Arquivo para a ‘Information Science’ Categoria
Education is the way out?
18
Apr
Despite major improvements in recent years, progress toward
education for all has stagnated globally, few initiatives exist to make leaps higher, Open Education for All in Massive Online Courses can be the solution?
In total, 263 million children, adolescents and young people so out of school for the school year that ended in 2016, statistics for 2017 were not at all optimistic.
This means that more equitable progress will become increasingly difficult if huge barriers are built already in youth education will be doomed to emergency resources rather than to an equitable and sustainable improvement of the distribution of assets across the globe. The reason why this process is not equitable has some evidence: children face the most severe barriers to education that have a lower chance of professional and personal development, this becomes dramatic when they are associated with gender, poverty, displacement, nomadism, disability and / or ethnicity, and even when they are left behind in displacements due to wars.
There is a disproportionate number of out-of-school children living in countries characterized by instability and conflict and / or extreme poverty, little is said about Africa, but every day there is a new conflict. Many of the countries with the greatest number of out-of-school children do not have adequate outside funding or funding to meet their needs, and the NGOs and actions of some countries are localized and loss-making.
Beyond the obvious question of a global policy of income distribution is a massive attack on the issue of education, if armaments money were invested in this, we would have great solutions in the medium term, the short would be a strong intervention to the UN.
Phantasmagoric and realism
13
Apr
Undoubtedly, reality may not only be what our senses
indicate, but also the senses are part of a good discovery of reality, one can use a glasses, a microscope and a powerful telescope to see reality, but using the eye.
What is difficult to imagine is how constructing narratives can deceive reality, can make it different from what the simple vision indicates, for example, it could be imagined that quantum physics would give rise to a called the “physical world”.
Einstein, Podolsky and Rosen; three eminent physicists at the time, wrote an article that counterposed the idea of quantum physics, that quanta occupied a space between “pulses” and that there was nothing between them, they said three physicists was a “phantasmagoric” distance action and mathematically proved to be something impossible, the phenomenon became known as EPR (initial letters of the authors).
Recently, in a study led by Ronald Hanson and published in Nature magazine in 2015, the Delft University of Technology in the Netherlands reported having done an experiment which, according to them, proves one of the most fundamental assumptions of quantum theory – that separate objects by a great distance can affect one to other.
The apparitions of Jesus, in various events, after his departure and resurrection brought astonishment and even fear to his disciples, in a little known passage appears to several people and says (Lk 24: 38-39): “Why are you worried, and Why do you have doubts in your heart? See my hands and my feet: it is I myself! Touch me and see! A ghost has no flesh, no bones, as you see I have, ”
Unfortunately he is still a ghost and even a legend to many.
The real (im)possibilities
12
Apr
In addition to contemporary idealistic thinking, I surrender to the fact that part of it started from religious
presuppositions attached to mechanicism and the order of the universe, there is a set of possibilities that have long been thought of, and some proven, as we have previously posed quantum physics and the real possibilities of science.
In The Physics of the Impossible, Michio Kaku, who has a famous book on hyperspace, uses an unexpected feature, the idea that in all religions there are other dimensions of life, he wrote: “The church believed in Heaven, Hell, and Purgatory. Buddhists have Nirvana and various states of consciousness. And the Hindus have thousands of planes of existence “(p.236), they do not know but could be quoted the cosmogonies of various cultures and religions where orality prevailed and many of these tales speak of other dimensions.
The author acknowledges that in literature there are at least three types of parallel universes: hyperspace, or higher order dimensions, the multiverse (nonuniversity), and the quantum parallel universes.
The fact that we are attached to the three dimensions, clarifies the author comes from Aristotle, that his work On the sky, established the width, height and depth, which are translated into three ideal dimensions: the point, the straight and the plane, which are inexistent if examined in the real nature, the fractals are a modern rediscovery (a monk had already conjectured) of the rupture of these dimensions to the one natural plane, is the natural fractional, where dimensions 0.7 or 2.78 exist.
The author says that Carl Gauss had already conjectured these dimensions, but it was a pupil of his that overthrew with a simple example this theory idealista supposing a sphere, in her the minimum distance between two points is an arc and not a straight, and a triangle will have more of 180 degrees in the sum of the angles.
For the fourth dimension, it is a surprising feature of art historian Linda Darymple Henderson who wrote: “Like the black hole, the ‘fourth dimension’ had mysterious characteristics that could not be fully understood, not even by the scientists themselves . “(P. 238), recognizing the importance of this theory.
He also cites Salvador Dali’s picture Christus Hypercubius (stylized image above), he is “crucified before a strange and hovering trimester cross that is a reality in” tesseract “, a four-dimensional cube unfolded” (page 238)
Movies like “Contact” made from the novel by Carl Sagan and “Interestellar” where ships travel in the fourth dimension, wormholes may already be virtually possible, a project that has more than 100 million dollars, was launched in England in 2016 and has Stephen Hawking’s support, could micro-ships travel in this dimension?
The future will still bring surprise and there will be no shortage of false prophets succeeding against i
The (in) visible relations and networks
09
Apr
One of the issues in focus today is social networks, they are not
of today, the problem is that today they are in evidence, but they continue to keep certain aspects of invisibility, confused with virtuality, make a historical analysis.
The networks of commerce in antiquity, by sea and by land, the invisible colleges, defined by Solla Price in her work “The development of science: historical, philosophical, sociological and economic analysis” of 1976 (in Brazilian edition), calls the scientific networks of collaborative networks, where researchers communicate, exchange information and experiences, means that even in the absence, through printed works and conferences, authors collaborate.
Essentially, a network is a web of nodes and links between nodes, although these participants are autonomous, the consequences of network connections can exceed their own limits by connecting to “out” through weak links. In the analysis of networks can be identified only for didactic reasons, three types: ego networking, global networking networks and networks of actors relationships, called TAN (Theory Actor-Network) with origin in the works of Michel Callon.
Airport networks, container transport networks around the world, Global networks are strongly influenced by the media, and they create a certain amount of invisibility, since the collaborative networks of publications are also called invisible colleges by authors like Solla Price, but accelerated by the speed of the media, electronic media is larger speed of publication and communication that prints it, then blog, twitter and the social media media like Facebook occupy a new role at the present time, but are not in themselves networks, but networks media.
Several measures can be thought of, the centrality of closeness of an actor measures how close a node is to all others, the greater the proximity measure, the intermediation betweenness measures the importance of a node in the circulation of information. So, for information effect, betweenness is the measure of control that an actor holds in the flow of information and closeness is the facility that an actor has of access to information.
The invisibility, emphasizing present in the “invisible” colleges in modernity, is relative to the process of communication and information that can go beyond the actor actors along the network, virtuality in turn refers to the potentiality of increasing the capacity of the network
See and believe: feeling the real
06
Apr
Contrary to common sense thinking, the virtual does not oppose
the real, but it points to a path, digital technologies already under development as augmented reality, virtual reality and holograms are virtual not in the sense of unreality, but of potentialities. What may come out of them still depends on some technological advances, but the development of these artifacts, such as to create 3D holograms tested at Brigham Young
Researchers of Bringham Young University (see our post) published in the January issue of Nature, will still depend on technological advances to market in the near future, this is its virtuality. In an information society, reading plays a central role, not incidentally it is linked to the printed artifact, the so-called Gutenberg Galaxy, however one can imagine that oral culture has little to do with it, or only compose with it , but this is not a fact.
Oral culture, seeing is linked to listening, may seem curious or strange in this culture is essential to listen, and speaking means a certain authority, were thus with the oracles, prophets and masters in Afro cultures, one must have the gift to tell in them the myths occupy a prominent place, that is why we develop here: seeing they do not see, and hearing they do not listen. It might be the opposite, if we think of photography, TV and the Cinema, but the so-called “society of the spectacle”, which Guy Debord defined the spectacle as the set of social relations mediated by the images, but these are only modern artifacts; cave paintings would then be what?
The line of analysis that although it criticizes seems more coherent is that of Paul Virilio, that the modern society walks with “speed” for the new media, and the dance and the theater would be the real resistances to this speed, But Virilio surrenders to the claim that technological innovations transform, modify, alter geographical space at all scales (local, national and global), does not say this, however, it is necessary to humanize them, and this process will be increasingly is inherent in these media. An example of oral culture is in Thomas’s famous passage, which is interpreted in the culture of information as saying that it is seeing to believe, it is wrong, it is to feel to believe, reread the passage of John 20: 25-27.
“Then the other disciples told him,” We have seen the Lord. “But Thomas said to them,” If I do not see the nail-mark in your hands, if I do not put my finger on the nail-marks, your side, I will not believe “…. and Jesus said, Put your finger here and look at my hands.”
Jesus appeared and asked that he also touch other passages Jesus appears and only when he speaks, and breaks bread is “seen,” modern man must touch and feel.
Seeing do not see
05
Apr
Listening already wrote here, is the fact of owning the hearing aid,
listening is something for mental processing. what you have heard, you can not do it without some attention and some knowledge, at least of the language in which you are listening.
I imagined in Portugal, that in all the Iberian Peninsula, had already seen in Spain, there is some culture linked to the vision, something similar to oral tradition, even more primitive, yes because the cave paintings are previous to writing and probably originating from oral culture .
I discover asking about the cultural importance of the Caldas da Rainha City, relatively close to Lisbon, the figure of Rafael Bordalo Pinheiro (1846-1905), inventor of Zé-Povinho (in certain sense: little person), also a journalist of the engraving, a pencil leaflet, a graphic chronicler, a failed ceramista, cartoonist, ahed of time, Republican (in Portugal it happen in 1910), one of pionnering in satirical cartoons, and it may have convulsed his country in the late nineteenth century, still a monarchist, but already strong republican ideias. ,
His ceramics that did not avenge in his time, today are works of art spread in the interior world, in Brazil we have already seen those pots shaped like pine, cups (Portugal cups) and other crockery (utensils in the terrinha), made in format fruits and decoration, made much more like the “zé povinho” than the royal dishes of the Portuguese aristocracy.
Just as listening requires a training, the look requires a double training, because the artist wants to give the public something beyond the conventional and for this reason does this or that nuance in its artifacts,
Perhaps the very expression of Zé Povinho, also used in Brazil, owes to him, also here as here the expression can denote a pejorative sense.
The fact of the vision in the artistic sense, so much can resort to mythical figures, winged horses and onicorns, mule without head and saci Pererê in popular legends, with mystics in the sense even of anticipation of the reality, many artists were ahead of its time.
A visionary of our time can not refuse the media and social networks, being redundant, it is lack of vision.
They aren´t deaf but not listen
04
Apr
The physiological fact of listening can be in contrast with the
apprehension of the content in the human brain, that is, one can have a suitable hearing aid or even artifacts that help, but even listening, do not listen, that is, they do not apprehend the content.
McLuhan’s view that communication as a medium tends to be defined as transparent, innocuous, unable to determine what are the communicative contents that are conveyed.
Its only effect on the artifact, whatever it was, in the communication process would be negative, due to noises or obstacles in the delivery of the message, this was already the preoccupation as a device of Claude Shannon, but now McLuhan calls either the message made orally or in writing, be it transmitted by radio, television, puts in play new structures being artifacts intended to broaden the senses highlighting contours and other nuances of what is communicated, in this work relates to the artist who wishes to highlight something.
Put more directly, for McLuhan, the medium, the cane (terms more appropriate for Shannon), the technology artifacts that communication establishes, is not only a form of communication, but will ultimately determine the own content.
What McLuhan points out is the fact that a message delivered both orally as in writing, when broadcasting on the radio or television sets the content.
Their central thesis is that there is a double operation: 1) to study the evolution of the communal media used by men throughout their history, and 2) to identify the specific characteristics of each of these different media / communication artifacts .
These are two central points of his investigation that are at the root of one of his fundamental works, namely Understanding Media, of 1964.
Thus develops three galaxies, when only one is remembered, the Gutenberg Galaxy, which is typical of the written culture and then printed with the possibilities of reproducibility, but there is the oral or acoustic cultural that is previous, where the question of listening is fundamental (orally speaking), oracles and prophets occupy a central role, and the present one that McLuhan called electronic, but it is possible as an extension to speak of a digital galaxy in network, where there are media of networks that do not must be confused with the networks, since they exist in the previous galaxies.
So those who are trapped in the Gutenberg galaxy do not listen to oral culture, and those who are trapped in the culture of pure technology do not listen to oral and written culture
Thereal crisis and the pain
30
Mar
The true crisis of contemporary society lies in the idea that it is
possible to abolish pain, the contradictory and even death, so it abolished not only the idea of a One God, but any possibility of a cosmogony that gives vent to the life- death-eternity.
Petr Sloterdijk gives this phenomenon the name that I think is more correct “immunology”, the idea that we can be immune to any “contagion” and some take it to “toc” and vice, to be correct with the author I give his definition: “Immunological systems are expectations of damage and violation, somatized or institutionalized, which are based on the distinction between the self and the stranger .” (Sloterdijk 2009: 709)
It is the most correct, in my view, since all this search for perfection, immunities, excess of moralism (it is different from the moral that is a true asceticism), make the man fall into a void meaningless, they want to blame the artifacts themselves who build by their unhappiness, a simple analysis is enough and we see that it is another insanity: things are what we humans lend to it, therefore the ball of time returns to the man and to the Being.
Two agnostic friends pointed out to me that I believe there is a supernatural world beyond the natural, and that by becoming bread and wine Jesus explains to us what human artifacts are, at least these, well these two friends pointed to the cross and said: meaningless.
What is meaningful is to ignore tragedy, the man before death, “who with life deceives” said Goethe, well: what the pain, thousands of alternative medicines have managed to extinguish the pain, someone has managed to rise again from the dead? the answers are obvious.
But it is not evident, a God-man who was Jesus, before death and the cross cried out, “My God, my God, why did you forsake me?” It is even more paradoxical to think that he was God, life since he had always called God the Father.
Perhaps he could even call this crisis of Abandoned Jesus, a society that wants to go forward, but lives returning to the past, to the point that he wants to revive The Wealth of Nations.
To ignore the tragedy in the Greek sense, even Nietzsche complained about it, is to ignore his departure.
SLOTERDIJK, P. (2009) Du musst Dein Leben ändern. Über Antropotechnik. Frankfurt, Suhrkamp.
March for Our Lives
28
Mar
The protest that took place this Saturday for control of firearms in the United States, 
had participation of John Lennon and many singers, but a special participation attracted the attention: the granddaughter of Martin Luther King. A nine-year-old child took the stage to give a speech similar to that made by his grandfather hands-on with Jaclyn Corin, a student at Parkland School and one of the organizers of the event, a march against racism in Washington in 1963, said:
“My name is Yolanda Renee King, I am a granddaughter of Martin Luther King and Coretta Scott King. My grandfather had a dream, that his four children should not be judged by the color of his skin, but by the content of his character. he protest that took place this Saturday for control of firearms in the United States, had participation of John Lennon and many singers, but a special participation I have a dream that enough is enough. And that this should be a gun-free world. Period.”
The young people were also emphatic in saying that adults failed, gave young people and children a safer and more just world, the pope in a provocative speech, also said in Rome: “Make a noise,” and quoted Jesus Christ’s answer to the Pharisees of yesterday and forever: “If they are silent, they will cry out the stones.
March for Lives shows worldwide worldwide: Ireland, Scotland and many other countries, the wave promises to invade the entire planet until the use of all weapons is limited.
In the 1960s it was a strong confrontation with the United States government because of its escalating armaments in the East, now promises to be a worldwide fight against gunfire, strong winds blowing.
Global village and Villages Cities
27
Mar
My still short Portuguese experience has already brought a new reflection, a great city
may be a village where there is some anonymity only because of a Western individualism, and there are already global villages, as McLuhan wanted, with global citizens.
The experience of a distance education group in Porto de Mós reflects this a bit, I thought to find students scattered with distant glances, as is almost always common in São Paulo, but I found students engaged, critical and concerned about their own formation, we had to close because the building was closing, and we who had left Lisbon needed to catch the bus, we almost lost.
Curious also because Portugal has genuine villages, it is not the small towns like Porto de Mós, but even villages, where people live from small farms (many wineries here), around a closer common life, but their young people accept peacefully and they call themselves one of the students of Porto de Mós: “I am from the village”.
The reflection goes then to what the big cities have lost, if I had to summarize I would say in a word reminiscent of Edgar Morin: “conviviality”, but I think there is something deeper: the lack of dreams, the excessive labeling, the mistaken preoccupation with the media (they help the villages to be global), more especially a lack of “lived life”.
The fact that it is in Portugal, especially in Lisbon, a life of bars and cafes where “conviviality” is realized and a village life where the life of the world is integrated by the modern means of communication, realizes a new phase of sociability where human values can actually be lived, more than the “relational” theorists who do not “coexist” think.
It is still possible to dream, fall in love, respect values of ethics and solidarity, but mainly to live them, which is essential.
