InternetPsyche

excerpt from a discussion about reputation points

2010-01-02T11:25:00.000-08:00

From a discussion on this link, my posts:

My background is with Jungian psychology for definitions of my terminology, so please bear with me if its new to you.

When trying to design a reputation system, its important to recognize that it's ultimately derived from one's subjective opinion, despite the fact that it has objective pieces and parts. Context is also important.

Objective in Jungian terms means "shared and compromised" to summarize a complicated concept. Subjective means unique and personal. Ultimately the things that I think matter in terms of a person's reputation are going to be different than yours, but ultimately I probably will, in some manner, "poll" people who also know the shared/objective third person, and ask others in shared objective terms, such as "politeness," helpfulness," "participatory-ness," or some other tag or label.

So when we create a measurement, such as "was Joe Schmoe's answer helpful" we're creating a shared, objective measurement. That doesn't speak to Joe Schmoe's tendency to answer questions in the most derisive and patronizing manner possible (and from my personal experience, when dealing with OpenSource forum support systems, that's usually how it happens!).

Now Don Doozer also tends to be neck and neck with Joe Schmoe with the helpfulness of his answers, and he's a lot nicer. It turns out he's an IT guy for a non-profit organization that deals with quite a few computer illiterate people, so there's a background to why. There's nothing in the rating system to give him "nice" points, because I'm depending on a third party (a shared objective intermediary) to create a "niceness" meter.

Now I could create my own niceness meter label to apply to people, but it only contains my ratings, and doesn't benefit from wisdom of other people's opinions of Don's, and thus far, there's no way for me to share it. Now a system could allow for me to publish (share objectively) my subjective metering system, but that's not always desirable (particularly since I don't want Joe to know that I think he isn't nice). One is entitled one's opinion, but you're also entitled to keep it to yourself; and I'm sure we wish more people would exercize that second entitlement sometimes!

But let's say I have a peer group of people with whom I'd like to share my niceness meter, and whose opinions of niceness I hold in high regard. I decide I'd like to incorporate their opinions as well. But I'd like to keep my opinion as the primary meter, and only let their collective opinion "tweak" the result.

But there's a person in my peer group who I know is a poor judge of character, and actually thinks people who are rude are actually being mercifully nice. I'm not a fan of his opinion, despite the fact that he's a great peer in the current context. What's actually happening is that we don't objectively share the definition of "niceness." Do I have the ability to tweak the formula to incorporate my (low) opinion of his (inappropriate) opinion?

But wait, let's say there's a meter that I haven't considered (timeliness of response, for example) that others have considered. Is there a way to "suggest" that meter, or subconsciously incorporate it?

It turns out that if I incorporate that last meter, some dark horse candidate comes around the bend and ends up winning the Kentucky Derby, and that this dark horse happens to have an extremely high reputation in the opinion of both Don and Joe!

This is getting pretty complicated isn't it? Well, so are reputations.

Ultimately, any reputation system that depends on "global" objective/communal/shared systems is going to be gamed and ultimately fail in the relevance game. Once you know the rules, its easy to break them. But its impossible to game a system when it isn't known by the gamer, because that system is private, subjective and personal.

Reputations algorithms are ultimately subjective and therefore any attempt to quantify them must be customizable by the person depending on their results. In order to be customizable, they must be transparent. In order to be useful, they must be understandable by the end user who may not understand algebraic equations.

Reputation is going to be one of many Next Big Things in the next generation of Social Software, and unless it takes context, subjective and objective concepts into account, it will boil down to devolved popularity contests.

michael

My first attempt at a reply was lost to the ether, but I think my "keep me logged in" check box should stick this time.

Your kudos and concerns about recommendations are both spot-on. For example, I've been stuck at 90% on my LinkedIn profile because I lack two more recommendations. Now I actually have an issue with that, because it's not my fault - it isn't my responsibility to have a recommendation; the onus is on others to recommend me, not for me to solicit recommendations. I hate grovelling, brown-nosing and otherwise acting as a salesman. For me, the incentive (for the goal of 100%) should be the other way around - recommend 3 others.

It may seem silly to use a Likert scale numeric metric for a recommendation, but it does have some value. If it's one of a few (or several) metrics used in the final rep algorithm, you'll be able to tweak its influence in the final "score" (presuming you have a way to view the 'rithm transparently and can change it). How you tweak that Likert score can be influenced by the commentary that accompanies it.

It's pretty easy to give someone a "high five" when you're enthusiatically entranced by them, but if you're being overly gushy in your commentary (in someone else's opinion), that enthusiasm can be tempered by one's opinion of their opinion.

Let's presume it's a +10/-10 scale with commentary (I prefer 10 point scales over 5, because it allows for more nuance). The final outcome of the score would be affected by

1) my (subjective) relationship "score" (if any) with the recommender.
2) my (subjective) relationship "score" (if any) with the recommendee
3) my (subjective) opinion of the recommendation based on the commentary
4) the (objectively) collected (subjective) opinions of the recommendation
5) pick a metric, any metric.
6) and for their final rep score, how much recommendations factor into the final number

and of course we could go on ad infinitum with other factors, and none are really necessary. Having both a number and commentary provides for both subjective (free-form space to gush) and objective (a shared standard of measurement) factors.

Privacy about recommendations is important as well. There's not much incentive for me to give a negative recommendation if my name is attached - I don't necessarily think I need to own up to my comments, if my aims are altruistic and I'm trying to give constructive criticism. But privacy also allows for libelous commentary. Private recommendations could be allowed with a moderator/broker approval, if keeping things civil is an important aim, and you can even allow for hand-picked brokers/moderators. You could always subjectively "turn off" anonymous commentary but still allow for it.

Again, this is getting exponentially complicated, because it is. Ultimately a remote web-hosted SAAS platform (an objective/shared space) can't handle it, because it's infinitely subjective and requires (IMHO) a directly accessable desktop application. A peer-to-peer (or persona-to-persona) system is ultimately the only way to handle it. That's not a reason for SAAS companies to become despondent however. They can assist in many ways, by enabling the basic metrics and standards, by (objectively) "aggregrating" metrics on my behalf, by storing or processing via HAAS'n'SAAS. I think the best thing that SAAS companies can do is contribute to OpenSource initiatives that enable end-users to view and tweak rep systems, and make their own inhouse rep systems compatible with others and accessable via APIs. Short-sighted companies will fight this, but they'll ultimately lose.

Reputation Systems and 4 Views

2009-06-11T11:43:00.000-07:00

original post date:6/11/07

The Room with Four Views can be applied to reputation systems as well.

Personal reputation (your own rank/score for somebody else)

Peer Group reputation (what you and your friends collectively think of others)

Empathetic reputation (asking what an individual friend thinks of third person)

Global view (what everyone thinks of everyone, regardless of how intimately they know them)

Gradations can be applied - I know that my friend Stephen is very poor at judging the character of others, so my opinion of his opinion (the venn point between personal to peer to empathetic), despite being a close personal friend, is very low. I can almost bet that if Stephen trusts somebody, he's been conned (he's an obvious mark).

Another close personal friend knows very little about computers, so his geek reputation is low despite a high personal reputation. In my tagged buddy lists of (geeks, computer), he wouldn't even appear in the formula, but he does appear in my reputation formula for (geeks, D&D).

Yet another friend has very different tastes in a mate than I do - I'm not going to ask him if somebody is pretty, but he may know my tastes very well (empathetic view), so if he wants to 'recommend' somebody to me, I'll pay attention - with a grain of salt, because no matter how empathetic he may be, he can never truly know what turns me on (the ultimately triumph of the deeply subjective).

And I don't really give a damn what Joe Bloe thinks of the presidential races - he's distinctly average and so is his opinion. I don't really know him anyway, or any of his friends. But it may be necessary to compare my peer groups opinion to the average objective stranger 'wisdom' of crowds.

The challenge to reputation systems remains to enable this kind of complexity. Server-based (extraverted/global/collective) reputation systems ultimately fail in this scenario when compared to peer-to-peer reputation systems (triumph of the subjective) because the mathematical formula is going to be different for every user. If a reputation formula is to be meaningful to the end user, it must be easy to understand *how* a reputation was derived, and therefore it must be transparent, and customizable.

When the formula for reputation is recognized and designed as a completely subjective system, it can't be gamed - you can't game a system unless you know all of the rules of a system.

Once this complex reputation is calculated (via grid computing), it is easy illustrating the resultant reputations of everyone in my encounter list (the objective version of a buddy list). This is where the Holocene tools system comes in - adapting objective communal muspace to the personal subjective user interface by adjusting word balloon size/font size/volume/transparancy/gist level/bitrate/bittyrant/twitter frequency/avatar complexity/etc.

The Triumph of the Subjective

2008-04-02T23:00:00.000-07:00

Jungian Thought and Internet Communication

Despite the last caveat, let's apply these descriptions to Internet communications anyway. To date, multi-user spaces have attempted to create the absolutely objective POV. The subjective POV has been completely ignored, or actively suppressed. There are a priori limitations to attaining objective communication in realspace, and there are also a priori limitations to internet communications. Therefore, simultaneity can only exist as an abstract ideal. This isn't to say that we should stop striving to close the gaps to achieve a synchronous nirvana, but we're doing at the expense and suppression of the individual end-user. In the battle between objective and subjective, when we're talking about Internet or Realtime Communications, the subjective wins by default.

I call this The Triumph of the Subjective.

Technologically, after all, my computer's specs are different than yours. Additionally, my internet connection speed is different from yours (as well as how I connect). So is my monitor measurements, screen size, and resolution. Psychologically, my perception of information is probably different than yours. How I evaluate said information is probably different from yours as well. Additionally, my color perception, vision acuity and hearing are probably different too. Jung originally saw objectivity and subjectivity as a dichotomy, an abstract and strict either/or : either it's a global view or an individual view. The power of imagination is that we can navigate the full spectrum of a bi-polar model, describing shades of gray between black and white. The power of computer technology is that we can illustrate those descriptions and share them with others. "Look, this is how I see this." With technological and psychological differences amongst every end user, we should take advantage of those differences and embrace the subjective just as much as we strive to create sameness and achieve absolute objectivity, and help people communicate, and understand, both.

With objectivity, until you have well defined Subjective points of view, you can't begin to find out what they have in common (pulling things into overlapping centripetal Objectivity).

Not Subjective vs. Objective, but Subjective and Objective. ---

Personas

2008-04-09T06:15:00.000-07:00

Directly from the Jung Lexicon by Daryl Sharp: [Bolded text applies to internet personas directly]

Persona:

The "I," usually ideal aspects of ourselves, that we present to the outside world.

The persona is . . . a functional complex that comes into existence for reasons of adaptation or personal convenience. [Ibid., par. 801.]

The persona is that which in reality one is not, but which oneself as well as others think one is.["Concerning Rebirth," CW 9i, par. 221.]

Originally the word persona meant a mask worn by actors to indicate the role they played. On this level, it is both a protective covering and an asset in mixing with other people. Civilized society depends on interactions between people through the persona.

There are indeed people who lack a developed persona . . . blundering from one social solecism to the next, perfectly harmless and innocent, soulful bores or appealing children, or, if they are women, spectral Cassandras dreaded for their tactlessness, eternally misunderstood, never knowing what they are about, always taking forgiveness for granted, blind to the world, hopeless dreamers. From them we can see how a neglected persona works.["Anima and Animus," CW 7, par. 318.]

Before the persona has been differentiated from the ego, the persona is experienced as individuality. In fact, as a social identity on the one hand and an ideal image on the other, there is little individual about it.

It is, as its name implies, only a mask of the collective psyche, a mask that feigns individuality, making others and oneself believe that one is individual, whereas one is simply acting a role through which the collective psyche speaks.

When we analyse the persona we strip off the mask, and discover that what seemed to be individual is at bottom collective; in other words, that the persona was only a mask of the collective psyche. Fundamentally the persona is nothing real: it is a compromise between individual and society as to what a man should appear to be. He takes a name, earns a title, exercises a function, he is this or that. In a certain sense all this is real, yet in relation to the essential individuality of the person concerned it is only a secondary reality, a compromise formation, in making which others often have a greater share than he. ["The Persona as a Segment of the Collective Psyche," ibid., pars. 245f.]

A psychological understanding of the persona as a function of relationship to the outside world makes it possible to assume and drop one at will. But by rewarding a particular persona, the outside world invites identification with it. Money, respect and power come to those who can perform single-mindedly and well in a social role. From being a useful convenience, therefore, the persona may become a trap and a source of neurosis.

A man cannot get rid of himself in favour of an artificial personality without punishment. Even the attempt to do so brings on, in all ordinary cases, unconscious reactions in the form of bad moods, affects, phobias, obsessive ideas, backsliding vices, etc. The social "strong man" is in his private life often a mere child where his own states of feeling are concerned.["Anima and Animus," ibid., par. 307. ]

The demands of propriety and good manners are an added inducement to assume a becoming mask. What goes on behind the mask is then called "private life." This painfully familiar division of consciousness into two figures, often preposterously different, is an incisive psychological operation that is bound to have repercussions on the unconscious.[Ibid., par. 305.]

Among the consequences of identifying with a persona are: we lose sight of who we are without a protective covering; our reactions are predetermined by collective expectations (we do and think and feel what our persona "should" do, think and feel); those close to us complain of our emotional distance; and we cannot imagine life without it.

To the extent that ego-consciousness is identified with the persona, the neglected inner life (personified in the shadow and anima or animus) is activated in compensation. The consequences, experienced in symptoms characteristic of neurosis, can stimulate the process of individuation.

There is, after all, something individual in the peculiar choice and delineation of the persona, and . . . despite the exclusive identity of the ego-consciousness with the persona the unconscious self, one's real individuality, is always present and makes itself felt indirectly if not directly. Although the ego-consciousness is at first identical with the persona-that compromise role in which we parade before the community-yet the unconscious self can never be repressed to the point of extinction. Its influence is chiefly manifest in the special nature of the contrasting and compensating contents of the unconscious. The purely personal attitude of the conscious mind evokes reactions on the part of the unconscious, and these, together with personal repressions, contain the seeds of individual development.[The Persona as a Segment of the Collective Psyche," ibid., par. 247.]

Four Views and Communications

2008-04-04T23:28:00.000-07:00

personal/private (subjective/personal)	empathetic/shared (personal/objective)	peer group (subjective/collective)	global/commons (collective/objective)
one to one	one to many	one to few	one to any
unicast	multicast	anycast	broadcast

Subjective vs. Objective

2008-04-01T12:00:00.000-07:00

Today, Carl Jung's psychological models are pretty much ignored by modern academic psychologists. (Freud at least gets an honorable mention, if only in derision!) Perhaps the only place where Jung has continued to play an integral role is via the ubiquitous Myers-Briggs Type Indicator. It's a shame, because, while Jung's nacsent models seem outdated in light of modern studies, they're very valuable when describing the nascent psychology of Internet communications. Jung's first psychological model is the most valuable, that of the dichotomy between subjective and objective. Today, the connotations of subjective and objective are very different from Jung's original denotations. In order to properly apply his model to Internet communications, some clarification is necessary.

These explanations come from Alan Hoch, a noted Jungian lecturer:

Objective systems of psychological understanding.

An objective system is made up of that information which is commonly understood for anyone who is in the same context. That is, it provides a collective way to understand the various aspects of any circumstance.

They represent collective 'compromises' meant to help facilitate personal and group and understanding
They provide 'rules of thumb' or commonly understood ways of communicating basic needs and ideas.
They tend to be concerned with surface, easily seen attributes and behaviors.

The limitations of such systems are that they tend to override adapting to any particular situation on its own terms but rather encourage one to apply a preset response. They also tend to *suppress* subjective personal expression and understanding.

Subjective systems of psychological understanding.

Whereas objective systems revolve around common ways of communicating and interpreting events, subjective systems revolve around personal experience. In other words, they arise from the unique circumstances and experiences of the lone individual.

Have a 'you had to be there' sort of quality.
Have the virtue of arising from first hand, practical experience.
Represent how the lone individual understands and conceptualizes his environment.

The main drawback to subjective systems is that they are too idiosyncratic to be easily understood by others. The sort that can only be understood in an individual way - but it is hard to translate that into a collective system of action or belief.

Jungian Psychology

Jungian thought is primarily concerned with the subjective comprehension of the individual - e.g. how they conceptualize their world. It is not primarily interested in group to group relationships or providing an objective system for interpersonal interaction.

Jungian Thought and Internet Communication

Despite the last caveat, let's apply these descriptions to Internet communications anyway. To date, multi-user spaces have attempted to create the absolutely objective POV. The subjective POV has been completely ignored, or actively suppressed. There are a priori limitations to attaining objective communication in realspace, and there are also a priori limitations to internet communications. Therefore, simultaneity can only exist as an abstract ideal. This isn't to say that we should stop striving to close the gaps to achieve a synchronous nirvana, but we're doing at the expense and suppression of the individual end-user. In the battle between objective and subjective, when we're talking about Internet or Realtime Communications, the subjective wins by default. Technologically, after all, my computer's specs are different than yours. Additionally, my internet connection speed is different from yours (as well as how I connect). So is my monitor measurements, screen size, and resolution. Psychologically, my perception of information is probably different than yours. How I evaluate said information is probably different from yours as well. Additionally, my color perception, vision acuity and hearing are probably different too. Jung originally saw objectivity and subjectivity as a dichotomy, an abstract and strict either/or : either it's a global view or an individual view. The power of imagination is that we can navigate the full spectrum of a bi-polar model, describing shades of gray between black and white. The power of computer technology is that we can illustrate those descriptions and share them with others. "Look, this is how I see this." With technological and psychological differences amongst every end user, we should take advantage of those differences and embrace the subjective just as much as we strive to create sameness and achieve absolute objectivity, and help people communicate, and understand, both.

Not Subjective vs. Objective, but Subjective and Objective. ---

The duality of knowledge

2008-10-11T08:30:00.000-07:00

The duality of knowledge

A great article illustrating many of the Room With Four Views concept, as well as talking about Knowledge in terms of dichotomies, which Jung used throughout his theories.

TidBITS Opinion: Instant Messaging for Introverts

2008-10-11T08:28:00.000-07:00

TidBITS Opinion: Instant Messaging for Introverts

This is a wonderful article illustrating the problem with the Extraverted, Published, Shared, and Objective Internet without a balancing side of Introverted, Private, Personal and Subjective.

What Personality Type is Your Web 2.0 Fave? (Part 2 of Web 2.0 Personality Types) « SmoothSpan Blog

2008-09-01T08:25:00.000-07:00

Original post date: 9/4/07

What Personality Type is Your Web 2.0 Fave? (Part 2 of Web 2.0 Personality Types) « SmoothSpan Blog

Ahhh... he gets it!

Little by little I'm going to see which MBTI types he is mapping here, but what I'm pretty sure about is the J/P scale of the MBTI code, which indicates wheter you prefer to Extravert your Perception or your Judgment. Contrary to popular belief, it's not a mental function unto itself. It merely aids in determining the order and direction of the core preferred mental functions of Sensing, Intuition, Thinking or Feeling (in the I or E directions).

All of this is important to the Omnicasting Hypercube concept as well - how I prefer to communicate (form, immediacy and planned/unplanned) is integral to figuring out where on the casting or catching side of the cube *you* are, and as well as those people to whom you are sending or receiving communications.

As an Extravert, I prefer to communicate immediately, synchronized and with immediate good/bad feedback to my ideas (which are generally formed via Extraverted iNtuition/Ne). Since my secondary function is Fi - Introverted Feeling, I'm only going to want to express those ideas to intimates, or those I know won't be so dismissive of them. I exhaust Introverts because of this - ideas come out of me fast and furious and I don't reflect on them (it ruins the essence of them, and I probably am not all that married to the original concept anyway). Introverts need the time to reflect on them, and can usually only deal with fewer ideas at a time because of that.

So one can see where Twitter would drive some crazy (it's pure and extreme Extraversion), and Email is seen as a task to others (it can build up to the point where it looks more like a task list than communiques).

So let's analyze the dimensions:

Freeform/Structure : P vs J (or Ji vs Je)
Text/Multimedia : Pi vs Pe (map vs terrain)
Interrupt/Defer: Pe vs Je
Watcher/Participator: I vs E

Groundswell (Incorporating Charlene Li's Blog): Forrester’s new Social Technographics report

2008-08-01T10:09:00.000-07:00

original post date : 9/13/07

Groundswell (Incorporating Charlene Li's Blog): Forrester’s new Social Technographics report

these may or not be MBTI types, but theyre probably archetypes. (I haven't blogged about Jungian archetypes yet, but that's from lack of time, not interest. They'd be good AI interfaces to cluster programs around).

In the Omnicasting Hypercube, the dimensions used here would be "participation/interaction v. consumption"

The types of activity are actually on multiple dimensions when pulled apart, but have been collapsed into one dimension here. Nothing wrong with that, but they can be seperated to show greater nuance and granularity.

Anti-social bot invades Second Lifers' personal space - tech - 02 November 2007 - New Scientist Tech

2008-08-01T21:14:00.000-07:00

Anti-social bot invades Second Lifers' personal space - tech - 02 November 2007 - New Scientist Tech

Original post date: 11/5/07

In a user interface that rewards the subjective, it is absolutely impossible for something like this to happen. A bot can't invade your personal space if you are totally in control of your personal space and everything in it. Why is that person's avatar even sent to my modem in the first place? Why can't I control the objects in my virtual space (including other people's avatars)?

Yahoo succumbs

2008-08-01T16:42:00.000-07:00

Original post date: 4/8/08

Ahhhhh....Yahoo has succumbed to the most conservative of standards and wont even allow adult designations in profiles and for adults who act like adults to form a segregated community. This heightens the need for a peer-to-peer profile system where information is exchanged directly between people who converse and either actively ask for the form information or freely give it out to people who request to see it.

Yahoo is succumbing Extraverted Feeling devoid of Introverted Feeling. Community standards over individual standards. The internet is an Introverted technology, and there are plenty of ways to enable it that way, but like the rest of the Web 2.0 community, they're Extraverting where they should be Introverting.

From: Yahoo! <yahoo@one.yahoo-email.com>
To: xxxxxxx@yahoo.com
Sent: Wednesday, March 26, 2008 11:00:11 PM
Subject: An important notice about your Yahoo! Profiles photo

We're making some changes that will affect one of your Yahoo!
profiles. After April 9, 2008, mature content will not be
permitted within Yahoo! Profiles.

In accordance with this new policy, users will no longer be able to
designate an "adult profile," and mature content will be removed.

The profile for the Yahoo! ID xxxxxx is marked "adult."
The picture associated with this profile will be removed and
deleted on April 9, 2008.
http://profiles.yahoo.com/xxxxxxx

We encourage you to upload a new profile photo on that date that
complies with the Yahoo! Terms of Service and Community
Guidelines. Please take a moment to review our Terms of Service
and Community Guidelines.
http://info.yahoo.com/legal/us/yahoo/utos/utos-173.html
http://info.yahoo.com/guidelines/us/

For additional information or to learn how to get a copy of your
photo before April 9, 2008, please visit our help pages:
http://help.yahoo.com/l/us/yahoo/members/profiles/index.html

Thank you,

The Yahoo! Profiles Team

Visit the pages below to view the terms of service
and privacy policy for your country:

One Ring To Rule Them All?

2008-08-01T10:02:00.000-07:00

One Ring to Rule Them All? (original post date November 8, 2007)

With the announcement of OpenSocial, Google has, with one fell swoop, violated their own commandment of “Do No Evil.” OpenSocial is actually the information superhighway to hell paved with good intentions. OpenSocial does nothing to empower the end user, it actually further empowers the companies that provide the remote server Big Brother “social graph” BULLSEYE to exploit the end user for their personal information that belongs only to the end user and does NOT need to be on any other computer than a person’s personal computing device.

This is the perfect illustration of how Web 2.0 technologies keep using Extraversion (Objective) where Introversion (Subjective) is called for. The Internet is a subjective technology, not an objective one.

The solution is NOT to create one profile on a remote server, with different views depending on the user. The real solution is to create MANY Personas on my computer (or storage system) that are perfectly discreet and do NOT overlap anywhere except on the subjective end. You DON’T need to do this on a remote server owned by a company whose ethics on exploiting the data can be compromised either internally or externally. It only takes one mistake by an ignorant intern to criminally expose things that should have never been combined in the first place.

OpenSocial now should be the singular target of every person in the world concerned about the inherent right of privacy, control and the inherent and original design intent of the internet - distribution of information across the network of networks. NOT consolidation. Where is *my* desktop social networking application? OpenSocial does NOT empower the end users. It empowers the companies waiting to exploit and rape users of their information.

Data portability is supposed to be the reason behind creating this standard. Has everyone forgotten that data isn't supposed to be portable? Database and hypertext theory clearly states - write once, then reference. This information is already written once - on my personal computer. I'll keep my data, thank you. Just give me your code to play with it.

So pardon me if I declare myself Don Quixote de la Mancha and announce the formation of the Windmill Coalition. I will be at my local inn and if you would like to join me on my chivalrous adventure, I drink Jim Beam on the rocks with a splash of water and I will be glad to call you my squire Sancha Panza.

*headdesk*

A discussion about APML and Web 2.0

2008-08-01T08:50:00.000-07:00

Original post date: 11/8/07
This comment discussion (I hate blog comments - they should be redirected to forums) followed this article about APML, another Ring forged in the mountain of Mordor.

Jonnyajax

2007-10-22 19:20:08

Great post Mark.

At Cluztr, we've been supporting APML created from each users clickstream - which they control and manage. We've gotten great feedback so far the output is an increasingly accurate picture of one's interests.

Amazon, Google and all kinds of other services have been leveraging this kind of attention profiling for years. It's about the time the user can start using it for their own benefit.

Privacy issues are marginal compared to the benefits and potential uses of APML.

Besides, the kids today don't care about privacy.

Reply to this comment

michael j pastor

2007-10-26 08:49:09

jonnyajax, allow me to rephrase your comment to a different concept

...Besides, with treatment options as advanced as they are, kids today don't care about having safe sex either, but that doesn't mean AIDS has gone away.

Privacy issues are never a marginal issue, and thank you for alerting me to your company's practices in regards to clickstreams and your attitude about your user's privacy. I will be sure *not* to use cluztr from this point on.

One does not need to reveal anything about one's self to utilize the concept of an APML construct. Sorting and ranking of interests is a basic psychological construct, and it's something that we do *internally*. I don't need to tell a web service *all* of my interests to tell them what I'm interested in getting from them. There's no need for portability with a concept that never moves from where it belongs - with me, on my computer, in my head.

We don't announce *all* of our interests to the outside world when engaging with a particular person about a particular topic. NOT collecting information about pron tells me just as much about you as actually doing it (and in some ways, more - either you are a sexually repressed neurotic robot or you're blatantly lying and using another browser to look at pron).

It is *not* as simple as turning your tag cloud from delicious into something portable, because not all tags are created equal. Sorting and ranking is a highly complex internal judgment process that compares N^N concepts to each other.

APML is yet another attempt to create the One-Ring-to-Rule-Them-All (like OpenID). You don't need One Ring, you need Many-Specific-and-Appropriate Rings. But most importantly, you need an application that *MANAGES* all of those rings, and nobody else needs to see what you do within that application, and that application doesn't need to reside anywhere except on your desktop computer of choice. Outside services just need to given the appropriate Ring (let's be cute and call it a Friendship Ring), not my entire collection of Rings.

The whole point of the hypertext and the internet is that information is distributed, so why do all of these companies keep trying to consolidate everything?

The death of Web 2.0 will be when people realize that they don't need to do everything publicly and blatantly to get what they want, and you don't need a company that drops the "e" in -er to do it.

Reply to this comment

Jonnyajax

2007-10-31 11:22:05

Michael,
You're obviously very pasionate about your privacy, as are others who use social apps, but not everyone.

The explosive popularity of online services like Last.fm, iLike and Pandora have shown that people are more willing than ever to give up aspects of their privacy in exchange for the benefits of social networking and discovery.

To explain my statement that "privacy issues are marginal ..." was with the assumption that whatever social service has the appropriate privacy features in place for their users, whether the user chooses to leverage the option or not.

re: "thank you alerting me to your company's practices in regards to clickstreams and your attitude about your user's privacy."
I suggest you read our Privacy Policy and TOS. Cluztr follows the guidelines set out by AttentionTrust.org, giving users full control, ownership and transparency in all aspects of how their data is handled.

My personaly attitude about a user's privacy is that it is inherent to the user in question, therefore, we provide numerous privacy features to accomodate everyone.

Reply to this comment

michael j pastor

2007-10-31 22:18:44

I think the popularity of *all* present social networking sites is merely because *there has not been any kind of personal alternative of ANY kind*

You don't need to give up ANY of your privacy rights in ANY way to gain the benefits of social networking, and I'm personally (especially on the eve of Google's announcement of OpenSocial) completely flummuxed as to why nobody understands this.

I don't need to upload my address books to others' websites to network - my address book IS the network. All giving up any information to any site does is empower the company to make money from my information, when the real person who should be making money from my information is ME, the end user.

It's impossible for a social networking site to provide privacy practices because it is INHERENTLY IMPOSSIBLE for them to do it because the very premise of social networking sites as they are imagined in the current day is PUBLIC.

WHERE are the private desktop versions of all of this web 2.0 crap? Nowhere, because the plethora of beta-driven websites on steroids couldn't survive on a desktop, and most of all, they can't find a way to monetize it.

The problem with wikis

2008-06-01T11:30:00.000-07:00

Original post date: 9/17/07

I have a problem with wikis. They don't allow for concurrent multiple points of view on one subject. Wiki pages essentially are trying to achieve the objective/collective and don't leave room for the subjective/individual. (Now, by controversial, I mean *within* the context of the topic. Not whether or not the idea itself is accepted. We're presuming an apriori acceptance of the topic to begin with)

Let's say you've got a controversial topic about which many people have differing opinions. Jungian psychology is a good example. There are varying interpretations of the works of Jung. Jung wrote in Turn of the Century Swiss German, and most modern English speaking Jungians today are using a singular translation of Jung's works as the basis of their studies. It's many degrees removed from the original primary text, so there's bound to be different versions of what Jung meant. If I were to create a Jung wiki, the collective editorship would be forced to agree on one definition of Introverted Thinking. Why isn't there a "Gospel of Jung according to Beebe" and "Gospel of Jung according to Pastor" ability?

And speaking of Gospels, let's talk about the Big Gospel - the Gospel of Jesus. The Gospels show different versions of the life of Jesus, and they don't all necessarily mesh. The Gospel According to Judas is a good example of a wiki contribution that was edited out by the collective editorship. What if wikis allowed for multiple viewpoints to stand side-by-side?

Software developers have a fear of 'forking' when it comes to software development. I think that attitude has overcome other forms of scholarship, to the detriment of many voices. It's time for the Triumph of the Subjective, yet again.

Tags have reputations too

2008-06-01T09:57:00.000-07:00

Original post date: 9/8/07

Tags, or labels, have finally come to the forefront of memetic space, but there's still a problem.

Until recently, we've been stuck with folders, a hierarchical way of organizing all of our information. It's essentially meant that we've been stuck in two dimensions, a Flatland perspective of semantic space. Tags have the potential to turn everything into N dimensional space, or in database terms, truly relational.

One presumed aspect to tags so far has been the attitude that all tags are created equal, and they're not. This is especially true given that tags have synonyms, that words fade in popularity, and that connotation beats out denotation every time (triumph of the subjective in each of these cases).

Remember when card catalogs were the way we looked for books in the library? Remember looking for a subject using one word, and finding a card that said "See " or "See also ?" Turns out there isn't some objective method that catalogers use to decide which term will be the Primary term to list books under said subjects. Yes, there is a vast thesaurus librarians use, but which term they use in the end is completely subjective. Well, people do the same thing:

Is it
Web 2.0?
Social Web?
Dynamic Web?
Platform Web?

Heres another example, and one that will seem controversial and offensive to some (apologies ahead of time to those who think some of these words should never be uttered again), but it's invaluable as an example

Negro
Negroe
African
African-American
Afro-American
Colored
Of Color
Nigger
Nigguh
Nigga
Nig

Now tell me all of the above don't have their own reputations, and *that they're different for everyone*. Another important aspect to consider- there's a good chance that if you rank a certain tag high, that your close peers will as well. If you're a bigot, so will probably be your friends. Theres also a pretty good chance that youre not going to want to publish your personal ranking of tags too, but that you'll share them with your peers. Pretty damn difficult for a central database like Delicious to handle if you ask me (an objective solution to a subjective problem).

So why ask them too? Tags, like friends and peers, should be private, ranked, personal and rewarded for subjectivity. There will NEVER be a central Rogets Thesaurus for Tags, and we should give up trying to create one. Reward the subjective and the objective will eventually come.

How do we enable this? Allow users to create a personal thesaurus, for one. If I come a cross a blog that is labeled African-American and I want to actually label it Afro-American (for whatever reason), it should allow for it and do it automatically for me. Secondly, allow someone to apply a value to a tag (that way high ranking tags will more likely bring you relevant information).

Allow for labeling tags as parts of speech, so that we can manipulate them further.

Allow tags and folders to be interchangeable. If I tag something with a few tags, allow me to rank the tags in order of importance (for that item, or in general), and then allow me to designate if the top ranked tag is the Broader term (top level folder) or the Narrower term (the deepest folder). This allows for parallel folder structures and virtual folder views. It's a helluva lot easier to move things around too.

Metaverse Roadmap - Conclusions

2008-04-08T21:24:00.000-07:00

While there's a lot more to be read on the website, the summary document is encouraging, if not uncanny, in that it addresses many Jungian concepts of Perception, with a few nods to Judgment.

What's discouraging, however, is the complete lack of peer-to-peer technology solutions presented. All of the solutions shown are server based, particularly the virtual worlds section. As someone who has worked in the past with a p2p VR communications platform, I'm actually befuddled by it. But p2p is scary for companies - there's not a clear business model for typical web services in a p2p model.

It's a goal-oriented document - so the full spectrum of these concepts isn't presented, except in terms of steps towards that end goal. Presence doesn't always need to be an avatar (a pixel on a blank background will do). GPS services don't need to be exacting (zip code works quite well on a personals site, thank you). Lifelogging doesn't have to be every niggling detail of life (hell, I'd just like an intelligent history/bookmarking app right now). Far too often computer technology is modernist - forgetting the past for the sake of the now or future. The beauty of the 'old' internet was its efficiency with little resources. Projects such as OpenCroquet are rethinking what can be done based on modern technology and have presented very robust collaboration environments. But they won't work on an old 486 with a dial up connection - and that's a major problem. The point to 'rethinking' something is to go back to the minimalist and making sure the minimums are covered, and THEN going forward. We're presuming we'll have the current resources to maintain these high bandwidth, high CPU, high graphics environments in perfectly synchronous real time. The urban myth for the point of the ARPAnet was to create a system that would work in the case of Armageddon - I won't give a damn about your fancyschmancy avatar when there's a plague loose in Cleveland and heading my way.

Metaverse Roadmap V : Augmented Reality - Ne

2008-04-07T20:00:00.000-07:00

Augmented Reality (External/Augmentation) - Ne

Augmented reality depends on the further development of intelligent materials and the "smart environment"— networked computational intelligence embedded in physical objects and spaces. As described in Adam Greenfield's Everyware, this vision of the so-called "Internet of things" moves well beyond today’s primitive classes of RFID (radio frequency
identification) tags. Concepts such as the "spimes" described by Bruce Sterling (individually-identified objects that can be tracked through both time and space over their lifetime) or Julian Bleecker's "blogjects" (objects that keep a running public record of their
condition and use) offer examples of the ways in which materials, goods and the physical environment play a part in the augmented reality world...

Another important aspect of the AR scenario is the interface, the ways and choices users have to access virtual information overlaid on the physical world... As virtual data proliferate, information overload will be a common problem. This will empower user annotation and the expression of individual opinion: the Participatory Web... Smart tag-based networks will allow individuals to advise friends...In the longer-term future,
different people may have very different experiences of the same physical location.

The important difference between Introverted and Extraverted iNtution is that Ne requires an object from which to launch new ideas and to create 'what isn't there' - Ne ideas can be very creative, but it almost always stems from an 'object'. To some degree, Ni can be mythologized to be the only function that is 'truly original'. Metadata (tags, spimes, blogjects, etc) are the perfect example of Ne functionality. Metadata attempts to put a piece of data in a larger context, or pattern. The last line quoted is a very good example of Ne - there are an infinite number of new combinations from a limited number of objects, all created from relevant information about the object or location.

Metaverse Roadmap IV - Lifelogging - Si

2008-04-07T16:00:00.000-07:00

Lifelogging (Intimate/Augmentation) - Si

A perfect memory isn't necessarily an ideal, at least by
current social standards. Human relationships are aided by
the consensual misremembering of slights, allowing the
sting of insults and personal offenses to fade over time.
With easy access to records of past wrongs, “I forgot,”
will be much less frequent, and some will find it
impossible to "let bygones be bygones." On the positive
side, new social accuracy will provide opportunities for
individuals to more frequently admit their mistakes, and
after some ego adjustment, help them be more tolerant and
open to a change of mind and behavior. We see such
learning on some (not all) blogs today, which are accurate
text-based lifelogs of past arguments in social space.

Si memory is *subjective* memory, and is anything *but* photographic (but try to tell that to an Si dominant ;-)). It's the most visceral of the four kinds of Perception. Despite this, Lifelogging is subjective in terms of the perspective of "I" remember. Lifelogging technologies, as is warned, break the necessary barrier of forgetful memories, but as a recent case study has shown, these technologies actually help "objective" memory in the long run, and may help build tolerance as we stop self-selectively forgetting things. Lifelogging technologies aren't capable of recording the feeling of 'butterflies in the stomach,' but they can help us recall the exacting details of the moments that caused those butterflies to launch into dance, and the more details we can record, the easier those moments are to recall viscerally. There's a two sided coin to Si memory - when unJudged, these replicated memories can result in phobias or untold stresses; ironically, when paired with other techniques, they can be the tools to rid ourselves of overreactions. It's hard to learn from one's mistakes if one cannot remember them. It's equally hard to learn from one's mistakes if one unnecessarily dwells on them too, and is the nature of chronic depression.

Unlike virtual worlds, lifelogging
won’t allow you to walk in another person's shoes, but it
does allow you to look at the world through another
person's eyes. Or multiple people's eyes: memories tagged
for a particular time and place can call up similar
recordings from others at the scene, giving an
individual access to multiple perspectives on an event.

Here we diverge a little from Si into Fi. Introverted Feeling is the function that deals with empathy - being able to walk in another's shoes, or view through another's eyes. It's a Judgment function really, not a Perception one. Why they say you can't walk in another's shoes is beyond me - that's exactly what Lifelogging enables, down to the exact footstep if your Nike is hooked up to your iPod.

Metaverse Roadmap III: Mirror Worlds and Se

2008-04-07T14:00:00.000-07:00

Mirror Worlds (External/Simulation) (Se)

Unlike virtual worlds, which involve alternate realities that may be similar to Earth’s or wildly different, mirror worlds model the world around us. The best known example of a mirror world (MW) is presently Google Earth... Initially, MW maps were based on cartographic surveys, with informational overlays. Later maps were updated with satellite and aircraft imagery, and now some (Google Earth, military systems) are being augmented by ground-based imagery... Some futurists have proclaimed that virtual worlds, the
Internet, global outsourcing and telepresence are heralding the “end of geography.”... Gelernter is optimistic that our coming data-rich geographic simulations can give us not only tree-level insight but also forest-level “topsight” into complex global systems, many of which are presently obscure.

True Telepresence is very narrowly defined, and most uses of the word are NOT telepresence (attention Cisco). A Wikipedia definition is

Telepresence refers to a set of technologies which allow a person to feel as if they were present, to give the appearance that they were present, or to have an effect, at a location other than their true location.

Telepresence requires that the senses of the user, or users, are provided with such stimuli as to give the feeling of being in that other location. Additionally, the user(s) may be given the ability to affect the remote location. In this case, the user's position, movements, actions, voice, etc. may be sensed, transmitted and duplicated in the remote location to bring about this effect. Therefore information may be travelling in both directions between the user and the remote location.

Here, remote control of the environment is included in the definition, and so would include Extraverted Thinking (the executive), but if we only include haptic feedback methods, we're staying within the realm of Se. With additional information collected via Ne and Si methods described elsewhere, we're capable of creating a sense of 'hyper-reality' with technology - more real than real. We can't fly on our own in real life, but Google Earth allows me to zoom and pan anywhere I want. We don't have Superman's microscopic vision, but molecular modeling can illustrate chemical reactions for instruction.

Se is a Pe function, and is Typically paired with an Introverted Judgment function - either Ti or Fi. When paired with Ti (as in ISTP or ESTP), the result is a mechanistic point of view. Mirror Worlds that attempt to recreate the Real Universe in function (solids are impermeable, gravity works, measurements and location are replicated exactly, even sounds are realistic) fulfill these Type-views. When paired with Fi (as in ISFP or ESFP), the result is an aesthetic point of view (patterns and textures, music and voices, fashions and architectural details replicated, people, plants and animals exist in the environment, things are entertaining). Ji (Fi, Ti) functions are analytical, not causal - one can analyze an individual M&M until the cows come home, and one can attempt to recreate the world to the most minute details until we've essentially duplicated the world in a box. Ultimately, these are all superficial (but necessary)

Most video games, despite taking place in Ni Virtual Worlds, seem closer to Se worlds, as they are superficial and usually limited to imitating real-world physics (or some internally defined set of rules). David Brin calls this 'creating the furniture first'. Personally, as someone who rarely pays attention to my environment, I've been disenchanted by the emphasis on recreating reality in virtual worlds - but I love Google Earth, because it's relevant to the function. I doubt I'd enjoy a virtual concert with my favorite musical artists, because the 3D world is distracting to the principal aesthetic (audio) and fails to approach replication of the rest of my senses (touch and visual). I don't *need* a 3D world to enjoy a live concert when my radio will do just fine. And gawd forbid I be required to 'walk' to another location in a virtual world - I'm using computer technology to escape the limitations of the real world. Until they find a way to recreate odors, there's no point in me slowing down to smell the roses.

Metaverse Roadmap II: VR Worlds and Ni

2008-04-07T12:00:00.000-07:00

VR/Ni

Electronic virtual worlds (first text based, later graphical)
have existed since our first personal computers (e.g., MUD,
Adventureland, and CBBS 1978)...
They are digital versions of narratives set in
“other realities” since the beginning of civilization.

Shamans,mystics and poets were the original weavers of these 'other realities' and are Ni dominants.
Then there's an interesting paragraph later, distinguishing between two kinds of VR:

There is a useful distinction between VW-based multiplayer
games, such as Everquest or World of Warcraft, and VWbased
social environments, such as Second Life and Sony's
Home. Multiplayer games are goal-oriented, with social
interaction used as a tool for task completion; such worlds
are set in an internally-consistent fictional or fantasy-based
realm. In most, entertainment is a primary goal. In so-called
“serious games,” training and education are primary goals.

Goals and task completion are the bailiwick of Extraverted Judgment, and is the complimentary mental function to Ni. When Je is the lead function (E _ _ J in the MBTI code) goals are the primary, well, goal of the Type. When it's in the second (auxiliary) position (I _ _ J), tasks are more important.

Je has two flavors - Te and Fe. When they're referencing 'serious games', it seems they're describing Te as opposed to Fe. In the standard 16 Types, Ni (or Si) is paired with either Fe or Te to create four types - ENTJ, ENFJ, INTJ, INFJ.

Social VWs, by contrast, exhibit fewer overt goals and value
structures, and offer more open-ended user freedoms,
creation of objects, economic and social interaction, and
interpersonal networks. In a few social VWs, such as the
rapidly growing world of Second Life, the user retains
some ownership rights to the objects, land, and other
assets acquired in the world...In practice, the game vs. social world distinction is often
blurred, as goal-directed games always emerge inside
social VWs, and as social experiences broaden inside the
more popular game worlds.

Extraverted Feeling (which is Je) is one's sense of community, and social VWs are the places where 'how' to interact are created. Chat rooms and usenet forums immediately spawned 'shoulds' and social mores (all caps is shouting, Thou Shalt Not Troll, etc).

While inspiring, the
vision (John Perry Barlow, 1996) of an emerging
independent cyberspace, with its own political and
economic rules and jurisdictions, like any sovereign
nation, was not echoed by MVR participants, who talked
of increasing physical world regulation over virtual space
in the foreseeable future.

But to move beyond today’... systems for user identity, trust, and reputation will
be needed, to ensure player accountability to the unique
rules of each world.

On the social side, perhaps the most obvious persistent trend
will be identity experimentation, self-revelation and role play
in VWs, and the creative variation of social norms around
gender, ethnicity, social class, etiquette, and group values and
goals

All bailiwicks of Extraverted Feeling - societal rules.

Metaverse Roadmap Part I

2008-04-06T12:00:00.000-07:00

I recently came across the Metaverse Roadmap and realized very quickly that it maps very well to the Jungian mental functions of Perception. The following diagram shows how they categorize 4 types of Virtual Reality.

p5:

Here we have a wonderful mandala that is similar to many Jungian Mandalas, including my own Room With Four Views. External and Intimate have obvious echoes to Extraverted and Introverted - (and I'd suggest that they adopt the "proper" terminology ;-) - so I wondered if the other points on the compass corresponded to Jungian psychology.

The following blog entries are a narration of my thought processes as I read the pdf.

But first, a quick glossary of common shortcut terminology:

Pe and Je - Extraverted Perceiving and Judging
Pi and Ji - Introverted Perceiving and Judging

Se and Si - Extraverted and Introverted Sensing
Ne and Ni - Extraverted and Introverted Intuition
Fe and Fi - Extraverted and Introverted Feeling
Te and Ti - Extraverted and Introverted Thinking

Now on with the show, starting with a quote about Intimate technologies:

• Intimate technologies are focused inwardly, on the identity and actions of the individual or object; in the Metaverse context, this means technologies where the user (or semi-intelligent object) has agency in the environment, either through the use of an avatar/digital profile or through direct appearance as an actor in the system.

The first part of this quote is obviously Introversion. The second half, the Metaverse context, describes Introverted control of the Extraverted environment. This is how one describes the personality types that are framed by the letters I and J (IxxJ), or in order of preference, PiJe.

• External technologies are focused outwardly, towards the world at large; in the Metaverse context, this means technologies that provide information about and control of the world around the user.

Can't get any more Jungian than that - "information about" is Pe and "control of" is Je.

So far, so good. Extraverted and Introverted have a direct analogy to their mandala.

Augmentation and Simulation require a bit of parsing, however.

• Augmentation refers to technologies that add new capabilities to existing real systems; in the Metaverse context, this means technologies that layer new control systems and information onto our perception of the physical environment.

• Simulation refers to technologies that model reality (or parallel realities), offering wholly new environments; in the Metaverse context, this means technologies that provide simulated worlds as the locus for interaction

It seems like each description is trying to define two different and opposite mental functions simultaneously. That presents an interesting puzzle.

Sensing is the mental function that deals with tangible reality. iNtuition deals with ideas and patterns and imagination (there is sensing imagination, but it's not usually the popular connotation). Neither "pure" mental function maps perfectly to their North/South dichotomy. I wonder if it is possible to map it to the mental-functions-in-attitude.

Introverted Sensing (Si) is a map vs. the terrain.
Extraverted Sensing (Se) is present and immediate.
Introverted iNtuition (Ni) is metaphor and meaning.
Extraverted Intuition (Ne) deals with patterns amongst entities and includes metadata.

At first, it seems that iNtuition maps to Augmentation (that which is not there) and that Simulation (that which is there) maps to Sensing. So it would seemingly follow that

Mirror Worlds are Se,
Virtual Worlds are Si,
Lifelogging is Ni and
Augmented Reality is Ne.

But I'm already guessing that's incorrect, because the Extraverted and Introverted poles don't match up that way.

It would seem to me that Virtual Worlds are Ni, augmented reality is Ne and Lifelogging is Si. So the poles of S and N don't purely overlap with Simulation and Augmentation . Changing our perspective a little bit (rotating the S and N poles 45 degrees), the diagonal pole of Mirror Worlds/Lifelogging maps better to Sensing, while the other diagonal pole of Augmented Reality/Virtual Worlds maps nicely to iNtuition. Reading on, let's see if I am correct by looking at the actual descriptions:

Virtual Worlds (Intimate/Simulation) - Ni

Virtual worlds increasingly augment the economic and social life of physical world communities. The sharpness of many virtual and physical world distinctions will be eroded going forward. In both spaces, issues of identity, trust and reputation, social roles, rules, and interaction remain at the forefront.

-Hmmm...not a very good description about what VRs are, just what they'll mean. But guess what? That's frequently the nature of Ni descriptions - ubiquitously enigmatic and not about what things are, but what they mean.

Mirror Worlds (External/Simulation) - Se

Mirror worlds are informationally-enhanced virtual models or “reflections” of the physical world. Their construction involves sophisticated virtual mapping, modeling, and annotation tools, geospatial and other sensors, and location-aware and other lifelogging (history recording) technologies.

-Basically, an attempt at recreating the actual universe. While lifelogging is on the Si end of the pole, the usage of it is important here - to basically re-present reality as it happened, bring history to life, or Se-ness.

Augmented Reality (External/Augmentation) - Ne

In augmented reality, Metaverse technologies enhance the external physical world for the individual, through the use of location-aware systems and interfaces that process and layer networked information on top of our everyday perception of the world.

-Enhancing the external world ...on top of perception is exactly how Ne works - starting with the object and seeing patterns about and around the object.

Lifelogging (Intimate/Augmentation) - Si

In lifelogging, augmentation technologies record and report the intimate states and life histories of objects and users, in support of object- and self-memory, observation, communication, and behavior modeling. Object Lifelogs (“spimes,” "blogjects," etc.) maintain a narrative of use, environment and condition for physical objects. User Lifelogs, ("life-caching," “documented lives,” etc.) allow people to make similar recordings of their own lives. Object lifelogs overlap with the AR scenario, and both rely on AR information
networks and ubiquitous sensors.

-Only Jung could have described Introverted Sensing better.

Let's map a Jungian mandala to their map:

And voila! Ni and Si align on the I side, while Se and Ne align on the E side. But what do we have at the north and south poles, where Augmentation and Simulation? You'll notice a union of the mental functions with NeSi and SeNi. In Jungian psychology, an opposite is an opposite via both kind and direction. So Extraverted iNtuition and Introverted Sensing (Ne/Si) are opposites.

The comment (with editorial annotation):

Object lifelogging [Si] overlaps with the Augmented Reality [Ne] scenario

is interesting, because AR information is Ne, which is the polar opposite of Si [lifelogging]. And this gives us our first clue to the nature of Augmentation and Simulation.

In these two concepts, we have what Jung called the Transcendant Function -the unification of the opposites into an emergent function. Perhaps through technology we can achieve what is fleeting and difficult in 'normal' psychology - Transcendence.

So Augmentation is the unification of Ne and Si, while Simulation is the unification of Ni and Se.

In the next few blog posts, we'll investigate each pole in depth, to make sure we have concordance.

Mental Functions Table

2008-04-05T13:23:00.000-07:00

Mental Functions Table

Below are the eight mental functions in one table, comparing their Extraverted and Introverted versions in two columns.
The top two sets are those of Perception (S and N), and the bottom two sets are those of Judgment (T and F). And there's a bonus set at the bottom.

Extraverted (E)	Introverted (I)
forward	backward
active	reflective
superficial	deep
expend energy	conserve energy
external	internal
talk to think	think to talk
public	private
speaking	writing
same	different
Perception (Pe)	Perception (Pi)
State of being	Recalled/imagined state of being

Sensing (Se)	Sensing (Si)
present, and next and next	present to past
simultaneous	sequential
actual, factual, present and real	past, history, 'always been' and impression
realistic	caricature
tactile and sensory	visceral
terrain	map
Intuition (Ne)	Intuition (Ni)
present to future	eternity, past and future, unpresent
patterns between	metaphors within
possibilities	could have beens, once upon a time

Judgment (Je)	Judgment (Ji)
cause-and-effect	analytic
compromised	fundamental
rule	principle
active	reactive
rule	exception
	system
group	sort/rank
executive	legislative
Thinking (Te)	Thinking (Ti)
if...then	...else ...else
compromised	fundamental
standard	unique
notation	denotation
Feeling (Fe)	Feeling (Fi)
custom/tradition	free will
community	individual
social mores	social liberties
harmony	solo
group	self
stereotype	archetype
sympathetic	empathetic
clarificiation	connotation
Server (e)	Client (i)
synchronous	asynchronous
client/server	peer-to-peer
server computing	grid computing
rss	http
ftp	bittorrent/bittyrant
IRC	IM
AIM/Yahoo/etc IM	Solipsis
push	pull

If you'll note the color choices for the function headers, they're from the traditional colors first assigned by Jung. There's strong evidence that Jung was slightly synesthetic (as are many of his particular Type), so he labeled Sensing as green, iNtuition as yellow, Thinking as blue and Feeling as red. I assigned Purple to generalized Judgment (red/blue) and a yellow/green color for generalized Perception. I'm going to change the shades slightly, making the E versions slightly darker and the I versions slightly lighter, giving E 75% grey and introverted only 25% grey. Since orange was the only color not used in his system, I've reserved it for computers and the Internet.

More on Jungian Mental Functions

2008-04-04T13:20:00.000-07:00

Well, there's a bit of jungian synchronicity in the air today. While I was composing my morning email stating that I'd be describing the Jungian mental functions much later today, I get a Google alert to an excellent article doing just that, saving me the pressure of writing so much. But it still requires a bit of set-up:

So far, we have Perception and Judgment

Perception

Perception also contains its own dichotomy, and therefore exists in two flavors - Sensing and Intution. We can abbreviate Sensing with S, but we have to use N for iNtuition, because Introversion already uses I as its abbreviation.

Quickly, Sensing involves the five senses, the somatic senses (temperature and pain) and vestibular senses (orientation and balance) and visceral senses (bodily states), and the sympathetic and parasympathetic nervous systems.

Intuition involves the world of ideas, patterns, meaning, metaphor, insights, relationships and possibilities.

Judgment

Judgment also contains a dichotomy, that between Thinking and Feeling. Thinking and Feeling are both rational functions. Feeling does not mean emotion or emotional.

Thinking is making decision using logic and is devoid of value. It is the gesellschaft. It's abbreviated as T.

Feeling is making decisions using values, either of the personal variety (liberties) or the societal (social mores). It is gemeinschaft. It's abbreviated as F.

I'll be describing much better these four mental functions later.

Below, we have another mandala figure, squaring the two poles:

These four functions all exist in Introverted and Extraverted versions, so you end up with 8 basic mental function-attitudes - a three dimensional matrix.

Extraverted/Introverted Sensing (Se, Si)
Extraverted/Introverted iNtuition (Ne, Ni)
Extraverted/Introverted Thinking (Te, Ti)
Extraverted/Introverted Feeling (Fe, Fi)

I'll be posting some tables comparing these functions later (and their applications to a communication system), but for now, we have some descriptions of all of these in the the article I mentioned in the context of a book review, written by a secondary school student:

"Fifth Business" – The Jungian Personality Types by Vaneet S.

~

Jungian Mental Functions

2008-04-03T12:00:00.000-07:00

Here we are, finally discussing Jungian mental functions.

After Jung realized the dichotomies of Introverted and Extraverted were not enough to explain all differences in Types of people, he eventually realized that all people basically have two mutually exclusive modes of operation, or mental functions : Perception of information and Judgment of information.

Perception

Perception is the psyche's portal for perceiving information in the external and internal worlds. Perceiving is 'the process of becoming aware of things, people, occurrences [events], [meanings,] and ideas' [Isabel Myers, 1980]. In other words, perceiving is the cognitive process of gathering information and bringing it into our consciousness. Perceiving can be thought of as the modem and the monitor of the mind. Perception is called an irrational process by Jung because it is not controlled, it merely is.

Judgment

Judgment is the psyche's answer to using the information gathered by Perception. Judgment provides structure and valuation to information. Myers describes judging as "the process of coming to conclusions about what is perceived" Judgment can be thought of as the processor and programming of a computer. Judgment is called a rational process by Jung because it is controlled

Another dichotomy squaring

These two functions operate in a bipolar model - one is either Perceiving or Judging, but never both simultaneously, just like one can either be Introverting or Extraverting, but never both - you're either being loud or quiet.

If we square the P/J dichotomy to the I/E dichotomy, we end up with another four-point mandala like the subjective/objective and personal/collective mandala.

In the 8 point mandala of these two poles, we end up with four modes of operation - Introverted/Extraverted Perception and Introverted/Extraverted Judgment. We can abbreviate these four points as Pi, Pe, Ji, Je.

I'll be re-editing this post and adding more to the descriptions of P and J and Pe/Pi/Je/Ji later, so check for updates.