The World's Fair

By Guest Blogger: Oronte Churm. (See here for Mr. Churm's prior guest post and mini-bio.)

As an undergrad, I once attended a seminar where a prof from Berkeley, if I recall correctly, showed us an animated model of the learning path of a neural network. The Navy had funded the program in hopes of developing an autonomous undersea robot that could discern rocks from explosive mines, for obvious reasons. The visual was oddly gorgeous, similar to a leaf falling erratically down though an tall cylinder--each undulation marking a self-correction--until it reached a point at bottom center, which indicated statistical confidence in the computer's ability. The graphic looked...true, as a representation of learning a specific task, and I've been interested in models and maps of the mind ever since.

When I teach rhetoric classes, I often ask students to draw mind maps to position themselves in relation to their topics and get down visually what they know (or think they do). For extended projects, such as ethnographies, where they're immersing themselves in unfamiliar subcultures, they draw maps every week, all semester. It's fascinating to watch the student who could only think of four or five things to write at the start of the project fill the page with a dense spider-web of associations near the end. This also bolsters students' confidence by providing concrete proof that something is happening inside.

Last week over at my superblog I asked readers a question: John or Paul? I purposely offered no context or explanation, though the very first respondent began with, "That is an enormous question. And a dangerous one -- because most folks will be unaware that their answers will expose them in a way they might not realize."

I think so too, and I wrote a little about why a few days later. More importantly, the John or Paul Project got a good response (for my site--52 comments to date), and though the answers fell in easily-predicted categories (John Lennon; Paul McCartney; John and Paul together, i.e. The Beatles; the apostles; refusal to stay within the prescribed question, e.g. The Stones or Monkees), they begin to map out a collective consciousness of a certain culture. I made a standing offer on my blog, and I'll repeat it here: Any publisher that wants to send me and a companion around the world to have adventures and ask this question of thousands from all walks of life is welcome to inquire.

Mapping the responses--the more the better--might look a little like this, and a little like this, but not so much like this. Best of all, if anybody is looking for an early birthday gift for me, I'd like a fly-through, three-dimensional virtual model of the responses. I imagine the space would be like two enormous soap bubbles I could enter (one for John responses, the other for Paul) with a flat common wall. I'd be able to look around at people's ideas and associations, pick them from the air for closer examination, and see their links and positioning to all the others. And would it kill you to let me dress like the image below to use the thing?

Obviously, the John or Paul Project is just another opportunity for immersion in a topic, which invites (requires?) us to construct meaning through narratives. Technology--writing, or other graphic representation--helps us see what we think we know, so we can push into the realms of measurement, research, reasoning, peer review, and rushing to publish in order to get the glory before that snot Alfred Russel Wallace does...oh, he thinks he's so superior.

What would be the value of such an extensive mind map, solitary or collective? Imagine zooming out to see those two now-tiny Beatles bubbles buried in a mass of other bubbles, all the topics of human understanding, like suds overflowing in a kitchen sink. The beginning of education is to understand there are bubbles everywhere, some touching, others touching the ones that are touching. Then we can get to work on the bigger questions: What is the sink, and who built the kitchen?