2003-07-23
Conduit metaphor and ur-shapes
Unable to articulate the unsuredness I feel around
object orientating
the conduit metaphor
component-based templating
web services
That they all [and others] seem to be grasping towards something but not
reaching it. I recognise this grasping. It happens when there are hardwired
expectations - folk systems theory[1] - and we unconsciously push towards them.
Or (more likely) it just happens that that's how the human+system behaves, it
tends in that direction, because of expections (yes) and just because.
[1] folk as in folk psychology, folk physics. The understanding that we as
humans of the Holocene rather than human of the Truncated Now have of how the
world works.
TRY AGAIN!
the rock stays with the tower, why? (Feyerabend, Against Method p73)
it all comes down to the problems with the conduit metaphor
== object orientation == computer based systems
"and if the hypothetical patients on which the causal agents act are passive
things incapable of spontaneity or self-activity -- incapable, in short, of
adding something of their own to the causal bond -- then it follows that, in a
sense, effects preexist in their causes". [this is wrong] (Delanda
IS&VP p155)
our folk systems theory recreates the world in all cyberspaces, gradually
the rock stays with the tower because it inherits [this is wrong]
(we rediscover relativity in software) [we implement it badly]
our folk systems theory misleads us
object orientation as a quest to introduce distance?
(distance: "When two separate series of events are placed in communication,
in such a way that a change in probabilities of one series affects the
probability distribution of the other, we have an information
channel". (Delanda IS&VP p76))
our metaphors are clockwork, Newtonian! objects assume effects preexist in
their methods (causes)!
stop pretending that nouns and verbs represent web services. verbs are a
negotiation, not called on passive patients (nouns). stop pretending the
conduit metaphor works. intelligence isn't contained.
intelligence is: expectations + the implicature of expectations + extelligence
+ combinations recombinance recursion to infinity.
biological components communicate by shape
the capturing shape doesn't care what goes in it, so long as it fits. many
things fit. but! it's impossible to pretend to be something without that coming
across even slightly in the shape, it's impossible to mimic exactly a thing
without being that thing.
the shape for visual component of sex is also filled by pornography. but
pornography also carries its own signature. so much specific expectations can
be set up. ditto proteins.
shapes are methods. it's impossible not to send information. specify the method
more exactly by specifying the shape more exactly. remember there's
expectations and implicature on both sides. the universe as conversation. the
conversation medium being the physical shape of the universe itself. distance
is part of the ur-shape, the one-shape, that has distance intrinsic to itself
(so, it's not a room). a protein that fits into a hole but isn't close by
doesn't ur-fit (ur-fit: a more precise meaning of 'fit' that is 'the right
shape'+'in the right place'. saying 'it fits' if it isn't in the same place is
like saying people-noses and dog-noses are the same: not true but useful). the
further away it is (in distance) the less well ur-shaped it is.
so we need distance in object orientation, not this foolish relativity.
we need to get rid of the conduit metaphor, it's just the same.