旼컴컴컴컴컴� � MOO-JUICE � 읕컴컴컴컴컴� The Organ of the International MOOist Conspiracy Printed & Published by the Office of the Cardinal Richelieus 旼컴컴컴컴컴컴컴컴컴커 � Theta-3 � � February 27th 1993 � 읕컴컴컴컴컴컴컴컴컴켸 From: Floyd Gecko Pvt Rec'd To: Hellhound >101< Msg #70, 92-11-22 Subject: Normalcy First thing that I started thinking about was the "purpose" of MOO... At least the sort of structure of how we get everyone possible to join... That's the connecting of various "levels" of normalcy together (the very normal with the very strange, and connecting them to each other)... Obviously, I had to invent a definition of normal. So you may like to have the rather nice model of normality that I came up with... Just to use as a cognitive filter when it's appropriate. 1) I thought of "levels" for a moment, then realized that that's totally impossible, since it assumes that all abnormality of the same "degree" is the same, and even that the "degree" is measurable. Our practical experience says this isn't true... 2) Next step is seeing the different groups we appeal to (some parts are the mystics, some parts are scientific-type oriented, some are surrealBLATTT, etceter...) as different physical areas on a map type dealy... Well, this is a little more accurate, but hardly precise. However, it did open up the question of multi-dimensional abnormality... That is to say, being abnormal in different directions (so to speak). 3) This gave me the clue... Suppose we define a polydimensional phase space for a graph... Just lay out axes for now, and I'll be more detailed about them later... Then give a sort of "Y-axis", or readout axis common to all of them... Of course, this multidimensional graph is just that... I'm assuming to quantify about 20 basic axes, and maybe throw in a few more which result from various facts about them (more on that later) just to make it clearer... So don't worry about these many many many components... Any reasonable computer could hold a 20 or 30 dimensional array of this kind without too much trouble, so there's no need for PEOPLE to go around visualizing this thing. 4) Okay, so we then define axes for various factors of sociopsycholocial significance. I don't really know what all these would be... The most obvious would be things like political orientation (which might need two or three axes to cope with), intelligence (same thing), personal interaction factors (the Leary graph suggests some of the axes to use)... A psyhologBLATTT would probably give others which aren't obvious to me but would probably be more important. No matter. You get the general picture... Then for the readout axis, on each of these, plot a normal distribution (the bell-curve thing). Once this is plotted, you have a phase-type space of normalcy of each person/group on various axes... 5) Once we have benchmarked all this stuff, and determined which axes can be treated as they appear (some might have various screwball factors thrown in just to be annoying, like a complex-dimensional factor making the whole thing hopelessly noneuclidean, but basically we jigger around with it until you can treat it numerically with reasonably simple formulas for each axis, instead of nasty ones), we can categorize certain points and their relations with each other, as below. a) Group normalcy and cohesion can be treated as a social dynamic factor which comes into play in certain areas of this phase space, where the actual values on our components open up certain possbilities. I'm assuming that SOME social interactions, at least, can be modelled mathematically, and we'd choose our axes to correspond to the variables involved. SO in SOME areas of this phase space, groups of people who interact who are all mentally in the same area will tend to cohere together, to become MORE like each other... That is, the distance between the phase-points themselves will grow smaller, creating a LOCAL defnition of normalcy... This is sort of like comparing global curvature of space with local curvature of space (planetary gravity). Local normalcy topology may be measured differently (requiring another phase space, or at least "reserved" dimensions of our original one, to measure it), but it'll likely be FAIRLY similar to the global normality topology b) There is a certain nonlocality of social relations... The interactions between points that are quite far apart in phase space is counterintuitive at first... Like, someone WAY out on one axis (say a demented Jim Jones type leader) will attract to himself (in REAL space, not sociostatistical phase space) followers... This acts like the "gravity" effect above, only he actually repels their corresponding mental phase-points, to cluster together SOMEWHERE else (docile and sheepish, rather than messianic... probably in quite different quadrants of the phase space). So reactions would have to be computer-modelled to be well understood. c) We CAN define political movements by their coherence on certain axes, but not others... basically any group of people will have to be treated as a cluster of points somehow (even unrelated people will, statistically, have a vector-center somewhere other than the "normal", or center of the phase space... this accounts for the saying "normal is that which nobody is")... The previously stated "goal" of MOO can be regarded as linking people in MANY and diverse segments of this phase space... d) Okay, so we have this multidimensional phase space of normality. It's not very useful... We CAN describe a single number (so to speak) or "level" of normality to ANYONE, without too much trouble. Depending on the exact topology of this space (as in, the distance from the center of the space is calculated on a formula... it may not be the same as with "flat" space... instead of corresponding, say, to the root-of-sum-of-squares for each axis, some axes might have squares subtracted, or have extra "weighting" components, or various similar things...) we find the distance from the center of various points... And knowing the way the points are distributed, we can set up a sort of meta-level normal-curve (there's that bell curve again... Ask not for whom the bell curve tolls... it tolls for thee) based on the frequency of distribution. It WON'T correspond EXACTLY to the distances, since most people, with all their various deviations, will be well more than one standard deviation from the mean... But anyway... That's for the pigeonhole buffs, who need to have everybody in a little slot... I wouldn't see the point, myself. e) There are probably functions for clustering about the axes... For instance, when people are very far out on some axis or other, there may be a tendency to be very close to normal on another (psychotics tend to be very normal people in many respects, or so we're told...)... So we can add those extra axes I mentioned for how well the poin corresponds to those functions, and so on (how well it fits THOSE curves gives us MORE curves (I.E. it's not normal to be VERY normal, so psychotics tend to be meta-abnormal as well, or whatever))... We can add as many of these as are actually useful to help define the graph. This idea, of cours, is one highly typical of a certain region of that phase space in which I swim about pleasantly.. There are a few other people there, but I don't know many of them... So it's not an idea that most people would find appealing. Still, it does provide a useful mental map to refer to when you use the word "normal" as applied to people... The purpose of MOO then, or the STRUCTURE of MOO, or the [something or other] of MOO, is to unite people in all sorts of groups (corresponding to oddly shaped regions of psychosocial phase space), and bring their ideas together... Sort of a genetic/memetic diversity thing. MOO-JUICE Organ of the International MOOist Conspiracy Courtesy of the Office of the Cardinal Richelieus