<nettime> Further on Peak Data

As with Andreas, Geert's fascinating manifesto immediately reminded me of Borges 'only truly accurate map being one to one' concept. Which also has resonance with the Borges story 'Pierre Menard, Author of Don Quixote.' In the latter case the 'contemporary' author reproduces Cervantes word for word, but because it's 'composed' at a different time it is replete with new meanings.

There's another parallel concept, of the emerging 'outside-in' universe, that of data. If we isolate a subset of the vast playing field of peak data of all kinds, and consider only the staggering bounty of data concerning both the macro and micro universe (in all electromagnetic wavelengths, from multiple gathering sensors, telescopes of all kinds and including also subatomic physics research from CERN, Fermi, etc), we're also effectively attempting to create a kind of one-to-one map. Even if we never get there, and never can. We're 'bound within a nutshell...' while counting ourselves 'king of infinite space.'

Let me address this particular peak data subset, rarified enough to lie largely outside realms of manipulation and profit-seeking monetization, but of course is still subject to questions concerning funding (who funded what research and why) and subjectivity (why did scientists/NASA/ ESA/various technologists choose to focus on this or that field of inquiry and not another). Some years ago I became aware that the firehose of data from interplanetary missions, from the Hubble Space Telescope, from atom smashers, etc, was far too voluminous for the relatively small worldwide community of scientists of various stripes to keep up with it. So of course it's archived. Creating a kind of digitized analogue of the observable universe, one that's _also only partially explored._ So for example planetary rings specialist Mark Showalter, having developed certain theories concerning the ring dynamics of Saturn, went back into the Voyager archives seeking images taken during flybys of the Saturn system decades previously. And in those ten thousand plus pictures he discovered several tiny moons embedded in the rings that had gone unnoticed previously. The empirical validation of theory was discerned in the database.

This presents a fascinating (to me) scenario in which discoveries are not made through direct observations of nature herself, but through study of our simulations of nature and archives of observations of nature. Which takes me to Heisenberg: "What we see is not nature herself, but nature exposed to our method of questioning." And: "Contemporary thought is endangered by the picture of nature drawn by science. This danger lies in the fact that the picture is now regarded as an exhaustive account of nature itself so that science forgets that in its study of nature it is studying its own picture."

This strays off-topic from Geert's text of course, but I wanted to put it out there as a kind of peak-data node largely outside the realm of manipulation, at least of the kind referred to in that text. And yet also subject to some of the issues concerning Big Data, signal to noise ratios, cosmic speed limits, etc. I'll end with a realization I had concerning the scientific method, namely that the more we know or think we know, the greater also is our ignorance. If we envision what we do know about the universe as an expanding circle set within the exceedingly vast spaces of our ignorance, then what we're doing as research produces ever greater understanding is produce a longer and longer border between what we know and what we don't. There's simply more of the latter, which comes with the former. The net result is an ever-expanding awareness of the extent of our ignorance. Knowledge concerning the limits of knowledge.

Best,

Michael

PS: To Geert's list of Ukraine links I would add these fascinating ones:

https://www.thedailybeast.com/the-sneaky-way-artists-in-russia-are-still-slamming-vladimir-putins-war-in-ukraine

https://t.me/holodmedia/2714

On Fri, 8 Apr 2022 at 05:00, <[email protected]> wrote:

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Today's Topics:

1. Re: Proposition on Peak Data (Andreas Broeckmann)
2. Re: nettime-l Digest, Vol 175, Issue 8
(Marine DaughterOfthePirate)

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Message: 1
Date: Fri, 8 Apr 2022 09:39:56 +0200
From: Andreas Broeckmann <[email protected]>
To: nettime <[email protected]>
Subject: Re: <nettime> Proposition on Peak Data
Message-ID: <[email protected]" target="_blank">[email protected]>
Content-Type: text/plain; charset=UTF-8; format=flowed

Am 08.04.22 um 08:38 schrieb Geert Lovink:
>
> One day, soon, people will wake up in disbelief, realizing that data is
> dead. The point is not to overcome the dark side of data, regulate IT
> giants and establish ?responsible? governance but to lay networked data
> amassing aside. Once system maintenance subsides, data gathering regimes
> fall in disrepair. Relational databases may still exist but one day they
> will simply stop bothering us. Fuelled by organized unbelief the
> invasive, sneaky, manipulative side of the measure mania fades away.
> Rarely anyone will remember the data religion.

Geert's conclusion reminds me of two other encouraging visions of
ultimately failing data-collection:

Josephine Starrs & Leon Cmielewski: a.k.a. (2001)

http://josephinestarrs.com/lx/?page_id=17

... and the short fable "On Exactitude in Science" (1946) by Jorge Luis
Borges:

... In that empire, the art of Cartography reached such perfection that
the map of a single province occupied the whole of a city, and the map
of th empire took up an entire province. With time, those exaggerated
maps no longer satisfied, and the Colleges of Cartographers came up with
a map of the empire that had the size of the empire itself, and
coincided with it point by point. Less addicted to the study of
Cartography, succeeding generations understood that this extended map
was useless, and without compassion, they abandoned it to the
inclemencies of the sun and of the winters. In the deserts of the west,
there remain tattered fragments of the map, inhabited by animals and
beggars; in the whole country there are no other relics of the
geographical disciplines.
Su?rez Miranda: Viajes de varones prudentes, libro cuarto, cap. XLV,
L?rida, 1658.

------------------------------

Message: 2
Date: Fri, 8 Apr 2022 11:05:44 +0200
From: Marine DaughterOfthePirate <[email protected]>
To: [email protected]
Subject: Re: <nettime> nettime-l Digest, Vol 175, Issue 8
Message-ID:
<CAES8Rx7jA+6f-97oRW6aoOjH9s4tdRrYv4bxx5fMyb9zoKvrkQ@mail.gmail.com>
Content-Type: text/plain; charset="utf-8"

>
>

Hello dear Geert Lovink,

you can have these ideas in my mind.
i just tried here to cut to edit out the snip part to make it stand out a
bit better for you.

i think you can take interest in Law of One: RA the philosopher of L/L
research (the two physicians who devoted themselves on these
communication): centered on the architecture of densities in the universe.

A bit like Spinoza who conceptualized ONE as an <<infinite power, called
<<Substance>>, expressing itself with flows, called <<modes>>
RA during the 1980.s, intervened as a <<spirit>> using a women.s voice to
explain his views on ONE

>
base on waves, that have frequencies, we either accelerate in frequencies
or downgrade.

we either pass beyond this universe we know, gifted within one octave,
or passe below and reach to an other octave.. like on an infinite piano.

RA explains or builds a temporary hypothesis that humanity is on third
density at the moment he was/is speaking. 1980.

the minerals are of the first density. you would have heard of this in
newagers communities: the root chakra, vibrates with a red aura. It is
expressing our need for security. or grants it, to us and to the
surrounding other densities complexes.

the orange vibration: in short, growth, plants and animal
individuals-complexes-societies.

the third comes up when an animal or a tree has learned enough, took on his
memory enough luggage or experience, for example a cat or a dog, and will
enter by being born a human baby.

but the <<human objects>> of the yellow density are considered by RA to be
part of the human complex. (the table, the tv, the radio, the bus, the
helicopter, the chair,...)

That is why i talk about this, in relation to your concern for data.

the yellow third density is molar would say Deleuze and Guattari.
Some singular (individuals) might exist on Earth who have been reaching
higher densities. Like Jesus, they about whom so they say, he who was of
the fourth density: green chakra of plexus : Love.

Yellow is more noisy, and is a density where entities have a choice between
continuing the path upwards either by choosing <<service to self>>
either <<service to others>>

the majority chooses service to self, because in our environment, in our
moral environment, it is organized that way, and the easy path is the self.

the service to others is people who have left the morality (so called
yellow density): abandoned this compression of our society, and want
rather to be free, (say, a bit like Jack Kerouak in Dharma Bums, or On the
Road,..)while at the same time they help other inner souls to go up, that
is to accelerate, to being more conscious of the world, to its infinite sea
of signs, its elements.

in that light you see how Big Data can play a role:
like control, reinforcement of authoritarian control,
big data drags you backwards, in the service to self.

the <<i>> phone, the <<digital identity>> wanted by Davos, the deciders.

so the religion is not the religion of guys like Yuval Harari.
They certainly know better than to have a faith in big data.

But they manage to publish their books, as its useful for their masters,
and for their cult, and i have seen many intellectuals weak enough to take
a knee, and submit their intellect to this religion he subliminally -or
sometimes explicitly- proposes to the <<masses>>.

The self-service, RA is talking about it with a sneer, as << negative>> and
the altruist, secret Alliance of souls service, as a <<positive>> polarity
in ONE

its really about controlling masses of people a bit like the black cube in
Mecca where you see crowds turning around this stone a bit like the rings
turn around the planet Saturn (who plays this role of sun, in the awareness
of these ego driven people of the selfish religion) A secret comes occulted
by the political sheer of appearances in the media of Yuval and others.
They are mind switchers, or sort of.. programming consciousnesses, with web
pages, books, and universities .

So i tell you its not much use of fighting big data.
As long as this cult is alive and thriving on this world, we have nothing
to stop them.

They will talk. They will act.

But what we can do is to think how can technology help us in another
project in the meantime that they loose foot on ground, a project that
would aim at the opposite of their goal: not to drag people on Earth into a
lower density, towards eventually reaching to the octaves below, but
instead looking for the more difficult of the tasks, yet the most rewarding
in terms of happyness to be in this world, grounded yet tending upwards:
with or without technology, we could reach alone and collectively the above
us densities, beginning with the green density of universe love, then cyan
wisdom of it, etc (see Law Of One, the Ra Materials, for more info on this)
but as you will learn, we as humanity of Terra, have a pretty long journey
till we get to this (what with the indigo, violet, silver, gold, platinum
,densities ?etc.)

I think technology of << non data>> should be scrutinized from a non
objective-science
perspective, for all these reasons and for others.

Data and objectivity goes hand in hand.

Fact is already different.

A fact is something that matters to a human consciousness

A data is something which <<matters>> or functions, which enables a
computer to flow.

A data is like a unit in the flow of consciousness of the computer ,
whatever its size.

Human awareness have to give up Isabelle Stengers and Karl Popper: their
defense of an authoritarian Third World ? Knowledge ? a Science that is
working like the community of Superior Men.

By giving up, as Van Gogh did, as you mentioned this painter, we are
reconnecting to science as Galileo did: by study and experimentation.

Not by obeying to objectivity.

That is not to say we have to destroy old paradigms, but just that we have
to build one that fits in with our present goal to reach fourth density and
beyond.

We dont have to burn old libraries and old data.

But readapt old tools & computers and build new tools superior, adequate to
the higher densities as they are superior in experience to our Present, and
so having grown our mind, and not our computer data etc, we can use our
newly formed inner minds to elevate within us our environment on Terra
(computers included) so that we enjoy the planet as it should, as deserved
(it is alive, as G.Simondon and the animists demonstrated i think) this in
an incommensurable way to the previous milleniums, a way of ever increasing
a subtle satisfaction : of the senses, and the intellect, and a new
political organisation that would decipher what mistakes were done in
mankind.s history and what we can learn from past experience to create our
future.

Un saludo desde Ibiza,

Marine fille de Pirate.

>
>
> . Following the definition of peak oil, we can state that peak data will
> be the moment when the maximum rate of extractivism is reached and the
> platform logic implodes, after which a steep decline sets in until systems
> and their users are outside of the entropy danger zone.
>
>
>
> In a variation of Marx, we could speak of the tendency of the rate of
> meaning to fall. After the peak, the degradation of data will grow
> exponentially and databases are compromised beyond repair.

. After the manic, restrictive Covid years, the big data hype lost its
> innocence for good.
>
>
>
>
>
> According to Katherine Behar data is like plastic. ?
>
>
>
> Big data critique had its moment. And it didn?t really come from the media
> theorists. It was mostly coming from concerned scientists and the
> enlightened managerial class: pragmatic, reasonable, harmless and
> predictable. It was big data critique 101: data are not objective, data
> comes with interests, and so on. The first mistake was to accept the
> framing: big data. Rarely it was about the size and more about a widespread
> datafication and the unspoken new grand narrative it supports.
>
>
>
> . In 2020 Miriam Rasch published Friction?Ethics in Times of Dataism <
> https://www.debezigebij.nl/boek/frictie/>, published in Dutch by De
> Bezige Bij. In an English summary <
> https://www.eurozine.com/friction-and-the-aesthetics-of-the-smooth/> of
> her book written for Eurozine Rasch criticizes the desire for optimization
> in data science.

Data are seen as the next step in science.

According to Rasch, this belief is nowhere better exemplified than in
> Harari.s <<Homo Deus: A Brief History of Tomorrow>>. In his
> pancomputationalism . the universe, plant and animal, human and machine all
> work in the same way. In comparison with a machine, human beings are
> hopelessly inefficient and lacking in organization. Dataism is framed as a
> religion all subjects of the socio-technologi
> cal regime believe in. We live inside the data cosmology. The data sphere
> is here described as a natural monade: dataism is the inevitable paradigm
> of our times. Rasch believes that in this mechanistic worldview,
> extrapolated into a not-so-distant future where we will all function as a
> computer.

In this vision, downfall and progress go hand in hand. Inefficient human
> faces a certain destiny. Dataism is a cynical faith depicting today.s world
> as a deplorable intermediate stage on the path to something better.
>

. In line with Vincent van Gogh.s <<Real painters do not paint things as
> they are>>They paint them as they themselves feel them to be>> we need
> impressionist data approaches. In opposition to the current data regime the
> Institute of Network Culture (INC) has focused on the production and
> support of <<rather not>> theories and critiques of internet culture. One
> cannot expect that such data scepticism is met with enthusiasm. The
> untimely continental-European perspectives aim to build autonomous,
> interdisciplinary research networks on topics such as search, Wikipedia,
> social media alternatives and revenue models for the arts. INC does not
> believe in <<data science>> and explicitly aims to undermine its core
> belief system: the data religion itself. This is not merely done out of
> resentment as decades of sadist neo-liberal budget cuts under the fla
> g of the <<creative industries>>have all but diminished the arts and
> humanities work. In this respect, we have not forgotten the loud silence of
> the so-called <<hard science>> communities over the cruel policies that
> ultimately crippled the arts. We unapologetically believe in the subversive
> power of theory, philosophy, literature and the arts and the ultimate
> victory of poetry over bean-counting. Measurement is in the process of
> orchestrating a power grab, aimed to destroy critical thinking as such.
> There cannot be peace or mutual understanding in a world where data are
> explicitly utilized to eliminate culture.
>
>
>
>
>
> What are the so-called <<sciences>> doing to uphold the unfolding
> data-driven educational disaster? Are they ready to repair the damage done
> and dismantle their own datacenters?

The ultimate aim of dataism is becoming clear: to undermine the emergence
> of a new self that is no longer paranoid, depressed and insecure. What
> characters emerge once the performative quantified self metamorphoses?
>

Destroy data at the source, and no longer capture, let alone preserve
> them. This is the real <<de-automation>> design challenge Rushkoff.s Team
> Human is facing, in line with Katherine Behar.s : deceleration.
>
> What.s to be done after the deconstruction of the data cult?
>
> One day, soon, people will wake up in disbelief, realizing that data is
> dead. The point is not to overcome the dark side of data, regulate IT
> giants and establish <<responsible>> governance but to lay networked data
> amassing aside. Once system maintenance subsides, data gathering regimes
> fall in disrepair.

Relational databases may still exist but one day they will simply stop
> bothering us. Fuelled by organized unbelief the invasive, sneaky,
> manipulative side of the measure mania fades away. Rarely anyone will
> remember the data religion.
>
>
>
>
>
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End of nettime-l Digest, Vol 175, Issue 9
*****************************************

Michael Benson

Kinetikon Pictures

michael-benson.net

[email protected]