[FRIAM] FW: Fractal discussion Landscape-bird songs

[Carl Tollander]

In another realm, look at Japanese transverse flutes ("shinobue" or simply
"fue").   So-called modern flutes are tuned to a western scale so that you
can get people from different parts of the world to play songs to some
reference.   For example, I have a #8 "uta" flute that is tuned to C, and
#6 "uta" hat is tuned to B flat.   You can see this in the varied spacing,
shape and diameter of holes from the major flute makers.  However, due to
the geography of Japan (central mountain ranges as an island "spine", short
rivers, many deep and nearly parallel valleys) there are many individual
traditional musics that share less of a standard.  A #6 "hayashi" flute
from nearby valley festivals is an approximate size; the hole size and
spacing is handed down; there's not much of a common scale.   So while you
see some similarities in song between different valley communities, the
actual notes produced have a lot of variation.   These differences persist
to the present internet , tunnel and train-infested day.   One can go to a
shop in Asakusa in Tokyo  and see many barrels of  recently produced
hayashi flutes from different regions of every shape and size.   This
speaks I think to my notion of the importance of development and there is
probably some analog to birdsong.

C


On Fri, Feb 17, 2017 at 12:19 AM, Carl Tollander <carl at plektyx.com> wrote:

> Well, there's order, duration, frequency and a bunch of other stuff.
> There is work from the signal analysis world, where people are concerned
> with fractal structure in signals as a means of compression, and tho its
> been years since I've done neural nets, I imagine heartbeats or nervous
> system signaling would qualify.
>
> As you remember, I am especially concerned with continuous
> developmental/learning aspects, rather than specific adult organisms at a
> specific time in some stable environment.  That said at my age I am of
> course biased.
>
> In my realm there is a figure-ground relationship at different scales
> between the developing traditions, the drummers, the individuals in the
> local group playing some arranged piece in the developing tradition, the
> drum itself (driven amplifier dynamics), drum design (much beyond
> membranophone descriptions and into wood types, metamaterials, turbulent
> flow, variance in the thickness and biology of skins and stretching
> processes, and such), the physics of the drum at the time it is played
> (humidity, temperature, what's happening in the drum next to it, how
> quickly it responds to that and the individual strike, the shape, mass,
> elasticity and internal qualities of the drumsticks, a large number of
> physiological qualities of the individual drummer and how each drummer
> works with focus, efficiency of motion and process,  the acoustic
> environment of the venue, the many ways in which the audience or a
> particular kind of audience responds and in which you can evoke or respond
> to those qualities.  So a complex drumbeat to me might not necessarily mean
> a sequence of beats, but rather a single beat in which all those qualities
> come together coherently (to me or anyone present now or in history) in a
> single hit.   Even if the state space of the aforementioned qualities is
> not precisely knowable just now.
>
> I don't imagine this is particularly different for any musician or that it
> necessarily qualifies as complex as you might mean it.   I'm certainly
> willing for that bar to be high.  As some say, you are the instrument, the
> voyage makes the captain, etc.
>
> Tying back to "temporal fracticality", the notion of temporal direction
> can maybe get factored out (a la Tralfamidorians) , ie many birds through
> their song are trying to get laid (temporal pun intended).   The eaglet is
> the father of the eagle, neh?. We make assumptions about how birds
> experience time.   There seems to be a "temporal emergent locality" that
> defines the horizons of temporal self-similarity (there's a lot of
> "emergent locality" stuff in the physics literature - not sure it applies
> here).
>
> C
>
>
> On Thu, Feb 16, 2017 at 11:22 PM, Nick Thompson <
> nickthompson at earthlink.net> wrote:
>
>> Hi, Carl,
>>
>>
>>
>> Good to hear your “voice” again?
>>
>>
>>
>> I think you might be the person best positioned in my life to talk to me
>> about temporal fractality.  Are complex drumbeats fractal; and in what
>> degree?
>>
>>
>>
>> Am I over stretching the term?
>>
>>
>>
>> Nick
>>
>>
>>
>>
>>
>>
>>
>> Nicholas S. Thompson
>>
>> Emeritus Professor of Psychology and Biology
>>
>> Clark University
>>
>> http://home.earthlink.net/~nickthompson/naturaldesigns/
>>
>>
>>
>> *From:* Friam [mailto:friam-bounces at redfish.com] *On Behalf Of *Carl
>> Tollander
>> *Sent:* Thursday, February 16, 2017 10:49 PM
>> *To:* The Friday Morning Applied Complexity Coffee Group <
>> friam at redfish.com>
>> *Subject:* Re: [FRIAM] FW: Fractal discussion Landscape-bird songs
>>
>>
>>
>> Many birds do tend to migrate, so wondering what "stable environment"
>> means here.
>>
>>
>>
>> Also thinking there is at play the developmental  environment (extended
>> time of egg-to-bird-of-the-now) of the bird, as well as the outer
>> moment-of-the-song environment.   How does one talk about developmental
>> self-similarity?    (we have L-systems for simulated plant growth and so
>> on).    As I recall from back in the day, self-similarity has limiting
>> scale horizons, where particular dimensions of growth or development
>> dominate to support the self-similarity.
>>
>>
>>
>> C
>>
>>
>>
>> On Wed, Feb 15, 2017 at 6:05 PM, Steven A Smith <sasmyth at swcp.com> wrote:
>>
>> Nick -
>>
>> This is one of your (wonderfully, and I mean that seriously) naive
>> questions, and the naive answer is yes, they are surely coupled.   I'm very
>> interested in "soundscapes"  so am often very aware of both the complex
>> passive structure of most soundscapes (especially landscape vs urbanscape)
>> and the active (birdsongs, garbage trucks, wind in the willows, sirens,
>> ice-floes, domestic disturbances) elements.
>>
>> You are likely to have a better idea than I do about whether bird's songs
>> are likely to be *formulated* in a more or less complex manner when in a
>> complex "landscape".   I would guess yes to this.    I would guess that the
>> three most relevant scales are roughly the scale of the bird's body, it's
>> food-source, and it's natural predators.   How well can it hide, how well
>> can it's food hide, and how well does it's predator hide.   I"m sure this
>> is an overly simplified model.
>>
>> I think rather than fractal (literally), the more relevant concept is
>> "with structure at many scales".
>>
>> IN any case, welcome to Alberto!  My own daughter happens to be a
>> researcher in Flaviviruses, traditionally West Nile and Dingue, but now is
>> drawn into the Zika thing...   I look forward to hearing more from you
>> Alberto!
>>
>>  - Steve
>>
>>
>>
>> On 2/15/17 3:57 PM, Nick Thompson wrote:
>>
>> Helloooo, List,
>>
>>
>>
>> I would like to introduce to you Alberto Alaniz (who describes himself in
>> the communication below).  I “met” him on Research Gate when he downloaded
>> a paper of mine on the structural organization of bird song.  I noticed
>> that he was writing from a Landscape Department, and I thought, “A
>> landscape person who is interested in birdsong! He must be interested in
>> fractals!”  And I was right.  So please welcome him.  Steve please note?
>>
>>
>>
>> The idea of his that I particularly want to hear you discuss is his
>> notion that fractality (is that a word?) in one domain can effect, affect,
>> impose? fractality in another.  So is there a relationship between the
>> fractality which my research revealed in the organization of bird song and
>> the fractality of the landscapes on which bird behavior is deployed.
>>
>>
>>
>> I particularly wonder what Kim  Sorvig and Jenny Quillen and ProfDave
>> think about this, but also wonder if others on the list could put an oar
>> in.
>>
>>
>>
>> Thanks,
>>
>>
>>
>> Nick
>>
>>
>>
>>
>>
>> Nicholas S. Thompson
>>
>> Emeritus Professor of Psychology and Biology
>>
>> Clark University
>>
>> http://home.earthlink.net/~nickthompson/naturaldesigns/
>>
>>
>>
>> *From:* Alberto Jose Alaniz [mailto:alberto.alaniz at ug.uchile.cl
>> <alberto.alaniz at ug.uchile.cl>]
>> *Sent:* Wednesday, February 15, 2017 2:21 PM
>> *To:* nthompson at clarku.edu
>> *Subject:* Fractal discussion Landscape-bird songs
>>
>>
>>
>> Dear Nick
>>
>>
>>
>> I apreciate so much your invitation, so i really intrested in participate
>> of your discussion group. I am a young researcher finishing my MS, and this
>> types of oportunities look very good for my, specially if i can interact
>> with other scientics. About your question, of course you can share my
>> oppinion, now if you want i can writte a compleate opinion in extenso, and
>> i will send to you tomorrow in the afternon.
>>
>>
>>
>> My field of study is the ecologial modelling and the conservation
>> biology, the last year i published my firsts papers in Biological
>> conservation and International Journal of Epidemiology, the first one about
>> ecosystem conservation and the secondth is a global model of exposure risk
>> to Zika virus. Currently im working in ecosystems and in assessment of
>> habitat loss in forest specialist species (with Kathryn Sieving from
>> University of Florida).
>>
>>
>>
>> *Alberto  Alaniz Baeza*
>>
>> Lic. en Geografía, Geógrafo & Magíster (c) Áreas Silvestres y Conservación
>>
>> Becario, Laboratorio de Ecología de Ambientes Fragmentados
>>
>> Departamento de Ciencias Biológicas Animales, U. de Chile
>>
>> Investigador, Laboratorio de Ecología de Ecosistemas
>>
>> Departamento de Recursos Naturales Renovables, U. de Chile
>>
>> Académico, Centro de Formación Técnica del Medio Ambiente IDMA
>>
>> +56996097443 <+56%209%209609%207443>
>>
>> https://albertoalaniz.wordpress.com/
>>
>>
>>
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