ViewpointS: towards a Collective Brain

TL;DR

This paper introduces ViewpointS, a new paradigm for constructing collective knowledge through web interactions, inspired by neural theories, aiming to integrate various approaches for understanding collective and individual learning.

Contribution

It proposes a novel collective knowledge framework called ViewpointS, inspired by Edelman's TNGS, to unify diverse approaches and explore collective learning at multiple granularities.

Findings

Conceptual framework for collective knowledge using ViewpointS

Comparison with existing semantic, statistical, and social approaches

Discussion of limitations and potential for future research

Abstract

Tracing knowledge acquisition and linking learning events to interaction between peers is a major challenge of our times. We have conceived, designed and evaluated a new paradigm for constructing and using collective knowledge by Web interactions that we called ViewpointS. By exploiting the similarity with Edelman's Theory of Neuronal Group Selection (TNGS), we conjecture that it may be metaphorically considered a Collective Brain, especially effective in the case of trans-disciplinary representations. Far from being without doubts, in the paper we present the reasons (and the limits) of our proposal that aims to become a useful integrating tool for future quantitative explorations of individual as well as collective learning at different degrees of granu-larity. We are therefore challenging each of the current approaches: the logical one in the semantic Web, the statistical one in mining and deep learning, the social one in recommender systems based on authority and trust; not in each of their own preferred field of operation, rather in their integration weaknesses far from the holistic and dynamic behavior of the human brain.