Dear Colleagues,
the ongoing discussion on consilience remembers me the problems we have with
the organization of knowledge. Think for instance about the idea of a
"Universal Decimal Classification" (UDC) of the 19th century and... today's
search engines. The UDC was supposed to organize knowledge *out there* in a
*scientific* (=objective) way. Google is supposed to select out of 4.2
billion websites (probably less than the have already exists) and... of
course nobody knows exactly the algorythm used by Google (and some, say, six
thousend (sic) other search engines). We live indeed in a postmodern
knowledge society. I recall you some famous essay by Jorge Luis Borges like
"The library of Babel", "The Book of Sand" and the short essay "The
Analytical Language of John Wilkins" (english translation for instace at:
http://www.alamut.com/subj/artiface/language/johnWilkins.html
John Wilkins (1614-1672) was en English churchman, Bishop of Chester who
worte "An Essay towards a Real Character and a Philosophical Language"
(London 1668). In this essay Borges cites (invents?) the work of a "doctor
Franz Kuhn" who is supposed to refer to "a certain Chinese encyclopeaedia
entitled 'Celestial Empire of benevolent Knowledge' in which the animals or
divided into: "a) belonging to the emperor, b) embalmed, c) tame; d) sucking
pigs, e) sirens, f) fabulous, g)stray dogs, h) included in the present
classification, i) frenzied, j)innumerable, k) drawn with a very fine
camelhair brush, l) et cetera, m) having just broken the water pitcher, n)
that from a long way off look like flies." !!... This text lead Michel
Foucault to his famous book "The Order of Things." I wonder if and how
consilience has to do with these matters.
kind regards
Rafael
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Received on Mon Oct 25 11:55:57 2004
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