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From: kerryo@ns.sympatico.ca
To: supper, silk-list@arachnis.com,
BCC to: ba, lfm, rom, vj, mom, sondheim@panix.com
Date sent: Mon, 12 Apr 1999 20:20:48
Ahoy, ye lubbers!
Instead of dredging up tales of times past, I thought I'd develop a new paradigm for your eluctation: the chaotic water wheel.
Now forget your rustic grist-mill wheel; it's way overdesigned with a multitude of little 'buckets' and a halacious penstock flume shooting out over it (and no, an undershot wheel is not underdesigned, so settle down) -- after all, the intention is that the wheel go round. and round. and round.
No, the so-called Lorenz wheel lives out on the ragged edge of chaos, with a minimal number of buckets (Im on 4 now, and will try 8 but thats probably a max) and a mere drizzle of supply (dropping straight down towards the axle, so the kinetic energy is factored out). But the distinction you might notice first is that the buckets are on bails, so they hang upright -- and furthermore, they leak. This means that at any rate, a full bucket will not be full long, but neither is it guaranteed to be empty on the 'upstroke' either.
The initial conditions are a) that the leak rate is less than the flow rate and b) that a bucket is at top dead center -- i.e. in the flow path. As you might expect (and if you havent got expectations, get SCIFAR4.ZIP, which simulates this critter very nicely -- up to 6 arms) the dynamic of buckets filling and emptying is precisely what the gristmiller was not looking for, because the effect is to throw the wheel into chaotic motion: sometimes round forwards several turns, then a back and forth and a reverse spin or two... Sometimes it stabilizes and just does the rustic thing, sometimes the motion damps out (so to speak) and stops altogether with the stream trickling down between the desolated buckets.
Its a fascinating exercise, in short, and highly recommended for anyone who's interested in how things work (and not a bad 'screen- saver'/ time waster, either!)
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But I said paradigm, not tinkertoy. I was going to focus on the
'reverse engineering' aspect -- starting with 'virtual reality' and
translating it into real-life hamster-wheel and silica-gel capsules,
aquarium pump and flowerpot (not forgetting John Prine's half-an-
inch o' water) -- to illuminate the precept that the purpose of
thought is to act, just as the purpose of action is to think.
There is indeed something to be said for making such transitions, but I began to see the streamflow as a kind of elàn vital: what one (call me Ishbucket!) does under the impact seems to be a simple process of occasional 'charging' (perception/ experience) and accumulation (memory) and discharging (metabolism?), producing a modest amount of swinging back and forth on one's little handle we call 'action.' But from the point of view of the 'socius' -- the assemblage of Ishbuckys hanging together around a common axis -- the effect is altogether unpredictable, even tho the input is constant. Now the social engineers can calculate that with the 'right' adjustments of bucky-behaviour, the wheel should go smoothly round and round, and there they are, buckets on the collective squirrelcage, trying to improve their (and our) 'efficiencies': Swing this way! Study harder! All together now! ...Oh no, you're messing up the rhythm! If you dont get with the program, Wheel fix your wagon!
But from the co(s)mical p.o.v., one might ask, even if the wheel did go round and round, where's it gonna go? After all, isnt the axle fastened to the consciousness frame? Isnt the juice that is pumped up what was pumped up before, whether it leaked through somebody's metabowl or mist her completely?
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Just because Dr Eckbushets can visualize regularity doesnt mean
it can be realized; even if it were realized (as likely despite as
because of such efforts), it wouldnt likely do anything; and if it did,
its not exactly clear that the result wouldnt be to roll right off the
table.
In the meantime, it's not only more interesting to swing to a complex rhyme-scheme, its a hell of a tinkertoy. Of course Im happy to expound the Plans (for keeping the 'lost' water from loading the buckets at the bottom, for instance -- something the simulation conveniently 'externalizes' by voiding out of the 2-D picture) -- but isnt the paradigm to do it yourself?
At any rate, we now understand why the mills of God grind so exceeding slow!
kerry, bailing
David Bohm:
... the subject-verb-object structure of modern languages implies that all action arises in a separate subject, and acts either on a separate object. or else reflexive on itself. This pervasive structure leads in the whole of life to a function that divides the totality of existence into separate entities, which are considered to be essentially fixed and static in their nature. (2)In this context, the meaning of a given context, he is saying, depends on the way we think and talk about it. The 'presentation' already implicitly embeds the 'preference.' What does this say about our vaunted freedom of choice?
More to the point is to ask how, then, one is to think about the meaning of contexts -- the relation of meaning to words. As have many others, my approach here is first, to postulate a 'body of knowledge' which is sufficiently independent of language to allow meaning to be 'inscribed' on it without prejudice; specifically, graphical representation, and secondly, to emphasise the dynamic aspect of the process of understanding. "The fundamental characteristic of development is change and movement. The essential problem of development is how to initiate and guide development and render it self-controlling as a social process." (3)
Mary Parker Follett:
We cannot departmentalize our thinking..., We cannot think of economic principles and ethical principles. Underneath all our thinking, there are certain fundamental principles to be applied to all our problems. (4)We cannot -- but we do. Therein lies the human conceptual conundrum, although whether it must be underneath all our thinking is the question before the house -- or in the tree.
The beginning of a grasp of the trunk (or is it a leg?) of this tree is accepting that experiential learning deserves to share a common vocabulary with 'education' and 'national development' without regard for which 'axle' one is revolving about -- and that once each is isolated in its specialized jargon/ dungeon, the consequence is dis-integration (rather different from mere 'chaotic') non-linearity). That is, if there is a tendency towards methodical, orderly, programmed progress in one realm (by virtue of its being 'out there'), it seems to be independent of what goes on 'in here.' Now if there was a 'superspecialty' to verify this independence, nobody could object -- but there is none. On the contrary, there is a kind of self-fulfilling prophecy: those whose thought patterns are orderly 'succeed' in ordered enterprise; countries which comply with the structual adjustment programs recommended by the IMF 'qualify' for further methodical destruction(disintegration) of their (chaotic) culture, which was once recognizable by the simple fact that its denizens did not do what they could not do.
Discussion of problems in *knowledge handling policy* and indication of new software and hardware possibilities especially those making use of graphic representational devices. The necessity for a more adequate knowledge representation is demonstrated in 19 statements contrasting present documentation and information analysis procedures (as inadequate for current needs) with possibilities of future methods and measures. Reference is made to the consequent redefinition of relationships between conventional knowledge handling processes, if only in the special institutional settings where this approach will most probably be adopted.
[He compares several ways in which 'CMC' can affect current knowledge handling policy (LH column); e.g.:]
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The direction of research is governed in part by shifting fashions of credibility, status and politically determined funding (e.g. "environment", "resources", "population") which obscure the basic knowledge structure. This is only partly evident in print but is controlled by an ongoing informal dialogue centred upon the elders of the discipline who legitimate consideration of particular entities and relationships. |
It is quite evident which issues are currently under debate and the manner in which the demise of a set of entities and relationships will weaken the status of a whole set of dependent elements. Current fashions would not obscure the basic knowledge structure. Ideally the system would also act as a continually updated voting board for each element, providing an opportunity for members of the profession to indicate their approval, whilst at the same time providing an appropriate focus for counter-arguments and alternatives. |
Considerable intellectual, administrative and technical investments are made in achieving a unified standard of classification and description which determine the structural specifications of information systems. Relationships between different standardized schemes of this type are not facilitated nor are experiments with amendments or alternatives to any particular scheme. |
The information is handled in a very flexible format. A choice may be made at any time between a variety of classification schemes. Some of these may be universal schemes, others may be specialized, and others may be experimentally employed by the user. Considerable use is made of computer power to switch between classification schemes and to restructure them {tentatively) in the light of new insights and relationship coding schemes. |
The above section attempts to give an understanding of the special characteristics of the knowledge-handling environment which will be increasingly accessible, if only to those in privileged institutions. For whilst there are few technical and economic constraints to prevent such an environment becoming widely accessible, it is probable that this will be obstructed by socio-political factors, including recognition of vulnerability to abuse and government control. On the other hand, there is some probability that government agencies will come to favour and promote the widespread existence of such a system as permitting a sophisticated improvement over telephone surveillance of intellectuals and social change agents.(2) quoted by Judge, A. [Anti-Development Biases in Thesaurus Design]
Whatever the general outcome, it is highly probable that such environments will be developed for creative thinkers in key research disciplines and policy environments and for the conferences and institutions in which they interact. The key to the attractiveness for them of such (micro)environments is the manner in which the processes of thinking and communication are blended with those of storage, retrieval, classification and reclassification. In fact it is the intimate relationship between shared creative thinking and exploratory integrative reclassification in the light of new insights that is the chief feature of such environments...
