Paul Otlet was a major contributor to what is now called information science. According to the Wikipedia entry, he pretty much created the Universal Decimal Classifcation system, an analytico-synthetic classification system. From my research it seems that Otlet was motivated to improve the Dewey Decimal Classification so as to improve scalability. He anticipated a system similar to what we now call the internet. UDC would be useful in retrieval from such a large collection. It's a funny story how I found out about all of this. For a few years now, I had been independently trying to figure out what a interrelated conceptual web would look like. We know for instance that if you pick a random page on Wikipedia, then click the first word that is linked, and keep doing this over and over, you will without fail end up at the entry for philosophy. This is how the analytico-synthetic classification system works. Vertical abstraction always leads towards philosophy. For example, to take a silly example: bike -> vehicle -> machine -> tool -> matter -> nature ->metaphysics->philosophy. But even before you could start studying the history of philosophy, you'd have to have an idea of how to access various forms of media, how to do research, etc. I don't think my example is exactly how the taxonomy works but I think I've communicated my grasp of it at this point. Anyways, so this interrelatedness has lots of implications.
The UDC scheme is as follows:
0 - SCIENCE AND KNOWLEDGE. ORGANIZATION. COMPUTER SCIENCE. INFORMATION...
1 - PHILOSOPHY. PSYCHOLOGY
2 - RELIGION. THEOLOGY
3 - SOCIAL SCIENCES
5 - MATHEMATICS. NATURAL SCIENCES
6 - APPLIED SCIENCES. MEDICINE. TECHNOLOGY
7 - THE ARTS. RECREATION. ENTERTAINMENT. SPORT
8 - LANGUAGE. LINGUISTICS. LITERATURE
9 - GEOGRAPHY. BIOGRAPHY. HISTORY
I was searching for a model that would allow for a framework in which autodidacts can find books and create detailed notes that would be checked with AI. People say that there are lots of MOOCs out there, but imagine if this AI-based checker existed for those who don't mind studying from books. Rather than working towards degrees, users would be required to have a mental map of the organization of human knowledge and capacity for metacognition. UDC helps first in its intended purpose to do faceted classification of potential books, but it also tells us where independent scholars must start. I find the indices 0,1 and 3 to be the fundamentals. The indexing system would also be useful to communicate what kind of experience a user has similar to how classes are numbered in a university. After covering the basics, they would be competent to go out and master anything else lower on the hierarchy. Seeing as Otlet has only been my virtual mentor for a week, these are fresh ideas. I'd like to track down his written works and take a closer look into the merits of UDC.
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