cosmology as a metaphor for the information space

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cosmology as a metaphor for the information space

• Luc Mertens
• Patras 2001

LINC
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summary in three propositions

• The migration of knowledge to novel information
  carriers has an impact on knowledge
  representation and distribution practices.

2. Knowledge representational and distributive
practices determine the general layout of human
societies.
3. In periods of Normal Science astrophysics
deliver the projection rules after which the
human environment is constructed.
LINC
Luc Mertens, Patras 2001
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The migration of knowledge

• In primitive societies
• the transmitter and the recipient of knowledge
• had to be present on a common location
• to get the message across the full array of human
  expressions could be displayed

LINC
Luc Mertens, Patras 2001
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The migration of knowledge

• In literate societies
• the primitive space-time contingencies have been
  overcome
• the full array of human expressions was narrowed
  down to a literate experience

LINC
Luc Mertens, Patras 2001
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The migration of knowledge

• The electronic society
• confirms the coming of age of non-literate modes
  of expression
• the representational bandwidth has been extended
  to reach almost primitive qualities of
  interaction

LINC
Luc Mertens, Patras 2001
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The migration of knowledge

• Conclusion
• the transition from primitive to literate society
  provided us with an epistemology, ethics and
  aesthetics that still largely determine western
  understanding
• in order to make the transition from a literate
  society to an electronic possible, literate
  understanding will have to be transcended
•  

LINC
Luc Mertens, Patras 2001
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The layout of human societies

• the layout of human societies is the result of
  space-time projection techniques
• significant changes in the layout of human
  societies occur when the point of projection is
  relocated

LINC
Luc Mertens, Patras 2001
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The layout of human societies

• until the late 18th century the western
  environment was the result of space-time
  triangulation techniques i.e. of the collusion
  between an invention, the invention of writing,
  and a belief system
• at the end of the 18th century the point of
  projection came to coincide with the
• individual subject

LINC
Luc Mertens, Patras 2001
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The layout of human societies

• In the field of Low Culture
• representational techniques that are in
• accordance with the emerging plural society
• were developed, first

LINC
Luc Mertens, Patras 2001
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The layout of human societies

• In the field of humanities
• this subjective approach towards representation
  came to be sustained by the idea that the
  individual subject can access the particular
  environment of his fellow men cf.
  Schleiermacher and Collingwood, for instance

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Luc Mertens, Patras 2001
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The layout of human societies

• The exact sciences
• by the end of the 19th century the exact sciences
  came to reconsider the construction of the
  universe from a subjective perspective Riemann,
  Einstein, etc.

LINC
Luc Mertens, Patras 2001
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Cosmology as a metaphor for the information space
or The Route to Normal Science
LINC
Luc Mertens, Patras 2001
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The Route to Normal Science

• in periods of Normal Science the projection
  systems after which the human environment is
  designed are delivered by astrophysics
• the old space-time triangulation techniques do no
  longer suffice to render the complexity of the
  world we live in, nowadays

LINC
Luc Mertens, Patras 2001
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The Route to Normal Science

• modern cosmology is a good starting point to
  establish an agreement on space-time projection
  techniques that are in conformity with the
  exploded structure of the WWW
• modern cosmology can further deliver the criteria
  to which the rhetorical techniques and narratives
  will have to respond to in order to achieve some
  logical coherence

LINC
Luc Mertens, Patras 2001