[Fis] Biologic - at the interface between biology, topology, logic and cybernetics (by Lou Kauffman)

[Krassimir Markov]

Dear Lou,

I would like to make a little remark in support of your Chapter 6. “Laws of
Form” from the “homework”.

For those who are interested in G. Spencer-Brown’s “Laws of Form” here is a
link to a copy of its edition from 1994:
https://urldefense.com/v3/__http://www.phylax-computerkunst.de/download/Spencer-Brown,*20George*20-*20Laws*20of*20Form.pdf__;JSUlJSU!!D9dNQwwGXtA!WqOYRXl1bL6sal8uetQC13hBrXFgjb5MarmLi9C3nl3YKRH0jjYoYxBb54M5LBhPwvw_4sZoJHQCq0cPwfQ$ 



I would like to present an example from the practical side to show how we
can create some-thing useful from no-thing. Laws of Form (LoF) traces how a
single distinction in a void leads to the creation of space. Below I will
outline how we can create a multi-dimensional data space from void.

Modernity is marked by the invention of John Vincent Atanasoff (1903-1995),
born into a large family of a Bulgarian and an Irish woman. We owe him the
model of the modern electronic digital computer with regenerative memory.

What interests us at the moment is that the memory of computers consists of
addressable cells, which are initially considered “empty”, regardless of
what is in them. In other words, we start from cells with “nothing”, which
we fill with data. Naturally, by deleting the data, we return to the
“nothing”.

Following this idea, in the early 1970s, independently of LoF, I had
developed a data storing model and corresponding software [1] that worked
with an unlimited number of data spaces. It is now a multi-user DBMS called
MDNDBÔ (Multi-Dimensional Numbered Data BaseÔ).

Each space contains data cells, and each cell can contain data with
variable length, a subspace, or nothing.

“Nothing” is easily denoted in the model - it is a bit string with zero
length.

Essentially, data cells and spaces are forms in the sense of LoF.

The model assumes that all conceivable spaces and their data cells exist
but are empty, i.e. we start from “void” and fill it with data according to
our needs. We can easily return to the “void”.

The model has only two operations - updating and reading the contents of a
data cell. Each data cell is addressed by a vector that has no limit for
the number of coordinates, i.e. all desired dimensions of spaces exist
simultaneously.

An important feature of the model is the constant time complexity of O(1)
for data access. In classical databases, it is at least logarithmic when
B-tree indexes are used.

Another interesting feature is that the model supports ternary logic. We
may have in every data cell zero (False), not zero (Truth), or nothing
(Unknown). The ternary logic allows the model to be able to answer "I don't
know" when that is really the case. Just like our consciousness, it is
obviously non-binary as it has “I don’t know”!

The model became the basis for implementing Natural Language Addressing,
which allows all addresses to be words or phrases in natural language [1].

In essence, a model of memory approaching that of the human brain, but
working faster, has been implemented.



Below I attach two illustrations. Please follow the links:

https://urldefense.com/v3/__http://www.foibg.com/fis/NLA.jpg__;!!D9dNQwwGXtA!WqOYRXl1bL6sal8uetQC13hBrXFgjb5MarmLi9C3nl3YKRH0jjYoYxBb54M5LBhPwvw_4sZoJHQCdS8CDRc$ 

https://urldefense.com/v3/__http://www.foibg.com/fis/A-NLA.jpg__;!!D9dNQwwGXtA!WqOYRXl1bL6sal8uetQC13hBrXFgjb5MarmLi9C3nl3YKRH0jjYoYxBb54M5LBhPwvw_4sZoJHQCjQ8OWcM$ 



With respect,

Krassimir



[1] https://urldefense.com/v3/__http://foibg.com/ibs_isc/ibs-33/ibs-33.htm__;!!D9dNQwwGXtA!WqOYRXl1bL6sal8uetQC13hBrXFgjb5MarmLi9C3nl3YKRH0jjYoYxBb54M5LBhPwvw_4sZoJHQCuvgle5U$ 
-------------- next part --------------
An HTML attachment was scrubbed...
URL: <http://listas.unizar.es/pipermail/fis/attachments/20250121/f2f3315c/attachment.html>