Long-time readers of this blog (as if!) will know I admire Dretske's 'Knowledge and the flow of information'. It turns out that as well as an excellent writer he's a great speaker, as I found from his 2007 Howison Lecture at UC Berkeley, on 'What we see' - embedded below.
He's arguing that we DO see the rich complexity of things, even though we don't realise it. One aspect of his line of argument is that you don't have to think about something actively to know it.
Eg:
Q: Were there any giraffe's in your bedroom when you got up this morning?
A: You most likely know there weren't even though you didn't actively think about it.
This is interesting, and some other examples he gives - with some nice illustrations using complicated images - probe it further, but I'm not 100% convinced.
In the questions at the end, someone asks about the gorilla in the famous video:
(An earlier version of this idea here: http://viscog.beckman.illinois.edu/flashmovie/15.php)
Dretske argues that those of us who think we didn't see the gorilla, probably did know something about it, which could be revealed if we were asked the right question. Well, maybe, but surely if we'd seen it we would have been actively aware of it, something as out of place as that? It seems a bit of 'clincher' to me!
PS: Here's another one in the same vein:
Tuesday, 10 November 2009
Thursday, 5 November 2009
UNCTAD Information Economy Report 2009: page 3
See also Page 1 and Page 2 of my notes
At the launch of the Information Economy Report 2009 in Manchester last week, following Torbjörn Fredriksson's presentation, Richard Heeks gave a commentary.
Richard started by observing that in the recent past the 'ICT4D agenda' has been tied to the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) but suggested that in the future the focus would instead be on resilience, because of the 'shocks' of:
- climate change
- the economic problem
- terrorism
Richard suggested that all of these would affect the developing countries most. I'm not sure this quite squared with what Torbjörn had said about the financial crisis. I thought - though I may have misunderstood - that Torbjörn had suggested that the small businesses in developing countries were not able to get credit, so had not been damaged so much by the recent financial crises, which as essentially a failure of credit. (Mind you, it seems a pretty consistent fact of life that whenever anything goes wrong, it is the poorest and least powerful that suffer the most.) Torbjörn indicated that resilience would a theme of next year's UNCTAD IER report.
Richard also mentioned 'development 2.0' as new models for development. An example he gave was of peer-peer micro-lending, in which individuals in the 'North' lend to individuals in the 'South', enabled by the internet. Despite my personal scepticism whenever anyone labels anything '2.0'... I can see that something like that fits with the ideas of 'web 2.0'. In the context of resilience, he described a picture of the web 'holding' poor countries, supporting them in uncertain times. I think that was what he was saying, but it sounded dangerously patronising to me (which is not how I think of things that emerge from the Centre for Development Informatics (CDI) in Manchester, so maybe I was not hearing it right).
The final note I have made of what Richard had to say was that he mentioned another report due shortly, the ICT4D report from the World Bank - he suggested this, light-heartedly, was a 'competing' report to the UNCTAD IER report.
Following Richards Heeks, Brian Nicholson led the general discussion.
Someone - maybe Brian himself - commented on the absence of a trickle-down effect from high-tech industries. For example, the Indian software industry only helps the well-off.
There was a discussion of the extent to which the private sector, rather than state, funds development. For example, bandwidth is being brought to Africa by the privately-funded optical fibre cables along the coast. There was a question as to whether the finance model for mobile broadband would work: do the potential customers have enough money? Richard pointed out that it was the private sector that funded mobile telephony - it might not have been thought that would be possible, so could it do the same for broadband? Is it significantly different?
More snippets from the discussion:
- what about the environmental impact of ICTs in developing countries. Torbjörn pointed to www.ungis.org
- in the light of the financial crisis, a survey asked what you would give up. In both developed and developing countries, the mobile phone was the last to go. If you want a family to give up smoking, give them a mobile phone! (They'd rather have the money to spend in the phone than cigarettes)
- need both infrastructure and skills.
- contrast India (industry came from high skills) and China (came from the base)
- capacity building problem. Eg there are a few hundred network administrators in Africa. Thousands are needed
- Grameen, the women in Bangladesh providing a mobile phone service, are now having problems because of competition
At the launch of the Information Economy Report 2009 in Manchester last week, following Torbjörn Fredriksson's presentation, Richard Heeks gave a commentary.
Richard started by observing that in the recent past the 'ICT4D agenda' has been tied to the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) but suggested that in the future the focus would instead be on resilience, because of the 'shocks' of:
- climate change
- the economic problem
- terrorism
Richard suggested that all of these would affect the developing countries most. I'm not sure this quite squared with what Torbjörn had said about the financial crisis. I thought - though I may have misunderstood - that Torbjörn had suggested that the small businesses in developing countries were not able to get credit, so had not been damaged so much by the recent financial crises, which as essentially a failure of credit. (Mind you, it seems a pretty consistent fact of life that whenever anything goes wrong, it is the poorest and least powerful that suffer the most.) Torbjörn indicated that resilience would a theme of next year's UNCTAD IER report.
Richard also mentioned 'development 2.0' as new models for development. An example he gave was of peer-peer micro-lending, in which individuals in the 'North' lend to individuals in the 'South', enabled by the internet. Despite my personal scepticism whenever anyone labels anything '2.0'... I can see that something like that fits with the ideas of 'web 2.0'. In the context of resilience, he described a picture of the web 'holding' poor countries, supporting them in uncertain times. I think that was what he was saying, but it sounded dangerously patronising to me (which is not how I think of things that emerge from the Centre for Development Informatics (CDI) in Manchester, so maybe I was not hearing it right).
The final note I have made of what Richard had to say was that he mentioned another report due shortly, the ICT4D report from the World Bank - he suggested this, light-heartedly, was a 'competing' report to the UNCTAD IER report.
Following Richards Heeks, Brian Nicholson led the general discussion.
Someone - maybe Brian himself - commented on the absence of a trickle-down effect from high-tech industries. For example, the Indian software industry only helps the well-off.
There was a discussion of the extent to which the private sector, rather than state, funds development. For example, bandwidth is being brought to Africa by the privately-funded optical fibre cables along the coast. There was a question as to whether the finance model for mobile broadband would work: do the potential customers have enough money? Richard pointed out that it was the private sector that funded mobile telephony - it might not have been thought that would be possible, so could it do the same for broadband? Is it significantly different?
More snippets from the discussion:
- what about the environmental impact of ICTs in developing countries. Torbjörn pointed to www.ungis.org
- in the light of the financial crisis, a survey asked what you would give up. In both developed and developing countries, the mobile phone was the last to go. If you want a family to give up smoking, give them a mobile phone! (They'd rather have the money to spend in the phone than cigarettes)
- need both infrastructure and skills.
- contrast India (industry came from high skills) and China (came from the base)
- capacity building problem. Eg there are a few hundred network administrators in Africa. Thousands are needed
- Grameen, the women in Bangladesh providing a mobile phone service, are now having problems because of competition
UNCTAD Information Economy Report 2009: page 2
See also Page 1 and Page 3 of my notes
UNCTAD's Information Economy Report shows that while the gap between the developed and developing countries in terms of access to a phone is decreasing, the gap in terms of access to broadband is increasing.
In his presentation, Torbjörn Fredriksson showed this increasing gap with Figure 1.8 of the report:
Global and fixed broadband subscribers by main country groupings, per 100 inhabitants.
This is simply explained. The rise in broadband access in developed countries has so far been mostly ADSL (asymmetric digital subscriber line) over the telephone (or CATV) wires. Developing countries have never been wired up in the same way, so don't have the infrastructure to carry the broadband. They are catching up in terms of telephony precisely because mobile phones don't need the wires. The interesting question now is whether wireless broadband will, in time, allow them to catch up in terms of broadband as well.
The evolution of wireless broadband is still unclear. In developed countries wireless broadband is largely delivered by a combination of Wi-Fi for fixed wireless over short distances (Wi-Fi 'hotspots') and 3G mobile broadband. An alternative - and more recent development - is WiMAX, which is like Wi-Fi for longer links. WiMAX is not used much in developed countries at the moment (well not in the UK anyway), but I understand it might be installed more in developing countries.
Some more snippets from my notes of the presentation and discussion:
- Most internet users are now in developing countries. A total of 1.4 billion users worldwide, 300 million of them in China
- The 'financial climate' has led to a decline in the exports of ICT goods (as opposed to services), but China - and only China - has now recovered back to the level before the decline
- Exports of IT and ICT-enabled services did not decline. 'Off-shoring' continued during the downturn.
- Gaps that remain: urban/rural; large firms/small firms; by industries; by language
- Importance of agriculture in developing countries. Note that reports often do not even consider agriculture because it is not so significant in developed countries
Following Torbjörn presentation, Richard Heeks gave a commentary.
I like to keep my blog posts short, so I'll say something about that on another page.
UNCTAD's Information Economy Report shows that while the gap between the developed and developing countries in terms of access to a phone is decreasing, the gap in terms of access to broadband is increasing.
In his presentation, Torbjörn Fredriksson showed this increasing gap with Figure 1.8 of the report:
Global and fixed broadband subscribers by main country groupings, per 100 inhabitants.This is simply explained. The rise in broadband access in developed countries has so far been mostly ADSL (asymmetric digital subscriber line) over the telephone (or CATV) wires. Developing countries have never been wired up in the same way, so don't have the infrastructure to carry the broadband. They are catching up in terms of telephony precisely because mobile phones don't need the wires. The interesting question now is whether wireless broadband will, in time, allow them to catch up in terms of broadband as well.
The evolution of wireless broadband is still unclear. In developed countries wireless broadband is largely delivered by a combination of Wi-Fi for fixed wireless over short distances (Wi-Fi 'hotspots') and 3G mobile broadband. An alternative - and more recent development - is WiMAX, which is like Wi-Fi for longer links. WiMAX is not used much in developed countries at the moment (well not in the UK anyway), but I understand it might be installed more in developing countries.
Some more snippets from my notes of the presentation and discussion:
- Most internet users are now in developing countries. A total of 1.4 billion users worldwide, 300 million of them in China
- The 'financial climate' has led to a decline in the exports of ICT goods (as opposed to services), but China - and only China - has now recovered back to the level before the decline
- Exports of IT and ICT-enabled services did not decline. 'Off-shoring' continued during the downturn.
- Gaps that remain: urban/rural; large firms/small firms; by industries; by language
- Importance of agriculture in developing countries. Note that reports often do not even consider agriculture because it is not so significant in developed countries
Following Torbjörn presentation, Richard Heeks gave a commentary.
I like to keep my blog posts short, so I'll say something about that on another page.
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