Re: [FRIAM] Graph/Network discursion.

[Steven A Smith]

Glen -

Thanks for the complementary concept of "labelled transition systems" 
(generalization of "state diagram"?) to juxtapose with Graph and Network.

The trouble with reduction to a unified ontology is also critical, because I 
think the majority of the problem we're struggling with (writ large) is 
reductionism, or more generally, monism/non-duality.  I think Aaronson makes 
the point nicely here:

   Higher-level causation exists (but I wish it didn’t)
   http://www.scottaaronson.com/blog/?p=3294

I'm wading... it is a rich soup.


In microcosm, Nick's _latch_ onto the onion as metaphor for unorderable 
complexes is a symptom of the underlying problem that we use language (or 
conceptual structures) according to our temporally- and proximally-bound 
_purpose_.

A long-winded phrase for "context"?

  Anyone who claims to work only with some sort of universal, Platonic truth is 
delusional or disingenuous.  A unification of that language is not only 
impossible, but if it were possible, it would be a kind of order-death 
(opposite of heat death).  Perfect and universal normalization to a single norm 
would paralyze us all.
I intuitively resonate with this but can't quite render it all down to 
something fully rational.


But, obviously given my crybaby tantrum about "level" vs. "layer", I believe _some_ 
resolution/alignment of language is necessary for any sort of progress/produce.  To me, a collaboratively 
produced document about complexity that comes from a small subset of this community that intuitively agrees 
already, with no friction in the process, would be a useless "yet another jargonal paper about 
complexity".

So far, the useful friction I see is:

   Russ: information is required
   Stephen: nearly any physical system squeezed in the right way
   Nick: gen-phen map
   Eric: cumulative hierarchy
Wow!  I wish I could pull that out of the discussion so easily.  I'd 
have a hard enough time validating (or refuting) this synopsis... but it 
is helpful that you offer it.


I don't think pressurizing this plurality into a unified "system of thought" 
will produce anything interesting.  But I _do_ think allowing them to flower/flesh out 
from a bare, common skeleton would be interesting _IF_ the fleshing out didn't lose the 
skeleton amongst the flowers or lose the flowers by over-emphasizing the skeleton.
Metaphors abound... maybe a rough allegorical analogy to Russ's original 
question might be "do all useful/interesting metaphors ultimately ground 
out in biology?"  I think Lakoff and Nunez might suggest so via their 
"Embodiment of Mind" arguments?!


buh!
 - Steve



On June 9, 2017 1:49:45 PM PDT, Steven A Smith  wrote:

... how to explicitely *superpose* multiple
graphs/networks, and in particular ontologies, rather than try to
*compose* and then resolve the contradictions among them.   It is
ancient enough work that I don't remember exactly what I was thinking,
but it was revisited in the Faceted Ontology work in 2010ish...  but
that was MUCH more speculative since we didn't actually HAVE a specific

ontology to work with.   "If we had some rope, we could make a log
raft if we had some logs!"

I sense that both you (Glen) and Marcus have your own work (or
avocational) experience with ontologies and I'm sure there are others
here.  For me it is both about knowledge representation/manipulation
AND
collaborative knowledge building which is what I *think* Nick is going
on about, and what is implied in our bandying about of "concept/mind
mapping".


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Meets Fridays 9a-11:30 at cafe at St. John's College
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Re: [FRIAM] Graph/Network discursion.

[gepr ⛧]

Yes, absolutely! The arguments about the ambiguity of terms like complex, 
model, layer, and the capitalization of words in programming languages fall 
squarely in the ontologies domain. And that means they fall under graph and 
network theory, though I think "labelled transition systems" might be better.

The trouble with reduction to a unified ontology is also critical, because I 
think the majority of the problem we're struggling with (writ large) is 
reductionism, or more generally, monism/non-duality.  I think Aaronson makes 
the point nicely here:

  Higher-level causation exists (but I wish it didn’t)
  http://www.scottaaronson.com/blog/?p=3294

In microcosm, Nick's _latch_ onto the onion as metaphor for unorderable 
complexes is a symptom of the underlying problem that we use language (or 
conceptual structures) according to our temporally- and proximally-bound 
_purpose_.  Anyone who claims to work only with some sort of universal, 
Platonic truth is delusional or disingenuous.  A unification of that language 
is not only impossible, but if it were possible, it would be a kind of 
order-death (opposite of heat death).  Perfect and universal normalization to a 
single norm would paralyze us all.

But, obviously given my crybaby tantrum about "level" vs. "layer", I believe 
_some_ resolution/alignment of language is necessary for any sort of 
progress/produce.  To me, a collaboratively produced document about complexity 
that comes from a small subset of this community that intuitively agrees 
already, with no friction in the process, would be a useless "yet another 
jargonal paper about complexity".

So far, the useful friction I see is:

  Russ: information is required
  Stephen: nearly any physical system squeezed in the right way
  Nick: gen-phen map
  Eric: cumulative hierarchy

I don't think pressurizing this plurality into a unified "system of thought" 
will produce anything interesting.  But I _do_ think allowing them to 
flower/flesh out from a bare, common skeleton would be interesting _IF_ the 
fleshing out didn't lose the skeleton amongst the flowers or lose the flowers 
by over-emphasizing the skeleton.


On June 9, 2017 1:49:45 PM PDT, Steven A Smith  wrote:
>... how to explicitely *superpose* multiple
>graphs/networks, and in particular ontologies, rather than try to 
>*compose* and then resolve the contradictions among them.   It is 
>ancient enough work that I don't remember exactly what I was thinking, 
>but it was revisited in the Faceted Ontology work in 2010ish...  but 
>that was MUCH more speculative since we didn't actually HAVE a specific
>
>ontology to work with.   "If we had some rope, we could make a log 
>raft if we had some logs!"
>
>I sense that both you (Glen) and Marcus have your own work (or 
>avocational) experience with ontologies and I'm sure there are others 
>here.  For me it is both about knowledge representation/manipulation
>AND 
>collaborative knowledge building which is what I *think* Nick is going 
>on about, and what is implied in our bandying about of "concept/mind 
>mapping".


FRIAM Applied Complexity Group listserv
Meets Fridays 9a-11:30 at cafe at St. John's College
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Re: [FRIAM] Graph/Network discursion.

[Steven A Smith]

Given that we have been splitting hairs on terminology, I wanted to at 
least OPEN the topic that has been grazed over and over, and that is the 
distinction between Model, Metaphor, and Analogy.


I specifically mean

1. Mathematical Model 
2. Conceptual Metaphor 
3. Formal Analogy 

I don't know if this narrows it down enough to discuss but I think these 
three terms have been bandied about loosely and widely enough lately to 
deserve a little more explication?


I could rattle on for pages about my own usage/opinions/distinctions but 
trust that would just pollute a thread before it had a chance to start, 
if start it can.


A brief Google Search gave me THIS reference which looks promising, but 
as usual, I'm not willing to go past a paywall or beg a 
colleague/institution for access (I know LANL's reference library will 
probably get this for me if I go in there!).


http://www.blackwellreference.com/public/tocnode?id=g9780631221081_chunk_g97806312210818




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Re: [FRIAM] Graph/Network discursion.

[Steven A Smith]

Not quite letting this drowning horse gurgle in peace, I realized that I 
brought up the Ontology/Joslyn paper because of the Ontology issue and 
alignment/resolution of Lexicons (or more apropos Ontologies).


The Gene Ontology was chosen for this project because it was one of the 
more mature back in 2006 or 7, and had been formed by a committee of 
concerned/stakeholder parties.  It was known to be full of compromises 
and half-truths.  I was very interested (in spite of it being outside of 
my purview) in the question of how to explicitely *superpose* multiple 
graphs/networks, and in particular ontologies, rather than try to 
*compose* and then resolve the contradictions among them.   It is 
ancient enough work that I don't remember exactly what I was thinking, 
but it was revisited in the Faceted Ontology work in 2010ish...  but 
that was MUCH more speculative since we didn't actually HAVE a specific 
ontology to work with.   "If we had some rope, we could make a log 
raft if we had some logs!"


I sense that both you (Glen) and Marcus have your own work (or 
avocational) experience with ontologies and I'm sure there are others 
here.  For me it is both about knowledge representation/manipulation AND 
collaborative knowledge building which is what I *think* Nick is going 
on about, and what is implied in our bandying about of "concept/mind 
mapping".




On 6/9/17 2:29 PM, Steven A Smith wrote:
OK, we can hold off on beating this horse until a more specific and 
relevant example arrives on the scene, then we can lead him to water 
and hold him under whether he drinks or not.!



On 6/9/17 1:56 PM, gepr ⛧ wrote:
I'm not entirely sure to be honest. But I know they must contain 
cycles. So DAGs are inadequate, hence my revulsion at the word "level".


On June 9, 2017 12:37:39 PM PDT, Steven A Smith  
wrote:

Glen -

At the risk of boring the rest of the crowd silly, I'd be interested in

hearing more about the kinds of graphs you would like to talk about.
I
agree that Partially Ordered Sets are a (relatively) special case.

My interest is in the structure/function duality, more in topological
than geometric structure.  I've read D'Arcy Thompson (no relation
Nick?)
but not studied him closely, and I defer for my intuition to
Christopher
Alexander (A Pattern Language) for high-dimensional graph-relations in
a
real-world (human-built environments) context I can relate to.

Perhaps I'm more interested in Networks, though I'd like to ask the
naive question of how folks here distinguish the two... I tend to think

of Networks as Graphs with flows along edges.   I think in terms of
multi-graphs (allowing multiple edges between nodes) or more precisely,

edges with multiple strengths/lengths/flows or more precisely yet I
think,  with vector properties on edges...




FRIAM Applied Complexity Group listserv
Meets Fridays 9a-11:30 at cafe at St. John's College
to unsubscribe http://redfish.com/mailman/listinfo/friam_redfish.com
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FRIAM Applied Complexity Group listserv
Meets Fridays 9a-11:30 at cafe at St. John's College
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FRIAM-COMIC http://friam-comic.blogspot.com/ by Dr. Strangelove

Re: [FRIAM] Graph/Network discursion.

[Steven A Smith]

OK, we can hold off on beating this horse until a more specific and 
relevant example arrives on the scene, then we can lead him to water and 
hold him under whether he drinks or not.!



On 6/9/17 1:56 PM, gepr ⛧ wrote:

I'm not entirely sure to be honest. But I know they must contain cycles. So DAGs are 
inadequate, hence my revulsion at the word "level".

On June 9, 2017 12:37:39 PM PDT, Steven A Smith  wrote:

Glen -

At the risk of boring the rest of the crowd silly, I'd be interested in

hearing more about the kinds of graphs you would like to talk about.
I
agree that Partially Ordered Sets are a (relatively) special case.

My interest is in the structure/function duality, more in topological
than geometric structure.  I've read D'Arcy Thompson (no relation
Nick?)
but not studied him closely, and I defer for my intuition to
Christopher
Alexander (A Pattern Language) for high-dimensional graph-relations in
a
real-world (human-built environments) context I can relate to.

Perhaps I'm more interested in Networks, though I'd like to ask the
naive question of how folks here distinguish the two... I tend to think

of Networks as Graphs with flows along edges.   I think in terms of
multi-graphs (allowing multiple edges between nodes) or more precisely,

edges with multiple strengths/lengths/flows or more precisely yet I
think,  with vector properties on edges...




FRIAM Applied Complexity Group listserv
Meets Fridays 9a-11:30 at cafe at St. John's College
to unsubscribe http://redfish.com/mailman/listinfo/friam_redfish.com
FRIAM-COMIC http://friam-comic.blogspot.com/ by Dr. Strangelove

Re: [FRIAM] Graph/Network discursion.

[gepr ⛧]

I'm not entirely sure to be honest. But I know they must contain cycles. So 
DAGs are inadequate, hence my revulsion at the word "level".

On June 9, 2017 12:37:39 PM PDT, Steven A Smith  wrote:
>Glen -
>
>At the risk of boring the rest of the crowd silly, I'd be interested in
>
>hearing more about the kinds of graphs you would like to talk about.  
>I 
>agree that Partially Ordered Sets are a (relatively) special case.
>
>My interest is in the structure/function duality, more in topological 
>than geometric structure.  I've read D'Arcy Thompson (no relation
>Nick?) 
>but not studied him closely, and I defer for my intuition to
>Christopher 
>Alexander (A Pattern Language) for high-dimensional graph-relations in
>a 
>real-world (human-built environments) context I can relate to.
>
>Perhaps I'm more interested in Networks, though I'd like to ask the 
>naive question of how folks here distinguish the two... I tend to think
>
>of Networks as Graphs with flows along edges.   I think in terms of 
>multi-graphs (allowing multiple edges between nodes) or more precisely,
>
>edges with multiple strengths/lengths/flows or more precisely yet I 
>think,  with vector properties on edges...

-- 
⛧glen⛧


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Meets Fridays 9a-11:30 at cafe at St. John's College
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