Ontology is Overrated -- Categories, Links, and Tags

Now this is a useful little article: Shirky: Ontology is Overrated -- Categories, Links, and Tags it explores briefly what is involved in categorisation and the technology-enabled emerging alternative, tagging. What I'm interested in is the theological link to my biblical theme of the moment, the naming of the animals and the theological/philosophical reflections arising from that. But I'm also interested in the way that it begins to change the way we think; to shift culture. Here's what I think is really important in the article in this respect:

Browse versus search is a radical increase in the trust we put in link infrastructure, and in the degree of power derived from that link structure. Browse says the people making the ontology, the people doing the categorization, have the responsibility to organize the world in advance. Given this requirement, the views of the catalogers necessarily override the user's needs and the user's view of the world. If you want something that hasn't been categorized in the way you think about it, you're out of luck.
The search paradigm says the reverse. It says nobody gets to tell you in advance what it is you need. Search says that, at the moment that you are looking for it, we will do our best to service it based on this link structure, because we believe we can build a world where we don't need the hierarchy to coexist with the link structure.

Language, savants, animals and thought

At first this article might look like a slightly esoteric bit of brain science about animal and human brains and minds. However, it has important consequences for the way that language is significant for human development. Do Animals Think Like Autistic Savants?: "Since animals do not have verbal language, they have to store memories as pictures, sounds, or other sensory impressions.' And sensory-based information, she says, is inherently more detailed than word-based memories. 'As a person with autism, all my thoughts are in photo-realistic pictures,' she explains. 'The main similarity between animal thought and my thought is the lack of verbal language.'"
Which would make the taxonomic dimension of human language pretty significant. The information loss of language is one of the significant features enabling rapid information transfer. I'm wondering how this interrelates with the detailed memories in the AS-person like Grandin but that's maybe a less-important issue for the focus on the effects of language on human mind and cognition.

It also occurs to me that this seems to give potential confirmation to the MBTI distinction between people who prefer to perceive detail first and those who prefer ideas to be in the lead role (between S's and N's respectively).

What do we call Jesus' Bible?

My old friend Doug leads us through the linguistic and PC minefield. Oh, and I know there are problems with what I've termed it in the title, but I wanted something more-or-less recognisable that Doug hadn't already dealt with. Worth a look: it's more complicated than you might think
Naming the books we have in common