Posted by
glen ep ropella on
URL: http://friam.383.s1.nabble.com/a-further-tangent-tp7407608p7422432.html
[hidden email] wrote at 03/26/2012 02:28 PM:
> That is, what qualities of an asynchronous distributed
> network of agents, passing messages about a changing collection of
> diverse-but-usually-though-not-always-somewhat-aligned topics (or
> maybe more specifically goals) are conducive to "rigorous
> conversation" (however that may be modeled), which qualities are
> neutral to it, and which qualities are anti-conducive to it?
I've been thinking quite a bit about how to generate Sturgeon's,
Godwin's and Poe's laws with a network of agents. But I've had to
reformulate the laws. So here they are for your criticism:
Sturgeon's Law: Any artifact is more likely to look like crap when seen
out of its original context. (Or "It seemed like a good idea at the time.")
Godwin's Law: Any evolution of artifacts will eventually produce non
sequiturs.
Poe's Law: The frequency of valid but unsound sentences increases in
direct proportion to the extent to which the language is closed (self
referent).
Feel free to argue with those reformulations. But I think they help
clarify what the model might help test. Whatever "rigorous
conversation" might mean, it should probably avoid a large proportion of
what a large percentage of participants call "crap". It should avoid
black swans where possible and, when one does appear, have methods for
establishing their pedigree. And it should be closed enough to provide
stability but open enough to allow regular sanity checks against various
contexts.
If we could build networks of agents that exhibit these laws under some
conditions and do not under other conditions, then we'd be in a position
to vary the conditions and construct hypotheses about which network
structures help avoid crap, non sequiturs, and false positives.
--
glen e. p. ropella, 971-222-9095,
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