The WELL: inkwell.vue.300: David Weinberger, Everything is Miscellaneous

#155: Jon Lebkowsky (jonl) Wed 13 Jun 07 20:37

Wed, 13 Jun 2007 20:37:00 PDT

Thanks, everybody! This was a great and often unexpected conversation. Lots to think about.

File under "Miscellaneous"...! [Read entire topic]

#154: David Weinberger (dweinberger) Wed 13 Jun 07 10:49

Wed, 13 Jun 2007 10:49:00 PDT

Thank you all! I learned a lot, and I appreciate the chance. [Read entire topic]

#153: Gail Williams (gail) Wed 13 Jun 07 10:11

Wed, 13 Jun 2007 10:11:00 PDT

Excellent ideas, lots of fun!

I hope some of these subjects will continue to be explored here or in internal conferences like <design.> and <web.> [Read entire topic]

#152: Cynthia Dyer-Bennet (cdb) Wed 13 Jun 07 10:05

Wed, 13 Jun 2007 10:05:00 PDT

The past two weeks have zoomed right by, haven't they? This has been a powerful discussion, and I want to thank you for sharing your insights with us, David. I also want to thank Jon for so ably leading the conversation.

Though our virtual spotlight has turned to a new guest, this topic will remain open for additional questions and comments indefinitely. So if you can stick around, David and Jon, please know that you're more than welcome to do so. Thanks! [Read entire topic]

#151: gnarls darwin (xian) Tue 12 Jun 07 18:43

Tue, 12 Jun 2007 18:43:00 PDT

When flocks of birds turn and wheel doesn't a different bird often appear in front (same thing with schools of fish)?

I can see where this kind of thing could emerge from some simple rules (and maybe a bit of recursion - recursion makes its own gravy). [Read entire topic]

#150: James Leftwich, IDSA (jleft) Tue 12 Jun 07 16:06

Tue, 12 Jun 2007 16:06:00 PDT

Kevin Kelly had some fascinating things to say about that aspect of bird flocking in his book, "Out Of Control," if I remember correctly. [Read entire topic]

#149: Jon Lebkowsky (jonl) Tue 12 Jun 07 15:43

Tue, 12 Jun 2007 15:43:00 PDT

Yeah, I'm fascinated by the authority of the lead bird in the flock. It just emerges. [Read entire topic]

#148: watch the parking meters (xian) Tue 12 Jun 07 10:04

Tue, 12 Jun 2007 10:04:00 PDT

I refuse to recognize the authority of what you just wrote

<ducking>

seriously, though, one thing that interests me about the web, about wikipedia, etc., is the idea of how authority can emerge or be constructed tendentiously, temporarily and how the older notion of authority based on credentials and handed down from on high, from a mountaintop perhaps, is seriously under siege. [Read entire topic]

#147: James Leftwich, IDSA (jleft) Tue 12 Jun 07 09:45

Tue, 12 Jun 2007 09:45:00 PDT

> They get stuck with what they write, even though it's really (?) just > one way of slicing up the cake. So, are there really three orders? > Nah. It's just a useful way of framing some issues ... which means > that while it reveals some, it also obscures much. That seems to > be how understanding works.

Which is why I feel understanding equals/benefits from/deserves ongoing interaction, as opposed to simply reading/viewing/receiving some authoritative/controlled/static viewpoint/definition/framing/query result.

The lack of the ability to dynamically reframe any viewpoint/definition/model/query result represents a limitation, even though convenience is a worthy goal. This has been an artifact and liability of the static written word, with the artifacts often being confused for some kind of actual finality/definition. The map is not the territory, etc., and words/descriptions are maps of concepts.

Looking at this on a much larger, epochal scale, humanity now faces essentially an information representation/communication/perception crises, due to how much information there now is in the world. Both recorded (retrieving- and exploration-related) as well as live and in real-time (accessing- and awareness-related).

This is an interesting, and shocking, thing to ponder, given that the written word has brought us from the state of hunter-gatherers to our present world. But we've now (the present era) reached the inherent limitations of that mode (alone). Words and single-level perceptual models for exploring and communicating ideas and information are, well, inefficient.

Just as walking was eventually augmented by driving, and then flying. So will our historical information technologies eventually be joined by more powerful higher-level forms of processing, interaction, resulting in similarly higher and more powerfully efficient levels of understanding and awareness. [Read entire topic]

#146: metaxian (xian) Tue 12 Jun 07 09:38

Tue, 12 Jun 2007 09:38:00 PDT

and, since I forgot to close the quote*, the rest of the this topic is all part of everything else...."

* quotation marks are metadata, right? [Read entire topic]