In my opinion:

For instance, to continue using the HTTP protocol as an example, the
purpose of it is to locate a document and deliver it to you. There is
no room for “fuzzy logic” here, nobody would want to use a web where
you get a page that is ALMOST the one you requested.

The fuzzy non-binary part is contained within the documents that are
delivered, and I argue that to some degree we already have made great
advances to a more colored and less black and white reality. Instead
of reading THE political truth from the one major Finnish newspaper,
you can read a lot of blogs on the net with DIFFERENT viewpoints. You
can go to Wikipedia to read an article that is ALMOST factually
correct. etc…

Furthermore, there is computer science that deals with non-binary
logic, in particular Artificial Intelligence practices like Fuzzy
Logic or Neural Networks (which try to emulate how we know our brains
work, really interesting). While this is much more difficult than
“normal” programming, and therefore these techniques are not as
prevalent building blocks of the Internet today, as the “binary based”
technologies are, we do use them today:
– Spam filters are often based on Bayesian filters or some other NN techniques
– Google tries to find you pages that you are most likely going to be
interested in (as opposed to pages whose content most exactly match
the keywords you search for)
– Amazon will send you advertisements on books that they think you
might be interested in, etc…

Also to Athina’s comment above, I see Web2.0 being exactly like this. The blogosphere is not a customer-client relationship, it is a “networking and building on each other” phenomenon.

henrik

“I think this piece makes a serious point in relation to our understanding of knowledge and how our philosophy of human-to-human and human-computer interaction influences knowledge and particularly ‘universal’ knowledge (a truly bizarre utopian enlightment concept), as well as the uncertainties created by ‘globalization’ and technocracy.

The article deserves attention because it warns against relying on ‘boolean’ logics in IT terms, I would argue in relying also in ‘binary’ terms in the political sense (although that is more relevant on the point of allowing for interaction, disagreement and happily conflict, as they produce the most interesting results).

What has been done ‘technically’ with Web 2.0 is not enough and fundamentally the architecture is still the same relying on certain logics of ‘universal’ truths, fact triangulation and customer-client relationships, instead of networking and building on each other and why not, even producing ‘biased’ knowledge. The reason the Web 2.0 is not that ‘fun’ is because it is impersonal (or often too personal!), alienating to the computer illiterate, and not catering for exciting interactions for those that are IT literate.

To put it simply, some aspects are too centralized (control of platforms, software, e-commerce etc), while others are too scattered and lost to the few more well known blogs and webpages. The architecture is not enabling, because it was devised for different purposes.

All the great efforts and amendments to that will always fall short. It is like a house constantly changing builders, architects and engineers, I see it difficult though, however good these people are to have better cyberspaces, unless the foundations are looked at, and not only in technical terms.

The philosophy part this author advances is in my opinion spot on.”