Knowledge and compilation

As mentioned last time, we need to continue to discuss what motivates this blog in a constructive manner. Three years ago, a post looked at 'oops, loops, and oops. To belabor the obvious (nod to the Devil's DP Dictionary description of computer science), let's look at these three and then point to literature.

Why the use of "Consideration of 'oops, loops, and oops (at times, poops)" in the label?

• 'oops - ah yes, as in hoops, referring, of course, to the operationalistic nature of life, liberty, and pursuit of happiness for us and of things in general. That is, action is the orientation. How do you like your daily 'oops jumping?
• loops - again, tomorrow is the future extension of today as was today for yesterday and so forth. Is it not that texting drivers take advantage of the fact that all of their faculties are not demanded to cope with driving tasks, in most situations, and then consciously direct part of their remaining facilities to a distracting element all the while assuming that they can swap back to full attention if such is needed? That whole idiocy is such a good example of the latent risks that can develop into problems that it'll continue to appear here. Now, is it not true, too, that they know this about driving because of the familiarity? Did I hear you say, loop?
• oops - to err is human; to be stupid about risk is what? Yet, error is for us to manage (to wit, what we see with information theory). Actually, if we took an error-based view as the underlying framework, it would be very interesting indeed. Of course, that would be an operational ('oops and loops) stance, as you know.

---

We don't need to mention poops, except in passing. How many instances can you pull out of your memory of some adult behaving like the diapered set (not talking Depends)? The real irksomeness? That we are then expected to clean the crap for these people.

---

So, raising our sights, we need to look at what 'compiled' might mean to the subject. Those who are computer literate might see the metaphor's appeal. It actually goes deeper. Just consider this ACM biblio list of citations on one paper.

The mere fact that we can compile suggests a lot. Basically, learning is the key. And, do we not learn via loops (iteration, etc.)? Is it ever over (hubris says yes)?

Notice that the inverse of compiled is deep. That is, consider how the concept of 'analysis paralysis' came to be. As a species, without compilation, we would have all frozen into some type of catatonic-like state long ago. Fortunately, there are embedded circuits to rely on, plus we have techniques, such as filtering, that are both part of our apparatus collection and of our acquired knowledge.

What all of this means will require a parallel development on the truth engineering side. However, the problems are deeper than those suggested in The Black Swan. Yes, we mis-use Gauss' work as we do a myriad of other mathematical ideas. That is one thing to continue discussing since it allowed the best and brightest to lead many on perdition-laden paths.

Remarks:

01/01/2011 -- 'compilation' was, earlier, in the mind (called learning) and in our artifacts, such as written material. With the advent of the computer, the ways to compile knowledge increased dramatically. What did not increase, though, was an appreciation of the underlying faults of those types of artifacts. So, there will be an ongoing effort, in that regard, to bring this to the fore.

Modified: 08/24/2011