Comments on: The “Real” Reason the Internet Might Raise the Consciousness of Humanity http://danielhaggard.com/74/the-real-reason-the-internet-might-raise-the-consciousness-of-humanity/ For those who like to think... Fri, 10 Oct 2008 23:04:00 +0000 http://wordpress.org/?v=2.1.2 By: Peter Devore http://danielhaggard.com/74/the-real-reason-the-internet-might-raise-the-consciousness-of-humanity/#comment-3477 Peter Devore Wed, 30 Jan 2008 15:34:36 +0000 http://danielhaggard.com/74/the-real-reason-the-internet-might-raise-the-consciousness-of-humanity/#comment-3477 I think this article nicely foreshadows how Anonymous is able to bring its message to the table regarding Scientology. Without the internet, there would be few media left willing to spread an anonymous message. Citing references and peer review are practices the blogging world is starting to get through trial and error. As you said though, the formation of a new elite who can again cherry pick their sources and control what information their readership receives is a risk. I think that with the coming of the semantic web (maybe we'll call it web 3.0), people will be able to publish their information within a more neutral framework. One of the core ideas of the semantic web is that it will counter the duplication and fragmentation of information by referencing ideas and concepts by a single permanent URL. To give you a basic example, a product of a company can be given a static URL on their own website, which every review, price listing and such on different shop and review sites can reference. Through web crawlers or notification messages, other sites can gather and list all the reviews and prices of that product, giving you a neutral and complete overview of all the information about that product. The advance here is that this can all be done automatically, without an editor or blogger cherry picking the reviews he agrees with or the prices from shops he gets a sale cut from. How far can we take this idea to more controversial subjects, like the truth about the motivations for the war in Iraq? Wouldn't it be nice to read an article announcing something like that war, and tick a box beside every supposed fact that results in an e-mail notification when there is more evidence that corroborates or refutes them, even from sources other than the author of the original article? We would still have a big challenge in how we define the words and concepts that make up the static framework. Wikipedia already serves as a kind of static reference for concepts, so we'll probably work from there, but it needs a solution for recording all possible views on controversial subjects. I think this article nicely foreshadows how Anonymous is able to bring its message to the table regarding Scientology. Without the internet, there would be few media left willing to spread an anonymous message.

Citing references and peer review are practices the blogging world is starting to get through trial and error. As you said though, the formation of a new elite who can again cherry pick their sources and control what information their readership receives is a risk.

I think that with the coming of the semantic web (maybe we’ll call it web 3.0), people will be able to publish their information within a more neutral framework. One of the core ideas of the semantic web is that it will counter the duplication and fragmentation of information by referencing ideas and concepts by a single permanent URL.

To give you a basic example, a product of a company can be given a static URL on their own website, which every review, price listing and such on different shop and review sites can reference. Through web crawlers or notification messages, other sites can gather and list all the reviews and prices of that product, giving you a neutral and complete overview of all the information about that product.

The advance here is that this can all be done automatically, without an editor or blogger cherry picking the reviews he agrees with or the prices from shops he gets a sale cut from.

How far can we take this idea to more controversial subjects, like the truth about the motivations for the war in Iraq? Wouldn’t it be nice to read an article announcing something like that war, and tick a box beside every supposed fact that results in an e-mail notification when there is more evidence that corroborates or refutes them, even from sources other than the author of the original article?

We would still have a big challenge in how we define the words and concepts that make up the static framework. Wikipedia already serves as a kind of static reference for concepts, so we’ll probably work from there, but it needs a solution for recording all possible views on controversial subjects.

]]> By: Daniel Haggard http://danielhaggard.com/74/the-real-reason-the-internet-might-raise-the-consciousness-of-humanity/#comment-3479 Daniel Haggard Wed, 30 Jan 2008 22:40:30 +0000 http://danielhaggard.com/74/the-real-reason-the-internet-might-raise-the-consciousness-of-humanity/#comment-3479 Great comment Peter, I hadn't made the link - but indeed - anonymous is a perfect example of what I talk about in this post. They are taking up many of the 'tools of oppression' of which I speak to get their point across. Without the internet this would not have been possible. It's always great to hear how the technicians are coming up with better ways to organise information - ways that help us get to the reality of things, rather than that view of reality that is skewed by some kind of special interest. Sometimes i wonder whether the techies have done more for 'truth' than have all the philosophers put together! (better not quote me on that one though :) ) I actually do research in the field of semantics - and hope one day I might be able to tie my research back to real world applications like natural language programming - the semantic web, or the like. So I find the stuff about the semantic web quite fascinating - although I haven't looked into it in depth. If you know of any good non-technical intros I'd be grateful. Great comment Peter,

I hadn’t made the link - but indeed - anonymous is a perfect example of what I talk about in this post. They are taking up many of the ‘tools of oppression’ of which I speak to get their point across. Without the internet this would not have been possible.

It’s always great to hear how the technicians are coming up with better ways to organise information - ways that help us get to the reality of things, rather than that view of reality that is skewed by some kind of special interest. Sometimes i wonder whether the techies have done more for ‘truth’ than have all the philosophers put together! (better not quote me on that one though :) )

I actually do research in the field of semantics - and hope one day I might be able to tie my research back to real world applications like natural language programming - the semantic web, or the like. So I find the stuff about the semantic web quite fascinating - although I haven’t looked into it in depth. If you know of any good non-technical intros I’d be grateful.

]]> By: Peter Devore http://danielhaggard.com/74/the-real-reason-the-internet-might-raise-the-consciousness-of-humanity/#comment-3766 Peter Devore Sat, 22 Mar 2008 23:07:47 +0000 http://danielhaggard.com/74/the-real-reason-the-internet-might-raise-the-consciousness-of-humanity/#comment-3766 The semantic web is more an idea than a technology really, but the W3C is standardizing the 'languages' that are supposed to make it possible. Their FAQ is a start: http://www.w3.org/2001/sw/SW-FAQ I think the idea of the semantic web is best described as making Russell's concept of definite descriptions machine readable. RDF, the basic data model to be used in the semantic web when exchanging data, is built on subject:predicate:object triples which can be used just like Russell's denoting phrases. I'm no philosophy student, so I might be misunderstanding Russell a bit, but it seemed to fit together quite nicely. The semantic web is quite 'high concept', and you can see that in the difficulty that even the W3C designers have in explaining it: http://www.technologyreview.com/video/semantic If you want to get down and dirty with some applications that embody the semantic web concept, here are some examples: Yahoo pipes: http://pipes.yahoo.com/pipes/ Intel Mash maker: http://mashmaker.intel.com/ They are both programs to parse web sites and feeds into usable data and make lists, maps or new feeds. This is sorely needed in this transition phase where not all data is available in a machine readable format. DBPedia is a database munged from wikipedia in triplet format. You can load this into your favorite triplet handling software (any logic programming language, like Prolog, or most database software) and play around with it. http://dbpedia.org/About The semantic web is more an idea than a technology really, but the W3C is standardizing the ‘languages’ that are supposed to make it possible. Their FAQ is a start: http://www.w3.org/2001/sw/SW-FAQ

I think the idea of the semantic web is best described as making Russell’s concept of definite descriptions machine readable. RDF, the basic data model to be used in the semantic web when exchanging data, is built on subject:predicate:object triples which can be used just like Russell’s denoting phrases. I’m no philosophy student, so I might be misunderstanding Russell a bit, but it seemed to fit together quite nicely.

The semantic web is quite ‘high concept’, and you can see that in the difficulty that even the W3C designers have in explaining it: http://www.technologyreview.com/video/semantic

If you want to get down and dirty with some applications that embody the semantic web concept, here are some examples:
Yahoo pipes: http://pipes.yahoo.com/pipes/
Intel Mash maker: http://mashmaker.intel.com/
They are both programs to parse web sites and feeds into usable data and make lists, maps or new feeds. This is sorely needed in this transition phase where not all data is available in a machine readable format.

DBPedia is a database munged from wikipedia in triplet format. You can load this into your favorite triplet handling software (any logic programming language, like Prolog, or most database software) and play around with it. http://dbpedia.org/About

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