A Knowledge Yin-Yang Ontology

By Juan Chamero
Third of the series about a New Knowledge Management Paradigm

In this Yin-Yang monad two realms are facing each other, the Websites Realm in black and the Users’ Realm in green, in our Web ontology the Established Knowledge Realm or K-side versus the People’s Real or K’ side respectively. As any Yin-Yang monad en each Yin (black region here) there is always some Yang seed and in each Yang (green region here) there is always some Yin seed, represented by K in black within a green circle in the Yin side and by K’ in green within a black circle in the Yang side.

In our Yin-Yang Vision we represent the Web space like a monad where two complementary realms are continuously interacting: The Websites’ Realm and the Users’ Realm. This monad resembles the man-machine system and the network “Client-Server” philosophy.

The whole human information and knowledge content hosted in the Web is the Yin part, cold, obscure, infinite, deep, ordered, open, offering, relatively permanent, conservative, the feminine of the Web space. People are the Yang part, hot, vivid, finite, shallow, unordered, individually closed, demanding, relatively impermanent, revolutionary, the masculine part.

All Yin has something of Yang and all Yang has something of Yin: K are those concepts (that with some subtle differences and as a first approach could be assimilated to keywords) the content deal with, the Yin part meanwhile K’ are also those concepts that people either consciously o unconsciously use in their interactions. K is the Yang “seed” of the Yin evolution meanwhile K’ is the seed of the people ordering. Yin side is like a fossil, the legacy, and the old that has, from time to time, to be renovated. Yang side looks like chaotic even having its own order hard to see, and has to be ordered as seen form the Yin side.

Using a thermodynamic analogy we would dare to say that the black region needs to evolve from time to time (and for that it needs a seed of change) and conversely the green region needs some ordering from time to time (and for that it also needs a seed of ordering). As we will see later K may take the form of a Map of the Human Knowledge, the core of the “Web Thesaurus”. Conversely and symmetrically K’ may be synthesized as the People’s Thesaurus.

Between both sides we may imagine something like a thin membrane; an active interface that separates two entities that are in fact behaves like only one. The skins of all beings of course belong to each of them but may also be considered a single massive skin for the sun energy cycle. So this “skin” belongs to both: all beings and the sun. We are going into more detail about this specific “e-membrane”.

Note: In Far East philosophy the process of change named the “Virtue of Tao” is indivisible. For example the fight is necessarily a game of two, you and your adversary that continuously flow along the time, along the process of fighting but evolving as an indivisible unit. We as Westerns see fighting as a dual process instead, a process where one has the victory and the other fails. Zen see this process as the change along the time of the “self”. For a Zen practitioner any “fight deserves your maximum level of awareness and of course trying to win and the same your adversary but the final outcome, no matter how it affects you as a winner or as a looser, is accepted as a wise teaching of the self. Cyberspace is seen as a particular self, a particular scenario of change where energy (Chi) is continuously transformed in knowledge via man as a multitude acting in two roles, either as a Website owner/administrator or as a user.

Basic architecture of the Web Space

By Juan Chamero
Second of a Series about a New KM Paradigm

What that’s this figure mean?

In our Yin-Yang Vision we represent the Web space like a monad where two complementary realms are continuously interacting: The Websites Realm and the Users’ Realm. This monad resembles the man-machine system and the network “Client-Server” philosophy. The content hosted in the Web is the Yin part, cold, obscure, infinite, deep, ordered, open, offering (knowledge and information), relatively permanent, conservative, the feminine of the Web space. People are the Yang part, hot, vivid, finite, shallow, unordered, individually closed, demanding (information and knowledge), relatively impermanent, revolutionary, the masculine part.
All Yin has something of Yang and all Yang has something of Yin: K are those concepts (that with some subtle differences could be assimilated to keywords) the content deal with, the Yin part meanwhile K’ are also those concepts that people either consciously o unconsciously use in their interactions. K is the Yang “seed” of the Yin evolution meanwhile K’ is the seed of the people ordering.
Using a thermodynamic analogy we would dare to say that the black region need to evolve from time to time (and for that it needs a seed of change) and conversely the green region needs some ordering from time to time (and for that it also needs a seed of ordering).
As we will see later K may take the form of a Map of the Human Knowledge, the core of the “Web Thesaurus”. Conversely and symmetrically K’ may be synthesized as the People’ Thesaurus.
Between both sides we depict in yellow something like a thin membrane, an active interface that separates two entities that are in fact behaves like only one. The skins of all beings of course belong to each of them but may also be considered a single massive skin for the sun energy cycle. So this “skin” belong to both: all beings and the sun. We are going into more detail about this specific “e-membrane”.

The day after Web collapse: Symbolically the “day after” the Web collapse I asked to myself: What this “Second Klondike Rush” will teach us?. Where is the truth?. What about the “Systems Thinking”, the old Cartesian methodologies, the value of the methodic study?. As a counterpart we had the experience of millions of young people that became real Cyber experts by “studying” nothing, many of then without even reading a technical book!. This is the generation of clips, graphic art, extremely fast media instances, all together as parts of a new way of collective wisdom!. However I thought that the truth was as ever in a peculiar middle way, going back “a little” to formal approaches, to establish solid theories as ever but at the same time practicing and learning as much as possible how to fight against mosquitoes (and some other difficult_to_imagine beasts!.

Websites without meaningful architectures and poor content: One thing that astonished me more was the lack of a systematic architecture backing portals and databases within a Web space growing at a terrific pace becoming a prolific society model with people interacting with the “establishment” faster and even better than in the real life. The Web became a “light” model of the Human Society but by far simpler and faster with almost zero “red tape”. The temptation of transferring tasks and responsibilities to the “NET” (as in the Manuel Castells utopia) became great. Only one thing is needed, namely to take a rest and start to think big and sound avoiding the light strategies of the recent past. Along bubble times many portals were like castles in the air, almost empty of real content, a nice “Look and Feel” to produce a shocking first impression but nothing behind!.

I started to “see” different the Web space like in the Zen-Taoist paradox of my first post:

Finally, the rivers were the rivers and the mountains were the mountains!.

What’s in a Website?: I perceived the Web “almost” like in the beginning, like a child but perhaps but with some subtle differences that I will try to explain. As Hamlet meditating facing at the skull I asked myself: “What’s in a Website?”. First of all it’s a communications facility where from some people (human and agents) try to broadcast pre determined messages. You may argue: That’s not exceptional, Radio, TV and newspapers media do the same!. Yes but some subtle differences define a gap among them: radio, TV and newspapers messages are in an irreversible sequence meanwhile Websites offer menus to users with different sequences and “spots”, so users may “choose” what to see and more and more in advances designs how to see. Another difference is the spontaneity and unpredictable-ness of the broadcasted discourses: paradoxically Radio, TV and newspapers are more spontaneous and hard to manage than Web sites (and by far more expensive!).

Effectively, the people who manages Radio, TV and newspapers know what to do, they usually have a well defined profile and so the people who lead their programs but they broadcast a discourse at a time, for example today only this specific film at 17:30. They do not have available something like a “Cognitive Offer” open to all people. Behind each Web space we may imagine a team defining a precise CO, “Cognitive Offer” to users, available at demand. This offer is the Website content organized as files within folders or like tables, registers and fields in databases. You may ad that Radio, TV and newspapers also have a daily CO, Yes that’s true but a very limited offer that could be not coherent with the Radio, TV and newspapers stations profiles and sometimes unpredictable and contradictory. On the contrary the CO of any Website could be considered the “Website Word”, its “established” advice, the content assets they deliberately broadcast to the world. Of course this content may change, be adjusted, updated, maintained and tuned up at any time.

The Web as a Two Way Communications Facility: Another crucial difference is that the Web is a two ways communications facility meanwhile radio, TV and newspapers are only one way, from them to people without the possibility of replication. Web communication could be ideally imagined like a World Wide Market, where Websites are like “front-ends” where predetermined Cognitive Offers are exposed and sold to users. So to structure a little this scenario we may also define a Cognitive Demand as the sum of all people demands of information and knowledge but operating in a much more active attitude that interacting with conventional media!. We may also imagine that users have at any moment a vivid desktop at hand, where from they may select what they want and even have the possibility to communicate and express their ideas using their language/jargon at will. In this scenario each man-machine interaction resembles a multimedia teleconference between users and Website owners and administrators.

The Established Truth: Let’s recapitulate a little about these new concepts. Websites have a CO that represents what their owners and administrators want to be known by people. What’s inside these CO’s?. A digitalized version of information about products and services to offer, some ones to be sold some ones like principles, ideas, theories, legislation, codes, in summary pieces of information and knowledge to be known. We dare to say that this CO’s are in some extent the “Established” Truth of the world as long as the sum of all Websites content matches the established knowledge of the world. This established truth is impermanent in its nature; it evolves along the time, some parts at a fast pace some others at a very low pace. It is equivalent to say that at any moment the Web content provides everything about everything in terms of information and knowledge. Well if not true we may affirm that the Web is going in this direction.
My next post will deal with K-K’: Towards A New Knowledge Management Paradigm

A Zen master in the Cyber Era

By Juan Chamero

For some friends of mine I’m a renaissance man reborn in the late 90 of the last century. Being rather old at that time and as a (secular) Zen master instead of trying to get a stable “satori” (1) and intern myself as a monk in a Zen monastery I decided to start working again within this “damn” modernity. I’m married, with three sons, two of my second marriage. What to do then to earn for a living?. Initially I intended to teach western people some useful Zen techniques under the name of “Zen Fitting” a body mind discipline. It probed to be fine, I gathered thousands of students, and a bunch of disciples coming from all over the world to whom I guided to strive for excellence (to overcome themselves not their neighbors). However this peculiar “job” I loved was not sufficient to maintain my family. So I decide to go back to my old profession as a “Systems Consultant” but I had to get rid of my obsolescence inertia first. I still remained tied up to the “main frames” realm that was my “Yang” side, and Systems Theory, Operations Research, Mathematical Modeling and Systems Simulation my “Yin” side. I never imagined myself working with a PC as my sons did. Fortunately as they were teenagers at that time of “big changes” I begun gaming to the Cyber Era and learning with them.

In small scale this experience was a kind of micro “Clash of Civilizations”, the rather formal, slow and heavy systemic reasoning against the culture of the trial and error, reasoning versus intuition, pondering versus spontaneity, push buttons fast and without inhibitions. I entered with my sons to the world of “pop art” solutions, unbalanced, asymmetric, and lack of coherence but providing at least one practical solution to “something”. We were fully embedded in the Internet bubble big boom, trying to learn as much as possible in the less time as possible. What a experience for a Zen master!. As an analogy I imagined myself trained like a “samurai”, fighting against all type of men and beasts and now of a sudden faced to fight against million of different types of extremely tiny mosquitoes!.

Working this mode as an “Internet expert” within the bubble and trying to follow its expansion I could manage myself to earn for a living with dignity. I started my revival in the IT Cyber arena year 1994 and accompanied the bubble until its collapse about years 2000-2001. Well I learnt a lot!. As a Zen master I learnt about new ways of thinking. When collapse arrived It was the turn of “wise ones” reflections like “I foresaw this!”, “I told you this was by sure going to happen!”. Concerning me this experience was extraordinary, rejuvenating, funny, euphoric, perhaps too much. As a Zen master I asked myself again “where is the truth now?”, “where is the middle way?”. But that belong to my next comment about The Cyber Era. Thanks!





Comments:

Yin-Yang is perhaps the most important symbol of the Far East culture. It depicts two primal opposing but complementary forces found in all things in the universe. Yin, the darker element, is passive, dark, feminine, downward-seeking, and corresponds to the night; yang, the brighter element, is active, light, masculine, and upward-seeking and corresponds to the day; yin is often symbolized by water, while yang is symbolized by fire.

The macro and the micro: Within the Yin-Yang conception and specifically within the ancient Japanese Do-In wisdom, the micro is in the macro and the macro is in the micro, both interrelated in the domain of full thinking. Learn to fight against mosquitoes could be as useful as the art of fighting against beasts; some micro economy principles and wisdom will apply to macro economy and vice versa. We will come back to this wisdom when dealing with algorithms and models. We suggest seeing: “Hacia una Nueva Forma de Pensar Zen” (in Spanish, “Towards a New Way of Thinking”).

Satori: is the illumination process, is to see things different of a sudden, spontaneously without looking for it. The satori state could last a second a fraction of a second of last along life. It frequently (used to) comes by meditation, by training, by acting but in any case without looking for a rational compensation. As long you “look for” some fruit you destroy the satori prompt. It is a body mind state impossible to describe by words so take this explanation like something that “tend to” in my vision now here in this specific moment of my life. With a mathematic analogy is like to see the infinite and its different categories clearly but changing your body mind accordingly seeing all things “different” but at the same time just the same.

In the beginning, the rivers were rivers and the mountains were mountains
Then, the rivers left to be rivers and the mountains left to be mountains
Finally, the rivers were rivers and the mountains were mountains.

Is it the same state the first and the third?. Of course it is not!.