What, Why & How do we Know ?
The End of Doneness – A 1998 Dave Weinberger JOHO article [via Gurteen’s Blog] [Quote] The cards are stacked against documents. We are seeing a massive cultural shift away from the concept of done-ness. The Web allows for constant process and enables open-ended groups of people to be invited into the process. Documents are things that are done. That is why the Web will kill them. [Unquote]
I think this is healthy – a process view of web information.
Cost Effective Meta-Data – From Stefano Mazzocchi [via Seb] [Paraphrasing] The more, higher quality meta-data the better, because the quality of meta-data heavily influences the effectiveness of retrieval systems. Meta-data mark-up-based “semantic” web solutions (RDF, Ontologies) are economically infeasible (because the human assignment of the right tags is in addition to defining the content itself and is either expensive to do properly or compromised by cutting corners.) The best semantic meta-data solutions are based on transparent inference, without heuristics (in publishing the content). User feeling is important (in creating meta-data, and in how it is perceived as relevant later). [End Paraphrasing – my italic emphasis]
IMHO – The quest is for some kind of ontology that captures (or infers) the creator’s actions and intent at the point of creation and/or publication, not some misleading post-rationalisation according to some fixed prescribed ontology. ANKOO – A New Kind of Ontology ? Maybe not, “AnOint” perhaps – An Ontology of Intent ? Has your blog / output been annointed yet ?
If the human assigns meta-data to their own output, the “intent” problem just shifts along one – from why did Mr X say that, to the question of why did Mr X assign that meta-data to it. When the Mr X says his latest offering is the best thing since sliced bread, do you believe him because it is, because he says it is, or because you believe him (or not as the case may be) ?
Progress via Disruptive Technologies – From Hugh Blackmer, Science Librarian, Washington & Lee Uni. [via Seb] Particularly on the subject of colaborative web tools, but on the message of emergence and change – mainly technology driven – usually hingeing on chaos at disruptive cusps in development. See my dissertation on business change.
Interesting and related story today on BBC Radio 4, about business cycles in large successful family run businesses, being driven by the three generations rule. Very much my view of Kondratiev in economic cycles (Techno-Economic Paradigms) generally – One generation to learn & grow – One to succeed & exploit – One to lose-focus & fall prey to the next disruptive influence. 80 Year knowledge cycles are predictable. Is the cycle of change really faster in the e-memes age ? I doubt it – still human limited – unless artificial knowledge can really supplement the rate of human knowledge transfer, evolution and emergence.
Conversational Terrorism [via Seb] For example, as the same quote used by Seb, sums it up …
[Quote] “Think vs. Feel” Any person will likely be off-center of the analytical / emotive spectrum in any heated exchange. By pointing out which side the other person is on, (either side will do) he/she is obliged to defend his/her temperament instead of the case at hand. Either
(1) “Your cold, analytical approach to this issue doesn’t take into account the human element.”, or
(2) “Your emotional involvement with this issue obscures your ability to see things objectively.” [Unquote]
Social science at 190mph. Analysis of Nascar behaviour from First Monday. [via Jorn]
Earlier blog on Netherlands road-safety behaviour via eye-contact in the absence of road markings / signs etc.
P2P Marches On – From The Register. [via Jorn]
Language Timothy ! (II) – Terry Jones speaking about the appalling collateral damage already being inflicted on the English language.
[via Jorn] [via Common Dreams] [via UK Guardian] [Language Timothy !]
Kurzweil on Wolfram – Blogged a few days ago on the Ray Kurzweil comments and discussions from last year on Wolfram’s ANKOS. A long set of discussion threads now exist on this work. First off here are some Kurzweil / Wolfram quotes …
Kurzweil [Quote] Personally, I find Wolfram’s enthusiasm for his own ideas refreshing. I am reminded of a comment made by the Buddhist teacher Guru Amrit Desai, when he looked out of his car window and saw that he was in the midst of a gang of Hell’s Angels. After studying them in great detail for a long while, he finally exclaimed, “They really love their motorcycles.” [Unquote] And on the subject of how progress arises from catastrophe.
Wolfram [Quote] From such a repetitive and deterministic process [CA – Cellular Automata], one would expect repetitive and predictable behavior ….. Whenever a phenomenon is encountered that seems complex it is taken almost for granted that the phenomenon must be the result of some underlying mechanism that is itself complex. But my discovery [ WTF !!?!?! ] that simple programs can produce great complexity makes it clear that this is not in fact correct. [Unquote] But surely this is well known chaos, complexity and fractal stuff as, of course, Kurzweil proceeds to comment. Kurzweil’s basic conclusion is that Wolframs CA’s cannot possibly drive all natural behaviours mechanistically without the kind of complexity generated by evolutionary drives and mechanisms. I’d have to agree, interesting, stimulating discussion, valid thoughts, but not new, and certainly not ANKOS nor Life the Universe and Everything.
Kurzweil’s site also hosts many thoughtful “MindExchange” threads, prompted by his article. See this thread with Karun Philip.
Karun Philip [Quote] creative conjecture procedes solely by a process of analogy …. Syllogism itself is an analogy to causality (whether such causality is real or apparent is unimportant) [Unquote] Analogy and metaphor again. [Quote] AI, in my opinion, is useless, practically speaking. We might as well hire someone from China [Unquote] Is this a deliberate Chinese Room allusion ? And for an encore his book Zen and the Art of Funk Capitalism [Quote] …. purports to tell the story of what is true of the universe in which we live. If we are to tell the story of what is true, we must then begin with an investigation of what constitutes valid knowledge and what does not. Indeed, what do we mean by the word knowledge ? (epistemology) …. ends with a proposal that I claim will largely get rid of extreme global poverty …. giving people the knowledge and philosophy of how to maximize the chance of building a successful small business. [Unquote] I’m all for high-minded aims. Mine are merely to improve business organisational decision making. Intriguing stuff. K-Capital is Karun Philip’s business venture.