thinking/sloshing about Probability

‘The Law of Large Numbers’ and ‘Central Limit Theorem’ are representations of Probability Theory. According to Jaynes, the behaviors of any system in question appear “random” because we are not privy to the complete composition, behavior, and influences upon that system. Given many examples of the given system’s behavior, however, certain trends stand out- characteristics more essentially of the system than others; this may be more accurately stated: “characteristics definitive of the system”.

Obviously, Probability Theory was a coping method acquired by the developing ocean beast simply to function more effectively in its unfurling World.

More strangeness radiates from the unusual, inexplicable asymmetries of Thermodynamics when ’statistical mechanics’ is regarded in light of this take on Probability. Deep quantum understanding and non-relativistic physics do a fine job of indicating the fundamental possibility or truth of bidirectional “time”. However, action in the universe proceeds unidirectionally; this is a basic tenet of Thermodynamics. How curious that this framework of understanding, to our best knowledge, is inseparable from the epistemological workings of Probability.

(sounds of 4/4 strumming)

My neighbor, in the apartment above my room, listens to some lame music. Every twist, chord change, bridge, and snare is utterly predictable.  By mishearing a song earlier, I tricked myself into hearing the music change into something akin to the band 311- I was immediately struck by its funkiness and character. I do not have the most positive feelings about 311, and that I reveled in its qualities should indicate how bad the neighbor’s music actually is.

This is not all to say that uniqueness is of virtue in its own right- that would be a grave, shallow misunderstanding of originality.

Because the neighbor’s music is so homogenous, and of such undifferentiated presence in the sphere of music, little power inherent to “the literary artifact” is realized; it appeals basely.

‘literary artifact’

“…grasshopper’s appetites…”. This highly idiosyncratic phrase identifies itself through its unique composition. it is an example of a “literary artifact”, a great meaning indicated efficiently (sometimes exceedingly important, sometimes intentional; sometimes not). Another term for this might be “reference” or “link”. For those versed in a literature, these links are populated.

For those outside that literature, the links are meaningless, or simply not recognized in the first place. The unusual qualities of the Burke quote make it stand out, pique the awareness. With objects such as this, it is permissible to expect the audience to read more deeply or, as with encountering a recondite technical term in the literature of a more “technical” practice (ie electronics, mathematics, philosophy, etc.), to seek further.

Respectfully, the languages, or “literatures”, kept intact by reference, must be kept separate. The uniqueness or idiosyncrasy of the term relies on the potential for uniqueness, reinforced by the distinctness of the language as a whole. The term’s use or utility as a referenced idea is a function of the domain in which it resides. The domain also determines the type of thing to be referenced (in addition to strongly influencing the mode of understanding in which it may ultimately be addressed, as previously implied).

“- Toronto Dominion.”

In the recession of 1987 Toronto-Dominion Bank “participated actively in debt restructuring initiatives”.

The abstract value of debt became real, was “material” somehow, had structure and, despite lacking actual physical matter, could not simply evaporate, be released, or stop existing-

Banks, the financial system, and collective economy are the realized bodies of labor credit, a biological abstraction that first arose as a facility of sociocognitive language. This value is as the grasshopper’s appetite and the compound chemical.

All-over hearing, The Reicher

- The more I think about them, the more unusual the harmonies seem to me- I think the rhythmic structures and timbral context permit these harmonies where they may have been too outstanding in earlier Western composition.

- Reich’s melodic rhythms lean, their center of gravity wants little to do with the temporal structure of the measure. It is therefore common for those conditioned by western or pop rhythm to lose their place in the temporal structure, taken by one voice or the next, each line or group with its own unique center of gravity, (“unique”relative to the piece).

These “centers of gravity” are positioned by the unfolding of the line. They are in fact created, manipulated, and sustained by their unfolding. The genius of this is in striving towards an aural all-overness; if compartmentalized, the overall sound is generally still broad and usually coherent. The measures are pulsed across, not yielding the analytic source of time’s arrangement until the felt folds, formed as processes spread over many levels of the temporal hierarchy complete in unison.

Egg-time

Things, related in such a way as to be grouped into a ’system’, become, or in other words “are considered as” another thing. ["becomes..." = the moment of comprehension, initiated or held]

The sub-units of the system are themselves potential systems to be considered; all of them related via some shared pattern.

When cooking an egg, materials are rhythmically related, the heat propagating through the layers of material. The hand twists the dial, the element heats the pan, the pan cooks the egg. The subsystems, though ‘directly’ linked from our current perspective, don’t posses a 1:1 rhythm. The moments at each layer sweep differently through time. The moment of the knob’s twist is a gradual crescendo of heat from the perspective of the egg. The origins of each subsystem’s changes through time are shared, but to ponder the origin of a change from a perspective relative to a subsystem requires a notion of time relative to that system. Pan-time, egg-time, stove-time, cooking-time, heat-time. This last one a twist.

if madonna can write a kids book

for a short story: A landlord’s opulent house is densely surrounded by his tenants. For the tenants the winters are difficult to endure.

It is discovered that plumbing from tenant-building water heaters also runs out the walls in the direction of the landlord’s imposing castle.

patterns of coincidence, pissing near a cat

This afternoon Toad (a cat) was fascinated with the toilet and my pissing in it. Dangerously near the stream and unaware, I would push his head away, sometimes a desperate knee nudge, but to no avail. Later he returned, and I was suddenly confronted with an educational challenge and a bladder I was only growing in awareness of. I picked him up and put him across the bathroom, returned to pee- so did he. I picked him up and put him across the bathroom.

Because he didn’t return I thought about coincidence of stimuli, Burke and Pavlov’s Dogs. Learning is an impression of co-incidental patterns, rather, patterns of coincidence. It can take the form of simultaneous instances to be compared or simultaneous occurrences to be associated. Dissociation and distinction are one with these methods of memory (and are indissoluble from cognition).

Associations, in the form of neurons in the brain, are the key. Though there is not one neuron per one thought, because the cells are selectively connected they fire in associated groups. The genius is that any fringe link could well unite two or more associated groups, creating a framework. This is not even to say there is one associated group per idea. By fluttering through connections regularly, in quick repetition, slight to great changes in connections can take place, altering the nature of the idea and the direction of the thought. These flutterings are in multiple: new stimuli can be quickly arresting, breaking neural streams with degrees of influence not often seen in the slow massage of stored ideas.

The cortex is a relatively plastic place, but not all of the brain is without [hard coding] or some form of strongly encouraged direction/association. The more basic, deeply animal components are far more constant – take for example the optic nerve!

caboose thoughts

…a symbol, its sole criterion: that it evince thingness.

Is the Color orange a symbol? Yes.
Is the sensation of orange a symbol? No, it is lightly processed stimuli.

The sensation of orange may trigger ideas and relationships, so it is possible to say that “semantic frameworks” are not “symbolic frameworks”. Possibly, then, ’semantics’ is to deal with processed chunks of stimuli, and is therefore inherently fuzzy, not ideally formalizable. Semantic frameworks encompass symbols, however, though it is obviously of value to retain the distinctions between “semantics” generally and “symbols” specifically.

And why are symbols fallible? Because non-formal systems are relative (increasingly less so with heavily used, common shared symbols), and formal systems are perpetually incomplete, provably so.
And of discrete formal systems, what are we to set ourselves to if “thingness” and ideal (complete) definition are not possible? Determine why good approximations work, where the discreteness arises amidst the abstraction.

Post-conversation letter

The term “symbol” was thrown around loosely, but because I’ve more or less arranged my entire framework of understanding around a honed use of this term, it would be useful to us all if I were to fill it in a bit. A “symbol” is the node at which thoughts aggregate. What in the hell does this mean? It would be correct to say a ’signifier’, an identifier for an idea, is a symbol. However, it would also be correct to say that an utterly unusual object, for which you have no immediate terms of description, is also symbol, in that it activates shapeness, faculties for imagining mass, for imagining material, etc. A symbol is a concurrence in your head, a density of related thoughts, triggered by incorporated stimuli. There is nothing necessarily discrete about a symbol at all, its single requirement is that it evince thingness.

Though I may be alone in my appreciation of Burke, I have to deliver a second attempt to explain why I find his work important, or why it is important to the me. From what I understand Burke (Kenneth, bitch) is somewhat notorious for being a difficult read- not outright challenging, but somehow unnecessarily or unknowingly difficult. This is, understandably, an unavoidable result of the position he found himself in.  When Burke wrote P&C, Saussure’s theories were sweeping in, a thirty year crescendo into literature criticism, and Freud’s ideas were dissolving out from below. As a result, no one knew how to talk about words or thoughts. Semiotics (though it was spelled semeotics back in those days) was pioneered at the Sausserian signifier/signified split, and from it Burke lifted the abstracted notion, or more importantly term, “symbol”. IT is the object of his writing, if you want to call it that. With formal tools all fucked up Burke worked at describing the features constant across symbolic thought. His resources, examples, and applied terminology are all over the place, which was both necessary in terms of his intentions, but ultimately unfortunate in terms of sensibility. There is translation necessary to apply his theories even to my own scattered search, but the  integrity and applicability of the underlying ideas is impressive.

I should also mention this:
While tailing you guys back from Reich-time I was thinkin’ about meta meta-hodos. I feel as though I resolved some thoughts:

Symbols are the bridge between Intellect (“meta-hodos:”) and Intuition (“hodos”). Here take our terms as complete synonyms. Both of these ideas are built upon discrete things: notions and their terms in the case of Intellect, and the systems of an animal body in the case of Intuition. You can already tell I’ve replaced “conscious” operation with “symbolic”. Never fear, the use of symbols correlates closely with awareness and, therefore, consciousness. This is a switch for my benefit (though we all know how feeble “consciousness”-oriented frameworks are).

“Meta meta-hodos” is the remaining capacity of the mind, the matter not working for symbolic thought processes. Though of the same basic neuronal materials as linked symbol systems [read: the distinctions between the levels of hodos, though justifiable, are abstract], “meta meta-hodos” is different in that it is the parts of the brain which are not yet probabilistically linked (there is no force sending a signal down one route as opposed to another); their links are ephemeral- coalescing, acquiescing as novel processes become. As a result, the meta meta-hodos would be free to ’strive outwards’, as the assorted brain materials on which its processes operate don’t have any impression of their own function. That part of the Mind, in its capacity, is “aboveness”. It is transcendent potential.