Wikipedia and the interconnectedness of all knowledge

[boagie]

Perhaps the study of relationalism here might help also something called field being--google it, which in fact is relational, the associations most of which are not local, yet go to make up the object or subjects identity. Just a thought, the question is, is it not, just how relational is reality and how much do we in fact have access to.

[Theaetetus]

Wikipedia is a fine example of anarchy in action. While it is easy to post inaccurate information, other users have the ability to correct or improve the wiki. Overall there are more users correcting things, thus as the Wikipedia evolves the credibility of the information improves.

The Wikipedia makes a terrible source though for writing. Awesome tool that allows for quick research and finding connections, but using it for research demonstrate laziness. All the info in the Wikipedia came from somewhere else. Track down those sources and then base the research off of that.

[Aedes]

Originally Posted by Vasska

Getting from Chocolate Brownie to Hitler is one of those links without a purpose. If you can give the exact way of getting there we might see if I'm right on this one.

It's not a direct link. It's a result of the fact that you can create a whole page out of so many things.

Start from the Chocolate Brownie page.

Chocolate brownie - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

The second sentence under "Origins" is:

Brownies are also mentioned in the 1897 Sears catalog.

Click on 1897. Under February 27, click on Ferdinand Heim, a WWII German general.

Adolf Hitler's page is linked near the beginning of Ferdinand Heim's.

The key to this whole thing is 1897, because it's such a broad category that you can link in a couple clicks to probably any subject you want.

[Didymos Thomas]

Knowledge is as interconnected as we make it. My psychology is weak, but what I do recall is that humans retain information, at least in part, by connecting new information to existing information in memory.

The key to this whole thing is 1897, because it's such a broad category that you can link in a couple clicks to probably any subject you want.

A particular year, the name of a country or continent, a major city, a world religion , ect.

[Aedes]

Originally Posted by Didymos Thomas

A particular year, the name of a country or continent, a major city, a world religion , ect.

Yes, that's exactly right. Any broad category with a lot of links. All it takes to get to, say, Alaric I of the Visigoths, is either Rome or Italy -- sufficiently broad subjects that it's easy to get there.

[Didymos Thomas]

Is everything we know in this world THAT immediately related? What does that mean for our cognitive need to categorize things?

It seems to me that the close relation of knowledge, in the mind of man, shows that we have a need to make information relevant to everything else we know. This ability and tendency to relate knowledge is part of our evolutionary a-r-s-enal for survival - the ability to relate the danger of a wolf apparent at some earlier time in life to the potential danger of a wolf that this time we are wise enough to avoid.

[boagie]

When all is stripped away, down to a nihilistic understanding of the fact that the physical world is deviod of meaning in the absence of a subject, there is still, in this desolation one thing left standing, and that is, the nature of all reality is relational. Relations and reality, one and the same thing.

[Aedes]

Originally Posted by boagie

When all is stripped away, down to a nihilistic understanding of the fact that the physical world is deviod of meaning in the absence of a subject, there is still, in this desolation one thing left standing, and that is, the nature of all reality is relational. Relations and reality, one and the same thing.

Perhaps, but for various reasons most people never come to understand the world like that. But they probably still see all of reality as relational, just with reference to something other than their own mental filing cabinet -- and this other thing could be the whole gamut from scientifically derived "laws" of nature all the way to an omnipotent god.

[Vasska]

Originally Posted by Aedes

It's not a direct link. It's a result of the fact that you can create a whole page out of so many things.

Start from the Chocolate Brownie page.

Chocolate brownie - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

The second sentence under "Origins" is:


Click on 1897. Under February 27, click on Ferdinand Heim, a WWII German general.

Adolf Hitler's page is linked near the beginning of Ferdinand Heim's.

The key to this whole thing is 1897, because it's such a broad category that you can link in a couple clicks to probably any subject you want.

As you say 1897 is the link to Hitler from chocolate brownies. It is so easy to interconnect browies to Hitler if you have common words, dates, cities, names etc.

I feel that this interconnection does count as the interconnectedness of all knowledge, but it is in no way valuable. As far as i can see now, no interconnected knowledge like to above is useful, or only to a Hollywood scriptwriter which is making a movie about Hitler and his secret chocolate brownie army, which is unlikely.

We store our entire lives in our brain according to science. For example we store the information that we have learned as a kid that we have 2 kind of apples; red and green.

We link red to being sweet and green to being sour. This is done by either or experience (which also gets saved, and next to that defines our liking) or someone telling us not to do. It can be expanded to which other delicious things we can do with apples; apple juice, apple pie, applesauce, apple this apple that. This is I think is interconnected knowledge that is valuable and counts. If we were to jump from apples to our experience with eating apples, to something other that happened that day we still have interconnected knowledge, but it is in no way valuable.

I know that this does not your initial question of "is everything that interconnected with each other" but i feel like i at least could show you why you should not care to much about these things, for they are in some case valuable, but in many, many cases are not.

[boagie]

Aedes.

Yes Aedes, just what is it about this gadget that is exciting you, what do you think it means?