josh zeidner on Sat, 18 Aug 2001 16:17:27 +0200 (CEST) |
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<nettime> Information cannot be free [Reynolds, Google, etc] |
keywords: CYBERPOLITICS, CONSTRUCTIVISM, BAUDRILLARD I agree with you. "Information" cannot be free, it is entirely on the part of the subject to put it( data/messages ) in formation. As Ritchie pointed out, there are any number of ways at percieving reality( constructivism ), but the proclimation "information wants to be free" is one-sided, and fails to see the whole equation. It seems to me that it is not "information" that people want to be free, but rather the data or messages. Implying that mediation is the imperative, a manifesto that has numerous critics( Baudrillard ). keywords: SHANNON, ENTROPY, EDUCATION The effect of liberating all data would be equivalent to having every student in a university sit in on every class while all professors lecture simultaneously. The result: noise, entropy, anti-information. keywords: SEARCH ENGINES, GOOGLE, YAHOO The discussion on Google also interests me. Google turns the table on the whole noise/information paradox by introducing a new form of mediation. Google formulates data in terms of key-word, purely lexogrammatic information as opposed to authored meta-data such as occurs in search engines like yahoo. keywords: NLP, BUZZWORDS, FUTILITY, SUBJECTIVITY The information sciences will, in the near future begin to emphasize on natural language processing, because we have reached the utter limits of digital information. In order for computers to be more usable and informative, they must be able to extract more information out of human languages( through math ). As these sciences progress you will begin to see much complaint from authors, as this science destroys all value of the written word, turning it into digits. If you have seen a modern resume( especially in the IT field ), you may notice the prevalance of the "buzzword". Because the resumes are informulated by keyword, the keyword takes precedence over style and readability. If we begin to informulate ALL data in this way, even our literature will begin to take on this characteristic( in a way it already has ). A regression or a necessary progression? I guess it depends on how you look at it. keywords: MISANTHROPIC REPROBATES, WRITERS -josh zeidner > Every author is a censor, every journalist restricts > what you read, and even > the most honest of wise men (and/or women) can only > ever tell you of the > world as, when and how they have seen it. > > And thank God -- or some other general-purpose deity > of your personal > choosing. ------------------------------------- > Perhaps I am arguing semantics here. But information > is useless until one > has processed it into knowledge. > > Out damned information, be gone. It will take me the > rest of my life to > process 1 percent of the information I have already > been bombarded with and > I will be washing the rest from my hands forever (I > overstate to make a > point :) and apologies to the Bard.) > > Cheerio, > > Richard Reynolds __________________________________________________ Do You Yahoo!? Make international calls for as low as $.04/minute with Yahoo! Messenger http://phonecard.yahoo.com/ # distributed via <nettime>: no commercial use without permission # <nettime> is a moderated mailing list for net criticism, # collaborative text filtering and cultural politics of the nets # more info: majordomo@bbs.thing.net and "info nettime-l" in the msg body # archive: http://www.nettime.org contact: nettime@bbs.thing.net