Explicate project framework

[Trami]

Currently we have many intuitions of why the topics we are working on are related. Although most of the project members share very similar ideas about the interconnectedness of the various issues, an explicit formulation of our common foundation lacks.

• We need to collect the topics each project member has worked on and will work on in an overview (#49)
• We then can make an argument for the associations between the various topics to provide an overarching framework to our work. The first attempts here (https://github.com/ciex/souma/wiki/Our-philosophy) require further elaboration
• [x] brainstorm on analogies, inspiration taken from cognitive science
• [ ] research literature to give a foundation to initial ideas
• [ ] concretise description

[mrausch]

I've just discovered that the focus theme of the upcoming Interdisciplinary College in Günne is very closely related to what we are doing. The title of next year's conference is "Cognition 3.0 -- the social mind in the connected world" (see http://www.interdisciplinary-college.de/index.php?id=1818). Obviously there are more people like us who are interested in investigating the matter of cognition and (online) social networks. I think we can take that as an inspiration and boldly stay on the thematic path that we have tried to pursue up until now. Nevertheless, we need to refine our thematic focus a bit and explain, as stated in the ticket description, the links between the different themes in our project.

[cafca]

That sounds very interesting. The conference is in March 2014, it's 80 euros for IK members and 120 euros for other students. Do you know whether becoming a member just to attend this conference pays out?

Maybe you can post this to the mailing list so that everyone is notified.

[mrausch]

[off-topic] Can't really say something about that except that you get the mentioned discount on the conference fee. But there's other ways as well to get your visit cross-financed, e.g. you can join the F2IKW (http://ikw.uni-osnabrueck.de/en/node/87) and apply for funding support there (you will have to present or poster or something like that at the conference though). Also you can apply for a stipend directly on the IK site and get a lot of money back, depending on your own financial situation (see http://www.interdisciplinary-college.de/index.php?id=1824).

I'll shortly mention this in tomorrow's meeting and maybe I can also send around an announcement to the mailing list, right.

[cafca]

see #73

[cafca]

Oops. Didn't read the description well enough.

[Trami]

Slides 2-6 in: http://prezi.com/7ttrp93g0d4b/?utm_campaign=share&utm_medium=copy&rc=ex0share aim at structuring our thoughts on/ narratives about Souma into three different perspectives.

Please comment here on whether you find anything on the slides useful, on the questions which are posed in the end, or on anything general you associate with the contents.

[cafca]

So as I see it, the following general narrative makes sense:

1. Motivation: Human Software

• The internet was meant to give freedom to the people.
• Today's internet gives freedom to corporations and spy agencies, not so much to the people.
• We want to create a communication platform that does away with this: That sees humans as social and not economic resources/agents.

2. Value proposition: Social Wealth

• The generally accepted value proposition of online social networks is that they create wealth by linking their users to products through personalized advertisement.
• Our value proposition is that we create wealth by making users aware of their interests/motivations and connect them to like-minded peers in order to foster the development of self-organized, wealth-creating groups.
• From this follow our goals of fostering self-development, self-determination and the formation of groups around shared interests/motivations

3. Framework: Cognitive Systems

• This formation of like-minded groups is already given in any society. Our software should provide an extension and not a replacement of these human abilities.
• So, in designing the system, we tried not to use metaphors from economic contexts, but from cognition. Specifically:
• In order to design group functionality, we conceptualize them as cognitive systems and thus implement systems for decision making, knowledge management, action planning, etc.
• In designing the data transport layer we took inspiration from an analogy between the brain and social networks as decentralised systems for information distribution and integration.
• Finally, any online social network can be thought of as a brain-computer interface that extends individual cognition by linking the cognizing abilities of groups of humans using computer technology.

Convincing? Comments?