Internet Intelligence

This term was coined, first time I read or heard it, in a group email thread on the Animal List. For those who are not familiar with the Animal List, it is a listserv run by Dianna MacYoung and her husband who actually owns and is referred to as "animal" which is the basis of the list, etc. I found the animal list from Mr. MacYoung's web site, "No Nonsense Self Defense."

The Internet: A global computer network providing a variety of information and communication facilities, consisting of interconnected networks using standardized communication protocols.

Intelligence: the ability to comprehend; Intelligence is an umbrella term describing a property of the mind including related abilities, such as the capacities for abstract thought, understanding, communication, reasoning, learning, learning from past experiences, planning, and problem solving.; to understand and profit from experience; the gathering and interpreting information from various sources of supposed reputable origins.

Some might feel that the two terms joined in holy information gathering marriage is an oxymoron. When someone makes an assumption that the information is accurate, irrefutable and above reproach just because it is in ePrint and on the Internet or World Wide Web (does anyone even use this anymore?) is to be mistaken in that assumption. After all, assumptions and expectations can get you into trouble more than not.

My view, subjective of course, is that the Internet is a huge repository of information - all kinds. The data-diver must assume that the information is open to error, omissions and human faults or they are going to be open to critical repercussions. Like what news media were supposed to do is once you gain a bit of information you have to sublimate it with other verifiable sources and in some cases actually experience it to validate it.

I explore the Internet for a lot of things. I hope that I convey that sometimes the information is subject to inaccuracies. Sometimes I accept things as true and sometimes not but I accept the information for analysis even if it goes directly against what I believe simply because I may be wrong.

I guess the idea behind my post today is don't allow Internet Intelligence to be perceived as something either good or bad but rather just "one source of many" that you use to gather information to learn and gain knowledge. Consider learning and knowledge a necessary trait of a human who wishes to be enlightened.

Then again, maybe not :-)

"purify: remove impurities from, increase the concentration of, and separate through the process of distillation (The extraction of the essential meaning or most important aspects of something); "purify the water" or "Purify the Data" and gain some actual Intelligence. - World Wide Web ;-)

"The Internet has become an extension of the human brain, functioning like a self-organizing entity. " - Dr. Andrew Newberg, MD