SIVACRACY.NET: Ranking vs. Mapping Knowledge

A must-read post by Frank Pasquale:

Ranking vs. Mapping Knowledge

Lately I’ve been worried about the costs of rankings. We all know about the sturm und drang surrounding the USN&WR ranking system, but I think the problem is actually far more general, as these provocative responses to Posner’s efforts to rank public intellectuals show. I explored some of the problems caused by search engine rankings in this paper, and suggested a few potential legal responses. But I think a technological or even aesthetic response might be far more effective: some way of representing data that does not lend itself to the commensurating metric of ranking.

A couple events recently gave me some hope for innovation here. At the Yale Access to Knowledge conference, a World Bank expert presented a “Knowledge Assessment Methodology” that measured certain kinds of development. The “web style” graphic reminds me of Calabresi’s old line about “joint maximization;” that there are often many variables we both want to increase and yet don’t believe can be condensed into any single number. ...

Comments

Thanks so much...so interesting.

I think I have it right that Steven Hawkin thinks in shapes rather than numbers and formulas.

Also, wanted to link to Dr. Michael Field's amazing art which is created by his own program which uses principals of symmetry and momentum with randomness/chaos to create patterns, orders of great beauty.

http://math.uh.edu/~mike/ag/art.html

He then uses his subjectivity and scale of eventfulness within the work to emerge or submerge colors which then dictate dominating patterns.

A big idea: from chaos comes order as beautiful as you would wish with a little push from momentum and symmetry. Some familiar and not so familiar patterns.

Posted by: Many Blue, Yellow and Green Dogs | July 4, 2006 05:31 PM

I am not sure the last try worked so maybe again:

pardon me my poor spelling:

Stephen Hawking

Posted by: Many Blue, Yellow and Green Dogs | July 6, 2006 07:27 PM

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