Ashbee could be an interesting movie idea...

• Herbert Spencer fully developed Digby's concept into the modern concept of functional integration
  • Spencer introduced the term "survival of the fittest"
  • ‘He tried to unite complex new findings about metabolism and organismic development with evolution and the seeming correspondence of organisms to their environments.
    • In The Principles of Biology (1864), Spencer wrote
      • a biological individual is one in which
      • the interdependence of the parts allows it to function and
      • respond to environmental change as a whole.
    • That is: ‘any concrete whole having a structure which enables it,
      • when placed in appropriate conditions,
  • to continuously adjust its internal relations to external relations, - so as to maintain the equilibrium of its functions.’

Historical Hypermedia: An Alternative History of the Semantic Web and Web 2.0 and Implications for e-Research. .mp3. Berkeley School of Information Regents’ Lecture. UC Berkeley School of Information, 2010. https://archive.org/details/podcast_uc-berkeley-school-informat_historical-hypermedia-an-alte_1000088371512. archive.org.

https://www.ischool.berkeley.edu/events/2010/historical-hypermedia-alternative-history-semantic-web-and-web-20-and-implications-e.

https://www.ischool.berkeley.edu/sites/default/files/audio/2010-10-20-vandenheuvel_0.mp3

Interface as Thing - book on Paul Otlet (not released, though he said he was working on it)

• W. Boyd Rayward 1994 expert on Otlet
• Otlet on annotation, visualization, of text
• TBL married internet and hypertext (ideas have sex)
• V. Bush As We May Think - crosslinks between microfilms, not in a computer context
• Ted Nelson 1965, hypermedia

t=540

• Michael Buckland book about machine developed by Emanuel Goldberg antecedent to memex
• Emanuel Goldberg and His Knowledge Machine: Information, Invention, and Political Forces (New Directions in Information Management) by Michael Buckland (Libraries Unlimited, (March 31, 2006)
• Otlet and Goldsmith were precursors as well

four figures in his research: - Patrick Gattis - biologist, architect, diagrams of knowledge, metaphorical use of architecture; classification - Paul Otlet, Brussels born - Wilhelm Ostwalt - nobel prize in chemistry - Otto Neurath, philosophher, designer of isotype

Paul Otlet

• wrote bibliography on law
• book: Something on Bibliography #wanttoread
• universal decimal classification system
• mundaneum
• Le Corbusier - architect worked with Otlet for building for Mundaneum; See: https://socks-studio.com/2019/05/05/the-shape-of-knowledge-the-mundaneum-by-paul-otlet-and-henri-la-fontaine/

Otlet was interested in both the physical as well as the intangible aspects of the Mundaneum including as an idea, an institution, method, body of work, building, and as a network.<br /> (#t=1020)

Early iPhone diagram?!?

(roughly) armchair to do the things in the web of life (Nelson quote) (get full quote and source for use) (circa 19:30)

compares Otlet to TBL

Michael Buckland 1991 <s>internet of things</s> coinage - did I hear this correctly? https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Internet_of_things lists different coinages

Turns out it was "information as thing"<br /> See: https://hypothes.is/a/kXIjaBaOEe2MEi8Fav6QsA

sugane brierre and otlet<br /> "everything can be in a document"<br /> importance of evidence

The idea of evidence implies a passiveness. For evidence to be useful then, one has to actively do something with it, use it for comparison or analysis with other facts, knowledge, or evidence for it to become useful.

transformation of sound into writing<br /> movement of pieces at will to create a new combination of facts - combinatorial creativity idea here. (circa 27:30 and again at 29:00)<br /> not just efficiency but improvement and purification of humanity

put things on system cards and put them into new orders<br /> breaking things down into smaller pieces, whether books or index cards....

Otlet doesn't use the word interfaces, but makes these with language and annotations that existed at the time. (32:00)

Otlet created diagrams and images to expand his ideas

Otlet used octagonal index cards to create extra edges to connect them together by topic. This created more complex trees of knowledge beyond the four sides of standard index cards. (diagram referenced, but not contained in the lecture)

Otlet is interested in the "materialization of knowledge": how to transfer idea into an object. (How does this related to mnemonic devices for daily use? How does it relate to broader material culture?)

Otlet inspired by work of Herbert Spencer

space an time are forms of thought, I hold myself that they are forms of things. (get full quote and source) from spencer influence of Plato's forms here?

Otlet visualization of information (38:20)

S. R. Ranganathan may have had these ideas about visualization too

atomization of knowledge; atomist approach 19th century examples:S. R. Ranganathan, Wilson, Otlet, Richardson, (atomic notes are NOT new either...) (39:40)

Otlet creates interfaces to the world - time with cyclic representation - space - moving cube along time and space axes as well as levels of detail - comparison to Ted Nelson and zoomable screens even though Ted Nelson didn't have screens, but simulated them in paper - globes

Katie Berner - semantic web; claims that reporting a scholarly result won't be a paper, but a nugget of information that links to other portions of the network of knowledge.<br /> (so not just one's own system, but the global commons system)

Mention of Open Annotation (Consortium) Collaboration:<br /> - Jane Hunter, University of Australia Brisbane & Queensland<br /> - Tim Cole, University of Urbana Champaign<br /> - Herbert Van de Sompel, Los Alamos National Laboratory annotations of various media<br /> see:<br /> - https://www.researchgate.net/publication/311366469_The_Open_Annotation_Collaboration_A_Data_Model_to_Support_Sharing_and_Interoperability_of_Scholarly_Annotations - http://www.openannotation.org/spec/core/20130205/index.html - http://www.openannotation.org/PhaseIII_Team.html

trust must be put into the system for it to work

coloration of the provenance of links goes back to Otlet (~52:00)

Creativity is the friction of the attention space at the moments when the structural blocks are grinding against one another the hardest. —Randall Collins (1998) The sociology of philosophers. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press (p.76)

This distinguishing factor is a more useful one than those in other systems.

Compare this with the idea of Beatrice Webb's "analytic notes" versus "synthetic notes" or "scientific notes" which she describes in My Apprentice (1926).

see: - https://hypothes.is/a/Fb3Y4Au1Ee2p_sdveWOJKw - https://hypothes.is/a/WGPrOAoOEe2WJV9yx2SVZg - https://hypothes.is/a/2gdRwgoMEe2mdccJDX6zTw

Web considers "analytic note taking" to be the raw data collection and arrangement (in the same vein of creating databases in the computer science space, which didn't exist when she did her work) upon which historical work is based.

She views "synthetic notes" as observations of behaviours and writings which probably more closely resembles the idea of "literature notes" (Ahrens) or "source notes" (Allosso). Some of the difference is that she's viewing her notes as a tool for her particular work (sociology) rather than as a broader enterprise which might be used in all fields.

Webb's synthetic notes are also likely bound up in her idea of Herbert Spencer's "synthetic philosophy" of thinking, which may require some more reading of these sections on my part to better distinguish her specific meaning.

Webb didn't seem to have a version of "permanent notes" in her conceptualization. Perhaps this is an indication that the evolution of the note really only occurred as it was placed into published writing. This may potentially preclude the reuse of the evolved ideas unless they are separately re-subsumed into one's note collection.

Ahrens' conceptualization of the zettelkasten has all the writing, revision, and evolution work occurring in the slip box itself so it's always available and reusable. Many modern note taking and writing systems would seem to elide this part. (Is this true in practice? Can we provide examples?)

Spencer's example of user interface below his posts to indicate how readers might comment on his website.

https://spencergreenhalgh.com/

Some of the effort that teachers put into their educational resources in an attempt to make learning faster and more efficient is actually taking away the actual learning opportunities of the students to sort, arrange, and make meaningful connections between the knowledge and to their own prior knowledge bases.

In mathematics, rather than showing a handful of methods for solving a problem, the teacher might help students to explore those problem solving spaces first and then assist them into creating these algorithms. I can't help but think about Inventional Geometry by William George Spencer that is structured this way. The teacher has created a broader super-structure of problems, but leaves it largely to the student to do the majority of the work.

My Xbox 360 display picture is a Libertarian Party one created by the Xbox team for a past election cycle. They had them for GOP and Dem as well.

There are also a few groups centered around politics for coordinating gameplay together premised on a common interest - so it seems that to that extent he doesn't know his own system?

I don't know that Xbox as a social platform would be favorable for "creating a political party" whatever that means. Government's control what political parties are created - they only allow the ones they approve of to exist anyway.

The report as a whole is very exhaustive in laying out the details of the university, but the authors are well aware of the limits of their expertise. They are smart enough to realize that the faculty they hire are much more knowledgeable about their fields and the divisions between their departments, and will thus be far better equipped to address them and create the most efficient structure for the university.

This particular passage reminds us of the fact that the founding of this university was by no means certain even with the endorsement of Jefferson. This sentence and the paragraph as a whole are essentially appeals to the legislature concerning the value of education and the potential value of the university. This sentence is a disguised compliment towards the congressmen who will hopefully approve funding for the university the founders envision, emphasizing its value and assuring the readers that they are of course already demonstrably committed to the values of education. It's easy to imagine now that Jefferson waved his hand and the University came into being, but in reality it is a state school not only because Jefferson envisioned education serving the state but also because it never could have existed without funding from the legislature.

I think this sentence in particular demonstrates the ambition and hopefulness of the University founders. Anglo-Saxon language is to be emphasized because it forms the foundation of the language with which the future achievements of the University will be recorded for posterity. This sentence demonstrates the international reach the founders intended for both the university and the nation as a whole to have. At this time the United States was hardly a global power; European nations dominated every aspect of the world's power distribution, from education to commerce to the sciences. The sentiments set forth in this sentence and the report as a whole would have seemed impossibly ambitious at the time but are vindicated in the present. The founders new that the key to American success on the world stage was the success of American education. I think we owe a great deal of our current wealth and power to the foresight of these educational pioneers.

I had never read or heard the term "Fluxions," but it turns out it is the original term Newton used to describe what we now call "derivatives." His book Method of Fluxions published in 1736 is the foundation of Newtonian Calculus. According to Wikipedia, Liebniz's method of calculus, which was published earlier but possibly thought of later than Newton's, is more widespread which makes the use of the term "fluxions" interesting in this report. On the one hand, It wouldn't surprise me that the Anglo-American founders of the University would favor the Englishman's term of that of the Dutch, but I still am surprised this specific term was used in lieu of the more common "calculus."

Spencer: survival of the fittest.

Reach out here...