Proceedings:DW1

This page is part of the Proceedings of Wikimania 2006 (Index of presentations)

What's Happening to Knowledge?
Author	David Weinberger
Track	Free Knowledge & Access to Information
License	GNU Free Documentation License (details)
About the author
David Weinberger, Ph.D. is co-author of The Cluetrain Manifesto and the author of Small Pieces Loosely Joined; he writes www.JohoTheBlog. He is a Fellow at the Harvard Berkman Center for Internet & Society. His work has appeared in many places, from Wired to Harvard Business Review to TV Guide. He is a commentator on NPR and is a columnist for KMWorld and Il Sole 24 ore (Italy's leading financial daily newspaper). As a marketing consultant he has has worked with many companies, large and small. He has a Ph.D. in philosophy from the University of Toronto. His book Everything Is Miscellaneous about the ways in which the new principles of digital organization are transforming knowledge will be published by Times Books in winter 2007.
Abstract
The old principles for the organization of knowledge turn out to be based on principles for organizing physical objects; in the digital age we're creating new principles free of the old limitations. This is changing the basic shape of knowledge, from (typically) trees to miscellanized piles. This has consequences for the nature of topics, the role of metadata, and, crucially, the authority of knowledge. In short, the change in the shape of knowledge is also changing its place. Despite the hysteria too often heard, knowledge is not being threatened. We are way too good at generating knowledge, and it is way too important to us as a species. But, much of what we're doing together on the Web is about increasing meaning, not knowledge. That re-frames knowledge -- traditional and Wikipedian -- in ways that are hard to predict but important. Outline Note: These are my notes-in-progress. Sorry they're a little cryptic. And highly likely to change, especially in response to what happens at Wikimedia. [Revised on Aug 2] - D. Weinberger Disclaimer Too big and grand a topic. Path through it...Why is there such a hubub about Wikipedia? You think you’re doing K, but much of the world thinks you’re mardi gras You think you’re the searchers and the defenders of NPOV - the traditional values Why do the media insist on taking W (falsely) as mob, more committed to social process than to truth? Seven properties of traditional knowledge Three-term relationship: knowledge, knower, known One K Same for everyone Same in everyone’s mouth Not everything is K Simpler than world Orderly Order is where beauty meets K Harmony of spheres Mendeleev Look at five of the properties again 1. In our heads: Romantic myth of knower Wikipedia is perceived as mob rule, more committed to social process than to truth We think K can’t be social: Myth of individual genius But: what it takes to know a gnat (= institutional nature of k) Got K driven into our heads: K as a property of belief Where head meets world Hence: mixed up with privileged relation to world 2. Experts Tomato topic - knowledge without knower Expert has to negotiate knowledge Why is that scary? If K is mirror, there’s no negotiating with a mirror 3. Simpler and orderly: Unbound topics Bush’s immigration speech complexified by blogs Who gets to decide what’s important? Social structure built on this Money rests on it Interpenetration of topics Went through fear of alphabetization Mortimer Adler Now past that. Networked topics. Web of topics, based on relationships. Web is already semantic. See it at Wikipedia’s links. Authority and truth Wikipedia’s notices conditioning articles – “This article may not be NPOV,” etc. , medical info Why don’t traditional authorities use them? Prefer authority to truth 4. Bigger than we are: Exactly our size Wikipedia is better representation of human interests and human world than any traditional encyclopedia can be 5. One truth: Commoditization Wikipedia flies in the face of the Web’s multiverse Gets there by reducing knowledge to what can be agreed upon or civilly disagreed about Long tail of editing – life cycle Almanac commoditized facts What’s next? What’s up a level? Meaning How do you know a gnat? Heidegger wanted to know a hammer. Externalizing memory in writing, knowledge in books W as the knowledge moment in something larger Heidegger on meaning Disorderly Meaning, not knowledge We’ll always know Back to gnat For the next hundred years, our task is to build meaning
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