[iDC] the concept of unity - cloud computing

[Christina McPhee]

wow, brilliant post, Paul.

Coincidentally: I am working on creating a body of media images of 'at the tipping point' of carbon saturation (550 PPM or above) in Earth's  atmosphere-- by setting abstractions of fold/skin forms (tesserae) as metanyms for tesserae within landscape assemblages
-- these specific sites being the alternative energy production sites in outback California where I live and work. 

So your dramatic linking of regimes of knowledge production, ecological crisis and the crisis in Iran is so articulate at a moment that I (in my video/visual world) sorely need, as words often fail me. 

I am concerned very much with this matter of considering how non-locality-- or perhaps in my view interlocality == is the only 
framework of consciousness and principle of design that is going to make it possible for us to survive and thrive in the coming 
environmental disaster.

The Iran situation is of particular importance - and pathos- precisely because of what you point out here--that the cloud of 'tweets' is 
an evasive and sublated ephemeral mapping dynamic that evades the 'locality' (eg nightmare prisons, black ops) created by humans
for humans as an extraordinary flexible collective survival kit.  Even as the government of Iran apparently (or so folks are saying on facebook) is trying to track users based on tweet locations and hunt them down.

I think that a much deeper understanding of what is democracy and what is (who is ) the subject is upon us.  Possibly the metaphor of the cloud is particularly apt.  I like this because i am working with 'atmosphere'  and 'weather' on a number of levels of meaning.  Perforce, we must realize that certain aspects of our social science paradigms and regimes of knowledge themselves are part of an older way which often leads to what you are calling this 'locality' consciousness, which itself, then, seems to end in various kinds of hell. 

Can we keep alive/ keep breathing through the cloud?

Christina

http://www.christinamcphee.net/tesserae/index.html

http://christinamcphee.net



On Tuesday, June 23, 2009, at 06:46AM, "Paul Prueitt" <psp at ontologystream.com> wrote:
>the concept of unity - cloud computing
>
>
>This message contains some of Peter Stephenson's comments along with  
>a dialog (edited and shortened a bit) between Ken Ewell and John Sowa
>
>Brief comments in purple by Paul Prueitt
>
>
>On Jun 23, 2009, at 7:39 AM, Peter R. Stephenson wrote:
>> Cloud computing is just application service providing dressed up in  
>> a trendy new name.  In cloud computing we simply allow multiple  
>> users to share applications and computing resources that are “in  
>> the cloud”.  This simply is an extension of technologies that we  
>> have been using for decades: client-server, centralized mainframe,  
>> application sharing, Internet, intranet, etc.  I do not see where a  
>> non-local aspect has anything to do with the basic definitions of  
>> Rosen simple or complex.
>
>Paul> The non-locality is everywhere in natural systems and becomes  
>visible when there is interaction, expressing both independence and  
>interdependence - and this is the focus of Ken's expression regarding  
>limitations of the current AI paradigm.  (See below)  The current IT/ 
>AI/scientific-reductionism paradigm seeks independence and seeks to  
>avoid interdependence/interoperability (IT/AI seeks to avoid  
>interdependence because computing does not know how to understand  
>interdependence.)  Mainstream, funded, science claims that non- 
>locality is not important and does not actually exists.
>
>The consequences of the mistake in avoiding understanding non- 
>locality is stark.  We end up stepping on each others toes, as the  
>many current national crisis show.  The environmental mess is a  
>second example, where the law of un-intended consequence leads to  
>crisis.
>
>
>On Jun 23, 2009, at 7:39 AM, Peter R. Stephenson wrote:
>> That said, if we separate the humans from the computers (and, as I  
>> pointed out earlier, there are times to do that, one of which is  
>> when one is analyzing the computing system itself) cloud computing  
>> systems are no more or less complex than any other computing system  
>> because they still are finite state machines.  However, because, as  
>> Judith pointed out, they are not much use by themselves, from a  
>> practical perspective they become complex in use even though as  
>> they stand alone the are simple.
>
>Paul> Tweet packet analysis involves looking at category aggregations  
>and interpreting them.  Tweets are generated not from the computer  
>but from the humans.  The computing platform is a communication  
>medium.  Our new web site www.mathTwitter.com will use the complete  
>stratified paradigm to create a very simple web, cloud computing,  
>platform that depends on these two non-local phenomenon.
>
>Over the next months, if my goals are meet, the sites   
>www.myTwitterDeep.com and www.myTwitterLite.com will explore this use  
>of cloud computing to create both local and non-local processes for  
>education.  The function will greatly outperform the 600 M system,  
>J-39, spent of tax payers money (2001 - 2004) to perform the same  
>function, but now using the correct "stratified architecture".  As I  
>state in the foundational paper, Sowa, Ballard, Klausner, and Adi all  
>have architectures that share common elements and will be revealed in  
>the simplest form in the tweet analysis technology.
>
>On Jun 23, 2009, at 7:39 AM, Peter R. Stephenson wrote:
>> What is very interesting – to your comment, Paul – is that the  
>> entire Iran conflict may be characterized by analyzing public  
>> messaging over a variety of social networking platforms, Twitter  
>> likely being the most prevalent.  A deep analysis of tweets  
>> relating to this conflict might give a very clear picture of it.   
>> This is especially interesting because the Iran government is  
>> engaging in tweet spoofing as a means of introducing disinformation  
>> and misinformation into the mix.
>
>Paul> The people must use the tweet systems to by-pass and moderate  
>the past entrenchments (including our own) and seek to find  
>interoperability and collaboration before the pending strikes and  
>counter strikes cause millions of deaths; or after these strikes as  
>we try to deal with the consequences of independent bulling; seen in  
>Iran and N Korea as well as in past US and UK governmental actions.   
>We all must see the tipping point we are approaching and use non- 
>locality to avoid, or it we do not avoid, to recover after the "main  
>event".
>
>This is a war between localized arrogance and non-localizing striving  
>for a sense of unity.
>
>Now to John and Ken's discussion, which I post below.
>
>
>
>On Jun 22, 2009, at 11:21 PM, Ken Ewell wrote:
>
>>
>>> KE> I advocate identifying the elements and operations necessary
>>> > to distinguish a discrete and unified being --that the three year
>>> > old must possess-- in order to recognize and unify the apparent
>>> > objects with the sensuous impressions of her unified awareness.
>>> > You may be underestimating significance in the face of the subtle
>>> > nature of such powers.
>>>
>>> JOHN> That's not a bad idea, and philosophers, psychologists, and  
>>> other
>>> scientists have been working toward that goal for millennia.
>>> But they're very far from having identified a sufficient set of
>>> elements and operations to implement in our computer systems.
>
>> So far, John, the philosophers, psychologists, and other scientists  
>> have failed us as you say.  I am none of those and I am not a  
>> diplomat either, but I am a concerned and informed citizen of the  
>> world and I can speak more freely.  In addition, as I consider you  
>> a modern-day living authority, and as you have plainly said they  
>> have failed to identify a sufficient set... I feel the question is  
>> an open one, and I, Paul, Tom Adi or anyone might be at liberty to  
>> propose a set of elements and operations to implement in our  
>> computer systems, should they be so inclined.
>>
>> I am so inclined; being concerned about the failure you mentioned.   
>> I am informed, as Paul mentioned, and I am accomplished and  
>> practiced in such matters as this.
>
>Note
>> And also I fear that the boundlessness of your perspective (and  
>> that of IT/IS practitioners in general) cannot be driven, or drive  
>> one,  except into the boundlessness of endless schism.
>Note end  Paul's point precisely
>
>> I feel certain that anyone can empathize and also see the evidence  
>> that my fears are not unfounded. Certainly Paul knows it, Tom knows  
>> it, and there are others.  You must know it too, John.  It seems to  
>> be a matter of interdependence John, and that does not yet fit into  
>> your independence assumption.
>>
>> Though we are each bounded by time and space, I cannot seem to fit  
>> the concept of interdependent boundaries into your independence  
>> assumptions of knowledge and information.  In effect you must  
>> abandon the notion of managing, governing and coordinating  
>> independent representations, objects or autonomous agents.  In its  
>> place you must take up the notion of preserving the unity of  
>> purpose by way of affording those agents the coherence of unified  
>> interdependence --instead of forcing on them, an unnatural, costly  
>> and largely accidental independence.
>>
>Note
>> Computer scientist, Dr. Tom Adi, has identified a sufficient set of  
>> elements, functions and semantic operations for accommodating the  
>> regularity and the interdependence (of the complex interactions) of  
>> the abstract, yet unified, system of phonemes and morphemes in a  
>> language, and interpreting the salience and relevance of  
>> compounding and other constructions in natural language  
>> expressions.  He and I have implemented the model in complex  
>> computer systems and tested the system against others at NIST and  
>> DARPA sponsored events.
>> At least one of those software systems, both unsupervised and  
>> unattended, detects changes, indexes, and manages the search and  
>> retrieval of hundreds of collections of millions of dynamically  
>> changing documents (of unstructured texts) distributed over  
>> thousand of geographically dispersed computers for about two- 
>> million daily users.  One of those collections handles about eighty  
>> thousand queries per minute (at peak usage), non-stop, twenty-four  
>> seven.  That's a lot more questions than a three year old can throw  
>> at you in a minute. This particular system has been running for  
>> eight years.  On the occasion that a session, stream or data error  
>> causes a  failure in any part of the critical sections of memory  
>> process, it reports the cause, restarts processing and picks up on  
>> the next step where it left off.
>> I believe that it is, in fact, unscientific to refuse to  
>> acknowledge or count Tom Adi's studies and results as significant  
>> to the field, and to completely ignore the not so minuscule and  
>> insignificant number of successful implementations of our software.  
>> To my mind, and to Paul's observation, it also smacks of   
>> dishonesty, and at the very least, it is a despicable practice.
>Note end  Paul's point is that funding has created an evaluation of  
>government funded activities that is not based on objective measures,  
>but on who has hidden political power.  This has perverted our  
>science and must be corrected see Resilience Project White Paper:
>http://www.ontologystream.com/
>
>
>>>
>>> JOHN> One of the proven methods for organizing computer systems  
>>> effectively
>>> is to make them modular.  The simplest kind of modularity is the
>>> subroutine, which leads to a very rigid and mechanistic structure
>>> that bears little resemblance to the flexibility of any animal.
>>>
>>> The model of interacting agents has proved to be far more flexible,
>>> but it raises the issues of control and coordination.  As I was
>>> trying to show in that paper, a hierarchy modeled after the kinds
>>> of interactions among animals and among the cells of an animal,
>>> exhibits the kind of unity and flexibility of a purposeful animal.
>>
>> To my mind the kinds of interactions among animals are the effects  
>> of unifying processes.  There are many sorts of organization and  
>> hierarchies. The unifying processes are reflected in the identity,  
>> essence and order, or the cosmology of the universe and they are  
>> among the organizational laws of nature.
>> Reward-driven behavior is a subset of goal-driven behavior, I am  
>> sure no one here is fooled into believing otherwise. Ben Goertzel  
>> of the Singularity Institute commented on how tricky it is and  
>> seems to have ruled it out as a mechanism for AI, on his blog.
>>
>> How about a model for interpreting the determinate objects and  
>> relations of the indeterminate situation, John?
>> What might be the purpose of learning --more significant of  
>> unifying one's own awareness about such a thing?   We move upward  
>> from a state of ignorance to a state of unified awareness.   
>> Intelligence and linguistic movement has always been "upward", from  
>> more intrinsic parts of a linguistic structure --from gestures,  
>> hoots, and calls, to sensible sounds and symbols-- say, and on to  
>> less embedded parts --its modern onslaught of referents and  
>> extensions (the same as movement expected along an ontogenetic  
>> trajectory for example).  This expresses in the intellectual  
>> traits, progression and development of language in children as I am  
>> sure you can agree.
>> According to Tom Bever, (University of Arizona) every learnable  
>> language has a surface form and canonical mappings of that onto  
>> thematic relations, (related to Paul's stratified structures) to  
>> facilitate learning with a traditional hypothesis-and-test learning  
>> model (that sums up the character of Tom Adi's cognitive model).  
>> One can only suppose that it is necessary that thematic relations  
>> support the theme they purport to relate.  What is the theme of a  
>> unified awareness if it is not the unity of being?
>
>>> JOHN> "‘Being’ for Aristotle has also a unity, i.e. ‘focal  
>>> meaning’, which coincides with substance, and substance has not  
>>> only an ontological priority, but also a logical priority, in  
>>> respect to the other beings, as was shown by G. E. L. Owen.".  
>>> Proceedings of the Aristotelian Society, Volume 101, Number 2,  
>>> Jan. 2001, p. 187
>
>> In Adi's model, thematic relationships are generated by the causal  
>> relations of the actions in time and space that appear to supervene  
>> on the more universal unifying processes. Yet, these unifying  
>> processes are beholding to the bijections of neither time nor  
>> space- they are beholding only to the enactment of the unity of  
>> being they coordinate and control in the extensions of the focal  
>> meaning of such being (according to a kind of extended projection  
>> principle).
>> For example, one might say that the focal meaning of a name is the / 
>> assignment/ of identity it entails; the focal meaning of an  
>> apparently salient object or activity is the essence of its / 
>> manifestation/ and occurrence within the boundaries of space or  
>> time, and; the focal meaning of unity is itself not complete  
>> without the negation and accommodation of /containment/.  These are  
>> the unifying processes of Adi's model.
>>
>> One can believe in the unity of being and in the example of their  
>> own unified personality. As well, one can believe in the utility of  
>> architectural design and purpose without harboring any covert  
>> teleology or religious fundamentalism.  Can't we agree on this?
>>
>> You might also agree with the notion that projecting a unifying  
>> design and purpose for unity itself (using an extended projection  
>> principle as a kind of configuration filter on distant derivations)  
>> will cause the bearer of the purpose to yield (eventually) to the  
>> unifying processes of the purpose; to recognize and utilize the  
>> elements and operations afforded by the design to seek unity, and;  
>> (eventually) they will find it incumbent on themselves to keep to  
>> the boundaries for the temporal control and coordination of the  
>> unity of such an awareness, or predictably fail to achieve it.  And  
>> this not to touch the utility of it all!  This would obviously  
>> address issues of control and coordination, say, for determining  
>> relevance or salience in an indeterminate situation.
>
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