the value of knowledge

[newatheist]

if you could dream up any way that could improve how we gain knowledge i.e. a mechine that can help in some way or the way teaching is done etc...
and what about retaining that knowledge? can you think of a better way to record the knowledge we gain over time.

USE YOUR IMAGINATION>:D

this could be intersting methinks;)

[lost thought]

if you could dream up any way that could improve how we gain knowledge i.e. a mechine that can help in some way or the way teaching is done etc...
and what about retaining that knowledge? can you think of a better way to record the knowledge we gain over time.

USE YOUR IMAGINATION>:D

this could be intersting methinks;)

I would just be happy with a brain that works electronic or crystal even one made from brain cells.O0
Oh if only I hadn't enjoyed my self so much as a youth. :'(

[lost thought]

I would just be happy with a brain that works electronic or crystal even one made from brain cells.O0
Oh if only I hadn't enjoyed my self so much as a youth. :'(

Ok I've had a chance to do some thinking, now I will have to rest.
3 Ted links and a couple of others, this will take some time but I think they are well worth the look.O0

[/URL]

The astonishing promise of DNA folding
[URL="http://www.ted.com/index.php/talks/paul_rothemund_details_dna_folding.html"]http://www.ted.com/index.php/talks/paul_rothemund_details_dna_folding.html (http://en.oreilly.com/et2008/public/schedule/detail/1559)

What positive psychology can help you become
http://www.ted.com/index.php/talks/martin_seligman_on_the_state_of_psychology.html (http://www.ted.com/index.php/talks/martin_seligman_on_the_state_of_psychology.html)

Brain science is about to fundamentally change computing
http://www.ted.com/index.php/talks/jeff_hawkins_on_how_brain_science_will_change_comp uting.html (http://www.ted.com/index.php/talks/jeff_hawkins_on_how_brain_science_will_change_comp uting.html)

Brain Augmentation via nano robots
http://www.nanofuture2030.com/?p=12 (http://www.nanofuture2030.com/?p=12)

Synthetic Neurobiology: Towards Engineering Brain Circuits for Health and Human Augmentation
http://en.oreilly.com/et2008/public/schedule/detail/1559 (http://en.oreilly.com/et2008/public/schedule/detail/1559)

Now for some humour to relax with..;D
Below is the latest The Pain
http://www.thepaincomics.com/weekly001101.htm (http://www.thepaincomics.com/weekly001101.htm)

[farmersboy]

I think William Gibson wrote about it in his novels - hardwiring electronics into the brain, enabling both uploading and downloading of data. A socket just behind the ear into which small memory chips can be plugged containing, well...anything you liked; playing the guitar, speaking another language.

Memories could be copied and saved - smells, visual images, sounds, thoughts even?

[Tim the Mage]

I think William Gibson wrote about it in his novels - hardwiring electronics into the brain, enabling both uploading and downloading of data. A socket just behind the ear into which small memory chips can be plugged containing, well...anything you liked; playing the guitar, speaking another language.

Memories could be copied and saved - smells, visual images, sounds, thoughts even?

That would be 'Neuromancer'. Great book.

[Trinoc]

We all seem to be assuming that the successor to humans would need to retain any organic material at all.

[skbuncks]

In the words of Twisted Sister




Now there must be a better way to educate.
'Cause this way ain't workin' like it should.
Can't they just invent a pill or frozen concentrate.
That makes you smarter and taste, mmm, so good.




skb O0

[Mulder]

Out of interest, why is the thread entitled "the value of knowledge"?

[newatheist]

Out of interest, why is the thread entitled "the value of knowledge"?
knowledge is valuable and by recording it and accumilating it we have progressed this far, perhaps if we improve the methods by which we record information and how we pass it on to the next generation we can progess faster technologically and culturally.

and because i was a bit bored trying to learn a little about networking. so i though 'if only there was an easier way' see post #4

if you feel that the title is odd or unsuitable feel free to change it.:tongue2:

[Trinoc]

knowledge is valuable and by recording it and accumilating it we have progressed this far, perhaps if we improve the methods by which we record information and how we pass it on to the next generation we can progess faster technologically and culturally.
The real spread of knowledge started when we could store it externally from the human brain. I think finding ways to go back to storing it in there would be a step backwards. The main challenge is finding more durable external ways to store it. It would only take a brief interruption to our technological culture to render just about all of our current storage media irretrievable.

[Tim the Mage]

The real spread of knowledge started when we could store it externally from the human brain. I think finding ways to go back to storing it in there would be a step backwards. The main challenge is finding more durable external ways to store it. It would only take a brief interruption to our technological culture to render just about all of our current storage media irretrievable.

The electronic archive is even more of a problem than this - there is a great deal of material stored on electronic formats that most systems are no longer set up to read. In a funny kind of way, the book (so long as archive quality paper is used) is a better bet for long term storage of knowledge than the computer. The problem with books is they're not very searchable or sharable.

The publishing industry (for which this really matters) continues its search for reliable storage methods.

I am reminded of 'A Canticle for Leibovitz' where the hero's discover of a shopping list creates a treasured and sacred document.

[skbuncks]

The real spread of knowledge started when we could store it externally from the human brain. I think finding ways to go back to storing it in there would be a step backwards. The main challenge is finding more durable external ways to store it. It would only take a brief interruption to our technological culture to render just about all of our current storage media irretrievable.

Reminds me of the book Hegira by Greg Bear.



In the novel, "young" humans (i.e. recreations of the medieval originals) are transported through the Big Collapse (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Big_Collapse) at the end of time to seed the next cycle of the universe. They are transported to Hegira, an artificial environment of the scale of Jupiter (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jupiter), which has habitats for several species on its surface. Those habitats are protected and uncoupled from the universe's entropy by means of forcefields projected by giant obelisks (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Obelisk). In the human realm these are inscribed with the recorded history of humankind, sorted chronologically from the bottom up, including the science that went with it. People try to understand and copy what they can read on the obelisks, using balloons in some places to reach higher points on the obelisks.


...so all of mankinds knowledge is enscribed on these obelisks at least a thousand miles high. The higher up you go the more advanced the knoweledge becomes but in order to advance you must first understand. As an aid to understanding everyone is born with the innate ability to read the obelisks.

Cant see us going back to rock carvings as a viable means of data storage though


skb

[Trinoc]

Cant see us going back to rock carvings as a viable means of data storage though
No, but there are some interesting possibilities knocking around, including engraving text microscopically onto durable materials - a sort of non-degradable microfiche - which could be read in the future with nothing more advanced than a microscope (and presumably a knowledge of the language).

The latter point brings up an important side issue. Stored knowledge is no use if nobody understands the language. In a short story called Omnilingual (https://secure.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/wiki/Omnilingual), a dead civilization is discovered on Mars, with masses of books (engraved on metal, if I remember correctly) which they can't read. They think they have no hope of ever finding a Rosetta Stone (https://secure.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/wiki/Rosetta_stone), translating a small part of the text into a language they understand so that they can extrapolate the rest. Then someone discovers a Martian Periodic Table (https://secure.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/wiki/Periodic_table) ...

[newatheist]

The real spread of knowledge started when we could store it externally from the human brain. I think finding ways to go back to storing it in there would be a step backwards. The main challenge is finding more durable external ways to store it. It would only take a brief interruption to our technological culture to render just about all of our current storage media irretrievable.
very true, at the moment the internet is very close to overload, it seems that we will run out of IP addresses soon(hurry up with IP V4) meaning that many people with new computers won't be able connect to the internet, also how many total combinations can you get with a 48 bit addressing system? if this runs out too then we may have to redesign the internet (more specifically IP and MAC addressing) to cope.

and if many people are unable to access the internet it will be far more than an irritation.

[chaggle]

If I remember rightly, the machine on The Forbidden Planet gave the users vast knowledge as well as providing anything they wanted - they just had to think of it.

Of course this technology had a terrible unforseen side-effect.

I'm just off to the thread on GM foods .......

[polomint38]

I have pair of "Joe 90" glasses an can download all knowledge when i need it.

[Mulder]

It's a pity society doesn't value understanding as much as knowledge.

[lost thought]

The real spread of knowledge started when we could store it externally from the human brain. I think finding ways to go back to storing it in there would be a step backwards. The main challenge is finding more durable external ways to store it. It would only take a brief interruption to our technological culture to render just about all of our current storage media irretrievable.

But if all the knowledge is distributed as memory chips/cards then any centralised power failure would cause a tempory loss because of the number of memory chips/cards that have been spread among the population of millions/billions. So the loss would be tempory and could be recovered from all the sourses whom have been augmented.

[Trinoc]

But if all the knowledge is distributed as memory chips/cards then any centralised power failure would cause a tempory loss because of the number of memory chips/cards that have been spread among the population of millions/billions. So the loss would be tempory and could be recovered from all the sourses whom have been augmented.
I'm not talking about a minor disruption like a power cut at the city where the servers are held, or even the obliteration of a complete country while others continue business more or less as usual. I'm talking about either a breakdown of technological civilization (like the dark age that some creationists would like to take us into, or some major global catastrophe) or, as seems to be happening at the moment, data simply being left to deteriorate and/or to have the means of reading it forgotten (it's already happening with films, and CDs/DVDs don't last forever).

At the moment, data integrity depends entirely on a continuing technology to copy everything all the time to the latest medium. A break in this cycle of even a few years could render a lot of our current information inaccessible.

[lost thought]

I'm not talking about a minor disruption like a power cut at the city where the servers are held, or even the obliteration of a complete country while others continue business more or less as usual. I'm talking about either a breakdown of technological civilization (like the dark age that some creationists would like to take us into, or some major global catastrophe) or, as seems to be happening at the moment, data simply being left to deteriorate and/or to have the means of reading it forgotten (it's already happening with films, and CDs/DVDs don't last forever).

At the moment, data integrity depends entirely on a continuing technology to copy everything all the time to the latest medium. A break in this cycle of even a few years could render a lot of our current information inaccessible.

I can see that in reference to the creationists I would not wonder that any one who was augmented as a walking library would be hunted down as past history has shown fundalmentalists like to burn books and they would see no difference if the "book" was a human.
We could only hope that few would survive untill another awakening.

[Trinoc]

I can see that in reference to the creationists I would not wonder that any one who was augmented as a walking library would be hunted down as past history has shown fundalmentalists like to burn books and they would see no difference if the "book" was a human.
We could only hope that few would survive untill another awakening.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fahrenheit_451

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fahrenheit_451_(1966_film)

[lost thought]

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fahrenheit_451

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fahrenheit_451_(1966_film)

Yes I saw the film on tv, not very good I thought.