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Gus Koehler wrote:
> How is the invisible structure of software, be it GIS, networking systems, > or electronic voting machines, to be made transparent and how do we know? > One thing is to do is to require these crucial systems be open source. Maximally expose all potential vulnerabilities. Give out $100k+ bounties for breaking the software in artificial settings. It's in stark contrast to what goes on now: http://www.hackingdemocracy.com Software companies like Microsoft have been forced by media interests to provide Digital Rights Management in their software, including technologies like sealed drivers. So certainly the U.S. government could also create strong incentives to vendors writing secure open source software for applications like voting. |
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In reply to this post by allisonpinto@earthlink.net
Hi Allison: your project sounds great, please keep us posted. There is a
tangentially related project in the early development stage here in Santa Fe that may offer some opportunities: a "community interaction platform" offering tools, applications, servers, and bandwidth for a rich-media online social-network space for the Santa Fe community. WikiPolicy (or an offshoot) might be just the kind of thing that some of the sub-communities would like to have available in the tool-chest. If you'd be interested in seeing it tested in a real-world setting with a manageably-sized community, let me know (David at BreeckerAssociates.com) All best and good luck with the project, David ----- Original Message ----- From: "Allison Pinto" <[hidden email]> To: "'The Friday Morning Applied Complexity Coffee Group'" <friam at redfish.com> Sent: Sunday, April 15, 2007 6:00 AM Subject: Re: [FRIAM] Can you guess the source. > Hello all, > > This is a fun discussion to be following. The use of technology to > influence the emergence of socio-political processes & dynamics is > something > that I've become interested in as well. I've begun working with some USF > Complexity Brownbag colleagues on developing a web platform of sorts to > facilitate the "co-creation" of policy...we call it "WikiPolicy" for > short. > We plan to use the policies and issues relating to the institutional abuse > of youth as the pilot issue / policy, as I am aware that there is already > a > lot of web-based discussion and community-organizing occurring in relation > to this issue. As we've conceived of it so far, in WikiPolicy there will > be > a "room" for each perspective: let's say youth, parents, program > operators, > child-serving professionals, and legislators. New rooms may form as > additional perspectives show up, such as educational consultants, > transport > services, and others involved in "the industry" of private residential > treatment. Each room will include a mechanism for uploading & tagging > stories (either using Dave Snowden's Cog Edge Sensemaker software or > possibly Theodore Taptikis' Storymaker software), a wiki for a collective > & > continually re-worked "our perspective" statement, a wiki for the > continual > tweaking and editing of an actual policy relating to the issue(in this > case, > we'll go with George Miller's H.R. 1738 which died last year in committee > but we hear will soon be revived) and a chat space for continual > sense-making among participants. The idea is that policy makers could > then > tap into the WikiPolicy site to get a more detailed sense of how different > folks feel about the issue and what more specifically people take issue > with > in terms of proposed legislation, rather than just flying in a few people > to > provide testimony to inform the crafting of a given piece of legislation. > If it really took off, it might even change dynamics relating to lobbying. > Also, we think it would be interesting to see what happens when > individuals > / sectors with different perspectives are able to become more familiar > with > the particulars of one another's perspectives, and then to see how this > might influence self-organization in terms of decisions and actions > regardless of what plays out with regard to policy. > > If anybody's got suggestions for us, technology-wise or otherwise, I'd be > glad to hear your thoughts & ideas. > > Allison Pinto > > > -----Original Message----- > From: friam-bounces at redfish.com [mailto:friam-bounces at redfish.com] On > Behalf > Of Michael Agar > Sent: Sunday, April 15, 2007 12:15 AM > To: The Friday Morning Applied Complexity Coffee Group > Subject: Re: [FRIAM] Can you guess the source. > > "Reflexivity" is one of those terms... Nice and neat in set theory, > a relation R is reflexive in set A iff for all a in A aRa is true. > Then there's the ethnomethodology version, which means talk and > situation dynamically co-constitute each other. Then there's the > focused ethno version I learned, namely that the ethnographer is part > of the data. Then there's the critical theory version, namely putting > a project in broader historical context to evaluate interests it > serves with a critical evaluation vis a vis a model of the good society. > > Almost as bad as trying to define "complexity" (: > > Mike > > > On Apr 13, 2007, at 7:06 PM, Matthew Francisco wrote: > >> Dr. Daniels, >> >> I want to make sure I understand you. See below... >> >> On 4/13/07, Marcus G. Daniels <marcus at snoutfarm.com> wrote: >>> Mikhail Gorelkin wrote: >>>> reflexivity is also a part of cybernetics (of second order), and >>>> cybernetists think that complexity theory is a part of >>>> cybernetics too... >>>> >>> For the social scientist, the approach raises two problems: >>> >>> 1) Too much reflection means too much attention to models of the >>> world. >>> To ask the right questions means having unbiased data on how >>> people in >>> some context of interest actually behave. >> >> I take it that when you say context of interest you are inferring that >> this is a model of the world. I understand you as meaning that >> context is unstable, always shifting, as a natural outcome of >> reflection. The act of shifting contexts and perspectives and between >> models of the world is reflexivity. That's a good way to think of it! >> >> Asking the right questions means settling on a few world models at the >> most but one, a context of interest, is preferred. I'm, however, >> unclear on the relationship of unbiased data to the framework you are >> proposing. Does biased data arise from gathering data in one model of >> the world, moving to another, gathering more data, moving to another >> model of the world and so on? I believe that there is some other >> criteria that you have for determining if data is biased or unbiased >> that might not be related to one or many world models and the shifting >> between them, but I'm unsure. I acknowledge that I may be asking the >> wrong questions here. Please advise! >> >> >>> >>> 2) It's typically not possible to sufficiently influence or observe >>> people to understand cause and effect across individuals or groups. >>> The insights gained from reflexive participation will just be the >>> kind >>> of models we get living life (but with fancied-up language to >>> sound more >>> important than they are). Seems to me this kind of modeling is >>> more the >>> domain of the intelligence agencies than universities. >>> >> >> I take it that when you say that there is an impossibility to >> influence or observe then you are speaking from a particular model of >> the world. I cannot understand what you mean by sufficiency until I >> better understand where you are coming from. I think that it is most >> appropriate here for me to take responsibility for my ignorance on >> this because I don't think that I adequately explained the model of >> the world that I'm living in when I speak of reflexivity much less >> interpret how you think about it based on what I said or what you >> already know. I really would like to share it with you if I can, but >> I also don't want to bore FRIAM (I'm absolutely capable of that!). >> >> I think that if reflexive participation, as you put it, by an analyst >> could get at the world you experience living your life then it would >> be a highly successful approach. That's a pretty radical claim you're >> making! I'd say that such analysis would give some insight into >> another person's world but definitely not a replication of the same >> model. >> >> I recently watched a whole slew of spy movies (The Conversation, >> Syriana, The Good Shepard.) and I think that you're absolutely right >> that the model of reflexivity your proposing, shifting between models >> of the world, fits with the narratives portrayed in these films. You >> defiantly gave me an entirely new way to think about reflexive >> sociology! Does such an approach not belong in the University?!? I'm >> intrigued. Thanks for this response, you really got me thinking! >> >> Have a good night >> >> Matt >> >> >>> >>> ============================================================ >>> FRIAM Applied Complexity Group listserv >>> Meets Fridays 9a-11:30 at cafe at St. John's College >>> lectures, archives, unsubscribe, maps at http://www.friam.org >>> >> >> ============================================================ >> FRIAM Applied Complexity Group listserv >> Meets Fridays 9a-11:30 at cafe at St. John's College >> lectures, archives, unsubscribe, maps at http://www.friam.org > > > ============================================================ > FRIAM Applied Complexity Group listserv > Meets Fridays 9a-11:30 at cafe at St. John's College > lectures, archives, unsubscribe, maps at http://www.friam.org > > > ============================================================ > FRIAM Applied Complexity Group listserv > Meets Fridays 9a-11:30 at cafe at St. John's College > lectures, archives, unsubscribe, maps at http://www.friam.org > > |
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In reply to this post by Marcus G. Daniels
The reflexivity of the relation on the set of humans "hasSameSexAs"
doesn't depend on what anyone reports or what organs they have. It only depends on whether their gender is what their gender is. (I changed "sameSex" to "hasSameSexAs" for a little less ambiguity). So, it's like it just depends on what the meaning of the word "is" is. :-) Frank --- Frank C. Wimberly 140 Calle Ojo Feliz (505) 995-8715 or (505) 670-9918 (cell) Santa Fe, NM 87505 wimberly3 at earthlink.net -----Original Message----- From: [hidden email] [mailto:[hidden email]] On Behalf Of Marcus G. Daniels Sent: Sunday, April 15, 2007 12:13 PM To: The Friday Morning Applied Complexity Coffee Group Subject: Re: [FRIAM] Can you guess the source. Frank wrote: > It seems to me that "sameSex" is reflexive on the set of all humans. > The only thing that would falsify that would be a human who is not the > same sex as him or her self. > The set of all humans is not reflexive due to ambiguity. sameSex(x0,x1) := (hasMaleSexOrgan (x0) and hasMaleSexOrgan (x0)) xor (hasFemaleSexOrgan (x1) and hasFemaleSexOrgan (x1)) ...which is false even when x0 and x1 = x when x reports true for both kinds of sex organs. I wrote: > Are their precise metrics for the features that R draws upon, or does > the meta-analyst just have that convenience? Frank wrote: > On the other hand, some mathematicians might ask, "What has the world > got to do with it?" Other than you can get almost answer you want by fooling with the relation definition? ============================================================ FRIAM Applied Complexity Group listserv Meets Fridays 9a-11:30 at cafe at St. John's College lectures, archives, unsubscribe, maps at http://www.friam.org |
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Frank Wimberly wrote:
> The reflexivity of the relation on the set of humans "hasSameSexAs" > doesn't depend on what anyone reports or what organs they have. It only depends on whether their gender is what their gender is. Unless it can't be defined as a single thing, in which case the set cannot be considered reflexive. If something is described as A or B it can't be claimed to be A. If something is both A and B, it can't be called only A. hasSameSexAs could reasonably defined as gender identity (developmental), gender role (social/legal status), XX vs. XY chromosomes, current genitalia, birth genitalia, hermaphrodite, etc. and the reflexive subsets over a population could all be different. |
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In reply to this post by Marcus G. Daniels
On 4/15/07, Marcus G. Daniels <marcus at snoutfarm.com> wrote:
> Michael Agar wrote: > > "Reflexivity" is one of those terms... Nice and neat in set theory, > > a relation R is reflexive in set A iff for all a in A aRa is true. > > > Question is, what is the discrimination power of R? Does it ever say > false? (Unlike, say, Freud's theories or religious dogma), and if so > does it report `true' and `false' in any pattern that rarely would occur > by chance? Are their precise metrics for the features that R draws > upon, or does the meta-analyst just have that convenience? Suppose person i is a member of the group w. To get to the problem let's think about the durability of the entitivity of w. Let's assume that the status of w as real, living group can be lost or transform or fission or fuse at any moment. w ought to have that possibility (does set theory require that it be an impossibility?). Suppose that i belongs to the group known as "women" (w), for example. The status of i as a member or, even, not a member in the group is necessarily reflexive. It is also necessarily contingent upon the possibility of the word "women" to make sense of a set of people as a unified entity. Where does that possibility come from? One view is that the possibility comes from the possibility of anyone in a system, which would be a different group overlapping with w, call it h, to think about the question "what it means to be a woman" or, even, "what it means not to be a woman." Such a possibility includes i. To address Daniels' question about the discriminative power of a category, I suppose that it depends on your theoretical framework and what criteria exists for giving a category the power to sort people out. It seems that the perception is that sex is a category with lots of discriminative power while gender isn't. There seems to be some merit in this but there also seems to be an emphasis on a purpose for asking the question in a first place. Depending on what community an analyst is looking at 'sex' is a better candidate for answering the question "is person i a suitable mate for sexual reproduction?" than is gender. Gender, of course, is a culturally situated representation of sex (and more) and so it can and is often used to answer the question "is person i a suitable mate for sexual reproduction?". And gender may be a better one for answering the question "why was person i not a suitable person for role x?" where role x includes things that don't have to do with sexual reproduction. Gender is what we use to figure out which public bathroom to use. It's what medical institutions use to design the paperwork nurses and doctors use to categorize newborn babies. Arguably, gender is what is used to figure out the discriminative power of the category sex. We all know, of course, that we can't ignore the fact that female and male genitals exist and that in each individual the differences are robust and persistent. Experts and non-experts can identify the differences fairly easily. The moment, however, that a researcher puts the category to a trial of strength, a trial of its discriminative power, (say that person takes thousands of pictures of male and female genitalia and shows these pictures to a wide sample of people and measures how well male and female genitalia are identified) then the category 'sex' inherits its traits from the discriminative power of the category 'gender.' Gender is why sex is meaningful. But, again, I don't want to downplay the fact that indeed female and male genitalia exist. Here's where I get out of my domain: what are the precise metrics for the features of the category 'gender'. 'Gender' is looking dangerously like it is everything. The category 'gender' has, however, precise boundaries but one must look at the social context in which that category is given meaning to figure out its limitations. Who is in charge of the word 'gender' and why are they giving it the capacity to discriminate? Moving back to the expertise of FRIAM we may ask the same sort of question. Who is in charge of the category 'complex adaptive system' and why are they giving it the capacity to discriminate? > > ============================================================ > FRIAM Applied Complexity Group listserv > Meets Fridays 9a-11:30 at cafe at St. John's College > lectures, archives, unsubscribe, maps at http://www.friam.org > -- Matthew R. Francisco PhD Student, Science and Technology Studies Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute |
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Matthew Francisco wrote:
> This idea of 'reflection' or > 'reflexivity' is an important concept in STS, perhaps the key concept. [..] > The category 'gender' > has, however, precise boundaries but one must look at the social > context in which that category is given meaning to figure out its > limitations. So to identify completely equal and self-consistent sets of things, it's necessary to look at a lot of context. In cultural matters evaluation of context subjective and hard to pin down. For meta-analysis of published work much of that subtle context has been collapsed into conclusions and not available. > Who is in charge of the category 'complex adaptive system' > and why are they giving it the capacity to discriminate? For example, SFI has backed away from using that term much. Their website now says "common themes that arise in natural, artificial, and social systems", and then they list some of them. I don't believe that change was just because of lack of discriminative power, though.. |
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In reply to this post by Marcus G. Daniels
I think Frank & Marcus may be discussing the difference between abstract categories and real ones. Science has been trying to become more 'realistic' for some time, by talking about 'self-organizing' systems as well as 'natural laws', for example, but the discussion hasn't gone the next step, to call physical things 'self-defining' too. What would happen if we used the word 'it' to refer to systems as units of natural organization that didn't need to be defined, but only identified, and so become fit subjects of scientific study? Sound silly?? It's meant to both point out the fun to be had, and be a completely reasonable suggestion. It would take a structural change in the language of science from referring only to numbers to learning how to refer to real stuff, taking the language of physics to another level. Abandoning numeric measure as the sole subject of hard science wouldn't end the old conversation, not by a long shot, but start a new one, one having the potential of representing complex systems directly with themselves, by referral, rather than with some simplified set of equations. What you get for learning how to do physics using references to real things instead of just measures is a whole new physics and fresh new subjects for the old one. So maybe the question of abstract v. real categories could provide plenty to talk about. Phil Henshaw ????.?? ? `?.???? ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ 680 Ft. Washington Ave NY NY 10040 tel: 212-795-4844 e-mail: pfh at synapse9.com explorations: www.synapse9.com > -----Original Message----- > From: friam-bounces at redfish.com > [mailto:friam-bounces at redfish.com] On Behalf Of Marcus G. Daniels > Sent: Sunday, April 15, 2007 8:22 PM > To: The Friday Morning Applied Complexity Coffee Group > Subject: Re: [FRIAM] Can you guess the source. > > > Frank Wimberly wrote: > > The reflexivity of the relation on the set of humans "hasSameSexAs" > > doesn't depend on what anyone reports or what organs they have. It > > only depends on whether their gender is what their gender is. > Unless it can't be defined as a single thing, in which case the set > cannot be considered reflexive. If something is described > as A or B it > can't be claimed to be A. If something is both A and B, it can't be > called only A. hasSameSexAs could reasonably defined as gender > identity (developmental), gender role (social/legal status), > XX vs. XY > chromosomes, current genitalia, birth genitalia, > hermaphrodite, etc. and > the reflexive subsets over a population could all be different. > > ============================================================ > FRIAM Applied Complexity Group listserv > Meets Fridays 9a-11:30 at cafe at St. John's College > lectures, archives, unsubscribe, maps at http://www.friam.org > > |
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Phil Henshaw wrote:
> So maybe the question of abstract v. real categories could provide > plenty to talk about. > Or perhaps how to take a lot of talk (or papers) and mine it for strict or fuzzy categories that a computer could use, e.g. software like http://www.opencyc.org I think that common sense knowledge and reasoning (above) combined with careful ontological coding work by librarians and domain experts is a necessary feature for automated learning of useful abstract categories from scientific texts (and in turn scientific semantic web applications) |
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Absolutely! And 'ontological coding', as you call it, of the beginning
and end of physical continuities of events is one of the 'natural categories' that can be marked with measurable confidence. That leads to also marking the transitions between the different types of flow in complex physical systems too, that I find helps more than most things. I'll have to try OpenCyc to have any clear idea what it's for. What's the productive question it asks? Phil Henshaw ????.?? ? `?.???? ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ 680 Ft. Washington Ave NY NY 10040 tel: 212-795-4844 e-mail: pfh at synapse9.com explorations: www.synapse9.com > -----Original Message----- > From: friam-bounces at redfish.com > [mailto:friam-bounces at redfish.com] On Behalf Of Marcus G. Daniels > Sent: Tuesday, April 17, 2007 10:09 PM > To: The Friday Morning Applied Complexity Coffee Group > Subject: Re: [FRIAM] Can you guess the source. > > > Phil Henshaw wrote: > > So maybe the question of abstract v. real categories could provide > > plenty to talk about. > > > Or perhaps how to take a lot of talk (or papers) and mine it > for strict > or fuzzy categories that a computer could use, e.g. software like > http://www.opencyc.org > > I think that common sense knowledge and reasoning (above) > combined with > careful ontological coding work by librarians and domain experts is a > necessary feature for automated learning of useful abstract > categories > from scientific texts (and in turn scientific semantic web > applications) > > ============================================================ > FRIAM Applied Complexity Group listserv > Meets Fridays 9a-11:30 at cafe at St. John's College > lectures, archives, unsubscribe, maps at http://www.friam.org > > |
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Phil Henshaw wrote:
> I'll have to try OpenCyc to have any clear idea what it's for. What's > the productive question it asks? > >From http://www.cyc.com/cyc/technology/whatiscyc_dir/whatsincyc The Cyc knowledge base (KB) is a formalized representation of a vast quantity of fundamental human knowledge: facts, rules of thumb, and heuristics for reasoning about the objects and events of everyday life. The medium of representation is the formal language CycL, described below. The KB consists of terms--which constitute the vocabulary of CycL--and assertions which relate those terms. These assertions include both simple ground assertions and rules. .. The Cyc KB is divided into many (currently thousands of) "microtheories", each of which is essentially a bundle of assertions that share a common set of assumptions; some microtheories are focused on a particular domain of knowledge, a particular level of detail, a particular interval in time, etc. The microtheory mechanism allows Cyc to independently maintain assertions which are prima facie contradictory, and enhances the performance of the Cyc system by focusing the inferencing process. .. Natural-language (NL) processing is among the most studied -- and most intractable -- outstanding challenges of software engineering. Many teams have attempted to produce NL systems capable of reading and making sense of plain english text, but none have succeeded to any significant degree outside of narrow, pre-conceived domains. As shown in the examples below, Cyc-like common sense is a prerequisite for human-level competence at this task. Consider the following pair of sentences: * Fred saw the plane flying over Zurich. * Fred saw the mountains flying over Zurich. Although the sentences are very similar, humans have little difficulty in recognizing that in the first sentence, "flying" probably refers to the plane, while in the second sentence, "flying" almost certainly refers to Fred. |
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Marcus,
What I noticed in your replies to Frank was that you kept coming back with the additional levels of distinctions that a careful application of categories to physical things must encounter. Do you have a method of doing that, or is that part of the method of the Cyc data format somehow? My method of identifying emerging complex systems is really the rock bed I always return to, observing when and where the continuity of change (flow) in time series data begins and ends. Do you have a series of questions you ask to dig up the structural variety in a physical situation? Phil Henshaw ????.?? ? `?.???? ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ 680 Ft. Washington Ave NY NY 10040 tel: 212-795-4844 e-mail: pfh at synapse9.com explorations: www.synapse9.com > -----Original Message----- > From: friam-bounces at redfish.com > [mailto:friam-bounces at redfish.com] On Behalf Of Marcus G. Daniels > Sent: Wednesday, April 18, 2007 9:33 AM > To: The Friday Morning Applied Complexity Coffee Group > Subject: Re: [FRIAM] Can you guess the source. > > > Phil Henshaw wrote: > > I'll have to try OpenCyc to have any clear idea what it's > for. What's > > the productive question it asks? > > > >From http://www.cyc.com/cyc/technology/whatiscyc_dir/whatsincyc > > The Cyc knowledge base (KB) is a formalized representation of a vast > quantity of fundamental human knowledge: facts, rules of thumb, and > heuristics for reasoning about the objects and events of > everyday life. > The medium of representation is the formal language CycL, described > below. The KB consists of terms--which constitute the vocabulary of > CycL--and assertions which relate those terms. These > assertions include > both simple ground assertions and rules. > > .. > > The Cyc KB is divided into many (currently thousands of) > "microtheories", each of which is essentially a bundle of assertions > that share a common set of assumptions; some microtheories > are focused > on a particular domain of knowledge, a particular level of detail, a > particular interval in time, etc. The microtheory mechanism > allows Cyc > to independently maintain assertions which are prima facie > contradictory, and enhances the performance of the Cyc system by > focusing the inferencing process. > > .. > > Natural-language (NL) processing is among the most studied -- > and most > intractable -- outstanding challenges of software engineering. Many > teams have attempted to produce NL systems capable of reading > and making > sense of plain english text, but none have succeeded to any > significant > degree outside of narrow, pre-conceived domains. As shown in the > examples below, Cyc-like common sense is a prerequisite for > human-level > competence at this task. > > Consider the following pair of sentences: > > * Fred saw the plane flying over Zurich. > * Fred saw the mountains flying over Zurich. > > Although the sentences are very similar, humans have little > difficulty > in recognizing that in the first sentence, "flying" probably > refers to > the plane, while in the second sentence, "flying" almost certainly > refers to Fred. > > > ============================================================ > FRIAM Applied Complexity Group listserv > Meets Fridays 9a-11:30 at cafe at St. John's College lectures, > archives, unsubscribe, maps at http://www.friam.org > > |
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Phil Henshaw wrote:
> you kept coming back > with the additional levels of distinctions that a careful application of > categories to physical things must encounter. Do you have a method of > doing that, or is that part of the method of the Cyc data format > somehow? I don't have an algorithm for that, but it seems mechanical enough. Imagine taking the scientific literature from a field and converting it into a set of machine readable assertions and propositions. Now take that large and dense set of assertions and propositions and combine it with a large common sense ontology database and logic engine like Cyc. It seems to me one ought to be able to do some strong automated consistency checks, find terms that aren't well connected to other terms (probably suggesting they are under-described), terms that are handles for deconstructable composites of other ideas, and relative vague connections to other ideas thanks to Cyc's general and domain-specific databases. I'm really just brainstorming about how to approach semantic data mining to find, for example, terms that are reflexive and ways that they might reasonably fail to be. I'm certainly not trying to suggest as a general approach to understanding complex systems.. |
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But I find the variety in how terms are used is largely due to people
using them to convey *different* concepts, and not due to any variable 'connectivity' that could be measured. My guess is that the reason you can come up with exceptions for any abstract category assignment is that you're interested in how nature is both highly orderly and indefinable. Making things *look* hopeless isn't the point of course, though that throws lots of people off the track. It's that when you can narrow down why something is impossible it often shows you wide open doors for other things. That's what physics did with it's classical theory that kept dividing by zero... over and over. It was really worth concentrating attention on that!! Phil Henshaw ????.?? ? `?.???? ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ 680 Ft. Washington Ave NY NY 10040 tel: 212-795-4844 e-mail: pfh at synapse9.com explorations: www.synapse9.com > -----Original Message----- > From: friam-bounces at redfish.com > [mailto:friam-bounces at redfish.com] On Behalf Of Marcus G. Daniels > Sent: Friday, April 20, 2007 9:57 AM > To: The Friday Morning Applied Complexity Coffee Group > Subject: Re: [FRIAM] Can you guess the source. > > > Phil Henshaw wrote: > > you kept coming back > > with the additional levels of distinctions that a careful > application > > of categories to physical things must encounter. Do you > have a method > > of doing that, or is that part of the method of the Cyc data format > > somehow? > I don't have an algorithm for that, but it seems mechanical enough. > Imagine taking the scientific literature from a field and > converting it > into a set of machine readable assertions and propositions. Now take > that large and dense set of assertions and propositions and > combine it > with a large common sense ontology database and logic engine > like Cyc. > It seems to me one ought to be able to do some strong automated > consistency checks, find terms that aren't well connected to > other terms > (probably suggesting they are under-described), terms that > are handles > for deconstructable composites of other ideas, and relative vague > connections to other ideas thanks to Cyc's general and > domain-specific > databases. > > I'm really just brainstorming about how to approach semantic > data mining > to find, for example, terms that are reflexive and ways that > they might > reasonably fail to be. I'm certainly not trying to suggest as a > general approach to understanding complex systems.. > > ============================================================ > FRIAM Applied Complexity Group listserv > Meets Fridays 9a-11:30 at cafe at St. John's College > lectures, archives, unsubscribe, maps at http://www.friam.org > > |
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Phil Henshaw wrote:
> My guess is that the reason you > can come up with exceptions for any abstract category assignment is that > you're interested in how nature is both highly orderly and indefinable. > Design, prescriptive language, and abstract categories are for those that aren't doing new things. Evolution, or search, is for dealing with new things. I see no problem with having dozens of evolved languages to describe different sorts of things, but perhaps retrospectively some of them are really the same and worth abstracting and compressing. |
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Hmmmm... what does that mean? The model of evolution I observe working
in both natural systems and in designed systems is "exploration at the fringe" What that means depends on the system involved, but the invariant is a high degree of organizational invariance in the core and a low degree on the leading edge. There's got to be a few other parts there too, I suppose, but first things first. When I do a search with Google I see very little 'intelligence' of that kind in the results. There appears to be some statistical weighting, but the 'intelligence' of the results seems to depend entirely on whether my word combination captures the concept I'm looking for. I don't believe that's definable by any means I know of yet. Would you agree, or are you using a tool that somehow comes back with what I would have 'meant' to say if I had only known how other people refer to the subject...? Phil Henshaw ????.?? ? `?.???? ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ 680 Ft. Washington Ave NY NY 10040 tel: 212-795-4844 e-mail: pfh at synapse9.com explorations: www.synapse9.com > -----Original Message----- > From: friam-bounces at redfish.com > [mailto:friam-bounces at redfish.com] On Behalf Of Marcus G. Daniels > Sent: Friday, April 20, 2007 8:45 PM > To: The Friday Morning Applied Complexity Coffee Group > Subject: Re: [FRIAM] Can you guess the source. > > > Phil Henshaw wrote: > > My guess is that the reason you > > can come up with exceptions for any abstract category assignment is > > that you're interested in how nature is both highly orderly and > > indefinable. > > > Design, prescriptive language, and abstract categories are for those > that aren't doing new things. Evolution, or search, is for > dealing with > new things. I see no problem with having dozens of evolved > languages to > describe different sorts of things, but perhaps > retrospectively some of > them are really the same and worth abstracting and compressing. > > ============================================================ > FRIAM Applied Complexity Group listserv > Meets Fridays 9a-11:30 at cafe at St. John's College > lectures, archives, unsubscribe, maps at http://www.friam.org > > |
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Phil Henshaw wrote:
> Hmmmm... what does that mean? The model of evolution I observe working > in both natural systems and in designed systems is "exploration at the > fringe" What that means depends on the system involved, but the > invariant is a high degree of organizational invariance in the core and > a low degree on the leading edge. Considering scientific ideas as individuals, and considering predictive power, and in turn engineering utility and industrial profitability as fitness, there are venues for ideas to survive and also obstacles to survival. From a evolutionary perspective, it's expected that there will be a core of common descent that, from 30,000 feet, appears to move slowly, and that large deviations away from it usually will be the end of the road for the individuals in the population having those deviations. It is also expected that there will be many smaller survivable deviations away from the core by individuals and that these deviations can form identifiable groups. On the multitude of leading edges and surviving outliers, what common sorts of similar patterns and problem solving can be identified? E.g. new uses for old tools, or maybe relatively new tools with novel or accidental application to another problem. Is there a common character to major innovations? Software engineers call these Design Patterns. Others use terms like Best Practices. It may be valuable wisdom, but it is different from the innovation that preceded it. > When I do a search with Google I see very little 'intelligence' of that > kind in the results. There appears to be some statistical weighting, > but the 'intelligence' of the results seems to depend entirely on > whether my word combination captures the concept I'm looking for. I > don't believe that's definable by any means I know of yet. > Yes. As far as I'm aware Google has not yet deployed a production quality technology for the semantic web. Google doesn't reason about concepts. Not only can't it trim down logically inappropriate results, it can't expand on related concepts unless there happens to be data (like from Wikipedia) where someone has created a document that physically contains the overlap of different nomenclatures. It certainly can't tell you whether two mathematical formulations of similar models will make the same predictions unless, again, there happens to be a web page posting of someone that said it was so. > Would you > agree, or are you using a tool that somehow comes back with what I would > have 'meant' to say if I had only known how other people refer to the > subject...? I'm thinking out loud about how one might develop a system using existing technologies to do automatically propose such questions and answer them using many sources of contemporary information. I don't see it as a question of whose priors about usage are `right', but rather if stable meanings emerge. Across scientific communities, I would expect that natural language terms take on incompatible meanings from even nearby communities, and that some terms may not have any stable meaning at all (hand waving, hot air, etc.) What would it take to create a computerized scholar to compress insights across the scientific literature such that a person or computer could ask it questions and get answers either in precise language or with appropriate caveats? Better yet, be able to say "I don't believe it! Show me the evidence and justify!".. and have the system do just that. |
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In reply to this post by Marcus G. Daniels
you might be interested in: "A visualization testbed for analyzing the
performance of computational linguistics algorithms" http://www.palgrave-journals.com/ivs/journal/v6/n1/pdf/9500141a.pdf Phil Henshaw ????.?? ? `?.???? ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ 680 Ft. Washington Ave NY NY 10040 tel: 212-795-4844 e-mail: pfh at synapse9.com explorations: www.synapse9.com > -----Original Message----- > From: friam-bounces at redfish.com > [mailto:friam-bounces at redfish.com] On Behalf Of Marcus G. Daniels > Sent: Friday, April 20, 2007 8:45 PM > To: The Friday Morning Applied Complexity Coffee Group > Subject: Re: [FRIAM] Can you guess the source. > > > Phil Henshaw wrote: > > My guess is that the reason you > > can come up with exceptions for any abstract category assignment is > > that you're interested in how nature is both highly orderly and > > indefinable. > > > Design, prescriptive language, and abstract categories are for those > that aren't doing new things. Evolution, or search, is for > dealing with > new things. I see no problem with having dozens of evolved > languages to > describe different sorts of things, but perhaps > retrospectively some of > them are really the same and worth abstracting and compressing. > > ============================================================ > FRIAM Applied Complexity Group listserv > Meets Fridays 9a-11:30 at cafe at St. John's College > lectures, archives, unsubscribe, maps at http://www.friam.org > > |
Can you guess the source. - on Earth Day
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In reply to this post by Marcus G. Daniels
Marcus,
...so, maybe you answered the question, or maybe not. Take two examples, and suggest what in the world a computer could do to project associations across the natural disconnects between meanings that people experience. I think they might demonstrate that 'different concepts' can't be associated by word use patterns. 1. the product Corian is a solid plastic countertop material that became popular, and the term began to be used to describe the whole class of similar products that began to develop. Then someone came up with the replacement term 'solid surface' to refer to the industry that grew out of the original product. How would a computer be able to suggest that when you search for 'Corian' you might actually be looking for 'solid surface'. You might assume that the original discussion that associated the terms was not coded, and only the gradual change in usage can be documented (e.g. as for punctuated equilibrium). I can see some assistance, but not a lot, being provided by a computer able to mark the growth dynamics of word uses, giving a specific date to when a new phrase began to mature (first turning point ending the first growth period). The poor computer is just never going to be coding the 'idea' the terms convey for people, and won't it always be making word associations a different way? 2. the world response to 'global warming', and the model for reinventing methods of development called 'sustainable design', both employ the same design concept for bring an end to growing economic impacts on the earth, i.e. to continually multiply development, but plan on finding ways to do it more efficiently to outpace the multiplying impacts! This is easily shown to represent a profound misunderstanding of nature, that might be easily corrected (the misunderstanding at least) if designers could understand the 2nd law of thermodynamics, or if scientists could understand design, or if either studied natural systems from a rigorous perspective, but they don't. Both groups are completely befuddled when presented with the clear disconnect, because the basic explanatory paradigms don't appear to intersect. How would a computer know that the two great mass movements of earth protectors are both misusing very well settled science? ... [Well, at least(!) *someone* senses a problem and we have Earth Day!] But where would a computer find an association between that feel-good phrase and the need for 'radically rethinking' (for fun & profit) some of our most trusted flimsy notions? :-) Happy Earth Day! (I do hope) Phil Henshaw ????.?? ? `?.???? ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ 680 Ft. Washington Ave NY NY 10040 tel: 212-795-4844 e-mail: sy at synapse9.com explorations: www.synapse9.com > -----Original Message----- > From: friam-bounces at redfish.com > [mailto:friam-bounces at redfish.com] On Behalf Of Marcus G. Daniels > Sent: Sunday, April 22, 2007 12:07 AM > To: The Friday Morning Applied Complexity Coffee Group > Subject: Re: [FRIAM] Can you guess the source. > > > Phil Henshaw wrote: > > Hmmmm... what does that mean? The model of evolution I > observe working > > in both natural systems and in designed systems is > "exploration at the > > fringe" What that means depends on the system involved, but the > > invariant is a high degree of organizational invariance in the core > > and a low degree on the leading edge. > Considering scientific ideas as individuals, and considering > predictive power, and in turn engineering utility and > industrial profitability as fitness, there are venues for > ideas to survive and also obstacles to > survival. From a evolutionary perspective, it's expected that there > will be a core of common descent that, from 30,000 feet, > appears to move slowly, and that large deviations away from > it usually will be the end of the road for the individuals in > the population having those > deviations. It is also expected that there will be many smaller > survivable deviations away from the core by individuals and > that these deviations can form identifiable groups. > > On the multitude of leading edges and surviving outliers, what common > sorts of similar patterns and problem solving can be > identified? E.g. > new uses for old tools, or maybe relatively new tools with novel or > accidental application to another problem. Is there a > common character > to major innovations? Software engineers call these Design Patterns. > Others use terms like Best Practices. It may be valuable > wisdom, but it is different from the innovation that preceded it. > > > When I do a search with Google I see very little 'intelligence' of > > that kind in the results. There appears to be some statistical > > weighting, but the 'intelligence' of the results seems to > depend entirely on > > whether my word combination captures the concept I'm > looking for. I > > don't believe that's definable by any means I know of yet. > > > Yes. As far as I'm aware Google has not yet deployed a production > quality technology for the semantic web. Google doesn't reason about > concepts. Not only can't it trim down logically > inappropriate results, it can't expand on related concepts > unless there happens to be data (like from Wikipedia) where > someone has created a document that > physically contains the overlap of different nomenclatures. It > certainly can't tell you whether two mathematical > formulations of similar models will make the same predictions > unless, again, there happens to be a web page posting of > someone that said it was so. > > > Would you > > agree, or are you using a tool that somehow comes back with what I > > would have 'meant' to say if I had only known how other > people refer > > to the subject...? > I'm thinking out loud about how one might develop a system > using existing technologies to do automatically propose such > questions and > answer them using many sources of contemporary information. I don't > see it as a question of whose priors about usage are `right', > but rather > if stable meanings emerge. Across scientific communities, I would > expect that natural language terms take on incompatible > meanings from even nearby communities, and that some terms > may not have any stable meaning at all (hand waving, hot air, > etc.) What would it take to create a computerized scholar to > compress insights across the scientific literature such that > a person or computer could ask it questions and get > answers either in precise language or with appropriate > caveats? Better > yet, be able to say "I don't believe it! Show me the > evidence and justify!".. and have the system do just that. > > > ============================================================ > FRIAM Applied Complexity Group listserv > Meets Fridays 9a-11:30 at cafe at St. John's College > lectures, archives, unsubscribe, maps at http://www.friam.org > > |
Can you guess the source. - on Earth Day
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Phil Henshaw wrote:
> How would a computer be able to suggest that > when you search for 'Corian' you might actually be looking for 'solid > surface'. You might assume that the original discussion that > associated the terms was not coded, and only the gradual change in usage > can be documented (e.g. as for punctuated equilibrium). I can see some > assistance, but not a lot, being provided by a computer able to mark the > growth dynamics of word uses, giving a specific date to when a new > phrase began to mature (first turning point ending the first growth > period). The poor computer is just never going to be coding the 'idea' > the terms convey for people, and won't it always be making word > associations a different way? > alumina trihydrate. In R, for example: > dict <- new.env() > dict[["corian"]] <- c(old="polymer",new="solid surface") > contextualize <- function (entry,context) if (!is.na(context)) entry[context] else entry > meaningOf <- function (word,context=NA) { contextualize(dict[[word]],context) } Then: > meaningOf("corian","old") old "polymer" > meaningOf("corian","new") new "solid surface" > meaningOf("corian") old new "polymer" "solid surface" So, given some context, it's a simple matter to grab a subset of possible meanings or all of them. Computers are especially good at combinatorics, and can report a confidence interval on any conclusions by logically extrapolating each outcome from ambiguity in each word. Some conclusions might defy common sense though, and that's where I'd see something like Cyc coming in to play. A customer asked for granite, or pointed at a polymer-like countertop that wasn't from Dupont, and so the inference could be made that they really meant "solid surface". If you like redefine the contextualize function to be smart by looking at a dynamic description of the immediate environment, or index into different dictionaries as a function of time or whatever. |
Can you guess the source. - on Earth Day
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In reply to this post by Phil Henshaw-2
On Sun, Apr 22, 2007 at 09:45:11AM -0400, Phil Henshaw wrote:
> > 1. the product Corian is a solid plastic countertop material that became > popular, and the term began to be used to describe the whole class of > similar products that began to develop. Then someone came up with the > replacement term 'solid surface' to refer to the industry that grew out > of the original product. How would a computer be able to suggest that > when you search for 'Corian' you might actually be looking for 'solid > surface'. Isn't English funny? To me, a brick wall is a solid surface, as opposed to the ocean's surface, which is not. I understand the process of genericisation, but why would Corian ever refer to stone? And I could never understand why "alloy" was used to refer to certain non-ferrous materials used for some car components, but not the steel out of which most of the car is made. Cheers -- ---------------------------------------------------------------------------- A/Prof Russell Standish Phone 0425 253119 (mobile) Mathematics UNSW SYDNEY 2052 hpcoder at hpcoders.com.au Australia http://www.hpcoders.com.au ---------------------------------------------------------------------------- |
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