Re: [ba-unrev-talk] Fw: [unrev-II] Dervin and Sense-Making
Hi Gil, (01)
No, I wasn't being sarcastic, (apologies if it seemed that way,) I just
trying to make a point about the nature of sense-making understood as a
heuristic. (02)
Gil Regev wrote:
>Generalizing this statement Weinberg concludes that, "Heuristic devices
don't tell you when to stop." Which means that for instance >"Mechanics
alone cannot say which system will yield to mechanical analysis. Mathematics
cannot tell us the range of successful application." >So sense-making alone
cannot tell you when to apply sense-making nor when to stop applying it. (03)
First I would like to suggest that mathematics and mechanics etc. are
specialized methodisations of sense-making. They are 'applicable
perspectives', if you will on the domain of the world. And their 'form of
thought' might actually be a severely limited subpattern of the overall
sense-making heuristic (if it is a heuristic).
So making the inductive inference from 'mathematics cannot tell us' to
'sense-making cannot tell us' might not hold. (04)
Secondly, e.g., mathematics cannot tell us the range of successful
application because the domain is unbounded for us. Not only is the universe
very big, but the future is unknown.
Ditto, sense-making, assuming the inductive inference does hold. (05)
But look what happens when the domain is known: (06)
ahdfsahl lkjh tlkja fkjh 54987dlkjf -a98sya sfkh relkjrht akdfj a98y tk. (07)
You can encompass all that in your short-term memory, scan for patterns that
*make sense*, until the list of possible matches your brain can generate is
exhausted.
Let's assume that first of all you see it as a string that might be a
sentence in some language. That fixes the subjective domain of possibilities
in your mind.
Then your brain scans for any hints of 'sense'. Perhaps you don't find any.
Fine. You stop.
*Now, it is entirely possible that the sense-making heuristic could include
that bit that says, "I haven't found any sense, so I'll stop trying to find
any".* As in, it doesn't make sense to continue looking for sense if you've
exhausted the list of possibilities you thought might apply. (08)
If I then tell you that the string is encoded it moves to a much bigger
domain (assuming you already know the meaning of encoded), and your scanning
approaches shifts accordingly. (09)
Possible flaws of reasoning aside, what's a very important point for me is
that it's all domain ('size') dependent up to a point (typically the
ultimate processing capacity of your brain and the nature of understanding). (010)
Cheers,
Peter (011)
----- Original Message -----
From: "Gil Regev" <gil.regev@epfl.ch>
To: <ba-unrev-talk@bootstrap.org>
Sent: Monday, November 19, 2001 11:13 AM
Subject: RE: [ba-unrev-talk] Fw: [unrev-II] Dervin and Sense-Making (012)
> It took me about 30 seconds to realize that what I thought you did (my
> interpretation) was that you randomly keyed some sequence on your
keyboard.
> Prior to that I thought that maybe you were sending a sentence written
> backword or in some other code that with some investment I could make
sense
> of. Having stopped trying to make sense out of the "sentence" below
because
> I interpreted it as being a random sequence of characters (which it may
not
> be), doesn't prevent me from trying to make sense out what you really
meant
> by sending the message. I have no idea whether you are sarcastic when you
> say "very interesting" followed by the quiz or whether you found my
message
> "really" interesting. So my sensemaking process will go on probably for a
> long time (and probably will never stop) but this had nothing to do with
my
> point: that the theory of sensemaking will have a tough time telling you
to
> what kind of problems it relates and when to stop applying the mechanisms
it
> proposes.
>
>
> -----Original Message-----
> From: owner-ba-unrev-talk@bootstrap.org
> [mailto:owner-ba-unrev-talk@bootstrap.org]On Behalf Of Peter Jones
> Sent: samedi, 17. novembre 2001 00:40
> To: ba-unrev-talk@bootstrap.org
> Subject: [ba-unrev-talk] Fw: [unrev-II] Dervin and Sense-Making
>
>
> Gil Regev wrote:
> >So sense-making alone cannot tell you when
> > to apply sense-making nor when to stop applying it.
>
> Very interesting.
>
> Yoshhf' jasdkjhf pasf 984t sdo ;ljnqiud kj z-09cuv asdfa tluysad srtihad;j
> tie saksdf##df akt 4ri.
>
> How long did you spend trying to make sense of that?
> Why (or why not)?
>
> Cheers,
> Peter
>
> (013)