Part I. The Context Problem

What It Is and How to Think About It

PEOPLE HAVE BEEN TRYING TO FIGURE OUT HOW WE UNDERSTAND THE WORLD FOR A VERY LONG TIME; and from all evidence, there are no certain answers for many of the most important questions. So, it would seem that writing a book about “context” would be a fool’s errand. Why try to tackle it to begin with? What do we mean by it when we say it? And after going to all this trouble, what real-world problems will it help us to solve?

A seventeenth-century illustration by Robert Fludd, illustrating his somewhat occult, prescientific ideas on metaphysics, bodily senses, thought, and inspirationUtriusque cosmi maioris scilicet et minoris [...] historia, tomus II (1619), tractatus I, sectio I, liber X, De triplici animae in corpore vision (from Wikimedia Commons)
Figure I.1. A seventeenth-century illustration by Robert Fludd, illustrating his somewhat occult, prescientific ideas on metaphysics, bodily senses, thought, and inspiration[1]

Part I helps to answer these questions. It introduces the basic challenges of a growing “context problem” to establish reasons why we should bother with understanding context at all. It also presents common scenarios to help illustrate those challenges. Finally, it introduces a working definition of context, and some models we will use to explore how information works to create and shape context in the chapters to come.

[1] Utriusque cosmi maioris scilicet et minoris [...] historia, tomus II (1619), tractatus I, sectio I, liber X, De triplici animae in corpore vision (from Wikimedia Commons)

Get Understanding Context now with the O’Reilly learning platform.

O’Reilly members experience books, live events, courses curated by job role, and more from O’Reilly and nearly 200 top publishers.