Comments on: Why thoughts matter… http://pragmaticyankee.com/unfiltered/2006/07/06/why-thoughts-matter/ What we cannot speak of we must pass over in silence. - Wittgenstein Wed, 08 Feb 2012 05:06:56 +0000 http://wordpress.org/?v=2.7.1 hourly 1 By: Julian Bleecker http://pragmaticyankee.com/unfiltered/2006/07/06/why-thoughts-matter/comment-page-1/#comment-6 Julian Bleecker Thu, 06 Jul 2006 21:51:35 +0000 http://pragmaticyankee.com/2006/07/06/why-thoughts-matter/#comment-6 Yeah, David — I'm pretty sure you've described what my argument boils down to, and it's pretty simple. It's sort of an anti-instrumentalist thing. It's why, somewhere in the "Manifesto for Networked Objects" I try to describe "Blogjects" as not the same old thing as that old problem of machine-to-machine communication, or even data feeds in a traditional way, mostly because we know that something else is now possible because of (new) massively networked digital publics. You can't possibly assume what people will do with the resources available to them — either the raw material or the capability to make new meaningful statements or change their worlds based on the consumption and repurposing/reprocessing of those raw materials. This is what the circulation of culture feels like on a large, digital networked scale. Data resources that things like Blogging Objects will provide as consumables, or the ability, now (and never before) for social beings to produce new meaning of an infinite variety based on things like what they consume present an entirely new framework for shifting the way the world works. It can go any of a number of ways simultaneously — supression, massive cultural change, political upheaval, culturally starved and bankrupt societies. Who knows, but the change can be made and, the best part, it's barely pre-determined. (I guess unless you're in China.) Yeah, David — I’m pretty sure you’ve described what my argument boils down to, and it’s pretty simple. It’s sort of an anti-instrumentalist thing. It’s why, somewhere in the “Manifesto for Networked Objects” I try to describe “Blogjects” as not the same old thing as that old problem of machine-to-machine communication, or even data feeds in a traditional way, mostly because we know that something else is now possible because of (new) massively networked digital publics.

You can’t possibly assume what people will do with the resources available to them — either the raw material or the capability to make new meaningful statements or change their worlds based on the consumption and repurposing/reprocessing of those raw materials. This is what the circulation of culture feels like on a large, digital networked scale. Data resources that things like Blogging Objects will provide as consumables, or the ability, now (and never before) for social beings to produce new meaning of an infinite variety based on things like what they consume present an entirely new framework for shifting the way the world works.

It can go any of a number of ways simultaneously — supression, massive cultural change, political upheaval, culturally starved and bankrupt societies. Who knows, but the change can be made and, the best part, it’s barely pre-determined. (I guess unless you’re in China.)

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