ContentOr: Content, really Knowledge is how we make life better. We learn about seeds so we can grow food. We learn about the weather so we can protect ourselves, be more comfortable, and be better at growing food. Within the confines of this collection of web data you can expect to enhance your knowledge about the topics listed below. These topics are covered in summary. See the Resources for more information. 1 The nature of knowledgeWhile discussing these topics some of them are demonstrated. For example, full_hypertext is an important tool for enhancing knowledge. As you may have noticed this web site utilizes hypertext, thus demonstrating itself; however, the hypertext used is the semi_hypertext of the world wide web, which is not as good and thus a failing is also demonstrated and criticized. As a user of this system you can empower yourself to make changes to selected parts. This provides an opportunity for the system to be improved or corrupted, again demonstrating some of the opportunities and dangers in the types of knowledge tools discussed herein. If you would like to make changes and you have not already read the Howto information, please do so. 1 The Nature of KnowledgeDouglas Foskett, former Director of Central Library Services at the University of London provides an elegant model for understanding data, information, knowledge and wisdom [foskett_fruitful]. In that model there is a path from raw phenomenon-based data, through information and knowledge, to wisdom. The model is represented by a pyramid with data at the bottom and wisdom on top. In the pyramid data are "the single items of consciousness and thought" at the "first stage of cognition" [foskett_fruitful]. Data are perceptions of phenomena. If data is processed or organized into some form of representation it becomes information. Information is data which have been: organised by the relations of one to another into systems of ideas...The distinction is real because the process of organising is real and requires a conscious mental activity. It is possible because we have the power of the imagination: we can convert the isolated percepts into organised concepts, and this is the secondary stage of cognition [foskett_fruitful].Therefore, data that have been put into a context with other things that are similar become information, or something which is informative. Knowledge is created when information has been synthesized to create a sense of understanding that is held in the mind of an individual. Knowledge is information "which has been assimilated into a human mind and thus given a pattern or structure which is unique" [foskett_fruitful]. Wisdom, for Foskett, is "the distilled essence of knowledge" and "is founded on a wide knowledge and deep understanding of all the facets and events of life in a community" [foskett_fruitful]. Whereas individual knowledge cannot be communicated, its essence can be passed on to a community as wisdom, as an understanding of what is good and what is not good. Foskett portrays his pyramid as a one-way path, but it is clear that concepts at play along the path can be labeled differently depending on how they are passed. Data may be processed into information and then learned into knowledge but that same information may also become data for some other type of organization. Context and synthesis are very important to this model. Being able to adequately and appropriately place some data in a context helps to make it understandable information. With synthesis of the information and with additional context we achieve knowledge. That knowledge is our understanding of the universe. It helps us to understand and operate in the world. Knowledge (created from context and synthesis) provides us with additional context and models that allow us to apprehend the unknown in a mechanism like this: "I don't know what this is but I know something like it so I have something to compare it to. I have a handle on it." [ Top ] 2 The Evolution of KnowledgeEric Drexler, the chairman of the Foresight Institute, believes that in order for society to adequately deal with the problems and challenges that will come in the near future, humans must be more able to create knowledge. In his model knowledge is created and sustained by an evolutionary process:
Foskett and Drexler both see knowledge as a process. Information or ideas enter the world, are compared with other ideas or information resulting in the creation of new ideas or information in an endless cycle going down through history. This is fairly close to the definition of the Hegelian dialectic wherein a thesis (an idea) upon reflection leads to and becomes associated with its antithesis (an opposing idea); but yet more reflection leads to synthesis: a new idea that encapsulates and accounts for the thesis and antithesis. The new idea becomes the launching point for repeating the process: thesis to antithesis to synthesis [philosophy_pages]. To enhance knowledge creation, as Drexler proposes, we must accelerate the process. That is, the following processes must be made more efficient:
To improve critical discussion and the evaluation of knowledge, we can seek to improve the variation, replication and selection of ideas. To aid variation, we can seek to increase the ease and expressiveness of communication. To aid replication, we can seek to speed distribution, to improve indexing, and to ensure that information, once distributed, endures. To aid selection, we can seek to increase the ease, speed, and effectiveness of evaluation and filtering. The nature of media affects each of these processes, for better or worse.To reach this goal, he proposes, like many others, the use of a hypertext publishing system. If we are able to say more ideas, get more ideas to more people and have more ideas evaluated more quickly, more theses will be exposed to possible antitheses resulting in more synthesis. [ Top ] 3 Enhancing Knowledge Creation
3.1 Emanuel Goldberg The first known references to technological systems that contain aspects of what is now known as hypertext start to show up in the 1930s and 1940s. At that time microfilm was showing that it was possible to maintain great volumes of information in a very small space. People speculated that if it were possible to produce and access these films quickly then research would be greatly accelerated. Three names stand out: Emanuel Goldberg, Paul Otlet and Vannevar Bush. 3.1 Emanuel GoldbergEmanuel Goldberg was a Russian native who emigrated to Germany in the early 1900s. He was responsible for developing very high resolution microfilm. At the 1931 International Congress of Photography he presented a paper, "The retrieval problem in photography" that is, "perhaps, the first paper on electronic document retrieval and describes what seems to have been the first functioning document retrieval system using electronics" [buckland_goldbush]. 3.2 Paul OtletPaul Otlet, responsible for starting the International Federation for Information and Documentation, wrote a book in 1934, Traité de Documentation, in which he envisioned a machine that would act as a scholarly workstation. The workstation would have access to remote resources that could be presented on the workstation. In an article summarizing Otlet's (extensive) contributions to information science Boyd Rayward says: Similarly, he thought it should be possible to add long distance, as it were, to existing texts held remotely and to do this in such a way that the original texts were not disturbed [rayward_otlet]As described in Otlet's book the machines he envisions would be quite powerful: We should have a complex of associated machines which would achieve the following operations simultaneously or sequentially: 1. Conversion of sound into text; 2. Copying that text as many times as is useful; 3. Setting up documents in such a way that each datum has its own identity and its relationships with all the others in the group and to which it can be re-united as needed; 4. Assignment of a classification code to each datum; [division of the document into parts, one for each datum, and] rearrangement of the parts of the document to correspond with the classification codes; 5. Automatic classification and storage of these documents; 6. Automatic retrieval of these documents for consultation and for delivery either for inspection or to a machine for making additional notes; 7. Mechanized manipulation at will of all the recorded data in order to derive new combinations of facts, new relationships between ideas, new operations using symbols [buckland_goldbush]. 3.3 Vannevar BushVannevar Bush was the Director of the Office of Scientific Research and Development, a World War II organization that coordinated the research efforts of approximately 6000 scientists. After the war he wrote an article, which, despite Goldberg and Otlet's contributions, is heralded as the predictor of hypertext. The article, "As We May Think" [bush_think], discusses his version of a scholarly workstation called the memex. Bush believed the memex was important because it would allow researchers to do their work (of generating knowledge) more effectively: There may be millions of fine thoughts, and the account of the experience on which they are based, all encased within stone walls of acceptable architectural form; but if the scholar can get at only one a week by diligent search, his syntheses are not likely to keep up with the current scene. [bush_think] The important part of the memex is its ability to create trails. The memex affords an immediate step, however, to associative indexing, the basic idea of which is a provision whereby any item may be caused at will to select immediately and automatically another. This is the essential feature of the memex. The process of tying two items together is the important thing [bush_think].These associations can be gathered together into trails that may be saved and shared with other researchers. Bush predicts a new occupation, trailblazers, of people who will be in the business of creating associative trails on particular topics. That--the notion of trails--is hypertext: associative linkings between things. Any things. 3.4 Ted NelsonThe term hypertext was introduced by Ted Nelson in 1963 "to mean a body of written or pictorial material interconnected in such a complex way that it could not conveniently be presented or represented on paper" [wordnet, hypertext]. Nelson's "principal insight was in place by the end of December 1960. It was this: if text and other media are maintained as referential structures, the resulting structure will have numerous powerful advantages over merely moving the contents around" [xanadu_tech]. This notion deserves some explaining but more important is what it allows (a more detailed explanation of Xanadu's referential structures will be added if time allows). Nelson took his insight and began a 40-year crusade to develop a full_hypertext publishing system called Xanadu. He is the hypertext pioneer, the nexus of all the possibilities, but unfortunately his pursuits have resulted in little. Much of his work has been overshadowed and corrupted by more recent developments. The existing world wide web is, as they put it on the Xanadu website, "a diabolical dumbdown of our original hypertext idea" [xanadu_web]. Nelson's confrontational style has probably not helped his crusade, but that's how crusaders are. 3.5 Doug EngelbartLater in the 1960s Douglas Engelbart was also having visions of how technology, especially computer-based technology, could be used to enhance knowledge. Engelbart is primarily remembered for his development of the mouse but that was simply a side effect of a far greater vision to "increase the capability of people to deal collectively with urgent complex problems" [softky_engelbart]. In the 1960s he pursued his research at the Stanford Research Institute where he and his team "developed hypertext linking;...real-time text editing; integration of text and graphics; on-line journals; shared-screen teleconferencing; and technology that allowed people to collaborate on problems from different remote locations" [softky_engelbart]. Today he pursues his vision at the Bootstrap_Institute. 3.6 Tim Berners-LeeIn 1990, while working at CERN, Tim Berners-Lee convinced the management to devote some resources to the development of a network- transparent hypertext data access system he initially called "Mesh" [berners_lee_info]. While working on the code he changed the name to World Wide Web, the system you are using today. The World Wide Web was primarily designed as an information management tool and thus falls shorts of the knowledge enhancement tools envisioned by Otlet, Bush, Nelson and Engelbart and described by Drexler. The most noticeable difference is that while the World Wide Web does have the linking behavior of hypertext the links are uni-directional. In other words the hypertext in the World Wide Web is semi_hypertext and not the full_hypertext required to meet the requirements outlined by Drexler. (There are many other things wrong [pam_where].) 3.7 A Knowledge Enhancement SystemSo what, then, comprises a knowledge enhancement system that would satisfy Otlet, Bush, Nelson, Engelbart and Drexler? Drexler lists several requirements for enhancing expression, transmission and evaluation. The system must:
The system enhances expression by lowering the barriers to publishing. Anyone can publish for a very low cost in a very short amount of time. If someone has a response they can quickly attach a comment, again at very low cost. The system enhances transmission by existing as a ubiquitous network entity. Documents are available anywhere the network can reach. The system enhances evaluation by allowing ideas to be exposed to wide criticism and placed in contrast with other ideas that are supported by context that is easy to access and assess. Thus such a system, if well implemented, would accelerate knowledge evolution. Why isn't it here? There are many reasons but most prominent is the presence of the existing World Wide Web. Many people are not interested in discussing hypertext because we already have it and it must be wonderful because we are in the midst of a revolution. That's simply not the case: the revolution has yet to begin. [ Top ] 4 CriticismAll ideas fall on their face from some perspective. The idealism rolling around here is all well and good but how do things look from either the real world or the squishy world of critical theory? 4.1 Authorship and Authority 4.1 Authorship and AuthorityMuch of the criticism aimed at systems that are deeply hypertextual tend to be associated with the way in which the notion of "who wrote this" can be lost. As you navigate amongst a collection of links there is no immediately apparent way to determine if the author of the current text is the same as the author from the previous side of the link. This is especially true if the system provides fine-grained links into the middle of documents. You may be able to make assumptions but you can't necessarily be sure. If we decide what purpose an author serves, that can help us to understand how this purpose can be filled in hypertext. If we think about how hypertext has filled these purposes thus far we can have a better understanding of how the hypertext pioneers think about authors. For most people identifying the author of a given work allows them to make some judgments about the quality and appropriateness of the work. We can look at this as an aspect of Foucault's author function as discussed in "What is an Author?" [foucault_author]. In much modern criticism there is an effort to downplay the notion of the author and the author's intent in interpretation of a discourse. It is replaced by the primacy of the text (or sometimes the reader, but it is the reader responding to the text, so in a sense the text is still primary) and the multiple layers of interpretation that can be found in the text by unfolding the different aspects of significance. This replacement, however, does not remove the author but recenters the author away from a person who wrote a text to an ephemeral function existing in a cultural context. Or as Foucault puts it "to a transcendental anonymity" [foucault_author, 141]. Foucault wonders what's left in the space where the author used to be. Readers use the notion of author, so if it is not the engine of meaning behind a discourse, what is it? An author is not the proper name that has signed a work, because some works have authors and others do not (books versus contracts, for example). Foucault settles on the notion of an author function: In this sense the function of an author is to characterize the existence, circulation, and operation of certain discources within a society [foucault_author, 142].We can recast Foucault's statement to use Drexler's terms for knowledge evolution and get much the same statement: The function of an author is to characterize the expression, transmission and evaluation of certain discourses within a network. Is it possible, then, that the notion of author and authorship as a conceptualization of a proper name in a hypertext system is not as important as the author function as described by Foucault? Consider this web site. I, the writer of this text, am essentially unknown. To attach the name Chris Dent to this text does little (amongst those who don't know me) to enhance the value of the information. The value of the information is present from the way in which it may be internally consistent, coherent and supported by its external sources. As it is read it may gain a reputation that enhances its apparent value. Instead of my name reflecting value onto the text, the text may reflect value onto me thus creating an author function that is somewhat associated with the person perceived to be the author of this text. Chris Dent is not the author. The author is some thing named Chris Dent associated with a work that gained a reputation for being valuable. We'll see if that happens. Furthermore, the text that is down inside the warp engine--the text of the definitions--is openly acknowledged to be fully anonymous. It may or may not be written by the author function with the label Chris Dent. There is, though, a community that is associated with the text: people who have been granted access to make changes. As above, if the text in the definitions is perceived to have value then that community becomes an author function and is granted a positive reputation. Identification of the author then becomes a function of identifying the community of people for whom access has been granted or identifying the guidelines by which access is granted. So, if an author serves a function that grants some dynamic measure of authority, a hypertext system does not necessarily need to provide proper name identification of the writer of some text. It does, though, need to provide some way of identifying how the text came to be where it is. That is, the cultural context under which the text was generated needs to be apparent. The current world wide web hypertext system doesn't make that context very clear. Xanadu atte |