Nodism

Dan Zen Talk - Creativity and New Forms of Mobile Games

2011-11-29T09:37:00.000-08:00

Dan Zen will give a talk at the Arnie Student Pub on December 5th 2011 at 6:30 as the keynote to the Software Hamilton DemoCamp 4.

The talk will go over using Hierarchies as a creative framework. So rather than approaching the subject philosophically, it will be a more practical guide with an explanation of terms and isomorphisms of hierarchies.

The talk will include a set of 20 hand illustrated and colored examples with similar style to the poster except done in black with white.

Dan Zen will connect everyone at the event physically and use this experience to explore creating new forms of mobile games and apps.

For more information and to register for free...

http://danzen.com/create

Dan.

Context is God

2011-07-14T09:28:00.000-07:00

Funny, just writing a comment on a Google+ post and saying each to their own because the context of the user will determine how much they should perhaps repost or create original content. So, I wanted to say context matters. Content is King is already taken so then the answer hit me.

I am not religious in the slightest but I have noticed that a single fluid hierarchy goes up to node zero and everything is categorized or nested in node zero in various contexts. This means we are also directly categorized under node zero and directly in node zero. All of us. That is often a definition of god.

CONTEXT IS GOD

As far as I know, I have never heard this said. Now here I go for a Google search with the quotes on. Rats - it has been said - but that is good I suppose as it is probably true. I just don't really like the word god anyway because it sounds like an entity with a consciousness that recognizes us and that is laughable.

I mean, I expect that we will eventually have a collective consciousness on earth, which then will extend to other stars and eventually our galaxy and other galaxies until we collapse ourselves in communication into another big bang. But this is not here yet. I suppose there is a slight chance that if this is cyclical then some prior universal consciousness managed to slip out and meta over us.

-11-

Working on NodeGlobe as an Interface Tool

2011-04-12T21:41:00.000-07:00

More pictures at http://www.flickr.com/photos/danzen/sets/72157626487534618/

This has been a fascinating exploration of a radial hierarchy. From this I have re-visualized the workings of a tree. Imagine that you started with rays of string or elastic and then pinched the strings where there are nodes. The lines moving towards the center would then be thicker or a collection of strings all going to node 0 of this system.

This is similar to the energy veins in a tree right to the tips of the leaves. All of them lead down to the seed. Roots go off the other direction reaching for energy from the soil. Growth.

Nodes are sometimes called knots and you get that sense here. We also visualize various native weaving structures, knot work by the Incan, etc.

Remember that this is made from XML (HTML, when properly formed is XML). This is the same organizational hierarchy found in all facets of life as discussed in prior postings.

This could easily be in 3D - I have left it 2D for now.

Recursive functions were used to create this. I did some cheating by always averaging the position of a parent node heading towards the center. To prevent overlapping lines I put nodes with less children in the middle of a branch. This cheating could have been avoided using energy balance and iterative procedures.

Will let you know when the tool is complete.

-2011-

Nodism Sketches

2010-10-26T12:06:00.000-07:00

Here is a collection of sketches that represent about half the Nodism sketches to date. At some point these will be properly processed ;-).

Inheritance (Classification) and Composition (Grouping) in Hierarchies

2009-11-27T09:41:00.000-08:00

There are two modes to a hierarchy. Both these exist in the single hierarchy.

1. Inheritance (child is a type of parent - sphere is a type of shape)

SHAPE > SPHERE > BALL > BASKETBALL

2. Composition (parent has a child - gymnasium has a court)

GYMNASIUM > COURT > BASKETBALL NET > RIM

Inheritance is virtual. Classes do not really exist. They generally describe objects. In Object Oriented Programming, classes are what objects are made from. In Zen, you are encouraged to avoid thinking about classes and concentrate on the real object as we usually see a tree and simply replace it with a symbol of a tree in our mind. I don't agree with Zen in this case because I think it is very important to think abstractly for efficiency and understanding connections. However, there are many times when we should remember to smell the roses.

Composition is the parts of something. A nice way to look at composition is nesting. We might also say that systems are made with composition. Composition is often real but it can also be virtual - like ideas composed of other ideas, etc. In Object Oriented Programming, composition can always do anything inheritance can do but not the other way around. So in coding, inheritance is just an efficiency (a way to avoid redefining properties) - again, abstract.

Isomorphisms of Hierarchies - Drawers to XML

2009-10-21T18:51:00.000-07:00

Hierarchies or branches of the single hierarchy ;-) show up when things are organized or categorized. Our folders and files on the computer and indeed Web servers and Web pages are all stored in hierarchies. Any nesting is hierarchies so Universe > Galaxy Cluster > Galaxy > Solar System > Planet > Continent > etc. right down to house > room > dresser > drawer > pant > pocket > material > molecule > atom > electron > quark > string. In life we have trees and most if not all things that grow. Time causes us to choose options that branch before us.

Taxonomy in teaching, invention claims in patents, table of contents in books, classification of animals, etc. All these and more are hierarchical. I would guess that hierarchies are at the root of every domain - each called something different and represented in different ways. So if you recognize a hierarchy in your field, please leave a comment.

In programming, the latest paradigm is Object Oriented Programming (OOP) and this is all hierarchy based and levels are accessed via dot syntax: parent.child. This is how all the latest games that model life are created. In XML, the current standard way in the information age to share data between companies and software is hierarchy based with nodes.

OOP and XML is the cumulation of thought from the most logical people in the world en mass modeling life. This is a mass philosophy born out of trial and error and few people if any think of it this way! Nodism is the synthesis and analysis of this phenomena.

Dan Zen

On the Equivilancy of Context and Content to Kinetic and Potential Energy

2008-05-04T08:29:00.000-07:00

Of the many realizations that have been derived from Nodism, two of the most interesting are the connection between context and content and the potential isomorphism between context and content and kinetic and potential energy.

Simply put, context is the nodes along the branch of the hierarchy above a node and content is everything under or inside the node.

So if we have node zero / red / bikes / Asia / then the context is red bikes in Asia. The content would be all red bikes in Asia. This would be Lain's red bike, a red bike in a store in Bejing, etc. All would have a common denominator of the context.

CONTEXT IS KINETIC
When you refer to a node its context is defined, it has been determined, it is created by this and this and this, it is in the past. Energy goes into defining it. You have arrived at the node and are rolling with the kinetic energy of context.

CONTENT IS POTENTIAL
The content is undefined, it is a series of ors, it could be any one of them only to be determined in the future, we only know if we use up more energy and provide more context. There is the potential to go to any one of the branches. Content is full of potential energy.

CONTEXT + CONTENT = ESSENCE
To define something fully is to move every attribute out of the node and into contextual nodes. This would take all potential energy out and we would reach essence. Contrarily, if we rise up the single hierarchy towards Node Zero, we deplete kinetic energy and gain potential energy.

Node Zero is all potential energy. And reality, the actuality at any moment is all kinetic energy. The energy we are talking about is perhaps the energy of essence or truth or logic.

There is a more complicated aspect to all this and that is the aspect of relevance. Relevance is most likely not going to fall easily under probability but rather move into subjectivity. Subjectivity does bow to probability in the end. There is also the possibility of truth, essence and logic providing a definitive answer - like in the Glass Bead Game by Herman Hess. Relevance is a whole other article.

Article Saying Hierarchy May Be a Fundamental Organizational Principle for Complex Networks

2008-05-02T09:00:00.000-07:00

Just found this post in the Kurzweil newsletter...

New technique for extracting hierarchical structure of networks

KurzweilAI.net, May 2, 2008

Santa Fe Institute researchers have demonstrated that many real-world networks can be understood as a hierarchy of modules, where nodes cluster together to form modules, which themselves cluster into larger modules--arrangements similar to the organization of sports players into teams, teams into conferences, and conferences into leagues.

This hierarchical organization can simultaneously explain a number of patterns previously discovered in networks, such as the surprising heterogeneity in the number of connections some nodes have, or the prevalence of triangles in a network diagram.

This result suggests that hierarchy may be a fundamental organizational principle for complex networks.

Santa Fe Institute News Release

Node Zero is Synonymous With The Big Bang

2007-07-04T05:27:00.000-07:00

If time is the medium of branching then node zero of the single hierarchy referred to in Nodism could be synonymous with the beginning of time. We see that every option taken, every possibility turned into reality by the tide of time can be mapped back physically to a time of no time the beginning of time, the big bang.

Now this paragraph needs to be looked at closely. Just before I forget, there is the issue of physical branching. Are things at a microscopic level actually branching in any way. Perhaps if they split up, yes. But when they join, how does this relate to a hierarchy?

When we join two things on the hierarchy, theoretically, we can split the thing in two (at least) and join the first thing under the second thing and the second thing under the first thing. This gets us to a single theoretical hierarchy as envisioned by Nodism. My father and my mother and me. My mother and my father and me.

But what happens in the physical with respect to mixtures, combinations, chaos, etc. This certainly does not seem like a physical hierarchy - but with respect to decisions in time, or movements through time... if time can override feedback, does time override a mixture. Is a combination, when viewed with respect to time (as in, only the present exists type of time), still a physical branching of possibilities and hence, still a physical hierarchy?

This question I continue to approach with thought experiments. It is not easy. It is important. I certainly feel like I am wrong to place everything into a physical hierarchy. I expect there are benefits to placing everything into a theoretical hierarchy (that would be called organization). But would these benefits be greater if indeed the single theoretical hierarchy could be shown to actually be a single physical hierarchy.

The picture above does not appear to be a hierarchy. It is located in many places of a theoretical hierarchy. But what about physically? It is a series of photons or whatever scanning across the monitor. Well that is a time based boolean AND - this and that and that and that. That is a hierarchy. Looking at it smaller than photons, who knows but we will want to know. I suspect that at the most traditional level of understanding, we do not see a hierarchy and therefore, the true physical construction (hierarchy or not) is not really relevant to our appreciation - making the question of whether everything is a physical hierarchy um, silly, cold, overly-reductionist, moot, missing the point, etc.

Life is another question. Growth - is all growth a form of life? Does growth act only within a hierarchy. What about crystalline structures. If they grow in time, which presumably they do, is branching a necessary attribute? This would seem to be a related topic to that of above.

Getting back to the first paragraph, there is also the possibility that we have cycle where the beginning is the collapse of another cycle's end. It is interesting to think that the goal of life is to communicate and eventually in what might seem like an eternity, our forces of organization will consume the entire universe, bringing us closer together for efficient communication until we collapse. This cycle could have been going on forever.

I suspect that the current theory and explanation for time and space say that this is not the correct way to see it. Time and space just did not exist before the big bang is what they say. Non-existence is good for a nice solid node zero. A cycle is more difficult for a node zero as it would have to take another meta step to outside the cycle. Cycles in general - sine waves, etc. pose a challenge to a hierarchical system unless reduced to the micro-time branching explanation (which still needs to be worked out).

I leave you now.

The Past Holds No OR

2007-07-03T00:32:00.000-07:00

When contemplating Nodism, one realizes that siblings in the hierarchy are ORs and children are ANDs. Going across possibilities is an OR statement. Going down deeper and joining attributes is an AND statement.

There are many future possibilities - perhaps infinite number (but not exhaustive) with a set of mysterious probabilities - but the past holds no possibilities. The past holds facts or truth or connections sealed in time. Our perception of the past is rife again with possibilities but that is not the past - just the cusp and curdle of the present as it churns the future into the past.

Think of your files and folders on your computer. You decide to open a folder - that is selecting from an OR statement - selecting from sibling folders. Once you make the choice, that choice becomes history - you are moving down the hierarchy. Your choice cements the start of an AND. Then you choose from folders within that folder - again selecting from siblings. Your choice is again cemented. So now you are in the DanZen / Nodism folder.

It is the benefit of exploring a philosophy that pushes us towards questions like "what happens if we decide to come back out of the Nodism folder? How is traversing a folder structure on our computer related to the hierarchy of life - does the hierarchy hold up?" This also relates to the aspect of feedback which also appears to go against a hierarchy - similarly, the aspect of a Web, etc. The same solution is starting to appear for these - it is a solution that I may have already explained or if not will explain in the future. But the point of this paragraph is to say that if you treat this thought as exploring a philosophy, then you have a duty to complete the thought rather than just leave it standing as an interesting thought.

Create a Tapol poll
View similar polls

So once again, you are invited to explore as well - don't worry that the philosophy has a name - that is just a name. It is your thoughts that count. I'll keep adding mine, but yours would be nice too.

The Relationship Between Quantum States and Paradigms

2007-06-01T14:17:00.000-07:00

Quantum states are (if I remember correctly and maybe I don't) are those energy levels or radius of orbit that electrons tend to travel around the nucleus. It may be that the concept of truth is related to these states. In which case things like the Heisenberg Principle, etc. might apply to well, truth, and things that come from truth - like definitions and thought, etc.

In perhaps a related area, Nodism seems to allow for everything to be under every node. I have been working on this lately and may have come up with something a little different than that but regardless, in the searching to see if this is true or what it actually means, we come to the concept of how to organize or order "everything" beneath a node.

So as children, which comes first - is it the most relevant. What does relevance mean? Is it based on reciprocal links - well if all nodes contain everything (again I am now suspecting that this is not the case) then reciprocal links would be equal. Or do the strengths of the reciprical links affect the relevance. Certainly that would make sense but is there a paradox here.

So I have been experimenting with branches containing shades of red, etc. How true is it that this apple is dark red. How much light red is there, etc. There are many things that are subjective but even these might average to a "truth" almost like the electron motion averages to an energy state. Objective values should be easier but we always hear people say that there is no truth. Nothing is set in stone, etc.

Along these lines comes the paradigm and paradigm shifts. This is one of the most interesting concepts that Nodism helps explore. Para means next to so it would imply a sibling. A shift from one embodiment to a next.

One thing that is neat to think about is figuring out where in the single hierarchy of nodism, a paradigm appears. Is it on the edges out along the siblings (in the land of presumed lesser relevance) or does it insert itself between existing parent and children right before our eyes. I expect it could be either.

The "right before our eyes" type of paradigm or invention might arise from prior art pointing in a different direction. Nobody has a rollthrough ad that takes you to a site when you roll over it. The public would not stand for it and thus we have the current paradigm if you will of clicking on an ad. This is an energy state and it appears to be true or at least has been for the last 15 years. But if someone says, hey... I am going to make a rollthrough ad and it will be for a vacuum cleaner that sucks so hard it takes viewers through the ad without clicking or a black hole, or a blind date, or a magnetic personality or a... then suddenly we could have a paradigm shift and roll through ads become "normal" or the current energy state.

This last paragraph harkens to acceptance being part of the paradigm. Not quite sure how important that is. Certainly with respect to marketing, and things like memes that is very important. But we will leave it for another time.

Inventor Dan Zen, reporting what has been on his mind lately... and the post is unedited - sorry if it is difficult.

Nodism Forum Created

2007-03-21T21:42:00.000-07:00

After a few happy hello's from new Nodists, it is hoped that a forum might be in order to converse beyond comments. So, a forum has been created at:

http://www.nodism.org/nodismBB2

I feel like I should offer a prize. Okay... Nodists will one day be listed in a branch directly off of Node Zero and we have to order these for presentation. So... the Nodists will be ordered in the order they join the forum. Better get in early ;-)

Love Dan

Nodism Concepts Through Tapoll Predict-a-Polls

2007-03-19T19:01:00.000-07:00

Tapoll is a Web 2.0 Poll site that lets you predict polls as you vote. It might be fun to explore various concepts of Nodism that are being worked out. Below are a few polls - have fun! And please, take five minutes out of your day to discuss and see if these concepts excite you.

Create a Tapol poll
View similar polls

Tapoll - the predict-a-poll site by inventor Dan Zen. If your vote does not seem to register on this site then please allow a cookie to be set (for instance, see the little eye at the bottom of IE)

Nodism Wiki Help - Making a Page

2007-03-19T18:23:00.000-07:00

A Wiki lets you add (or edit) pages and links to those pages very easily. Here are the steps to make your first page on the Nodism Wiki:

To sign up to be able to participate in the Wiki go to the Recent Visitors page
Click the edit button at the bottom of the page
Type your first and last name on the page beneath the other names using the camel format - CapitalLetters at the start of the words and bump the words together with no spaces.
You can write a little hello note and then save the page.
When you do, you will see that there is a ? after your name. Click this to create a page for yourself and write a little about yourself.
Then you can sign in at the bottom using your CamelCase name and set your preferences using the preferences link at the top.

Now, perhaps you did not realize it but you made your first page. Making more pages is basically the same:

Edit any page and when editing the page make up a link title in CamelCase with no spaces
Once you save the page you will see the link with a ? after it
Click the ? and you will be given a form to create the page
As you create the page, you can put in more links using the CamelCase
If the page already exists, the link will go to it otherwise a ? will be put next to it
Any links with ? is ready for someone - someone like you to create the page!

Here is a link to more information on how to use a Wiki.

Wikis are amazing to use - over the course of a couple weeks holiday I made a couple hundred pages with great ease. I welcome you to write in the Wiki - start with your own thoughts on Nodism - almost like a review and see how it goes. Hopefully you will gain enough courage and confidence to make changes and additions! Please do.

Nodism - the Philosophy of Meta

2007-03-19T16:50:00.000-07:00

Nodism is a philosophy that lets us explore aspects of meta with hierarchical thinking or generational thought.

For years now, very logical people have built up systems to emulate life. These systems have converged to Object Oriented Programming (OOP). We are at the height of the information age - and the standard of sharing of information has become XML.

Both Object Oriented Programming and XML are based on hierarchy. Indeed so is grouping, categorizing, organizing, indenting, nesting, etc. Nodism lets us explore and hopefully go beyond earlier hierarchical philosophies from food chains to set theory.

This blog and associated sites approach the philosophy in a relatively grass roots, first principle, and welcoming manner.