Tomorrow I leave for Copenhagen for the reboot conference. I’ll arrive just as it’s beginning on Friday, I hope in time to hear Doc’s opening keynote.The sessions look fabulous. This is an awesome group of, um, guys. Mainly guys.

On Saturday I give the lunchtime keynote, and I am still struggling with the presentation. The title is “The Natural Shape of Knowledge.” (Here‘s the blurb.) This is a very rough outline of what I think I’m going to say:

Knowledge (K from now on) has had a “natural shape” because it’s been tied to the physical. But now that the world’s going digital, it’s assuming a different shape closer to our nature. Less like nature and more like us, so to speak.

What does K look like? Like Wikipedia. Like blogs. Like etc.

How did K get into its current shape? Aristotle first described the shape of K: We organize ideas into trees. But trees result from the physical world’s constraints on organizing: You divide your laundry into a pile for each kid, then divide each kid’s into basic body parts, then divide the socks into sports and school socks. That’s a tree and it happens because in the real world, socks have to go in one pile or another.

So, if the shape of K has been determined by the limitations of the physical world, what comes out of that? A few things:

To know is x to see where it fits in a structure

That structure is divined by experts

Meaning gets confused with definitions — we can’t define “blog” perfectly but so what?

We think the real has to be unambiguous. Ambiguity is a sign that K has failed. (Not really.)

Gatekeepers think they have an ontological mandate

So, now we’re digitizing everything. Those points get undone. [I’m struggling to figure out how to organize the following.] So, what happens to K? Instead of asking about K, ask “How do we know stuff?” I know x if I can answer a question about it or talk about it sensibly. I know x if I can look it up or ask someone. So, here are some things that change:

Topics get smaller. Compare Wikipedia to Britannica.

We can no longer believe that K and the structures of K are rooted in nature. They are tools, not mirrors.

This is about a shift in power. That’s why Jon Stewart is the most respected journalist on TV: When the former authorities are the last to know that they’re not in charge any more, you have the conditions for farce. [Yes, I know this is a local reference.]

No more forced rationality: The Web is big enough to let us disagree without feeling we have to get everyone else to agree.

Multi-subjectivity replaces objectivity in many fields: Multiple points of view in conversation can have some of the heft of objectivity.

Finally, I think I want to point to the idea of “local revelation” in religion (particularly Judaism) as a way to co-exist. We can live together thinking that one group only has the truth, nor can we afford to conclude that all truth is merely relative. But suppose God reveals Himself differently to different people at different times. That means giving up the idea that knowledge lets us into a realm beyond awareness where we see things in themselves, but that was always a doody-headed idea anyway.

Let the singing of Kumbiyah commence.

[Ok, so I have to pare this down and try to make it interesting. Hah! Any and all help gratefully appreciated.]
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