Date: Tue, 18 Jul 2000 11:58:08 -0600 (MDT)

Mr. Rod Welch
rowelch@attglobal.net
The Welch Company
440 Davis Court #1602
San Francisco, CA 94111 2496

Subject:

Cliff Joslyn Needs Input on Presentation to SRI

Rod,

[Responding to your letter this morning stating in part...

Yes, I saw that, thank you.

To start the ball rolling here, let me reiterate something I mentioned to you in a recent phone conversation, which is that I'm probably not the best person to address issues like "Overview of KM worldwide". I struggle on a daily basis to keep up on a few things and push the work ahead which I think is most important in my LANL context, and I regret that keeping up with much of the current state of the art in projects is something I lag behind in. Indeed, in forums like this I'm as anxious as you to hear from folks what's really working.

Instead, let me suggest the following kinds of topics I could address. I need some guidance right away to narrow it down.

1. A vision of Distributed Knowledge Systems:
   1. The role of semiotic concepts: sign systems, data and information, freedom and constraint, the role of interpretation and interpreters

   2. Collective human (agent)-computer interaction

   3. Corpus structure and necessary technologies: network theory, adaptive systems, machine learning, natural language processing, anthropology
2. Current research efforts at LANL:
   1. For managing scientific databases: digital libraries, bioinformatics, historical databases about complex technical systems.

   2. Technologies used: adaptive systems, complex systems, uncertainty management, etc.
3. The Principia Cybernetica Project
   1. Early system for distributed, collaborative development of cybernetic philosophy

   2. Self-application of cybernetic principles to their own development

   3. Early distributed hypertext, adaptive hypertext, and web development concepts
4. Towards a robust hyper-environment for KM environments: here I'm at least as much asking questions as giving my own views
   1. Strong graph theoretical foundations, possibly linking to category theory

   2. Labeled graphs: typed links

   3. Strong semantic theory

      
      
      

Cliff Joslyn
joslyn@lanl.gov
Computer Research Group (CIC-3)

Copy to:

1. eekim@eekim.com (Kim Eugene),

2. doug@bootstrap.org (Engelbart Douglas C.),

3. eric.armstrong@eng.sun.com (Armstrong Eric),

4. jackpark@verticalnet.com (Park Jack)