Marcus G. Daniels wrote at 04/13/2013 07:42 PM: > Iteration is a special case of recursion
Well, more generically, they're duals, meaning that either can be (thought of as) a special case of the other. But, more to the point, this goes back to the original discussion of circular reasoning, but not in the merely syntactic sense of using terms in their own definition. It goes very deep into the foundations of how we think about the ambience around us. It seems to me there are only 2 ways: 1) an absolute concept of size vs. 2) a partial (staged?, progressive?) concept of composition. (1) is more state oriented and provides the context for questions like "How many units do I see?" (2) is more process oriented and provides the context for questions like "How do these things fit/work together to produce what I see?" They handle circularity differently. It seems to me that (1) handles circularity with ambiguity or paradox. Conversations containing things like "this sentence is false" and the various ways of escaping such seem to assume concepts like state, accretion, stigmergy, etc. In contrast, it seems like (2) handles circularity in a very relative or relational way. Cycles are implicit and, perhaps, ubiquitous. This seems to provide the right context for those endless conversations with people who never seem to say anything with any finality ... just round and round it goes, sometimes seeming like it's going somewhere only to realize you're back where you started. -- -- =><= glen e. p. ropella But gladder to burn it all away ============================================================ 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
