Dr

(you may click the subfile to be viewed, or scroll down)

This file contains the following subfiles:

24 - bomb flavors
24.5 - compressing definitions
24.7 - bombs connect independent objects
25 - technique for shaping classes
26 - musical & navigational realms less involved

(subfile 24: flavors of bombs)

Bombs are involved in the procedures for

     - path creation (pointers from one word to the next in an ordered series)
     - transforms (defining transitions between collapsed paths, and those between separate elements of
                            sentences in a conversation)
     - defining forbidden transitions (as learned by reinforcement)
     - pointing to grammatical direct and indirect objects
     - moving between conversation and behaviors (computer commands)
     - pointing to a property of the object at the bomb's origin
     - dealing with agency (who or what entity did that)
     - incompatibility (many properties are applicable only to objects in limited regions of MS: this
            is equivalent to saying that other regions are forbidden, and a bomb is a convenient way
            to point at an extended region in the space)
    - links that lead from conversational commands to non-linguistic behaviors necessary for the
            operation of the program. (This function is particularly important in managing the
            problems associated with "being wrong" and changing the database in response to
            negative reinforcement.)
    - causation (a pointer to an answer: "why")
    - selection ( a pointer to an answer: "which")
    - time ( likewise, for "when")

(subfile 24.5: compressing definitions)

As a trivial example consider again the definition for "apple"; it is likely to contain a value on the color axis. Rather than having this value in the definition, it would be possible to store in the definition a bomb, that when executed, lights up a region of MS extensive only on that axis. In this case no compression happens, since the bomb would take as much space as the color coordinate. However, the bomb need not light up a region limited to one axis; it can comprise an area in MS that might, when examined, be seen to include an object of substantial complexity. All that information could be subsumed in the original definition, but the use of bombs makes it unnecessary to store the complex information in more than one place – that is, in more than one definition.

(subfile 24.7: how bombs connect independent objects)

The center of a bomb's point of arrival is just one more type of entity that fills up MS. One can examine a region of MS for all the bombs that end up there; these can be filtered to allow only bombs of one flavor to remain (for example, "is-a-property-of" bombs). At that point the execution of the bombs in reverse would provide a list of objects with the property defined by the MS location. This location can represent something as simple as a single axis, like color in the example given in the text, or something as complex as any defined word, or even something symbolic, like another bomb-origin.

(subfile 25: generality and classes)

Part of a bomb's properties is a list of axes whose responses to the bomb's 'explosion' need to be controlled. This list is only a subset of the axes involved either in the bomb or its destination, and the values joined to the axes on the list are numerical values for use in calculating the shape of the cloud illuminated by the burst of the bomb. This sort of subset fits nicely into the data-structure for a word, and would be MS-stored in the same way. The values in each axis-niche would indicate the allowable generality of the bomb's result along each axis; these values have the same function as the "mass" field associated with each axis, only these quantities are associated with the bomb, not with the axis. The functional mass for a particular calculation on an axis is the sum of the two – that is, a sum of the intrinsic, previously defined mass of the axis itself, and the locally required mass-adjustment carried by the bomb. A bomb could then control the shape of the region it lights up. For example, a bomb can be configured to illuminate only the physical objects that have some quality - a quality that non-physical objects might have as well (like 'number').

It is also easy to learn this information: when bombs are stored, it is a trivial matter, (almost) instantaneously to find a set of other bombs that share all but one axis value. The successive examination of such related sets of bombs will provide a range of suitable values along that one axis wherein the target bombs differ. Once this range has been established by a suitable number of "hits", a bomb can be configured with the appropriate generality along that axis. In this way conversation gradually shapes the algorithm's handling of generality along that axis.

(subfile 26: musical and locomotor aspects no longer involved)

There is no analogy 'between moving about a room' and a 'conversation' (except perhaps dancing with a partner?), and the analogous musical level of complexity, beyond a melody, is counterpoint. I am still limiting my program to monophonic music such as that composed before 1100 A.D. (see CHANTER below) in which counterpoint is not involved.