given that data, the algorithm can find, among gathered synonymous wishes, parts that correspond literally, and assume that the remaining parts are also synonymous. From that first analysis, more subdivisions of the wishes can be found. The algorithm, after having separated the wishes in their constituent parts, can then recombine them so as to correctly find (and exponentially so, more and more of) the wishes that are correct answers to other wishes — and to inform their authors accordingly.

Users with matching wishes will thus be informed of one another's existence and eventually will communicate and meet. In the end, it is up to them whether or not any wishes will be granted. That's the real magic of the whole concept : communicating beings are the ones who will propel the whole thing by their very needs and perhaps dreams as much as by their spontaneous and heartfelt responses to one another.

A crucial point

The wish machine needs many, many wishes to function properly. In its wish to encourage the project, PraxEco has decided to feed it with its members' voluntary wishlists, or volios, something any individual based network needs to intelligently communicate to itself to be in the least functional. Let's see if we can bootstrap our wish machine with our very wishes !

Ultimately, the tool that we will produce will do more than help us organize our activities, it will also help us see local, global, and specific needs first and foremost and to foresee inevitable future needs — and also the consequences of every need and wish. Projects, made of individuals adding action to ideas, will also have their own wishes, offers, and needs. The ideal Wish Machine is a tool to help us see the big picture, so that we can tweek our wishes to respond to it, accordingly, as we deem useful — or simply pleasant.

Let us muse for an instant on the idea of a « communicational age » where there are simplistic yet sophisticated tools which diverse and variant beings use to optimize their interactions and use of resources, dwelling places, etc ; where one can literally design one's environment, within basic do-no-harm principles ; where one can also be able to navigate, as freely as possible, between those environments ; where, last but not least, schools and « retreats » provide guidance over scheming one's path(s) leading to any environment, activity, person or thing, existing or possible . . .

As dreamlike as this may sound in the somewhat wrecked and mislead world of today, isn't the idea of a communicational, emergent world an interesting avenue to consider ? Make a wish ! (Actually, as many as you please.)

May this communicational age begin !

We are currently working at implementing this idea into a full fledged application ! Visit the project's page on this site to follow its progression, or visit its Facebook page.

Note : This project presently need the assistance of software developers to add useful modules and to design it nicely in the way of transparency so that everybody understands how it works. To contribute to this project, please leave us your info ! Also, feel free to propagate our call to expand our team ! (Images below.)