[FRIAM] Automata with FFT

Tue Sep 27 13:38:29 EDT 2022

DaveW -

Very well articulated and I am pleased to hear the background of Go4 and 
OOPSLA, etc.   I particularly appreciate your casting it as a solution 
vs problem space problem.

I read _Notes on the Synthesis of Form_ in tandem with Kauffman's 
_Investigations_ while on a month-vacation in NZ during the Gore-Bush 
hanging-chad business at the end of 2000.  It was a very liminal and 
therefore pivotal time for me to be reading these things.   I 
pre-ordered Alexander's "Nature of Order_ and read them (often with 
great suffering) as they came in over several years of publication (I 
forget the dates, probably ending around 2005 ?).   I did not know (or 
appreciate) the links from this work to Catholic Fundamentalism, but 
will look at them with a new eye as a result.   I was also trying to tie 
in Lakoff's work on _Metaphors we Live by_ and _Embodied Mathematics_ at 
the time, as well as Hofstadter/Mitchell's _Analogical Reasoning_  into 
a coherent *apprehension* (not theory or treatise) of at least one of 
our *many* modes of apprehending the world, built and found.

- SS

On 9/26/22 8:47 PM, Prof David West wrote:
> Alexander was a Janus: a mathematician at his father's insistence when 
> he wanted to be an artist. An architect by compromise.  Face two was a 
> Taoist mystic infused with hard core Catholic fundamentalism.
>
> His Ph.D. thesis—which became his first book, /Notes on the Synthesis 
> of Form/—was an attempt to define a mathematical science of 
> [architectural/industrial] design. But in the same book, he stated 
> that optimal design arose from a "non-selfconscious" process, embedded 
> in myth and ritual and culture.
>
> /A Pattern Language/, was part of a trilogy that included /The 
> Timeless Way of Building/ and the /Oregon Experiment/. /APL/ was 
> written by committee and edited by Alexander (although he took all the 
> credit) to fulfill a government grant. His mystical side was front and 
> center in /TTW/; and the Oregon Experiment was a case study.
>
> Alexander transcended Patterns and his last major work—/The Nature of 
> Order, vol 1-4/—centered 15 generative properties that have little to 
> nothing to do with patterns and is far more mystical and Catholic-God 
> focused than his earlier work.
>
> Ward Cunningham and Kent Beck brought /APL/ to the attention of the 
> software community as a workshop at OOPSLA (ACM conference on Object 
> Oriented Programming Systems and Applications). The 'Gang of Four' 
> authors of /Pattern Languages of Programming/ participated in that 
> workshop. A year after their book was published a mock trial of the 
> GoF for "heresy" was staged and they were found guilty.
>
> Perhaps the most significant error made by the software community was 
> seeking patterns in "solution space" rather than "problem space;" the 
> latter being where most of Alexander's work was focused. The software 
> patterns community looked at written programs to find multiple 
> instances of similar bodies of code and attempt to discern a 
> generalized problem that they solved (albeit with contextual 
> idiosyncrasies).
>
> There are hundreds of thousands of software patterns published, but 
> maybe three or four that actually capable of being applied in multiple 
> contexts—of actually being considered "true" patterns.
>
> The connection to geometry, both in Alexander and in software 
> patterns, was never more than tenuous. A majority of the patterns in 
> APL (e.g., "Dancing in the Streets," "Sleeping in Public") had nothing 
> to do with geometry or any other mathematical formalism. Even patterns 
> like "Light from Two Sides" are geometric in the only the simplest sense.
>
> The math in /Notes/ was algebra, not geometry. Only in his last major 
> work NO, can you find properties that are overtly geometric, e.g., 
> "centers" and "alternating repetition."
>
> more upon request
>
> davew
>
>
> On Mon, Sep 26, 2022, at 5:13 PM, glen wrote:
> > I'd appreciate you (and SteveS) throwing some words at it. In
> > particular, since software patterns are *supposed* to be linked to the
> > geometric patterns of architecture, *where* or *how* has it gone wrong
> > in extrapolation? Did Alexander go wrong in his extrapolation? Or did
> > others [mis]interpret?
> >
> > (I've purposefully left the Subject the same because it definitely
> > relates to Chan's morphology based taxonomy and my argument with my
> > meso-biologist friend about "species diversity" versus "phylogenetic
> > diversity".)
> >
> > On 9/26/22 15:35, Prof David West wrote:
> >> I am a patterns and Alexander expert. glen's uncertainty / mild 
> antipathy is spot on. Software patterns are an oxymoron.
> >>
> >> Strong words, but happy to back them up with dozens of papers 
> written/presented and hours of discussion.
> >>
> >> davew
> >>
> >>
> >> On Mon, Sep 26, 2022, at 6:29 AM, glen wrote:
> >>> Very cool! Thanks.
> >>>
> >>> In particular, our property abuts "the ravine", which is a semi-wild
> >>> place. The permaculture categories might help me orient my own
> >>> intuition (that everything in the ravine should be left alone) with my
> >>> neighbor's (clearing the whole area and reintroducing natives). He 
> owns
> >>> the majority of it. So, c'est la vie ... or perhaps "telle est la
> >>> mort". (Don't blame me. I don't know French.) One thing this zone 0-5
> >>> model might permit is modularity. That blog post implies such with the
> >>> inverted garden interface. But it seems like there could be pockets of
> >>> zone0es in wild areas and pockets of zone5s in urban areas,
> >>> particularly in sprawling cities like LA or Houston. Growing up in
> >>> Houston, where every square inch of semi-abandoned land seemed rapidly
> >>> reclaimed by the swamp, is probably the source of my skepticism 
> with my
> >>> friends' diversity doctrine.
> >>>
> >>> There's a lot to digest in the biophilia links. I have to confess, I
> >>> haven't given pattern languages much attention. It always seems
> >>> motivated by geometry, which fails for me. Of course, I'm familiar
> >>> enough with software patterns. But that's always failed for me as 
> well.
> >>> They seem too ephemeral, unstable ... i.e. not real, convenient
> >>> fiction, and *perfect* opportunity for gurus to blind others with 
> their
> >>> gobbledygook mouth sounds. I guess it reminds me of category theory,
> >>> too abstract for my ape brain. But maybe some of his earlier work on
> >>> Clifford algebras might motivate me? I could start here, I guess:
> >>> https://link.springer.com/chapter/10.1007/978-1-4757-1472-2_41
> >>>
> >>> Thanks again.
> >>>
> >>> On 9/24/22 10:29, Steve Smith wrote:
> >>>>
> >>>> On 9/24/22 9:49 AM, glen wrote:
> >>>>> Such efforts seem so inherently metaphorical it's difficult for 
> me to approach a concrete conversation. For example, I have a couple 
> of biologist friends, one meso (bugs) and one macro (ungulates), who 
> thought I was being contrarian when I challenged their assertion that 
> biodiversity in urban areas was *obviously* lower than that of natural 
> areas like forests. Of course, I admit my ignorance up front. Maybe 
> they are. But it's just not obvious to me.
> >>>>
> >>>> This may seem a little tangential but the realm of Permaculture 
> Design has a suite of truisms on these topics, though they are 
> articulated in their unique language which can be a little hard to 
> translate sometimes.  I think the permaculture community represent a 
> fertile laboratory for doing *some* experiments as implied by Glen's 
> questions.
> >>>>
> >>>> A good example which gestures toward the Chan work at least 
> morphologically is maybe worth a scan if not a full read here:
> >>>>
> >>>> 
> https://aflorestanova.wordpress.com/2016/04/08/zones-in-permaculture-design/
> >>>>
> >>>> Permaculture's 5 zone quantization doesn't preclude a recognition 
> of there being continuous gradients in many dimensions from a locus of 
> "technological closed-loop" (zone 0) and "biological closed loop" 
> (zone 5).
> >>>>
> >>>> There is a *lot* of talk in the literature about the interfaces 
> around zone 0, 1, 2 techno-structures creating localized ecozones that 
> harbor diversity (desired and undesired == vermin) which I think 
> provide some good anecdotal evidence about biodiversity in transition 
> zones and acute technological interfaces (e.g. roofs, walls, corners, 
> posts, fences, etc).  Permaculture is a domain of recognizing and 
> exploiting "happy accidents".
> >>>>
> >>>> It is also worth noting the diversity spike that happens in 
> estuarial contexts...
> >>>>
> >>>> A more formal study of Urban/Architectural design with an eye to 
> *health* (human-centric view) is the domain of Biophilic Design 
> <https://www.terrapinbrightgreen.com/report/biophilia-healing-environments/>. 
> Nikos Salingaros is a hard-core Mathematician at UT-San Antonio who 
> addresses abstractions of Complexity 
> <https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nikos_Salingaros#Complexity> and 
> Pattern Languages <https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pattern_language> as 
> well as Architecture and Urbanism.  He also has some interesting 
> opinions <https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nikos_Salingaros#Philosophy> 
> about post modernism as well as Dawkins Atheism.
> >>>>
> >>>>
> >>>>>
> >>>>> Since then, they've presented (meso and macro) arguments that 
> justify their position. It does seem obvious that urban areas trend to 
> more adaptable animals like coyotes and raccoons and less so to, say, 
> deer. The bugs are more interesting. Meso guy found some articles that 
> show "species" diversity in urban areas is roughly the same as natural 
> areas. But phylogenetic diversity is clearly lower in urban areas. 
> That seems counter intuitive to me. It's a cool result.
> >>>>>
> >>>>> My main point when I originally expressed skepticism, though, 
> was about microbial diversity. Is it possible that bug-layer and 
> microbe-layer (including what lives in/on large animals like rats and 
> humans) diversity makes up for lower diversity in large-layers?
> >>>>>
> >>>>> I *feel* that projects like Chan's could help with this question 
> since it seems prohibitively expensive to sample and test enough 
> microbial populations of urban and wild areas, especially if we 
> include intra-animal populations. I'm just not sure *how* they could help.
> >>>>>
> >>>>> On 9/24/22 03:38, David Eric Smith wrote:
> >>>>>> It’s funny; I know Bert.
> >>>>>>
> >>>>>> One of our colleagues played a role in bringing him out to work 
> at Google in Tokyo.
> >>>>>>
> >>>>>> A mathematician (Will Cavendish) who has part-time support at IAS
> >>>>>> https://www.ias.edu/scholars/will-cavendish 
> <https://www.ias.edu/scholars/will-cavendish>
> >>>>>> is also interested in the mathematical dimensions of this, 
> though I have only a glancing exposure to how those two together are 
> trying to frame the problems.  Because Bert has come at it more from 
> the ALife/engineering approach, and Will’s interests run more in the 
> direction of proving capabilities of broad classes of systems, often 
> interested in their aggregation as categories  (and also about the 
> role of simulation as a replacement for proof in systems that produce 
> complicated enough state spaces), it should be a productive and 
> interesting collaboration.  I don’t know how engaged others are in the 
> Google group on this specific project, because I am too far outside 
> that loop.
> >>>>>>
> >>>>>> Eric
> >
> >
> > --
> > ꙮ Mɥǝu ǝlǝdɥɐuʇs ɟᴉƃɥʇ' ʇɥǝ ƃɹɐss snɟɟǝɹs˙ ꙮ
> >
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