[soa-forum] how long is a piece of string?

[Paul Prueitt <psp@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

On Nov 7, 2007, at 6:00 AM, idc-request@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx (Karen) wrote:

So perhaps we should not design applications that create

in-between-ness directly, instead maybe we might construct frameworks in which

in-between-ness can emerge depending on people's actions?

I complement the participants on the quality of the discussion.  

I recommend this discussion be reviewed by those soa-forum participatants who are interested in the original Clinton Administration focus of "e_governance" as a human centric interface between government and individual people.  

I would like to summarize the forum discussion from a viewpoint which I call "second school", and in this way delineate the differences between a first and second school. ( www.secondschool.net )

Up to now, information technology is characterized as constructed software interfaces that serve some utility while also serving as returns on investment within a specific philosophical school regarding capital formation.  Shannon information theory is only part of the philosophical positions that are elevated by the "first school".  Due to subtle scientific and philosophical issues, hard to capture in the first school mindset, the alternatives to the first school are not developed except in scholars language such as what enfolds in the idc e-forum, and a few other places.  

A second school about information recognizes more fully the situated-ness  of individual human experience and seeks to define computer human interfaces that capitalize the in-between nature of the experience of location within various worlds, social, personal, physical.  

Maturana and Varela's work on autopoiesis certainly gives us one approach to understanding the in-between-ness of situated awareness.  The idc forum often mentions both social biologists' foundation works.   I would include in foundational work the work on action-perception cycles developed by J. J. Gibson 

From wiki on Gibson:

James Jerome Gibson (January 27, 1904–December 11, 1979), was an American psychologist, considered one of the most important 20th century psychologists in the field of visual perception. In his classic work The Perception of the Visual World (1950) he rejected the fashionable behaviorism for a view based on his own experimental work, which pioneered the idea that animals 'sampled' information from the 'ambient' outside world. He also coined the term 'affordance', meaning the interactive possibilities of a particular object or environment. This concept has been extremely influential in the field of design and ergonomics: see for example the work of Donald Norman who worked with Gibson, and has adapted many of his ideas for his own theories.

In his later work (such as, for example, The Ecological Approach to Visual Perception (1979)), Gibson became more philosophical and criticised cognitivism in the same way he had attacked behaviorism before. Gibson argued strongly in favour of 'direct perception', or 'direct realism' (as pioneered by the Scottish philosopher Thomas Reid), as opposed to cognitivist 'indirect realism'. He termed his new approach ecological psychology. He also rejected the information processing view of cognition. Gibson is increasingly influential on many contemporary movements in psychology, particularly those considered to be post-cognitivist.

I suggest that the Gibsonian concept of affordance is of particular interest "if" computer interfaces are to evolve under some type of measure derived from the action to be taken.  Gibson and Karl Pribram had many discussions about the nature of affordance; and there are many nuances captured by the group at Univ of Conn, school of Ecological Psychology (Shaw and Turvey).  We enter the field of "complex natural systems" and the need for Robert Rosen's definition of complexity.  Rosen's definition is essentially that all natural systems other than formal systems are complex, and all formal system are simple (non-complex).  Cognitive maps like Topic Maps can be complex when experienced by a human interpretant (CS Peirce).  Mathematics and RDF-OWL ontology is simple (non-complex) but complicated when used as fixed truth.  * These statements are "second school" in nature.

The question of how the affordances possible in a situation are to be modeled has been a key element of work done with web ontology languages, particularly in the context of defining service architectures.   These service architectures are full "anticipatory" if and only if the action consequences can be modeled within the context of being situated prior to those consequences. (footnote to a longer paper on anticipatory design)

The schools here are using W3C standards based on what is called RDF and OWL - with primary application in business, government and military.  The application is clearly "first school" however - and perhaps luckily.  

Topic maps are used by some who are at least intuitively aware of the issue of in-between-ness as situated.  

There are specific issues that have to be resolved in order that the correct formal tool, ie. Topic Maps, be applied in a second school fashion, so that "the shape of a string" is addressed in the fashion suggested by Wittgenstein in his "Blue and Brown Books".

Thank you all again of the thoughtful dialog, and please excuse any error I may have made in my presentation.  

Paul...

footnote on anticipatory design:

http://www.ontologystream.com/beads/nationalDebate/challengeProblem.htm  

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