Posted by Erol Abit on April 29, 1999 at 16:53:35:
In Reply to: Re: Only in space or in time too? posted by Patrick Weiler on April 29, 1999 at 08:30:39:
Erol
: Yes, chaos is relevant to the discussion, however only in the mathematical meaning of the term. The chaos theory states that the ultimate result of a situation (in this case the state of rug weaving in NW Persia versus Central Asia) is determined by the initial conditions. In other words, the development of these two seemingly discrete weaving traditions became so different because, even though the basic function of the weavings was the same, the direction each went compared to the other was a result of the conditions under which they began (cultural/geographic/political/etc.) and was not as much affected by the INTERACTION of the two cultures - (which is the postulate of this topic).
: Patrick Weiler
[Dear Readers, those of you who will be bored of such things may not read the part between "***"s]
Dear Patrick,
***The definition you gave is a physical definition of chaos if you mean by "initial conditions" "initial conditions in TIME domain". In a generalized definition, "initial condition" can be in any domain, real or virtual.In spatial chaos, initial condition is in spatial domain and can be thought, in our case, as the first step of
walking from one side of river to other side.
Following Steve's assumptions, I preferred to use a global analyse for whole system by considering it as a single system. Therefore, I considered the interface between two subdomains as a discontinuity which may lead to chaos. If you carefully analyse the data supplied by Steve, for example the same physical domain (same pastoral areas) were being used by both groups, you too would have preferred to consider single physical domain rather than two different domains seperated by an interface, the case where you can consider now "interactions". But Steve is forcing me to consider single domain by implying that the domain is like a mixture of two groups. He is also forcing me to use "global" analyse rather than local analyse where there are interfaces in subdomains and hence interactions. It is being considered that global model resembles to local model in whole physical space and time tomain.
But he is emphasizing "changes in space domain" neglecting "changes in time domain". I just wondered how changes in "time domain" are significant. Thats all. Of course, if I were free, I would have preferred to use local analyse for such system which a mixture of two different elements (two groups on same pastures) or to use two subdomains are seperated by an interface (river or cultural difference) and then could use interaction theory. But at the same time, to use different theories will result in a confusion because of assumptions which change from method to method. ***
Anyways, any method or theory (deterministic, statistical or discrete, single phase, multiple phase, deterministic chaos, statistical chaos, local, global, etc) can be applied to analyse our system depending on how we select physical domain, parameters, variables.
But no one of these theories answers the question of "why". It is rather related to system identification (my knowledge about this area is little) because "why" assumes the system to be analysed is not well defined yet with these parameters and we perhaps need some more parameters or remember other parameters which may have significant influence on the system. In a kind, to bring "salt" in "salt bags" into attention was an attempt to find another parameter although it was silly attempt. By the way, it is assumed in science that human is most nonlinear system in all nature hence most difficult to identify and analyse by using available theories.
So, Or, are we in fact confusing somethings when analysing our identified system?
Or, should we look for new reasons=parameters (or
remember other known reasons we are missing already) to identify the system better or to find answers to "why"s? You suggested, for ex., "interactions between cultures" as a new parameter. I think interaction was not so good between those two groups since their bags were very different.
Regards,
Erol