On 9/26/22 6:13 PM, glen wrote:
I'd appreciate you (and SteveS) throwing some words at it. In
particular, since software patterns are *supposed* to be linked to the
geometric patterns of architecture,
I'm not at all an expert on software patterns... maybe DaveW can speak
more to this and I will ask the question of Richard Gabriel when he
visits here with Jenny in a couple of weeks maybe...
*where* or *how* has it gone wrong in extrapolation? Did Alexander go
wrong in his extrapolation? Or did others [mis]interpret?
Alexander's patterns are much more about relationships than geometry in
my perception. Spatially *constrained* relationships yes, but
relationships nonetheless... it spans the same agent/field particle/wave
dualities that we find in some simulation and quantum conceptions.
I don't think trying to emulate *architectural patterns* for software
was ever a good idea. Reading from the Wikipedia article on Pattern
Languages (and remembering from the introductory sections of Alexander's
work):
/A pattern language can also be an attempt to express the deeper
wisdom of what brings aliveness within a particular field of human
endeavor, through a set of interconnected patterns. Aliveness is one
placeholder term for "the quality that has no name": a sense of
wholeness, spirit, or grace, that while of varying form, is precise
and empirically verifiable.//^[1]
<https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pattern_language#cite_note-1>
//Alexander claims that ordinary people can use this design approach
to successfully solve very large, complex design problems./
You may well be right about there having been a misapprehension on the
part of the Go4 when they put it all together... it feels "off" to me
as well, but I always put that up to having too many pre-existing
opinions about Pattern Languages and about Software Design when they
introduced the two...
(I've purposefully left the Subject the same because it definitely
relates to Chan's morphology based taxonomy and my argument with my
meso-biologist friend about "species diversity" versus "phylogenetic
diversity".)
I'm not a thread-hygiene fiend, but do appreciate it when others make
the effort. My offerage of *another* subject was to try to respect the
possibility that this was a tangent. I do think this conversation
*can* remain tied to the diversity theme. Alexander's work is based in
the *idea* that he and his team(s) did the ethnographic work in studying
extant "built environments" to obtain the *essence* of what built human
living environments
(regional/urban/neighborhood/compound/home/office/room/furniture) that
can be found and used rather than a profession/industry
(architecture/building) deciding somewhat a-priori or
to-their-convenience what people need/want to live in/amongst.
Alexander was pretty clear (I think) that everyone should take his work
with a grain of salt and seek to add their own patterns, generate their
own pattern languages, etc.
The QWAN (quality without a name) business probably tweaks into our
"effing the ineffable" thread for better or worse... but it *is* the
first place *I* found myself accepting that kind of mystical "mouth
movement sounds" as maybe having more to them than just hand-waving and
carpet under-sweeping.
On 9/26/22 15:35, Prof David West wrote:
I am a patterns and Alexander expert. glen's uncertainty / mild
antipathy is spot on. Software patterns are an oxymoron.
Strong words, but happy to back them up with dozens of papers
written/presented and hours of discussion.
davew
On Mon, Sep 26, 2022, at 6:29 AM, glen wrote:
Very cool! Thanks.
In particular, our property abuts "the ravine", which is a semi-wild
place. The permaculture categories might help me orient my own
intuition (that everything in the ravine should be left alone) with my
neighbor's (clearing the whole area and reintroducing natives). He owns
the majority of it. So, c'est la vie ... or perhaps "telle est la
mort". (Don't blame me. I don't know French.) One thing this zone 0-5
model might permit is modularity. That blog post implies such with the
inverted garden interface. But it seems like there could be pockets of
zone0es in wild areas and pockets of zone5s in urban areas,
particularly in sprawling cities like LA or Houston. Growing up in
Houston, where every square inch of semi-abandoned land seemed rapidly
reclaimed by the swamp, is probably the source of my skepticism with my
friends' diversity doctrine.
There's a lot to digest in the biophilia links. I have to confess, I
haven't given pattern languages much attention. It always seems
motivated by geometry, which fails for me. Of course, I'm familiar
enough with software patterns. But that's always failed for me as well.
They seem too ephemeral, unstable ... i.e. not real, convenient
fiction, and *perfect* opportunity for gurus to blind others with their
gobbledygook mouth sounds. I guess it reminds me of category theory,
too abstract for my ape brain. But maybe some of his earlier work on
Clifford algebras might motivate me? I could start here, I guess:
https://link.springer.com/chapter/10.1007/978-1-4757-1472-2_41
Thanks again.
On 9/24/22 10:29, Steve Smith wrote:
On 9/24/22 9:49 AM, glen wrote:
Such efforts seem so inherently metaphorical it's difficult for me
to approach a concrete conversation. For example, I have a couple
of biologist friends, one meso (bugs) and one macro (ungulates),
who thought I was being contrarian when I challenged their
assertion that biodiversity in urban areas was *obviously* lower
than that of natural areas like forests. Of course, I admit my
ignorance up front. Maybe they are. But it's just not obvious to me.
This may seem a little tangential but the realm of Permaculture
Design has a suite of truisms on these topics, though they are
articulated in their unique language which can be a little hard to
translate sometimes. I think the permaculture community represent
a fertile laboratory for doing *some* experiments as implied by
Glen's questions.
A good example which gestures toward the Chan work at least
morphologically is maybe worth a scan if not a full read here:
https://aflorestanova.wordpress.com/2016/04/08/zones-in-permaculture-design/
Permaculture's 5 zone quantization doesn't preclude a recognition
of there being continuous gradients in many dimensions from a locus
of "technological closed-loop" (zone 0) and "biological closed
loop" (zone 5).
There is a *lot* of talk in the literature about the interfaces
around zone 0, 1, 2 techno-structures creating localized ecozones
that harbor diversity (desired and undesired == vermin) which I
think provide some good anecdotal evidence about biodiversity in
transition zones and acute technological interfaces (e.g. roofs,
walls, corners, posts, fences, etc). Permaculture is a domain of
recognizing and exploiting "happy accidents".
It is also worth noting the diversity spike that happens in
estuarial contexts...
A more formal study of Urban/Architectural design with an eye to
*health* (human-centric view) is the domain of Biophilic Design
<https://www.terrapinbrightgreen.com/report/biophilia-healing-environments/>.
Nikos Salingaros is a hard-core Mathematician at UT-San Antonio who
addresses abstractions of Complexity
<https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nikos_Salingaros#Complexity> and
Pattern Languages <https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pattern_language>
as well as Architecture and Urbanism. He also has some interesting
opinions
<https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nikos_Salingaros#Philosophy> about
post modernism as well as Dawkins Atheism.
Since then, they've presented (meso and macro) arguments that
justify their position. It does seem obvious that urban areas
trend to more adaptable animals like coyotes and raccoons and less
so to, say, deer. The bugs are more interesting. Meso guy found
some articles that show "species" diversity in urban areas is
roughly the same as natural areas. But phylogenetic diversity is
clearly lower in urban areas. That seems counter intuitive to me.
It's a cool result.
My main point when I originally expressed skepticism, though, was
about microbial diversity. Is it possible that bug-layer and
microbe-layer (including what lives in/on large animals like rats
and humans) diversity makes up for lower diversity in large-layers?
I *feel* that projects like Chan's could help with this question
since it seems prohibitively expensive to sample and test enough
microbial populations of urban and wild areas, especially if we
include intra-animal populations. I'm just not sure *how* they
could help.
On 9/24/22 03:38, David Eric Smith wrote:
It’s funny; I know Bert.
One of our colleagues played a role in bringing him out to work
at Google in Tokyo.
A mathematician (Will Cavendish) who has part-time support at IAS
https://www.ias.edu/scholars/will-cavendish
<https://www.ias.edu/scholars/will-cavendish>
is also interested in the mathematical dimensions of this, though
I have only a glancing exposure to how those two together are
trying to frame the problems. Because Bert has come at it more
from the ALife/engineering approach, and Will’s interests run
more in the direction of proving capabilities of broad classes of
systems, often interested in their aggregation as categories
(and also about the role of simulation as a replacement for
proof in systems that produce complicated enough state spaces),
it should be a productive and interesting collaboration. I don’t
know how engaged others are in the Google group on this specific
project, because I am too far outside that loop.
Eric
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