Friday 28 September 2007

Internet, inventions dont matter as much as being in tune with others!!

What did draw my attention in this entry. Inventions don't matter as much as being in tune with others. Tune with others? So, the way I see it, as if the whole of the internet community 'broadcasts to a particular frequency'. The whole? Holistic? According to, the whole is more than the sum of its parts. And there is a 'frequency', readily interpreted as a range of activities classified according to how frequently they are exercised, the higher the abundance value carried, the more prevalent they become. Therefore one who enters into the internet community has to assimilate into the activities prevalent, and go with the flow.
'In tune' and tuning bring notions of waves, about frequency, wavelengths amplitude. In radio broadcasting you talk about carrier waves that propagate radio wave signals. The radio waves piggy-backed on top of carrier waves traverse the atmosphere. The radio waves carry the information signals what makes radio interesting, what makes the difference. The carriers in that particular instance being people and the frequency part refers to their activities. Inventions, are thought off in order to improve the activities.
Improving the activities. I think that these would matter. Why don't they? Is it because the framework, that hosts the named activities rigid and inflexible and can not stand the ripples inventions might bring about? Has the internet community reached that point in their development? That they provide the tune to which every one should sing, weeding out any potential opposition. The whole story of the links and the incessant blogging theme becoming prevalent in the posts, lead the whole internet enterprise into stagnant waters. Carrier waves in radio are plain, blank, there is no variety there, unlike the radio signals they carry. If the necessity arises they are replaced.

Has Internet reached such a state that can not stand the ripples inventions bring about? I do not think so. On the contrary, inventions are continuously brought in, changes are introduced. The prevalent 'frequencies' change, the 'carriers' that resist such trends are put aside and their activities cease.
I see that the 'in tune with others' trend described above, expresses a will exercised by people who do not want to loose their prevalent position for this or the other reason, so they adopt a reactionary role and suppress potentially innovative ideas that are out of sync with the frequencies-activities they profess. They 'cornered the market' and would not allow upstarts with fancy ideas to overthrow them. It is sad that such an innovative enterprise is overtaken by man's oldest sin. That of privilege.

Tuesday 25 September 2007

Chaotic explained

You are talking about emergence. Why chaos then. Chaos because when, even if a simple system unfold its mechanisms (game of chess), the states created are numerous, unable for a brain to comprehend, fathom, include at once. And becomes an even more formidable task when try to comprehend systems that are build out of mechanisms which by themselves are complex mechanisms, comprised of simpler mechanisms, and these in succession are by themselves complex and comprised by other simpler mechanisms and so on ... the combinations seem endless.
Our poor brain is helpless, can not cope. And to cap it up the world, our very own immediate environment for that part makes up the state spaces of many many systems, all with their own mechanisms unleashed to wreak havoc upon our poor senses and intellect, trying us hard, overwhelm our limited mental processing powers, bringing chaos in. All around us appear chaotic, unconnected, a ramble of states all competing hard to attract our attention.
But there is more to chaos than meets the eye as amidst it there is order underlying and once we accept that, we can see that chaos is not chaos at all, and what appears as chaos is the jumbling up of states, the constant re-arrangements, the cross-linking and breaking up of a system's mechanisms that has to take place so apparent order can finally emerge.
So what appears as chaotic is the transition from one ordered state to another, potentially emergent states, as the interactions between a system's multiple copies of the few allowed mechanisms, continue unabated, constantly re-arranging the geometry of the system, but always under the direction of the same simple rules, even at their most chaotic stages, that define the ordered emergent states.
How can it be chaotic if its development follows a path that is completely defined by the set of the few simple rules? There is order inherent in the rules, so chaos develops in an ordered fashion.

Tuesday 18 September 2007

Chaos analysis? Chaos tools?

Analyzing, breaking down an object into its bits, objects that represent states of the world and these can be many, are found everywhere, anywhere you care to look, on earth, on the land we live, the neighbourhood we stay, our home, our kitchen, our bedroom. It all depends on the focus of our attention.

What are these tools? How can we proceed with such a so-called analysis? Chaos analysis?

It looks, as this has to do with the mechanisms John Holland mentions in his book of emergence. In page 130 of his book, I read about mechanisms that:

- simpler mechanisms combine to yield a more complex mechanism
- the interaction of the mechanisms generates complex, organised behaviour
- the mechanisms allowed will be few in kind and simple to describe, enforcing the deletion of many details.

Meta-thought: Would that last property of the mechanism concept can be used to clarify situations-states under study? Can it be used to analyze a certain situation, the object, a chaos analysis? Be a chaos tool?

How? By identifying the mechanisms involved in the emergence of situation- state, the object; and define them, use this definition as guide and classify the clutter that is presented in front of you, to specific and non-specific items to the object studied, the "enforcing the deletion of many details" part of the concept's property.

What do you mean? When you observe a certain situation-state, an object, drawn out of the world, you have a mixed background, Erich Harth's penumbrae, outputs of many processes that belong to other systems.
Systems boundaries overlap therefore when you isolate a part of the world for study, the elements observed belong to more than one system. You have to identify the elements that make up the mechanisms of the system under study, draw the attention towards the object and discard the elements of mechanisms that belong to other systems.

Therefore defining the mechanisms (which are few in kind and simple to describe) will "enforce the deletion of many details", specifically the inputs, outputs and mechanisms of other systems, intruding branches of other objects, the non-systemic elements. This will make sure that only the system, and therefore the object under study is considered.