New models on existing technology vs. old models on new technology
reboot7 had somewhat of a theme called “new models”. An observation that what was changing wasn’t the technology, but the models of how the world works. The perspective that is changing. The belief system that is changing. The culture that is changing. It’s not old models on new technology, but new models on the existing technology. I’ve never been able to articulate this very well – and the theme never shined through reboot7.
Now i found this writeup by Stewart Brand of a Brian Eno/Will Wright talk that is about some of the same.
“Building models, said Wright, is what we do in computer games, and it’s what we do in life. First it’s models of how the world works, then it’s models of how other humans work. A significant new element in computer games is the profound command, “Restart.” You get to explore other paths to take in the same situation. Eno: “That’s what we do with everything I call culture, everything not really necessary, from how we wear our hair to how we decorate a cupcake. We try something, surrender to it, and are encouraged to imagine what else might be tried.”
Anything worth exploring more – got pointers to existing thinking on this subject?
There’s no doubt in my mind that culture and language beats technology as change agents. Specifically. Technology can’t change a thing without accompanying culture change, and culture change isn’t wrapped up in technology at all.
And there’s no doubt in my mind either, that the what really sets the pace of change is our rate of cultural adoption. The history of the world is full of examples of transformations that appear at more or less the same time scale as the internet revolution of the 90s – it seesm “5-10 years” is simply the incubation time for a cultural pandemic.
That being said, technology change is very real.
The creativity of play is of course extremely well studied, I imagine you could get book lists from hundreds of ITU students.
Obviously agree on everything you say.
What i’m really interested is the peculiar way of adopting technology using old models and the shift then to a state where it’s the “new” models that the technology allows that gets adopted.
The perception shift in terms our mental models of how everything works.
I’ve now listened to the talk Eno and Wright gave and in fact it turns out they’re not really talking about the same thing at all.
What they’re talking about is very unrelated to the kind of paradigmatic thinking you’re suggesting – what they’re talking about is more the constant reeneactment of reality in play (music and games and culture in general)
That being said I’ve noticed that there’s an interplay along the lines you describe in how standards emerge, that might function as a useful starting point for this kind of discussion.
I hinted at it in this post. It seems to me that there’s a duality between the data (culture) and the tools (technology), where the data is put out there, then somebody tool it – imperfectly – and then the presence of the tool makes people modify the data to hit the technology sweet spot. On a larger scale this seems a reasonable starting idea for thinking about technology and culture. The technology arrives as an afterthought to existing culture (e.g. The Web as Vannevar Bushian ‘hyperlibrary’) which in turn makes culture adapt to fit into the tool, i.e. the multifunction many-faceted web of the present, which is two way in a manner that I honestly don’t think Bush imagined. To him it was all about reading, but buying plane tickets.
oops: Last sentence, replace ‘but buying’ with ‘not buying’
Just thought about building models last night, when reviewing a process for software development:
Analysis: Is building a mental model of the whole thing.
Design: Is building a visual and language based model of the system.
Prototype: Is building a “working model” of the thing.
Development: Is building the thing.
So this “waterfall” model of systems design – is also an iterative model – which btw reflects the philosophy of hermeneutics – an ongoing interpretive investigation into (a future) reality.
We always build on old models – and always rearrange them into new patterns, according to the feedback we get from what we just did.
Sure thing.
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