21.076 how we know

                Humanist Discussion Group, Vol. 21, No. 76.
       Centre for Computing in the Humanities, King's College London
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   [1] From: Haradda_at_aol.com (29)
         Subject: Re: 21.072 how do we know?

   [2] From: Patrick Durusau <patrick_at_durusau.net> (72)
         Subject: Re: 21.072 how do we know?

--[1]------------------------------------------------------------------
         Date: Tue, 05 Jun 2007 15:16:10 +0100
         From: Haradda_at_aol.com
         Subject: Re: 21.072 how do we know?

In a message dated 6/4/2007 4:30:55 A.M. Pacific Daylight Time,
willard_at_LISTS.VILLAGE.VIRGINIA.EDU writes:
Stefan Sinclair raised a couple of questions worth much wider circulation
than just around inside my brain. The first was in effect the degree
to which we need to be practical when framing our research questions.
If a question cannot be approached at all, given the current state of
knowledge, is it worth the candle? The second one was, if one is
investigating something not subject to proof, how much confidence can
one place in the results one gets? In other words, what is the court
of last resort? Oneself? A reasonably large sampling of specialists
in the area of research?

In investigating questions the scientific method works well with
everything but beliefs. How does one measure a persons feelings,
beliefs, knowledge or experiences. And how does one know that he
really feels that way or not. If it can be measured and
repeated. If it can't then it's belief.

I believe that there are some questions which can never be answered
at all at the present time or even in the near future. I have hope
that some day all my questions will have answers. So I would say
that the amount of time one devotes to a problem is of course
dependent on the amount of time one has and is willing to devote to
that question. And the progress one is making. Often I have found
myself finding that I have changed my perspective as I have gotten
older and had more experiences.

One has to know what the experts in a particular area think in order
to agree or to disagree with them. However I have found that
sometimes a persons training makes a person blind to alternative ways
of examining problems. So I would say that the only one you really
have to comvince is yourself. Though it is nice to have others
around you rather than standing up alone exposed to the world.

--[2]------------------------------------------------------------------
         Date: Tue, 05 Jun 2007 15:17:00 +0100
         From: Patrick Durusau <patrick_at_durusau.net>
         Subject: Re: 21.072 how do we know?

Willard,

Humanist Discussion Group (by way of Willard McCarty
<willard.mccarty_at_kcl.ac.uk>) wrote:

>On a walk the other day, here at Digital Humanities 2007, Stefan
>Sinclair raised a couple of questions worth much wider circulation
>than just around inside my brain. The first was in effect the degree
>to which we need to be practical when framing our research questions.
>If a question cannot be approached at all, given the current state of
>knowledge, is it worth the candle? The second one was, if one is
>investigating something not subject to proof, how much confidence can
>one place in the results one gets? In other words, what is the court
>of last resort? Oneself? A reasonably large sampling of specialists
>in the area of research?
>
>The first question had to do with some ideas I have about where to go
>with my own work. I agreed with him, that as far as I could see, no
>technology suits the problem I have. Let's say that we're both right
>about this. (I hope we are not.) What justification should I give
>myself for spending my most precious coin, time looking upon the
>light, to pursue ideas that cannot be implemented? Ok, I know the
>response of the liberal-arts-college-trained intellectual like me --
>that the totally unknown, coming at us with no guarantees whatever,
>is the gold of the humanities. So-called "pure" research, or "wicked"
>problems, or whatever we call this sort of thing. But what is the
>value of such a response to someone whose passion is designing
>processes and building them to work?
I am not sure I completely agree with the premise that work on
"wicked" problems is necessarily divorced from "designing processes
and building them to work."

That is to say that while a solution to a "wicked" problem may prove
elusive, it doesn't mean that other discoveries will not be made
along the way that may result in "designing processes and building
them to work."

Personally I think that work on such problems and designing working
processes should inform each other. For the working process
researcher, they may become aware of limitations of the current art
that are simply accepted. A deeper understanding of current art of
processing may lead theorists to other paths to explore in searching
for solutions.

>The second one haunts us all, I suspect. One colleague recently
>proposed of one particular kind of work that it would be validated
>when courts of law began using it. In other words, if society at
>large takes something on, then it's good. (But how long does one have
>to wait? How much longer than Socrates waited?) My response to Stefan
>was that the individual researcher was the court of last resort. If
>he or she found that using what I had in mind brought clearer
>thoughts about the material in question (judged by that individual),
>and provided stronger challenges to his or her way of thinking (here
>considerable honesty is required), then the tool or approach would be
>validated.
For expert evidence, courts rely upon a consensus of those working in
a particular field. If your definition of "validation" is a consensus
of people working in a field that works fairly well.

While my sympathies lie with your position of the researcher being
the court of last resort, I would not claim to consult a psychic
about the vaidity of an XML schema as opposed to using an appropriate
parser. There are boundaries, set by social convention of those
working in a field that delimit "valid" approaches from those that
are thought to be invalid. And those change over time. Instructive in
this regard is Fish's essay, "Transmuting the Lump: Paradise Lost, 1942-1979."

Fish traces the interpertation of books XI and XII of Paradise Lost
to illustrate how the accepted interpertation of that work changed
over time. I suspect the same is true of the methodogies that we
apply to problems.

Hope you are at the start of a great week!

Patrick

-- 
Patrick Durusau
Patrick_at_Durusau.net
Chair, V1 - Text Processing: Office and Publishing Systems Interface
Co-Editor, ISO 13250, Topic Maps -- Reference Model
Member, Text Encoding Initiative Board of Directors, 2003-2005
Topic Maps: Human, not artificial, intelligence at work!