[p2p-research] Thermoeconomics + Re: Ontologies

[marc fawzi]

correction:

I wrote:
"This means that language has shared biological basis, which explains how
it's able to maintain itself without a central authority."

where I should have written:
"This means that the maintenance and adaptation of language may have a
shared biological basis, which would explain how a collaborative
construction like language, with 1 billion+ users, is able to maintain
itself and adapt without a central authority."


On Wed, Dec 24, 2008 at 7:03 AM, marc fawzi <marc.fawzi at gmail.com> wrote:

> Hi Paola,
>
> Your paper definitely shines a light on an important area in engineering of
> complex open systems, i.e.: the need for continuous maintenance.
>
> While there is a need for continuous maintenance of ontologies, language
> itself seems to be self-maintaining, and that's evident by the fact that we
> are able to use it with the same degree of success after many hundreds of
> years, which implies that we're continuously maintaining our internal model
> of it.
>
> I believe that the mechanisms underlying our biological immune system are
> the same mechanisms, algorithmically speaking, as the mechanisms that
> maintain our internal model of language. This means that language has shared
> biological basis, which explains how it's able to maintain itself without a
> central authority.
>
> In the case of the immune system, we (humans) have adapted to foreign
> proteins like the sugar protein in dairy and red meat. Primates have not.
> Their immune system attacks those proteins which get absorbed into their
> tissue, thus causing inflammation etc, which is why they avoid dairy and red
> meat.
>
> So the design of an 'adaptive immune system' is, IMO, a key piece in the
> puzzle for self-maintaining complex [open] systems, including ontologies.
>
> So instead of listening to people like Clay Shirky who've suggested that
> ontologies are a dead end we should be looking at how our biological immune
> system works (and why it fails when it does), how it learns to resist viral
> infection, and how it adapts to distinguish between pathogens and food, so
> we may gain clues as to how we may design self-healing, dynamic ontologies
> that are open to new concepts, modified versions of existing concepts,
> disturbance, etc.
>
> That's all I can think of for now as far as ontologies go. I plan to blog
> about it in the not too distant future.
>
> The way your paper relates to thermoeconomics, IMHO, is that it highlights
> the need for constant maintenance of our information processing capability,
> not just our communication channels, so I'd re-phrase the four types of
> costs I'm aware of as follows:
>
> When it comes to bits and bytes some of the the physical constraints that
> follow from the first and second laws of thermodynamics are:
>
> 1. The continuous cost of energy used for powering the hardware at every
> point, from desktop to network core, mesh infrastructure or the hardware
> landscape, including the communication channels (including the cost of
> maintaining the energy generation capacity and adapting it into the future)
>
> 2. The continuous cost of energy for the maintenance and adapting of the
> hardware at every point, from desktop to network core, mesh infrastructure
> or the hardware landscape, including the communication channels. This
> includes energy used in the development and manufacturing of new hardware or
> the production of replacement parts.
>
> 3. The continuous cost of energy for powering our human hardware (or
> bioware), including our information processing capability (our brain) and
> our communication channels (our senses)
>
> 4. The continuous cost of energy for the maintenance and adapting of our
> human hardware (or bioware), including our information processing
> capability (our brain) and our communication channels (our senses)
>
> --
>
> I plan to get started on the new Thermoeconomics section of the P2P
> Foundation wiki later (after the holidays) and I am wondering if your paper
> is available under CC license?  What is the copying policy?
>
> I had used copy&pasted physics definitions from a NASA website in my
> previous email (in quotations) and I'm not sure what the general copyright
> policy is for excerpts, i.e. what is 'fair use' ?
>
> Marc
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
> >
> >
> > On Tue, Dec 23, 2008 at 8:18 PM, <paola.dimaio at gmail.com> wrote:
> >>
> >> Hi Marc
> >> thanks for your interest
> >> this is the last working draft, it should be the final version
> >> let me know what you think
> >> p
> >
>
>
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