Berkeley Podcasts for Spring 2009

I'm a junkie. These days I rotate through nearly 30 different courses on my iPod--and that's just courses from Berkeley. Add NYU, Harvard, Duke, Federalist Society, Georgetown, Stanford, Princeton, and U Chicago, and the number is closer to 40. I'm not going to count all the news and religion podcasts.

So, I probably don't need to add yet more Berkeley podcasts to my device. Heck, I'm constantly clearing up low disk space alerts on my laptop hard drive as it is. The least I could do is finish listening to the last few lectures from Spring 2008 and make more progress with Fall 2008... but hey, I'm a glutton.

So, here's what I shall probably be adding to my iTunes subscriptions in the near future:

• Cognitive Science C102, 001, Psychology C129, 001 - Scientific Approaches to Consciousness
• Demography C175, 001, Economics C175, 001 - Economic Demography
• Engineering 7, 001 - Introduction to Computer Programming for Scientists and Engineers
• Environ Sci, Policy, and Management 114, 001 - Wildlife Ecology
• Geography 20, 001 - Globalization
• Law 27171, 001, Law 27171, 002 - International Environmental Law
• Letters and Science C70V, 001, Physics C10, 001 - Descriptive Introduction to Physics
• Political Science 179, 001 - Undergraduate Colloquium on Political Science
• Sociology 150A, 001 - Social Psychology: Self and Society

Epistemological Particularism

I have been accused in another forum of lacking a certain received knowledge. I will not deny that I am not prepared to uphold any claim that what is accepted de facto is thereby naturally demonstrated.

I stand with Hume (but not Descartes) as an epistemological methodist.

Nor, for that matter--and I address this only for purposes of clarity--have I any edition or reprint of any pamphlet by one Mr. Thomas Paine in my library.

As to the suggestion that I perceive my own person to be spirited, mentally alert, clever, saucy, fashionable, or automatically-guided... I shall leave any such judgments to the evaluative capacities and inclinations of others.

Data Information Knowledge Wisdom

This week, I conducted an extensive rewrite of a Wikipedia article on the DIKW model (here's what it looked like before I got my fingers on it), in anticipation of a series of posts critiquing the claims of  information processing, especially as these are taken up by cognitive psychology and, in particular, evolutionary psychology.  

As currently conceived, these forthcoming critique posts will argue that information processing:  (i) commits the fallacy of macro quanta; (ii) commits the fallacy of low redefinition; (iii) fails to account for significant phenomena; and (iv) engages unnecessarily in a form of neutral monism.  My intent is to use the currency of the DIKW model--in information science, library science, and business circles--as a foil to the suppositions of information processing.  

However, in the process of updating the DIKW model, I learned two things:  (1) that the model as taught and the model as understood are animals of decidedly different coats; and (2) that University of Arizona associate professor Martin Frické has recently published an article critiquing DIKW (a preprint version is also available).

So, before I write my critique of information processing, I'm going to devote some time to reading and processing Frické's critique of DIKW, incorporating his insights into the Wikipedia article on the same topic, and very likely writing a response to his article.    

This post is simply to whet the appetite for what is in store.

Shared Reality

My closest friend sometimes finds himself bemused by the behavior of others. A recurring conversation between him and his wife goes something like this:

My Friend: I don't get it. If I had been in that situation, I would have [description of some course of action].

His Wife: Other people aren't you.

My Friend: Really?

His Wife: Really.

My Friend: Wow. That's weird.

For this friend of mine, it's always just a bit surprising to encounter the ways in which others experience the world differently than he. He isn't troubled overmuch by it, but it does strike him as being “weird”. What he's finding so peculiar is that he and others do not always have a shared reality--a single way of experiencing and responding to the world. Thankfully, my friend is aware of this, and open to the possibility of difference.

I'm sure we all know someone who, absolutely certain of what is true and common knowledge for all people, determine that those who fail to behave accordingly must in some way be damaged, or inconsiderate, or otherwise malicious or sinister. For those who immediately determine that others are simply wrong for acting in a certain way when they “should know better”, shared reality is not an issue. It is simply inconceivable to them that other people experience the world any differently than they do.

For some, shared reality--or the lack thereof--is more poignant than for my friend in the example above. “Weird” just doesn't capture it.

Another friend of mine used to joke that she only came to Earth for the shopping. Unfortunately, she forgot where she parked her shuttle, and has been stuck here ever since. For her, the reality inhabited by others is not just weird, it's downright alien. Like the “unearthly child” from a long-running popular British television series, such individuals walk through life with a peculiar sense of otherkenning--knowing the world differently. (The term otherken is derived from otherkin. Where the latter makes a claim about one's nature, the former points to one's experience.)

Three ways of being in the world: mildly bemused, dead certain, or otherken. Which fits you?