Extreme Data Hypercomplexity Cognitive Dissonance A Case For Transdisciplinary Internet Research by W. Reid Cornwell Ph.D. The Center For Internet Research http://www.tcfir.org [e-mail]

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Extreme DataHypercomplexityCognitive
Dissonance A Case For Transdisciplinary
Internet Research byW. Reid Cornwell
Ph.D.The Center For Internet Researchhttp//www.
tcfir.orgwrc_at_tcfir.org
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Question?

• Are the data management tools available today
  capable of handling the data streams being
  produced by the current input devices?

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In the beginning

• On Christmas day, 1990, the world was given a
  gift. Working on his own time, without a budget,
  and without official sanction Tim Berniers-Lee
  created what we now know as the World Wide Web
  and the first graphic browser to access it.

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The Internet

• At 16, the Internet is like a pimply faced
  adolescent, incomplete, little understood and
  filled with incredible promise.
• The body of empirical research is limited and
  naive.
• The ignorance of how to use new ideas stockpiles
  exponentially Marshall MCCluhan
• Marshall Mcluhan - http//www.marshallmcluhan.com
  /

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The Internet

• Vinton Cerf on creating TCP/IP
• Bob and I had no idea how robust and ubiquitous
  our work would become.
• Vinton Cerf A personal conversation
  with Reid Cornwell

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The Problem

• At the most fundamental level, a computer is an
  input device for another, extremely more complex,
  computer

The ThinkerAugust Rodin
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The Problem

• Data is not information
• Information is meaningful data
• Computer Science is about creating the tools to
  provide meaning to data.
• It is easier to derive data than to derive
  meaning.

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Hypercomplexity

• "The age of reason has ended, and now we must
  organize around chaos." Watts Wacker - CEO and
  Futurist

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Extreme Data

• New types of data, generated by new types of
  devices, being used in new ways
• Paul Gustafson
• Director
• CSC Leading Edge Forum

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Extreme Data
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Extreme Data
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Extreme Data
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Extreme Data
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Extreme Data
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Extreme Data
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Extreme Data

• "The average house in 2010 will have 100
  computers, embedded in all kinds of appliances
  and amenities, and mostly networked to each
  other, and to the Web."
• Glen Hiemstra - Futurist.Com

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Extreme Data

• "All information, ever created, is still in
  existence."
• Thomas Frey Executive Director, The DaVinci
  Institute
• Eventually, it will all be online!

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Extreme Data

• "The year is 2050, and you are standing in front
  of a vending machine. What form of payment will
  you put into it?"
• Thomas Frey - Executive Director, The DaVinci
  Institute

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Hypercomplexity

• Hypercomplexity is complexity inscribed in
  complexity, e.g., second-order complexity.
• (Luhmann 1984, p. 637 1995, p. 471

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Hypercomplexity

• Complex search algorithms, symantic webs, and
  metadata are, by definition, hypercomplexity.
• Hypercomplexity is directly proportional to the
  volume of the data store.

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Hypercomplexity

• "The Semantic Web is an extension of the current
  web in which information is given well-defined
  meaning, better enabling computers and people to
  work in cooperation."
• Tim Berners-Lee, James Hendler, Ora Lassila, The
  Semantic Web, Scientific American, May 2001

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Hypercomplexity

• What Is Metadata?
• Metadata is a component of data which describes
  the data. It is "data about data.
• Imagine trying to find a book in the library
  without the help of a card catalog or
  computerized search interface. The information
  contained in these types of systems is
  essentially metadata about the books housed at
  that library or other libraries.
  http//www.csc.noaa.gov/metadata/

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Hypercomplexity

• Why Is Metadata Important?
• Metadata is critical to preserving the
  usefulness of data over time.
• For instance, metadata captures important
  information on how the data was collected and/or
  processed so that future users of that data
  understand these details.
• Another vital function metadata serves is as a
  record in search systems so that users can locate
  data sets of interest.
• http//www.csc.noaa.gov/metadata/

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Hypercomplexity

• Statistical methods such as multivariate
  analysis of variance, factor analysis, etc. break
  down as a function of the number of variables.
• The results of Statistical methods are, by
  definition, hypercomplex.
• Human perception of hypercomplex data is a third
  order derivitive and therefore subject to a
  greater coefficient of error.
• Statistical methods applied to hypercomplex data
  is equivalent to a mean of percentages.

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Hypercomplexity

• The act of observing a phenomena, changes the
  phenomena.
• Heisenberg

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Hypercomplexity

• Gödel's theorem
• Any system that is complex enough to be useful
  also encompasses unanswerable questions.

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Hypercomplexity

• Progress in digital space is exponential
• Not just the measure of power of computation,
  number of Internet nodes, and magnetic spots on a
  hard diskthe rate of paradigm shift is itself
  accelerating, doubling every decade.
• Scientists look at a problem and they
  intuitively conclude that since weve solved 1
  percent over the last year, itll therefore be
  one hundred years until the problem is exhausted
  but the rate of progress doubles every decade,
  and the power of the information tools (in
  price-performance, resolution, bandwidth, and so
  on) doubles every year.
• People, even scientists, dont grasp
  exponential growth. During the first decade of
  the human genome project, we only solved 2
  percent of the problem, but we solved the
  remaining 98 percent in five years.
• Ray Kurzwiel - an interview with Cory Doctorow

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Hypercomplexity

• We are faced with an unending stream of new
  products, information and data. 
• In the past, products that only appealed to one
  in 35,000 people would have never made it to the
  store shelves, but today the Internet creates
  marketing channels that make this type of product
  viable. 
• On Amazon we can find 2 million books, on
  iTunes, over a million songs.  On the Software
  Superstore, over a million software products. 
• There are currently 19 million known chemical
  substances today, and the number is constantly
  doubling every 13 years reaching 80 million by
  2025. 
• Grocery store products are being created at the
  rate of one every 30 minutes.
• Now more than ever we can define who we are and
  what we care about with the millions of
  micro-defining choices we make.  And people will
  become more and more complicated.

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Cognitive Dissonance

• There is a tendency for individuals to seek
  consistency among their cognitions (i.e. ideas,
  beliefs, opinions)
• Festinger, L (1957) A Theory of Cognitive
  Dissonance. Stanford University Press

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Cognitive Dissonance

• Hypotheses
• Too much information produces dissonance.
• Contradictory information produces dissonance.
• Voluminous contradictions produce rationalization
  with the aim of reducing dissonance.
• Dissonance tends to produce inaction.
• Dissonance tends to defeat learning.
• Consonance is best achieved by maintaining the
  status quo.

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Cyber Psychology

• In just a brief one-twentieth of a second --
  less than half the time it takes to blink --
  people make aesthetic judgments that influence
  the rest of their experience with an internet
  site.
• But the results did not show how to win a
  positive reaction from users, said Lindgaard, a
  psychology professor at Carleton University in
  Ottawa.
• "When we looked at the websites that we tested,
  there is really nothing there that tells us what
  leads to dislike or to like."

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Cyber Psychology

• Cyber Psychology is the study of mans
  interaction with computing machines.
• Psychology and its new sub-discipline Cyber
  Psychology suffers from institutional Physics
  Envy.
• Physics Envy is a science in search of a math
  and characterized by wild speculation or over
  simplification.
• Physics Envy is a science in search of a .01
  level of confidence and characterized by no
  vestige of laws.

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Errata

• Oxford University Announces Multidisciplinary
  Doctoral Programme
• Submitted on Tue, 2005-10-11 0058.
• The Oxford Internet Institute is now accepting
  worldwide applications from candidates who want
  to study the Internet and its social impact. We
  are a department of Oxford University chartered
  to pioneer the multidisciplinary study of the
  Internet. The Institute is dedicated to engaging
  in fruitful collaboration with policy makers,
  technologists, businesspeople, teachers, scholars
  and civil society entrepreneurs to inform and
  ground our research.
• We seek to understand the most difficult and
  relevant social puzzles, problems, and
  opportunities as the mainstream Internet enters
  the second decade of a multi-year buildout
  transforming the fundamentals of work, politics,
  education, entertainment, social interaction, and
  conflict.
• There are less than 5 similar programs in the
  world.

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Questions?

• Are the data management tools, available today,
  capable of handling the data streams being
  produced by the current input devices?

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Questions

• What scientific disciplines will be necessary to
  answer this question?
• What level of collaboration will it take?

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Errata
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A Case For Multi-disciplinary Internet
Research byW. Reid Cornwell Ph.D.The Center
For Internet Researchhttp//www.tcfir.orgwrc_at_tcf
ir.org