N.B. that I've started a metalog to contain sprawl [23/iii 2004]
8 Jan 2002
I need a place to cache thoughts and links that seem to have some sort of overarching interest and significance, and that resist existing categories. I did a page of the sort in Summer 2001, but never did much with it. A case in point of the current problem is SOAP: this seems to be something that needs investigation and tracking, though I may never think about it after today.
To try to state the meta-problem: I'm trying to see into the future of what we'll DO with the Web. Our uses of the Web over the last 8-9 years have developed its potentials as an information-providing medium and as an instructional adjunct, relying principally on static pages which (with a few exceptions) are limited to basic HTML. The main exceptions (as far as I know) have been the explorations of .asp conducted by Skip and Tom Whaley, and the continuing experiments with IMS in the GIS world.
Yesterday I happened across a short article in InfoWorld by Jon Udell: "Web services: it's a brave new world for application integration", with several trenchant quotes:
In Act One of the Web drama, HTML forever changed how we publish and consume documents. In Act Two, now commencing, XML will likewise transform how business systems publish and consume business objects....Just how XML will work its wonders in the realms of education, and how we'll connect ourselves to that... these things are murky for me, and I don't know who (besides Skip and myself) might be expected to worry about the applications end of this. Somehow this all connects up with the task of creating an environment within which is the looming issue of how to build small-scale digital libraries for the use of groups and consortia (and potentially scaleable to fit into larger digital libraries)....We can see the value of this genetic diversity as the security risks of a Microsoft monoculture grow daily more apparent.
...software is ultimately about the objects we use to model real-world domains, not the languages we use to represent those objects.
27 Jan
Bits of Institutional Memory: linking together two months of interlinked texts
6 March
back to General Systems Theory
3 January 2004 There's also a Nexial Associates, Inc. in Roanoke
Our reports can save you much of the time and effort involved in researching the following subject areas, at a price you will consider very affordable.
Specifically, it provides definitions, principles and judgment criteria for application in any area of theoretical study. The foundation of nexialism rests on the discovery of two paradoxes: the paradox of consistency and the paradox of determinism. These are shown to be universal in nature, and highly relevant to theory unification mechanisms.
Two years later, some of the concerns are still the same, but others have emerged. Today I happened to be looking into nexus as a concept, and ran into a bunch of stuff that I need to sequester someplace. Here seems reasonably apt:
Nexus: a course is [nothing more than a]... was the thought I started from
OED: nexus ne.ksAs. [L. nexus, pl. nexus, f. nex-, nectere to bind, connect.]
1.
a. A bond or link; a means of connexion between things or parts...
I find that there is a Nexial Institute
2. A connected group or series.The Nexial Institute emerged from a non-profit Colorado corporation named "GAIA" that was formed in 1988. The idea of forming a research institute arose to complement studies into James Lovelock's "Gaia hypothesis" (Schneider and Boston, 1991). A "strong Gaia" worldview was developed as a result of that conference (Kineman, 1991), and this was later developed into special and general theories of "autevolution" (Kineman, 1997). The many similarities subsequently found to system principles espoused by Robert Rosen and Ludvig Von Bertalanffy led to involvement with the International Society for the System Sciences, and formation of a Special Integration Group on "What is Life and Living?" These developments helped focus the purpose of the institute onto developing and furthering a living systems worldview. The institute mission was correspondingly clarified and it was renamed "The Nexial Institute" in 2001. The name "Nexial" derives from "nexus" which means the phenomenon of joining together. It is used here to suggest a method of knowing that is integrative rather than analytic, joining together all valid forms of human knowing including scientific study, experiential awareness, and expressive or humanistic arts. This vision is not new; it was most famously described in Herman Hesse's novel "The Glass Bead Game." More recently (1950) a similar notion, under the name of "nexialism" was suggested by the science fiction writer A.E. Van Vogt, who invented the idea of a "Nexial Foundation" where wholistic thinkers and scientists with the skills to integrate sciences, are trained. As we begin the new millennium, amid promise and turmoil, The Nexial Institute, now formally realized, dedicates itself to developing and applying a rigorously integrated view of living reality, by combining scientific and experiential knowledge and appropriate methods for acquiring both. We reserved Van Vogt's term "Nexial Foundation" for the eventual estblishment of an educational facility that would train true "nexialists."
See also David Schneider's Introduction to NexialismA new discipline is introduced which is designed to assist in the study and application of theory unification. Called nexialism, its goal is to set the stage for the ultimate unification of varying science and religions. The discipline is primarily a utilitarian tool which can help provide direction in theory study, and is interdisciplinary in nature.