Hi Alan, I agree that there is, and probably will always be, a necessity to 'think outside of the box', although if the box was larger, it would be less necessary. But I wasn't really thinking about scientists and the pursuit of new knowledge, but rather the trillions? of mundane decisions that people regularly make on a daily basis.
A tool like Wikipedia really helps in being able to access a refined chunk of knowledge, but the navigation and categorization are statically defined. Sometimes what I am trying to find is spread horizontally across a large number of pages. If, as a simple example, a person could have a dynamically generated Wikipedia page created just for them that factored in their current knowledge and the overall context of the situation then they'd be able to utilize that knowledge more appropriately. They could still choose to skim or ignore it, but if they wanted a deeper understanding, they could read the compiled research in a few minutes. The Web, particularly for programmers, has been a great tease for this. You can look up any coding example instantly (although you do have to sort through the bad examples and misinformation). The downside is that I find it far more common for people to not really understanding what is actually happening underneath, but I suspect that that is driven by increasing time pressures and expectations rather than but a shift in the way we relate to knowledge. What I think would really help is not just to allow access to the breadth of knowledge, but to also enable individuals to get to the depth as well. Also the ability to quickly recognize lies, myths, propaganda, etc. Paul. Sent from my iPad On 2013-09-08, at 7:12 AM, Alan Kay <[email protected]> wrote: > Hi Paul > > I'm sure you are aware that yours is a very "Engelbartian" point of view, and > I think there is still much value in trying to make things better in this > direction. > > However, it's also worth noting the studies over the last 40 years (and > especially recently) that show how often even scientists go against their > training and knowledge in their decisions, and are driven more by desire and > environment than they realize. More knowledge is not the answer here -- but > it's possible that very different kinds of training could help greatly. > > Best wishes, > > Alan > > From: Paul Homer <[email protected]> > To: Alan Kay <[email protected]>; Fundamentals of New Computing > <[email protected]>; Fundamentals of New Computing <[email protected]> > Sent: Saturday, September 7, 2013 12:24 PM > Subject: Re: [fonc] Final STEP progress report abandoned? > > Hi Alan, > > I can't predict what will come, but I definitely have a sense of where I > think we should go. Collectively as a species, we know a great deal, but > individually people still make important choices based on too little > knowledge. > > In a very abstract sense 'intelligence' is just a more dynamic offshoot of > 'evolution'. A sort of hyper-evolution. It allows a faster route towards > reacting to changes in the enviroment, but it is still very limited by > individual perspectives of the world. I don't think we need AI in the classic > Hollywood sense, but we could enable a sort of hyper-intelligence by giving > people easily digestable access to our collective understanding. Not a 'borg' > style single intelligence, but rather just the tools that can be used to make > descisions that are more "accurate" than an individual would have made > normally. > > To me the path to get there lies within our understanding of data. It needs > to be better organized, better understood and far more accessible. It can't > keep getting caught up in silos, and it really needs ways to share it > appropriately. The world changes dramatically when we've developed the > ability to fuse all of our digitized information into one great structural > model that has the capability to separate out fact from fiction. It's a long > way off, but I've always thought it was possible... > > Paul. > > From: Alan Kay <[email protected]> > To: Fundamentals of New Computing <[email protected]> > Sent: Tuesday, September 3, 2013 7:48:22 AM > Subject: Re: [fonc] Final STEP progress report abandoned? > > Hi Jonathan > > We are not soliciting proposals, but we like to hear the opinions of others > on "burning issues" and "better directions" in computing. > > Cheers, > > Alan > > From: Jonathan Edwards <[email protected]> > To: [email protected] > Sent: Tuesday, September 3, 2013 4:44 AM > Subject: Re: [fonc] Final STEP progress report abandoned? > > That's great news! We desperately need fresh air. As you know, the way a > problem is framed bounds its solutions. Do you already know what problems to > work on or are you soliciting proposals? > > Jonathan > > > From: Alan Kay <[email protected]> > To: Fundamentals of New Computing <[email protected]> > Cc: > Date: Mon, 2 Sep 2013 10:45:50 -0700 (PDT) > Subject: Re: [fonc] Final STEP progress report abandoned? > Hi Dan > > It actually got written and given to NSF and approved, etc., a while ago, but > needs a little more work before posting on the VPRI site. > > Meanwhile we've been consumed by setting up a number of additional, and wider > scale, research projects, and this has occupied pretty much all of my time > for the last 5-6 months. > > Cheers, > > Alan > > From: Dan Melchione <[email protected]> > To: [email protected] > Sent: Monday, September 2, 2013 10:40 AM > Subject: [fonc] Final STEP progress report abandoned? > > Haven't seen much regarding this for a while. Has it been been abandoned or > put at such low priority that it is effectively abandoned? > > _______________________________________________ > fonc mailing list > [email protected] > http://vpri.org/mailman/listinfo/fonc > > > > _______________________________________________ > fonc mailing list > [email protected] > http://vpri.org/mailman/listinfo/fonc > > > > _______________________________________________ > fonc mailing list > [email protected] > http://vpri.org/mailman/listinfo/fonc > > > > _______________________________________________ > fonc mailing list > [email protected] > http://vpri.org/mailman/listinfo/fonc > > > >
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