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shibbotech  ·  3210 days ago  ·  link  ·    ·  parent  ·  post: Algorithms of the Mind

That is really fascinating. With the dawn of Business Intelligence systems and Big Data, we are creating opportunities for information and knowledge to be synthesized in greater capacity and of higher quality than ever before. From an information sciences standpoint, this seems to relate somewhat to the top half of the DIKW Hierarchy. The article seems to muddle the "understanding" layer that is commonly seen as being a necessity for wisdom from knowledge, and adds intuitions as some exterior entity perhaps falling between information and knowledge - the lingering representation inferred from sensory input, later used to construct the knowledge concepts.

As for the Sapir-Whorf Hypothesis, this is the first I've heard of it, and it certainly appears fascinating! I could imagine how having distinct words for subtly different concepts would aid in differentiation down the line. However - and, I freely admit, with nothing but my own intuition - I don't quite think that the confines of language set boundaries on what concepts we can identify; they do strongly impair our ability to communicate said concepts with others, however. It seems to me that the only things limiting our ability to conceptualize new things and attain further information about anything are the types and quality of data available. Language makes it easier to draw connections and communicate concepts, but it does not cause any hard boundary to be drawn around intelligence - only the limits of our data and processing methods do.

Thanks for sharing this article!