Monday, October 04, 2004
Manhattan Project to Integrate Human-centric Information Production
Tom Adi (Innovator of Readware)
In the writing of the proposal to ARDA, we have suggested the formation of a general theory of complex phenomenon, where the phenomenon manifests as a stable resonance.
This theory has roots that go back a long ways, certainly including C. S. Peirce's work on topological logics in the early part of the 1900s. It is likely that Soviet era work on control theory entertained a theory of systems far for equilibrium as a model for social and personal behaviors. Language, in particular may be regarded as a "natural system" which has many properties of a thermodynamical system far from equilibrium.
As you say in one of your early papers:
"Letter Semantics theory synthesizes theoretical and
methodological elements from mathematics, linguistics, philosophy and physics
and chemistry. It is rooted in
the notions that there is a common root to all languages (a mother tongue),
that the logical properties of language are universal, and to the premise that language
is a natural phenomenon of the same class as any found in studies of
physics and chemistry. "
This thesis is one that is strongly resisted for several reasons.
A first reaction by most linguists is to strongly reject the notion that there is any underlying structure common to all languages. The claim that there is a single Mother Tongue is set aside almost immediately. However, some research will show that linguists do not have a uniform belief about these issues. The issue becomes controversial due to influences from cultural traditions. Of course more can be said on this, but for my purpose I only want to indicate that some scientists will use smear tactics against anyone suggesting, as you have, that there is a common root to all languages.
There is also a deeper impetus to most modern scientists. This is an implication that living systems can be characterized as a natural system which exists far from equilibrium. This characterization leads to some additional implications.
Ok, well now I am in pretty deep water and would like to get out of trouble. We know that the mainstream academic linguist will marginalize Letter Semantics theory. Because of close memetic connections between linguistics and specific social and religious beliefs, anyone who begins to work on issues of importance will face some pressure from the general population. This pressure has shaped the “acceptable” theories in the Academy.
So
what can be done? The suggestion we are
making is that any complex system has a substructural ontology composed from a categorical
partition of all phenomena that has been part of the sets of causes to the
emergence of events within that complex system. Certain mathematical concept from number theory, abstract
algebra, and topology allows us to create a specific notational system related
to the set of formative causes that are associated to an stratification of
interacting physical phenomena. This
notation is revealed in my work on categoricalAbstraction (cA) and
eventChemistry (eC), and in unpublished work on a differential ontology
framework. {^}, {*}
As stated on page 9 of the ARDA proposal:
Summary: The core team will create a common computational environment based on VisualText, Readware, Orb constructions and Orb visualization. Various means to produce ontology referential bases will be developed, including techniques that encode of parts of the ReadWare substructural and concept ontologies. Some parts of the structure of Readware knowledge artifacts will be copied into an independent means to develop patterns of co-occurrence of words, phrases, or letter combinations that correspond to specific concepts. This independent means will be used to attempt to discover situational causes related to complex system behavior. Applications to the critically important task of anticipating terrorism will be made.
Given this approach, we can now use mathematical models of physical systems that are steady states far from thermodynamical equilibrium. It is easer to create a laboratory experiment and point and say, “here is the theory and here are the results of direct observation”. We can say, “see, the system is in this meta-stable state and we can predict that it will go to one of these other meta-stable states”. Methods from Q-SAR (Qualitative Structure Activity Relationship) analysis can be used to say: “given we see these elementary behaviors at the substructural level, we can predict that the system has this set of functional potential”.
“Given that the environment presents itself to the complex system, we can measure the environmental affordances and anticipate that the natural system will express a specific behavior. “
These statements are about a larger class of natural phenomenon that “just” natural human language. As such, the theoretical foundations of a science of complex systems provides the justification for the Readware architecture as a corollary.