Wednesday, October 2, 2013

Thinness and Thickness Concepts in Dimensionality

There is a lot of uncentralized speculation about the role of technological concepts in dimensionalism (what I call dimensionism). To some extent these concepts are considered resolved by the specific assumptions of the disciplines which are claimed to be dimensional, e.g. mathematics is either applied or non-applied, aesthetic is mathematical or non-mathematical, philosophy is either rational or empirical, engineering is either aesthetical or structural, etc. Then, however, what can be concluded in the context where dimensionism is defined to be its own discipline? Ostensibly this angle has been overlooked. And a useful angle on this would be to address specific opposing concepts, so as to establish a dialectical form of reasoning about the subject.

Technology, I will treat as equivalent to dimensionism. It is in some ways more general---that it applies in theory to any functions concept, and in another way it tends to be an application, whereas dimensionism could be speculative. Thus I will treat this distinction as one between genus (dimension) and species (technology).

While technology is not the only concept used for thinness in our society, it is the predominant metaphor. It might even be extended into a person's desirable weight, or by extension, the tradability of weight with value---efficiency or ersatz equity.

What separates 'thinness' from invisibility is an interesting question. There has been some talk, on the fringe of future met averse (virtual reality) concepts, that invisible technology is the ultimate paradigm. But I suspect it is only a step along the path, and a step that is likely to be dramatized before it really exists. But, of course, as the trope goes, there has been considerable progress towards making laptops and smartphones more efficient. It tends to be a joke to deny that there has been a serious Moore's Law progression, even in very recent years, when critics claimed the technology could be shrunk no longer. Intel reports that it is continuing to shrink the circuits and increase the number of processors, in a sense a belated move towards technological dimensionalism. Apparently, however, dimensionalism has been deep on the mind of technologists, since there are not only numerous sophisticated logics involved in computers, but also evidence that Hyper-Cubism was introduced as a super-computer concept as early as the 1980's.

There are related questions to the invisibility of technology---for example, is there an optimal scale, or perhaps an optimal relation, when scale has succeeded in becoming abstractified? Perhaps the prime directive is simply that these technologies are dimensional.

Thus far, I would say, little progress has been made in expanding that concept. Although, I do point programmers, scientists, and philosophy students to my newly published book, The Dimensional Philosopher's Toolkit, which explains a useful method of categorical deduction. For a shortcut to the method, see my published essays at http://southernct.academia.edu/NathanCoppedge Ignore the physics paper unless you're looking for that kind of material.

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