Reality Generators

Language is a simple thing: it is the capability of assigning a symbol to a structure, and to use this symbol to generate more complex structures, which again can be assigned a symbol a further be re-used in the very same way.

It looks as if it was possible to emulate such a simple thing by writing a simple viral mechanism that would act in the same way, yet there is a set of limits that we are currently unable to trespass.

1. The first problem is how small is the basic unit. A brain acts by directly associating elementary data that are BOTH analogical and digital in nature while we only have digital data for us to play with

2. The second problem is the lack of brute computational force. A brain is a parallel network of billions of low power processors, whereas we typically have several high power units.

This leads us to accept that we cannot replicate brain functions as such. Whatever we do can refer to basic cognitive functions and use them as a source of inspiration, but it's incapable to replicate them in principle.

In particular, a problem we have is that the ontology generator (the brain) has no clear distinction about the minimal level at which relations are formed and labels are assigned. If you take the time to read a neurology textbook, you'll find that there is no such thing as the grandmother's neuron.

That is, there is no clearly recognizable point in which information about your grandmother is kept. Our neurons can die (they actually do it all the time) and single deaths never lead to a loss in functionality. It really looks like nature has made something like a root level RAID mechanism, isn't it?

Well, when we build a database we must say what we store, where and how. This is another major difference we have to keep in mind. So at some point we have to do what nature does not: we have to define an elementary brick that we will use for all our further building.

At Omegawiki there are two such bricks:

1. Expressions (labels, that is)

2. Meanings (whatever is defined by the label)

The first step of the associative mechanism in Omega wiki is therefore to build a couple of two such bricks and call the junction a Defined Meaning. This first step is necessary to start our sequence, from here on, all we have to do is to be able to associate our DMs to each other in order to produce Relations, that can be further labelled and described along a viral chain.

This implies that relations are in themselves fully qualified Dms, and can be used as such for further building. The only difference between a relation and a basic DM is that a relation can be decomposed in a set of constituent DMs, while a basic DM has atomic value. If you break it, what you get is not a usable DM any more.