-- Guide to Water Trail

Stage 3: Generating Structure

Freedom is doing what one pleases

"The man will err as long as he shall strive." Goethe's Faust

• a particular nectarine in a pile of fruit
• a particular image in a larger image, e.g., area in a photo
• a particular move in a game
• a particular word in a sentence
• a particular feature of a face
• a particular wave on the sea
• a particular characteristic of a thing, e.g. the fruit is ripe
• a particular period in one's life
• a particular instance of a category, e.g., Socrates is male

• evidence from anatomy and physiology
• evidence from the development of intelligence in children
• engineers' analogues of experience in computers
• evidence from introspection

All materials copyright by Robert Kovsky, 1997.

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Kwik Tour starts here

THE WAY OF ERROR

Structure is assembled from processes involving error

1. projection

   We confuse experiences, shaped by psychological processes, with things in reality.

   ("You say flickering dots on a television screen make you hungry? You're a funny species, Mr. Human. And your drooling dog, Pavlov, too.")

   
   

2. explication

   Focussing on, drawing out, separating and sharpening one particular experience that emerges from a matrix of experience. Caricature and outlining are explication.
   Explication generates instances of whole-particular relationships. These are events. Each event includes a pair of elements: a context (the matrix) and a detail (the particular). The context-detail pair is the germinal element in the structural systems of these pages.
   

   

   (And one might futher notice that an actual nectarine is:

   • deeply colored
   • soft
   • aromatic)
   
   
3. state-step form

   a stairwise approximation for change
   

4. identification

   saying different experiences are "the same" (it's one nectarine that is deeply colored, aromatic and soft in the hand)
   

5. combination

   putting experiences together and getting something new
   

6. reflection

   Events and structures, products of psychological processes, are projected and treated as things in the world that can be explicated, identified and combined. Structural development follows.
   

   

   Structures can be notated in forms that, when activated by device commands, resemble human experience.
   

-- Return to Kwik Tour

Process One:

PROJECTION

Projection is a confusion between
matters in experience and matters in reality.

1. under the hairy hypothesis, experience cannot exactly represent reality;
2. a region, roughly enclosing the nervous system, localizes experience;
3. reality is not so localized;
4. we are ordinarily not aware of any separation between experience and reality;
5. we assume that experience and reality are somehow unified;
6. we assume that we are experiencing reality;
7. when we act, we act on the assumptions;
8. the assumptions and actions are summed up: we project experience onto reality.

Examples of projection:

The leaf is green.

The color exists only in experience; we project it onto the leaf.

Luke Skywalker confronts Darth Vader.

Actors (two actors in the case of Vader) are projecting actions and words into invented characters; and teams of illusionists support multiple layers of projection including those generated by the patron in the theater.

That is a small whale.

Whale size is a structure in the experience of the speaker.

The law prohibits cars in the square.

The law is nowhere except in the minds of officials and residents. The cars, of course, are independently real.

People are cynical and unscrupulous.

The speaker is, perhaps, a contributing offender. And those with whom he deals may acquire his viewpoint.

Smooth reality.

The characteristics of smooth reality (permanent, complete, general, universal, coherent) are artifacts generated by psychological processes and are projected onto reality and seen as inhering in reality.

Compare to:

• The always-uncertain relationship between appearance and reality
• Maya (world-illusion) doctrine of Shvetashvatara Upanishad (Hindu Scripture)
• Plato's Cave and Forms
• Kant's distinction between noumenon and phenomenon
• Psychological projection of one's own anxiety (attaching it to persons considered worthy of blame)

At The Periphery

• projection into and through a tool
• projection into another person's experience -- empathy or insight
• projection into fictional circumstances
• projection into the past or future

• the roots of experience are concealed from us
• we assume that reality is acting at those roots, especially that experience is generated by a physical brain
• we assume that the reality acting at the roots of experience in our brains is unified with the reality that we encounter with our senses and muscles

The success of projection

• Dealing with projected images is often effective.
• We assume that the images fairly represent reality.
• Sometimes we are compelled to conclude otherwise, e.g.:
  • illusions
  • errors
  • mysteries
  • disappointed expectations

Process Two:

EXPLICATION

Explication draws a particular experience out of a body of experience.

• Scoping in on a matter to examine it in greater detail
• Simplifying, reducing, abstracting (usually through neglect of matters considered unimportant)
• Sharpening conflict and using the conflict as a focus of attention
• Conforming to an external structure, e.g., following instructions or a recipe

1. begin with a body of experience;
2. focus on a part of that body;
3. individuate the part and separate it from the body;
4. emphasize that part while de-emphasizing the rest;
5. make the separated/emphasized part into an experience;
6. maintain a sensitivity to related opportunities for further definition.

• infant attaches to the nipple (Piaget, Origins of the Intelligence of Children, Chap. 1, Sec. 1)
• describing a scene in writing
• a sports coach drilling a team member in fundamental movements
• testing a financial document against generally accepted standards of accounting
• a judge formulating a rule in a legal decision

Under the hairy hypothesis:

Some matters in reality can be highly explicated -- they can be studied and analyzed to great depth and in great detail. Other matters in reality are nearly inexplicable. We explicate where we are able. Explicated material is easily projected. Hence, we come to believe that reality is explicated, when it is that our attention has been focussed on explicable matters

Implication

Implication reverses explication:

attention is defocussed and expanded to take in a larger body.

• shifting attention from a book to the bookshelf containing it
• identifying an object from its silhouette
• from actions of one member of an ethnic group, drawing conclusions about all members of that group (however invalid the conclusions)

• implication followed by explication can return to the place of beginning;
• likewise for implication followed by explication;
• explication can follow explication as finer detail is studied;
• likewise a series of implications leads to structures with terms of greater generality

Process Three:

STATE-STEP FORM

State-step form is an approximate representation for change.

• A state is a condition that does not noticeably change for a duration.
• The state-step form is a series of states connected by transitions.
• At each moment, each condition is presumed to be in a state.
• The up-and-down staircase outline of state-step form represents change.

States

Many natural experiences correspond closely to states, e.g.

• text in a book
• the layout of space in a building
• terms of a contract
• the image on a computer monitor
• teachings of a religion

Our preference for states

• we construct our lives around enduring experiences
• matters in reality attain importance according to how long they last
• we are often surprised when something fails to endure indefinitely

• disciplined muscular activity (sport or dance with standard positions or movements)
• taking turns in argument, games or social events
• entries in a database
• recipe or algorithm (series of steps)
• meanings of words

• the operating characteristics of neurons (pulse-rate modulation, refractory period);
• the success of the cinema illusion (a series of static pictures experienced as action);
• the difficulty in changing character traits or habits;
• homeostasis (maintenance of conditions) is fundamental in the life of biological organisms.

• emphasis on constants, invariants, unchanging laws;
• the state-step form and differential equations;
• Piaget's theory about the development of intelligence in children;
• computer programming.

• We need to believe in things that endure;
• We seek permanence that is grounded in reality;
• We intend that our acts have long-lasting consequences;
• We seek to stabilize conditions in reality;
• We seek to stabilize structures in experience.

The State-Step structure is a succession of states connected by transitions.

[ Planned presentation graphics. The images resemble those seen in introductory calculus books in graphs of "step-functions." Those graphs teach a lesson needed here: that the state-step form is an approximation that can sometimes be made as close as desired; but sometimes not. A difference is that step-functions are functions of a single variable, while states are structures.]

Process Four:

IDENTIFICATION

We identify different experiences when we say they are "the same."

• we recognize that every experience is unique
• we are unable to make use of isolated unique experiences
• we identify experiences and say they are "the same"
  • sometimes identification is highly justifiable
  • sometimes identification is highly suspect but done anyway

• an ongoing process, "identification for the sake of identification"
• there, it's done; but can we get away with it?
• yes, until it's shown to be in error.

• attention is drawn to discrepancies and conflicts believed to mark errors and suspected of involving erroneous identifications
• erroneous identifications can be dissolved and new structures inserted, e.g.:
  • a relationship instead of an identification
  • additional facts supporting a distinction
  • additional facts suggesting other, conflicting, identifications
  • new interpretation
  • new or additional context

Process Five:

COMBINATION

Combination aggregates experiences and forms a new experience.

• different experiences are often united in an aggregate
• the process of explication is often involved, but the two processes are different
• when explication operates on the product of combination:
  1. explication is directed at the aggregate
  2. a new experience is drawn out
  3. that new experience is "a combination" of experiences

• Each of the "whole-part structures" listed near the beginning of this Stage;
• clusters described in stage 1;
• a website combining pages of hypertext;
• a hypertext page combining blocs of text.

Combination is superficial, not profound:

The appearance is the fact.

• The process of combination is ready to draw in combinations and generate combinations of combinations;
• Combinations appear more powerful the more they aggregate;
• We want to believe that the combinations designate something real;
• A coherent unity in reality, if it exists, helps organize the combinations, a convenient tool we should like to employ;
• Grander and grander combinations are envisioned, leading inexorably toward an ultimate singularity;
• Such ultimate singularities are expressed in terms such as "word of god," "laws of physics" and "will to power."

THE NOTATION
(first part)

• explication draws a particular from a whole;
• combination aggregates particulars;
• explication draws a whole from an aggregate so that the whole includes the original particular.

• explication draws a particular experience from a matrix of experience and gives it a name;
• state-step form says it lasts for a while;
• projection puts it on the paper as a mark;
• the mark is identified with the name of the particular experience;
• the mark and the name comprise the location.

• Combinations of pixels make up letters; combinations of letters make up words; combinations of words make up sentences.
• Each relationship involves many units; but there are relatively few kinds of relationships.
• Not all combinations are so conveniently organized, e.g., combinations of voters in elections.
• Once a combination has been made explicit, it can be notated, even if errors have been made during the explication or in noticing the combinations.

• The whole generated in a cycle of notation takes on the status of a particular experience.
• Hierarchy becomes possible.
• Hierarchy imposes form:
  • strong and powerful, able to sustain heavy loads of detail;
  • often poorly suited to tasks where it is used; aggregrates dissimilar things and separates similar things.

• The event notates three things: the detail, the context, and their joint appearance.
• An event is fully explicated when context, detail and joint appearance are all fully explicated:
  • A fully explicated event offers no point of attachment for ambiguity.
  • Some locations are not fully explicated (e.g., "There's something in that forest and I'm going to find out what it is.");
  • Ambiguity can attach to a location that is not fully explicated.
• Detail and context are notated as a pair:
  • event notation (ordered pairs);
  • schematic notation (nodes and lines);
  • matrix notation (rows, columns and cells).

• in event notation, the same name is used for contexts and details in different events;
• in dot-arrow notation, nodes representing wholes and particulars are superimposed to build networks;
• in matrix notations, rows are merged and so are columns.

• Legal keywords in cases
• The legal digest (cases and keynumbers)
• Case-keywords and case-keynumbers, a first problem in multiple ensembles
• First view of cluster and multiple-neighborhood problems

• Thesaurus
• Hypertext organization of this website
• Search methods involving co-ordination of hierarchical outlines, classification schemes and keywords
• Clusters of case citations: finding "hotspots" in the law

Process Six:

REFLECTION

Application of processes to the notation's structural event generates development

• Apply projection to a fully explicated structural event
• the structural event thus becomes a mark on paper
• it becomes a particular mark
• the structural event thus becomes available for combination with other marks
• notation

  event notation:

  the ordered pair becomes a mark to be combined in ordered pairs and identified with other marks

  dor-arrow notation:

  A link and its nodes become a new node

  matrix notation:

  the intersection of a row and column is identified with a new row and column

• An additional form of identification is introduced:
  • Previously, contexts could be identified with contexts, contexts with details (or, equivalently, details with contexts) and details with details;
  • In addition, details and events can be identified with one another and structures assembled thereby;

The technique is adapted for an event where locations or the relation have not been fully explicated

• The entire package is projected, marked, named and called a virtual location
• A virtual location is a context where the details are:
  • the context of the original event
  • the detail of the original event
  • the relationship
• The virtual location has no prior experiential content
  • It is invented to serve a use;
  • Insertion of the virtual location in a structure may suggest matters in reality worth noticing;
  • In contrast, a location based on prior experience is called real, based on the presumption that experience corresponds to something in the world (always subject to check)
• A process of simplification identifies the virtual location with its secondary details
  • An easy method identifies the virtual location with both the context of the the original event and the relationship; this collapses the virtual location structure into a convenient three-unit structure
  • An implicit relationship can become explicit
    • If a detail about the relationship is noticed, the identification between the relationship and the context can be dissolved and the event categorized under that detail
    • Further explication of the relationship is notated through contexts (e.g. categorical contexts), increasingly abstracted (scoping out) in contrast to explication of real locations, notated through further detail (scoping in).
  The Way of Error

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  RELATIONS

  A specific assembly of structural events may resemble a "relation" found in natural experience.

  The word "relation" also describes the assembly.

  Relations are useful for organizing locations in ways that resemble experience:

  • order relations
  • decomposition relations
  • counting relations
  • category and instance relations
  • relations involving collections (e.g., one-one, one-many and many-many)
  • action relations in state-step form -- the Mickey Mouse model
  • relations resembling linguistic structures
  • relations resembling cause-and-effect
  • relations resembling mathematical objects
  • continuing problems:
    • exclusions
    • measures
    • direct coupling of activity structures

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  Problems interpreted on device_2 of Ridge Route --

  • Website design, including organization of this website through category relations.
  • Legal research involving simultaneous searches on disparate search criteria
  • Large-scale forms for hypertext systems providing access to information
  • Programming system to automate selection and sequencing of commands operating the devices

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  Forward to Stage Four

  

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  All materials copyright by Robert Kovsky, 1997.

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