permaculture

[John Schinnerer <eco_living@yahoo.com>]

Aloha,

This is good news about the AAAS DB, at least where non-living (e.g.
recorded in some static form) information is concerned.  For an in-use
legal model of "open" documentation, see:

http://opencontent.org/

And...I'll go on with related stuff from several rich recent posts...

Given the fragility of the technology pyramid we reside at the top of
and the huge differences between "living" knowledge and "dead"
information, I often think that much of the effort and infrastructure
that goes into high-tech projects such as we're proposing (and PFAF,
AAAS, etc. are undertaking) would be better used to revitalize living
knowledge.  

That is, to find people who are interested in living knowing of plants,
plant relatings, guilds, etc. etc. and find people who are still living
some of this knowing and get them the heck together, quick!  Of course
it can all be re-learned from scratch, but it seems prudent to
perpetuate it...

No high(or low)-tech recording is worth more than a fraction of a
living practitioner's understandings; I think Nick's post actually
points to this as well, that is: 

We humans are not digital or linear; we can (and usually do) do the
"multi-linked network node nonlinear pattern"
whatever-you-wanna-call-it, and can assist in catalyzing similar
patternings in others (human to human
teaching/learning/mentoring/etc.).  

It's very difficult (theoretically impossible), however, to code these
understandings into anything other (less) than a whole, complex human
being (or group of same) in such a way that someone decoding them will
get anything but a tiny fraction, a one-dimensional re-presentation,
out.  Not that I'm opposed to the whole idea - better to have some bits
than none at all (well, some of the time, anyhow!).  I just wonder
about effort to value/outcome ratios, accessibility, and so on.

So in one sense, we can do what we want (gather, encode, re-catalyze)
this knowledge most richly with "just" human beings (we never would
have made it this far otherwise, I suspect - that's "all" we had for
most of our existence).  And yet, living a culture that worships
non-human, non-living technology and "dead" data and information, we
conceive these extremely roundabout and difficult and loss-prone ways
to try and encode human/living knowledge.

I agree with the sentiments about how we record stuff is how we come to
view how everything "is" and "should be" - or, to quote Dr. Rodney
Donaldson paraphrasing Humberto Maturana, "how we do what we do is who
we are becoming."  

And at a meta-level, this is happening in this conversation - we have
come to view computer databases (or more generally, recorded
re-presentations in whatever form) as where and how this information
"should be" stored and we get excited about doing so.

Happily, I suspect some of us get excited about meeting living,
breathing, practicing "repositories" of knowledge as well... :-)

I just met someone researching ancient civilizations from the pattern
perspective of how they designed their built environments in relation
with how they acted in their world.  So far he's finding that
linear/planar goes along with dictatorial/militaristic, and
nonlinear/organic goes along with consensual/peaceful.  He started
broadly describing the Aztec culture in these aspects (without naming
them right off) and he could have been describing the USA culture, just
about phrase for phrase...

I think I get some of this sense from living (off and on) in a place
with a fairly recent and steadily reviving oral culture, namely
Hawai'i.  I also get one very concrete example of what I'm pointing to,
in the ancient art of Polynesian navigation.  It requires no
instruments ("technology") whatsoever other than the human body and
senses, yet enables accurate navigation across vast distances in the
Pacific ocean.  And - it *cannot* be learned by writing anything down,
or encoding information in any way other than as lived experiencing in
one's body/mind (though wave pattern maps and star charts of woven
sticks and the like may be used by apprentices).  This makes it very
robust as long as a culture continues to pass it along through
generations - far more robust in practice than any recorded, coded,
high-technology dependent shadow of it stored as mere information.

Food for thought...if you got this far I reckon you're full by now!
;-)


=====
John Schinnerer, MA
--------------------
- Eco-Living -
Cultural & Ecological Designing
Food - Shelter - Community
john@eco-living.net
http://eco-living.net

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