On the need for a Pidgin

In the burgeoning field of philosophy I call the Philosophy of Data, There exist over 150 definitions of the term "data." While, in my research I am proposing the use of experimental philosophy to narrow down these definitions, or at least explore which groups hold which definitions, recent conversations between Catherine and myself indicate the potential for a more subtle strand of research. (If we can call this science research at all, the beard says that this is Voodoo science.)

Data, like "Science fiction" and "Art" is one of those things most easily categorized as "we know it when we see it." For most people, the differentiation between data and not-data happens at the intuitive level. However, the interesting point here is that differentiation [citation needed] also changes based on context and conversation. When discussing my research with my colleagues here at UNSW we easily toss around "collecting data about Data" and understand each other as the definitions shift. Furthermore, as we're all part of Information Systems, our shared research background (despite having a range of social-science, business, and infoTech people in the room) allows us to share a common definition. The essence of our activities in these meetings is tacitly constructing a pidgin between our various "sub-disciplines" (as no-one actually can say what IS is. If we can't define it, are we really doing it?)

The construction of a pidgin is extremely easily done within the same contextual domain: that of information systems. Pidgin construction, however, encounters problems in the communication between highly-inbred fields: those of Information Technology and the Philosophy of AI for example. In a recent conversation where we were editing each others' work, Catherine and I had to pause at practically every paragraph and recursively and painfully define terms down to a basic non-technical depth. This specific articulation of terms was required due to the very technical and precise jargon that each of us was using: clearly understandable to members of each scientific "tribe" but incomprehensible outside.

Peter Galison discusses this tendency in his book Image and Logic with Trading Zones in Physics:

"... the subcultures of Physics are diverse and differently situated in the broader culture in which they are prosecuted. But if the reductionist picture of physics-as-theory or physics-as-observation fails by ignoring this diversity, a picture of physics as a merely an assembly of isolated subcultures also falters by missing the felt interconnectedness of physics as a discipline. ... I repeatedly use the notion of a trading zone, an intermediate domain in which procedures could be coordinated locally even where broader meanings clashed."

Thus, when studying how people interact with data, the "Philosophy of Data" has a deep requirement for understanding trading zones. For to understand how people conceptualize data, I have to explore how people construct meanings of/for data at the time of communication to another person, not their "objective" definition of data that they may not functionally use. By going "meta" I look not at the nature of data, but the nature of the definition of data in the briefly constructed reality of a communication from one person to one or more people. With a shift in focus to this meta-aspect, the dilemma of over one hundred and fifty definitions of data becomes easier to deal with: they're just ephemeral pidgins depending on context.