On Wed, 28 May 2003 00:05:48 -0400, Adrian Sampaleanu wrote
>
> --- cut ---
>
> There are relatively few "object" properties in the physical world.
> - mass/energy, density, refractive index, reflectivity, hardness,
> chemical reactivity, electrical conductivity, magnetic properties,
> position relative to some point of reference
> 

my opinion is this: the amount of information in the universe is constant, it 
is incompressible, inextractable, it just transforms from one form to another.

im your model, there are relatively few object properties in the physical 
world. i think that their number is tremendous, but we have chosen to ignore 
them and to deal with "some of them" only.

> The universe could be looked at as providing the environment of
> interaction and determines how the properties of one "object" can affect
> other objects' properties and defines the reference system in both space
> and time. Pretty simplistic, I know, but it might be good enough to look
> at it this way...
> 

hmm...why do you think there exists time (if you are speaking about the 
linear time (e.g. that one with axis which spans from past into the 
future)) ? 

> The rate of change (and the rate of change of the rates of change) of
> these properties with respect to time might be viewed as additional
> properties or not - not sure how to look at these for the point I'm
> trying to make here, but in any case, the total number is still very
> modest.
> 

the problem of endless repetition (rate of change -> rate of change of rate 
of change -> rate of change of rate of change -> ...) is minimized when you 
think like this:
1. you have memory
2. the memory is used by your mind
3. a) let's say, the first idea that emerges in your mind is that there is
      "rate of change"
   b) as second, your memory remembers that first idea
   c) you use the remembered idea and prepend the "rate of change" to it, so
      you get "rate of change of rate of change"
   d) the point is that now you are in merely the same situation as
      you were in a). you can again recognize that you have something
      in memory, and image that that can change also. so you will have
      3x"rate of change"
   e) ...
4. you cannot perform step 3 endlessly, because your memory is limited

it is like walking which results in no movement (the famous red queen 
effect). you think that you are doing something, that you are thinking, 
thinking very very hard - but you always found yourself at the same place (at 
the start).

i do not know whether it helped you, it just poped in my mind when i was 
reading your message.

> Based just on these properties, physical objects interact to create the
> very rich, tactile (to a greater or lesser degree, using various
> instruments) world we perceive with our senses.
> 
> The interactions that physical objects have with just this set of
> properties is still what we could call useful (this is subjective, 
> to be sure) in terms of being significant steps in building higher level
> assemblies that do something for us - this is a critical point, in my
> opinion. For example, one mass impinging on another makes it move or
> deform depending on the properties given above. Either of these is
> something we can immediately "make use of" at the next level or we could
> use the effect as is a quantum of usefulness.
>  
> What is a "good" thing might we say about the above? Even a very limited
> set of object and environment properties which could be said to 
> define an interface or protocol for interaction, are enough to 
> create a huge variety of systems, and provide the basis for the 
> scalability and measurability of the higher level constructs.
>  
> In contrast, in the world of computing, at least at the implementational
> level, we've allowed so many degrees of freedom in the basic building
> blocks that it has become impossible to achieve massive scalability and
> truly generic object re-use. 
> 
> I believe it was Alan (maybe Andreas) who commented some time ago 
> that having limited functionality in eToys would in some cases 
> result in more creative solutions to certain problems. Certainly it 
> is nice from the coder's (or user's/builder's) point of view if the 
> building blocks are all precisely what you need for any given 
> problem, but (maybe from a monk's point of view), a minimalist 
> "object" view that provides just enough variety to model a problem 
> might allow for greater and more stable layering of abstractions. In 
> the real world, the complex physical systems which have evolved or 
> which we've built give us all the complexity we could wish for, yet, 
> even at higher levels, the object interactions are based only on the 
> properties described above. We manage to perceive and extract more 
> abstract, higher level functionality from these nevertheless.
> 
> One might say so what? We've really simplified things even more in
> computing - you have a bit or you don't. How much simpler can you 
> get? You could look at things that way, but it wouldn't be very helpful.
> We're trying to get something of value from our physical world 
> example here, not challenge it just to be different. In the world of 
> nuts and bolts we do have sub-atomic particles that could form, if 
> we chose that level as a reference, the basic properties. So why not 
> start there? Because we, as human beings, work comfortably at a 
> certain scale (and less so at others). Therefore, we'll set the 
> basic building block level to be the one described above. Using 
> these blocks we've managed to re-create to a large degree what 
> nature has created but at the same time hasn't stopped us from 
> exploring the world at scales below these blocks.
> 
> The question I've got - and to which I don't have an answer yet, is
> where is the equivalent, useful, starting level of object abstraction
> for information systems? Could we impose (because it might be
> beneficial) a limited set of interfaces for objects to interact with 
> at this level and have these "written in stone"? In other words, 
> could we purposely put severe constraints on the possible interfaces 
> for interaction of the objects we choose as the basic blocks? What 
> is the equivalent - if there can be some kind of equivalence - to 
> painting a physical object in the bit world? Or of a force moving a 
> mass? The interactions between the physical objects is relatively 
> simple in terms of the properties described above, yet they provide 
> us with a very useful effects even at this lowest level.
> 
> What I'm thinking of is something like - If this basic piece of
> information object is 'placed near' this GUI object, something 'useful'
> 
> (to us) should/could happen since the required interface 'surface' 
> is so small that some kind of interesting property transfer or 
> effect could/will happen". I think it might be useful to look at 
> things from this point of view even though the correspondence isn't 
> one-to-one.
> 
> Well, at this point I think I'm rambling so I'll quit for now... 
> Still, I'd be interested in what anyone else has to say - even if 
> it's a put down ;-) Richard, if you aren't snoring by now, I'd 
> welcome your opinion since I regard your carefully analyzed and 
> deliberate answers very highly.
> 
> Adrian