the sea bird

it is stationary
it has it all
tides are inferior
fettered, chained

or the passage below the wings
with its thoughts in tune
with its scornful claws
with the treadmill turns

12-1-13 thoughts on a recent bike trip

Coordinates and Disagreement

Let's talk about 'A': a random thing right off your mind.

Figure 1: 'I like A!'

Sometimes we say 'I like A', but what we mean is 'I don't like B'. Or in system made up of A and B, A exhibits more positive value to me than B does.

Figure 2: 'I don't like A!'

At another time we may also say 'I don't like A' but in fact we mean 'I like C'. Or in a system made up of A and C, C exhibits more value to me than A does.

The fact that A present in the two scenarios above implies that A refers to a multidimensional object in a global space. At the onset of a conversation, we may only refer to a subspace (to be referred as communication space).

Let's say objects named A, B and C all have the intrinsic* properties x and y (e.g. apple, banana, orange have the properties sweetness and sourness).

*the word intrinsic should not be taken too seriously.

Figure 3: identity space

Also, there are person X and person Y (e.g. human) who have the exact same value (e.g. taste) for A, B, C (denoted as values on z axis) in the global space (to be referred to as identity space).

Now if at the onset of their conversation, X is in communication space xz (a plane in parallel with xz-plane), Y is in communication space yz (a plane in parallel with yz-plane)*, and they communicate with the messages 'A+' ("I like A!") or 'A-' ("I don't like A!") respectively as their classification of A's relative value in their own communication space (which depends on the slope around A). As a result, even though X and Y completely agree with each other with A's value in identity space, they would appear to be in disagreement.

* Forgive me that the figures are a little confusing. Just understand that in figure 3, AB is in parallel with plane xz and AC is in parallel with plane yz. Anyways, the only purpose of the crude diagram is to make it easier to understand the arguments, and the detail of the diagram per se is not of any importance.

The disagreement may lead to a few interesting consequences. For instance,

1. In the most boring case, the conversation terminates immediately after the first round of message exchange. No value-adjustment is bound to occur. The disagreement leads X and Y, who are both highly confident with their own value system in general, attribute the disagreement to an intrinsic individual difference, i.e. they suppose their identity spaces are very different in nature (e.g. in entirely different coordinate systems).
   
   Here it is better to introduce a parameter, general confidence, to mark one's reaction style* to any perceived disagreement in general (which cannot be faithfully observed in a short period of interaction); and another parameter, special confidence, to mark one's confidence in a specific proposition/message (e.g contingent on how steep the slope of AB is)**.
   
   * More specifically, one's general tendency to preserve an initial value (a general inertia--a more intuitive name to myself).
   ** The above-mentioned 'message' can be considered the product of a lossy representation of the original AB relationship in X's communication space. The loss of information (through the transformation of a real number, i.e. the slope, into a dichotomy, i.e. +/-) would then be translated into X's confidence (or certainty if you wish) of the message.
    
2. In some slightly more interesting cases, the conversation terminates but at least one of X and Y ends up adjusting his/her value of A (e.g. X changes his/her slope of AB, thereby changes his special confidence of the message 'A+')*.
   
   * as you might have noticed, I assume that messages are sent and received only in one's communication space, but changes have to happen in the identity space.
   
   One may heuristically describe it as: either X is influenced by Y or Y is influenced by X. By using this description, we subject ourselves to the illusion that it is a processes of special confidence transfer or value transfer, e.g. X has drawn Y's value of A towards X, if Y's general confidence and/or specific confidence is less than those of X. In fact, that can be exactly what Y would imagine if Y has changed his/her own value of A ("X has convinced me!"). We are often inclined (or at least me) to do the mental transformation of my own loss of special confidence into the other person's gain of special confidence, as if it is a currency of some sort.
   
   However, in this scenario there is no causal relationship between X's and Y's change of value/special confidence. The cause of value adjustment is the discrepancy between the messages and one's own general/special confidence. Therefore, it can be that (a) both X and Y increase their value of A ("He's almost an opposite person of me."--imagine a rotated coordinate system); (b) both X and Y decrease their value of A ("Maybe I'm wrong."); (c) one increases his/her value while the other decrease his/her value.
   
   As a result, there would be a 'split' of the identity structure (the relationship between A, B, C in each person's identity space--and remember that X and Y start off with the same identity structure before they have any communication). No matter how X adjust the slope of AB and how Y adjust the slope of AC, since neither X's AC nor Y's AB has been affected, their overall value structure is bound to diverge. Interestingly, even though, for instance, C has never entered X's communication space, the relationship BC is still affected by the communication and might manifest itself through X's future communication with others.
    
3. A more realistic scenario: X and/or Y continue to send more messages to support his/her view. If  A, B, C are the only stuff that have ever existed in X's and Y's lives, either X sending 'B'/'B-' or Y sending 'C'/'C+' would expand the other person's communication space and bring forth his/her supplementary message. Eventually, X's and Y's communication spaces converge to identity space, and the previously perceived disagreement would be resolved. Their value can both be strengthened and there should be no split of identity structure- the miniculture has survived.
    
4. To achieve an agreement (e.g. the scenario discussed in 3), subsequent communication does not have to occur. We can imagine that there is another possible (and more interesting) response to disagreement, other than changing one's own value. For example, X has high general confidence but also very fluid, meaning he/she does not dwell in a particular communication space for very long*. Especially when there seems to be an disagreement, X is very likely to expand or shift his/her original communication space. X would end up agree with Y if the the shifting/expanding communication space of X ends up coincide with the identity space (expanded), or even coincide with Y's communication space (shifted, or first expanded then shrinked). This scenario is more interesting than 3 in the sense that agreement can be asymmetric, e.g. X perceives an agreement, while Y perceives a disagreement.
   
   * In case you are confused, remember that I made up a concept 'general confidence' as the inertia of one's values, i.e. identity structure, while now I just made up another concept 'fluidity' as the inertia of one's communication space per se.
    
5. All the scenarios above are utopian cases created to put forward a minimalistic discussion.  In the most realistic cases, the dimensionality of one's identity space (together with its communication space) can be much higher than three, if not infinite in principle. AB and AC can appear in various communication space and in various orientations/shapes, then it becomes very difficult for X and Y (even they have the same identity structure) to converge their communication space only by shifting. Expanding one's communication space or increasing the number of messages exchanged might increase the chance of convergence but not to a promising degree*. It is interesting that, as the dimensionality goes higher, the progress and outcome of communication becomes dominated by its effect on the location of one's communication space, rather than the identity structure.
   
   * By saying so, I assume that the dimensionality of a communication space is highly constrained, i.e. the dimensionality of the identity space is orders of magnitude higher than that of the highest possible dimensionality of its communication space.
   
   This scenario sounds frustrating: how is it possible at all to communicate? Fortunately (or unfortunately), the primary goal of X for example, as in 4, can simply be to find an agreement with the message 'A-' in his/her own identity structure, and settle. As soon as X's communication space (by shifting/expanding/shrinking) coincides with a space where A exhibit less value than another arbitrary object, no value adjustment or subsequent communication is necessary to occur*. Then the interesting thing about high dimensional identity space is that X and Y can come to an agreement but on very different things**. Therefore agreement does not require the convergence of communication space.
   
   * Nevertheless, in real life, subsequent communication might make X realize that they are not actually in agreement.
   ** As a reminder, all the scenario above are created with the assumption that the messages one send do not completely represent the information in one's communication space, which further does not completely represent the information in one's identity space.
   
   It seems that regarding high dimensional objects, communication can be futile as it tends to generate artificial agreements, e.g. the information that X is referring to with the message 'A+' may never reach Y.  However, it should also be noticed that even in the 3D cases like 1~4, both communication space and identity space are still subjective or relative, which is to say, X's identity space and Y's identity space are isomorphic but separate spaces that can only influence each other through messages.  There is not an absolute space to coordinate the position of X's identity space and Y's identity space. The so-called 'convergence of communication space' is in nature the mutual yet subjective agreement over their isomorphic but separate identity structures. Therefore, the nature of an agreement reached in a 3D scenario may not be quite different from one reached in this higher-dimension scenario.

We can make a more general case by substituting the original interpretation of z (one's personal value/opinion) with another property of A, B, C (e.g. bitterness). Then the above discussion on the communication of subjective value/opinions should still be applicable to the communication of those more 'objective' 'facts'*. We can also insert another axis t for time, then the scenario of communication can also include the discussion of sequences of events. However, I am not proposing this is what the world (physical world or mental world) is like. Those are the assumptions that are useful so far as to help me describe a process that resonates my feeling about communication: a process that is not as straight forward as one could be captured by 'information transfer'. An additional implication can be that you may or may not agree or disagree with a point that I did not make at all.

* In the context of this article, the word doxa/δόξα may resonate.

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Supplementary discussion (a stretch):

A general problem emerges from the above discussion: how X manage to choose messages or symbols that happen to be translated by Y into an isomorphic structures.  It is beyond the scope of this article and my capability to make guesses. Nevertheless, it is conceivable that each person has gone through a long history of communication. Through this history, one does not live in a world where 'A','B','C','+','-' are the only symbols he/she has ever been exposed to -- but rather, one lives in an ocean of messages/symbols from an ocean of sources. Picking up frequent concurrent symbols (or sequences of symbols) help one to locate, then to select message sources. If you are willing to use a more general definition of message (e.g. light waves, sound waves, waves transformed through machines), also a more general definition of message source (i.e. anything that can send out messages of this general kind), you are welcome to think about the A, B, C in the above-mentioned identity structure as essentially the representation of information sources.

Herbert Blumer's words on symbolic interaction may resonate:

 "Human beings act towards things on the basis of the meanings that the things have for them"..."the meaning of such things is derived from, or arises out of, the social interaction that one has with one's fellows"..."these meanings are handled in, and modified through, an interpretative process used by the person in dealing with the things he encounter."(Symbolic Interactionism, 1969)

P.S. Some may find the above article also resonate with Genetic Algorithm (J.H. Holland) (especially the concepts of schemata and intrinsic parallelism) and Cognitive Dissonance (L. Festinger). Feel free to imagine!

解构

恐怖是没有回响
是摧毁不能给予形态
没有河床
没有倒影

是溃败的叹息
干涸
又等待搁浅
迸溅的灰色
退潮

是退潮
又张望

Another World

I'm sinking into the deepest

of the bed where they placed me

swinging to the corner of the ceiling

where the window is blue and dead

as the yellow smile faded

into an escape 

from the heels of my own

8-30-2013

Innovation Village North, Boca Raton

it runs

there is no way water would run
from high to low
or from low to high
the gasp deceives
it's your own weeping dance
with the fluid of moments of living
then you get wary
and then you get to run

The soul of a coffee kettle

I've been researching during this weekend for a "sort of" handy pour over coffee kettle. And it was rough. Even as a casual amateur, I found that almost all the product descriptions online are suspicious. By saying so I mean they always neglect the parameter I care most about--the spout diameter.  Here is some personal opinions about pour over coffee kettles to share with hand-drip fans:

What, I think, are the actual important features? Body material, curve and diameter of the spout, and volume.

Hand dripping is a fun game of timing and thermal control. It's less perplexing than espresso-making (here I mean with semi-automatic or say semi-manual machine) because the pressure dimension is not in yet. Here I only want to discuss the brewing part, with a little attention to grinding, though bean-selection and roasting is the true foundation of all drinkable coffee (there is no salvation for any cup of coffee if either process gets screwed up).

There is NO real time control when you start pouring. The speed of dripping has already been determined by the properties of your filter, grinding and the beans you use. The size and charge of pores sets a time limit but not a critical one. You can figure when you prewet /warmup your drip-gears. It's usually pretty fast. Anyways, you don't have many options in the market. How deep your beans are roasted, how long since they were roasted and in what container they've been stored, also matter. You can tell the difference simply by smelling of it, the sound and touch if you're manually grinding it. It is also possible to visually see it when hot water makes its first contact with your coffee: fresh coffee absorbs more and therefore has larger volume change. Sometimes I like to have a 30 seconds prewet of the ground coffee before actual pouring. At this point you can actually measure the dV if you want. The actual fresh/dry-speed curve may not be that straight forward. I haven't read articles on this nor done systematic tests by myself, so you have to rely on our own observation for this part. The real time control is actually grinding. While consistency of particle size is fundamental to the body and flavor (and it depends on your budget...), grinder setting crucially determines dripping speed.

So the kettle doesn't control time, but a good kettle and a steady hand affect the time-thermal curve. You can end up with very different stuff in your cup depending on how you play this part. Of course, you have to first heat up the water but don't go beyond 95ºC (203ºF)... except you're pretty into the burnt flavor sometimes I encountered in Dunkin' Donuts...or below 85/185, especially when the dripping process is long so the temperature drop is huge at the end of it, the cup can end up too sour or tart (here I think is a subtle difference: tart is more likely to be a result of bad roasting or storage).

A good kettle helps you keep the temperature in range, as well as maintain a stable dropping rate over time. In other words, with it you gain CONTROL!

So what features of a good kettle will help you control?

Volume is the easiest to start with. I propose a pour-over kettle should not be less than 1 liter. You can go beyond that as much as you want, as long as you are able to hold and move the kettle fluently. Here I skip the lecture about the relationship of volume, surface area, heat exchange and temperature change, but the volume of the container give you a baseline temperature drop rate, and you don't want the curve to be to steep.

There is a little debate on the material part among we amateurs (don't know what professionals say about this). Some vote for bigger thermal capacity. I favor better thermal conductivity. This argument might be contingent on the specific kind of shape of kettle I preferred, which I'll mention later. The issue here is, even if the body is heated to 95º, the water temperature is in gradient along the spout. It drops even further when the stream goes through the air, hits the coffee and drips into a lower container eventually. There is a huge space for untenable variations. A kettle with good conductivity can help you as far as to the spout mouth. Imagine your first pour is only 80º which gradually changed to 95º then back to 83º -- I'd say this cup is basically ruined (it's the worst if you use a multiple-pour procedure as I do, so the thermal curve goes up and down several times--and that's part of the reason that I'm researching for a new one).  The point is: the temperature is going to drop anyway, but you want it to drop consistently and at a stable rate.

And why does a kettle still matter beyond the physical boundary of the kettle? Because what you really want to control is the variation in the dripper! Two problems are involved here. One is the variation across time; the other is the variation within the dripper. The first one can be controlled by keeping the water level within a small range of change, and pour as continuously as possible. The key story behind this is that the temperature in the dripper drops way faster than in the kettle. That's why you don't pour in the volume you want all at once, otherwise whatever kettle you use is irrelevant. The best solution so far, I think, is the so-called "no-break" method: you pour at the same speed as it drips--but surely that's very hard to attain. The second one can be controlled through pouring in spiral circles. There is also a debate about clockwise circling or anticlockwise. Some Japanese coffee master argued something relevant to nuclei spinning....but I think the influence should negligible...The point is: you don't want to keep you stream at one spot resulting a inconsistent heat distribution, and hence uneven extraction.

How well the two solutions I mentioned works is the most tricky part of hand pour over, but also where all the fun is at. That all depends on how well you control your wrist and therefore the stream. And that further depends on the design of the kettle spout. You want your stream to be controllable from the very beginning of the pouring when the kettle is pretty full. At this point a small change in angle may produce a large change in the size of the stream. Taking the limited tension-sensor-motor sensitivity of human in to consideration, it means it would be hard to maintain the stream at the size as you want. You can definitely train yourself through lots of practice, or at the same time, get yourself a kettle with better spout design. My personal experience is... smaller diameter does help limiting your stream size, and a moderate-sloped long spout with a well-modeled tip will help you keep the spill smooth (kind of due to reduce the surface tension gap...).

But anyways, you'd wanna find a kettle that loves your own hand. Helping you go anywhere you want in a cup is the soul of a coffee kettle!

Munks.
19/8/12

I'm a fixed standing point

I live in a three dimensional space.

but I am not living.

I'm a view point with fixed position.

I'm helpless.

because I'm just a, probably infinite small, three-dimensional space.

I exist.

because a four dimensional continuum is passing through me slowly.

I meet my friends but it doesn't mean we are moving around in the space.

It only means there are two sets of wave complex intervening with each other in a static four dimension view.

probably that's why the logic topology is ever consistent through different layers of complex system.

well, maybe this is wrong.

because it is hard to explain death.

or say, I cannot explain memory and death at the same time.

if obtaining memory is an illusion of the looming projection in the perceivable space.

then death is a abrupt change.

why would a continuum would have abrupt sphere?

is this a property of this three dimensional space?

or controlled by the periodical interaction between the 4th and 5th dimension?