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Directory:Jon Awbrey/Papers/Inquiry Driven Systems : Part 7 (view source)
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, 13:32, 18 August 2011→7.1.2. Searching for Parameters: + text
====7.1.2. Searching for Parameters====
====7.1.2. Searching for Parameters====
A genuine search for parameters does not initially present itself as a straightforward search, in other words, as a simple matter of searching (1) a known space of objects for (2) the unknown set of objects that fit (3) a known description according to (4) a known measure of suitability. While it persists as a genuine problem, it does not appear in the form of one that can be solved in a simple and direct fashion by systematically traversing the points of a known space, a space already described by identified parameters and generated along established dimensions of variation, until a point passing the given tests is found.
A genuine search for parameters initially presents itself to be more like a matter of searching for an unknown space in which to place a known set of objects in a suitable but otherwise vaguely determinate manner. Thus, the criterion of suitability has to be developed along with the spaces tried. In general, the number of conceivable spaces, given all the qualitative dimensions of quantitative variation that can be imagined, seems to make this such a vastly different order of search that it no longer seems feasible to think it can ever be rendered systematic. However, there are selected situations in which objects and spaces can be treated on a par with each other and placed upon an inclusive basis, so it is useful next to specialize this discussion and consider the formal conditions under which these inclusions are possible.
If the discussion is ruled by an OF in which search spaces themselves are able to become focal objects of discussion and thought (DAT), and if there is an ample enough variety of search spaces that constitute the corresponding topic of DAT to make this whole construction worthwhile, and if there is at bottom the same FAD space of generators that is found responsible for constructing every search space as an object of DAT, ...
It is not really the asymmetric identification of some things as objects (of spaces) and other things as spaces (of objects) that constitutes the nature of the problem.
One of the most deceptive things about any genuine problem is the fact that after the problem is solved it can always be described in several alternative ways, some of which recast the matter in a form that makes it look like no problem at all, that is, like there never was a problem. A study of problem solving that views every problem from its terminal end (the telos end of the scope) is bound to falsify the nature of the whole subject. To arrive at a truer description of problems it is necessary to find ways of accurately characterizing the problematic state that exists at the outset of the problem.
The sign relations A and B were deliberately chosen to be as simple as possible without falling into complete triviality, and they clearly lack development in many properties that would be expected of sign relations involved in inquiry processes. One way to deal with a defective example is simply to put it aside and pick up another, but this can be wasteful and ultimately exhausting. Besides, there are probably lessons to be learned from the growing accumulation of examples that can better guide the selection of successive trials. Before I can grasp the relation of these paltry examples to the exalted concepts they are meant to suggest, it will be necessary to spend a considerable amount of time reflecting on the purpose in general that a presentation of examples is meant to serve in any inquiry and, if possible, developing general tools and heuristic rules for getting the most instruction out of each incidental case.
Before I can develop better examples of sign relations, conceivably approaching the orders of sign processes that constitute significant parts of inquiry, I will need to spend a long time considering the conceivable dimensions of variation that are relevant to this search. But look at the problem I am faced with here. Searching for examples is itself a special type of inquiry process. Presentation of examples is itself a special type of sign process, directed toward the representation and communication of abstract ideas by means of the selection of objects that are indicated to fall under these ideas. But my immediate interest in locating apt examples and presenting them in a lucid manner is only a small part of a larger concern, which cannot be allowed to depend solely on the elements of personal luck and skill that I may or may not bring to bear in this process.
In the large scale project that subsumes this discussion of examples, I am trying to develop programs that can support the conduct of inquiry, hoping to bridge the barriers of odium and tedium that affect the current scene and interfere with the practical job of inquiry (JOI). Obviously, this effort on my part takes off from whatever skill in inquiry I can personally muster and bring to bear in the task, but its potential for success is no longer, not once I realize it has already begun and perhaps always been beginning this way, solely a matter of what kind of luck any individual might have in the quest.
In order to write a program for any significant component of inquiry, it becomes necessary to render one's personal engagement in inquiry much more reflective and deliberate and much less determined by sheer luck. Finding good examples of inquiry processes is not just a matter of searching known spaces of sign relations for more significant examples of established concepts, but more a question of finding meaningful spaces in which to place the collections of examples already found.
One is never at a loss for ways to generate an all too generous bounty of concrete examples, but a random "hunt and pick" (HAP) approach that hazards a trip through all the spaces of cases that can be generated on set theoretic grounds alone is not a happy choice in the present case. At any stage in the search for examples, one needs to derive a sense of direction by looking at the samples of examples that are found in view. Further, one needs to develop a means of locomotion that will permit the search for a sample space to roam about in ample enough rooms to have a hope of success, but a medium also that trains itself to gradually limit its lines of inquiry to explore the most fruitful and likely directions.
For all these reasons, I plan to establish at this point in the discussion a separate, parallel, and reflective (SPAR) track for standing apart and looking back on whatever mainstay of inquiry is currently in the fore. Obviously, there are dangers as well to aimless reflection, perhaps even more debilitating than the simple frustrations of uncontrolled search, as anyone will appreciate who has lost a measure of time in the funhouses of philosophic speculation. Consequently, to prevent this discussion from devolving ad nauseum into navel contemplation exercises, I will limit the extent of its reflective tack to a single additional track.
One of the tasks assigned to this reflective track is to throw a more critical light on the operating notions and working assumptions that I have been using more or less implicitly in the discussion so far. Engaging in critical reflection of this sort eventually brings up the "question of foundations" (QOF), an attempt to make an explicit review of the sets of ideas that are fundamental in practice to whole domains of thinking about experience, whether it concerns the bases of an external body of knowledge or the springs of one's ongoing stream of thought. Since it is not so much a question of whether there are sets of ideas that get called "foundations" as a question of how these ideas are used, I will distinguish between "static" foundations, those that are used in such a way that they cannot be questioned, and "mobile" foundations, those that can be identified, examined, criticized, and changed when necessary.
To maintain a focus on the kinds of questions that are relevant to concrete examples of sign relations, the spectrum of issues arrayed over the next few subsections is designed to be subsumable under a single integral theme, with each of its leading terms pointing to a series of simple questions about the relationship of "generality" to "partiality".
To introduce this theme, "the relation of generality to partiality", I will first tease out a series of tensions that inhere beneath its intentionally disarming semblance of unity, and then I plan to unravel how this array of hidden dimensions not only makes room for novel features in formerly formal grammars but also helps to set the stage for concrete contents that can fill out the abstract patterns of purely formal languages, in a fashion, dressing up their bare and immodest forms with the logical modalities of tense, intension, intention.
In the process of elaborating this unifying theme, I will also begin directing attention toward a set of issues that interweave with its topic. These questions concern the design characteristics of a software system that is intended to assist the study of n place relations in general and sign relations in particular.
====7.1.3. Defect Analysis====
====7.1.3. Defect Analysis====