About: "Augmented Understanding with Extra Dimensions & Spaces"

Sources, Outlook, and Resources
 
 

It is very difficult to present ideas and work which are in part new or new view or combination of existing elements, AND definitely based on old, accepted or not existing thinking of many cultures and times. Immediately people suppose you have "taken" it from somewhere and the whole is the typical show, everybody is self applauding full of self appraisal and self selfcentered territory claiming, and being personally self-territorial.

I will not only repeat the "sources" of my work as published for the ISSS Proceedings and preapred for ****** LASZLO****** but will after a view of my work in the works of Kim Veltman below prent central roots or thinkers which might add an extra ground or entry point for or into my "design". I will cover and link in extra pages a.s.a.p. my work to scholoars and thinkers such as Jakob von Uexkuell, Paul Weis, Ludwig von Bertalanffy, Jay Kline, Hellmut Plessner, Anthony J. N. Judge, Ingetraut Dahlberg, U. Kampffmeyer, Willis Harman, Ralph G. H. Siu in order the see the "pieces" of my and their work in perspective.
 
 

The best way to locate or position my Conceptual Superstructure or CognitivePanorama, at least for the central "switching space" I would like to draw the attention to a just published book Augmented Books, Knowledge, and Culture, by Kim H. VELTMAN k.veltman@mmi.unimaas.nl, Maastricht McLuhan Institute, Netherlands as just published from the INET 2000 on the web at: http://www.isoc.org/inet2000/cdproceedings/6d/6d_1.htm, and the Habilitation of Gerhard Budin, University Vienna, where he used my presentation of standardization/harmonization from 1992.
 
 

Excerpts from:

9. Augmented knowledge

...

These quests to master new knowledge owe much to systems theory, "chaos theory" (a seemingly contradictory combination of terms), complexity, [77] and developments in neural networks, whereby systematic treatments of apparently random forms bring unexpected patterns of order.

What makes these trends the more significant is that thinkers concerned with the systematization of intellect, such as Guilford, have intuitively sought to link units, classes, relations, systems, etc. with products and operations (figure 12).
 
 

Guilford, J. P., The Nature of Human Intelligence, New York: McGraw Hill, 1967.

Structure of Intellect. [175] Cf. the work of Heiner Benking.
 
 

AND:

6. Virtual reorganization of libraries

...

This approach to searching at different levels of knowledge is now typically referred to as granularity. Historically, this process was very long in developing. The idea of searching at the level of books goes back to the earliest known libraries in the third millenium before Christ. The idea of searching at the level of articles came only at the end of the nineteenth century when Otlet and Lafontaine founded the Mundaneum (Brussels now at Mons) and the International Institute of Bibliography (now the FID in the Hague). In a sense, full-text searching began with the introduction of indexes in the latter Middle Ages, but practically speaking full-text searching has only been introduced in the course of the past decades with the advent of more powerful computers.
 
 

Figure 8. Examples of three basic levels of granularity in searching for materials. An ability to study the full contents of books at level three goes hand in hand with a need to link this with more abstract searching at levels one and two.

Paradoxically, this ability to search potentially at the level of every word has introduced a concurrent need to search at higher levels of abstraction in order to see the wood for the trees. Hence as one has gone from studying an individual word, phrase, or sentence to all uses in a book, there has been an increasing need to study also partial contents and concepts at a higher level in order to understand larger patterns (figure 8). Here, one approach is to re-organize knowledge in terms of different subsumptive relations such that one can go from a subject down to its properties or up to its whole/part and type/kind relations (figure 9). This is a realm where recent developments in scientific visualization offer promising new possibilities. [44]

On this problem of linking different levels of abstraction, futurists such as Benking [45] have also intuitively sought to link subjective and objective elements in arriving at a more systematic understanding of the world. Benking foresees using a universal classification system such as the ICC as a means of switching between various classification schemes and moving from levels of abstraction to levels of detailed knowledge. Lacking in such outlines is a clear method of how one moves between various levels of abstraction. Even so, his intuitive understanding of the challenges is extremely stimulating.

Our approach to levels of knowledge is an attempt to create a more coherent framework for systematic study at different levels of granularity. In electronic versions of libraries these levels provide important new approaches to orientation within a field of knowledge, contextualization of knowledge, and ultimately the re-organization of knowledge.

Acknowledgments

The ideas in this paper have grown out of many years discussions with a circle of friends including, Father John Orme Mills, Professor André Corboz, Eric Dobbs and Rakesh Jethwa and more recently, Heiner Benking. Professor Baron Jaap van Till stimulated new ideas as acknowledged in note 61....

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Or in earlier works of Veltman:

The series "Frontiers of Conceptual Navigation" was started by Veltman/Benking in BERLIN at ISKO 1997, in Berlin:
 

Wissensorganisation und Multimediale Techniken:

Veltman/Benking: Frontiers in Conceptual Navigation
Benking/Veltman: Composing Switching Systems to interrelate multimedia information

This work was later presented around the issue of Advanced Visual Interfaces:
http://www.ceptualinstitute.com/genre/benking/visual/visualization.htm

and published by Kim H. Veltman later in various forms and media:
http://www.sumscorp.com/articles/art16.htm
http://www.sumscorp.com/articles/art50.htm
 

or a book from ONTARIO LIBRARY ORGANIZATION:

Frontiers in Conceptual Navigation 1
Frontiers in Conceptual Navigation 2: Interfaces for Cultural Heritage

Dr. Kim H. Veltman

Director, Perspective Unit, McLuhan Program, University of Toronto
Director of Research, MMI Maastricht McLuhan Institute, Maastricht

Seeing Benking through the eyes and words of Veltman:
The second author was invited to review and comment and to see his work in perspective he offers some citations from the work of Veltman:

Heiner Benking, another speaker at the German chapter of the ISKO conference builds upon the same framework in his conceptual superstructure or cognitive Panorama Bridge, which is the basis of his Rubik’s Zauberwürfel [Cube of Ecology or Magic Cube]. He argues that one can use planes in order to see patterns in thought. These planes can include continua between the animate and the inanimate on one axis and between micro-, macro- and meso-scales on another axis. The planes can be used to see relations among different actions, options and strategies. They can be used to see different levels of abstraction and compare different viewpoints at a conceptual as well as at a perceptual level.
 
 

Excerpts:

Tufte, Edward R. (1990), Envisioning Information, Cheshire, Conn. Graphics Press. For an early discussion of these themes in terms of computer graphics see Benking, Heiner, Steffen, Hinrich, Computer Graphics for Management, processing, Analysis and Output of Spacial Data (Corporate, Administrative, Fascilities and Market) WCGA_CAMP 1985 World Computer Graphics Association and Computer Graphics for Management and Productivity Conference, Berlin, p. 440-458

Heiner Benking, builds upon the framework of Dahlberg and Judge (as in figure 7 above), to produce his conceptual superstructure or cognitive Panorama Bridge, which is the basis of his Rubik’s Zauberwürfel [Cube of Ecology or Magic Cube]. He argues that one can use planes in order to see patterns in thought. These planes, he claims, can include continua between the animate and the inanimate on one axis and between micro-, macro- and meso-scales on another axis. Planes, he claims, can be used to compare different viewpoints at a conceptual as well as a perceptual level; to see relations among different actions, options and strategies.

Benking identifies six elements as part of his Panorama of Understanding, knowing and not knowing: bridges (Brücke), forest and ground (Wald und Flur), unknown territory (terra incognita), maps, filters and brokers; multimedia bridges and integration; viewable ensemble of the world of the senses (Anschauliches Sinnweltenensemble).

Professor Dr. Ingetraut Dahlberg who has generously encouraged the author for the past fifteen years. I am deeply grateful for her gentle inspiration. I am very grateful also to Deans Wiebe Bijker (Maastricht) and Hans Koolmees (IDM, Maastrict) for provocative questions during the past year. I am grateful to Dr. Anthony Judge (UIA) and Heiner Benking (Ulm) for challenging me to think more thoroughly about problems in moving from two-dimensional to three-dimensional navigation. Mr. Benking kindly read the manuscript and offered suggestions.

Ben Shneiderman, Designing the User Interface. Strategies for Effective Human Computer Interaction, Reading Ma.: Addison Wesley, 1997 (first edition 1987) 3rd ed. 1997. For a standard introduction to some of the more philosophical questions attending interface design see the three books by Edward Tufte, Visual Display of Quantitative Information, Cheshire: Graphics Press, 1982;
Envisioning Information, Cheshire: Graphics Press, 1990 and Visual Explanations, Cheshire: Graphics Press, 1997.

________________

NOT BENKING: (footnote 1)
It sems to be not enough to be mentioned and having above papers full of references to my work. People do not seem to know Wurman, Tufte, Veltman and so, beside my profile at the end I will offer some insight which might help to inteprete the above: Veltman reviewed the book by Edward R. Tufte and was nicely mentioned in the forword of his book: ENVISIONING INFORMATION.

Here some of my "root" references re: EXPLORATION, VIZUALISATION and ECOLOGY

I have lectured in the mid eighties for the IBM Watsen International Executive Briefing Center on SCIENTIFIC GRAPHICS, focussed on SPACIAL instead of SPATIAL in GeoJournal, with Kluwers Academic Publishers (1982) (see TOPOGRAMM system design) and used this disctinction for 2- versus 3-dimensional ever since, see above WCGA-CAMP '85

My work lead from the work on a computer graphics ethics code to the term "visual demagogy" 1988 Springer Scientific Publishers Environmental Informatics and Computer graphics, Potentials and Challenges, to EARTH AND SPACE SCIENCES Conference with the International Space Year and NASA-JPL, see AIP - American Institute of Physics publication.

I also helped to start and association for Optical information Systems in 1990, have a press pass of the AUTOMATION GROUP san Diego since 1980 (Automation Newsletters since 1974 on Computer Graphics, AEC and FM, CIM, desktop publishing, printing,...) did the articles for the first TOKEN RING network (APOLLO _ DOMAIN) 1980 (which helped substantially to start operations for Podouska and Nelson with APOLLO in Europe, presented the first TEXT & GRAPHICS merge at the DRUPA '1981 printing fair in Düsseldorf. and last not least helped to open the European Operations of the "father" of interactive computer graphics (Auto-trol founded in 1964) in the positions of Senior Applications Enginereer Europe mid East and Africa, Deputy Marketing Director, and Acting General Manager, and the "mother" of raster, or colour raster computer graphics ESC later UNIRAS, later AVS, being a time management consultant and Sales and Marketing director looking into Market Development, Strategic partnerships, Mergers and Venture Capital Issues until 1987, and helping Professor HERTZ around issues such as IRIS and printing.
As some of the Californians might remember Randall Stickrod, I was in his Readers (Industry) Advisory Board of COMPUTER GRAPHICS WORLD and looked as well into mergers and acquisitions for publishers like PENNWELL.

Being concerned about the images and the metaphors, my concern was and is more on how to bridge, merge, and morph mindsets & models, drawing paradigm maps, avoiding the one and only right solution, but also inviting to look for overview and orientation, common shared images, for extra eyes, new inclusive and inhabited shared models, and what to do when in the wrong film.

My focus was conversion, making tools available form industry and military to fields such as Environment and Communication/Education. When there was little to learn from the edutain and fun sector form other industries, I changed towards designing concepts and opening doors for applications "making sense", not only starting, fairs, foundations, environmental societies, but to bridge between the agendas and the summits.
The challnge is and was how to harmonize (between languages and cultures and how to bridge the levels and scales, and how to advance the arts of the arts: communication or dialogue towards decision making, robust alternatives, shared feelings and actions. See scale platform exchange and how to visualize and teach things between and beyond cosms - towards mental mobility and locomotion and the integration of being feeling thinking healing - and exploring stages or workplaces (internally or exteranlly oriented workspaces of the body and the minds).
Being on the industry and applications side for all my professional life, I never cared for academic credits or teaching, but it seems sometimes nesessary to put facts, levels, lineages, and figures into perspective. You are welcome to "immerse" with me into Borderlands...

For more see: sharing milestones or voices from others regading my work "around" sharing VOICES, SPACES, FUTURES, focus areas please not that these collections were done in 1996 or 1997 but provide from that perspective also some good idea. I also have a CV somewhere and will add it a.s.a.p.
 
 

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See also the highly recommended: 
 

Internet-Zeitschrift für Kulturwissenschaften

0. Nr.

August 1997

http://www.adis.at/arlt/institut/trans/0Nr/edit0.htmhttp://www.adis.at/arlt/institut/trans/0Nr/edit0.htm

2. Culture Beyond Art

links im ISSS BUDAPEST plus:

Kline
Plessner
Taylor
Weiss
Bertalanfy...

DO: Benking by und viceversa...

Benking bei Judge

- bei mit Radermacher

- bei Budin

- bei mit Nahrada

- bei mit John O'Connor _Earthday

- bei -mit Spielmann

- bei Strauch

- bei Giesecke

BENKING ERVIN ??