Information:

	EcoPort

EcoPort Information Page

What is EcoPort? Brief Description The name "EcoPort" is a composite acronym derived from the words 'Ecology and Portal'. EcoPort is a single, open-society, contiguous, communal, wiki integrated with a Relational Database and its Management System (RDBMS)on the Internet. This is why we refer to it as a relational wiki. The relational database model is the only way that the information created by ecology's fundamental axiom, namely that everything is connected to everything else, can be represented and managed. In this process it is also worth remembering Diderot's conviction that there is no information outside interactions. The information in and about real world systems are n-dimensional hyper volumes of innumerable interaction vectors that codify the integrating relationships, which, for instance, constitute the structurally coupled, autopoietic web of life. The combination of the Internet/www and our relational wiki, creates an artificial system—an ecology of knowledge in its own right—that has all the functional capabilities to represent unbounded, real world complexity. Predicated on acceptance of the ecology of knowledge concept; i.e. as distinct from the knowledge of ecology, EcoPort is, to the best of our knowledge and perhaps arguably, the only truly ecological database on the Internet; i.e. as distinct from databases that have ecology as subject. EcoPort enables individuals and institutions to pool structurally couple their information and apply their separate expertise in a collective manner to give any one of us free access and permission to use the sum of what all of us know. EcoPort is very similar to WikiPedia insofar as both EcoPort and Wikipedia come into existence, grow and are improved by individuals who write their knowledge into the communal Wikipedia flat database. (The differences between EcoPort and Wikipedia are explained below; but see also the limitations of wikis) Any member of the public can free of charge, read and use any information they may find in EcoPort without having to register or log-in. (The information and knowledge in the ecosystem are made available for educational and non-profit purposes — a condition which we describe as a 'copyleft' framework of intellectual property rights management.) Contributors and authors who want to add data, write information and create knowledge, need to register to obtain passwords and to be given authorization by the system supervisor to 'adopt' specific records in the database that they want to create and integrate with the information and knowledge similarly provided and shared by other registered authors and contributors. The scope of the information and knowledge contained in EcoPort is determined by ecology's 'axiom of relatedness' which states that:'everything is connected to everything else'. As an attribute of the Web of Life, this axiom dictates that any system has to be understood and managed in terms of the balanced integration through structural coupling, which uses but is more than just hyperlinking, of all of its components. The essential, integrated nature of everything that we do and know is therefore also the central design consideration of the EcoPort system and service. Comprehensive Description EcoPort can be described from three different but completely integrated perspectives, namely: as a social process and public service — particularly how cooperation and communicative action shapes cognition and critically, distributed cognition; in terms of the dictates of ecology, particularly the inescapable, holistic nature and demands of the discipline for consilience; and also, in terms of the digital Internet technology that enables the system and service as a global public good. EcoPort's Social Dimension In terms of the generosity and willingness of individuals to work together to create a shared, public benefit, EcoPort is a good example of the southern-African spirit of ubuntu which proclaims that: 'I am because we are; and we are because I am'. The Dictates of Holistic Ecology In 1958, Hutchinson, spoke of the scope of ecology as an "...n-dimensional hyper-volume of space including all the potential interactions between a population and its biotic and abiotic environment..." EcoPort uses the n-dimensional nature of the www coupled to a powerful open-source relational database and an open-society relational wiki-approach of collective responsibility and ownership, in isomorphic emulation and representation of interactions of this kind. The Internet and the Digital Age of Distributed Cognition As a centralized, concentrated system, EcoPort differs from services that manage information as a network of distributed database nodes. The key difference lies in the consequences of the nature of **knowledge and meaning*. Specifically in the fact that both knowledge and meaning exist as dynamic combinations of structurally coupled information and data. Indeed, the French philosopher Diderot insisted that "...there is neither information nor meaning outside interactions". This is consistent with a fundamental property of how the human brain works and the nature of consciousness, i.e. that there is no information/meaning in neurons but only in the networks of combination possible between the 100 billion neurons/nodes that constitute the brain. EcoPort therefore emulates the essential contiguity* of the brain — contiguity without which cognition, i.e. 'knowing', would be critically impaired, if not fatally flawed. (If some neurons 'fail' in the human brain, the consequence is a 'stroke', and these vary from mild to fatal.) In distributed networks, meaning is impaired or lost whenever a broken link occurs between the elements of information required to construct a chain or web of meaning. If a meaningful sentence such as "The man kicked the horse" were to be constructed and presented as a combination wherein each of the five words in the sentence were drawn from five different databases, then the meaning of the sentence would be lost, if, for example, the database node 'serving' the word horse goes down. Such a broken link is the equivalent to a stroke in the human brain. That is why there is no such thing as a 'distributed neural network outside and separate from organisms or any autopoietic holon. There are distributed systems within contiguous organisms and autopoietic holons, but not, on the extensive scale required by comprehensive, coherent cognition among discrete holons. It is revealing and highly significant, that Danny Hillis and Richard Feynman: called the world's first neurally-networked computer a 'Connection Machine'; that it is a single device with a contiguous 'brain' contained, as in the case of a real organism, inside a discrete, continuous and contiguous physical space; and that, its internal logic that processes the information in its internally contiguous and structurally coupled nodes, does not require or use a meta-data ontology, since 'meaning' derives from direct interaction between, and integration (structural coupling) of the primary data in the nodes without the 'communication mediation' function served by meta-data tagging and an associated ontology. Indeed, Danny Hillis explained that the essential and break-through mathematical contribution by Richard Feynman to the project was exactly to prove the necessity of contiguity and then to provide an algorithm to manage it without the process being plagued by the equivalent of 'brain strokes'. Richard Feynman's algebra, which was required to make the Connection Machine viable, real and reliable, is also the maths that explain why 'semantic webs', as a strategy to achieve holistic management of complex meaning, are social and cognitive dead-ends (like Esperanto), and computationally fatally-flawed. The latter because the volume of meta data (n and o below) 'layered over' or 'attached to' primary data as 'tags', e.g. in the form: ((Datum A)Tag₁, Tag₁ ... Tag_n); and, ((Datum B)Tag₁, Tag₁ ... Tag_o), become impossibly large to manage in relation to the primary data (of the type 'A' and 'B' above) when the ontology has to be accurate, robust and resilient for all possible contributions that the data items 'A' and 'B' could make to all meaningful and useful webs wherein 'A' and 'B' play a meaning-conferring and meaning-communicating role. — (Sorry, Tim ;-).) Edelman & Tonnino, and several other respected authors in the field of human cognition (Steven Pinker: web version of Language & Connectionism with Alan Prince, William Calvin 1987, 1996 & 1998, Susan Greenfield 1995, 1996, 1997 and 2000 and others), have repeatedly revealed why and how every conscious state of knowing generates its own, unique ontology. This is rather bleak news for those seeking the Holy Grail of ontology, namely: "...a computer program/algorithm that can extract meaning from information." Hillis & Feynman's Connection Machine — a central model of inspiration for EcoPort — shows how a distributed semantic web is barking up the wrong, and unnecessary, tree; and, why it is computationally fatally flawed. And, in addition to these technical and cognitive constraints, there is the social fact that humanity does not exactly excel at adopting common standards, as the death of Esperanto-idealism illustrates so comprehensively.

EcoPort Information Page

What is EcoPort?

Brief Description

The name "EcoPort" is a composite acronym derived from the words 'Ecology and Portal'.

EcoPort is a single, open-society, contiguous, communal, wiki integrated with a Relational Database and its Management System (RDBMS)on the Internet. This is why we refer to it as a relational wiki.

The relational database model is the only way that the information created by ecology's fundamental axiom, namely that everything is connected to everything else, can be represented and managed. In this process it is also worth remembering Diderot's conviction that there is no information outside interactions.

The information in and about real world systems are n-dimensional hyper volumes of innumerable interaction vectors that codify the integrating relationships, which, for instance, constitute the structurally coupled, autopoietic web of life. The combination of the Internet/www and our relational wiki, creates an artificial system—an ecology of knowledge in its own right—that has all the functional capabilities to represent unbounded, real world complexity.

Predicated on acceptance of the ecology of knowledge concept; i.e. as distinct from the knowledge of ecology, EcoPort is, to the best of our knowledge and perhaps arguably, the only truly ecological database on the Internet; i.e. as distinct from databases that have ecology as subject.

EcoPort enables individuals and institutions to pool structurally couple their information and apply their separate expertise in a collective manner to give any one of us free access and permission to use the sum of what all of us know. EcoPort is very similar to WikiPedia insofar as both EcoPort and Wikipedia come into existence, grow and are improved by individuals who write their knowledge into the communal Wikipedia flat database. (The differences between EcoPort and Wikipedia are explained below; but see also the limitations of wikis)

Any member of the public can free of charge, read and use any information they may find in EcoPort without having to register or log-in. (The information and knowledge in the ecosystem are made available for educational and non-profit purposes — a condition which we describe as a 'copyleft' framework of intellectual property rights management.)

Contributors and authors who want to add data, write information and create knowledge, need to register to obtain passwords and to be given authorization by the system supervisor to 'adopt' specific records in the database that they want to create and integrate with the information and knowledge similarly provided and shared by other registered authors and contributors.

The scope of the information and knowledge contained in EcoPort is determined by ecology's 'axiom of relatedness' which states that:'everything is connected to everything else'. As an attribute of the Web of Life, this axiom dictates that any system has to be understood and managed in terms of the balanced integration through structural coupling, which uses but is more than just hyperlinking, of all of its components. The essential, integrated nature of everything that we do and know is therefore also the central design consideration of the EcoPort system and service.

Comprehensive Description

EcoPort can be described from three different but completely integrated perspectives, namely:

as a social process and public service — particularly how cooperation and communicative action shapes cognition and critically, distributed cognition;
in terms of the dictates of ecology, particularly the inescapable, holistic nature and demands of the discipline for consilience; and also,
in terms of the digital Internet technology that enables the system and service as a global public good.

EcoPort's Social Dimension

In terms of the generosity and willingness of individuals to work together to create a shared, public benefit, EcoPort is a good example of the southern-African spirit of ubuntu which proclaims that: 'I am because we are; and we are because I am'.

The Dictates of Holistic Ecology

In 1958, Hutchinson, spoke of the scope of ecology as an "...n-dimensional hyper-volume of space including all the potential interactions between a population and its biotic and abiotic environment..." EcoPort uses the n-dimensional nature of the www coupled to a powerful open-source relational database and an open-society relational wiki-approach of collective responsibility and ownership, in isomorphic emulation and representation of interactions of this kind.

The Internet and the Digital Age of Distributed Cognition

As a centralized, concentrated system, EcoPort differs from services that manage information as a network of distributed database nodes. The key difference lies in the consequences of the nature of knowledge and meaning. Specifically in the fact that both knowledge and meaning exist as dynamic combinations of structurally coupled information and data. Indeed, the French philosopher Diderot insisted that "...there is neither information nor meaning outside interactions". This is consistent with a fundamental property of how the human brain works and the nature of consciousness, i.e. that there is no information/meaning in neurons but only in the networks of combination possible between the 100 billion neurons/nodes that constitute the brain. EcoPort therefore emulates the essential contiguity of the brain — contiguity without which cognition, i.e. 'knowing', would be critically impaired, if not fatally flawed. (If some neurons 'fail' in the human brain, the consequence is a 'stroke', and these vary from mild to fatal.)

In distributed networks, meaning is impaired or lost whenever a broken link occurs between the elements of information required to construct a chain or web of meaning. If a meaningful sentence such as "The man kicked the horse" were to be constructed and presented as a combination wherein each of the five words in the sentence were drawn from five different databases, then the meaning of the sentence would be lost, if, for example, the database node 'serving' the word horse goes down. Such a broken link is the equivalent to a stroke in the human brain. That is why there is no such thing as a 'distributed neural network outside and separate from organisms or any autopoietic holon. There are distributed systems within contiguous organisms and autopoietic holons, but not, on the extensive scale required by comprehensive, coherent cognition among discrete holons.

It is revealing and highly significant, that Danny Hillis and Richard Feynman:

called the world's first neurally-networked computer a 'Connection Machine'; that
it is a single device with a contiguous 'brain' contained, as in the case of a real organism, inside a discrete, continuous and contiguous physical space; and that,
its internal logic that processes the information in its internally contiguous and structurally coupled nodes, does not require or use a meta-data ontology, since 'meaning' derives from direct interaction between, and integration (structural coupling) of the primary data in the nodes without the 'communication mediation' function served by meta-data tagging and an associated ontology.

Indeed, Danny Hillis explained that the essential and break-through mathematical contribution by Richard Feynman to the project was exactly to prove the necessity of contiguity and then to provide an algorithm to manage it without the process being plagued by the equivalent of 'brain strokes'.

Richard Feynman's algebra, which was required to make the Connection Machine viable, real and reliable, is also the maths that explain why 'semantic webs', as a strategy to achieve holistic management of complex meaning, are social and cognitive dead-ends (like Esperanto), and computationally fatally-flawed. The latter because the volume of meta data (n and o below) 'layered over' or 'attached to' primary data as 'tags', e.g. in the form:
((Datum A)Tag₁, Tag₁ ... Tag_n); and,
((Datum B)Tag₁, Tag₁ ... Tag_o),
become impossibly large to manage in relation to the primary data (of the type 'A' and 'B' above) when the ontology has to be accurate, robust and resilient for all possible contributions that the data items 'A' and 'B' could make to all meaningful and useful webs wherein 'A' and 'B' play a meaning-conferring and meaning-communicating role.

— (Sorry, Tim ;-).)

Edelman & Tonnino, and several other respected authors in the field of human cognition (Steven Pinker: web version of Language & Connectionism with Alan Prince, William Calvin 1987, 1996 & 1998, Susan Greenfield 1995, 1996, 1997 and 2000 and others), have repeatedly revealed why and how every conscious state of knowing generates its own, unique ontology. This is rather bleak news for those seeking the Holy Grail of ontology, namely: "...a computer program/algorithm that can extract meaning from information." Hillis & Feynman's Connection Machine — a central model of inspiration for EcoPort — shows how a distributed semantic web is barking up the wrong, and unnecessary, tree; and, why it is computationally fatally flawed. And, in addition to these technical and cognitive constraints, there is the social fact that humanity does not exactly excel at adopting common standards, as the death of Esperanto-idealism illustrates so comprehensively.