Arquivo para a ‘Information Science’ Categoria
Wikipedia and Artificial Intelligence
24
Oct
Having already almost surpassed the point of singularity (see our post), the point that the
machine would surpass human intelligence, the question now turns to consciousness and a well-considered point is the question of consciousness.
In this sense the main criticism is the perpetuation of prejudices, which would avoid what I call hermeneutics, but it is an incorrect view of the evolution of digital technology, for example, the use of Digital Ontologies and the ability to seek scientific studies outside of Wikipedia.
This is what recently announced an article in The Verge, and the most serious omission after researching scientists who are omitted from Wikipedia, was to note that 82% of written biographies are about men.
In a blog post, according to The Verge website, John Bohannon, director of science at Primer, explains the development of Quicksilver tool to read 500 million original documents, sift through the most cited numbers and then write a basic article about the work of these scientists not mentioned in Wikipedia.
Two examples of illustrious women found and written for AI are Teresa Woodruff, a scientist who designed mice ovaries using 3D printers, was cited by Time magazine in 2013 with one of the most influential people in the world scientist, and the other case is that of Jessica Wade, a physicist at Imperial College London, who wrote the new entry for Pineau.
Wade was one of the scientists who said “Wikipedia is incredibly tantalizing, and the underrepresentation of women in science is particularly bad,” and praised Quicksilver stating that with it you can quickly find large amounts of information very quickly.
Wikipedia will have to evolve with Machine Learning tool, this may happen in the coming years, the fact that there are specific tools for this does not invalidate Wikipedia, shows that it has weaknesses and should be corrected
The expulsion of the Other
23
Oct
Byung-Chul Han’s gaze on contemporaneity could not be more authentic for the author of 
, the Salvation of the Beautiful and the Aroma of Time, among other books of course, but has in its first pages the relationship with all this and the beautiful: “If a flower had in itself its ontic fullness, it would not need to be contemplated” (Han, 2016, 13), this sentence is paradoxical but it is not, it is in his book “A expulsão do Outro” (the expulsion of the Other) (Han, 2016).
The author analyzes the question [in Max Scheler] of Saint Augustine to attribute “in a strange and dangerous way ° a necessity to plants:
“That men behold them, as if, through a knowledge of their being guided by love, they experienced something analogous to redemption” [Han apud Scheler, 2016, p. 13).
Han clarifies that knowledge seen in this way is redemption, but it should be noted that there is no way in this form to separate subject from object in contemplation, which is discussed at length in his other book, The Society of Fatigue. object while another.
In this the author distinguishes the simple news or information, “to which the dimension of otherness is utterly lacking” (idem, page 13), that which would be able to reveal a new world, a new understanding of what it really is, suddenly that the new one appears (idem).
Going back to Heidegger, he asserts that all this false objectivity means nothing other than “otherwise this blindness to events” (Han, 2016, 14).
Although his view is excessively pessimistic about the network and the digital, he is right in saying that “proximity brings in itself distance as its dialectical opposite. The elimination of distance does not generate more closeness, but rather destroys it “(Han, 2016, p.15) and pronounces it categorically, which in the absence of distance or the identical that it creates contains life.
He retakes the theme of another book “The Agony of Eros”, saying that “in pornography all bodies resemble” and the body is reduced to sexual does not know anything else.
He makes a quick analysis of the animation film Anomalisa (pictured above) made by Charlie Kaufman in 2015, which reveals the hell of the identical, puts the painting Golconda by René Magritte, the Belgian surrealist in his book “Swarm”.
The book also analyzes the terror of authenticity, fear and alienation before analyzing the language and thought of the Other, modern thought is nothing else as a consequence of the “forgetting of being”, the separation of subject and object, expulsion from the other.
HAN, Byung Chul. A expulsão do Outro (portuguese edition). Lisbon: Relógio d´água. 2016.
The will to power and the sacred
19
Oct
It is a fact that Nietzsche’s concepts are strong: in our instincts the ideas of the will for power
are always present, while nothing changes we remain in the eternal return (Ewige Wiederkehr) and we imagine a superman (übermensch), however this is a form of emptying, nihilism.
There are other instincts that bind us to the sacred, the idea of serving and respect for the other (which are the limits to our will), and without them any scope of our social relation can fall into what I will call “social nihilism”, or that is, the emptying of social thought.
Limited to the will to power, it is only our instincts that speak, and the attitudes even in politics become emotional, in love in the bad sense, it is possible to fall in love with the Good.
I place Capital well because it should not be confused with the Manichaean good, by imagining that we are fighting against an often symbolic “evil” (read Paul Ricoeur’s The Symbolic of Evil) we return in “eternal return” to our instincts of power and intolerance.
The point that Nietzsche was right about is that such instincts exist, they lead to the false concept of authority as an iron hand, and these lead to totalitarianisms, even in everyday life, that empty the sense of education, of service, what I call of “social nihilism”.
Linked to the sacred this concept is purified, can become generosity, benevolence and even a theological virtue that is “charity”, and without this “social nihilism” is a way. This is what makes even people with good intention fall into the temptation of the blue fly, power for power, even the disciples who walked beside Jesus had this “temptation”, ask Jesus in your kingdom: “let us sit a right and another to your left “(Mc, 10,37).
Jesus will say that they do not know what they are asking, we would say today they do not know what they choose, the idea of a strong power that solves deep social issues, that depend on a new worldview, to leave the eternal return, depends on the mobilization of the popular will and not of a stronger central power.
Is a temptation also for those who defend the social. It was the idea of a strong state, led by leaders with “charisma”, who led the world to a second world war, the networked society, and the network are people, needs to get out of their “social nihilism”.
It know what it takes to go through sacrifices to change, Jesus asked the apostles who wanted to sit beside him: “Can ye drink the cup that I drink?” Mk 10,38.
The great change we need requires a global citizenship, not a return to Adam Smith’s “Wealth of Nations” time, even though the feeling of nation and people is good
Paul Allen died
16
Oct
Co-founder with Microsoft’s Bill Gates (photo), was fortunate enough and was in fact the great developer
of Microsoft, Bill Gates had worked before Microsoft only in a version of Basic language, it was he who suggested the purchase of QDOS, developed system by Tim Paterson when he works at Seattle Computer Products, where MS DOS came from, whose sale to IBM is the origin of Microsoft’s millionaire project.
Paul Allen was familiar with Xerox’s Palo Alto MVT system, which was an inspiration for early versions of Windows, and later invested in Explorer in a heavily competitive version with Netscape, which triggered the so-called Web browser war.
Paul Gardner Allen created a foundation with his name in 1988 to run philanthropic projects; between 1990 and 2014 he donated more than $ 500 million to more than 1,500 nonprofit organizations, most of them for technology, arts and culture projects, but also a significant slice of social development (about $ 100 million).
He died in the 65 years old, cancer victim in his hometown of Seattle, where he owned the basketball team.
Scientific vision and ontology
16
Oct
Contemporary science is the fruit of an a priori concept construction, which can be
thought of as that which is prior to experience or perception, in terms of philosophy, this corresponds to two forms of knowledge or argument, when we say in my experience I feel that … it is the argument of perception, when I say I see it this way … it means that I have a world view and I am resorting to it.
In the ontological phenomenology an “a priori” is also admitted, but it does not mean an “a priori construction”, since it must be dissociated from “empiria”, because in fact even if we can not make explicit our world view, it was socially and culturally constructed, which in the hermeneutic circle are the preconceptions, in the sense that they are somehow formulated.
Just as both scientific research and ontology have concepts “a priori” they can converge, but in practice ontology requires a purification, ie, the explanation of which are the prejudices, for example, idealism or culture.
Every scientific investigation makes an a priori that is the “fixation of the sectors of objects” and is only possible from an opening to the being of being, that is, what is the ordinary experience that it has of the world, sometimes difficult to explain and question.
In order for a true scientific question to be asked, it is necessary to determine the region of the entities, often called contextualization, but at most only corresponds to a romantic view of history (read Gadamer), the region means being taken to the horizon of the original experience, the horizon of the fundamental relation of the entity that questions with the questioned world, usually done in reverse.
In medieval philosophy, the whole discussion of these a priori leads to the quarrel of the universals of Boethius (470-525), who translated Isagoge from Greek into Latin, soon perceived the magnificent program that Porphyry’s questions proclaimed.
At bottom the quarrel is whether there are universals, which would be them, that triggered a struggle between nominalists (everything is name) and realists (they exist independent of the names).
Existential analytics “is before all psychology, anthropology and, above all, biology.” (Heidegger, 2015, pp. 89), although we already say in the previous post Paul Ricoeur affirms that there is in Heidegger (he would say in all ontology) an a priori that is based on anthropology, which we call original for cultural reasons.
Heidegger, M. Ser e tempo, 10a. edição, Trad. Revisada de Marcia Sá Cavalcante, Brasil, Bragança Paulista, SP: Editora Universitária São Francisco, 2015.
Misery of Thought
04
Oct
The inability of a deeper reading of reality, which sustains and advances to proposals the darkness
night that passes not only thought, but together with it the whole of society, has no possible answer and the resulting it is a more “tragic and comic” and “eternal return ” .
Ah how good was that time … the majority of the silent population suffered without complaining, the networks that gave voices (not always positive is true) to society as a whole now no longer want to hear more empty criticisms of postmodernity, liquidity than ever was solid, or to a technicist triumphalism to Frederic Jamenson, who is a Marxist, it is good to say.
The sterile critique of consumerism and individualism was not able to penetrate into the essence of the great social, moral, and spiritual problems of our time, as Heidegger would say, the emptying of being, is nothing but the nihilistic void that Nietzsche had already pointed out in the nineteenth century.
In the Brazilian case it is even poorer, we are between inflamed speeches about sexual issues, cheap accusations and fake news, promoted by the media without any thought, and also by the lack of a deeper debate of social, urban and global problems.
The result will be disastrous no matter what, and the main function of democracy that is education for citizenship has been lost between stabs and bursts of authoritarianism, bursts of inflamed speeches about accusations about who stole more, we can not cook stone and wait for a soup , an allusion to a famous stone soup that exists in Portugal.
I have not been able to convince conscious friends and even religious people that the scale of violence would lead to an inevitable disaster, the choice of candidates who are experts in this line, and I hope to be wrong, but the consequences will be terrible for the country.
Although there is an authoritarian emergency of government on the planet, in the Brazilian case the debate did not go to the line of proposals and concrete government actions, and we can not expect that in 2 days this will reverse, we now dream of a second round, it is like twisting to a draw when the team could win a thrashing.
What was the strategic mistake, from the outset, to fall into the violent provocation of the violent, poor democracy and poor country that does not look at poor people except in the elections
Fight for peace, meekness and justice
02
Oct
The history of mankind is to this day a war story of the Same against the Other,
the book The Expulsion of the Other by Byung-Chul Han is nothing more than the realization of this reality. It is our destiny, a fatality, I think not, when peace has been spoken of most, if war is spoken of, peace can be thought of, the Earth as a human homeland.
The challenges are immense, and fears grow with each new authoritarian government, it is good to say there are also islands of the left and right-wing stronghold that are only “elected” people.
I do not think of resistance or opposition, I still think of transformation, the great setback that happens in all humanity, if it were located it would be easy to have only one reading: we can not go forward, the nostalgists say: “how good was those time” , which ?
To fight for peace must also be for justice and against all sorts of oppression, to magnify simple wisdom and to understand that it takes depth to be simple, a “sophistication” as Leonardo da Vinci said, and to establish a spirit of meekness where it is possible to think.
Not without realizing an excessive dose of authoritarianism is time to ask, what is the exact place of the state in everyday life? its abrupt interference even in the personal life is but a form of authoritarianism? we have cameras and radars every kilometer, it’s not an exaggeration.
Weapons for peace, does not make the slightest sense, more weapons more violence, never the other way around. They remember the biblical beatitudes Mt 5,5: “Blessed are the meek, for they shall possess the earth,” of course what you see today is power in the hand of rabid and authoritarian, but it is not the end.
The following long verse is practically a warning to justice Mt 5: 6: “Blessed are the hungry and righteous, for they shall be filled,” and further Matthew 5: 9: “those who promote peace, because they will be called children of God “, did humanism die? The fact that everyone, or at least a large part of humanity, has a perception that something needs to be done urgently to overcome the “dangers against humanity” challenges us.
There is an urgent need for global governance, not less urgent income distribution programs. The ecological collapse, and in the big metropolis also the urban demand global measures.
I remember the two beatitudes as a stimulus for those struggling for humanity suffer persecution, injustice and slander. Mt 5,11 “Blessed are you when they revile you and persecute you, and when they lie, they shall say all manner of evil against you for my sake,” that is Christianity, the rest wickedness
The state in eternal return
02
Oct
We have already pointed out in several posts the premises and their misconceptions of the idealist
view of the state, now in check due to the emergence of authoritarian governments, corruption and almost intermittent cycle crises in many countries.
Let us begin with Hobbes, for whom philosophy had a practical foundation (it is what some say today, astonished), that is to say, it must be useful and thus discard any and all view that may have aspects of metaphysics, and together with it spiritual or theological .
The Hobbesian view is no different from Machiavelli (also invoked today), in the sense of favoring the idea of sovereign, although the centralizing state of this period had the monarchs’ tutelage, essentially does not differ from certain “emperors” today, since the way of dressing (the emperor is naked) to the posture, of a Putin, for example.
The idea of coercive restraint of the state for the “eternal peace” peace-vision of modernity is nothing more than that which Mostesquieu called the “Spirit of the Laws” that is, peace will be eternal with a strong and coercive state; who shout in the streets today (some).
The “paleolithic” passage of this peace that led to two wars for the “neolithic” state of the welfare state should not be new, but it is, because it has not completed its cycle, the sad reality is that it can not even complete because concentration of income only increases.
The sad thing is that the solution is just around the corner, a good political will and a clearer idea that a bloody revolution is not necessary, but to isolate from the state those harmful elements that do not let society breathe, I am not only talking about economic ones ( which include corruption), but mainly of the concept of “coercive” state in fashion.
We return to the previous cycle, even to the “Wealth of Nations” that Adam Smith spoke of and Marx read, but this is economically unfeasible in a world with a globalized economy. Let us return to coercion, which inspires so many authoritarian voices (even to the left), without the joint solution of the economic problem it suffers a growing scale of violence without a return, and worse, it arms more and more enslaving forces of the “manpower” available in the informality.
What makes a conscious part of society, enters the wave of violence not only verbal, but physical and moral violence that interests the authoritarian groups that long for power, to return to the old modern state of “coercion” and “eternal peace.” In the Brazilian case it is critical, it has entered in this way and already seems without return, I hope not.
The state is naked or in new clothes
01
Oct
Hans Christian Andersen’s tale The emperor’s new clothes seem to be the origin
of the phrase “king is naked”, which tells the story of a king who spent his life preoccupied with his clothes and one day found two charlatans who claimed to have one cloth that quickly turned cloths into clothes.
Costumed the king gave them a good sum of money and the two went to work with a fictitious yarn, when the king’s day premiered his clothes will seek it and although he sees nothing, he wears the imaginary clothes and goes to a a great procession without any clothes, but his subjects also pretend that the king is dressed, until they pass by a child that innocent that is said that the king did not wear anything, the father asks her to shut up, because the King does not put himself in question.
So today is the state situation, corruptions and desmandos are everywhere, in some places there are punishments, but most people prefer to believe that the modern state has its reason to exist, after all the rulers are necessary and democratically elected.
It turns out that rulers who are true caricatures of dictators, even their time has passed, such as the Welfare State (the extension of the concept of citizenship to the end of post-war totalitarian governments) is over now we are in the aftermath and the state is naked .
The king represents the belief in norms and conventions, which in the case of the state is his constitution and his interpretations, in the human case is the impossibility of seeing something beyond his immediate interests, as the king was his beautiful clothes and that makes him bet in magical clothing.
The robes are new, but the empires that haunt everyone are already known.
There is no magic, a ruined economy, a decadent education and a growing violence in Brazil.
ANDERSEN, H. C. The Emperor’s New Clothes,USA: Parragon-books. 2005.
Between the logic of prohibition and permissiveness
28
Sep
The fact that the modern state is experiencing a crisis is easy to observe by the number of authoritarian
governments that grows all over the planet, especially in the West and the Americas, until a few years ago, a nationalist discourse in the United States of America and the return of some authoritarian governments in Latin America.
Education for democracy and for humanism has failed in modernity, as Peter Sloterdijk noted in Rules for the Human Park, which is nothing more than an answer (dialogue is good to be true) of Heidegger’s Letters on Humanism, where he asks : “What domesticates man if in all previous experiences with the education of mankind remained obscure who or what educates educators and for what? Or is it that the question of the care and training of the human being is no longer formulated in a pertinent way in the field of mere theories of domestication and education? “(Sloterdijk 2000).
Modern education is to the rights and duties of the state, even if the name has been erased, the famous “moral and civic education,” where civism and morality are referred to the state. In biblical logic, where agapic love is fundamental and not always easily understood by theological culture, especially when there is social and political polarization.
It is fundamental that relationships are established and that they have respect for the opinion and action of others, and this is faced with the maxim: “do not do to the other what you do not want done to you,” the so-called golden rule.
It is common to use the discourse of the other, for the lack of thought, it is not about plagiarism, only the use of maxims rather than something elaborate, as soon as something becomes evident. soon there are those who adopt the slogans, without always adopting the actions, but Jesus says to the disciples to those who used his name Mk 9: 39-40: “Do not prohibit it, for no one performs miracles in my name and then speaks ill of me. Whoever is not against us is in our favor.”
This should be the paraconsistent logic of dialogue, never the exclusivist logic: “who is not with us is against us”, but this logic has penetrated politics and society, so the speeches are becoming more authoritarian and more exclusive to those who do not according to a given flag.
What is illogical in any logical system is to consider the logic of hatred to be inclusive, humanism has not ended, a humanism that preaches the logic of state power has ended.
Sloterdijk, Peter. Regras para o parque humano (brazilian edition, Rules for the human park – a response to Heidegger’s letter on humanism). Trad. José Oscar de A. Marques. São Paulo: Estação Liberdade, 2000
