EPISTEMOLOGY, QUALIA, AND CDM

An explanation of why people in many professions list the "things" in their work (events, objects, persons, etc.) on dynamic data tables they then model, like moist clay, to more fully engage their personal knowledge, goals, values, analytic skills, and imagination.

Epistemology, Qualia, and CDM are not terms used in everyday conversation. But understanding how they validate an innovative thinking methodology will help you understand, and make full use of, our family of PC software. Learning a new methodology requires some study. Read this paper several times until you "get it".

We like to know as much as we can about the details of our work. Epistemology is about that knowing. It is a philosophical matter and, because philosophy is subjective, one can take liberties (as we are here). So epistemology is, in non-academic language, what knowing is and how we know - and how we know that "what" and that "how".

We know with our minds. Consciously, sometimes subconsciously, our minds spontaneously search, select, gather, and link data. Unique meaningful aggregations of data are, according to some, a series of distinct entities that philosophers call "qualia". They are like snapshots, but are not physical objects - they are only concepts or states. For example, imagine you are walking across a street, feeling entitled to proceed because the illuminated "WALK" light gave you permission. But you see a fast-moving truck approaching, and your knowledge and experience lead to a decision to run. You momentarily feel fear, replaced quickly by anger. All of that - facts, habits, and emotions - come together in a momentary quale, or state of thought and feelings. It is followed quickly by another — a series of qualia. Like separate frames in a movie. There, persistence of vision allows our mind to blend each frame with the preceding image, and we interpret the result as unbroken motion. Walking further on the sidewalk, looking in store windows yields a series of very different qualia. There is no interpretation of the vastly different contents as unbroken motion, yet associations can occur. See an object in one window and you may recall, spontaneously, seeing in a previous store a similar but cheaper object. All of this is knowing, a dynamic process in which you are conscious of a series of qualia.

Those qualia, which are clearly subjective, exist in our working memory. We deal with the content of our working memory in a continuous process, reflecting on the changing content and reasoning about what to do next — which may then change the qualia in the working memory. That conceptual entity, in our working memory, has a corollary in the material world. Neuroscientists map the firing of neurons in our brains to locate where things take place. Some researchers postulate a conceptual/physical model consisting of short memory and long term memory, each with functional subsets. Short term includes immediate memory, where data wait temporarily for acceptance by the working memory, the other part of memory short term. If not taken in, they disappear, like impatient diners who leave the entrance of a busy restaurant after a very brief wait. The content of the immediate memory includes what is new from the outside — sensory input, i.e. what we see, hear, taste, smell, and feel.

Qualia in the working memory consist of much more than sensory input accepted from the immediate memory. Grabbed spontaneously are inputs from the four parts of our long term memory. One, a collection from our experiences, is episodic memory. By definition, it is personal, subjective. Next is semantic memory, facts (probably objective) like knowing that Tashkent is the capital of Uzbekistan.

Then there is procedural memory — how that person does things, perhaps subconsciously, like walking, or habitually taking the same route driving from A to B. Finally, there is emotion, another subjective and intensely personal set of attributes.

Whenever your working memory forms and processes qualia, and you are conscious of the outcomes, you are thinking. And linguistics is a part of that. Things have names, qualities and emotions (color, taste, sorrow, joy) that are described by words. So qualia comprise, primarily at least, language, i.e. words, text.

So go back to the succession of store windows. Compose a data table that lists the objects in each and their characteristics (including store name). Do that for every store in town. Now consider the many ways the data can be selected and sorted (i.e. different column arrangements, or permutations). You may know exactly what you want, such as a short jacket priced under , in stores that also have shoes. Or vacuum cleaners of certain brands and models in stores of particular names. It would be good to be able to do that selecting and sorting quickly, so that when our reasoning about a data table produces a wish for a different selection, or sorting, or both, the data table could be changed at once.

But life is full of surprises. Consider a hypothesis that intentionally looking at all possible permutations of a data table may disclose relationships you had not thought about, and could benefit from knowing. They may be unexpected problems you can mediate. Or they may be beneficial opportunities. Dealing with a data table that way seems logical, and logic is a part of reasoning, so how do you do it with a table?

The answer is patented software inventions that allow an individual to model/manipulate a data table using only 3 screens - one to design the table, one to see the result, and one to edit data on the table. Cycling between them, as spontaneous thinking suggests, the user models the data, taking it into his or her working memory, where it blends with a multiplicity of other data to form a series of qualia. As the qualia are analyzed, intuition and imagination, perhaps even emotion, jump in, and reasoning drives interactive modeling of the data table until all possible information that is useful — to the mind of that unique individual - has been extracted from the data.

Because that modeling, the human-computer interaction, occurs uniquely and describably in the context of what is in the user's mind, we named it contextual data modeling, or CDM. We may easily understand what data modeling is, but without some understanding of the complex and wildly unpredictable context in which that occurs, you won't appreciate the modeling. Connecting the brain and the computer in this innovative fashion constitutes a powerful new way to analyze text data - about anything, in any profession. We don't all “see” the same things when we look at a data table. And even if we did, our minds differ. Our interpretations of what we see may then, legitimately, vary greatly. The solutions are not produced by software - they are formed by the reasoning in our individual minds. That is why we argue that our CDM programs are the first software designed to more fully incorporate an individual's knowledge, experience, and skills in the analysis of data concerning her or his field of expertise.

CDM does this two ways, which will have greater meaning to you after reading this paper. One, CDM lets a person build private datasets, rather than being limited to using those created by others. Two, focusing on qualia as the key entities in a user's thinking, the primary objective of CDM is minimizing the time required to revise the data table display that is incorporated in the current quale. For the speed of thought about data tables to most effectively employ the speed of computers, thought must be able to quickly re-direct the computer. Only our patented technology enables that.

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			Back Get this article in PDF EPISTEMOLOGY, QUALIA, AND CDM An explanation of why people in many professions list the "things" in their work (events, objects, persons, etc.) on dynamic data tables they then model, like moist clay, to more fully engage their personal knowledge, goals, values, analytic skills, and imagination. Epistemology, Qualia, and CDM are not terms used in everyday conversation. But understanding how they validate an innovative thinking methodology will help you understand, and make full use of, our family of PC software. Learning a new methodology requires some study. Read this paper several times until you "get it". We like to know as much as we can about the details of our work. Epistemology is about that knowing. It is a philosophical matter and, because philosophy is subjective, one can take liberties (as we are here). So epistemology is, in non-academic language, what knowing is and how we know - and how we know that "what" and that "how". We know with our minds. Consciously, sometimes subconsciously, our minds spontaneously search, select, gather, and link data. Unique meaningful aggregations of data are, according to some, a series of distinct entities that philosophers call "qualia". They are like snapshots, but are not physical objects - they are only concepts or states. For example, imagine you are walking across a street, feeling entitled to proceed because the illuminated "WALK" light gave you permission. But you see a fast-moving truck approaching, and your knowledge and experience lead to a decision to run. You momentarily feel fear, replaced quickly by anger. All of that - facts, habits, and emotions - come together in a momentary quale, or state of thought and feelings. It is followed quickly by another — a series of qualia. Like separate frames in a movie. There, persistence of vision allows our mind to blend each frame with the preceding image, and we interpret the result as unbroken motion. Walking further on the sidewalk, looking in store windows yields a series of very different qualia. There is no interpretation of the vastly different contents as unbroken motion, yet associations can occur. See an object in one window and you may recall, spontaneously, seeing in a previous store a similar but cheaper object. All of this is knowing, a dynamic process in which you are conscious of a series of qualia. Those qualia, which are clearly subjective, exist in our working memory. We deal with the content of our working memory in a continuous process, reflecting on the changing content and reasoning about what to do next — which may then change the qualia in the working memory. That conceptual entity, in our working memory, has a corollary in the material world. Neuroscientists map the firing of neurons in our brains to locate where things take place. Some researchers postulate a conceptual/physical model consisting of short memory and long term memory, each with functional subsets. Short term includes immediate memory, where data wait temporarily for acceptance by the working memory, the other part of memory short term. If not taken in, they disappear, like impatient diners who leave the entrance of a busy restaurant after a very brief wait. The content of the immediate memory includes what is new from the outside — sensory input, i.e. what we see, hear, taste, smell, and feel. Qualia in the working memory consist of much more than sensory input accepted from the immediate memory. Grabbed spontaneously are inputs from the four parts of our long term memory. One, a collection from our experiences, is episodic memory. By definition, it is personal, subjective. Next is semantic memory, facts (probably objective) like knowing that Tashkent is the capital of Uzbekistan. Then there is procedural memory — how that person does things, perhaps subconsciously, like walking, or habitually taking the same route driving from A to B. Finally, there is emotion, another subjective and intensely personal set of attributes. Whenever your working memory forms and processes qualia, and you are conscious of the outcomes, you are thinking. And linguistics is a part of that. Things have names, qualities and emotions (color, taste, sorrow, joy) that are described by words. So qualia comprise, primarily at least, language, i.e. words, text. So go back to the succession of store windows. Compose a data table that lists the objects in each and their characteristics (including store name). Do that for every store in town. Now consider the many ways the data can be selected and sorted (i.e. different column arrangements, or permutations). You may know exactly what you want, such as a short jacket priced under , in stores that also have shoes. Or vacuum cleaners of certain brands and models in stores of particular names. It would be good to be able to do that selecting and sorting quickly, so that when our reasoning about a data table produces a wish for a different selection, or sorting, or both, the data table could be changed at once. But life is full of surprises. Consider a hypothesis that intentionally looking at all possible permutations of a data table may disclose relationships you had not thought about, and could benefit from knowing. They may be unexpected problems you can mediate. Or they may be beneficial opportunities. Dealing with a data table that way seems logical, and logic is a part of reasoning, so how do you do it with a table? The answer is patented software inventions that allow an individual to model/manipulate a data table using only 3 screens - one to design the table, one to see the result, and one to edit data on the table. Cycling between them, as spontaneous thinking suggests, the user models the data, taking it into his or her working memory, where it blends with a multiplicity of other data to form a series of qualia. As the qualia are analyzed, intuition and imagination, perhaps even emotion, jump in, and reasoning drives interactive modeling of the data table until all possible information that is useful — to the mind of that unique individual - has been extracted from the data. Because that modeling, the human-computer interaction, occurs uniquely and describably in the context of what is in the user's mind, we named it contextual data modeling, or CDM. We may easily understand what data modeling is, but without some understanding of the complex and wildly unpredictable context in which that occurs, you won't appreciate the modeling. Connecting the brain and the computer in this innovative fashion constitutes a powerful new way to analyze text data - about anything, in any profession. We don't all “see” the same things when we look at a data table. And even if we did, our minds differ. Our interpretations of what we see may then, legitimately, vary greatly. The solutions are not produced by software - they are formed by the reasoning in our individual minds. That is why we argue that our CDM programs are the first software designed to more fully incorporate an individual's knowledge, experience, and skills in the analysis of data concerning her or his field of expertise. CDM does this two ways, which will have greater meaning to you after reading this paper. One, CDM lets a person build private datasets, rather than being limited to using those created by others. Two, focusing on qualia as the key entities in a user's thinking, the primary objective of CDM is minimizing the time required to revise the data table display that is incorporated in the current quale. For the speed of thought about data tables to most effectively employ the speed of computers, thought must be able to quickly re-direct the computer. Only our patented technology enables that. Back Get this article in PDF