Comments on: How openness requires secrecy

By: Poor Richard

Poor Richard — Thu, 14 Jun 2012 11:59:35 +0000

In natural ecosystems the boundaries between habitats are the most biologically active–the shores and shallows of a lake, the banks of a river, the boundary between forest and open grassland, the hedgerows around fields, etc… It seems the same pattern is sometimes true of human habitation, such as populations that are more concentrated in coastal areas. But Borders between states don’t often seem to follow that rule, maybe because they are more abstract than physical, or maybe because different cultures repel…

By: Katarina

Katarina — Sat, 14 May 2011 18:59:08 +0000

German sociologist Niklas Luhmann described this as a feature of auto-poietic systems i.e. system is closed in terms of its operational binary code, while open to its environment. Instead of being in “crisis”, Luhmann said that systems are permanently irritated by the signals of their environment. This kind of open/closed system design enables its functioning in the first place.

By: Sepp

Sepp — Tue, 21 Sep 2010 07:59:04 +0000

A somewhat unexpected but perfectly understandable principle.

Conditions depend on dichotomy and intermediate scaling.

At the extreme ends is the dichotomy of opposites (good/bad, light/dark, open/closed, cold/hot).

Inbetween those is the scale of relative values, which could be expressed in percentages or degrees or with qualifiers such as “very open”, somewhat open”, “mostly closed”, very much closed”.

Binary computer logic, by the way, is highly inefficient because it misses all the nuances between “1” and “0”. At the basic binary level, there are no maybes, only yes and no, which means that all nuances (fuzzy logic for example) have to be expressed at the Software level.