Single Point Attractor

This caught my eye on a Google cross hit. Spooky given Jorn’s HTML vs XML joke earlier about a cinema fire, that I hadn’t noticed this Snowden & Kurtz reference to a theatre fire in their example of organisational triggers that create meaningful instances from chaotic situations. [Snowden and Kurtz IBM paper – cached copy]

A transition from the chaotic to the complex is a matter of creating multiple attractors, or swarming points, around which un-order can instantiate itself, whereas a transition from the chaotic to the known requires a single strong attractor. For example, if one were trying to evacuate a panicked crowd in a theater on fire, it would make more sense to shout out “the blinking orange lights are above the exit doors,” which is a complex swarming-point trigger that relies on local knowledge only, than to shout out “come towards the back of the theatre,” an ordered trigger that relies on global knowledge which may be unavailable.

Of course in this context the idea of an attractor is very close to Pirsig’s “seed crystal”. The right point of organisation (seed-crystal) dropped into a chaotic meta-stable situation (super-saturated solution) can create order in the whole. Quality from chaos.

Who Needs Funghi …

… When you can achieve altered states of consciousness by dialogue alone ? Interesting report by Julian Elve [Synesthesia] of an “out of comfort zone” event hosted by Johnnie Moore and others using “Dialogue”. That’s right you heard, dialogue.

Interestingly, Johnnie’s review refers to critics of the book (by Ellinor and Gerard) kinda complaining that it’s just market exploitation of something that’s part of everyday life – I also like Johnnie’s highlighting the paradox of simplicity vs complexity too.

Anyway simple or complicated, novel or old-hat, Julian reports that the conversation does indeed appear to take on a “life of its own” even becoming trance-like. Count me in guys, if another experimental opportunity arises.

Whilst we’re here … a couple of other good posts from Johnnie.

The paradox of silence in forum style communications – I agree with the dynamic value of the uncertainty generated, but at the same time am frequently frustrated by those silences that actually mean complete agreement. In a couple of other discussion forums I’ve been advocating “me too” posts occasionally, contrary to received netiquette wisdom – the alternative can seem like shouting into the void. Silence is golden but on the other hand you can have too much of a good thing.

Relationships before content (ideas) is one of Johnnie’s mantras he says. I know what he means. Actually it’s another of those paradoxical pairs – you can’t really have one before the other either way – what’s really needed is strange loopy “co-evolution”.

Social Tagging vs Formal Ontologies

Interesting review of issues around ontologies and tools for “social tagging” posted on KnowledgeBoard by Silverio Petruzzellis. Not digested the quality of any analysis yet, but it’s comprehensive with a plethora of links (naturally) including Clay Shirky’s “Ontology is Overrated”.

As I keep saying it’s not ontology that’s overrated, but the idea that it’s fixed or pre-ordained. What social tagging does is allow an appropriate ontology to evolve. The best kind.

Having Fun With Funghi

The theme of altered states of consciousness – drug induced or otherwise – keeps cropping-up in debates about consciousness in general and enlightenment in particular. Came across this Psychedelic Library whilst following up Aldous Huxley in my ever growing reading list. In this Huxley Paper (from 1963 Playboy !) “Culture and the Individual” I loved this quote …

In my utopian fantasy, “Island”, I speculated in fictional terms about the ways in which a substance akin to psilocybin could be used to potentiate the nonverbal education of adolescents and to remind adults that the real world is very different from the misshapen universe they have created for themselves by means of their culture-conditioned prejudices.

“Having Fun with Fungi” — that was how one waggish reviewer dismissed the matter. But which is better: to have Fun with Fungi or to have Idiocy with Ideology, to have Wars because of Words, to have Tomorrow’s Misdeeds out of Yesterday’s Miscreeds?

Idiocy with ideology.
Misdeeds of yesterday’s miscreeds.
or
Fun with funghi ?

Nice ring.

Wayne Booth

Crossed paths with Pirsig, under McKeon at Chicago. [Obit via NYT] [via Henry] CHICAGO (AP)

Wayne Booth, a prominent literary critic and professor whose books are required reading at many universities, died Sunday. He was 84.

Booth died at his home from complications of dementia, said Josh Schonwald, a spokesman for the University of Chicago, where Booth was a faculty member for more than four decades.

Booth’s ”The Rhetoric of Fiction,” published in 1961, is ”the single most important American contribution to narrative theory — a book that continues to be read, taught and fought about,” Bill Brown, chair of the English department, said in a statement.

Other works include ”A Rhetoric of Irony” in 1974 and 1988’s “The Company We Keep, The Ethics of Fiction“. His book ”For the Love of It” was a memoir about how he became an accomplished amateur cellist, starting at age 31.

Booth joined the University of Chicago in 1962 after teaching at Haverford College and Earlham College. He also served as dean of the university’s undergraduate division from 1964 to 1969. He retired in 1992.

A Variation on Analysis Paralysis

A contribution to the Robert Pirsig Wiki Page from Paul Taney

The late computer scientist Alan Perlis warned his readers ….

Ask periodically – Toward what end are you coding ? – but do not ask it too often lest you pass up the fun of programming for the constipation of bittersweet philosophy.”

Yahoo Follows Google in Blog Searching

Wow, 17 million blogs out there, a new blog every second, the blogosphere doubling every 5 months. Numbers from Technorati in this BBC news story about Yahoo putting blogs into its news search feeds ahead of mainstream media. Google are already indexing blogs (they own Blogger remember).