Part 2 of the Series, “Of Monkeys, Mice and Men: From Natural Bodies to Digitized Bots”
We are living in an increasingly digitalized, sensor-laden environment, inside our homes, in our outdoor environment, and within living things, including our human bodies.
One emerging framework within the massive scope of digital transformation — riding in on the crowned Trojan horse of the Fourth Industrial Revolution — is Digital Twins (DTs). In June 2017, Ben Rossi of Raconteur, defined digital twinning as “the mapping of a physical asset to a digital platform.” In its simplest explanation, digital twins digitize the physical world. The approach of using a digital replica of its original physical representation can be applied to nearly any sector of business and society, and integrates big data (captured via embedded sensors), machine-to-machine communication, and machine-learning technology.
Digital twin technology has been practiced since the 1960s, first gaining ground by NASA in space programming. The actual terminology of “digital twin” was reportedly first mentioned in 1998, referring to a digital copy of actor Alan Alda’s voice.
In this essay, I am focusing on one small element in the field of digital twinning, involving healthcare and bioinformatics, and the merging of these two domains within the context of purported epidemics.
Continue reading “Part 2: Bits and Bytes of Digital Twins ~ Taking a Bite out of Humanity”



But then I thought … so what. The power that uncloaked on 3/11/2020 is far more infected in us and omnipresent than any elected official. Biden versus Trump wasn’t the worst choice ever, in my view. That would be 2000, and Gore versus Bush, closely followed by 2016 and Clinton versus Trump. Presidents these days are second-rate people. The process of historical revisionism makes it appear that the more distant a president in our past, the greater the person was. Even now this process is at work making Barack Obama into Rushmore material. At the book store a few days ago, I saw JFK’s bronzed image on a book that covers his life in the 1950s, prior to the 1960 election. I would assume he was just fooling around on the beach and mashing it up back then. His life was easy. PT109 was good writing, professional back story. It never happened. (For those too young to remember, the 1960 “election” was JFK versus Nixon, and was said to have been given over to JFK by means of fraud in Cook County, Illinois. That leaves us with the impression that regular vote counting went on everywhere else. Get real.)