[PREV - FAME] [TOP]
May 9-11, 2011
Kevin Kelley (Ted talk, 2003) looks
over the amazing development of the
web in it's first 5000 days...
Wikipedia was impossible in theory,
but possible in practice, therefore
he concludes:
"We have to get good at
believing the impossible." A fine justification
for jumping off cliffs.
If the impossible in theory (From a contradiction,
is possible in practice, that anything follows.)
means your theory sucked.
Most things
It does not mean that Wikipedia's success-- that seem
all theories suck. temporary or not-- impossible
is a suprising result, really are
It *does* mean that we experience that needs impossible.
need better theories. to be learned from.
I submit that we Concluding that our attempts
can not proceed at learning will yield only
without some sort suprising results would be the
of mental model of wrong lesson.
what can be done...
Shall we just step back and try to
keep a completely open mind, let
a million flowers bloom just to
see which ones survive and evolve?
But if you are in charge of
creating one of those flowers you
really do want some conception of
what sort of flower is viable.
We can't all stand back and wait
to see where other people succeed.
And who is the "we" that Kelley
refers to? Did a belief that
wikipedia was impossible delay
it's creation?
Isn't an embrace of the
"impossible" a defense of
acting blindly?
All these variations of
Clark's third, all these
dismissal's of "experts"... UNDERTHINK
what is it really about?
Planning is hard, so let's go
shopping for whatever comes along.
I'm left going with a resolution to choose
a set of beliefs that don't automatically
side-track you into being an observer who
never acts because nothing is really known DARK_HOPE
or knowable-- that's a real trap.
It was liberating to hear Kelley
say this, because the remark
seems so *obviously* dubious
once you hear it stated flat-out...
The idea that my grasp of what's
reasonable, workable and useful might
be completely wrong-- it's been ACCESS_RAMP
hovering around, haunting my thoughts
(and I suspect the wider discourse)
for so long that being freed of it
suddenly is inspiring.
It's hard to move without
some courage of conviction.
--------
[NEXT - CONTRADICTORY_DIALECT]