Network Epistemology

topic posted Fri, October 24, 2003 - 9:01 AM by  phil
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Actually it occurs to me that this might be a place to discuss the intersection of epistemology and social networks.

Here are a couple of thoughts.

Popper's Open Society aims to maximize debate and criticism. And there is a supposition that this will grow knowledge most effectively.

Now we're discovering that knowledge management is in some sense about the management of social relations, putting people in touch with each other. And we're starting to perceive how network topologies affect this.

So, I have a pair of conflicting intuitions. You *might* think that building the open society requires maximizing discussion. And this may require fine-tuning the topology of the networks.

Or you might think that this is tantamount to looking for a "logic of discovery", and you shouldn't accept any constraints on network structure based on some attempt to prejudge the knowledge conjecturing process.

Which intuition sounds right?

posted by:
phil
Brazil
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  • Constraint I think are a by-product of decision. Like the road not taken. A logic of discovery posits and assumes a search space which is navigated and paths are taken: some fruitful,others dead-end. By the same token, networks provide links to nodes which could be nodes of knowledge. Connecting those nodes in a 'creative way' is a 'product'.
  • I also agree with the conjecture of posit #2 that the idea of constraint rules it out. Network presupposes the idea of constraint. THe network has intersections which we are calling nodes. The only way to travel/move/displace one's self from one node to another is a pathway which creates the network. THe only way to remove the conjecture of 'constraint' is to remove the idea of network. It can only exist such that there only existed one node, destroying the idea of a network.

    As to the first intuition about managing social relations, knowledge management *is* in some way sense of fine tuningonly on the level of the indiviual interactions people have (in my opinion). This fine tuning occurs in the different types of relationships people have and how they change over time. The topological mapping between individual interactions and even in social situations, each person may or may not take away a different interpretation from what was said or done. This how a dialectic wouldprogress in the first place. The map onto each other (individual and societal).


    Constraint I think are a by-product of decision. Like the road not taken. A logic of discovery posits and assumes a search space which is navigated and paths are taken: some fruitful,others dead-end. By the same token, networks provide links to nodes which could be nodes of knowledge. Connecting those nodes in a 'creative way' is a 'product'.

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