BRUCE: "Object Oriented Design, With Applications", by Grady Booch (1991) - http://originresearch.com/docs/booch/Booch_OOAD.pdf
The book is rich with charming illustrations on fundamental issues of hierarchy and abstraction.
JOHN: That's fine. I'll point to a few of them to illustrate some general points. See page 46 (or p. 70 as Adobe counts) for a picture of a cat from the point of view of the pet owner and a veterinarian. One views it as a purring fuzz ball, and the other sees a collection of parts.
BRUCE: There are a few very good representations of this idea in the book. Another shows a psychologist presenting a Rorschach test to a diverse audience, who see very different things in the same basic form.
> Do these principles illuminate the argument for a revolutionary
> simplification - consistent across disciplines and industries
> and cultures?
JOHN: Since some people play both roles, the two views aren't contradictory. But it's difficult to entertain both at the same time or to draw coherent inferences from a mixture of the two descriptions. That is not a revolutionary observation. But it shows that the goal of a single universal, consistent foundation is too simplistic.
BRUCE: Yes. As Booch describes it, these two are seeing the cat “at different levels of abstraction”. The pet owner is seeing “the whole” – the “composite unit” – the “top level of the analytic hierarchy” -- and the vet is seeing an “analytic decomposition” that shows the interconnection of the internal “parts”. But “they are both looking at the same cat”.
On the theme that “it is difficult to entertain both views at the same time, or draw coherent inferences from a mixture of the two descriptions”, Booch does cite an important paper by psychologist George A. Miller (creator of Wordnet) entitled “The Magical Number Seven Plus or Minus Two”—which goes to something like “cognitive bandwidth limitations” in normal human psychology. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Magical_Number_Seven,_Plus_or_Minus_Two I’d say this is a critical reason why collaborations among diverse perspectives – and probably across “disciplines, sectors and silos” – is essential to achieve our highest common objectives. No single individual or perspective can see or comprehend “the full dimensionality of the whole at all levels of abstraction”.
Interesting to note on Wikipedia that George Miller’s doctoral adviser at Princeton was Stanley Smith Stevens – creator of a very innovative theory of measurement, that introduces a hierarchy of variable types -- http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Level_of_measurement
JOHN: The notion of encapsulation on page 51 (or 76) shows a way to accommodate both views: simplify (or underspecify) the ontology in order to ignore details that are treated differently in each view. That is what Schema.org does.
BRUCE: I thought it was interesting that Booch cites “Introduction to Objectivist Epistemology” by Libertarian/Cato Institute favorite Ayn Rand, as a reference in Chapter 1. Ayn Rand offers a theory of abstraction based on what she calls “Measurement Omission” – which goes to this same point. As categories ascend in levels of abstraction and generality, specific details (and “measurements”) drop out – or, as per Stanly Smith Stevens, become less quantitatively dimensional and more “qualitative”.
JOHN: Modularity (diagram on p. 54 or 79) is a related way of ignoring troublesome details. The detailed ontologies of different modules may be inconsistent with one another. But they can interoperate by passing messages that use terms at the underspecified level.
When they ignore details, the pet owner and the vet can communicate.
BRUCE: Yes – this is powerful and important – at many levels of social and scientific interaction. We do have to “ignore details” to communicate across levels – but as we do this – I would say – we are also tending to evolve a common framework that builds critical relationships – and who knows, maybe a new science of interdependency and collaboration --
JOHN: Fundamental principle: heterogeneity and diversity are essential.
BRUCE: Yes – and these elements are often understood as fundamental to the process of “creativity”. Seed a common conversation with diverse perspectives in a context of receptive mutual respect – and powerful things can happen….
http://originresearch.com/docs/booch/booch.cfm