Skip to content

Latest commit

 

History

History
192 lines (131 loc) · 7.44 KB

README.org

File metadata and controls

192 lines (131 loc) · 7.44 KB

Evolution vs Intelligent design

Trying too hard to control an outcome can make one blind to a potentially rich set of possibilities that were not predicted. Optimism, pessimism, betting, don’t have objective value until they are contrasted with experience. But, if constant movement and moving fast means giving up on understanding then there is no point of reference. Any direction has the same weight, the same cost and value. There is a good chance of going around in circles, perceiving superficial variations as progress. Measuring without understanding is not a solution since there is no way to tell whether the variations are fundamental or just different units.

The myth of Sisyphus. Funny contrast: The Futurists by G. K. Chesterton.

A common process

Impression → Thought → Expression.

As verbs
Read → Eval → Print.
As nouns
Controller → Model → View.
  • Abstraction and loss of detail | Funes el memorioso
  • Verb subject and object | internal representations and translation
    • Shared state
    • Globals, classes and functions | read/write parameters

Technical debt and comprehensional debt

Technical debt
Extra work that arises when favoring ease of implementation in the short run instead of applying the best overall solution. If not repaid, it can accumulate interest, making it harder to implement changes later.
Comprehensional debt
Extra organizational complexity that arises when favoring complicated implementations in the short run instead of applying the simplest overall solution. If not repaid, it can generate bureaucracy, making it harder to coordinate changes later.

Locke on ideas

Original

Ideas are the objects of thought and understanding. Whenever we think, perceive, or contemplate, we think about ideas.

All ideas come from Experience. Hence, all the materials of reason and knowledge arise from experience. None are innate.

Experience may be of two different origins:

  1. Sensation: These are ideas of external sensible objects conveyed to us by the senses: yellow, white, hot, cold.
  2. Reflection: These are perceptions of the internal operations of our minds: thinking, doubting, willing.

Ideas from these sources may also be of two basic types:

  1. Simple Ideas: Of one uniform appearance or conception in the mind; cannot be created or destroyed.
  2. Complex ideas: Constructed by us in various ways using other simple ideas.

Simple ideas

These can be of four basic types:

  1. Ideas from one sense: Light, noise, taste, smell, heat, solidity, texture. (secondary properties)
  2. Ideas from more than one sense: space, extension, figure, rest, motion. (primary properties)
  3. Ideas from reflection only: perception, willing.
  4. Ideas from both sense and reflection: pleasure and pain, power, existence, unity.

Complex Ideas

These are constructed by us using three different methods:

  1. Combination — putting various ideas together into one complex idea: a unicorn constructed from the ideas of horn and horse.
  2. Relation — seeing the relation between ideas: equality.
  3. Abstraction — separating one property from many particular ideas: all general, abstract ideas.

Complex ideas can also be of three different types of objects:

  1. Modes: these don’t contain the supposition of independent subsistence.
    1. Simple — combine same type of ideas: number (12).
    2. Mixed — combine different types of ideas: beauty combines color and form.
  2. Substances — These represent distinct particular things.
    1. Single — An individual taken to exist by itself: a man.
    2. Collective — a group consisting of other individuals: an army or flock of sheep.
  3. Relations — These are relationships between other ideas, substances, or modes.

Syntagm and Paradigm

Original Syntagm and paradigm govern how signs relate to one another.

Syntagm

A syntagmatic relationship is one where signs occur in sequence or parallel and operate together to create meaning.

The sequential nature of language means that linguistic signs have syntagmatic relationships.

Thus, for example, the letters in a word have syntagmatic relationship with one another, as do the words in a sentence or the objects in a picture.

Syntagmatic relationships are often governed by strict rules, such as spelling and grammar. They can also have less clear relationships, such as those of fashion and social meaning.

Paradigm

A paradigmatic relationship is one where an individual sign may be replaced by another.

Thus, for example, individual letters have a paradigmatic relationship with other letters, as where one letter is used, another may replace it (albeit changing meaning). Letters and numbers do not have a paradigmatic relationship.

Items on a menu have paradigmatic relationship when they are in the same group (starters, main course, sweet) as a choice is made. Courses have a sequential (syntagmatic) relationship, and thus an item from the starter menu does not have a paradigmatic relationship with the sweet menu.

Paradigmatic relationships are typically associative, in that both items are in a single membership set.

Discussion

An individual sign (a unit) has no separate meaning, and only delivers value in relation to other units in related sets. Thus a poodle dog has meaning only in relation to other types of dog.

Etymology of idiot

Its modern meaning and form dates back to Middle English. The related word idiocy dates to 1487 and may have been analogously modeled on the words prophet and prophecy.

Old French, idiote
“uneducated or ignorant person”.
Late Latin, idiota
“uneducated or ignorant person”.
Latin, idiota
“ordinary person, layman”.
Greek, idiōtēs
“person lacking professional skill”, “a private citizen”, “individual”.
Greek, idios
“private”, “one’s own”.

An idiot in Athenian democracy was someone who was characterized by self-centeredness and concerned almost exclusively with private—as opposed to public—affairs.

Idiocy was the natural state of ignorance into which all persons were born and its opposite, citizenship, was effected through formalized education.

In Athenian democracy, idiots were born and citizens were made through education (although citizenship was also largely hereditary).

“Idiot” originally referred to “layman, person lacking professional skill”, “person so mentally deficient as to be incapable of ordinary reasoning”.

Declining to take part in public life, such as democratic government of the polis (city state), was considered dishonorable.

“Idiots” were seen as having bad judgment in public and political matters.

Over time, the term “idiot” shifted away from its original connotation of selfishness and came to refer to individuals with overall bad judgment–individuals who are “stupid”.

Design

  • State “TODO” from [2017-05-14 Sun 10:12]

Designing is the act of choosing and combining the choices. This relationship of choice and combination is shared with language. The set of choices is the paradigm and the combination is the syntagm.