Motivation behind this web site

My original intention, some time ago, was to write a book with a title something like the way we know. I felt justified in doing this because I have spent the best part of a lifetime in some way or another, dealing with knowledge.

I certainly experienced a variety of ways of acquiring it including school (like a lot of people), a formal and varied apprenticeship as an electrician, part time electrical studies at college, switching to electronics and telecommunications and more part time study then on to part time university branching out into more science bases including brain physiology and then a part time PhD related to the application of Artificial Intelligence in the home.

As well as working manually, I also moved into microprocessor and computer work from both the hardware and software perspectives and became a senior lecturer in microprocessor engineering at a college in the UK. I also continued work with ‘intelligent systems’, work sparked by my interest in artificial intelligence. I worked on several publicly funded projects concerning knowledge based systems and then later, innovation, motivation and what became known as knowledge management (unfortunately).

I used a variety of knowledge based techniques and continued to relate this to human knowledge following my growing interest in this area sparked of by the earlier studies in brain physiology. I also, with the cooperation of quite a few large and small companies, developed an approach to studying the knowledge resource, which is held by people, and analysing this so that those responsible for a knowledge area could make more informed decisions about this very important resource.

I have worked for well over ten years directly in this knowledge study and analysis area and have also continued to pursue interests in motivation, creativity, philosophy, thinking and brain form and function. I continue to develop software for knowledge study and analysis and also, occasionally, for the intelligent home.

There is more, but all this was really just to claim some justification for considering writing a book about the way we know. I feel that whilst my knowledge in this area is certainly not as deep as those directly involved in leading edge academic discoveries, it is rather varied and very application based and backed up with a broad experience.

After having said all of that, I decided that the problem was not in writing the book; it was in doing something worthwhile with it afterwards. Punishers are generally not particularly approachable to new, untried authors and often want claims about who will buy the book before they consider publication.

A web site seemed to offer the best of all options. I can make the site accessible and continue to develop it incrementally. I can consider making it look better when I want to. AND, most importantly, I have the freedom to contribute to the human knowledge resource in just the way that I want to.

It is unlikely that there will be any rewards for this but making a positive (and I hope it is and will continue to be positive) contribution to human development, in even a very small way, is in itself a worthwhile aim.

If you have read all of this, then I am truly surprised.