Episode 3(4): Wrapping up the Web and the history of cognitive technologies - Meetup session12
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The document outlines a session on the evolution of cognitive technologies and their impact on human knowledge and organization, emphasizing the exponential growth of tools that enhance cognition and knowledge management. It explores historical perspectives, theoretical frameworks, and future implications, including the emergence of humano-technical cyborgs and the intersection of knowledge with technology. Key topics include the transformation of knowledge into power, the evolution of tools from primitive to advanced technologies, and the growing autonomy of knowledge in the digital age.
Episode 3(4): Wrapping up the Web and the history of cognitive technologies - Meetup session12
- 1. Session 12: Episode 3(4) — Wrapping up the Web and the history of cognitive technologies William P. Hall President Kororoit Institute Proponents and Supporters Assoc., Inc. - http://kororoit.org william-hall@bigpond.com http://www.orgs-evolution-knowledge.net Access my research papers from Google Citations
- 2. Tonight Tonight’s session was originally intended to explore various cognitive processes implemented in the Web itself Time will be much better spent summing up the what I think are the main messages so far and looking to the future – Knowledge defines what we are as humans and confers strategic power on those who apply it – Humans have invented a range of tools that improves the quantity and quality of knowledge people can control and apply by extending, externalizing, and even replacing human cognition – The capacities and rates of change of these technologies are growing exponentially Future topics – Theoretical Interlude looking through the lenses of physics and biology at the intertwined natures of life, knowledge and growing organizational complexity – The emergence of post-human humano-technical cyborgs – The pre-historical co-evolution of technology and human cognition and the emergence of humano-technical organization – Case study of organizational KM and Coda – the sting in the tail2
- 3. Summing up the first half
- 4. Knowledge-based revolutions repeatedly changed the ecological nature of the human species What is knowledge and how does it grow – Karl Popper: knowledge is solutions to problems – Thomas Kuhn: knowledge revolutions fundamentally change the way we see and deal with problems – The punctuated evolution of technology, adaptation & cognition Knowledge to make tools extending anatomy and physiology – Making and using simple mechanical tools to interact with the environment: sticks, stones, clubs, levers and fire – Ropes, shovels and domesticated animals to manage the environment – Machines to replace metabolic power with industrial power – Microelectronics to extend & automate cognitive power Knowledge to make tools extending cognition and knowledge – Speech & teaching extend the capacity to transfer cultural knowing – Mnemonic technologies extend the capacity of living memory – Counting, writing, & reading enable external storage of knowledge – Printing & universal literacy enable the industrial revolution growth of scientific knowledge – Knowledge automation and the Web enables hyperexponential growth4
- 5. Valuing Knowledge What are data, information and knowledge? Quantifying knowledge/information? – Can measure the volume of information/text in bits, bytes and terabytes – What does this tell us? Qualitative values for different kinds of information – Utility value of knowledge – WIKID Power Knowledge transformations: – Data – Information – Knowledge – Intelligence – Wisdom – Epistemic & Strategic Power 5
- 6. Constructing knowledge and power Popper and Polanyi in the KM world Popper’s evolutionary theory of knowledge and 3 worlds Boyd’s OODA loop process The importance of iteration and selective feedback! Evolutionary vs revolutionary adaptation 6
- 8. Prehistoric knowledge management – enhancing memory with mnemonics – A significant topic for Episode 5 – See Emergence Meetup - Knowledge & Power in Prehistoric Societies Counting and writing – Tokens – Media – Books – Libraries Printing – Paper – Presses – Typesetting – Automation The Reformation and Scientific and Industrial Revolutions – Rise of universal literacy – Rise of the universal library Episode 1 — Augmenting & Externalizing Memory 8
- 9. Episode 2 ─ Automating & externalizing cognition Ancient and forgotten technologies for prophecy and magic – Analog computing in ancient Greece – Automated temples and toys – Forgotten knowledge is lost knowledge The short life of analog computing Clockwork toys become clocks and calculators – Gear-driven calculators – Weaving and process control – the punch-card era The generations of electronic calculation 1. Binary electronics and stored programs 2. The rise of magnetic cores and storage 3. The solid state, Moore’s Law and exponential growth From flipping switches to casting spells – Revolutions in programming languages x speed x storage capacity – Arthur C. Clarke’s third law: Any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic9
- 10. Episode 3 – Cognitive tools for individuals Tools for making knowledge explicit and processing it externally – Knowledge moved to world 3 can be processed automatically – Killer apps Word processing Spread sheets Databases Paradigms for world 3: paper vs structure – Typesetting and appearance vs logical structure and semantics – Structure facilitates higher order processing Tools to manage and retrieve useful from an exponentially growing body of scientific knowledge The Internet and Web revolutions – Exponential capacity increase puts the world of knowledge on-line – Search engines retrieve appropriate knowledge at light speed and completely revolutionizes humanity’s relationship with knowledge Growing autonomy in the Web10
- 11. Phenomenal growth Some numbers (Witiger.Com) – Number of Internet devices: 1984 1,000 (one thousand) 1992 1,000,000 (one million) 2008 1,000,000,000 (one billion) – To reach 50,000,000 (fifty million) users it took the Telephone 38 years Television 13 years Internet = Web 4 years iPod 3 years Facebook 2 years 11
- 12. How much knowledge held in the Web? My primary interest is meaningful “content” (web pages, documents, books), not data Three Webs – Surface web –freely accessible to a browser Inktomi Jan 2000 1,000,000,000 pages Notess (2006) Dec 2000 600,000,000 Dec 2001 1,500,000,000 Nov 2002 3,000,000,000 Feb 2004 4,000,000,000 2006 20,000,000,000 Wikipedia current 36,607, 000 (~4 M for content) Google (2008) Jul 2008 1,000,000,000,000 (w/o duplicates) Indexed Web current ~47,000,000,000 (Google) Web Archive current 8,083,803 (books & texts) – Deep/hidden Web – requires subscription or password to access, e.g. e-Journals: University of Melbourne Library accesses 116,279 – Some are available free to the web, most are not (Scholar indexes) e-Book titles on Amazon: 6,911,733; (437,674 are free, rest are not) Subscription news, financial reports, other databases, etc. – Dark Web – encrypted & deeply hidden content (TOR, privacy, hacking, …) See Dr Gareth Owen 2015 Tor: Hidden Services and Deanonymisation Quantification difficult (~80% of access seems to be child abuse porn) 12
- 13. What Next? — But before that an Interlude to stretch your mind
- 14. Interlude 1 ─ Autopoiesis & physics of life, cognition & knowledge Physics and dynamics in world 1 – the “laws” of nature – Causation, change and causation at the quantum level – Thermodynamics drives emergence and evolution at the macroscopic level The likely emergence of world 2 and the inevitable entanglement of knowledge and life – What is life? – Autopoiesis, “circular organization”, survival and the propagation of adaptive structural organization – Structural knowledge in Popper’s world 2 The emergence of macromolecular knowledge in world 3 – Selection and evolution in the RNA world – Sharing and mixing macromolecular knowledge in W3 across time and space Multicellularity & sexual reproduction Culture & the social sharing of knowledge at a higher level of organization 14
- 15. Interlude 2 – Theory of hierarchically complex systems and knowledge at higher levels of organization Simon, Kauffman, Salthe and hierarchy theory – Complicated vs complex – Thermodynamically driven emergence – Systems, composite systems, subsystems and supersystems – Holarchies and focal levels – Levels of organization Hierarchical structure of living systems and the applicability of autopoiesis and knowledge to multiple levels of organization – Molecules – Organelles – Cells – Multicellulars – Organizations – Societies Emerging autopoiesis at higher levels of organization (i.e., autopoietic/living organizations)15
- 16. Final Episodes — We can see the post human world now How did we come to this
- 17. Episode 4 – Rise of the trans-human cyborgs Applying Moore’s Law – Technological convergence – Rise of the “intelligent” cloud – Apps on “smart” devices – Human machine interfaces Current human enhancements – Prosthetics – Google Glasses – Bionic eyes and ears – Drones – Neural interfaces (sensors and effectors) Understanding neural “wetware” – Mapping – Simulation – Cognitive convergence between wetware and hardware/software Emergent self-consciousness and autonomy 17
- 18. Episode 5 – Reconstructing the evolutionary imperatives that made us what we are today Scope: Tracing evolutionary circumstances that transformed social, tool-making and using apes into what we are today Identifying our ancestors: paleontology and paleogenetics Changing roles of genetics and culture for transmitting knowledge heritage of nature and technology Technological revolutions radically enhance adaptive capabilities – Prehistoric technologies – Top carnivores on the African savanna – Hunting & gathering around the world – Mnemonics and the agricultural revolution Emergence of higher order living systems – organizations & societies – Emergence of knowledge-based autopoietic groups – Sociotechnical organizations and their cognitive processes – Still higher level social systems? 18
- 20. Cadenza: Emergence, life & death of a sociotechnical organization 20
- 21. Coda: Where will it all end? 21