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Lesson 4: Globalization and the Impact on Communication & Knowledge Sharing
Information Networks
As information networks have become more global they have also become more closely linked with the people and groups that use them and more sophisticated in how the networks service the users. As mentioned previously, the Global Brain is a metaphor for this emerging, collectively intelligent network that includes the people of the globe, along with the knowledge bases, computers, and the communication linkages (Mayer-Kress & Barczys (1995).
The concept of a universal knowledge network began during the Enlightenment period and was discussed by Chevalier de Ramsay, when describing a freemasonry objective (Heylighen, 2011):
“…to furnish the materials for a Universal Dictionary…By this means the lights of all nations will be united in one single work, which will be a universal library of all that is beautiful, great, luminous, solid, and useful in all the sciences and in all noble arts. This work will augment in each century, according to the increase of knowledge…”
—Chevalier de Ramsay, Oration (c. 1737) (Heylighen, 2011)
Diderot and d'Alembert's Encyclopedia, published between 1751 and 1772, helped to spread the ideas of rational inquiry, science, and technology, helping to fuel the industrial and French revolutions (Heylighen, 2011).
Eventually the amount of knowledge had grown to the point that a single volume or collection could not hold it. The father of information science, Paul Otlet of Belgium, developed a structured system of documents containing texts and images connected by links. His concept of a global brain was very similar to the World Wide Web:
“…a machinery would be created [that would register from a distance] everything in the universe, and everything of man, as it was being produced. This would establish the moving image of the world, its memory, its true duplicate. From a distance, anyone would be able to read a passage, magnified and restricted to the desired subject, which would be projected on an individual screen. Thus, anyone from his armchair would be able to contemplate creation, as a whole or in some of its parts…”
—Otlet, 1935: 390–391 (Heylighen, 2011)
If you are interested in learning more about Paul Otlet visit BrainPickings or his online biography.
H. G. Wells helped to develop the concept of a world encyclopedia, called a World Brain, containing the memory of the world with continuous updates (Boyd, 1999).
Tim Berners-Lee, in 1991, laid the foundation for the World Wide Web. He combined the HTML hypertext document format with the ability to locate documents on the Internet (Berners-Lee, 2000). This breakthrough provided the ability to link documents on different computers based on subject matter. The human brain is able to link information without an apparent relationship through free association. Berners-Lee applied this concept to computers in an attempt to increase their power by imitating the functioning of the human brain's ability to link arbitrary bits of information (Heylighen, 2011).
If you are interested, you can learn more information about hypertext and hypermedia.
The traditional encyclopedia has been transformed with the Internet. Wikipedia, created in 2001 by Jimmy Wales and Larry Sanger, is the largest encyclopedia with millions of authors and users worldwide.
Wikipedia is continuously being expanded and is approaching the “world memory” and “global brain” described above.
Heylighen argues: “…the web learns from its users…As such, the web could turn into an intelligent, adaptive, self-organizing system of shared knowledge, structured in a flexible and intuitive way.
Unlike material resources, knowledge and information do not diminish by being shared with others. Since the learning web would make this sharing effortless and free, this enables a positive-sum interaction in which everyone gains by making their individual knowledge and experience available to others. This provides a continuing incentive for further cognitive integration. Here, the web plays the role of a shared memory that collects, organizes and makes available the collective wisdom. It achieves this without demanding anything from its users or contributors beyond what they would have had to invest if they were working on their own.” (Heylighen, 2011).