----- Original Message -----
From: "Michael Brady" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
To: <[email protected]>
Sent: Friday, April 18, 2008 4:16 PM
Subject: The end of fuzzy
Cheerskep,
Is it your contention that fuzziness is the prevailing and permanent
condition of human communication?
________________________________________________
I will let Cheerskep speak for himself, but here is my take.
The idea of "fuzzy logic" and "fuzzy thinking" originating with Zadeh and
popularized by Kosko respectively is not a sloppy or "approximate" way of
thinking about a precise world, but it proposed as a precise way (including
complex mathematical formulae) of dealing with a sloppy world. Much of
their work deals with complex systems, especially those with built in
feedback.
It is my position that fuzziness has a lot to do with the distance taken in
a perspectival stance. At arms length a photograph may appear clear. Under
a microscope the image fuzzes out into a grid of colors. Behavior viewed
over time shows patterns. In deep analysis one archetype merges into
another's shadow.
My pragmatism tells me that each problem suggests the best perspectives to
frame the solution. No perspective is universally appropriate for every
problem. There a problems demanding a tight (fuzzy) perspective and others
which require distance (clear boundaries).
I quote Alan Watts:
There are basically two kinds of philosophy. One's called prickles, the
other's called goo. And prickly people are precise, rigorous, logical. They
like everything chopped up and clear. Goo people like it vague. For example,
in physics, prickly people believe that the ultimate constituents of matter
are particles. Goo people believe it's waves. And in philosophy, prickly
people are logical positivists, and goo people are idealists. And they're
always arguing with each other, but what they don't realize is neither one
can take his position without the other person. Because you wouldn't know
you advocated prickles unless there was someone advocating goo. You wouldn't
know what a prickle was unless you knew what a goo was. Because life isn't
either prickles or goo, it's either gooey prickles or prickly goo. They go
together like back and front, male and female. And that's the answer to
philosophy. ( http://www.terebess.hu/english/watts.html )
