• Knowledge as a tree traditionally
• Knowledge is on rocky ground
  • Dan Rather incidence with bloggers
  • John Stewart, 'best journalist on tv' - only one capable of blurting out the truth
• Wikipedia
  • “If you want to point to what the Internet could be, you will point to Wikipedia and say 'This explains everything'”.
  • Jimbo Wales - creator
  • A sign that something is shifting.
• Knowledge has been narrowed more and more through the years by philosophers.
  1. Plato - Truth is justified beliefs
  2. Logic, faith and math followed
  3. Descartes provided the ultimate narrowing with the belief that the only true truth was, I think, therefore I am.

1. Assume only one knowledge, one reality
2. Knowledge is neatly organized (laundry example - ultimately leads to the knowledge tree)
   • Consequence of this view is that everything has A place.
3. Experts must thus do this
4. These experts will have power (gatekeepers).

• These assumptions don't work - examples:
  1. Dewey Decimal system
     • Landscape of the library could mirror the landscape of knowledge.
     • Languages
       • 420 English and Old English
       • 440 Germanic etc . . .
       • 492 Afro-Asiatic languates Si=emitic
       • 493 Non-semitic afro-asiatic
       • 494 Ural-altaic, paleosiberian, dravidi . . .
       • Asian languages didn't even get an integer
     • Philosphy included para-normal and other items, 'no pyschologist would agree to'
     • Religiion
       • Christianity gets some 80 numbers
       • Judaism, 1
       • Islam (et al) gets one
       • Buddhism, 'to the right of the decimal point'
  • Not fixable. Doesn't work becuase there is not one knowledge.

• First order, organize everything
  • Bettman archive owned by Bill Gates, stored underneath a mountain. Millions of images
  • Folders with 'meta-data' written on floders.
• Second order
  • Second room of card catalogs.
  • separate meta data from info
• Third order - digital world - everything is digitized
  • Four principles that arise
    1. Leaf has many branches - many categories for one item (normally one thing goes in one pile - can't put things in two piles)
       • Problem with this can be seen with the organization of a shopping site for camera (photographic equipment, casio, travel equipment, )
    2. Messiness is a virtue - used to embrace cleanliness, simplicity
    3. un-owned order
       • eg., most of Macy's is noise to individual shopper - wrong size, style and type.
       • the owner of the information no longer owns the organization of that information.
       • tremendous consequences for education since so much of learning is learning what the order of things is supposed to be.
    4. Users are contibutors
       • del.ico.us
       • photo example
       • social naming (e.g., conference pictures labeled by contributors).

Book Externalized Thought by Andy Clark. Clark's argument is that Human Beings have always externalized thought, thinking is something we do in the world. Physicist need a whiteboard. Scaffolding. Examples

1. Calculators
2. Google

Jimmy Wales, of Wikipedia says, Wiki is not paper. It means that Wikipedia is infinite. Britannica has 32 volumes, 65K topics. Snip the paper chain, and the restriction goes away. Deep fried Mars Bars. The size of these topics is much more realistic our world.

Paper has had a tremendous impact on society. Linneaus collections and papers. Collected speciman and took notes on 3 X 5 cards. Used for mapping.

Paper also has a sort of 'container' model of paper. Our mind, books, etc have knowledge. Knowledge transmission.

Weblog - example. Doc Searls

• These are not just diary's but actually conversations.
• NYTimes - all links point to NYTimes.
• why believe Doc Searls
• Objectivity - the world as it is
• Subjectivity - the world as it matters as us
• Multisubjectivity - (new term) Get these view points in conversation w/ one another.
• Sample topic - Open Source. Go to Technocrati (tried this with assessment and schools - found some good stuff).
  • Argues that following these links, discussions gives you a better sense of the topic than any one source could.

• Muli-dispute-ism
  • describes intense discussions at a party
  • Compared to weblog entry re: greeks.
• Beer - looking for the good beer, not the perfect beer. Doesn't exist.
• Knowledge is pragmatic, local and refreshing.
• Information overload has not occurred in the format of earlier concerns. Why, because it is connected.

Option 1

• Shove content into heads?
• Evaluate by testing as individuals? (e.g., IM'ing while doing homework)
• Imply ambiguity is a failure?
• Insist on being right?

Option 2

• Knowledge is an unending conversation
  • Contexts of knowledge
  • How to listen
  • Seek amiguity
  • love difference
• Conversation is a paradox
• Conversation is a miracle

Forces afraid of the conversational view of knowledge.