User:Jim Nightshade

Wikimania 2007 Taipei :: a Globe in Accord

I am an American living in Taipei, Taiwan. Here I teach, and attend the doctoral English Literature program at National Chengchi University. I have lived in Taipei for six years, and was married to a Taiwanese woman in 2003. We live in Taipei, with no kids, just our cat, Loudmouth.

I am looking forward to attending Wikimania in August. I have proposed to events, both of which have been accepted by the conference. One is a theoretical paper for presentation, and one is a panel discussion with Taiwanese college studets. Both events are described below.

• Panel Discussion:I have proposed a round-table or panel discussion entitled "Wikipedia and Taiwanese Students: A Good Mix." I am an American attending college in Taipei, and have seen many English-speaking Taiwanese students use Wikipedia in their classroom presentations. I know they rely on it, but there is a very negative backlash from many Taiwanese professors who dismiss Wikipedia, and forbid it's usage (for the standard reasons). So this is a good debate, which Taiwanese students have a good role in, and view of. The use of Wikipedia as an English language education and learning tool is also part of this discussion. I also just want to hear Taiwanese students' views on the use of Wikipedia, it's value (or lack thereof, everyone would be free to speak), and their Wikipedia stories.

• Paper presentation: "Bright Air, Brilliant Fire: The Mind of Wikipedia." Ihave proposed a paper presentation entitled "Bright Air, Brilliant Fire: The Mind of Wikipedia." The ideas described here are based on the work of Dr. Gerald Edelman, but are entirely mine, and please remember that my proposal has been accepted by the Wikimania conference, and I plan to present these ideas in August, in Taipei. However, I welcome any ideas or additions you might have. Jim Nightshade 14:38, 12 June 2007 (UTC) (Jim Nightshade is also my user name on the main Wikipedia page, and you could contact me via my Talk page there).

I want to examine the structure of Wikipedia as a new facet of human community epistemology and communication. My approach is based on the theory of Dr. Gerald Edelman, who has proposed a unique theory of consciousness (the title of my paper is the title of Edelman's 1992 book). Edelman’s theory, which I will apply to the "mind" of Wikipedia, is that human consciousness stems from neuronal networks in the brain, which are structured in massively parallel formations of overlapping data maps and circuits. These maps and circuits receive huge amounts of independent inputs, which are managed and “interpreted” by way of reentry signaling and feedback looping mechanisms, all of which distills and assembles information, and strengthens conceptual creation, organization and disposition in the human mind. This entire system, from which the fantastic and mysterious perceptivity of human consciousness emerges, is dynamic to the extreme, densely complex, entirely self-organizing and highly adaptive to new inputs, responses and outputs. We see in Edelman’s descriptions a virtual mapping of the Wikipedia system. For Wikipedia too, the very basis of the structure is the "map"--each page in the Wikipedia library, and above this “global mappings” by way of higher-level organizational theory and practice, all chock full of existing and newly-inputted information, linked in re-entry structures with other pages, which are constantly changing and developing, feeding information into one another, with manifold updates and additions, cancellations and deletions, alterations and edits, detachments and catchments, etc. This “jungle” is comprised of overlapping arbors--not just slices--of information that “overlap and ramify in myriad ways” and “give rise to maps and circuits that automatically adapt their boundaries to changing signals” (Edelman 69). These arbors, maps, circuits and boundaries evolve into ever-improved conceptual organization on Wikipedia, which are applied by Wikipedia users. My view is that the individual human mind and conscsiousness, emerge from a nodal, connectionist network of re-entry mapping and feedback looping mechanisms, with a community of editors distilling and assembling credible information. The essential way that intelligent, individual humans gather and interpret information is by way of systems of comparison and contrast, inclusion and exclusion, debate and dicscussion, updating and changing, all in a community effort--exactly as the "mind" of Wikipedia.

This idea is linked to Wikipedia's community reference effort, which is in stark contrast to more autocratic, "elitist" methods of information organizaton. My view is that communities of knowledge like Wikipedia are a key step toward actual, complete human knowledge and understanding--one of us is not as smart as all of us, and this conception includes the views and knowledge of many people who would normally be excluded from contributing to what humans know and can know (such exclusion is not only, often, immoral, it carelessly eliminates valuable data, a failing of any "elitist" views). In the Wikipedia world, we are all "elite" sources (or, most of us are), and the key to eliminating aporias in our knowledge of the world--and these gaps have plagued humanity since time immemorial--is the combined effort and a widely democratic development in the assembly, organization and ultimate concretization of knowledge in human communities.