Information flow from present to past and past to present

In my framework, the story moves forward and topics move along curves in what is called a "ledger". Examining it from the outside, you can pause anywhere you like in the chronology of the ledger and talk about information flow forward and backward at that point. 

I tell the story: I drove to town, went shopping, and was going to the hardware store when my car engine started acting up on me.

Here, the fact that you are driving makes the car an implicit topic. So you can bring it up as a non-sequitur. When the car starts having engine problems, that back-fills into the ledger via some kind of link. 

Suppose I continue with the story: I went to the garage but I spent too much money shopping and could not afford repairs.

Here, the fact that I went shopping from the past forward-fills a need for money - again by some kind of link.

I do not have vocabulary for the "links".

Having some trouble with the keyboard

  V and B are next to each other:

What would make a good arrowhead display?

A good display would first and foremost, have good lighting and no "back of shelf" awkwardness. Overall the goal of an exhibit is: to create a lasting memory of what is displayed. As for arrowheads, you can start by lining them up vertically, point upward. 

To me there are a number of interesting dimension but it can be simplified into the material information about an arrowhead and the aesthetic information. So the 'material' info is the age, location, material and the known and speculated context for the people who made the arrowheads - where they travelled.  

The aesthetic info is the dimensions of style and how variations are coordinated with the material info. But the aesthetic info can also highlight the finders of the arrowheads - their moments of delight and insight. The whole story of going to the Borden Colony in Raynham several times over a year and finding two wonderful arrowheads on a small patch of exposed dirt. How it felt to pick that last one up while making a video: Raynham Arrowhead.

So one arrangement would be a row of variations in one or another style of arrowhead. EG show the full range of "triangles". Or show Clovis points from around the area. Or do a good job with stemmed points.

In some other arrangement, put all the arrowheads (and other items) from a single site. Do what you can to explain site topography. Do what you can to tell the story of why people lived there and how was the site found.

Topping for fishcakes

I like to put tartar sauce and tomato and lettuce on my fishcakes and crabcakes. I had plenty of tomatoes but I was out of lettuce. So I substituted pea sprouts. Used some sour cream in the tartar sauce: mayo + relish + sour cream. 

Pea sprouts plus sour cream may be the magic extras. Not sure but it was very good.

Some recent color pencil drawings

 Goldenrod:

Gora:

A day in the life: doing my "barnacles" of linguistic research

Just to give you a feel for something: I have this list of narrative elements which, some time ago, I thought was complete. In the last 2 months I have had to struggle with new ideas until succumbing to the necessity of adding one, and then another, new elements. The dependency '-|' and the isPartOf '.' both are forced on me because they modify the ledger in unique ways not available to other narrative elements. 

So then I am tootling along and come to examples of 'isKindOf' that seem compelling ("Peanuts are a kind of legume") which are not affecting any ledger or Thesaurus involving the 'peanut' topic. So what do they mean? I was being forced to add yet one more narrative element and it made me unhappy. Is it possible I was on a slippery slope, where over time one after another new narrative element would appear - making the subject forever incomplete?

Then it dawned on me that we already have the topic of temp_collection. In introducing it, I comment that it still lacks means for reviewing elements or testing element-hood. Well.... 'isKindOf' provides one such testing method, without a review method. In fact, its use does modify a ledger, but it is a ledger built with a Thesaurus of temp_collection related topics. Not typically the same as a ledger about 'peanuts'.

In any case, since it is already a kind of 'topic', the 'isKindOf' does not need representation as an "element". Phew! Dodged a bullet. This last six months or so, working on The Moving Topic, has given me one puzzle after another. The meaning of 'causality' was a puzzle, the difference between 'dependency' and 'deficiency', and now the rescuing of 'isKindOf'. Each of these puzzles has begun as a test and ended as a solidification of the structure. It is reassuringly robust and I had a good day going up one more step.

Transitive or not?

Here is a good one:

If I believe everything that Bob says and Bob believes everything Sally says, then I should believe everything Sally says....except Bob might not repeat something Sally says. I cannot really be said to believe something that has not yet been said.

This is an example of information moving around that seems to lie near the heart of transitivity. Compare with: If I know everything Bob knows, and Bob knows everything that Sally knows; then I know everything Sally knows. 

Next installment on mathematical implication

I will continue puzzling over the meaning of "if...then..." in mathematics. Currently I think there is the 2 question: Why certain relations are transitive and: How mathematical implication is an invented umbrella term. Arguable this invention is at the heart of mathematical statements.

Let's talk about the latter. What "A implies B" (or "if A then B") means is that we can describe steps that take us from A to B, each of which is its own little "if...then". By saying "A implies B" we brush all those sub-steps together and ignore the details deliberately.  

Here is a simple example: "If you count from 1 to 10 then you pass 5". To clarify this statement, you refer to counting and (perhaps even counting from 1 to 10 to demonstrate) show that passing 5 is inherent in the definition of counting from 1 to 10. The "truth" of the statement relies on physical intuitions that have become abstracted. The childhood intuitions of counting and putting things in boxes is very important for many of these little steps. As a result there are all kinds of real world intuitions that start as empirical and become abstracted. 

On the other hand, there are relations that are transitive by definition, like 'isKindOf'; and possibly 'isPartOf'. These definitions can often be restated as implications.  By the time we have enough word definitions, the intuitions that gave rise to them are no longer obvious, but the definitions contain the needed necessities. 

Update: I finally decided that "A implies B" is just mathematical shorthand for either a definition or a more complex: "I can prove it" - which could be quite involved, including definitions as well as intuitions developed from games, and who knows what else. For example: "if you count from 1 to 10 then you will pass 5".

A poem from my friend Dave Larson