RE: Planning to close Philosophy of the Web Community Group due to inactivity unless we hear from you

At the risk of being disruptive, I must disagree.  A philosophy of the "web" is as meaningful as a philosophy of electrical devices or a philosophy of clockwork machinery.  That the web can be equated with systems using TCP/IP is questionable, and will be difficult as new technical communication modes emerge.  And may be overly restrictive.  For example, to include questions such as "How we do prepare a robot to understand and feel?" is immediately problematic as part of this discussion if that robot cannot communicate with other devices.  The question applies irrespective of the web capabilities of the robot.  As IoT and AI come to permeate society to consider the role of digital technology becomes equivalent to a version of a generalised philosophy of modern technology.

I enjoy a productive forum, but I do think a philosophy of the web is simply focused on a temporary, increasingly redundant, short stage in the history of technological development.

Regards
Dr Brandt Dainow
bd@thinkmetrics.com
www.thinkmetrics.com
+353 86 248 2846

-----Original Message-----
From: Delfi Ramirez - DR <delfin@delfiramirez.info> 
Sent: Tuesday 7 March 2023 02:00
To: Henry Story <henry.story@bblfish.net>
Cc: public-philoweb@w3.org; Alexandre Monnin <aamonnz@gmail.com>; team-community-process@w3.org
Subject: Re: Planning to close Philosophy of the Web Community Group due to inactivity unless we hear from you

Dear All:

Agredd with Henry, Philosophy of the Web.

A little short of an enormous task to be fulfiled, involving for this a 
continuous interplay of diverse aspects and specialities. Which may have 
not been the case in the past years.

Apologies for not being as much as I intend. Like everyone there are a 
lot of non-profit activities and little time to fuyllfill all of them.

However, to close this space is in fact less than a sad ting. In our 
current days,  it feels and seems  more than ever needed a basis or 
skecth on the Philosophy of the Web (TCP/HTTPS protocol)  because of a 
new realitieslike  Artificial Intelligence ( or semantics applied to 
macjnes) the correct use of programming languages to develop algorithms 
which must represent the human dualism (Cartesian) versus the obbligated 
Monism of a computer (Leibniz). And this can be seen feasible as we work 
using cathegories or dictionaries, or vectors

Needles to say, unlike any other discipline in human activity, 
Philosophy aims to present a global, transversal vision, which enables 
the sowing of innovative lines of research and development, given that 
it acts in a universal way, targeting the whole of all. If DesCartes or 
Leibniz can be mentioned in our days is just because their foundation 
and work is still present and real. As a subset of the human actibity, 
and  more importantly, after the evolution of the Web, not as an 
engineering product, but as a platform for human interactivity, I 
consider it a pity that we do not have the necessary time to develop 
standards or guidelines born from the W3C Ciommunity to be applicable to 
other entities. How does the Web should work in a model of society thata 
does not allow encryption by default? How do we present in a decent 
manner that encryption has been an advantage , not a shield, for 
truusted communications, in a clear and solid manner that can be 
understood by our lawmakers?

How we do prepare a robot to understand and feel catalogues we may ask 
her to find for us? GHow in our XXIst century,  Philosophy, a discipline 
that historically has beenfor the authoritieseyes only, can be of help 
in our daily voice over the web, gesture over the web interaction ? Just 
mumbling. serves this, as an apology and  acertain justification for the 
abandonment ofthis Philosophy of The Web Community. over the past 
months.

Shall we promote, the community  as well as to start to make use of 
collaborative platforms ( As the PWC is actually doing through Github) 
to interact each other and let others to play in, or shall be say until 
next time.

Your choice.

Best






On 2023-03-06 19:20, Henry Story wrote:
>> On 6. Mar 2023, at 19:35, Alexandre Monnin <aamonnz@gmail.com> wrote:
>> 
>> Dear All,
>> 
>> It has been inactive indeed so I won't oppose its closure unless 
>> someone comes forward.
> 
> 
> The idea of a philosophy of the web group remains a very good idea.
> The problem is that philosophy done well takes a huge amount of time,
> requiring professional assistance. Someone needs to help people who 
> want
> to learn and who want to do the work. But philosophy also always seems 
> to
> anyone untrained to be something obvious and easy, and the
> risk is that one ends up having conversations about basics using up
> huge amount of time.
> 
> It is said that at the entrance of Plato�s academy was written
> "Let no one ignorant of geometry enter�
> 
> Geometry provides the type of discipline that one really needs to 
> discuss
> these topics. So I have started a group called Web Cats that looks at
> how Category Theory can be applied to the web.
> 
>   https://web-cats.gitlab.io/
> 
> 
> Hopefully, as a theory of the web using the unifying mathematical 
> language of
> category theory is developed, it will be easier to ask philosophical 
> questions
> about the web for which mathematical proofs can be provided as much as 
> possible.
> 
> Of course, philosophy does not reduce to mathematics. I have one short 
> proposal
> that enters geopolitics and security called the Web of Nations that I 
> put
> forward here:
> 
> https://co-operating.systems/2020/06/01/WoN.pdf
> 
> It builds on my second-year report for a PhD thesis
> I started a few years ago, but for which I ran out of money
> 
> https://co-operating.systems/2019/04/01/
> 
> In the meantime, I have been building a Solid server and access control 
> libraries
> for it.
> 
> My aim is now to write the thesis out in smaller pieces as
> articles, as it is easier to produce those and find the right
> reviewers for them.
> 
> In any case, I have not seen anyone really step up here to guide the 
> group.
> That would require a paid role, I think.
> 
> 
> Henry Story
> 
> 
>> 
>> All the best,
>> A.M.
>> 
>> On Mon, Mar 6, 2023 at 7:29�PM Team Community Process 
>> <team-community-process@w3.org> wrote:
>> Dear participants in the
>> 
>>   Philosophy of the Web Community Group
>>   https://www.w3.org/community/philoweb/
>> 
>> Your Community Group appears to have become inactive (per [1]). W3C 
>> plans to close this group in 10 days unless we hear compelling reasons 
>> from you to keep it open.
>> 
>> Thank you,
>> 
>> CG/BG System
>> 
>> [1] https://www.w3.org/community/about/faq/#close-inactive
>> 
>> 
>> 
> 
> Henry Story
> 
> https://co-operating.systems
> WhatsApp, Signal, Tel: +33 6 38 32 69 84?
> Twitter: @bblfish
> Mastodon: @bblfish@mathstodon.xyz

Received on Tuesday, 7 March 2023 11:57:02 UTC