Journalhttp://www.parachange.com/journal/en-US2010-03-17T18:34:35ZSquarespace Site Server v5.9.2 (http://www.squarespace.com/)A Slight Shift in Direction ...http://www.parachange.com/journal/2008/12/8/a-slight-shift-in-direction.htmlIan Farbrother2008-12-08T18:44:15ZGeneral Knowledge Stores Ruby Thinking DifferentlyWell, it’s been an embarrassingly long time since I last wrote anything here. That is primarily because my focus has taken a sharp shift towards the practical during the last year, which has been taking me up a long and frequently painful technology learning curve … as well as rather rapidly down an interesting ‘unlearning’ curve.

Things really got started when …

]]>Article: Communication and Understandinghttp://www.parachange.com/journal/2007/11/25/article-communication-and-understanding.htmlIan Farbrother2007-11-25T19:28:40ZArtificial Persons Communication Comprehension UnderstandingAlthough I have a wealth of topics to write about, finding a good starting point proved to be more difficult than I expected. I ended up choosing Communication and Understanding because it focuses on some key foundational aspects that permeate pretty much everything else.

The article starts off by exploring specific difficulties encountered in cross-disciplinary communication, illustrating the difficulties caused by lack of common ‘conceptual infrastructure’. Although the primary quotes are taken from a mathematical context, I believe that they should be accessible to anyone.

It goes on to explore some aspects of ‘being multi-disciplinary’, as well as the specific challenges involved. We then change course slightly and focus on the fact that symbolic representations can be highly condensed when sufficient background understanding is available.

Finally, I take the opportunity to (rather sketchily) introduce some aspects of my notion of ‘artificial persons’, as an illustration of what happens when you try to throw computers into the mix.

I’ve posted this in a new folder: Articles.

Comments welcome!

Ian

]]>Influenceshttp://www.parachange.com/journal/2007/11/12/influences.htmlIan Farbrother2007-11-12T21:27:00ZInfluencesI’ve created the Influences folder to contain articles about people (and ideas) that have influenced my thinking on these topics in significant ways. For now it simply contains an initial list of individuals.

]]>Site Map and future topicshttp://www.parachange.com/journal/2007/11/12/site-map-and-future-topics.htmlIan Farbrother2007-11-12T19:26:42ZGeneralWhile trying to organize my thoughts about what to write about next, I figured it would be useful to make some kind of topic list. Then I figured I might as well make this available on the site itself. Then I figured that I might as well just make a Site Map page that can track what I’ve already written about as well as what I expect to write about in the future.

I expect this to change frequently, although I won’t normally post anything advertising that unless it involves a major revision.

Ian

]]>Book Planhttp://www.parachange.com/journal/2007/11/10/book-plan.htmlIan Farbrother2007-11-10T21:40:36ZBook PlanWhen I first started developing the idea of future-generation knowledge infrastructures, I figured that the best way to explain them would be to put them in a book. As I started to develop the book plan, I realized that I would need to target different books at different audiences, so one book eventually turned into 6 !!!!

Eventually I realized that I wouldn’t be able to make any money from the books, and that is what gave rise to this website / research blog. Nevertheless, I believe that the original book plan is still a very useful way to organize and think about the materials. So I’ve created a Book Plan folder and an overview of the plan.

As time permits, I will add pages on each of the books in the plan and their proposed contents.

Ian

]]>Timejumpinghttp://www.parachange.com/journal/2007/11/9/timejumping.htmlIan Farbrother2007-11-09T21:02:02ZThinking DifferentlyRadical Innovation requires the ability to think differently. Like any other skill or talent, this needs to be developed by deliberate and regular practice.

I’ve created the Thinking Differently folder as a place to hold descriptions of these kinds of exercises.

The first one is called Timejumping. It involves imagining the future at specific timescales by comparing them with similar timescales in the past.

Timejumping can be used very effectively for understanding possible rates of change in near-term (3-10 year) settings. However, for really getting yourself ‘unstuck’ from today’s dominant paradigms and intellectual fads and fashions it is particularly useful to apply it on long timescales - 100, 300, 500, even 1000 years.

I’ve used this technique for many years, and it remains one of my favorites. I think I first came across something like it in one of the late, great Robert Anton Wilson’s books. However, I believe that the specifics of the approach I’ve described here (using very specific time periods) is original. If you have any reason to believe otherwise, please let me know.

Enjoy … Ian

]]>Welcome!http://www.parachange.com/journal/2007/11/8/welcome.htmlIan Farbrother2007-11-08T22:56:02ZGeneralWell, this is my first post as I venture into the world of blogging.

I hope you enjoy the site as it develops. Please see the Welcome page for a more extensive introduction to what ParaChange(tm) is all about.

Ian

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