The Next Great Discontinuity: The Data Deluge
Writing for 3quarksdaily.com 
Through the topology of the network we have begun to perceive what Michel Serres calls ‘The World Object’, an ecology of interconnections and interactions that transcends and subsumes the causal links propounded by grapholectic culture. At the limits of science a new methodology is emerging at the level of the interface, where masses of data are mined and modelled by systems and/or crowds which themselves require no individual understanding to function efficiently. Where once we studied events and ideas we now devise new ways for those events and ideas to interconnect, for data sources to swap inputs and output. Our interfaces are in constant motion, on trajectories that curve around to meet themselves, diverge and cross-pollinate. Thought has finally been freed from temporal constraint, allowing us to see the physical world, life, language and culture as multidimensional, fractal patterns, winding the great yarn of reality:
Original Link: http://www.3quarksdaily.com/3quarksdaily/2009/04/the-next-great-discontinuity-part-two.html
