{"id":1590,"date":"2010-01-06T11:52:51","date_gmt":"2010-01-06T11:52:51","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/meeseeks:5080\/blog\/?p=1590"},"modified":"2010-01-06T11:52:51","modified_gmt":"2010-01-06T11:52:51","slug":"maps-and-territories-and-knowledge","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/vukutu.com\/blog\/2010\/01\/maps-and-territories-and-knowledge\/","title":{"rendered":"Maps and territories and knowledge"},"content":{"rendered":"

Seymour Papert, one of the pioneers of Artificial Intelligence, once wrote (1988, p. 3), “Artificial Intelligence should become the methodology for thinking about ways of knowing.”<\/em>\u00a0\u00a0 I would add “and ways of acting”<\/em>.
\nSome time back, I wrote<\/a> about<\/a> the painting of spirit-dreamtime maps by Australian aboriginal communities as proof of their relationship to specific places:\u00a0 Only people with traditional rights to the specific place would have the necessary dreamtime knowledge needed to make the painting, an argument whose compelling force has been recognized\u00a0by Australian courts.\u00a0 These paintings are a form of map, showing\u00a0(some\u00a0of) the\u00a0spirit relationships of the specific place.\u00a0 The argument they make is a very\u00a0interesting one, along the lines of:<\/p>\n

What I am saying is true, by virtue of the mere fact that I am saying it, since only someone having the truth would be able to make such an utterance (ie, the painting).<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Another example of this type of argument is given by Rory Stewart, in his account of his walk across Afghanistan.\u00a0\u00a0 Stewart does not carry a paper map of the country he is walking through, lest he be thought a foreign spy (p. 211).\u00a0\u00a0 Instead, he learns and memorizes a list of the villages and their headmen, in the order he plans to walk through them.\u00a0 Like the aboriginal dreamtime paintings, mere knowledge of this list provides proof of his right to be in the area.\u00a0 Like the paintings, the list is a type of map of the territory, a different way of knowing.\u00a0 And also like the paintings,\u00a0possession of this knowledge leads others, when they learn of the possession, to act differently towards the possessor.\u00a0 Here’s Stewart<\/a> on his map (p. 213):<\/p>\n

It was less accurate the further you were from the speaker’s home . . .\u00a0 But I\u00a0was able to add details from villages along the\u00a0way, till I could chant the stages from memory.
\nDay one:\u00a0 Commandant Maududi in Badgah.\u00a0 Day two:\u00a0 Abdul Rauf Ghafuri in Daulatyar.\u00a0\u00a0Day three:\u00a0 Bushire Khan in Sang-izard.\u00a0 Day four:\u00a0 Mir Ali Hussein Beg of Katlish.\u00a0 Day five: Haji Nasir-i-Yazdani Beg of Qala-eNau.\u00a0 Day six:\u00a0 Seyyed Kerbalahi of Siar\u00a0Chisme . . .<\/em>
\nI recited and followed this\u00a0song-of-the-places-in-between as a map.\u00a0 I chanted it even after I had left the villages, using the list as credentials.\u00a0 Almost everyone recognized the\u00a0names, even from a hundred kilometres away.\u00a0 Being able to chant it made me half belong:\u00a0 it reassured hosts who were not sure whether to take me in and it suggested to anyone who thought of attacking me that I was linked to powerful names. (page 213)<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Because AI is (or should be) about ways of knowing and doing in the world, it therefore has close links to the social sciences, particularly anthropology, and to the humanities.
\nReferences:<\/em>
\nSeymour Papert [1988]: One AI or Many? Daedalus<\/em>, 117 (1) (Winter 1988):\u00a0 1-14.
\nRory Stewart [2004]: The Places in Between<\/em>. London, UK:\u00a0 Picador, pp. 211-214.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Seymour Papert, one of the pioneers of Artificial Intelligence, once wrote (1988, p. 3), “Artificial Intelligence should become the methodology for thinking about ways of knowing.”\u00a0\u00a0 I would add “and ways of acting”. Some time back, I wrote about the painting of spirit-dreamtime maps by Australian aboriginal communities as proof of their relationship to specific […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[4,5,7,8],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1590","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-ai","category-anthropology","category-argumentation","category-art","p1","y2010","m01","d06","h11"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/vukutu.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1590","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/vukutu.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/vukutu.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/vukutu.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/vukutu.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1590"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/vukutu.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1590\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/vukutu.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1590"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/vukutu.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1590"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/vukutu.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1590"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}