informatics (18)

• a Thought is the activation of one or more nodes in the disconnected graph of Rational Memory
• links in this graph constitute logical / semantic relationships among thoughts
• a Circuit is an activated path in a connected subgraph
• a circuit is also a thought.

• When a system interacts with its environment, it seeks to create a mirror image of its own interface inside the environment. But because the environment is a system as well, it, also, seeks to create a mirror image (and more often than not succeeds) inside the system.

• Economics is the study of how a system can efficiently use available resources in itself and in the environment to achieve its goals.

• Systems have goals. Sometimes a system designer implants the goals, but other times systems develop their own goals.

Bookmarks reminders

Take a look at your bookmarks in your web browser. How many of those articles have you actually read? How old are these bookmarks anyway? Do you remember why and when did you bookmark that page so that you can come back to read it later ?

Too many unorganized and outdated bookmarks is a problem we all face. I am thinking of a system where one can set a reminder and/or an expiry date for the bookmark when adding it. i.e.

Humans perform activities. I like to think of activities as made of threads, a potent word referring to continuity in time, causality and intentionality.

As our activities become more automated, it is important to keep their thread-like aspect intact in digital form. Project planning and tracking software is a typical example of this approach. But these systems impose too much rigour when entering data, making their use difficult in many setups including small organizations.

What is proposed is to create an unstructured and easily-accessible system to describe group activities in the past or the future. The data model should be generic enough to allow reporting along several dimensions: personal timesheets, resource utilization, progress reporting, chronology, etc.

The Islamic rules of inheritance are primarily laid down in the Quran 4:11-12 and 4:176. Three verses that compress a great number of inheritance cases - at least 512 as we will see in the following exposition. A fascinating example of algorithmic compression.

First, the sources:

• The verses in Arabic (GIF images) and Yusuf Ali English translation at Sacred Texts: 4:11-12 and 4:176.

Perhaps better entitled "Open Source as Jazz, and Linux as its popular standard".

In jazz, each musician improvises his part in the tune's performance. Knowing the skeletal structure of the tune, the musician applies his knowledge of harmony, rhythm and melody, along with some social knowledge of his fellow musicians, to produce meaningful phrases, amounting to intelligible overall statements. In doing so, the jazz band collectively creates a spontaneously original variation on a theme.

A Linux user also participates in the continuous recreation of his system. From writing shell scripts to automating simple tasks, through submitting bug reports and code patches to open source projects, to hacking kernel modules or desktop environments, nothing in Linux is the last word and thus improvisation is always needed.

Language is a human capacity (or faculty, or ability, or quality). The thesis expressed here is that human language (so-called natural language) acts as a repository of knowledge. What is the use of storing and manipulating knowledge? Primarily, to collectively solve problems that arise in the real world. Does language support this problem-solving? Yes, because language contains constructs that closely mimic the way reality is perceived (by humans) to work.

Here are just notes to help me remember some observations for arguments of a speculative model.

Memory and sensations

Hardly an easy entry point to start with, but a vivid one nonetheless.

Sensations occur to the sensory organs of the human body (its inputs). Interestingly, the external human body is, as a whole, a sensory organ because the sense of touch applies to all of its external cells. Of course, internal organs as well have sense, exemplified by the sense of pain.

NOTE: Please excuse the poor quality of Arabic typography. It is not trivial in the open source world.

By verbal forms I mean syntactic variations on the 3-letter roots that generate both new verbs and new nouns. These variations are used by convention among Arabic speakers.

Such forms qualify the root verb, its primary actors (the subject and the object), and how they relate to the web of facts. In Arabic, "verb" translates as فـﹺـعل literally the "deed" or "action". The relationships between the actors and the facts (places, things, states) are altered in each verbal form.

Very quickly: How do you translate "Information"? معلومات ? This plural term more likely refers to "Data" as in more than one "Datum" (معلومة - literally "known" as opposed to "unknown"). "Information" carries more meaning than "Data", specifically the idea that not only are there facts, but they are also structured in some logical network of relationships. Where's the Arabic term for that? Most probably the Arabic computer science, information theory and theoretical physics literatures would contain many terms suitable for information theory. Let's start a glossary!