Call for a new notation

Cover Page

Call for a New Notation

Author: Jeffrey G. Long (jefflong@aol.com)

Date: June 30, 1993

Forum: Talk presented at the World Future Society Seventh General Assembly,
sponsored by the World Future Society.

Contents
Page 1: Proposal and Bio

Pages 3‐22: Slides intermixed with text for presentation

License
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Uploaded June 19, 2011

Submitted for the
World Future Society
Seventh General Assembly
June 1993


Jeffrey G. Long
133-1/2 11th Street, S.E.
Washington, DC 20003
(202) 547-0268

This 20-minute presentation will be followed by a 10-minute audience
question-and-answer period. The presentation will discuss the nature of
notation in general, and revolutionary notations in particular, through
analysis of the progress of three major notational systems:

 the switch from pictograms to phonograms to alphabetic notation
 the switch from tallies to Roman numerals to Arabic numerals
 the switch from neumatic musical notation to staff musical notation

From this historical data the presentation will offer several hypotheses
regarding the nature of notational systems and their evolution in general,
including:

 the distinction between notational evolution and revolution
 the nature of notation revolution: "ontological invention"
 the nature of the "complexity barrier" that eventually forces creation of
new notations
 necessary and sufficient characteristics for a new notation.

Key conclusions of the talk will include the following:

 notational systems do not merely represent certain abstractions, they
invent them; notational systems are intellectual toolsets that society
creates to empower it in dealing with increasingly complex entities

 we declare the existence of letter, number, note, and money as a result
of notational revolutions that are really intellectual revolutions with
broad social consequences.

 our society must develop a revolutionary new notational system,
probably focused on representing complex "rules", if it is ever to

comprehend and control complex systems such as medicine, economics,
ecology, and big business.

Key questions the listener might consider in advance include:

 what do I think of the importance of notation?
 in what sense do letters, numbers, musical notes, and dollars "exist"?
 does society already have all the notations it needs for science, or might
new ones be necessary?

Brief Biography: Jeffrey G. Long

Jeff Long graduated with an honors A.B. degree in psychology from U.C.
Berkeley in 1973, after 1 year. While writing his honors thesis on neural
networks he concluded that there was no adequate analytical tool available to
ever understand complex systems such as the brain.

In 1975 Jeff founded the Institute for Advanced Systems Research, a non-
profit organization. Unable to secure adequate funding, he worked for
several large firms as a software systems designer, ending up here in
Washington DC with Booz, Allen & Hamilton, consulting for the Air Force
and Department of Energy.

In 1980 Jeff started a for-profit corporation, called Intellinomics
Corporation, to pursue complex systems research. He is now winding up that
business in order to spend full time on research and writing here in
Washington at the Library of Congress.

Jeff has been working for a number of years on a book describing the history
and philosophy of ten major notational systems; proposing a philosophy of
notational technology; describing his proposed new notation for representing
the thousands of complex rules of complex systems; and on applying that
notation to ten different types of complex system. His work can be summed
up in his motto, "The notation is the limitation".

letter: 133-1/2 11th Street, S.E., Washington, DC 20003
e-mail: JeffLong@AOL.COM
voice: (202) 547-0268


Creating the Future through New Ways of Seeing

Jeffrey G. Long

voice: (202) 547-0268
e-mail: JeffLong@AOL.COM
letter: POB 15577, Washington, DC 20003-0577

Presented to the
World Futue Society
Seventh General Assembly
June 30, 1993

World Future Society Congress [30 June 1993]


Slide 1: Cover Page
I appreciate this chance to share some ideas with you.

I've been interested for 20 years now in developing a new way to understand
complex systems, because I think mathematics and our other primary
notational systems have severe fundamental limitations in what they can
represent.

I've concluded from my work to date that the NOTATION we use is the
limitation on our ability to understand the world around us.

This evening I hope to demonstrate WHY I believe that, through two
examples that contrast notational EVOLUTION with notational
REVOLUTION. I would then like to sketch a new way of looking at complex
systems, and a new notation I've been working on. I'm not saying that this is
THE RIGHT approach, but it is ONE approach.

I understand that most people think notation is irrelevant. Looking at the
dictionary definition, it's easy to see why they feel this way.

ONE dictionary defines notation as "The use of a system of signs or symbols
to represent words, phrases, numbers, quantities, etc."

Notation is thus mere ABBREVIATION; key concepts exist OUTSIDE the
notation, in LANGUAGE. I hope to persuade you to consider the possibility
that notation is very different than language, and that it can express concepts
that are INEFFABLE in common language. The notation is the limitation.

This is work-in-progress, not final conclusions. I still have a long way to go.
If want to talk more, please contact me as shown on the slide.

Page 4 of 22



(Ideogram)

(Phonogram)

spoken word: written word:
MAN "M - A - N"

New Ontological Invention: Letters

Page 5 of 22



Slide 2: Letters
The things that are in the "real world" are shown without boxes, while the
ONTOLOGICAL INVENTIONS (i.e. NOTATIONS) are in rounded-edge
boxes.

We could spend a lot of time debating dates, but the dates are not as
important as the precedence sequence

1. In writing, there's something in the "real world" that we want to represent,
such as this man.

2. First generation was PICTOGRAMS that represented by ANALOGY
(circa 3400 BC).

3. These evolved to be able to represent ideas and actions through the use of
IDEOGRAMS (where ideas are communicated through clever combinations
of symbols) and PHONOGRAMS (where concepts are hinted at by symbols
that represent something that evokes a particular sound) (circa 2800 BC).

4. This worked pretty well in ancient society, but eventually they hit the
COMPLEXITY BARRIER: several thousand symbols are needed to convey
the concepts of even an ancient culture.

5. Continuing on that path of adding new symbols or simplifying existing
symbols would have been fruitless: you can imagine what a Shakespeare play
might be like if every symbol was subject to personal interpretation. Further,
the printing press, originally invented by the Chinese long before the western
world had it, was useless when there were thousands of symbols to deal with
and low print volumes were required.

6. The Revolution occurred when someone noticed that there were a limited
number of SOUNDS we make in human speech, and they designed
SYMBOLS to represent those SOUNDS (first alphabet, circa 1500 BC).

7. With this new approach, and after the invention of vowels by the Greeks
(circa 776 BC), we were able to represent the >50,000 words known by the
average adult with only 26 letters.

Page 6 of 22



8. Thus the SCOPE of what could be represented was greatly increased,
while the NUMBER of SYMBOLS greatly decreased. This is a classic
notational revolution.

9. But it required that we create a new entity in the world: LETTERS.
WRITING is a notational SYSTEM built upon LETTERS as NOTATIONS,
and it defines a number of RULES regarding the proper use of this notation.

10. As the result of this ontological invention, society was able to create a
collective memory that superseded the fragile memory of the oral tradition
that preceded it. This was, literally, the beginning of "history".

Page 7 of 22



Salt

$20

ATTRIBUTES:
companionship
food (value)

Twenty
Dollars

Pay to the order of:

New Ontological Invention: Dollars

Page 8 of 22



Slide 3: Dollars
1. This is a little different slide, showing the PRE-NOTATIONAL situation at
the top. If you want to trade your duck for my cat, we may agree on a
BARTER arrangement. A duck and a cat are roughly commensurable,
partly because they're both animals and they both have some real and
obvious values to somebody; so it is fairly easy to make that trade. But as you
offer things that are less and less commensurable, it gets harder to make a
trade.

2. The first generation of notation was COMMODITY MONEY that
represented a certain REAL (i.e. practical) VALUE by ANALOGY.
Examples include cattle and salt.

3. Like all notations, commodity money evolved over time.

4. But eventually it hit a COMPLEXITY BARRIER: these items were
awkward to divide and/or measure, perishable, and inconvenient logistically.
Sometimes one had to trade with a third person to make a deal happen
(explain). Commerce was still very difficult, and the more complex an
economy got the more problems were caused by commodity money.

5. Continuing on that path would have been fruitless: we can hardly imagine
what the New York Stock Exchange or our economy in general might be like
if every transaction was paid for by weighing salt or some other physical
commodity.

6. The Revolution occurred when someone noticed that VALUE could exist
INDEPENDENTLY of any object, by COMMON CONSENT. They set out
to designate arbitrary objects as commonly accepted SYMBOLS of
DECLARED VALUE. The intrinsic PRACTICAL VALUE of these objects
was nowhere near their DECLARED VALUE, and was often basically zero.
Examples include cowrie seashells, wampum beads, gold and silver. The only
criteria for symbols was that the objects be:

A. known to many people

B. recognizable in value

Page 9 of 22



C. scarce

D. portable (at least not too bulky)

E. physically stable over time (preferably imperishable)

F. easily sub-divided.

7. Eventually, precious metals won this contest. But those tokens of value
were subject to dilution, counterfeiting, unfair scales, and other problems, so
they evolved into other equally value-less forms. TRANSFERRABLE
RECEIPTS were used in the Middle Ages, and then FIDUCIARY MONEY
was used in the West circa 1676.

From 1825 through 1875 in the United States there was a major political
debate between the "paper money men" and the "gold bugs" about how
abstract value should be represented in America. America ended up being
the birthplace of widespread use of paper money in the Western world. This
paper money was backed by gold, an equally worthless commodity.

Eventually we ended up with FIAT MONEY (circa 1934), not based on the
gold standard, to enable governments to print money as desired,
independently of their actual gold reserves. and thereby control aspects of
their economy through monetary policy.

8. Thus VALUE-IN-THE-ABSTRACT came to be REAL, and could be
traded like a real duck for my cat. Since in principle anything could be
traded for this symbol, the BREADTH of what could be readily traded was
greatly increased, and this EASE OF USE encouraged more commercial
activity. Once governments understood the power of this notation, they
regulated it and then completely took it over so THEY could control its abuse.

9. Again we created a new entity in the world: DOLLARS (or their
equivalent). ACCOUNTING, the notational SYSTEM built upon DOLLARS
as notations, provides rules for the proper use of this notation.

10. As the result of this ontological invention, society was able to divide work
more readily into specialized categories, for there was now a common

Page 10 of 22



denominator that could be used in any commercial activity. This was the
beginning of "commerce" as we know it today.

Page 11 of 22



o Represent a New Ontological Invention

o Far Richer Capacity to Represent or Express Ideas

o Reasonable Ease of Learning & Use (years okay)

o Better Utilize a New Medium: Computers

o Permit a More Powerful Calculus

Desiderata for a New Notation

Page 12 of 22



Slide 4: Desiderata for a New Notation
If we were to try to deliberately create a notational revolution -- let's say to
issue an RFP -- what criteria might we use?

1. The FUNDAMENTAL REQUIREMENT of a revolutionary notation is
that it represent something different and more BASIC about the subject
domain than the existing notations it is designed to supersede.

2. Obviously the new notation must represent a superset, not a subset, of the
target domain of the existing notation,

3. There has to be reasonable ease of learning and using the notation,
although a lengthy "literacy" curve would not be at all unreasonable.

4. We might also want to re-examine the media available to us, to see
whether a new notation could utilize a new medium.

5. Finally, if it is a domain where computations would be useful (such as
complex systems theory), we will want a greatly extended computational
ability as the result of a new notation.

Page 13 of 22



Surface Structure
Behavior
& Structure

Animation Procedures

Rules

Middle Structure

Ruleforms
Deep Structure

The World as Process

Page 14 of 22



Slide 5: The World as Process
So how can we look differently at the world, and in particular at COMPLEX
SYSTEMS?

I suggest that what we see is simply the appearance of systems...

In other words, we can define the world as a PROCESS having different
ontological LEVELS:

First, there is the structure, appearance and behavior of a system, that we will
call SURFACE STRUCTURE.

Next, the essence of this complexity can be captured by RULES having an
IF...THEN format. Defining phenomena in a compressed manner via RULES
is the principal activity of science, developed by the Greeks.

This activity will result in tens of thousands of seemingly varied rules, called
the MIDDLE STRUCTURE.

These can be grouped by format into ruleFORMS, the collection of which is
called DEEP STRUCTURE. Thus the DEEP STRUCTURE of any system
will be a set of 10-50 ruleforms will represent any particular complex system.

By representing these ruleforms as TABLES in a relational database, and the
rules as RECORDS in the tables, we can implement complex system models
in a very concise manner.

Page 15 of 22



Complex
System Complex Behavior
& Structures

d = 1/2 g t 2

Rules Ruleforms

New Ontological Invention: Ruleforms

Page 16 of 22



Slide 6: New Ontological Invention: Ruleforms
1. So let's look at our basic model of notational evolution. Again, there's
something in the "real world" that we want to represent, namely a complex
system (e.g. an ecosystem). The pre-notational situation was that we could
describe the structure, behavior, inputs or outputs of a complex system in
NATURAL LANGUAGE.

2. The first generation of notation was graphical and quantitative, e.g. E-R
DIAGRAMS or MATHEMATICAL FORMULAS. These represented by
ANALOGY the OUTPUT of the system.

3. These evolved, but eventually hit a COMPLEXITY BARRIER: somehow,
pressure/temperature functions or economic elasticity curves have failed to
describe the behavior of weather and economies. I suggest that this is because
they focus upon and represent the wrong ASPECT of systems, primarily their
BEHAVIOR. They are DESCRIPTIVE, not PRESCRIPTIVE, in nature.

5. Continuing on that path, we could enhance our ability to describe system
outputs and behaviors by getting bigger computers and more facts. But some
theorists have postulated that many systems are UNKNOWABLE due to
either:

o sensitive dependency on initial conditions,
o the existence of free will in systems involving humans, or
o intrinsic quantum randomness at the lowest levels of physical systems.

6. If there is to be a revolution in this area, it will require that we represent
some OTHER aspect of complex systems than their input, processes and
output; namely RULES. Currently we can represent "rules" as:

o procedural computer code
o symbolic logic statements
o English statements (e.g. law)
o mathematical formulas.

But that still leaves us with too much complexity to really understand the
systems we are dealing with. Simply representing RULES is not ENOUGH.

Page 17 of 22



To abstract to a higher level, we must focus on RULES, but notice that there
are COMMONALITIES in the FORMAT of the rules in complex systems.
Thus many instances of rules may have the same form but different content.
Each such "set of all rules having the same form" can be represented by a
simple relational table. Thus the next level of abstraction is the idea of
RULEFORMS, wherein all rules having the same FORMAT are grouped
together.

7. With this focus on ruleFORMS rather than mere RULES, we may be able
to represent seemingly complex systems, with tens of thousands of rules, using
just a few basic relational database tables. These will be implemented on that
wonderful new N-dimensional MEDIUM called the COMPUTER.

8. Thus we can SPECIFY rules better (more explicitly and rigorously), and
also perform sophisticated COMPUTATIONS easily, using a common
ruleform notation for any kind of complex system.

9. But this will require that we deal with a new entity in the world:
RULEFORMS. ULTRA-STRUCTURE is a notational SYSTEM built upon
RULEFORMS, and it defines a number of conventions regarding the proper
use of this ontological invention.

Page 18 of 22



The perceived structures and behaviors of any system are artifacts of
"animation procedures" executing "operating rules."

These operating rules can be grouped into a small number of classes
whose format is described by "ruleforms".

While the operating rules of a system may change over time, the
ruleforms are constant.

Ruleforms anticipate all logically possible operating rules that might
apply to a subject domain and constitute the deep structure of that
domain.

The Ruleform Hypothesis

Page 19 of 22



Slide 7: The Ruleform Hypothesis
Another way to state this is what I call the RULEFORM HYPOTHESIS:

"The perceived STRUCTURES and BEHAVIOR of any system are
ARTIFACTS of 'animation procedures' executing 'operating rules'.

These operating rules can be grouped into a small number of classes whose
format is described by 'ruleforms'.

While the operating RULES of a system may CHANGE over time, the
RULEFORMS are CONSTANT. Ruleforms anticipate all logically possible
operating rules that might apply to the system and constitute the deep
structure of a system."

Page 20 of 22



Summary

1. There are limitations to what any notation can express, based on what
domain that notation was designed to represent and consequently what
abstractions it embodies. This is true even for the "Language of
Science", mathematics. A key factor in the evolution of society is the
introduction and fulfillment of revolutionary new notational systems
such as the calendar, writing, mathematics, and money.

2 Our society currently faces a complexity barrier in dealing with
complex systems such as medicine, ecology, economics, and public
policy. But complexity is in the eye of the beholder and can be
eliminated by an appropriate notation based upon a new ontological
invention. Larger computers, more data, and more money will not
overcome this complexity barrier. We need a new way of seeing
complexity.

3. We need to develop at least one wholly new notation, using distinctions
far beyond fractals or other fundamentally quantitative constructs.
Ultra-Structure is one example of a new notation (but not the only one
or even the best one) which would permit a new science to study rules
per se, compressing them into simple common forms to permit a deeper
understanding of the ontology of various complex systems domains.

For further information or discussion,
please contact Jeff Long at (202) 547-0268,
or via Internet: JeffLong@AOL.COM.

Page 21 of 22



Slide 8: Summary
1. Limitations of notations.

2. Complexity barrier exists now.

3. Need a new notation for rules OR some other basic new abstraction.

Thank you for your attention. My card is available up here
on the table.

Are there any questions or comments?

Page 22 of 22

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