2 ms·

>Connections are meaningful because they denote the things that are connected, and indeed if every single connection is asserted, i.e. "everything means somethi

>Connections are meaningful because they denote the things that are connected, and indeed if every single connection is asserted, i.e. "everything means something", then there is no value in any connection. https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=39089447 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=39089447 - but your example shows how every thing has a connection, but each connection is different. So if every node on the graph has the same edge that edge is meaningless, but just because every node has an edge does not invalidate the use of edges.

bowsamic 3y ago
I'm assuming edges that are of the same type and that it's the existence of the connection between two nodes that denotes the meaning, but if you want to encode information in the edge itself, let's say an edge has a type of connection, then instead I would say that it's meaningless iff every node is connected to every other node with every type of edge. If there is even one type of edge that is missing between two nodes then meaning reappears. Finally, I'm not talking about these connections ontologically. I'm not asserting they actually exist and that we discover them. I'm just saying that when they are felt to be universal (i.e. "schizophrenic") then they lose meaning. That is, making connections between different concepts is only meaningful if you don't think every single concept is connected in every way. For example, finding out that the halting problem and gravitational waves are connected wouldn't mean much if you already knew they were because you live in a cultural space where every single connection is assumed and expected, and even worse you even knew already that gravitational waves and tarot were connected a priori, or my lunch and gravitational waves, etc. We live in a cultural space where people really do automatically believe that tarot and gravitational waves must be somehow fully connected.
rbanffy 3y ago
> but just because every node has an edge does not invalidate the use of edges Not necessarily, but every edge has a value, and when we have so many edges to explore, it becomes difficult to assign value correctly to them - to know which connections are relevant and which aren’t, which connections express actual relationships and which are nothing more than coincidences, artifacts of a limited connection space.

bowsamic 3y ago

I'm assuming edges that are of the same type and that it's the existence of the connection between two nodes that denotes the meaning, but if you want to encode information in the edge itself, let's say an edge has a type of connection, then instead I would say that it's meaningless iff every node is connected to every other node with every type of edge. If there is even one type of edge that is missing between two nodes then meaning reappears. Finally, I'm not talking about these connections ontologically. I'm not asserting they actually exist and that we discover them. I'm just saying that when they are felt to be universal (i.e. "schizophrenic") then they lose meaning. That is, making connections between different concepts is only meaningful if you don't think every single concept is connected in every way. For example, finding out that the halting problem and gravitational waves are connected wouldn't mean much if you already knew they were because you live in a cultural space where every single connection is assumed and expected, and even worse you even knew already that gravitational waves and tarot were connected a priori, or my lunch and gravitational waves, etc. We live in a cultural space where people really do automatically believe that tarot and gravitational waves must be somehow fully connected.

rbanffy 3y ago

> but just because every node has an edge does not invalidate the use of edges Not necessarily, but every edge has a value, and when we have so many edges to explore, it becomes difficult to assign value correctly to them - to know which connections are relevant and which aren’t, which connections express actual relationships and which are nothing more than coincidences, artifacts of a limited connection space.