Re: Eigen-Value Indexing in Second Order Systems

On 9/29/06, Len Bullard <> wrote:
> First, take a look at this article and take note of the 'network effect' and
> 'locking'.
>
> http://www.ft.com/cms/s/cd46a446-4edf-11db-b600-0000779e2340.html
ok.

> To understand locking, it helps if you understand second order systems.
> Locking is an effect of the selectors feeding back to the index of scalars.
> You think of that as a 'democratic decision' and in a naïve way, it is and
> that is why there are few if any democratic governments but lots of
> republics.   It helps if you understand why that is the case but it won't
> sit well with anyone who thinks a flat democracy is a good form of
> government.  You are probably trolling so I don't expect you to give a good
> answer
no, but I was teasing a bit earlier. Said teasing based on Andrew
Welch's statement that you were somewhat hard to understand. Which I
often find to be the case as well. Communication and understanding of
such is based on shared references and a concept of how those
references relate to the subject at hand. That you are doing a lot of
references to eigen related concepts in the context of search is
outside of my frame of reference because I am most used to these
concepts (in computing) having to do with pictorial transformations
for example. I suppose that there is at lower levels of search engine
work a use for these concepts because of graph and matrix
manipulations but I haven't ever given a thought to it, and so I have
a hard time mapping the higher level concepts of search that we are
all familiar with to the lower level concepts.

That said I often feel uncomfortable in trying to define vague
concepts of human interaction, such as democratic processes via
mathematical model. I think there is a gap between the model and the
actuality the extent of which cannot be measured, something like the
inductive gap, only much more problematic in being less defined and
understood.

>, but actually, once the selections are made, what you have are
> derivative results, so you don't end up with a democracy anyway.  You end up
> with the choices of the choosers of the choices increasing in value and
> producing the so-called 'long tail' power law.  It doesn't necessarily
> produce sales of low volume ideas.  It can effectively extinguish them.
>
> http://blogs.zdnet.com/Ratcliffe/?p=171

Do you actually mean sales in this case, or do you mean the more
general transmission. I suppose I would mean transmission if I were
making the same case. And this might make it difficult to understand
because the sale of an idea is its transmission in a somewhat
metaphorical use of the word sale.



>
> If someone is basing their evaluation on an eigen-value index, they are not
> going to see new ideas, products, and particularly, language.  This is a
> model based on previous selections, not a topical model (see topical vector
> model) so, you have to be willing to go deep into the search returns to find
> weak signals (the edge of the network in that model and in a topical vector
> index, the outliers.  If you don't you won't understand or even recognize
> emergent events.

well everyone bases their evaluations on previous selections, for most
these previous selections are their life and readings. A solution
seems to be to also feed randomness into the selection pool.

>
> >Indirectly you are indicating that Google's not pointing at enough
> >resources for "false eigen-index locking" suggests that their index is
> >inadequate to an expert's requirements in a particular subject matter?
>
> That depends on the user and the subject matter.  What it does mean is that
> simply slicing off the top Google returns is a weak assertion of authority
> for any decision.

True, but that was not was what was done. He provided the total of the
returns which was three. This does not give a pretty strong argument
for the esoteric nature of the concept that you were discussing, and
in a general discussion it might be considered something requiring
further explanation. I might have any number of splendid points to
make by referencing the Y Gododdin in an argument, but I would
probably keep from doing so if I did not expect that those I talked
with knew of it (which I would not expect), or at least provide some
explanation of the reference and the background of the poem.

> >Do you mean: A reference to the point above - because of the massive
> >scale of Google's index can be gamed by sending in more information.
> >That it needs to be filtered to make sure there is no gaming?
>
> Essentially yes, but really, by careful or naive construction of the
> information sent, and by ignoring those parts of the information returned
> that are inconvenient to the claims.  That is why patent review narrows
> claims while patent submission attempts to expand them.  This is a game in
> and of itself but the game has clarity and is evolutionarily stable UNLESS
> the domain in which the claims are made is itself murky.

Can you think of any artificially constructed games that mimic the
patent review process. This is just a question of interest. I cannot
think of any but I only know a good dozen games, some voting games. I
guess it could be argued that Games and eigensystems are related,
although hadn't ever thought of that either.


> >Do you mean: Google Scholar, Froogle and other specialized access
> >points to the Google Index attempt to combat the above named problem?
>
> Yes.  Although the problem is if all they are indexing is URI-resources,
> they are missing a large portion of the prior art.  I suspect that is why
> scanning and publishing is a big part of their plan.

Well for the specialized access represented by Google Scholar yes. I
think for Froogle, or whatever the new version of that is they will
want to somehow include Google Base or other solutions for companies
to upload catalogs.


Cheers,
Bryan Rasmussen