More on Motivation and Context

More on Motivation and Context – A little parable brought to my attention by Seb arising from a misunderstanding between two “communities” of knowledge personified by Stephen Downes and David Wiley. Of course bloggers are not “the” community, just one (set of) many (sets of) communities with vaious levels of communication links between them. In fact even within any one such “community” the communication links vary enormously. Anyway, the conclusion, and my main point of interest, is in “knowing the communicator” – without any context or understanding of the motivations of those with which we are communicating, very little of the information content communicated can be considered to be knowledge.

Repeat after me, “Motivation is a necessary component of any knowledge model.”

Look out, the boss is coming ?

[Quote] A man is not idle because he is absorbed in thought. There is visible labour and there is invisible labour.[Unquote] from Victor Hugo via the Quotations Page, [via Curry], who also cites [Quote] An invasion of armies can be resisted, but not an idea whose time has come.[Unquote] also from Victor Hugo.

Information Motivation

Information Motivation – Post from Jerry Ash that has spawned an interesting discussion thread on motivation behind communication. I responded to Denham Grey’s contribution. My position is, and always has been, that intent (motive) is a key (necessary) component of a good information model.

His NIBBS

His NIBBS – Dr Ian Pitchford runs the Human Nature Review and publishes this Daily Review of news in evolutionary psychology as “NIBBS“. [via Jean-Luc Delatre]. Recent editions include very positive reviews of Pinker’s “The Blank Slate”, Dennett’s “Freedom Evolves” and Jones’ “Y – The Descent of Men”. A positive gold mine of material.

Jean-Luc Delatre

Jean-Luc Delatre – Only just discovered this site, following some feedback from Jean-Luc. An interesting mix of Tao (Zen) thought with epistemology and ontologies. It seems Jean-Luc has been venting his frustration with the ontology approach at SUO / SUMO, where he has crossed swords with fellow conspirator at EPISTLE, Matthew West.