Cryptica Scriptura 31
Posted Sep 08, 2003 - 11:32 AM
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"We hypostatize information into objects. Rearrangement of objects is change in the content of the information; the message has changed."
"This is a language which we have lost the ability to read. We ourselves are a part of this language; changes in us are changes in the content of the information. We ourselves are information-rich; information enters us, is processed and is then projected outward once more, now in an altered form. We are not aware that we are doing this, that in fact this is all we are doing."
Dick, Philip K. (1981). Valis
Horselover Fat had an amazing grasp on knowledge management. Today we might talk about repurposing, reformatting, syndication and delivery; but if we take a careful look at his words we see his translation of our own internal, human content into something more tangible, more malleable. More... real?
Readers of such literature as the Content Management Bible may notice striking similarities between twenty-first century content theory and Fats' message above.
Fat poses that we are not simply storers of content, but that we can intuitively and subconsciously repupose content and deliver it in new, more meaningful ways. Yet again, information becomes the crux of reality, reality can only be when there is information about that particular reality.
(Fats's use of the term "objects" is especially interesting in these days of Object-Oriented Programming or indeed the Content Object model.)
Information theory - as applied to Web sites and knowledge bases and FAQs - is in and of itself a fascinating field to explore, but look inwards to examine your own content management capabilities, and your intra-cranial XML-like data structures.
Could XML open up new understandings of the human memory? Will our exploratory development of a Semantic Web help unravel the powers of reasoning? We certainly hope so.
As we enter an age of Blogs, RSS, Open Directory and Wikipedia, as we begin the total and utter definition of all knowledge in the known and perceivable universe, we should bear in mind that we are pulling on a long yet fragile thread, and a good sharp tug could easily upset everything we understand to be real.
The Internet has opened up for us a vast new system of information processing, not only in CPU cycles but also in the millions of people around the world now engaged in global collaboration to identify, catalogue and repurpose knowledge. We hope that this vast, active, living intelligence system remains a tool for the use of the many - which can only be achieved when each of us has recognized its power and importance to the race.
More information on XML. |
