Sunday, December 16, 2007
THE POWER OF ALGORITHMIC THINKING
Believe it or not. Running the term "algorithmic thinking" on Google, I come up with 10,500 hits. What does this mean? When we discovered mechanics, we became mechanical. We are now becoming computational. Not because our computers are computing for us, but because we are mimicking them in what we do at a personal level.
Can we integrate our algorithmic thinking with our computational devices? When we say we are "on the go", or "gotta run", more often than not we are getting into a motor car, with which we feel "one-ness". Having used The MasterList for the past 9 years as my algorithmic brain prosthetic, I am pleased to see that the concept of algorithmic thinking has taken off. If I can use a relational database to help me get things done, why can't I think like a relational database? And,if I can do both, why can't I have a synergistic relationship between the two, just like I do with my car!
So, here are my comments on what I am reading. Someone writes of "the algorithmic thinker". That makes me think of Einstein, with a pipe. I am thinking more of the algorithmic "actor". Someone who combines analysis and decision in the same algorithmic process. That process of course requires algorithmic formulation.
But, formulation of what?
I say: Rules of Action between Objects in Relation to Self.
By the way, getting back to the simple relational database that is The MasterList, isn't that what calendars and ticklers and Outlook are trying, primitively to get to? Think! 500 years ago small swiss gears were designed with a clock face to be carried as a personal "relational" device to bring people, objects, place, and agenda together from otherwise disparate possibilities. We are progressing. Outlook is now the Model T.
Someone else writes that a "recipe is an algorithm". Yes! And, algorithmic thinking requires that we try to make recipes out of the ad hoc, messy fields of action in which we find ourselves.
But, how do we do that?
I say: Identify and observe relationships between actors, objects, field, and self. Then, observe action. Then define rules for intervention.
One further observation. Just as working with modern flexible weight training machines such as Nautilus, "machines" the body to conform its movements to the tool to which it trains, so working with a proper relational database, the mind, the self, and the decision-making aspect of mind and self tend to develop their "strengths" in accordance with the power and the flow of the tool provided. In this case, the now-freeware The MasterList.
The MasterList is a tool for algorithmic thinking that not only computes and stores and manages relational knowledge for you, it trains you to do so for yourself.
Believe it or not. Running the term "algorithmic thinking" on Google, I come up with 10,500 hits. What does this mean? When we discovered mechanics, we became mechanical. We are now becoming computational. Not because our computers are computing for us, but because we are mimicking them in what we do at a personal level.
Can we integrate our algorithmic thinking with our computational devices? When we say we are "on the go", or "gotta run", more often than not we are getting into a motor car, with which we feel "one-ness". Having used The MasterList for the past 9 years as my algorithmic brain prosthetic, I am pleased to see that the concept of algorithmic thinking has taken off. If I can use a relational database to help me get things done, why can't I think like a relational database? And,if I can do both, why can't I have a synergistic relationship between the two, just like I do with my car!
So, here are my comments on what I am reading. Someone writes of "the algorithmic thinker". That makes me think of Einstein, with a pipe. I am thinking more of the algorithmic "actor". Someone who combines analysis and decision in the same algorithmic process. That process of course requires algorithmic formulation.
But, formulation of what?
I say: Rules of Action between Objects in Relation to Self.
By the way, getting back to the simple relational database that is The MasterList, isn't that what calendars and ticklers and Outlook are trying, primitively to get to? Think! 500 years ago small swiss gears were designed with a clock face to be carried as a personal "relational" device to bring people, objects, place, and agenda together from otherwise disparate possibilities. We are progressing. Outlook is now the Model T.
Someone else writes that a "recipe is an algorithm". Yes! And, algorithmic thinking requires that we try to make recipes out of the ad hoc, messy fields of action in which we find ourselves.
But, how do we do that?
I say: Identify and observe relationships between actors, objects, field, and self. Then, observe action. Then define rules for intervention.
One further observation. Just as working with modern flexible weight training machines such as Nautilus, "machines" the body to conform its movements to the tool to which it trains, so working with a proper relational database, the mind, the self, and the decision-making aspect of mind and self tend to develop their "strengths" in accordance with the power and the flow of the tool provided. In this case, the now-freeware The MasterList.
The MasterList is a tool for algorithmic thinking that not only computes and stores and manages relational knowledge for you, it trains you to do so for yourself.
