Friday, November 28, 2008

Exercising our chaotic minds. Worldviews built.

Threads relevant to this post

- Not recommended: frantically seeking escape from a chaotic situation, we find ourselves in.
- The Source of All Knowledge
- What is a Question?
- Knowledge Creation
- Introducing chaos into our lives. Its creative potential.
- Throwing overboard relentlessly whatever is remotely connected with what is not agreed now.
- The paradigm shifts in our minds
- Chaotic, could it lead to an answer to the origins and purpose of life?
-


I have been intrigued by this exposition titled as Anti-Knowledge and I would like to go through it, and see how my chaotic mind would respond to it.

"Consider for a moment that we are going to continue to create and archive human knowledge for eons to come. As our knowledge base expands, so does our technological capacity to remember and store it. We soon amass knowledge that will make a terabyte look like a byte. But though we are currently able to amass an enormous amount of knowledge, we are still unable to understand one basic concept: "Where did it all come from?" It almost sounds ridiculous, but that is exactly what is happening.

Many would say that it 'just happens' and we really don't need to know where it comes from. However, But this stance assumes that chaos, confusion, error, and complexity are not a factor in this knowledge advance. But if we don't understand the source of knowledge, how can we expect to manage it in the midst of forces like chaos and confusion? That's a bit like building a house with people throwing wood and nails at the job site.

We are approaching a point in time known as 'Singularity.' There are many definitions and angles for this term, but simply put, it represents a major paradigm shift. This shift will be the end of the information age and the beginning of a new age that has not yet been defined. The information age was simply about cataloging knowledge in paper and electronically. With Web 2.0 and the advent of social media, we've moved into an era in which knowledge is worked 'socially and electronically.' At present, we're experimenting with this new capability and just starting to get our arms around it. As we progress we will move into a solid understanding of knowledge interactions involved in knowledge working. And we will come to understand the cornerstone of all knowledge interactions, knowledge creation. And we will see that the key to understanding this cornerstone is not in knowledge itself, but rather in the question.
"

What is referred to as knowledge and what is knowledge? Are these two things the same? Distinguished between knowledge that has a purpose, a specific goal, differentiated by any other kind of knowledge, whose purpose and use ephemeral, short-lived, as it is portrayed by the tonnes of books, on which they were written, now obsolete and thrown away. Is there knowledge that is not knowledge? What about the paradigm shifts, that the author mentions? Do they not change completely our ways of thinking, and by that knowledge itself? In either on the level of a single individual or collectively for groups of individuals and extrapolated to include the whole of humanity proper? Knowledge which was deemed as knowledge is put aside, sent into oblivion, totally forgotten, never to be looked again, thrown overboard.

I would, after browsing through the website, regard the thoughts conveyed by the author, as products of a chaotic mind, which I regard as a valuable asset in an individual. But I recognise, taking into account the author's apparent disdain for chaos, as it is given out by its definition in the glossary section

"Chaos – The sum of knowledge working issues and problems. This might include confused knowledge interactions, fragmentation or duplication of knowledge structures, or the rise of an unmanageable amount of questions."

would not be appreciated, as it should.

Certainly is confusing as the mind ponders, while the thoughts unravel, in an intricate web of converging and diverging trajectories, but once the debris is cleared, the attractors reached (through the chaotic processes) provide lucid meaning.

Saturday, November 15, 2008

City traffic: Dynamic fractal highway superstructures? No traffic lights, no speed limits? No junctions, no traffic jams? People re-claiming ground?

Thoughts that acted as triggers

- Motorway traffic swarms.


Record my thoughts as they come, before they fizzle out, a drawback (is it?) of consciousness. In my mind, this is connected with reflective reasoning, mentioned in the paper From simple associations to systematic reasoning, but necessary as, by recording the thoughts, they are instantiated, and as such they provide the ground, from where the spark which will ignite another wave of thoughts will come from.

Unconnected thoughts laid out haphazardly, (well, let's say chaotically) , not daring to pause, to put them in order, for fear of loosing touch with the threads still developing.

(A thread still developing?)
It associated, right away, with what I was contemplating about link-node-link chains. So, by saying that a thread is still developing, it means that new links and new nodes are created. Formulated into chains, integrated into threads by contextual cues? The cues being the properties and attributes, each concept, notion or simply a thought drags along, irrelevant to how coherent the thought is? The cues acting as tags, that drag along the rest, of the concept, notion or just thought, and especially (what is more important) their attached properties and attributes? Whether you want it, to happen or not?

So there is an array, to borrow a concept from computing, of 'link-node-link'... What? 'Links'? That each single term in the simple formulation, 'link-node-link', is part of another 'link-node-link', branching out in all possible ways? Attributing it with new dimensions? The thread developing?

Flexible, cohesive material? It would not run off, or chipped or dented, retains its structure? Traffic blocks with a hint of elasticity while it is loose, or free-standing but while it is part of the superstructure, by virtue of the stresses applied as it clips on with adjacent traffic blocks it tenses, becomes rigid and strong enough to withstand the load is subjected to, the cars coursing on it. Which however would not be more than two or three cars at a time, the flow of the traffic controlled to suit the load the block can bear and it would not be allowed to exceed its prescribed limits.

Traffic blocks each equipped with computer chips connected to the overall city-wide traffic controlling network, will release the locks that apply the stresses, will revert into its rigid form (inflated) and in this capacity will join the lower or upper layer of the onion-skin, fractal highway superstructure, as the keyed-in journey of an oncoming car, demands it. Networked?

Traffic blocks utilising as a resource the tarmac material of the becoming obsolete tarmacked city-wide roads, embedded in an elastic material to produce a cohesive but flexible, and at the same time tough and strong. Its flexible to rigid (deflated to inflated) interchange achieved by virtue of beams running through the edges of the block, the size of its inclination calculated to effect the linking with either the upper or the lower layer, and its strength provided by a mesh of interwoven tough fibres all along the length of the traffic block, supported by the beams at the edges of the traffic blocks.

The dynamically altered fractal highway superstructure overall deployment reminiscent of city-wide traffic lights control combined with elements of air traffic control. The route of each car demanding the road is centrally calculated, adjusted with all other routes pending, integrated in moments of city-wide traffic.

Building upon the thoughts unleashed in the initial onslaught triggered by the initial spark.

Roads to pedestrians, with designated segments converted into car parks? Focal points to gather the traffic which will be conducted in a superstructure of highways?
Flexible material.
Dynamic routes to direct the traffic to the highways that run along above the city buildings. By a control unit, that each car is equipped with, which will integrate its route into the traffic in the dynamic lower structures that lead to the highway superstructure.

Arteries, in the equivalent superstructure of the blood flow? The diameter of the vessel, the main component in adjusting the flow, in order to avoid bottlenecks, jams, congestion.

Capillaries, big enough to accommodate a single cell, one-lane roads where a car starts its journey. From the focal points, shopping centres, city centres, entertainment complexes and the city-wide residential car parks. No cars in sight for the pedestrians that enjoy the city?

Interchangeable flexible roads whose shapes are defined by stresses applied as they are fitted with one another into the city-wide fractal dynamic complex of highways?

No limits in speed. Materials and roads only to support car traffic? Fractal? Unfolding, layer upon layer, fractional dimensions, multi-levelled superstructure, like skins wrapped-up tightly to an onion bulb.

Lanes as many as they are demanded by the influx of cars coming out of the stations, the focal points, and the residential car parks. Lanes coming out from everywhere? Stashed or stacked, one upon another when they are not needed, reducing the size of the superstructure? But in rush hours they are deployed to accommodate the demands put forth by the increased size of the traffic.

An awesome image, looked from afar, as the highway superstructure spreads, re-arranging itself as it prepares itself for the rush hour pending. And during calm traffic hours reducing in size as the city quietens.

What the driver is expected to do, is to cruise through an ever changing road ahead, as it adjusts, according to the route demanded, in the first place.

Focal points for the city centres, fully equipped with parking spaces to accommodate all the cars that demand access, at any time.

For neighbourhoods, designated areas for the parking of all residents cars. With adjustable road segments to take them up to the superstructure highway above.

Each car with its control box where the journey is keyed in. The driver awaits and once the journey details have been fed in, gets the OK and of it goes. All the details of the journey have been calculated, what road segments would be required to be laid all the way to its destination.

Rush hours. The superstructure highway gets ready to accept the heavy traffic ahead. Extra lanes unfold from their hiding places to accommodate the extra traffic.

Fractal, meaning decimal dimensions, fractional. The 0.5 dimension in multilevel car parks, which perplexes individual in search for their cars. Chaotic, and the significance of the minutiae for the overall structure as within minutes you go from the lower level to the superstructure above.