To Know, but Not Understand: David Weinberger on Science and Big Data
From the introduction:
In an edited excerpt from his new book, Too Big to Know, David Weinberger explains how the massive amounts of data necessary to deal with complex phenomena exceed any single brain’s ability to grasp, yet networked science rolls on.
Well, it is a highly entertaining excerpt, with passages like:
For example, the biological system of an organism is complex beyond imagining. Even the simplest element of life, a cell, is itself a system. A new science called systems biology studies the ways in which external stimuli send signals across the cell membrane. Some stimuli provoke relatively simple responses, but others cause cascades of reactions. These signals cannot be understood in isolation from one another. The overall picture of interactions even of a single cell is more than a human being made out of those cells can understand. In 2002, when Hiroaki Kitano wrote a cover story on systems biology for Science magazine — a formal recognition of the growing importance of this young field — he said: “The major reason it is gaining renewed interest today is that progress in molecular biology … enables us to collect comprehensive datasets on system performance and gain information on the underlying molecules.” Of course, the only reason we’re able to collect comprehensive datasets is that computers have gotten so big and powerful. Systems biology simply was not possible in the Age of Books.
Weinberger slips twix and tween philosophy of science, epistemology, various aspects of biology and computational science. Not to mention with the odd bald faced assertion such as: “…the biological system of an organism is complex beyond imagining.” At one time that could have been said about the atom. I think some progress has been made on understanding that last item, or so physicists claim.
Don’t get me wrong, I have a copy on order and look forward to reading it.
But, no single reader will be able to discover all the factual errors and leaps of logic in Too Big to Know. Perhaps a website or wiki, Too Big to Correct?
I read it twice and I’m still not sure what he’s trying to say. It seems like he’s trying to say something about model-based knowledge but I can’t tell if he considers it separate from network-based knowledge, and what does he mean when he talks about knowledge that exists at the network level, anyway? Imagine my amusement when I visited the amazon.com page for the book and read the title of the first review: “What is he really trying to say?”
I am torn about whether I should try reading the book to see if his point becomes any clearer… I bought a copy of his _Everything is Miscellaneous_ after hearing people rave about it, and I couldn’t get past chapter 2 because I found his comparison of folksonomies with the Art and Architecture Thesaurus to be disingenuous and misleading. I feel like I might be setting myself up for similar disappointment with this new book. That said, I’d love to read a review after you finish your copy, Patrick.
Comment by marijane — January 4, 2012 @ 5:49 pm
marijane: I had a similar experience with Weinberger’s _Everything is Miscellaneous_.
I guess I am always hopeful the next volume will be better. We’ll see.
While we wait for it to arrive, I wonder what Weinberger would say about what a cuneiform tablet “knows” about its contents?
Like a computer or network, some person enters data and retrieves data from it. In what sense could we say that the tablet, although storing data, “knows” the data?
True enough, a computer or network can sort through and compare the equivalent of millions of cuneiform tablets, but having done so, the question remains what does a computer or network “know” about some given content?
While interesting and useful, I don’t think linking or networking changes the fundamental nature of the “to know” question. To illustrate, consider that rather than linking/networking, we have solid-state memory sufficient to hold all content, everywhere. With all possible linking. But that is just storage. A really big cuneiform tablet.
So we aren’t diverted by processing, recall that processing always has a result, which is stored. Back to being a really big cuneiform tablet isn’t it?
Unless and until some person directs data to be stored in it, it has no content. Unless and until some person reads data from it, there is no “knower.”
Comment by Patrick Durusau — January 5, 2012 @ 11:00 am
Agreed. I think he’s abusing the word “know” here. Knowing implies awareness, understanding, recognition… things that containers do not have.
Comment by marijane — January 5, 2012 @ 7:30 pm