Thanks! On Sun, Aug 23, 2009 at 3:46 PM, David Goodman<[email protected]> wrote: > Dear Brent, > > There are too many things here to respond to at once. And that's the > problem: people have a limited channel capacity. It can be high, but > it remains limited. I can carry on 5 discussions of this sort, but not > 50. Some few people can do 50, but even they can't do 500. All group > processes work only as long as the number of people involve remains > limited enough to permit individual pairwise discussion. It can > extend to large numbers of people--but only if they remain observers. > Plato shows Socrates talking to 1 or 2 people at a time, while a dozen > stand around and watch--and Plato when he wrote it down (or composed > it from scratch, as the case may be) knew that hundreds of others > would read. It has scaled up to millions very easily: most observing, > some starting separate dialogs of their own. > > I don't think any fundamental revolution is taking place. I think what > we are see is just the opening and expansion of the previous world of > literate communities. You will probably answer that changing the scale > to this extent is revolutionary, but I think it just implies a > necessary separation into working units of a manageable size. > > You have a major advantage over me in this discussion: I am not an > academic expert in this, just someone looking for good ideas, and > finding out how good they are by questioning them. But I have some > minor advantages, too: librarianship is an empirical profession. We > will do whatever works, and we are accustomed to deal with a range of > subjects too wide for us to fully understand. > > I'm not particularly interested in the theory of consciousness, so > it's not the best example for me. I'm not particularly interested in > any psychological theories. I'm a biologist & a reductionist one at > that. To the extent that experiment & predicted observation supports a > theory, it can be used as correct. Consensus has nothing to do with > it, nor do surveys of opinion. We can all be wrong. > > What we need consensus for is going about those practical things of > life in which we must cooperate and live together. To remain a group, > we have to agree enough to remain in it. And we higher primates have > evolved so that our major activity is living in groups and watching > each other and trying to be more clever than the rest. > > There's one very good thing in canonizer, that shows you realize the > same constraints as I do: its divided structure. But while you seem > to think of it as atomizing the subjects to discuss, I see it as > partitioning the participants. > > > David, > > David Goodman, Ph.D, M.L.S. > http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User_talk:DGG > > > > On Sun, Aug 23, 2009 at 4:12 PM, Brent Allsop<[email protected]> > wrote: >> >> Hi David, >> >> Thanks for the supportive comments about systems other than wikipedia. >> We're doing all this via open source, and volunteer work, and all free, >> much like wikipedia. And those of us working on this system believe >> something like this is desperately needed today. And as I indicated >> earlier, the goals and niche for canonizer.com are completely separate >> from where Wikipedia is. >> >> I'm surprised to here you say you think that canonizer.com is >> 'fundamentally a blog'. I believe blogs and the canonizer.com open >> survey system are diametrically apposed extremes. >> >> There are millions of blogs. And for that matter, there are also tens >> of thousands of publications on the issue of consciousness as the now >> 20K and growing number of entries in Chalmers Bibliography on the mind >> proves. (see: http://consc.net/mindpapers) The problem is all these >> millions of blog postings and publications are all individual >> testimonials, all using their own unique terminology. There is no way >> any common man can achieve a significant understanding or survey of even >> a small portion of all this in one lifetime. And all these blog posts >> continue to get piled higher and deeper exponentially compounding the >> problem. We believe this is why this field of study is so mired in all >> this thick mud and so failing to make any significant progress. It is >> currently completely failing to communicate just how much consensus >> there really is on the important issues. Nobody can see the revolution >> some believe is taking place in this field as we speak, simply because >> nobody has yet attempted to rigorously survey and measure for such. >> >> In the wikipedia article on qualia it appears there is just as many >> qualophobe experts, as there are qualophiles. And most of the world >> believes this. But many experts believe this is not only completely >> wrong and misleading, but a wave of people are converting to the >> qualophile camps - and that a scientific revolution is taking place as >> we speak on what is accepted by the experts as the best theory of >> consciousness. >> >> Some people attempt to, by themselves, survey and summarize the various >> 'camps', and the problems they think exist with all other summarized >> competing theories to their own, but most of such, since it is done by >> an individual, can never be completely unbiased or an accurate survey of >> all points of view. Any attempts at such descriptions of the various >> camps must include all the diverse terminology that the various >> individuals use in a futile attempt to fully describe any competing camp >> - yet another problem making easy communication in this field near >> impossible. And any such attempt to summarize the various camps by >> individuals is certainly never quantitative - and never definitively >> showing how many experts, and who, and when are in each camp. The other >> big problem of the way all these blogs, forums, seminar presentations, >> publications and discussions is that they tend to all focus on what >> everyone disagrees on. Once any two people agree on anything, the >> conversation completely stops. They only talk about the minor >> differences in their beliefs or terminology, and so on - resulting in >> eternal yes it is, no it isn't back and forth forever - completely >> failing to communicate to anyone what is most important and where the >> consensus is. The best you get is some statements along the lines of >> some experts think one way, and some think another - with no indication >> of how many and who are in each camp, and which camp is significantly >> growing and revolutionizing the current 'thought' on any still >> theoretical issue. >> >> Canonizer.com is designed to resolve all of this chaos, wiki edit wars, >> and disagreement and to make a quantum leap in the ability of diverse >> experts in diverse fields to easily communicate both amongst themselves, >> to different fields of study, and to the rest of the world - concisely, >> definitively and rigorously indicating what the current 'scientific >> consensus' is. The hierarchical 'camp' structure, and the way the >> system rules work encourage everyone to work together, cooperatively, >> and find what they all agree is most important. Everyone can concisely >> state this in the higher level camps where all that agree can support it >> - rigorously, quantitatively, openly, and in completely equal or >> unbiased ways for all theories. >> >> The best terminology to use is always what communicates the ideas the >> best to the most people. Efficient survey systems, and the way >> canonizer.com is set up to encourage negotiation to win or convert >> others in their camp, is what is desperately needed to rigorously >> determine what is the best single terminology to use for any theoretical >> idea or doctrine. >> >> Before canonizer.com, it always takes a huge amount of effort, and hours >> and hours of back and forth discussion to find out what another >> philosopher means by various terms and so on - before any good >> communication can even start. And in any one life time, you can only do >> this with a limited number of people. Now, with canonizer.com, you >> just say I am in the concisely stated XYZ camp on this issue and all >> camp members are working as a team on this theory. And suddenly >> communication between people in various diverse fields, and to the >> general population, becomes trivially easy. And this kind of >> communication is what is required for any complex and still theoretical >> field of study like this to get out of the mud and finally make any kind >> of significant progress. >> >> I challenge anyone to find any place where even a few experts of this >> stature, of the kind that have been joining, supporting, diligently >> developing the 'Consciousness is Representational and Real camp' (see: >> http://canonizer.com/topic.asp/88/6) for several years now, can agree on >> anything. Show me any place where this many experts are able to >> definitively agree on anything as concise and usefully descriptive as >> the theories described in this camp statement - including the sub camp >> structure concisely and quantitatively representing the still diversity >> of beliefs about what the best theories about what, where, how, and why >> qualia are. Even when and individual gets an article to be published in >> a leading peer reviewed journal, requiring a year or more, passing a >> hand full of 'peer reviewers', you don't have near the amount of support >> and rigorous editing and negotiation that has gone on for many years >> now to develop this camp. And this camp (and all competing ones) are >> just getting started. As ever more experts participate, this camp >> continues to improve at an increasing rate, and to extend its lead >> compared to all other competing camps - all on a perfectly level and >> unbiased playing field. >> >> Perhaps, going forward, some other camp will emerge as a new leader? >> Perhaps some new scientific evidence will show that some now minority >> camp is a much better way to think about things than the current >> consensus? If so, shouldn't we be rigorously watching, measuring and >> monitoring this consensus in a real time and in a historical way going >> forward? Must everyone that agrees on a camp or theory at any time >> publish similar papers stating such before anyone will count such? >> >> Also, I assume what you mean by a 'non scientific survey' is something >> that has the goal of using statistics to find out what large numbers of >> people believe, based on small 'random' samples. Any time you use >> something other than a 'random' selection of survey takers, it is 'not >> scientific'. Although some scientific or rational information could be >> derived about all experts, from any subset of them participating in an >> open survey such as this, whether this subset is random or not, non of >> this is the goal of canonizer.com. The goal of canonize.com is simply >> to have a concise representation, and quantitative measure of what large >> groups of all participators think. If you have a hundred different blog >> posts, each with a thousand comments, all using slightly different >> terminology - that is completely useless to any one. But if all their >> points of view. especially the similar ones, are all unified and >> concisely stated and quantitatively measured, this is powerful >> information, and takes communication and debate about still >> controversial theoretical issues to an entirely new level. >> >> Also, there are myriads of scientific problems with the traditional >> 'scientific surveys' you are talking about here. Such as once you ask >> the first person to answer a survey question, the statement or answer >> choice is locked in stone, and can never change. You have the same >> problem with signed petitions - once the first person signs, the >> statement cannot ever change. But the way canonizer.com is set up, >> competing camps continually develop, change, and progress as new >> arguments and scientific data continue to arrive. Also, a 'scientific >> survey' is just an instantaneous snapshot taken at a moment in time. >> Usually the same questions are completely irrelevant a year later after >> new scientific data comes in. Canonizer.com is a real time rigorous and >> quantitative measure of all the best theories and how their popularity >> grows and wanes as ever more scientific data comes in, causing members >> of disproved camps to jump to knew and improved camps. >> >> And saying canonizer.com is a much less reliable representation of >> experts view than are their published works, I would disagree. I have >> had occasions where experts have claimed that David Chalmers no longer >> believes in his 'Principle of organization invariance' which he >> published a paper about long ago - as evidence by he hasn't published >> anything significant on this since. Amongst the growing number of >> participators in this topic on the best theories of consiocusness, the >> camp representing this idea is clearly the leading theory. (see: >> http://canonizer.com/topic.asp/88/8) But is David Chalmers after all >> these years, still in this camp? Many claim otherwise. >> >> Also, the many diverse theories about consciousness can't all be >> right. All would agree that science will eventually prove which of the >> many theories, if any, is THE ONE, and the demonstrable scientific data >> will eventually prove which one it is. The definitive measure of this >> occurring being that everyone is forced, due to the scientific date, to >> convert to THE ONE camp. >> >> The goal of canonizer.com is to rigorously measure this process in real >> time. If you wait for the years required for someone to get a >> retraction to their previous publications published, how many will even >> do this? Must everyone in the previous consensus camp publish a similar >> paper? At canonizer.com, you can watch all this happen easily, and in >> real time, and in a historically recorded way. If people stay in the >> 'wrong' camp to long, it can significantly damage their reputation, >> which people can rigorously measure for using reputation based canonizer >> algorithm in the future. >> >> I would argue there is no better system to definitively define, and more >> importantly communicate concisely what someone currently believes, >> compared to all others, than the canonizer.com open survey system where >> people effectively 'sign' the dynamic petition stating what they >> currently believe (including the history of what 'camp' there were in in >> the past.). >> >> >> >> I guess my question at this point would be: have I converted you to the >> canonizer.com can be a trusted reference definitively defining what and >> how many participating experts currently believe on still theoretical >> and controversial scientific issues such as this? >> >> If anyone is still not in the so far unanimous 'yes' camp represented here: >> >> http://canonizer.com/topic.asp/104/2 >> >> It would sure be great to get your POV, and reasons for such >> definitively 'canonized' so all can know why rigorously, concisely, >> unbiased, and quantitatively. And remember, when you join a camp, your >> reputation is definitely on the line. It will be very easy for people >> to come up with and use canonizer algorithms in the future that simply >> ignore people that were in the 'wrong' camps in the past for way too >> long. And those in the right camp, the soonest, before the herd, will >> as they deserve, be the ones with all the influence in the system in the >> future. >> >> Identity and reputation is everything at canonizer.com. >> >> Thanks!! >> >> Brent Allsop >> >> >> >> David Goodman wrote: >>> No reason why people should not use other sources than Wikipedia. Our >>> job is to improve Wikipedia, not to discourage other projects. >>> >>> But as far as including content from this source in Wikipedia is >>> concerned the posts on what remains fundamentally a blog or >>> non-scientific survey is a much less reliable representation of the >>> considered view of experts than are their published works. >>> >>> David Goodman, Ph.D, M.L.S. >>> http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User_talk:DGG >>> >>> >>> >>> >> >> >> >> _______________________________________________ >> Wikipedia-l mailing list >> [email protected] >> https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikipedia-l >> > > _______________________________________________ > Wikipedia-l mailing list > [email protected] > https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikipedia-l >
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