> xmca who-is-at weber.ucsd.edu,External writes:
> > I'm not trying to be mystical here --I'm just curious about if
> >people do have a concrete visual sense associated with processes of
> >change,
> >learning, and that "betweenness."
>
> Our language is weak in metaphors adequate to the task of describing
> dynamic process, methinks.
>
> For me, the image is a strange attractor, especially watching one
> emerge. I don't know if this is "a concrete visual" because strange
> attractors don't exist except when a mathematician tries to map a
> fractal into a phase space of a lesser dimension. (I am not a
> mathematician, so correct any inaccuracies.)But my understanding of
> what a fractal is, in whatever sense it exists, is that it is the
> relationship "between that of a point and a line, of a line and a
> surface, or even of a surface and a volume" (Nicolis & Prigogine in
> _Exploring Complexity: An Introduction_). So it portrays a historically
> determined, but unpredictable, relationship (betweenness) in process.
>
> But fractals, or even strange attractors, cannot be perceived by
> staring on hot days at the asphalt. You don't bump into them or smell
> them. You rarely overhear discussion of them in the line at the grocery
> store.
>
Wow! I almost missed this interesting thread because of the
"anti-zoped" title, so I added a new one.
I've been watching Jerry Balzano, in the next lab over, create a
model of cooperation using StarLogo -- an agent-based programming language
aimed at high-school level and up that appears ideal for ecological
modeling (there are also somewhat simpler agent-based languages aimed at
elementary school children). Jerry and I have had an ongoing discussion,
almost since I arrived at LCHC in early Aug., that mirrors Kathy's view of
linguistic poverty and adds another dimension of poverty -- our intuitions
are not good at understanding change. Of course, this means, in part, that
we do not have good artifacts and model users of them. After spending
1,000 hours or so understanding the relation of one family of dynamic
equations to data on change in cultural practices, however, I am very
impressed with the power of these new agent-based programming languages.
It's my guess that it will be artifacts like these that will mediate a
common understanding of change. I would not be at all surprised if a
common language for change emerges more from these languages than from
diff-e-q or chaos theory.
David