The Internet of Us (27 page)

Zagzebski, Linda.
On Epistemology.
Belmont, CA: Wadsworth, 2008.

_________. “Recovering Understanding.” In
Knowledge, Truth and Duty: Essays on Epistemic Justification, Responsibility and Virtue
, edited by M. Steup. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2001.

_________. “What is Knowledge?” In
The Blackwell Guide to Epistemology
, edited by J. Greco and E. Sosa, 92–116. Oxford: Blackwell, 1999.

Index

Page numbers listed correspond to the print edition of this book. You can use your device's search function to locate particular terms in the text.

Page numbers in
italics
refer to illustrations. Page numbers beginning with 191 refer to endnotes.

Academia.edu, 135

accuracy, 14, 27–31, 39–40, 44–45, 130

of data searches, 163

sacrificed for a “noble lie,” 78–80, 82

Achilles, 13

actionable information, defined, 14

Affordable Care Act, 122–23

Afghanistan War, 137

Agarwal, Anant, 150

Agony and the Ecstasy of Steve Jobs, The
, 77

“aha” moments, 175, 176

AIDS, 198

airport body scans, 108, 109

Alexandria, library of, 8

Amazing Stories
, 41

Amazon, 9, 80–81, 136, 141

tracking by, 90, 97, 105

Amherst University, 152

Anderson, Chris, 156–60, 182

“animal” knowledge, 131

answer “cards,” 66

AnswersinGenesis.org, 48

anterograde amnesia, 168–69

Apple, 77

a priori
beliefs, 47

Arabic language, 81

Arab Spring, 66

architecture, as analogy for structure of knowledge, 126–28

“Are We Living in a Computer Simulation?” (Bostrom), 193

Aristotle, 171

artificial intelligence (AI), 116, 176

assassinations, 83

assumptions, in data analysis, 162

attractive nuisances, 98

authority:

appeals to, 60–61

in educational models, 151

evaluation of, 62

questioning of, 34, 61–62

trust in, 34

automobiles, information technology compared to, xvii–xviii, 11–12, 180

autonomy:

of decision, 102–4

democratic respect for, 58, 59–63, 101–7

privacy and, 89–109

of thought, 33–34, 39, 63, 147–48

threat to, 4, 102–7, 147, 187

Bacon, Francis, 9

Barnes and Noble, 9

BCIs, 191–92

Beck, Harry, 112–13

beliefs:

anchoring of, 131–32

architecture of, 126–27, 129–30

assuming responsibility for, 6

capacity for change of, 53–54

collective, 117–18, 200

democratic encouragement of diverse, 60–61

faith-based, 47–48

justification for, 14–16, 128–32, 148

networks of, 128–32

private vs. public, 60–61

as receptive states of mind, 27

reinforcement of one's own, 7, 43, 45–46, 49–50, 51–52, 54–55, 56, 61, 63;
see also
confirmation bias

socially embedded, 116

undesired, 198

Bentham, Jeremy, 91,
92
, 97

Berkeley, George, 68–69

Berlin Monthly
, 58

Bible, 48, 49, 61, 66

big data:

analysis in,
see
data analysis, data analytics

definitions of, 8–9, 156

in digital form of life, 155–78

hyperconnectivity of, 184–88

limitations of, 183

mining of,
see
data mining

participants in, 111–32

political economy of knowledge in, 133–54

privacy and autonomy issues of, 89–109

Big Data: A Revolution That Will Transform How We Live, Work, and Think
(Mayer-Schönberger and Cukier), 8

“big data hubris,” 183

big knowledge, 155–63

“big man” theory, 162

Big Oil, 9

Bing, 30

blogs, blogosphere, 8, 24, 55, 65, 113, 118

Bloom, Paul, 54

Bloustein, Edward J., 101–2

Boden, Margaret, 176

Borges, Jorge Luis, 17, 44

Boston Marathon bombing, 31

Bostrom, Nick, 20, 193

bots,
see
socialbots

Brabham, Daren, 136, 142

Brain in the Vat thought experiment, 18–20

brain-to-brain communication, 192

brainwashing, 102

Brandeis, Louis, 89–90, 94, 101

Brin, Sergey, 186

British Petroleum, 118

British Royal Society, 34

Bruner, J. S., 159–60

Bush, George W., advisor to, 86

calculators, 153

Caldarelli, Guido, 112

cameras, 89, 94

security, 91, 97

Cancer Ward
(Solzhenitsyn), 185

capitalism, changes in, 140–41, 144

Cartesian coordinates, 175

Cartesian foundationalism, 126–29, 131

Catanzaro, Michele, 112

Cavell, Stanley, 10

CCTV, 91

CD-ROMs, 8

censorship, 42, 65, 66, 134, 144

self-, 97

Chabris, Christopher, 30

Chalmers, David, 115

chat rooms, 118

chess, 165

children:

and hands-on experience, 174

understanding in, 177

China:

iPhone production in, 77–78, 139

oppressive government policies of, 81

truth deleted from Internet in, 65, 66

Chuck
, 167–68, 173

Church, power held by, 133–34

CIA, 100

data searched by, 99

Clark, Andy, 115

climate change, 56, 100, 124, 144, 185, 198

cloud:

data storage on, 23

data trail on, 9

in information sharing, 4–5

coherentism, 130

see also
fabric metaphor, for structure of beliefs

Collaborative Commons, 140–41

educational model of, 151–52

as first world resource, 144

collective responsibility, 118–19

College Humor (website), 24

common point of view, 48

communication:

isolation and, 41–42

neuromedia and, 113–14

of standards, 39–40

computers, xvii

brains and, 19

games, 19–20, 191

reality simulated in,
see
SIMs

self-awareness in, 116, 193

Concept of Mind, The
(Ryle), 168

conclusions, jumping to, 29–30, 58

Condorcet Jury Theorum, 120–21

confirmation bias, 54–55, 56

defined, 51–52

Congress, U.S., NSA vs., 99

consequences, 172

conservatives, 43

context, in data analysis, 161

continuum hypothesis, defined, 197

“cookies,” tracking by, 90

Copernicus, Nicolaus, 34

corporate responsibility, 118

corporations, as “people,” 200

correlation analyses, 158–59

Coursera, 150

cover-ups, 83

creationism, 49

creativity:

“impossible” aspect of, 176, 177

knowledge and, xvii, 6, 180

as personally relative, 176–77, 181–82

in reaching understanding, 15–16, 174–77, 181, 183

value and importance of, 183

credibility, 40, 46, 50, 119–20

and human rights, 147

criminal justice system, identification techniques in, 93–95

critical thinking:

democratic institutional support for, 61–62

importance of, 125

knowledge through, 33–34

crowdsourcing, 136–37, 141–42

Cukier, Kenneth, 8, 158–59

culture:

form of life as, 10, 17–18

video map of, 161–62

cyborging, 5–6, 191–92

Daedalus, 13

D'Agata, John, 79–80

Daily Kos
, 43

Daisey, Mike, 77–80, 82

data, information vs., 12, 14

data analysis, data analytics, 9, 90, 91, 155–63

data maps, 160

data mining, 90–91

abuses of, 95–107

commercial use of, 97, 105–6

control and, 96

incidental collection in, 95–96, 99, 199

intention in, 96–98, 100

data storage, 91, 95–96, 99–100, 108

data trails, 9, 185

dating sites, 157

deception:

justified, and relation to autonomy, 83

truth and, 75–83

decision making:

autonomy in, 102–7

overruling in, 102

undermining in, 102–3

Deepwater Horizon oil spill, responsibility for, 118

dehumanization, 105

democratization:

capitalism vs., 141–42

Internet as force for, 11, 49, 55–63, 125, 133–38, 148

of public policy, 121

Dennett, Daniel, 74

dependency relationships, in understanding, 165–67, 177, 182

dephysicalized objects, defined, 69

Descartes, René, 19–20, 34, 39, 126–27, 129, 162, 174–76, 177

Dewey, John, 151

Dianetics
, 61

Dick, Philip K., 75

dictionaries, 21–22

digital form of life, xviii, 3–20

as abstract and depersonalized, 41–50

caveats about, 184–88

as a construction, 70–74, 83–86, 187

defined, 10

limitations of, 16

understanding in, 153–78

see also
Internet of Us

digital groups, 118–19

digital knowledge:

caveats about, 184–88

dependence on, xvi–xviii, 5, 12, 21–26, 31, 36, 179

distribution of, 113

education and, 148–54

full and equal participation in, 146

as interconnective, 184–88

international access rates for, 135, 144–45

massive proliferation of, 8, 11–12, 32, 56, 128

network of, 111–32

as power, 9, 98–99, 186

ready accessibility of, 3–4, 23, 30, 42, 56, 113–16, 135–36, 141, 149, 153, 180

speed of, 23, 29–30, 42, 135

using alternative sources to, 21–23

see also
Google-knowing

dinosaurs, 66

discursive knowledge, 169

“divided line” graph of knowledge, 126

DNA identification techniques, 93–94

Dreyfus, Hubert, 168, 171

drugs:

abilities changed by, 173

SIM life compared to, 77

Duke University, 152

earthquakes, emotional epicenters of, 160–61

eavesdropping, 101

Ebola, 16

economy, 111, 162

as digitally dependent, 7–8, 9

free-market, 145

full and equal participation in, 146

globalization of, 139, 142

of knowledge, 138–45

manufacturing in, 138–39

prediction markets in, 122–23

education:

cheapening of, 152–53

crisis in, 149–50

as epistemic resource, 143, 145

information technology and, 148–54

old model of, 151–52

U.S. hegemony in, 149

education bubble, 149, 152

education systems, 35–36

edX, 150

Einstein, Albert, 175, 177

elections, 120–23

emails, 81

emotion, reasoning vs., 51–55

“End of Theory, The: The Data Deluge Makes the Scientific Method Obsolete” (Anderson), 156–57

Enlightenment, 33–34, 58–59

environment:

interacting with, 174

receptive tracking of, 27–30, 131

“environmental luck,” 203

epilepsy, 168

epistêmê
, 14, 170, 172

epistemic economy, 147–48

epistemic equality, 138–48, 150, 187

epistemic inclusivity, 135–36

epistemic inequality, 142–48, 201

epistemic injustice, 146–48, 201

epistemic principles, 14, 47, 50, 55, 57, 60

as democratic, 62, 135–36

epistemic resources, 143–45

epistemic trust, 195

epistemology, defined,
see
epistemic principles

Epistemology and Cognition
(Goldman), 194

Essay concerning Human Understanding, An
(Locke), 35

ethical values:

changes in, 53–54

democratic, 58

and fragmentation, 44

technology and, xvii, 6, 89–90

“eureka” moment, 176, 177

Eurocentrism, 162

Euthyphro
(Plato), 165–66, 172

evangelicals, 47–49

evidence, in change of belief, 54–55

expectations:

in changing of social constructs, 72–73

conclusions colored by, 29–30, 160

theoretical, 159

of truth, 79–80

experience:

as foundation for knowledge, 127, 131

in hands-on movements, 173–74

illusion and reality in, 18–19

procedural knowledge in, 172–73

understanding through, 16, 173–74

experts, expertise:

knowledge based on, 15, 35–38, 120, 139–40

outsourcing of, 141–42

in predicting, 122–23

in problem solving, 137

understanding and, 170–71

explanation, 165–67, 182

extended mind hypothesis, 115

fabric metaphor, for structure of beliefs, 129

Facebook, xvii, 8, 24, 43, 72, 124

hegemony of, 146

as simulacrum, 16

tracking by, 105

fact-checking, 46–47, 56, 85, 130

falsehoods, 77–83

“fast thinking” processes, 29–30

FBI, data searched by, 99

fiction, 79–80

fingerprints, 93

FISA,
see
Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act

fishbowls, digital life compared to, 91

Fishburne, Laurence, 18–19

Flanagan, Owen, 73–74

Floridi, Luciano, 10, 69–71

Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA; 1978), 88

court of, 99, 109

form of life:

defined, 10

philosophy in, 17–18