27 NOV 2013 by ideonexus
Literate Societies Place Less Value on the Elderly
...older people in traditional societies have a huge significance that would never occur to us in our modern, literate societies, where our sources of information are books and the Internet. In contrast, in traditional societies without writing, older people are the repositories of information. It's their knowledge that spells the difference between survival and death for their whole society in a time of crisis caused by rare events for which only the oldest people alive have had experience. ... 1 
notes
notesIn societies without readily-available information stored in written words, the elderly are more valuable for their knowledge and experience.
24 MAY 2013 by ideonexus
"Big Data" is Just Repackaging Information
The owners of the biggest computers like to think about them as big artificial brains. But actually they are simply repackaging valuable information gathered from everyone else. This is what “big data” means.
For instance, a big remote Google or Microsoft computer can translate this op-ed, more or less, from English to another language, but what is really going on is that real human translators are being made anonymous, invisible, and insecure. Real translations, made by humans, are gath... 1 notes
notesInformation provided by other sources.
06 JUN 2012 by ideonexus
Passive and Active Observation
It is usual to say that the two sources of experience are Observation and Experiment. When we merely note and record the phenomena which occur around us in the ordinary course of nature we are said to observe. When we change the course of nature by the intervention of our will and muscular powers, and thus produce unusual combinations and conditions of phenomena, we are said to experiment. [Sir John] Herschel has justly remarked that we might properly call these two modes of experience passiv...Folksonomies: observation experimentation
Folksonomies: observation experimentation
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1 The difference between noting phenomena and experimenting with them.
30 MAY 2012 by ideonexus
The Importance of Large Samples
Any experiment may be regarded as forming an individual of a 'population' of experiments which might be performed under the same conditions. A series of experiments is a sample drawn from this population.
Now any series of experiments is only of value in so far as it enables us to form a judgment as to the statistical constants of the population to which the experiments belong. In a great number of cases the question finally turns on the value of a mean, either directly, or as the mean diffe...Folksonomies: statistics sampling
Folksonomies: statistics sampling
1 notes
notesSmall samples introduce two potential errors.
31 MAY 2011 by ideonexus
Aristotle on Knowing
184a Since, in all pursuits in which there are sources or causes or elements, it is by way of our acquaintance with these that knowing and understanding come to us (for we regard ourselves as knowing each thing whenever we are acquainted with its first causes and first beginnings, even down to its elements), it is clear that also for the knowledge of nature one must first try to mark out what pertains to its sources. On the other hand, the natural road is from what is more familiar and cleare... 1 notes
notesHe suggests going from the general to the particular, when modern science is about going from the particulars to the general.
23 JAN 2011 by ideonexus
How Brian Eno's Mind has Changed Through Use of the Intenet
I notice that I now digest my knowledge as a patchwork drawn from a wider range of sources than I used to. I notice too that I am less inclined to look for joined-up finished narratives and more inclined to make my own collage from what I can find. I notice that I read books more cursorily — scanning them in the same way that I scan the Net — ‘bookmarking’ them.
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I notice that more of my time is spent in words and language — because that is the currency of the Net — than it was...Some observations made by the author about how his thinking and behaviors have changed through online technologies.
