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0 pointsmasukomi3y ago0 comments

there have been many, MANY historical attempts to organize the worlds knowledge hierarchically. They have all failed to achieve their goals spectacularly.

some of the most common reasons

- things exist in multiple categories that aren't in the same branch of the tree

- different state of mind during data retrieval means you expect the same item to be in different categories.

- different humans think the same thing belongs in different hierarchical locations

there's also been a LOT of scientific research around informational organization. It all came to the same conclusion. Hierarchies have interesting promises but fail when it meets the practical reality of the human brain.

in the end hierarchical organization of knowledge is a terrible solution expect in VERY restricted cases.

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fellowniusmonk3y ago

Do you have any suggestions of where to start reading on this? A seminal paper or cluster of papers? I want to deep dive on this not just to map out where it doesn't work but also to get a map of the restrictive cases where it does work.

edit: never mind, I just put your quote into gpt-4 and it passed me on to Eleanor Rosch, prototype theory and some other interesting works. I feel like this is my own modern lmgtfy moment.

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