The methodology for thinking about ways of knowing
2 October 2013
Last update: 04/10/13 12:02
The Knowledge Engineering Review has just published an exciting special issue on visualization, visual representation, and reasoning with visual knowledge. With Artificial Intelligence (AI) understood as “the methodology for thinking about ways of knowing” (in the 1988 words of Seymour Papert), computer scientists and knowledge engineers are increasingly interested in alternatives to text as forms of knowledge and as means for its representation. Visual representations and diagrams, sonifications (knowledge represented as sound), even haptic (touch-based) and pheromone (chemical-based) representations have become topics of research within AI and Computer Science in recent years. This interest is motivated partly by the growth of animated computer games and partly by the adoption within computing of ideas from biology, as well as by the profound recognition that no form of knowledge representation is best for every application domain. As a consequence, we may be witness to a decline in the centuries-long hegemony of text within the culture of the modern western world.
Along with different types of knowledge representation, different modes of reasoning and decision-making using this knowledge may also potentially arise. For this special issue these questions are explored for visualization in nine fascinating papers by a multi-disciplinary group of authors: philosophers of mathematics and science, computer scientists, cognitive scientists, and industrial design engineers.
The papers for this special issue were solicited, anonymously refereed, and selected by a team of three leading philosophers of the visual, the invited special issue co-editors: Mélanie Frappier (History of Science and Technology Programme at the University of King’s College, in Halifax, Novia Scotia), Letitia Meynell (Department of Philosophy at Dalhousie University, Halifax, Novia Scotia), and James Robert Brown (Department of Philosophy at the University of Toronto, Ontario).
Enjoy complimentary access to the entire special issue until 15th November 2013.
Related Posts
International Women’s Day 2020: Influential women in STEM
International Women’s Day 2020 falls on Sunday, 8th March this year. In the run up to this date, each week day we’ll be highlighting one woman whose accomplishments in science, technology, engineering and/or mathematics not only elevated their fields but also took us one step closer to a gender-equal world. We hope you’ll join us […]
Where Physical and Digital Worlds Collide
In this blog for Data-Centric Engineering, Paul Clarke (Chief Technology Officer at Ocado) documents Ocado’s journey with building synthetic models of its business, its platforms and its underlying technologies, including the use of simulations, emulations, visualisations and digital twins. He explores the potential benefits of digital twins, including the opportunities for creating digital twins at […]
Influential women in computer science
In support of International Women’s Day, we celebrate the contributions of 15 of the most influential women throughout the history of computer science. Their biographies and accomplishments in the field are celebrated here. If there is someone you would like to see us highlight next year, leave your message in the comment section. Read also: […]
Elephants, Kings, and Comparison, a Conversation with Tom Trautmann
We invited Trautmann to tell us why he writes about Indian war elephants, and how. He touched on several topics in the process: the value of analytical accidents, the recovery of lost knowledge systems, and the power and pluralism of human logics.
;
