ONT Re: Information = Comprehension x Extension -- Discussion
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ICE. Discussion Note 22
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HT = Hugh Trenchard
HT: Ok, so I get now that when you talk about global abstraction you're talking
essentially about information circulating the internet. It wasn't clear to
me whether the term 'global abstraction' was a reference to a set of thought
processes within a single mind/brain. I see that this is not what you mean.
HT: Having thus reduced my uncertainty to a degree of two (or 2 point something
perhaps) my following question is simply: Do I take the ultimate aim of all
this is to develop a kind of internet search tool, something along the lines
of a google search engine, but perhaps which operates automatically without
requiring the input of search terms, categorizing information and/or
synthesizing it into complete and discreet subject parcels?
Hugh,
This particular thread refers to Peirce's development, in 1865-66,
of a subject that he called the "Theory of Information", which he
derived from first principles in his endeavors to analyze the way
that empirical scientific inference actually succeeds in practice.
I became interested in this about fifteen years ago because I was
looking at ways to integrate qualitative and quantitative methods
in research, and Peirce's information theory presented a striking
example of information theory mined from a logical or qualitative
vein, well, more like the mother lode.
In the same mine-field of research, one tries to identify general principles
that affect the development of knowledge in any system that is intelligent
enough to carry out inquiry. Thus one asks questions about the sorts of
architectures, algorithms, data structures, and other infrastructures
that are needed to support inquiry, questions about the dynamics of
inquiry, and the laws that envelope its trajectory through time.
Now, whether it's an individual brain, learning organization, social network,
species collective, or web of maya, it is worth at least looking for generic
principles that apply to all such "inquiry driven systems" (IDS), and that
is what I'm about here, whatever the application of the moment might be.
Here some of the other e-tanglements of this thread:
AFI. http://suo.ieee.org/ontology/thrd2.html#05254
ICE. http://suo.ieee.org/ontology/thrd28.html#03746
ICE. http://suo.ieee.org/ontology/thrd1.html#05283
TIO. http://suo.ieee.org/ontology/thrd1.html#05226
WIS. http://suo.ieee.org/ontology/thrd19.html#04317
The global/local business I take primarily in a mathematical sense, as in
"the differential is a local linear approximation to the global function".
And most of my other senses are "derivative" of that, though, of course
the whole complex is rife with puns.
Jon Awbrey
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http://www.cs.bsu.edu/homepages/mighty/history.html
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