Re: [-empyre-] n-dimensional cobwebs of meaning

[ben syverson <ben@bensyverson.com>]

On May 10, 2004, at 11:55 AM, Kenneth Fields wrote:

> Rock-Music, Rock-Chair are associational relationships. In ontological 
> terms, Rock inherits properties from Object/NaturalObject/Rock. 
> Specific kinds of Rocks (MoonRocks) inherit from Rock, but add their 
> own distinctive properties not found in all Rocks (specificallyLocated 
> Moon). RockMusic on the other hand is not an object, it is a kind of 
> Radiating/RadiatingSound/AudibleSound/Music. In ontology, 
> relationships are expressed in such ways as 'isA, hasA, PartOf... 
> Music isA Art, Music isA FieldOfStudy, Music isA Punishment(face the 
> music), isA Business, Hobby, etc.............

Right, but the question is how do you visualize those relationships. 
"Rock" in liken is an object, a genre, an action, and more. As you 
said, "is conceptual 'space' more than a metaphor?" Is there a good way 
to translate these associational links to a visual plane, or does it 
become too complex to be helpful?

> In Liken you're giving unique id's to both nodes and paths. 
> EveryLikenThing isA Node or a Path. Can you start to differentiate a 
> little bit more - what type of node (peopleNode, conceptNode), path 
> (associationPath, prototypePath, poeticalPath). See, we start getting 
> into ontology.

In a technical sense, only nodes are assigned unique ids -- paths are 
properties of those nodes. The nodes have a variety of 
[classes/properties]. Right now, a node can exist as a: Person, Liki, 
Comment, Interview, Resource, Architecture. More can be added pretty 
seamlessly. Paths are generally divided into three categories: Fixed 
(red), Liken-generated/Grace-period (very dark green), and Normal 
(shades of gray).

I'm anxious about adding too many other classes, or of even displaying 
these classes for the user. I think it gets confusing for people if 
there are too many different kinds of nodes and paths, so for now, we 
kind of make that transparent.

> Maybe we need some kind of Godelized methodology, where you can warp 
> in and out of spatial/associational/nodal 'space.' Space isn't just 
> spatial :). Time isn't just temporal (Ouch).

Definitely. I wrote these notes a while ago:
"One of the features of a conceptual relation is the very fact that it 
defies spatial and temporal constraints; for example, one person might 
find Roman gladiators and contemporary boxers to exist in conceptual 
proximity. This revelation might also bring certain related concepts 
together (the boxing ring may suddenly seem similar to the Coliseum), 
while others gain no ground (the Roman's thumbs up/thumbs down judgment 
having no obvious corollary). What has happened is that a sort of 
wormhole has formed between two galaxies of thought, a span of billions 
of miles suddenly folding into a few short steps. One wormhole is hard 
enough to visualize -- how can one depict a journey through a universe 
of concepts when every step in the path is a wormhole to a different 
location in timespace?"

The problem is really how to navigate an n-dimensional cobweb of 
meaning. What does a hyperMap/criticalMap look, feel and sound like?


> AI is moving to AH (artificial hermeneutics) - intelligence and 
> interpretation are both quaiifiedBy Artificial.

Yes, definitely. Understanding is the key to intelligence. Right now 
liken doesn't even attempt to interpret the meaning of anything, but it 
records all kinds of interesting data about words and their 
relationships that we don't use yet. That would be an interesting 
plug-in for someone to develop. Someday it would be nice for liken to 
read every node, so that you could ask it questions. That would open up 
the realtime MUTE/MOO/MUD interface that we talked about to some 
fascinating conversational possibilities!

- ben