Re: Thoughts/comments on "Philosophical Engineering: Toward a Philosophy of the Web"

Dear Michael,

Thanks for taking the time to read the book and give us your thoughts.

Le Mon, 30 Dec 2013 21:46:13 +0100, Michael Brunnbauer <brunni@netestate.de>
a écrit:

>
> hi all,
>
> I just finished the book:
>
>
http://www.amazon.co.uk/Philosophical-Engineering-Toward-Philosophy-Metaphilosophy-ebook/dp/B00GV8NJB2%3FSubscriptionId%3D14BJ8ZEX3WNZS76SDCG2%26tag%3Dwwwwileycom-20%26linkCode%3Dxm2%26camp%3D2025%26creative%3D165953%26creativeASIN%3DB00GV8NJB2
>
> Here are some thoughts I had when reading the book (the not too
> philosophical
> parts that I was able to understand :-)
>
> More than 60% of Web traffic is bot traffic - yet bot traffic is seldom
> mentioned in the book.

True, just like more or less than 25% of Wikipedia edits are generated by
bots. I've co-written a piece myself about the evolution of the Web that
might be somehow relevant for this discussion: http://ceur-ws.org/Vol-859/

> It is difficult for me to see a *qualitative* difference between the pre
> Web
> state and now. What is so special about the Web ?

See above.

Also, I think the more philosophical papers tried to address this issue ;)
My answer had to do with the very notion of "resources" and the details
behind the making of the Web, drawing from Brian Cantwell Smith to state
that to account for the Web, on needs to reopen questions pertaining to
ontology, intentionality, etc.

That would be my answer but Harry has another one for instance, more
related to the extended-mind hypothesis.

> Chapter 8 and 11 hint at a qualitative difference - a border we may not
> want
> to cross: The dominance of the digital over the real.

We need to now what "digital" means first...

It seemed to me that chapter 8 made a nice link between the Web and the
Semantic Web thanks to a renewed notion of content negotiation - an idea I
am in deep agreement with.

But it could be
> argued
> that human made media has been dominating the real for a while now.

Media is too broad a concept for me to be really useful to understand many
aspects of the Web.

> The border that should definitely not be crossed IMO is the dominance of
> algorithms over the real. So I agree with the claim for search engine
> governance in Chapter 7 - even if I am not sure if we know enough about
> the
> algorithms to draw the conclusion that personalized search threatens
> objectivity.
>
> Why is the Semantic Web - which is based on formal logic to a good
> extent -
> seen as natural next step in extending the human mind ? Chapter 9 seems
> to
> underline this question (intentional or not).
>
> The reasons why people participate in the Web "1.0" and "2.0" are
> outlined in
> one chapter but I think this question deserves more attention. And what
> is
> the economy - what are the incentives - of the Semantic Web ?

True. Though the book is definitely *not* about the Semantic Web ;) A more
focused question would be "what kind of sustainable economy the Semantic
Web can be a part of?".

> My conclusion is that the Web is formed much more by society than by
> engineers
> or standards. We probably all know the slogan that the Web is a mirror of
> society. IMO, "the Web" and "the society" are often interchangeable
> (it may be interesting to reread some parts of the book this way).

The problem is that "society" is hardly an explanans, something that, as
such, would shed some light on the Web. As if you had two things mirroring
one another.

> So I would say for both the Web and society: They are difficult to
> understand
> and to control - but governance is sometimes desireable and a good
> foundation
> helps.

That's why we might want to specify next what we talk about we we say "the
Web" (not unlike what happens when we say "society"). I'm more interested
in the architecture of the Web and its potentialities for instance but
others might want to put forward other aspects.

Best regards and a happy new year to you,
Alexandre Monnin

> Regards,
>
> Michael Brunnbauer
>



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