Re: [topicmaps-comment] Everchanging subjects [ Notions haveexistence...]

["Thomas B. Passin" <tpassin@home.com>]

[David Dodds]

> Thomas said
> "Do you think that machine processing will be/should be/has to be
> very different in its essence from human use of the same topic maps?"
>
> I think of necessity that human *use* of a _given data structure_, topic
> maps in this case, will be more sophisticated than the *use* of the same
ds
> by a computer. This is true because (except for possibly severely retarded
> people) most people bring the sophistication of situated activity to bear
on
> use of TMs , and they would just as much if they were shovelling dirt
> instead. Humans are INTEGRATED in the use of their mental powers, they are
> "conceptually organic" as it were, they use ganzfeld, they make/use
context.

[...]

> the difference between agents (such as humans or programs) doing organic
> perception and agents doing inorganic perception is major, it is the
> difference between what a person brings to bear using a topic map and what
> nematode brings to the same topic map "usage". Only a pointy headed
> programming-only immersed person cant see things like tacitness and
> metaphorical/analogical activity accompany human activity and just aint
> there at all in business-programming-headed software.
>

Well, there is a definite place for the current type of
"business-programming-headed-software", isn't there?  After all, we probably
don't want TurboTax coming up with unexpected emergent behavior at tax time.
It's just that we are wanting more from our systems now.

David, do you see emergence as related to complexity in a topic map (or a
set of them), or do you see it as coming out of a simple system, like
cellular automata?  And if the latter, how do you think that topic maps
could fit in?