Fuzzy Borders, Fuzzy Lines, Fuzzy Truths and Fuzzy Lies

For the last few days, I've been contemplating borders. Fences. Delineations. Categories. Boundaries. Sets. Things that keep things separated in our minds; things that keep things 'easy' for us to deal with - considering the way we deal with things.

I write 'we', but I don't think that way - and I think, intuitively, mankind doesn't think that way. We live in a world of many colors, but our heritage of black and white thinking clouds the way we attack problems and therefore the way we attack solutions. We've created a world of thresholds - from taxation (over this amount, taxes are...), to illness, to treatment of illness, to even the problem of the Theory of Relativity and Quantum Theory - one works on the large, one works on the small.

Studies on society and technology are done within these thresholds, and mar Information and Communication Technology not only with their results, but from their very premises.¹ At what point does a developing nation become a developed nation? At what point does a digital divide become acceptable? At what point is a patent or copyright in one country unacceptable in another? At what point does experience take over from education? At what point?

Pointless

We plot points on graphs - graphs where we connect points, graphs where we separate two or more areas. Some of these graphs are statistics, delineating the difference between one thing or another. In some case, the line itself is the focus when the areas above and below the line hold it tenuously in place.

Other graphs represent political borders - most of which were established long before most of the breathing people on this planet existed. Still others delineate social, economic, socio-economic, legal and other borders. If all of these borders were to be placed on one map, we'd have one of the most mysterious things in the world. Striations cross, intersect, encapsulate and segregate. We prop these things up with laws, with passports, with tax laws and even with railroad tracks. These things become excuses for us.

Even time itself suffers our delusion. Few people actually understand that something has to change for time to pass, just as for something to change time has to pass. A relative of someone in a disaster will wait by a telephone, and it will seem no time is passing. Why? Because what they want to change has not changed. Time changes when other things change - when a mechanism moves, when a radioactive element decays - these things mark time just as much as time marks them. That concept is what made Albert Einstein as famous as he is today, though most people who use his name to imply genius don't comprehend how he changed the world as we know it. In fact, it's doubtful that anyone living does because of how the Theory of Relativity has soaked into the culture - and yet, because the majorty of people don't understand Einstein's theory, it has not saturated our world culture of thought.

And yet we live in a world of 'some', 'maybe', 'warm', 'middle', and many other relatively defined words. If I were to write 'some people will understand this', there is no definition of who will understand this - or how many people will understand this.

So I'm going to do something strange. I'm going to do something that most people who haven't been ruined by their education will understand. I'm going to mix borders. Why? Because points are dynamic, and we treat them as static.

Fuzzy

Reality is fuzzy. I think we all intuitively recognize this - at least as children - before we have it educated out of us. My mind was forever ruined when I came across Fuzzy Logic theory, because I began to practice it.² By giving something weight, we give a lean on something. I wrote articles on this related to programming for CramSession.com in the past, which have since found their obscurity within that company. I experimented with it with neural networks at home, and played with it for engineering solutions in a Western World obsessed with George Boole, and while the results were typically better as I improved - the fact that the method wasn't Boolean confused many to the point where the solutions weren't used.

But Fuzzy Logic isn't limited to engineering. And with some real examples, I'll discuss within this Creative Commons licensed eBook how not only Boolean logic is self-limiting - but also solutions.³

¹I imagine that this will spawn some debate, which I welcome.
²Special thanks to Lotfi Zadeh for communicating his theory in writing to the world, despite the world.
³As time and energy permit. We all have to eat. :-)

Top right image courtesy Digiteyesed.com