Wednesday 26 September 2007

Introducing chaos into our lives. Its creative potential.

"The complexity increases when multiple copies of the basic mechanisms are allowed"
Post it as an incentive to pursue that line of thought. What can a basic mechanism be and how can this affect or bring chaos in an individual's life? A mechanism in an individual's life can be a habit, a norm followed, a routine. A prescribed reaction to a situation or circumstance the individual comes upon while at work or at home or during recreation. So if a routine is a mechanism, with its very own transition function, the algorithm that tells us what to do in each step of the mechanism adopted in the routine. The multiple copies of these routines is what defines our contact with other people in our surroundings, and become multiples as they are repeated in every encounter with other people. It builds an element of consistency and increases the complexity. Let's follow the thought. Increasing the complexity it means we have an extended substrate to respond to incoming inputs. That we have a ready made output for almost every input possible. To build multiple copies of a routine you would be required to open your circle and meet more and more people, with whom you will exercise your routine and multiply it. Get involved. Multiple copies then complexity increases.
Extracts from John H. Holland which will provide a lead to tackle this problem. I quote: p.128, "Within this setting, it is the interaction of the mechanisms that generates complex, organised behaviour." And "Still, the interactions provide possibilities not easily anticipated by inspection of the individual mechanisms." And "links can be made and broken ... changing the underlying geometry." On p.76 "Learning in complex environments requires a defined procedure from discerning early actions that set up later, obviously good responses" and "In multiagent environments, emergent phenomena often arise from the anticipation of the actions of other agents" and "This ability to generate extreme complexity from simple specifications is daunting because it assures that complexity will be pervasive in the world around us. At the same time, it gives hope that we can find simple rule-governed models of that complexity. Generated complexity is essential to emergence .." One thing to do is define the state space that encompasses all the states possible that has to do with an individual's personality and character. By doing so that will determine the available states as they are defined by the individual's traits, these be physical, mental emotional, psychological and will determine the trajectory of states in the tree of states. We expect to have more than mechanism that are responsible for bringing out the succession of states. Still we expect that these would be few and simple to describe.
A factor that should be considered as becoming potentially one of the mechanisms employed by an individual, and involved in the interactions allowed between the mechanisms are expressed as ulterior motives, which usually are alien to the traits of the given individual and compromises the fidelity of expression as demanded by he individual's traits and are detrimental in its conduct with other individuals.

The multiple copies of these routines, the basic mechanisms, as they are carried out by every individual, finally give rise to cultures. But the point is how to connect this with an individual's life. Each would probably follow a routine. That is right. And now what? you mean that this routine should be reiterated, multiple copies. Ye, you do that. So?

Tuesday 25 September 2007

Thoughts about rules and their universal application

The following extracts from John H. Holland's "emergence, from chaos to order" book grabbed my attention and triggered thoughts in my mind. I quote from p.126: "translate the notion of rule (e.g. the rule of jumping in checkers, or Hebb's rule) into the notion of mechanism" and "as with rules for games, or laws for a physical system, mechanisms will be used as the defining elements of the system".
In a likewise manner rules and the mechanisms derived hold for the events that determine our lives. Rules that extend from the laws legislated in parliaments to the highway code, to codes of conduct in almost every establishment, companies, hospitals, universities, schools and even unwritten rules, the rules that define the conduct of individuals in respect to other individuals as well as their immediate environment. I feel compelled that I should find a guide to make sense out of them, analyse them, using techniques such as meta-knowledge, knowledge about knowledge as the definition prescribes, which I see it as an introspection on the effects each rule has on our lives and in the lives of other individuals around us and the surrounding environment. Questions to be answered would be 'Why did I do that?', 'For what purpose?', 'How did that affect me?', 'How did affect people around me?', 'How did it affect the place I live in?' Answers to questions along these lines, will help in defining our responses, the mechanisms we employ while we apply the rules that abide to the particular environment we find ourselves in. The end result would be, to avoid being a user, and the following states elaborate the term user; a feeling of being dragged along, helpless pawn, overwhelmed by the circumstances, caught unaware, left baffled, unprepared. Instead develop educated responses which will enable a better understanding of the motives behind our actions and the actions of the people that surround us.
An obstacle in such an attempt has to do with the enormous amount of information that we have to deal with, which is apparent to us as chaos and the situations as chaotic, we have to bear in mind that as John H. Holland proclaims "the mechanisms allowed are few in kind and simple to describe". So by continuously sorting out the rumble that we come across in our every day lives, we will be able to define the elements, the simple mechanisms that bide the systems we live in, our code of behaviour and conduct with other individuals in our surroundings, and become immune to ways alien to our character and personality, to adopt a coherent mode of life.

Saturday 22 September 2007

Raw ideas, grab them as they come

I was thinking earlier on, of what I have been exposed during the day before, all the pieces of information that entered my mind and the reactions they triggered within me. The German anatomist guy with the plastination of human corpses, though not about the plastination process itself but the establishment of the factory for plastinising corpses in, as it was called, a German (economically and otherwise) deprived area.

It struck me bad the existence in a flourishing Germany, of people that could not have jobs and as a result their neighborhoods were run down and the people themselves led restricted lives. No doubt the German economy as a whole is not run down and there are other areas which are flourishing and the people there lead better lives. These disparate effects, a result of what is driven into the minds of individuals about getting rich, to have more than you need, even if you do not know what to do with it, economies built on excess. Just put it into coffers and let it lie there.

Politicians flood our memory registers with messages about thriving economies. Economies based on deep-rooted structures of convergence-divergence; converging wealth to gradually fewer and fewer people and diverging misery to ever larger populations.

Growth in thriving economies introduce discrepancies in wealth distribution. Takings and people benefiting, follow opposite trajectories, while takings diverge, individuals benefiting converge. Less and less people enjoy the benefits of a thriving economy.

The radio blared in this unsolicited advert of a named company that promises their customers and whoever is interested on their wares, that it will create property millionaires. I find it disgusting, vile, they should not be allowed to. It is a disease and should be avoided and if not they should carry warnings, in the same way cigarette packs carry.

Like "Adhering to this message would cause serious harm to society, to the people around you, to your environment. It would push property prices sky high and would drive to misery thousand of your fellow citizens".

These kind of adverts should never be run, by any form of media.