[FRIAM] Truth: “Hunh! What is it good for? Absolutely Nothing!”
Steven A Smith
sasmyth at swcp.com
Tue Oct 17 18:58:54 EDT 2017
Dave sez:
> It is certainly possible for one sensor-web-effector state machine to
> "infect" another, i.e. stimulate a second machine to replicate the
> behavior. If that happens we have 'convergence' which is nothing more
> than collective 'fault'/ 'defectiveness'.
>
It sounds as if you believe that resonance, mode locking, phase locking,
tidal locking, etc. are somehow defective ways for systems to
interact. I can agree that they are modestly less interesting than
more chaotic systems. While *I* might find a marching (esp. if they
are goose-stepping) army aberrant (and abhorrent), I might find a
*marching band* or *synchronized swimmers* or a dance-troupe following a
choreography (e.g. Cirque de Soliel perfomance) somehow beautiful. And
I would suggest these are examples of what you are judging as
"defective"? I suppose that since only a *subsystem* of the units
(dancers/musicians/soldiers) are mode/phase-locked for the duration of
the march/performance, that this is only a partial example and therefore
only *partially* defective/faulty?
I believe it is in the liminal space which fills the near-locality of a
shared "dialect" where the interesting stuff happens, not unlike in
dynamical systems' "edge of chaos". I agree with the technical
expression that any "statement of Truth" is a defect, but that does not
mean that it doesn't gesture in the direction of, or roughly
circumscribe, or provide a proxy for a more transcendent "truth". One
*might* argue that each individual has a private, idiosyncratic dialect
of "the same language", and that interaction amongst individuals whose
dialects are similar enough to intend to agree/discuss/converge/??
I would claim that a well formed question suggests a family of "answers"
and thereby hints at what we want to believe in as "truth".
This paper may (or may not) offer some perspective on the evolution of a
language/dialect and teh convergence/coherence issue.
https://www.researchgate.net/project/Coherence-Convergence-and-Change-A-Sociolinguistic-Variationist-Approach-to-Dialect-and-Standard-Language-Use-in-Swabia
- Steve
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