Re: <nettime> Further on Peak Data

Hello Michael.

Just to add a bit to your commentary, focusing especially on this statement of yours:

"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."

There seems to be a similarly curious situation shared by archaeologists (at least in the U.S.). This summary was published in an hyperallergic.com article called "The Art Historical Gems of TikTok".

The article cites @sberrygames: American archeology has a “curation crisis,” in which countless artifacts have been stored without being studied … for decades.

Hyperallergic summarizes @sberrygames telling of the curation crisis:

"We’re going back to mid-century USA. Along with the baby boom, there was also a construction boom, leading to an archeology boom. Construction projects are required to conduct salvage archeology: As earth is dug up, artifacts are taken out of the ground and put in depositories. But archeology students are pushed to unearth new artifacts, rather than study what’s already out of the ground, leading to countless rooms stuffed with items that are not being studied or even stored properly. And as you can imagine, this poses a big hurdle for Native American archeology. If this interests you, there may be ways to help museums out! Some offer volunteer positions where you can help them catalog their innumerable items."

https://hyperallergic.com/700715/the-art-historical-gems-on-tiktok/

https://www.tiktok.com/@sberrygames/video/7030904419239693573

Maybe the best scientific depository is the unconstructed, undisturbed ground itself.

Regards,

Barbara Lattanzi

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

Message: 1

Date: Sat, 9 Apr 2022 11:59:10 -0400
From: Michael Benson <kinpix2001@gmail.com>
To: nettime-l@kein.org

Subject: <nettime>

Message-ID:
<CAF3eCHFS5HXH4qT68z=8tYbiRv_r+RRPDji0yXbtZfqL6dw5HQ@mail.gmail.com>
Content-Type: text/plain; charset="utf-8"

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://nam11.safelinks.protection.outlook.com/?url="">

https://nam11.safelinks.protection.outlook.com/?url="">