# Knowledge Commons **Domain:** Public Infrastructure / Information Governance **Doc Type:** Canonical Governance Node **Maturity:** Foundational ## Definition A **knowledge commons** is a governed resource in which information, standards or interpretive tools are held for shared use rather than made dependent on exclusive private permission. ## Evolutionary Nexus The public Human Genome Project and UCSC Genome Browser are core cases in [[articles/The Evolutionary Roots of Silicon Valley|The Evolutionary Roots of Silicon Valley]]. Open sequence, assembly and navigation allowed distributed researchers to inspect and extend a common reference. Commons are not ungoverned. They require maintenance, provenance, versioning, access rules and protection against enclosure or degradation. ## Continuity Context Foundational formats for personal continuity should not become proprietary chokepoints. A claimant cannot meaningfully possess their archive if only one custodian can interpret or activate it. ## Key Insight **Public data without public interpretability is access in name but dependency in practice.** ## See Also [[wiki/UCSC Genome Browser|UCSC Genome Browser]], [[wiki/Infrastructure as Power|Infrastructure as Power]], [[wiki/Portability|Portability]], [[wiki/Provenance|Provenance]] ## Relationships - **Edge source route:** [[collections/Edge|Edge]] connects this topic to exact Annual Question passages promoted into the Simple Reminders archive. ## Simple Reminders, Quotations, and Thoughts > “To understand the issue, consider some examples of an incomprehensible universe where mathematics would be inefficient. Here is the first one: Suppose the universe is in a state with the Planck density r ~ 1094 g/cm3. Quantum fluctuations of space-time in this regime are so large that all rulers are rapidly bending and shrinking in an unpredictable way. This happens faster than one could measure distance. All clocks are destroyed faster than one could measure time. All records about the previous events become erased, so one cannot remember anything and predict the future. The universe is incomprehensible for anybody living there, and the laws of mathematics cannot be efficiently used.” > **— Andrei Linde**, *2012, Edge Annual Question, “WHAT IS YOUR FAVORITE DEEP, ELEGANT, OR BEAUTIFUL EXPLANATION?”* [[reminders/Deep Time/A Universe Without Stable Memory Would Be Incomprehensible by Andrei Linde|A Universe Without Stable Memory Would Be Incomprehensible by Andrei Linde]] > “Most of us can no longer memorize hour-long folktales and songs as in an oral tradition. The average modern mind has a poorly trained long-term memory, forgets rather quickly, and searches for information more in outside sources such as books instead inside memory. The Internet has amplified this trend of shifting knowledge from the inside to the outside, and taught us new strategies for finding what one wants using search machines.” > **— Gerd Gigerenzer**, *2010, Edge Annual Question, “HOW IS THE INTERNET CHANGING THE WAY YOU THINK?”* [[reminders/Memory/Knowledge Is Moving From Inside the Mind to Outside Sources by Gerd Gigerenzer|Knowledge Is Moving From Inside the Mind to Outside Sources by Gerd Gigerenzer]] > “My close-second candidate is E = mc2. When we learn to tap the full meaning of that piece of symbolic language, we'll create more than a Nuclear Age. "Matter is frozen energy," Einstein said, relating the essence of his insight into the mass-energy relationship. Similarly, language is frozen meaning. When we discover how to unleash the enormous energy in meaning by continually transforming information (data, ideas, knowledge, experience) in new contexts, we'll make a quantum leap in applying the power of language to achieve our boldest dreams.” > **— Todd Siler**, *1999, Edge Annual Question, “WHAT IS THE MOST IMPORTANT INVENTION IN THE PAST TWO THOUSAND YEARS?”* [[reminders/Information/Language Is Frozen Meaning by Todd Siler|Language Is Frozen Meaning by Todd Siler]] > “Facts are more fluid than in the days of our grandfathers. In our networked mind, the very act of observation--reporting or tweeting or amplifying some piece of experience--changes the story. The trajectory of information, the velocity of this knowledge on the network, changes the very nature of what is remembered, who remembers it, and for how long it remains part of our shared archive. There are no fixed states.” > **— Xeni Jardin**, *2011, Edge Annual Question, “WHAT SCIENTIFIC CONCEPT WOULD IMPROVE EVERYBODY'S COGNITIVE TOOLKIT?”* [[reminders/Memory/Networked Observation Changes What Becomes Memory by Xeni Jardin|Networked Observation Changes What Becomes Memory by Xeni Jardin]] > “In the city from where I now do most of my work, the Internet has become an extension of my memory — it combats the occasional "senior moment", helping me to find names, facts, and places instantly (or so it seems). It gives me a second, bigger brain. The Internet has allowed me to learn from people I have never met. It placed me in a university that profoundly affected my career, my research, and my worldview.” > **— Daniel L. Everett**, *2010, Edge Annual Question, “HOW IS THE INTERNET CHANGING THE WAY YOU THINK?”* [[reminders/Memory/The Internet Has Become a Second Bigger Brain by Daniel L. Everett|The Internet Has Become a Second Bigger Brain by Daniel L. Everett]] > “In 1992, the artist Thomas Bayrle wrote that the great mistakes of the future would be that as everything became digital, we would confusememory with storage.” > **— Kevin Slavin, reporting Thomas Bayrle**, *2009, Edge Annual Question: “WHAT WILL CHANGE EVERYTHING?”* [[reminders/Memory/The Great Mistake Will Be Confusing Memory With Storage by Kevin Slavin|The Great Mistake Will Be Confusing Memory With Storage by Kevin Slavin]] > “What systems could be put in place to prevent widespread denial of science-based knowledge?” > **— Jennifer Jacquet**, *2018 Edge Annual Question, question* [[reminders/Information/Can Systems Prevent Denial of Scientific Knowledge by Jennifer Jacquet|Can Systems Prevent Denial of Scientific Knowledge by Jennifer Jacquet]] > “Why do even the most educated people today feel that their grip on what they can truly know is weaker than ever before?” > **— Gloria Origgi**, *2018 Edge Annual Question, question* [[reminders/Information/Why Does Knowledge Feel Less Secure to Educated People by Gloria Origgi|Why Does Knowledge Feel Less Secure to Educated People by Gloria Origgi]] > “Printing summoned into existence increasingly diversified bodies of new knowledge, multiplied productive divisions of labor, midwifed new professions, and greatly expanded the middle class. It threw up voluntary, meritocratic new hierarchies of knowledge and productivity to rival traditional hierarchies of force and superstition. In short, the release of printing technology into human societies brought into being a vast new ecosystem of knowledge — dense, diverse, rapidly changing, rapidly growing, and beyond the ability of any one mind to encompass, or any government to control.” > **— John Tooby**, *2010 Edge Annual Question, response passage* [[reminders/Information/Printing Created a Growing Ecosystem of Knowledge by John Tooby|Printing Created a Growing Ecosystem of Knowledge by John Tooby]] > "If you know you are on the right track, if you have this inner knowledge, then nobody can turn you off." > **— Barbara McClintock**, *Oral-history recollection* *Verification Status: Unverified — exact wording/source has not yet been independently confirmed against a primary source; source clue: Oral-history recollection.* [[reminders/unverified/Inner Knowledge Keeps You on the Right Track by Barbara McClintock|Inner Knowledge Keeps You on the Right Track by Barbara McClintock]]