Only open content emerges
into cognitive dynamic networks
The Emerger shows how webpages can be assembled in limitless network patterns. Each unique pattern reflects a unique meaning, and each smaller pattern emerges from a context of a larger network of subject-related links.
Notice that there are no webpages in the Emerger from websites that require payment, nor from materials in password protected intranets and other closed content sources.
Closed webpages cannot interact freely with open content — and thus they cannot emerge in new patterns with the greater golden swamp.
Closed content must be kept up-to-date manually, lacks the stimulation of the open cognitive digital ecology. Closed content is in the backwaters of the internet and at constant risk of obsolescence.
Watch ideas and knowledge swarm into meaningful patterns
From the section on knowledge Aggregation in the book Emerging Online Knowledge which will be available August 2005:
The great content cascade of the past decade dumped what is known by humankind into the internet swamp where each person on earth will soon have access to it. The marvelous cognitive explosion described it this section is aggregating that knowledge into dynamic cognitive structures that could only have emerged in a swamp-like, fluid, messy complexity. We are learning in our time that order emerges dynamically from chaos. The golden swamp is an example of that kind of emergence.
The golden swamp does not form throughout the internet but only in its combined open portions. It is the seeming messiness and the absence of planning of this openness which allow the knowledge to aggregate according to its internal meaning, and to do so fluidly and dynamically. . . .
The Aggregation section cannot possibly be a complete, perfect — or perhaps even very clear — explanation of what it seeks to present. We do not really yet know what the future being created by the new digital learning ecology will be. On the other hand, an ecology is well-established and maturing fast. That new ecology is the future venue for global learning.
The swampy connectivity within the internet is challenging and changing many ways things have always been done. Bloggers are impacting mainstream professional journalism. Human swarms are showing up to dominate events. There is new respect for the judgment of crowds. Political campaigns are affected by wireless connectivity at the grassroots. Business is done in virtual meetings. Creative rights are being shared and confronted.
The same connective mechanisms that are changing many other aspects of society are available for the improvement of education but have been too little used so far. It is not enough for school people to condescend to controlling and limiting internet access for students. The education establishment will not long survive ignoring the natural network powers and gifts of open online content for learning.
I hope the ideas in this section will help to kindle thinking and conversation about the cognitive explosion caused by the new aggregation of minimal bits of knowledge. It is fascinating stuff filled with hope for a dawning global golden age of learning.