My response to the November 2 post at http://ufocon.blogspot.com/
“Can an accumulation of data . . . BIG data, as corporations and internet enterprises use it . . . bring UFOs to heel?”
Talk about big data in relation to ufology misses the crucial point that big data involves billions of widely valid, diachronically reliable data points. Everyone tends to agree on what a date of birth, a point of sale, a calendar date, a credit score, etc. is and has done so at least since the invention of the internet. Big data is not the same as the kind of information processing models that Vallee worked with or suggests now. Nor is Michel’s orthoteny an example of the use of metadata. Michel sought to find intelligibility in the phenomenon by presenting a hypothesis based on observational data. That’s plain old everyday use of data. (Shocking, I know.)
Ufology is not in any danger of having to deal with big data, even if Jacques Vallee himself returned and programmed a database for MUFON. I for one would be particularly interested in how any such database dealt with Simonton’s pancakes. Were pancakes present? Yes/No. Were they offered? Yes/No. Was the offer accepted? Yes/No. How did they taste? (Look what happened to Proust with the madeleine.) There are a million equally weird, equally significant variants on Simonton’s pancakes; databases are not designed to keep track of that kind of information.
If metadata or big data or the gestalt or big picture or whatever you want to call it has had anything at all to say about UFOs and suchlike, in my opinion it’s that that a trickster element is frequently involved and that no single explanation for any collection of cases will be satisfactory. I tend to think it’s more useful and interesting to look at UFOs etc. in terms of social/psychological construction and, for when you want to get esoteric, co-creation with an as yet undefined Other.
Reading UFO texts is very much like reading scripture; lack of sourcing or references to original data in a potentially high-stakes field rife with known frauds and fakes leaves the reader in about the same position as if they were reading the Bible. Hermeneutics, not big data, might be a better approach.
“Can an accumulation of data . . . BIG data, as corporations and internet enterprises use it . . . bring UFOs to heel?”
Talk about big data in relation to ufology misses the crucial point that big data involves billions of widely valid, diachronically reliable data points. Everyone tends to agree on what a date of birth, a point of sale, a calendar date, a credit score, etc. is and has done so at least since the invention of the internet. Big data is not the same as the kind of information processing models that Vallee worked with or suggests now. Nor is Michel’s orthoteny an example of the use of metadata. Michel sought to find intelligibility in the phenomenon by presenting a hypothesis based on observational data. That’s plain old everyday use of data. (Shocking, I know.)
Ufology is not in any danger of having to deal with big data, even if Jacques Vallee himself returned and programmed a database for MUFON. I for one would be particularly interested in how any such database dealt with Simonton’s pancakes. Were pancakes present? Yes/No. Were they offered? Yes/No. Was the offer accepted? Yes/No. How did they taste? (Look what happened to Proust with the madeleine.) There are a million equally weird, equally significant variants on Simonton’s pancakes; databases are not designed to keep track of that kind of information.
If metadata or big data or the gestalt or big picture or whatever you want to call it has had anything at all to say about UFOs and suchlike, in my opinion it’s that that a trickster element is frequently involved and that no single explanation for any collection of cases will be satisfactory. I tend to think it’s more useful and interesting to look at UFOs etc. in terms of social/psychological construction and, for when you want to get esoteric, co-creation with an as yet undefined Other.
Reading UFO texts is very much like reading scripture; lack of sourcing or references to original data in a potentially high-stakes field rife with known frauds and fakes leaves the reader in about the same position as if they were reading the Bible. Hermeneutics, not big data, might be a better approach.
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