deadletter-j
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How many Engstrom's does it take?
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virus: Raw data...
« on: 2005-02-18 15:18:50 » |
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I feel bad. Not too bad, though.
Okay - key words to cue you into the structure of the overall picture.
The structure of this email matches the structure of this conversation which matches the structure of the experience which matches the structure of the human mind.
1) Information (root) level - when we see mass amounts of information but can't even attempt to make order.
2) Structure - Bloom's Taxonomy - the mind learns, knows, applies, analyzes, synthethizes, evaluates. When you can follow someone's thoughts, or almost follow, you 'know' it, you 'understand' it, you 'comprehend' it - but you can't articulate it or use it yet in a conscious way.
But! didn't the WELL already learn something about information flow? If I stopped now, and somebody came along later saying and doing some of the same things, it would be much faster to react! This is learning. I'm hoping I can make some of these levels obvious - through abstraction and meta.
3) Applying - The scientific method (have info, hypothesize, predict, devise experiment, experiment, examine results) has an isometry with this - the mind goes through the scientific method all the time to deal with life and information. What was never articulated is that these steps are META to each other - not a pathway. After we try to understand some information, we try to see what it would imply.
4) Abstracting - The key component missing to be able to watch information flow is the concept of META - it's a perspective, a way of looking at growth - to notice change over time. I think if I can articulate through SHOWING you these stages of dealing with the issue of human information flow, that you will begin to notice _extra_ levels of information that you already notice ALL the time, but were never quite brought to your conscious attention.
5) Synthesis - A key concept here is that of ZAZZ - how we go from the reality we all see to metaphor. Which is why I was so excited when that was kicked out - I've been teaching reasoning with symbols for years, and suddenly I realized the fundamental missing issue in math education - nobody every stepped outside of the symbol manipulation to show them the ACT OF PARSING itself. Stepping outside of symbol manipulation = meta.
6) Evaluation - I am going to try to show you how we parse from raw data (the Data Dump) to metaphor (word symbols) and then lens outwards again to the next level of taking in information. Having this information in my head as one symbol makes me now drowning in information flow of new levels. I think that if I articulate the flow of information to you, you will notice it, and be able to dissect it better than my one brain, and be able to apply it to changing the world for the better.
Go reread this again - but make sure you are thinking in terms of meta for each level - not "one after the next". It is one-d, two-d, three-d four - five-d, six-d, seven-d, more! It's a dimensionality issue, that's the direction of the human nonlinearity.
Pattern 1 - Information Overload - Data Dump & Reflex Period
1) dumping too much information makes the mind struggle for meaning _around the issue_. There is a reflex period as data goes and swirls around, and then understanding swirls out. First, however, there is a very visible moment of frustration in which the individual or group demands that the information be pared down to structure and pattern extraction. The individuals saying, "talk less - where's the pattern?". The WELL saying "less topics - you could do this in one". <betsys> saying, "I don't get it" but kicking out a definition that I had attached to the word-symbol 'isometry' (perhaps wrongly). Don't get hung up on the indvidual symbols!
Let me point out some individual word symbols that have kicked out information spinoffs in the original level - "hack" "virus" "fractal" "WORDS SUCK" "Negative feedback leads to failure" "feedback" "Isometry" "troll"
Now here's one of the really cool parts - even as the brain begins to parse down the meaning to some simple synopsis, somewhere it is at complete synthesis.
Isometries: <flame.ind.440>
Do you want to see the clearest articulation of everything so far? These guys are it! They read, synthesize it, and spit it back out in a clearer form. When I want to know where we're at, I read these guys!
Example - information in my posts about daniel quinn, neal stephenson. In <flame.ind.440> they ran right through a conversation that put the two of them together MUCH more powerfully than I could have by fighting with words.
Very similar to how <betsys> said she didn't like my word isometry, so kicked out a better explanation of the actual intended idea. Which got parsed down to zazz.
So - to parse our experience down into as short of symbols as I can. Each level gets simpler and simpler to symbolize - which is why I think I will make more sense at this level than at the level before.
The strategize level after this should be easier to read then this one - when take what we've noticed about information flow and try to articulate how it might fit. That's the level where we look down on this and say, "Okay, I need to know what happens if I do 'this' in terms of information flow through humans."}
Our experience so far: I came in and affected individuals and the WELL itself in a visceral way. Like when somebody smells bad, or talks too loud, or is too drunk - the exaggeration of the thing lets you notice it consciously. Except I came in saying, "Look at this consciously". Which creates much greater information flow than if I was just a long-winded jerk.
And then: I'm saying - step out of your visceral reaction and look at information flow. It fits patterns! Here's some of the patterns - initial information insertion (not symbol insertion - that should come last) is most visceral when it makes the mind demand a pattern. Making the pattern clear - being able to fit what we know into a framework of understanding - is only achieved through meta-level abstraction - not by looking for patterns from the level of being _in_ the information flow.
Imagine you were standing inside a computer model of a bunch of dots in 3d. You could spin round and round, looking for a pattern - but what if you could zap back out to the real world and say, "oh - the pattern is that it is a computer model of information."
So - in the structure:
Identify: I know: that I caused a reaction I know: that the information network reacted as predicted - like my students when I overload them with too much talking I know: that ideas get bounced around on a level below linguistic and often arise as a standing wave somewhere else. I need to know: if I can get the information network to leave the first discussion and begin looking at the overall conversation as involving data flow. I need to know: if I overdid it in the first information dump - turning people to stasis rather than a discussion. I need to know: if you, the members of the CoV, can articulate to me how to speak less to get conversation going about the topic. In other words - will you just say, "shut up, Ben, we're thinking about it"
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