The inadequate, a philosophical testament, part 1.1 http://www.alansondheim.org/below.jpg http://www.alansondheim.org/stairs.jpg http://www.alansondheim.org/above.jpg In 1978, I programmed with a TI59 calculator, later with a Terak minicomputer. I produced a number of pieces gathered together in a publication, Syntactical and Semantic Programming. This was an extension of material I was writing on the elimination of entities and the concept of a procedural semiotics. The heart of this is as follows (with commentary, 2019) - 1. An event may be defined as the union of its k-ply intersections of its set of descriptions. Consider a set of descriptions that one might apply to an otherwise undefined event E. These descriptions have a number of elements which overlap to any particular depth; a depth of 1 indicates that every description is given equal value, and a depth of N (number of descriptions) applies to taking only what all of them have in common in terms of attributes. Depth can be assigned to any number n, from 1 to N. The union of depths can considered in various ways and weights. There are no events to be considered beyond the set of descriptions; priority is given to epistemology, not a process ontology. There are no hard and fast rules, no absolute categories, and every ontology in the long run is inadequate, momentary. 2. An entity may be defined as the union of its k-ply intersections of its list of attributes. See above. 3. "Intersection" above is defined by a probabilistic matching algorithm; "union" is concatenation or summation. The operations can be interpreted any way one wants; the main point is the elimination of ontology - which is interpretable as necessarily inadequate. So one moves among digital epistemologies, hoping for the best - not among fundamental ontologies of a real - which is ultimately unknowable (for example multiverses, Planck limits etc.) - everything exists only within a phenomenology of approach - not within well-defined domains of the real. The more one moves from physics towards the social, organic, and so forth, the more one is at a loss, insofar as categories are concerned. (Note that any description might be considered in terms of a core and outliers; the former is an equivalence subset in relation to other descriptions, and the outliers are embedded or related attributes "along for the ride." Give two descriptions, _abcde_ and _acdfh_, the core would be _acd_ and the outliers would be _befh_. The cores appear to define an event or entity; the outliers, to the extent they might be considered "sticky," then may or may not add additional attributes or informaton. This is sloppy set theory to be sure.) 4. Further, within any inadequate domain (collocation of events and/or entities), independent transformations exist; all domains are problematic, fuzzy. 4.1 An interesting program of procedural ontology may be given in two forms: 1 = Pause RST */in which 1 is displayed/* RST */in which nothing is displayed/* Both are examples of REWRITE, a process which produces the visible or invisible simulacrum of an entity which itself is in-process, depending on the operating system, speed, energy feeding into the machine, entropy wear-and-tear, and so forth. */RST is return but always already to something slightly different./* 5. Then there's this: The fine-structure of transformations is interpreted in relation to catastrophe and framework theory, anomaly ("over the edge") represented by an increase or decrease of energy leading to a jump in the fold or cusp or other catastrophes etc. Within the butterfly catastrophe, "elsewhere" can be considered as the central sheet. Within the notion of "the fragility of good things," stability is temporary at best: it takes maintenance and energy to remain temporarily within a given domain as an entity, independent or otherwise. And energy corrodes, is corroded, is corrosive. 6. An "object" is a resistance. 7. Every "object" _has_ a collocation of thresholds. Every "object" _is_ a collocation of thresholds. Are these equivalent? Does possession apply? Does the copula? 8. Every "object" is inadequate; every "description" is inadequate; every set of descriptions is inadequate; the world is ragged, noisy, catastrophic, even fractal within limits. 9. Of course it is just as easy to say that catastrophe and frame theories might both be deprecated, that we're more certain than ever of the categoricity of the world, that anomalies are only the result, for example, of overpopulation, ignorance of the physics beyond ascertainable energy regimes and the ultimate fine- structure of the world, that local entities may well be perfectly defined, once the tools and taxonomies are developed, etc. So there are matters of faith and faithlessness on all sides. (It may come down to preferences, and I prefer open and problematic worlds and worldings; I also prefer ontological collapses, for example as far as deities are concerned. And finally, by preference or tendency, I see continuous mayhem and environmental degradation in the world we live in - not only are there no easy solutions, but there are no solutions at all (however one might define "solutions"), and things will settle, sometime or other in the near and far future, into currently unrecognizable states of chaos and environmental diminution. This is not to say, not to resist - resistance is necessary, as far as possible, in spite of the tragedy we're just beginning to recognize.) 10. already errors report: 5c5 In 1978, I programmed with a TI59 calculator, later with a Terak --- 8c8 extension of material I was writing on the elimination of entities --- 40c40 ultimately unknowable (for example multiverses, Planck limits --- 55,56c55,56 anomaly ("over the edge") represented by an increasing of energy --- 74d73 < --- +++ See http://www.alansondheim.org/inadequate.txt for full text. _______________________________________________ NetBehaviour mailing list NetBehaviour@lists.netbehaviour.org https://lists.netbehaviour.org/mailman/listinfo/netbehaviour
