A Visual History of Human Knowledge
Link to TED Talk: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BQZKs75RMqM
In the link above, Manual Lima, a leading pioneer in design and visualization and author of Visual Complexity: Mapping Patterns of Information, gives a talk on the evolution of how humans visualize information, and how the degree of complexity of interconnection in different areas of our lives has evolved over time. He begins with the simplest form of data visualization—the pyramid. Here, there is a top down hierarchy with specific categories and an explicit division between them. He then moves on to explain how humanity began thinking in terms of a tree—many branches stemming from some more centralized location. In this manner, we can describe ancestry, the evolution of species, etc.
Finally, Lima asserts that we have moved past this form of visualization and on to a new, more accurate representation of our reality – networks. Networks show the connectivity between all nodes and can simultaneously describe different relationships (+ or – as one of the most basic examples). He moves on to give examples of how different topics on Wikipedia being searched can only be described through a network diagram, or how social ties through Facebook or other media would require the network visualization in order to make sense.
Clearly this talk encompasses a plethora of topics that have been–and presumptively—will be discussed this semester, however, I feel as though it speaks to the biggest picture best of all: humanity, especially in the presence of modern technology, can now only be accurately depicted in terms of the network style of visualization. The simplicity of a pyramid or a branching tree no longer accounts for our day-to-day interactions. How would one depict the alliances/enemies of international relations? Would you have to make a friendship tree and a separate enemy tree? Would you divide the tree in two? Neither of these solutions seem to work. Does that mean that the system cannot be described or visualized? No, we must merely shift our method to the network perspective of visualization and one can elegantly portray the complex relations of all the countries in the world by merely labelling the edges between nodes as “+,” “-,” or “neutral.” How about an ecosystem? Is the food chain truly always a pyramid? Generally? Sure. Empirically? Of course not. Just as Lima affirms, the network perspective is the way of the future—the best way of depicting the complex connectivity of the world in which we live.