Does some knowledge belong only to particular communities of knowers

The prompt refers to the fact that various communities of knowers exist, which are people who share common knowledge, and are somewhat connected through it. This is because shared knowledge enables them to collaborate and engage. Knowledge belongs to a community when it is deeply understood by every member of it. Knowledge and technology will be of focus, as knowledge can be sometimes spread outside of a community through explanation, transcend or totally be independent of the human community.

This is the Davis mark 25 sextant I used with my father, while on vacation in 2019. It is used to measure the altitude of any celestial body in relation to the horizon, and to navigate using stars.

This object is interesting for this exhibition because it exemplifies knowledge which belongs only to certain communities of knowers, made up of people who know how to operate it, mostly sailors. The functioning of this object is not intuitive, and an expert is needed in order to learn how to use it, as in my case. This shows how, for some knowledge, especially in the field of technology, only a particular community possesses the technical understanding and know-how, as stated in the prompt. With some kinds of knowledge, communities of knowers are closed, unless somebody who is inside the community decides to expand the community through explanation of their knowledge, as happened with me and my father. A person already inside the community needs to function as a bridge in order for someone to become part of it. This is a fundamental step: in certain cases, the only way to become part of a community of knowers is to obtain the technical knowledge related with that community. If there are no means of acquiring it, then there is no way to become part of that community. The fact that the community is cut off from the outside if no member of it explains the knowledge to someone external shows how certain knowledge belongs only to particular communities of knowers. This is because there is a difference between the people inside a community, who possess specific technological knowledge, and the people outside it, who don’t.

This is the Mapex tuning key I use to tune my Mapex Saturn III drum set. I have used it since I started playing the drums, when I was 7 years old. I was taught its use by my teacher, and I have developed my ear to fine tune the drum kit.

I chose to include this tuning key in my exhibition because it is an object that I, and most drummers, are familiar with, and own the knowledge required to fulfil the task it is designed to do - tune a drum kit. The technical knowledge related to this object belongs only to a certain community of knowers, which is the one of drummers. Furthermore, this object represents interpretation and subjectivity, showing how there can be different sub-communities inside of a wider community of knowers. This can lead to issues in identifying a particular community, as stated in the prompt, because, granted that there is a common knowledge that all members of the community have, there can be different types of knowledge that can be categorised as different sub-communities. For example, drummers in different music genres will tune their drum kits in a particular way, and for this reason the technical knowledge they have will be more specialised in tuning the kit in that way. A drummer playing jazz music will be better at tuning a drum kit in order to play jazz, because they will have mastered the general knowledge of tuning a drum kit in the specific music genre of jazz. This shows how there is technical knowledge that belongs to particular communities of knowers, as stated in the prompt, however these communities can be divided themselves in further sub-communities.

Cleverbot is a web application, available at cleverbot.com, created by Nello Carpenter and put online in 1997. It is based on artificial intelligence (AI), and it enables the user to have a “conversation” with the machine. The user types a sentence (black text), and the machine replies (blue, bold text).

In the case of this object, it can be said that the precise knowledge related to its functioning, especially the program it uses to reply, doesn't belong to any community of knowers. This is because AIs develop code autonomously, through machine learning, thus not even the programmers that create machines know the precise code that governs it. The programmers know that the bot trained itself on huge amounts of data, but they cannot have a precise idea of the exact functioning of the application, as it is based on a neural network which is the result of the training, which the bot went through autonomously. As a consequence of this, there is no exhaustive and detailed explanation of the functioning of any AI, and this absence of technical knowledge linked to them makes it so that knowledge with a high degree of certainty on the code that governs artificial intelligences does not belong to any particular community of knowers. This object shows how, in our days, technological knowledge is becoming independent from human knowledge and can develop autonomously from it, and how knowledge related to technology, doesn’t belong to any community of knowers.

In conclusion, no definitive answer can be given to the question in the prompt, as shown by the three objects and the analysis. This is because there are various instances of different types of knowledge that belong to communities of knowers, while others belong to none. This is because certain technological knowledge can separate from human knowledge, and become independent from the community of knowers.