Hey all... <br><br>First I'd just like to commend Trebor once again on the fantastic job he does ensuring that this mailing list is the most interesting thing in my inbox.<br><br>Second, that's a very clear description of the post-structuralist (call it what you will) position on knowledge. Please see the following comments in the context of my general agreement with the position outlined in those few page. Also, please excuse my ignorance of the fact that these points may be addressed elsewhere... If only I had the time to read it all :)
<br><br><span style="font-style: italic;"><span style="font-style: italic;"><br>"</span>but in the first case you used Shakespeare's name as </span><span style="font-style: italic;">metadata to find the contents of a book and in the second you used some
</span><span style="font-style: italic;">of the contents of the book as metadata to find the author and title. In</span><br style="font-style: italic;"><span style="font-style: italic;">the miscellaneous order, the only distinction between metadata and data
</span><span style="font-style: italic;">is that metadata is what you already know and data is what you're trying </span><span style="font-style: italic;">to find out."<br><br></span>I'm finding more and more that I'm using data to find metadata... to learn the appropriate contextual language so that I can ask the right question. In that sense... I'm not sure that the distinction between data and metadata even applies... It's no problem to find a given piece of 'knowledge' if we're looking at quotes from books, or dates of events, or even how to tie knots. The problem becomes how to find out information about disputed knowledge. Try, for instance, to find out how to plant grape vines. Or how to barbecue ribs. Or try and find out who the influential philosophers in the 20th century are. Or try and make an lolcat. (
<a href="http://www.pageflakes.com/cormier/11091021">http://www.pageflakes.com/cormier/11091021</a> ) <br><br>Having not read the rest of the book its tough to know if this wasn't covered elsewhere... but there seems to be an implication, almost a feeling, that while knowledge is not a 'form' or a 'monolith' it does all reside in the same pile... or at least, the same set of skills will get you access to any given set of knowledge. My experience is that things are a little more like sets of rhizomes... with loose connections (more language adopted from David) between the given types of rhizomes, each with their own local rules and contexts.
<br><br>There is a sense, particularly when were talking about metadata, in which it is tempting to think of knowledge (or bits thereof) as identifiable objects, that can be pointed at (even digitally) and then used, commercial items to be purchased. My sense is that they are only contextually observable, only in a given community (or network mr. siemens) of thought... and cannot, in many cases, be identified at all. And certainly not without a certain understanding of that given context.
<br><br><span style="font-style: italic;">GIVE UP CONTROL. Build a tree and you surface information that might</span><br style="font-style: italic;"><span style="font-style: italic;">otherwise be hidden, just as Lamarck exposed information left hidden in
</span><br style="font-style: italic;"><span style="font-style: italic;">Linnaeus' miscellaneous category of worms. But, a big pile of</span><br style="font-style: italic;"><span style="font-style: italic;">miscellaneous information contains relationships beyond reckoning. No
</span><br style="font-style: italic;"><span style="font-style: italic;">one person or group is going to be able to organize it in all the useful</span><br style="font-style: italic;"><span style="font-style: italic;">ways, hanging all the leaves on all the branches where they might be
</span><br style="font-style: italic;"><span style="font-style: italic;">hung.</span><br><br>Seems very similar to the arboreal/rhizomatic distinction from 'a thousand plateaus'. My concern again about thinking of the 'pile' as a single object. I might be being over picky on this, but it still seems to imply to me that there is a single 'set' of knowledge bits to choose from and that they are all connected inside the same pile. I'm not sure how the metaphor teases out the power structures implicit in this kind of monopile.
<br><br><span style="font-style: italic;">Users are now in</span><br style="font-style: italic;"><span style="font-style: italic;">charge of the organization of the information they browse. Of course,</span><br style="font-style: italic;">
<span style="font-style: italic;">the owners of that information may still want to offer a prebuilt</span><br style="font-style: italic;"><span style="font-style: italic;">categorization, but that is no longer the only - or best - one
</span><br style="font-style: italic;"><span style="font-style: italic;">available. Put simply, the owners of information no longer own the</span><br style="font-style: italic;"><span style="font-style: italic;">organization of that information.
</span><br><br>This is my real concern. I worry a great deal about this... considering how many people are moving online, and how little they understand about how things are built. Creating any habitat... any space in which the 'pile of miscellany' is situated involves thousands of hidden decisions that focus where people go. Realistically, we've hidden the design from view... where in the shopping mall, I can tell that the products closer to me, on the sale rack, are being forwarded... online i can be guided without seeing a thing.
<br><br>I worry, most of all, how this emancipation can be controlled by those who have far more money, and therefore far more cycles, to build ghosts into these free wheeling machines. To take amazon as a simple example, if the advertising guides the choices people make, and those choices create a 'path of knowledge' for the group that follows, in a sense, these socially constructed bits of knowledge are MORE susceptible to advertising. It is really a very simple thing to adjust any system to subtly slide people's focus, on say itunes, to the music supported by a company that is paying you millions of dollars.
0.1% on the machine that allows that 'mix and match and find' system to work is enough to make a big difference.<br><br>cheers all,<br><br>dave.<br><a href="http://davecormier.com/edblog">http://davecormier.com/edblog
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