I am a patterns and Alexander expert. glen's uncertainty / mild antipathy is spot on. Software patterns are an oxymoron.
Strong words, but happy to back them up with dozens of papers written/presented and hours of discussion. davew On Mon, Sep 26, 2022, at 6:29 AM, glen wrote: > Very cool! Thanks. > > In particular, our property abuts "the ravine", which is a semi-wild > place. The permaculture categories might help me orient my own > intuition (that everything in the ravine should be left alone) with my > neighbor's (clearing the whole area and reintroducing natives). He owns > the majority of it. So, c'est la vie ... or perhaps "telle est la > mort". (Don't blame me. I don't know French.) One thing this zone 0-5 > model might permit is modularity. That blog post implies such with the > inverted garden interface. But it seems like there could be pockets of > zone0es in wild areas and pockets of zone5s in urban areas, > particularly in sprawling cities like LA or Houston. Growing up in > Houston, where every square inch of semi-abandoned land seemed rapidly > reclaimed by the swamp, is probably the source of my skepticism with my > friends' diversity doctrine. > > There's a lot to digest in the biophilia links. I have to confess, I > haven't given pattern languages much attention. It always seems > motivated by geometry, which fails for me. Of course, I'm familiar > enough with software patterns. But that's always failed for me as well. > They seem too ephemeral, unstable ... i.e. not real, convenient > fiction, and *perfect* opportunity for gurus to blind others with their > gobbledygook mouth sounds. I guess it reminds me of category theory, > too abstract for my ape brain. But maybe some of his earlier work on > Clifford algebras might motivate me? I could start here, I guess: > https://link.springer.com/chapter/10.1007/978-1-4757-1472-2_41 > > Thanks again. > > On 9/24/22 10:29, Steve Smith wrote: >> >> On 9/24/22 9:49 AM, glen wrote: >>> Such efforts seem so inherently metaphorical it's difficult for me to >>> approach a concrete conversation. For example, I have a couple of biologist >>> friends, one meso (bugs) and one macro (ungulates), who thought I was being >>> contrarian when I challenged their assertion that biodiversity in urban >>> areas was *obviously* lower than that of natural areas like forests. Of >>> course, I admit my ignorance up front. Maybe they are. But it's just not >>> obvious to me. >> >> This may seem a little tangential but the realm of Permaculture Design has a >> suite of truisms on these topics, though they are articulated in their >> unique language which can be a little hard to translate sometimes. I think >> the permaculture community represent a fertile laboratory for doing *some* >> experiments as implied by Glen's questions. >> >> A good example which gestures toward the Chan work at least morphologically >> is maybe worth a scan if not a full read here: >> >> >> https://aflorestanova.wordpress.com/2016/04/08/zones-in-permaculture-design/ >> >> Permaculture's 5 zone quantization doesn't preclude a recognition of there >> being continuous gradients in many dimensions from a locus of "technological >> closed-loop" (zone 0) and "biological closed loop" (zone 5). >> >> There is a *lot* of talk in the literature about the interfaces around zone >> 0, 1, 2 techno-structures creating localized ecozones that harbor diversity >> (desired and undesired == vermin) which I think provide some good anecdotal >> evidence about biodiversity in transition zones and acute technological >> interfaces (e.g. roofs, walls, corners, posts, fences, etc). Permaculture >> is a domain of recognizing and exploiting "happy accidents". >> >> It is also worth noting the diversity spike that happens in estuarial >> contexts... >> >> A more formal study of Urban/Architectural design with an eye to *health* >> (human-centric view) is the domain of Biophilic Design >> <https://www.terrapinbrightgreen.com/report/biophilia-healing-environments/>. >> Nikos Salingaros is a hard-core Mathematician at UT-San Antonio who >> addresses abstractions of Complexity >> <https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nikos_Salingaros#Complexity> and Pattern >> Languages <https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pattern_language> as well as >> Architecture and Urbanism. He also has some interesting opinions >> <https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nikos_Salingaros#Philosophy> about post >> modernism as well as Dawkins Atheism. >> >> >>> >>> Since then, they've presented (meso and macro) arguments that justify their >>> position. It does seem obvious that urban areas trend to more adaptable >>> animals like coyotes and raccoons and less so to, say, deer. The bugs are >>> more interesting. Meso guy found some articles that show "species" >>> diversity in urban areas is roughly the same as natural areas. But >>> phylogenetic diversity is clearly lower in urban areas. That seems counter >>> intuitive to me. It's a cool result. >>> >>> My main point when I originally expressed skepticism, though, was about >>> microbial diversity. Is it possible that bug-layer and microbe-layer >>> (including what lives in/on large animals like rats and humans) diversity >>> makes up for lower diversity in large-layers? >>> >>> I *feel* that projects like Chan's could help with this question since it >>> seems prohibitively expensive to sample and test enough microbial >>> populations of urban and wild areas, especially if we include intra-animal >>> populations. I'm just not sure *how* they could help. >>> >>> On 9/24/22 03:38, David Eric Smith wrote: >>>> It’s funny; I know Bert. >>>> >>>> One of our colleagues played a role in bringing him out to work at Google >>>> in Tokyo. >>>> >>>> A mathematician (Will Cavendish) who has part-time support at IAS >>>> https://www.ias.edu/scholars/will-cavendish >>>> <https://www.ias.edu/scholars/will-cavendish> >>>> is also interested in the mathematical dimensions of this, though I have >>>> only a glancing exposure to how those two together are trying to frame the >>>> problems. Because Bert has come at it more from the ALife/engineering >>>> approach, and Will’s interests run more in the direction of proving >>>> capabilities of broad classes of systems, often interested in their >>>> aggregation as categories (and also about the role of simulation as a >>>> replacement for proof in systems that produce complicated enough state >>>> spaces), it should be a productive and interesting collaboration. I don’t >>>> know how engaged others are in the Google group on this specific project, >>>> because I am too far outside that loop. >>>> >>>> Eric > > > -- > ꙮ Mɥǝu ǝlǝdɥɐuʇs ɟᴉƃɥʇ' ʇɥǝ ƃɹɐss snɟɟǝɹs˙ ꙮ > > -. --- - / ...- .- .-.. .. -.. / -- --- .-. ... . / -.-. --- -.. . > FRIAM Applied Complexity Group listserv > Fridays 9a-12p Friday St. Johns Cafe / Thursdays 9a-12p Zoom > https://bit.ly/virtualfriam > to (un)subscribe http://redfish.com/mailman/listinfo/friam_redfish.com > FRIAM-COMIC http://friam-comic.blogspot.com/ > archives: 5/2017 thru present > https://redfish.com/pipermail/friam_redfish.com/ > 1/2003 thru 6/2021 http://friam.383.s1.nabble.com/ -. --- - / ...- .- .-.. .. -.. / -- --- .-. ... . / -.-. --- -.. . 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