    
|
|
18th October 2007 | Draft
Transforming Static Websites into Mobile "Wizdomes"enabling change through intertwining dynamic and configurative metaphors- / -Introduction From "site" to "vehicle" Paradigm shift: knowledge vs wisdom? Paradox: closed system wisdom vs open system wisdom "Wizdomes" -- beyond the drop-down menu "Whizzing around" -- engaging with the songlines of the noosphere Contrasting the metaphors of "website" and "wizdome" Contrasting alternative metaphors: "cobweb" vs "hive" Comparing the metaphors of "hive" and "wizdome" Wizdome construction Threads, rings and polyhedra "Wising up" and "Unquenching" Process: "whiz power" essential to "wiz power" or vice versa? Alternative metaphors: varieties of relevant "dome"? Comparing "honey" and "wisdom": a traditional metaphor Embodiment of wisdom Implication of the dynamics of Web 2.0 and the Semantic Web "Unwisdom": proxies and surrogates as wisdom precursors Case study: transforming this website Future possibilities? References IntroductionThere is the interesting possibility that "site" may come to be understood as a static outmoded metaphor for the manner in which people and collectives find it appropriate to engage with the universe of knowledge. Site implies a particular location, especially the location with which the web user has some involvement and which may be deliberately constructed as an articulation of individual or collective identity. From there one can travel to other locations which others have configured to represent their's. However, whilst the "site" may reflect considerable effort in articulating a static identity -- whether or not it has interactive facilities analogous to those that might be expected in a person's house -- it says nothing about the dynamics of how a person moves and how identity may be associated with that. There may be links to other sites -- like travel books in a home library -- but the dynamics and style of that movement are only partially represented. Even more interesting is the question of "who" moves. There is a sense that an abstract entity, a "visitor", travels to other sites as an observer, a consumer, a tourist -- along the information highway. Possibly some form of link may be brought back -- like a photograph or memento. Arrangements may be made to "keep in touch" through an exchange of addresses. As the person responsible for a site, one may in turn make arrangements to receive such visitors. The question asked in what follows is whether more fruitful understanding of these processes would emerge from changing metaphor. From "site" to "vehicle"Rather than constructing a site, and visiting other sites elsewhere in cyberspace, suppose the focus shifted to the "vehicle" in which one travelled. Such a shift in paradigm is evident in the case of people who choose to invest in a mobile home to travel their continent, possibly with little immediate intention to return to a particular physical location. The focus is then on the design of the mobile home (a caravan) and its capacity to move. The "centre of gravity" of identity is then with the vehicle and its enabling capacity rather than with some particular physical space. A similar shift in identity is evident in the desire of people to possess a vehicle that better reflects their sense of identity than the place they are obliged to dwell for socio-economic reasons. But this possibility then raises the question of how exactly the design of a "vehicle" might be expected to be different from the design of a "site". In the design of a site, considerable effort is put into ensuring that it is a reflection of one's personal (or collective) sense of identity. The aim is to fruitfully distinguish its unique qualities from those of others -- notably to render it more attractive. Website designers now have considerable experience in building a site to this end -- respecting the basic needs of visitors -- navigational needs within the site, clarity of content, etc. If the site is a more personal one, holding notes, photographs and the like, less effort may be put into facilitating the experience of visitors and more into its security features -- exactly as with the priorities of a householder for whom the needs of visitors are not of major concern. How then to think about the design of a "vehicle"? Clearly search engines may be appropriately considered as a form of "public transportation". They may even offer facilities to "personalize" the engagement with such transportation -- configuring colours, layout, language, skins, etc. More challenging, as explored here, is the question of how the cognitive context and pattern, typically associated with a static website, might be transformed by conceiving of it as a personal vehicle for (experiential) travel through the universe of knowledge over time. It is one thing to have a (radio)telescope or radio to receive signals from distant locations (and to send signals back); it is another to be carried to those locations as in a space ship in which one lives and moves and has one's being. One relevant innovation is the emergence of appropriately configured "avatars" as "vehicles" or "identities" through which to explore realms of cyberspace -- most especially in online gaming environments and virtual worlds. This is a reminder of how quickly society has come to accept the "reality" of what is purely virtual, notably in attributing a degree of reality to web "sites" and their corresponding domain "addresses" as "property" -- possibly of greater value and significance than physical property (at least to the proprietor). In this respect the comment of Kenneth Boulding (Ecodynamics; a new theory of societal evolution, 1978) is especially relevant to the following exploration: \
Paradigm shift: knowledge vs wisdom?It might well be said that websites are primarily designed to manage information, perhaps understood as knowledge and know-how. However, by comparison with services and facilities in any urban environment, the "information" may be primarily of an aesthetic or recreational form -- as with a videogame parlour. In the case of an interest group club, the focus may be more on emphasizing the values for which the group was organized. More intriguing for this exploration is the extent to which the owner of the vehicle has it specially configured to enhance a specially cultivated set of ways of interacting with the environment through which it moves. One possible analogy is the extent to which a standard vehicle may be imaginatively "reconfigured" and "converted" as an expression of the personality and tastes of the owner. This partly reflects the emergent cocooning mentality that may be applied both to a dwelling space and to associated behaviours -- establishing a personalized distance and a controlled interface with the environment. Such thinking is in accord with the widespread move to "gated communities" -- a contemporary version of the earlier move to "intentional communities". As physical sites, the latter were designed to enable a particular approach to life to be cultivated and enhanced. They may be associated with a particular ideology or set of spiritual principles -- possibly with the guidance of a political, ideological or spiritual "guru". The question that merits attention is the extent to which the accumulation of knowledge, and knowledge about knowledge, evolves from a "knowledge management" priority to one in which the manner of interacting with that knowledge is cultivated and the organization of its essential principles highligted in the "pattern that connects". In musical terms, this might be the contrast between the capacity to play a wide range of music (from a library) and the insight into what music it is fruitful to play under particular circumstances. In what ways is musical taste developed? Such an "art of knowledge" might then be understood as "wisdom" -- the wisdom of appropriateness, in whatever domain. Reframed in this way the challenge is to design an "all-terrain" vehicle capable of adapting dynamically to the circumstances of challenging experience. This points to the contrast with a conventional static website -- however many "user preferences" are offered there. It suggests a need to look to ways of ensuring that the relationships constituting any "knowledge" associated with the website are reconfigured dynamically in terms of a subtler pattern of invariance with which identity is associated. The "wisdom" which it is then valuable for the user of the vehicle to have enhanced is the "pattern that connects" the items of knowledge. In particular it is likely to be innovative emergent patterns that are most to be valued. Paradox: closed system wisdom vs open system wisdomThere is a curious, somewhat counter-intuitive, twist to the relation between:
The distinction between shock learning and maintenance learning was notably one fruit of a study for the Club of Rome (James W Botkin, Mahdi Elmandjra and Mircea Malitza, No Limits to Learning: bridging the human gap, 1979), discussed elsewhere (Societal Learning and the Erosion of Collective Memory: a critique of the Club of Rome Report: No Limits to Learning, 1980). The first form could now be characterized by the situation of "gated" conceptual communities, whether dynamic or otherwise (Dynamically Gated Conceptual Communities: emergent patterns of isolation within knowledge society, 2004). The second could now be characterized by the potential relationship to knowledge and learning in a web environment -- in cruising the web. The "twist" introduced here however lies in how these two contrasting situations might be combined -- or "married" -- in a new paradigm. The challenge is how to embody openness into a "personalized", and (to that extent) closed system. Conversely, the challenge is how adaptively to reconfigure the structure of a particular pattern of wisdom so as to engage with other knowledge with which it may be seemingly incompatible or by which it may be considered irrelevant. "Wizdomes" -- beyond the drop-down menuCuriously the primary metaphor for the organization of knowledge on a website is the culinary "menu" implying a taste-based process of choice. Behind the array of drop down menus is an "architecture" through which hierarchies of categories are structured. Humanity has not been able to generate a particularly fruitful organization of such categories (see discussions in Anti-Developmental Biases in Thesaurus Design, 1981; Functional Classification in an Integrative Matrix of Human Preoccupations, 1982). What is on offer is the work of those in the information sciences (often the constraining priorities of the library sciences). The emphasis is on enabling access to a known work or to locating a work in a known category. Almost no emphasis is placed on the non-hierarchical integrative relationships between elements of knowledge, their associated experiences, and implications for learning pathways or strategic challenges -- the "pattern that connects" the items of learning. It might be said that the exploration of knowledge is very similar -- and why would it not be -- to navigating roadways rather than any subtler configuration of knowledge. This is despite the possibilities (From Information Highways to Songlines of the Noosphere: global configuration of hypertext pathways as a prerequisite for meaningful collective transformation, 1998; Sacralization of Hyperlink Geometry, 1997; Walking Elven Pathways: enactivating the pattern that connects, 2006) In particular almost no allowance is made for the very different ways of knowing characteristic of different people or different cultures, some of them primarily associative rather than hierarchical (cf Systems of Categories Distinguishing Cultural Biases, 1993). People are currently called upon to adapt to the menu; the menus are not adapted to the individual's own organization of knowledge. Curiously learning and culture -- for an individual -- might be understood in terms of the capacity to reorder elements of knowledge to focus and highlight what is most meaningful and significant. Any "wisdom" is an emergent consequence of learnings from this process. The concern here is therefore with the possibility of shifting from an architectural metaphor for the organization of knowledge to one in which knowledge elements are configured in new ways -- possibly consistent with new paradigms in architecture. Of these one of the most interesting is possibly the "dome" as exemplified by the work of R Buckminster Fuller on geodesic domes (Synergetics; explorations in the geometry of thinking, 1975-9). The question is how might higher orders of organization of knowledge -- wisdom -- be experienced if their elements were configured spherically rather than in drop down hierarchically-structured menus. (Spherical Configuration of Categories -- to reflect systemic patterns of environmental checks and balances, 1994) But the particular emphasis here is on the personalized construction of such "knowledge domes" -- and the cognitive relationship to them. It could well be argued that the achievement of "gurus"in any domain is their spherical configuration of knowledge into an integrative whole -- a sort of "wizdome". It is the complex dynamics of this emergent wizdome that constitutes the "strange attractor" with which their followers resonate in some way (Human Values as Strange Attractors: coevolution of classes of governance principles, 1993). Its quality of being a "sacred space" may derive from such architecture -- as with the impressive patterns of the design of domed mosques. The suggestion therefore is that there is a case for exploring the extent to which "wisdom" is recognized precisely because it is "spherically" rather than "linearly" organized. An interesting example of a psychocultural "blindspot" in this respect -- despite the value attached to "lateral thinking" -- is illustrated by the extent to which the latter may be essentially "superficial" in a particular case (From Lateral Thinking to Voluminous Thinking: unexplored options for subterranean habitats in dense urban areas, 2007). The challenge for the individual in optimizing access, to his or her own personal wisdom, would then be to move beyond the hierarchical, linear organization of knowledge to one that is based on a spherical metaphor, or some variant thereof:
"Whizzing around" -- engaging with the songlines of the noosphereCombining these two suggested shifts in metaphor -- to the spherical and to the dynamic -- the question for the individual is whether what is required is to design such a "wizdome" from the elements of knowledge accumulated on any current website. Can such knowledge elements be configured spherically in a fruitful manner for that individual? Can a site be "endomed" or "domified"? What kinds of insights and expertise are required to bring about any such "enwrapping" of knowledge -- beyond what the problematic aspects of cocooning? What is to be "encompassed" and how is this to be distinguished from any "encyclopedic" ambition (cf Cyclopean Vision vs Poly-sensual Engagement, 2006)? Additionally however, rather than a static dome, can such a wizdome be designed as a vehicle? Or, more intriguing, is it possible that its viability as a structure is specifically dependent on its movement as a dynamic structure -- as much a "whizdome" as a "wizdome"? Also intriguing is the possibility that, to sustain its integrity as a dynamic structure, the wizdome may have to move in particular ways or to embody particular kinds of movement. It may indeed be capable of "whizzing" around. This may be most effective along "sacred" pathways, perhaps to be understood as critical feedback loops in any sustainable development process -- and as the "great circles" of Fuller's spherical geometry. Cognitively these might be described as circuits -- as was intuitively recognized in the fashionable "Grand Tour" -- and as with "training in a circle", the apprenticeship journey of a journeyman and compagnonnage, "learning in the round", and a "well-rounded education". More interesting is the possibility that such movement can most fruitfully engage with larger and less evident patterns -- possibly the "songlines of the noopshere" -- suggesting a need for a form of cognitive transhumance to ensure viable sustainability (Psychology of Sustainability: embodying cyclic environmental processes, 2002). In this form, these arguments are necessarily ambiguous -- failing to distinguish between "external" movement of the vehicle and "internal" pathways within the vehicle, or constitutive of it, namely its "metabolic pathways". One may reflect the other in important ways, as implied by some theories of correspondences (Theories of Correspondences -- and potential equivalences between them in correlative thinking, 2007). It is of course possible to speculate that "whizzing around" is precisely what has always characterized the wise. Indeed "wizzing", as a caricature of the archetypal "wiz kid", might also be caricatured as the dynamic of being wise -- a verb "to wise" (cf Being Other Wise: clues to the dynamics of a meaningfully sustainable lifestyle, 1998)? Both notions might be considered fairly faint contemporary traces of the archetypal "wizard" common to many cultures. Similarly ashrams and think tanks might to some degree be considered physical analogues to contrasting forms of "wizdome", whose virtual construction is the purpose of this exploration. How indeed might wisdom, and being wise, be understood to be associated with any such dynamic (see discussion in Emergence of Cyclical Psycho-social Identity: sustainability as "psyclically" defined, 2007; The Isdom of the Wisdom Society: embodying time as the heartland of humanity, 2003) More interesting however is on what kind of (hyper)geometry such movement takes place (cf Hyperaction through Hypercomprehension and Hyperdrive: necessary complement to proliferation of hypermedia in hypersociety, 2006; Hyperspace Clues to the Psychology of the Pattern that Connects, 2003). What kinds of "movement" are associated with wisdom and through what kinds of dimensionality? (see discussion of R H Atkin. Multidimensional man; can man live in 3-dimensional space? 1981) Contrasting the metaphors of "website" and "wizdome"This contrast might then be presented schematically in the following table:
Contrasting alternative metaphors: "cobweb" vs "hive"It is curious how appropriate the "web" metaphor has proven to be despite cultural dispositions to arachnophobia. It has engendered the logically consistent "spider" metaphor for the "spidering" operations performed in support of search engines by data mining agents and web crawlers. The earlier "gopher" metaphor has been essentially abandoned. Implicit in this metaphor however are various notions of "spider", with those of the major search engines being the largest, and those used by electronic surveillance programmes such as ECHELON, being appropriately cloaked as the most menacingly dangerous predators in the darkness of cyberspace (cf From ECHELON to NOLEHCE: enabling a strategic conversion to a faith-based global brain, 2007). However for the purpose of this exploration, more interesting is the possible comparison between the design of websites and the design of cobwebs. As might be expected, website designers have also used this metaphor (cf Cobweb Designers; Cobweb Designs & Marketing; CobWeb Designs, etc). The Wikipedia entry indicates that the variety of spider webs includes:
There is a case for exploring functional, rather than structural, comparisons of these with the variety of websites. A prime purpose in both cases it is to provide a secure environment for the proprietor and to ensure that the constructed web "captures" that which can be a source of nourishment. Presumably most proprietors of websites are not interested in "killing" visitors in order to consume them, as in the case of spider webs -- although storing live prey might be seen as comparable to achieving "lock-in" and ensuring a pattern of return visits. Website proprietors do indeed have a comparable interest in deriving nourishment from visitors, whether in terms of commercial or psychic revenue. The term "stickiness" may also be used to describe the ability of the site to "hold" the user in fulfillment of the owner's agenda. The question would then be how the strategies of website designers might be compared with those of spiders to optimize their respective "nourishment"/security compromises. Clearly spiders have benefited from many more years of experience in producing viable robust designs. The credibility of such an exploration is partially confirmed by the fact that just as one of the varieties of spiderweb design (above) is the "funnel-web", the concept of "funnelling" traffic to a website and "funnel marketing" is basic to web marketing. However the spider web metaphor can be usefully contrasted with the hive metaphor -- especially since this can be more fruitfully related to the spherical dome metaphor suggested above. The hive metaphor is increasingly used in cyberspace applications to describe somewhat similar operations by software agents (cf Stuart F. Brown, Send In The Swarm: on the frontier of artificial intelligence, mobs of cheap robots collaborate like ants in a colony or bees in a hive, CNN, 14 June 2004). It is notably relevant to explorations of collective intelligence. Curiously the operation of the spider web in nature is primarily dependent on vibration (and touch) -- somewhat evident in the issue of how many "hits" a website receives and the process of "clicking" on a menu item. By contrast the operation of hives in nature is primarily dependent on smell (taste) and chemical traces. Metaphorically these are reflected in concerns with how software agents in the hive metaphor trace pathways using an analogue to smell. Comparing the metaphors of "hive" and "wizdome"The main contrast between the two metaphors, of relevance to this exploration, is the role of the "queen" in relation to the "workers" and "warriors" -- whether in the case of a bee hive or an ant/termite hive. If the proprietor of the web site is to be metaphorically compared with that of the hive, what psychological and cognitive functions are to be usefully compared with the "queen" and what with the "workers", etc? In the proprietor's role as "queen", and her perception of the hive:
It is intriguing that the hive metaphor is used in artificial intelligence precisely because of the manner in which the agents are to a degree supposedly controlled by the queen. However a more systemic view would not stress this unduly as though it was merely another mode of "hands off" hierarchical organization. As a more open participatory system, visitors are reframed as the "bees" who work to collect the "pollen" from elsewhere in order to develop the "honey" within the hive. This is a fruitful way of reframing the operation of Wikipedia -- beyond its use in critical caricature of the "queen bee" of Wikipedia. There have of course been extensive studies of hive operation (cf Thomas D. Seeley, The Wisdom of the Hive: the social physiology of honey bee colonies, 1991) Both for the proprietor of a wizdome and for that of a hive, the issue is how the dynamic system as a whole is controlled, notably as compared in the following table:
Why might the spider web mode be more appropriate for some whereas the hive mode is more appropriate for others? Why, functionally, are some bees solitary like spiders, whereas others live in large hives of thousands? How is this to be understood in relation to construction and operation of a wizdome? Wizdome constructionIn principle the innovative studies by R Buckminster Fuller (Synergetics; explorations in the geometry of thinking, 1975-9 ), as indicated by the title, should provide a full range of insights into "wizdome construction" and what that might mean. Unfortunately, as noted above, it is difficult to extract such epistemological insights from his study, whether or not his efforts do more than imply such cognitive possibilities. Fuller never got into geodesic knowledge organization, despite his innovative geodesic mapping and the many pointers towards the "geometry of thinking" and to how elements of knowledge might be more fruitfully interrelated. Given the traditional association between honey and wisdom, there is a huge irony to the fact that it is the humble bee that engaged in hive construction based on the most fundamental polyhedral geometry -- the hexagonal honeycomb. This was noted by the early mathematician, Pappus of Alexandria (Pappus on the Wisdom of Bees):
The key structural pointers to wizdome construction in Fuller's study are however:
In the pre-web era, a range of implications of such tensegrity structures, for what might now be framed as wizdome construction, were explored (cf From Networking to Tensegrity Organization. 1984) The best exploration of the implications of Fuller's work, along the path to viable wizdome construction, is that of management cybernetician Stafford Beer (Beyond Dispute; the invention of team syntegrity, 1994). It could be readily argued that his syntegration process should be considered a form of collective wizdome construction. However those who have followed him along this path have seemingly not been able to produce software protocols that reflect the emergence of the kind of wizdome construction that is in question here [see synergetics] (Rosemary Bechler, Stafford Beer: the man who could have run the world, 2002) Potential structures in cyberspace based on tensegrity principles have yet to be produced even though facilities on the web are such that there is little inhibiting development of the enabling software. Of significance with respect to the metaphor of tensegrity structures is:
| |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||