Algorithms and Ambiguity
Some algorithms are clearly stated to, and clearly understood by, the users of them.
Other algorithms are obscured through secrecy.
Yet the processes involved in an algorithmic task are unambiguous to the developers of those processes.
An algorithm works as intended because each step is well-defined and consistent with the previous steps. It is an expression of automated decision-making.
The intentions of the developer(s) of an algorithm may be obscured completely or clearly stated truthfully or only partially stated truthfully or only stated in terms of untruths.
Algorithms be associated with some certainty in the minds of users yet various uncertainties and unintended consequences may also arise.
That is why algorithms may be regarded as a form of witchcraft.
This grimoire has mainly been developed heuristically though it has relied upon algorithms for research and presentation purposes.
What do you know about algorithms of well-informed kindness?
A well-informed commitment to kindness includes investing in conservation wisely.
That involves investing in a sensible approach to sustainability.
How do algorithms and heuristics contribute towards your approach to solving problems, exploring possibilities and communicating ideas?
Algorithms are unambiguous instructions. When used unwisely, they become dictators.
How do you attempt to assess the return on such an investment?
All spells are investments.
How do you know you have been investing in a healthy imagination, in your own mind and possibly in other minds?
Perhaps you have been investing in an unhealthy imagination, and possibly even an unhealthy brain and nervous system.
How do you usually assess your own cognition, and your own cognitive load?
How do you attempt to determine the truth about connections and interactions?
How do you attempt to cope with uncertainty and ambiguity?
Which heuristics are you currently using to help you interpret this grimoire?
Which scripts are you currently using, and why?
Perhaps you have been using cuneiform of one sort or another.
Perhaps you know something about the Babylonian clay tablet known as Plympton 322.
Perhaps you are capable to distinguishing between your deductive reasoning and other aspects of your thought processes.
What do you know about onomastics?
What is your preferred approach to decision-making when well-defined expressions are impossible?
Perhaps you have developed an algorithm for a particular purpose.
You may have done so using information collected by Nicomachus of Gerasa.
You are likely to be a collector of information yourself, whether relating to calculations or definitions or history or geography or the origins of words or the biographies of notable persons or the facts of science.
Perhaps you do not usually associate algorithms with art.
Perhaps you do not usually associate human gestures with algorithms.
Perhaps you do not usually associate rituals and ceremonies with algorithms.
Perhaps you do not usually associate recipes with algorithms.
Perhaps you do not usually associate the structure of languages with algorithms.
What is your acquaintance with the Worshipper of Larsa?
What do you know about the development and demise of the House of Wisdom in the Round City of Baghdad?
What do you know about the accumulation and sharing of knowledge through translations and further developments?
What is your acquaintance with the Latin translations of the 12th century?
What do you already know about this grimoire and its development?
How carefully do you assess your own perceptions and interpretations, and how do you know?
How do you know when a claimed experience is implausible and likely to be impossible?
Nonsense is obviously incompatible with algorithms. But how do you tell what is nonsensical and what is not?
Perhaps you regard the nonsensical as more amusing than the reasonable.
Perhaps you enjoy wordplay in a particular language. Such an experience is often untranslatable.
If you have been picturing witches, whether visually or otherwise, do they ever seem like Ada Lovelace or even Alice Liddell?
You may associate Ada Lovelace mainly with the development of algorithms for computational machines.
What is your acquaintance with mechanical calculators?
What do you know about electronic calculators and their uses?
Perhaps you are acquainted with machine translation, its uses and problems.
You may or may not be familiar with A Greek–English Lexicon.
Have you ever worked as an academic dean for any reason?
Have you ever been a computational programmer?
Have you ever encountered a software bug?
There are many contradictions associated with complexity.
Why is debugging necessary if algorithms are without ambiguity?
What is your acquaintance with suitable tutoring?
What do you know about educational institutions?
You may have a fascination towards algorithms and/or ambiguity.
You may or may not be familiar with the careers of Charles Babbage and/or Nasir al-Din al-Tusi.
You may or may not have acquired a Mischmasch sort of education.
What is your acquaintance with cognitive linguistics and neurolinguistics?
The Jabberwock, with eyes of flame,
Came whiffling through the tulgey wood,
And burbled as it came!
Is every mind a parallel universe to the objectively perceived one?
How do you interpret philosophical texts?
What do you know about the hermeneutics of wisdom literature?
How do you compare Jewish mysticism with Chinese Esoteric Buddhism, Western esotericism, the esoteric interpretation of the Quran and the four-level approach to interpreting Biblical scripture?
What have you discovered about the prejudices associated with religious nationalism and other forms of nationalism?
What have you discovered about the aggression associated with all forms of imperialism?
Perhaps you have not yet discovered how to break the spells of dangerous delusions.
But which witch is most wonderful, and how?
Which witch is a muse and/or amused by nonsensical stories, and possibly even sensible ones?
What if Alice in Wonderland had been Ada in Wockyland?
What if Through the Looking-Glass had been Ada doing Complex Maths?
Such speculations are of generational irrelevance, of course.
Will you be having jam tomorrow?
Do you usually attempt to solve problems backwards?
Like a mathematical
One but stranger.
It is much like
A recipe
Or algorithmic script,
Alchemy or
Herbs or verbs,
Like knitting or
Sewing or rowing
Or growing or
Sitting or standing
Or reprimanding.
When the world
May often frown,
Like the
Will you bind a spell
For justice?
Has the Jabberwocky
Ever harmed you?
Are you disenchanted
By paleontology?
Its myths and legends,
A royal sheep knits
Several socks for
How do you spell unspell?
What is the algorithm
Of a safe and peaceful world?
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