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Notes on software and processes for collecting, analyzing and acting on data |
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Working Notes: Current Working Notes These notes are the contents of a whiteboard in Tinderbox that I'm using to map out my (more . . .)
Models, Scenarios and Stories: Knowledge about a system has to be expressed in order to be useful. Analytical theories that describe the world in (more . . .)
Flatter and chunkier: I've been readusting my use of Tinderbox during this latest spate of writing. I've been an outline user for (more . . .) About this siteSyndication available
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I often talk about the representation of knowledge about systems in models using mathematics or other tools. The relationship between knowledge and systems is deep. There cannot be knowledge without interactions in a system. A system, as I've defined it, is a collection of interacting entities. If you isolate one of those entities, it may exist with all of its potential properties: color, mass, explosiveness, or language. Yet the color is unknown until there is an interaction of photons with the entity. Further, the quality of color as I would understand it, requires an interaction of the reflected photons by something: an instrument, camera or eye. Naming the color requires further interaction with entities in a more complex system. Of course each entity is likely to be a complex system itself. So the manifestation of a potential property of an entity requires interaction in a system. This manifestation is information or, in a higher systematic sense, knowledge. The information itself emerges from the interactions, having no physical existence itself. |
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Copyright 2003 by James J. Vornov |