-----BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE----- Hash: SHA1 steve smith wrote: > N!/(R! * (N-R)!) For N=100 and R=9 we get numbers like 100!(9! * 91!) > or ~100^9/50,000 or about 2,000,000 N=100 and R=5 we get 100^5/125 or > about 100,000. > > These are much smaller than 2^100 or ~10^30 but still pretty darn > huge numbers. Applying 7+-2 again, we might imagine that nobody can > really participate in more than this many subgroups effectively... > even 5 might be a bit much. So now, we no longer have N choose 5 or > 9, we have N*5 or N*9. When N=100, we have 500 or 900...
I like the number play and appreciate the concrete application of 7±2. However, don't forget to factor in the fact that humans operate by time-slicing their attention amongst multiple objectives. So, at any given interval of time, one may be involved with several subgroups, seemingly in parallel. I think that would change your N choose 9 to something like: K * (N choose 9) Where K is the number of concurrent tasks one is working on. If the duration is on the order of years, then that number might approach 2^N - N - 1. (If the 9 chosen often overlap, then the relationship might contain an exponential in there somewhere.) > One other point... Ropella seems to want to dismiss the value of > technologically mediated social networks completely (merely as a > devil's advocate?). My experience is that "simple" e-mail is "proof > by example" of the utility of technological mediation. Sorry for any mis-implications; but, I don't dismiss the value (or more properly "usefulness") of technologically mediated social networks. And I certainly don't dismiss such usefulness _completely_. What I dismiss is the hyperbolic assertion of _novelty_ in the effect of given technology. And I used e-mail to make my point. Humans are social animals and _all_ technology mediates social networks. Further _all_ social networks are "technologically mediated social networks". We've heard it time and time again "Widget X will _change_ the way we interact!" And that's just bull. On the contrary, the only thing being changed is the abstraction layers between any two humans. One human being reared by another (child to parent) is just about the most intimate, most concrete relationship possible. Humans who regularly have sex is about the next most concrete. Then come roommates, co-workers, face-to-face meetings, etc. all the way up to the most abstract. (To me the most abstract human-human relationship is using mathematics, especially something like addition and subtraction which was created so long ago by people I'll never meet or understand.) Tools like e-mail, myspace, facebook, etc. simply toss in another layer of abstraction. Yes, it allows us to _imagine_ things about the icons and avatars in our "friends" list. But, does it really change the nature of human interaction? No. At best, the extra layers of abstraction simply provide yet another way for predators to prey on the delusional. It allows those of us who are lonely to delude ourselves into thinking we have friends. "Sure, they won't go get a beer with me. Sure, they don't like the same kind of music I like. Sure their eyes glaze over when I start talking about my collection of garden gnomes. But!!! They're in my friends list on myspace!!!" On the flip-side, there are those who amass huge lists of "friends" in some weird attempt to get the biggest list and try to memetically _move_ people around in thought-space. They seem (to me) to be the type of person that is never actually relaxed with anyone... the kind of person who prefers to always be on stage. They call _everyone_ their friend. These forms of technology certainly make some people happy (especially the stockholders of the companies that foist this crap on us ;-). And if happiness is the goal, then they are of high value. The _usefulness_, however, can only be recognized by the predators. (Side note: I'm using a broad definition of "predator"... to include scavengers and parasites... and note that I don't exempt myself... I often scavenge for ideas when my own mind is a wasteland, which is happening more often nowadays. ;-) > This comes from several features. > > 1) Space I can communicate with people distributed over virtually any > geographic region without waiting for them to come to the same > location as I. Yes, but consider the _quality_ (a.k.a. character) of your communications. Can you really _know_ someone who grew up and still lives in Holland or Taiwan? Are you really communicating with them? Or is your communication limited to some common denominator? > 2) Time I needn't wait for anyone else to be in the mood to talk to > me to talk to them. I an yack at them at my own convenience and they > can read my yack at theirs and respond at their own convenience. Again, is this a _dialog_? Or are you (as so many men are often accused) not listening to the other guy at all and just thinking about what you'll say next? Can dialog occur asynchronously? Real, dirty, concrete, human dialog where it's clear when you've offended someone or it's clear that they're body chemistry is off that day? > 3) Persistent record Most of us have kept our own e-mail archives and > certainly lists like this one provide an archive of a discussion for > later reference. Ahh, but is this an historically accurate record of thoughts? Or is this just the equivalent of the Dead Sea scrolls where the only time one makes the effort to _write_ something (which will be permanently archived) is when they really, really want it archived? Or, worse yet, how "off the cuff" are those e-mails? Do you talk mostly to people who wring their hands over each and every e-mail? Or are they just the (mostly random) nonsense that most of us think on most occasions? That nonsense is part and parcel of concrete human social interaction. Any medium that doesn't capture it is historically biased. Even worse, we've all become a bunch of bean counters (or at least lawyers), reading what people _write_ rather than listening to what they _mean_. These forms of technology have _literally_ done more to propagate Hilbert's program than any other human activity... to remove the semantics from human language. > 4) Multiplicity. It is as easy to write to a dozen or a gross as it > is to an individual. Mail lists help to organize that multiplicity. Again, like the printing press, this _reduces_ (inversely proportional to the number of people in your To: list) the value of the words you write. > 5) Efficient subgrouping This is the most on-topic. At any time I > can send an e-mail to any chosen subgroup of FRIAM (up to my > knowledge of the full list and my patience with addressing the To: or > CC: line . Spinoff discussions can focus down to smaller groups, or > perhaps exclude disruptive or otherwise negative elements. Ahhh, but this gets to the heart of it. Those concrete details (e.g. disruptive and "negative" elements like gadflies or body odor) are _necessary_ to high quality, concrete, communication. Remove them (abstract away) and you get idealized Utopian concepts that are useless for practical situations. Sure, it's fun to engage in heavily abstracted dialog with your heavily abstracted friends; but, of what _use_ is such behavior other than to make you happy or to allow you to exploit? As for whether or not I'm playing Devil's Advocate, yes, to a certain extent. I do find _use_ in these forms of technology as I said in my original response to Owen's query. But it is _far_ from the hyperbolic assertions made by the advocates of the technology. - -- glen e. p. ropella, 971-219-3846, http://tempusdictum.com The urge to save humanity is almost always a false front for the urge to rule. -- H. L. Mencken -----BEGIN PGP SIGNATURE----- Version: GnuPG v1.4.6 (GNU/Linux) Comment: Using GnuPG with Mozilla - http://enigmail.mozdev.org iD8DBQFGyxBcZeB+vOTnLkoRAnCVAJ9dn607g6cQEYZj+VwF4/0L7ifWagCfaLAD Z5Y0F4eefHfof68OxM8DXUE= =5GkF -----END PGP SIGNATURE----- ============================================================ FRIAM Applied Complexity Group listserv Meets Fridays 9a-11:30 at cafe at St. John's College lectures, archives, unsubscribe, maps at http://www.friam.org
