the swarm intelligence: social construction models of knowledge. digital libraries, a case of study
DESCRIPTION
The paper aims to explore the concept of ‘swarm intelligence’ and its application to the emerging KO models on the web. Furthermore it focuses on key issues about Digital Libraries as regards KO in the digital age and goes deeper into social and epistemological aspects of opposite information classification systems.Approaching topics with a cross-domain point of view, (philosophy of language, sociology of culture and KO).TRANSCRIPT
4th National Conference of Postgraduates in Cognitive Sciences“Mind, language, evolution” June, 7-9 2010
The Swarm Intelligence: social construction models of knowledge. Digital libraries, a case of study.
Karim Ben Hamida ([email protected])Ph.D. Candidate in Philosophical and Social SciencesUniversity of Rome Tor Vergata
Index
• Aim of paper• Theoretical framework• The swarm intelligence• Digital library• Taxonomy vs. folksonomy• Conclusion
June 8th 2010 24th CODISCO "Mind, language, evolution"
The Swarm Intelligence: social construction models of knowledge
Aim of paper
• Exploring the concept of ‘swarm intelligence’ and its application to the emerging KO models on the web
• Focusing on key issues about Digital Libraries as regards KO in the digital age
• Going deeper into social and epistemological aspects of opposite information classification systems
• Approaching topics with a cross-domain point of view, (philosophy of language, sociology of culture and KO)
June 8th 2010 34th CODISCO "Mind, language, evolution"
The Swarm Intelligence: social construction models of knowledge
Theoretical framework - key concepts
• Internet and the World Wide Web• The social web evolution• The Swarm intelligence• The Digital library• Folksonomies and taxonomies
June 8th 2010 44th CODISCO "Mind, language, evolution"
The Swarm Intelligence: social construction models of knowledge
Internet and the World Wide Web
From Mattelart’s vision, Internet and the World Wide Web are not just a technological innovation of XXth century.
Despite their recent birth, Internet and WWW would bethe result of a long and complex cultural process, began atthe origin of modernity.
June 8th 2010 54th CODISCO "Mind, language, evolution"
The Swarm Intelligence: social construction models of knowledge
Internet and the World Wide Web ICT would continue the philosophical exploit of thinkers, like Leibniz and Bacon, aimed to realize an “automatization of reason”. (Mattelart A., Histoire de la société de l’information, Editions La Découverte, 2009)
June 8th 2010 64th CODISCO "Mind, language, evolution"
The Swarm Intelligence: social construction models of knowledge
Internet
• A sort of completion of the following theoretical progresses:
Leibniz: the binary logic Bacon: the useful science
• Internet protocols: the engineering effort to build up a universal language, based on:
the “mystic of number” the liberation of Science from idola fori
(A. Mattelart, Histoire de la société de l’information, Editions La Découverte, 2009)
June 8th 2010 74th CODISCO "Mind, language, evolution"
The Swarm Intelligence: social construction models of knowledge
The World Wide Web
• The net model: a mashup of two perspectives of the XIXth european social philosophy:
The organic society from Saint Simon’s concept The anarchist and decentralized society according to
Fourier and Proudhon visions
June 8th 2010 84th CODISCO "Mind, language, evolution"
The Swarm Intelligence: social construction models of knowledge
The old social Web
• Web 1.0 has been created by an élite, a narrowed group of technicians and scientistis.
• “Web 1.0 was all about connecting people”
(Berners-Lee T., IBM podcast developerWorks interviews, http://tinyurl.com/2byhfr, Aug 22th 2006)
June 8th 2010 94th CODISCO "Mind, language, evolution"
The Swarm Intelligence: social construction models of knowledge
The new social Web
• Web 2.0 is a network made of people for people. • “Web as interaction between people is really what the
Web is. That was what it was designed to be as a collaborative space where people can interact”
• A digital mass community• Social networks evolve in social media
(Berners-Lee T., IBM podcast developerWorks interviews, http://tinyurl.com/2byhfr, Aug 22th 2006)
June 8th 2010 104th CODISCO "Mind, language, evolution"
The Swarm Intelligence: social construction models of knowledge
The Swarm Intelligence
• Developed in AI domain, SI describes the collective behaviour of small, self-organized and highly entropic systems (both natural and artificial)
• From robotic systems to natural contexts, SI became the new social intelligence paradigm
(Beni G, Wang J., “Swarm Intelligence in Cellular Robotic Systems, Proceed. NATO Advanced Workshop on Robots and Biological Systems”, 1989)
June 8th 2010 124th CODISCO "Mind, language, evolution"
The Swarm Intelligence: social construction models of knowledge
The Swarm Intelligence
Useful to: • describe changings in the digital media environment• enlighten interesting phenomena related to the
emergence of collective aggregated identities:
– Digital agents as prosumers– Liquid and gridded hyper-culture– Crisis of the traditional cultural space as a whole– Rising of a dis-objectivated knowledge (distributed, plural and
nomadic)
June 8th 2010 134th CODISCO "Mind, language, evolution"
The Swarm Intelligence: social construction models of knowledge
Digital library
• A controversial and provisional concept (liquid architecture)• A hyper-text management model of documents• Should not be overlapped with the Nelson Docuverse concepts• From an epistemological point of view, DL is a conceptual
device aimed to organize, classify, distribute and preserve knowledge within the digital space
(Nelson T., Literary machines 90.1: Xanadu project, Mindful Press, Sausalito, California1981)
June 8th 2010 144th CODISCO "Mind, language, evolution"
The Swarm Intelligence: social construction models of knowledge
Digital library
• Digital information environment based on two opposite models of knowledge organization:– Top-down (taxonomies, thesauri, ontologies)– Bottom-up (folksonomies)
• Each one belongs to a different build-up approach regarding the knowledge foundations
June 8th 2010 154th CODISCO "Mind, language, evolution"
The Swarm Intelligence: social construction models of knowledge
Digital library
• Top-down classification models: formalist wave (hierarchical method)
• Bottom-up systems: naturalist trend (horizontal/’popular’ method)
June 8th 2010 164th CODISCO "Mind, language, evolution"
The Swarm Intelligence: social construction models of knowledge
Taxonomy vs Folksonomy
• They could be considered as the reflections of two different philosophical approaches to language studies:
– Formalism (logical positivism/first Wittgenstein)– Ordinary language philosophy (second Wittgenstein)
June 8th 2010 174th CODISCO "Mind, language, evolution"
The Swarm Intelligence: social construction models of knowledge
Conclusion
• Which kind of knowledge model is emerging in cyberspace?
• Is there the possibility of a ‘peaceful coexistence’ or integration between different KO models in DL?
• The social media growth is transforming the web in a new Babel tower?
June 8th 2010 184th CODISCO "Mind, language, evolution"
The Swarm Intelligence: social construction models of knowledge
Thank you for your kind attention!
For any question don’t hesitate to contact me by email karim.benhamida [at] gmail.com
Credits for photos in Creative Commons:• JoonYoung.Kin (http://tinyurl.com/35npojy)• Fred Cavazza (http://tinyurl.com/595jhr)• Documentally (http://tinyurl.com/2w5jmg4)• Calbara87 (http://tinyurl.com/377f6cz)
June 8th 2010 194th CODISCO "Mind, language, evolution"
The Swarm Intelligence: social construction models of knowledge