2009.04.17 19:00 - A rock is not a tree

Wol Euler recovered this page from the autologging database. Adelene was the guardian.

Threedee Shepherd: hi doug

doug Sosa: hi, i've got a short time but wanted to stop by.

doug Sosa: Is friday evening slow? I am out of touch.

Threedee Shepherd: The 7 PM slot is generally a bit slow

Threedee Shepherd: I expect Adelene, she is GoC

doug Sosa: where seems to be the most active?

Threedee Shepherd: I am not sure, since this is the time I usually come

doug Sosa: ah, well then. Waht would you most like to have a conversation about?

Threedee Shepherd: what kind of pictures iconically symbolize knowledge?

doug Sosa: wow. would thatbsentence be different if the word irony wasn't in it?

Threedee Shepherd: I aqm serious and just trying to get brainstorming ideas from folks

doug Sosa: Oh I knew you were serious. Obviously maps. second time lines. third, domain secific pictures and diagrams

Adelene Dawner: Sorry I'm late - somehow my alarm didn't go off. :P

Threedee Shepherd: If I had a bunch of buildings and put one picture on each, what picture might go on the building where knowledge is pursued, generally?

doug Sosa: hi ad. we are talking about pictures of knowledge.

Adelene Dawner: ^.^

doug Sosa: a group having a conversation, lots of interesting stuff onthe walls.

doug Sosa: Or a person(s) in a garden, with a book of math, a book of poety, a mother and a child.

doug Sosa: poetry

doug Sosa: and a lyre

Adelene Dawner: computer terminal with wikipedia symbol ^.^

doug Sosa: i left computers out. i wonder why? I use them many hours a day, to read latin, write letter with important ideas, keep a blog..

Adelene Dawner: not a traditional part of the culture/memescape, yet. :)

doug Sosa: I trust the person, the pen, the paper, the guitar, the brush, the trowel. the computer seems to me a mere path between theings that interest me, not something interesting in itself.

Threedee Shepherd: perhaps a different approach. What process--if any--transforms data into knowledge?

doug Sosa: there is no data without knowledge first, none.

Adelene Dawner: framework. Knowing why it matters, how it can be applied.

Threedee Shepherd: I'm not sure Doug. Imagine a newborn. Input is all raw date before anything else, I think

doug Sosa: Te newborn is a highly orgainzed set of complex responses, such as crying gets the mother. No data.

Adelene Dawner: o.O

doug Sosa: The newborn is a result of several billion years of evoution, if arrives in the middle of a process, not at the beginning of a process.

Threedee Shepherd: ok, that's reasonable.

Threedee Shepherd: What is the first new knowledge the newborn acquires

doug Sosa: the idea that there is data is an ideology of perception, to take one case, being breakable down into fixed elements. there are none.

doug Sosa: The newborn does not aquire knwledge. the metaphor implies putting something in an empty space. the newborn has no empty paces, only modifiable ones.

doug Sosa: paces=spaces

Threedee Shepherd: perhaps this is too much theoretical. Is 2+2=4 data, knowledge or something else?

doug Sosa: it s arithmetic, not data. Now note..

doug Sosa: there are two senses of "data". One is from the latin, simply "something given."

doug Sosa: the other is ideological: the idea that the world omes in simple parts that get integrated in to larger ensembles. This view is wrong, and serves power.

Threedee Shepherd: a rock is not a tree

doug Sosa: oops??

doug Sosa: neither a rock nor a tree is a piece of data in that second sense.

Adelene Dawner: The fact that a rock is not a tree is data, though.

doug Sosa: What do you mean by saying it is "data"?

doug Sosa: hi :)

Threedee Shepherd: Hello Pema, we are discussing the relationships of data and knowledge

Pema Pera: Hi doug, Adelene, threedee!

doug Sosa: and I won't accept the "data" word.

Pema Pera: can stay only a few minutes -- just arrived at Newark airport, am in the train to New York City now, but tunnel coming up in five minutes or so

Adelene Dawner should not be trying to do this tonight :P

Pema Pera: that's my data so far :)

Adelene Dawner: If it's not 'data', what is it?

Pema Pera: not sure about knowledge :)

Threedee Shepherd: the census collects data. Analysts integrate/transform it into knowledge models

doug Sosa: data implies something fixed, given, that we then must acept, and are free to think about but not deny.

doug Sosa: My view is that "data" always s the result of presupositions, so always open to critique.

Adelene Dawner: 'a tree is not a rock' is not fixed? It's arguable?

doug Sosa: What do we get by adding to "a tree is not a rock" that it is data. remeber we stared with knowledge. "a tree is not a rock" is much more knowledge than data.

Adelene Dawner grins at Corey.

Threedee Shepherd: actually, data was a tangent. I am really trying to think about "what is knowledge"?

Threedee Shepherd: Hi Corvi dear

doug Sosa: Pema are you fying tonight?

Corvuscorva Nightfire: Hi all

Pema Pera: I did my flying

Pema Pera: returning home now

doug Sosa: ho.

Pema Pera: hi Corvi!

doug Sosa: ah, hey, my avatar is tyoing away but i wasn't. ????

Threedee Shepherd: No takers. Well "What does it mean to know?"

Pema Pera: tunnel coming up !

Pema Pera: bfn

Threedee Shepherd: bye

doug Sosa: to know means to judge that we have a partial map of reality.

doug Sosa: I wonder what pema is thinking?

doug Sosa: Which mans that we may think we are on land, but actually we are on an island, which only a larger map can reveal.

doug Sosa: Or walking into the unknown.

Threedee Shepherd: If there is land and water, all land is an island

doug Sosa: then why do we distinhguish sontinents from islands?

Adelene Dawner rumbles. "I think I need to go. I assume y'all can handle it if newbies show up. Cya next time."

Threedee Shepherd: for sake of quick description of a sense of scale. Australia is an Island and a continent

doug Sosa: and thinking about that makes us wiser.. i too gotta go prepare some sole and avocado :)

Threedee Shepherd: sounds tasty

doug Sosa: bye.

Threedee Shepherd: threedee being the only one left, leaves. Goodnight world.