LEARNING

	Learning is the aquisition of knowledge.  More then just the mere collection of
	information, its the distallation of that data into models, models that offer 
	concise statements of truth about the real world, and are applicable
	to more then just one experience in it.  From these models, a person gains
	predictive power through an increased understanding of reality's nature.

	So let us not focus an what an adult IS, since it took many years of learning to
	become the adult.
	If we are to understand how that human mind
	was formed, we must not start at the end.  Nor can we necessarily start
	at the beginning.  Let us, instead, start somewhere in the middle and examine
	just one step along the path to knowing.


DISTINCTION

	You have a model, a concept of how you've known the world to work.  You run into
	a "NEW EXAMPLE" that contradicts your model.  This is the moment where
	you learn something new about the world, something out-of-the-ordinary.

	This new thing was recognized by your model, but it 
	exhibited different characteristics then what your model predicted.
	Your model was too broad in its recognition.  A statement of truth
	applied to something it should not have.  An EXCEPTION now needs to be
	made, an extra condition to the if-statement, so that it now excludes the
	new example.

	Now if the criteria predicted a collection of truths, and some of them 
	did apply to the new example, then we can split the recognition
	into two different sub-types.  The original criteria
	gets us part way, to all of the predicted truths that applied to both
	the old and new example.  An inner criteria is added, one that 
	excludes the new example.  That criteria's conclusion is all of the other
	original truths, the ones that did not apply to the new example.

	If the new example has some truths of its own, ones that do not apply
	to all the other examples, then these can be placed in another inner criteria,
	one that is the inverse (else-statement) of the other inner criteria.

	The super-type keeps the truths that applied to the 
	old cases and the new case as well.  The sub-types supplement the recognition 
	of the super-type with extra if-statements of their own.  
	They make a DISTINCTION, with different outcomes as a result.


SIMILARITY 

	While you sleep at night, not experiencing anything new, only going over
	the facts you've already collected through experience, you may discover
	a revealation!  Two separate things, that looked very different, you now
	realize they have many of the same characteristics.  Two different models
	originaly, but you see they predict the same results.  Two different guises outwardly,
	but underneath, you discover a part of them that is common.  This
	is the discovery of the ABSTRACT, where details have gotten in our way and
	confused us, blinded us, to the SIMILARITY that was right in front of us.
	Our two models can now be merged into one.  The truths they pointed to
	stay the same, but now a broader recognition is needed to account for
	THE thing in both of its guises.

	At a minimum this abstraction is a union of both criteria.  

		Guise #1: lady with black hair wearing a red dress, squeaking voice  => that's Mary
		Guise #2: lady with black hair wearing a blue dress, squeaking voice  => that's Mary
		Revealation: Mary owns both a red and blue dress.


REDUCTION

	But there is the temptation to do something better then a union.  There's the
	possibility that criteria can be reduced, a part of it deleted, so that the
	criteria widens to include both the original two examples, and then some.  


		Guise #1: lady with black hair wearing a red dress, squeaking voice  => that's Mary
		Guise #2: lady with black hair wearing a blue dress, squeaking voice  => that's Mary
		Revealation: Mary owns both a red and blue dress.
			- or even better -
		Revealation: Mary may own many dresses, so the color of the dress doesn't matter.  
			     The dress itself is enough of an indicator to recognize Mary.

		Guise #1: 9/23/2004	=> is a date
		Guise #2: 12/5/1999	=> is a date
		Revealation: (9 or 12)/(23 or 5)/(2004 or 1999) => is a date
			- or even better -
		Revealation: xX/xX/XXXX => is a date
			     (where X is a number, and x is an optional number)

	The "then some" is both our salvation and our thorn.  We've made a
	statement of truth for scenarios that we have not encountered.
	We are making a prediction for things we have not yet seen.
	So the REDUCTION is a THEORY.  It could be proved or disproved.
	We do this because there is the suspicous tendancy for reality to be repetative,
	and that the most simple explanations are in fact the correct ones.
	We believe that the complex appearance of the world is a result
	of rather basic inter-relationships.  That the world is in fact,
	much simpler then it appears.  Its a mixture of audacity and hubris 
	that we constantly make suppositions about the world's behaviour, but it
	is how we unravel the true nature of this reality.
	The more concise criteria statments are often the true ones.

	Of course, this is were human folly enters.  We make a concise statement of
	truth, based on a few indictations from previous experience, but we do not
	have the time or the ability to test out the statement of truth on the
	all the scenarios it now appiles towards.  This lack of testing does not stop
	us from using it.  These is were ASSUMPTION of truth plays into our planning
	and decision making.  This is where we can error.

		E.g.  2/29/2003 is not a valid date (so the criteria xX/xX/XXXX is too broad)

	The greeks understood that hubris was the one sin mankind could fall into.
	It is the basis of the adage "pride comes before the fall".
	It is the moral dilemna in taking up the sword to make a better world.
	With an act of such permancy, the question is raised: "are we sure".
	But the potential for folly is not a proper excuse for inaction,
	for the avoidance of any decision making.

	With our quest for understanding, we must always step forward with
	humility, understanding our own nature, that our mechanism of through which
	we understand is based on experience testing, and that we are limited in
	how much testing we can do, how much we can experience.



SUMMARY

	DISTINCTION 
	 - new experience, our current model makes wrong prediction
	 - model was too BROAD in its recognition
	 - statement of truth applied to something it should not have
	 - extra if-statement needed to move that experience into new category

	SIMILARITY
	 - we have collected facts
	 - two things share at least one characteristic in common
	 - the other qualities of the two things (which differ) can be unioned
	   into a criteria that predicts the common characteristic 

	REDUCTION
	 - a simpler version of unioned criteria can be sought at the expense
	   of slightly widening its recognition.  Latter on, we'll test the
	   widened recognition, to see if the original prediction holds for
	   the new scenarios included now in the recognition's universe.
	 - Oftens times the wider recognition cannot be fully tested.
	   This is were the potential for human error occurs.


	So our models of understanding change, as we experience more and reflect further.  With each 
	new experience we tenatively RESTRICT our expectation.  Each new reflection is a chance 
	to put forth a theory and BROADEN our expectation a bit, beyond what previous experience
	has shown us.


	BROAD vs. NARROW,  OPEN vs. RESTRICTED

		BROAD = OPEN
		NARROW = RESTRICTED

		Truths are constrictive of reality.
		Our models (presumed truths) constrict our "expectation universe".

		There is an inverse relationship between the size of a truth's criteria (its area 
		of application) and the size of the expectation universe.
		For these 4 terms (board/narrow/open/restrict) I'm using upper-case when 
		referring to the expectation universe, and lower case when referring to a truth's criteria.

		Adding onto the criteria for one statement of truth narrows it, and BROADENS 
		our expectation universe.
		
		Deleting from/reducing the criteria for one statement of truth broadens it, 
		and NARROWS our expectation universe.

		When we say a criteria is too broad, that means the constrictive truth 
		applies to experiences is should not.  That is, we have RESTRICTED the 
		expectation universe to something smaller then what reality actually contains.
		Reality can present us with a contradiction of our presumed truth.


	We see a red apple, we go ahead and make the tenative assumption that all apple's
	are red (NARROW - all apples are red).  Then experience shows us a green apple
	and we must adjust (BROADEN - only [insert some extra condition] apples are red).

	The essential point is that learning (knowledge aquistion) is yin and yang.  
	Two opposites working together to create an understanding of reality's nature.


THE GOAL

	The goal is not to avoid RESTRICTING to tightly.  We must do this.  We must make assumptions
	that will latter be proven wrong.  We can only be spared the fate of being proven
	wrong if we do not RESTRICT at all.  But then we remain a baby.

	The goal is predictive power, for which a baby has none.  The baby can offer no tenative
	statement of truth about what can be expected.  The baby assumes anything can happen.

	What we ultimately are after is a SKIN-TIGHT model, that wraps perfectly around reality.
	It's not too BROAD (misses patterns in experience over which a truth could be asserted)
	or too NARROW (forbids experiences which can in fact happen in reality).  A baby with no
	understanding is completely BROAD.  And a fool is NARROW.



FAITHLESS

	Tolkien once said...

		"Faithless is he who leaves his friend in a time of need"


	I say...

	A faithless man only accepts what can be shown to him through experience; 
	what can readily be proven.  Outside of the provable, he does not care.

	If you limit yourself to the easily proven, you have not allowed enough
	tenantive REDUCTIONs to take place, which are what BROADEN our expecation
	of what can happen in reality.  It is the potential of folly, the 
	assumption made, the step into the truly unknown.  It could be argued, that
	it is out greatest gift, for which the faithless man has sworn off.

	For example, someone swindled you, and you now think all people can't be trusted.
	(all = broad critera, RESTRICTED expectation)
	No one can prove to you a way to tell people's trustworthiness ahead of time.
	So by abnormally limiting your own ability to BROADEN expectation when hints are
	dropped that some people could in fact be trustworthy, you become dismissive
	of a potential opportunity.  

	The faithless man never takes a chance on the hints he is given.  He likes to keep
	his model small, and only takes step forward into the unknown when its guarenteed
	to cost him little, to be relatively pain free.  He looks for guarentees and puts
	his hope in certainty.

	In short, he is cowardly.



The dreamer:

	...likes to BROADEN his expectations without reason, as a way of exploring desire.

	We must all dream a little bit.  We must all find out what our heart longs for.
	But to live completely in fantasy of course would be to deny that reality exists.
	And it should be fairly obvious that our "reason for being" is to have an effect
	on this reality.



AVODING THE MOVIE-STAR FATE

	Money is great.  We all can see its power and the good things power can bring.
	But the real power, far better then money, is in understanding reality's nature.

	The problems for movie-stars is that they never get the chance to work at
	understanding reality.  They only amass a large experience in personal 
	indulgence.  They were given a lot of money early on for winning a genetic 
	lottery, something that required no work on their part, no burden to understand.  
	When their stardom passes, they have no explanation for the change in fate.  
	Reality to them seems like the wind: uncontrollable & unknowable.

	To each of us, reality has shown itself to be mysterious.  And at times, reality
	has appeared so daunting as if to suggest it was unknowable.  But this is
	merely foolish dispair.  Each of us have made steps in knowing.

	The prime recipie for unhappiness is to put your hope only in luck.

	Certain despair comes to the faithless man, who only put his hope in control.

	We must, with a courageous heart, discover what this world is and burden ourselves
	with creative love.  Only through these actions are we happy.



TOO BROAD (missing criteria)

	A C# grammer defines its rules...

		ID: [_a-zA-Z][_a-zA-Z0-9]*
		memberID: ID
		variable: this "." memberID

	Is that a correct definition?  Well, it is too broad.  It will match some
	things that are not correct C#.  "this.foobar" is only correct if the current
	class does in fact have a member called "foobar".  So the grammer has 
	not defined the relationship between a variable's memberID and a 
	class's collection of members.  It has not defined the type-system that 
	constraints what ID is allowed to be in certain places.

	The grammer is a statement of truth.  It asserts that what it matches
	is C# code.  But it is an incomplete statement of truth, and as result, is too
	broad in its recognition.  It can match files that contain mistakes and 
	are not proper C# programs.  This statement of truth is missing constraints
	that would more precisely define the nature of C# code.

	But the simplistic definition gets us close.  For 99% of the files on disk, it
	accurately tells us which ones contain C# code.  So even in its incomplete state,
	its still useful.  Even if we knew the rules that govern the C# type system, they
	are difficult to compute (they require memory to keep track of all class definitions).  
	This simplisitic Reg-Exp is MUCH MUCH quicker.

	Human knowledge certainly takes similar short-cuts, where simplistic constraints
	are used to identify something, versus more accurate & complete (but harder to compute)
	constraints.  This may explain why I cheered when Bush poked fun at Kerry's critique
	for "the correct nuisances".  Nuisances do exist, but apparently people in Texas 
	have shrugged them off as unimportant.  Intellecual snobbery is the insistence that
	such nuisances are vital.  Such a belief is misguided, and has probably been a 
	major stumbling block in computer learning.  Certainly humans have made great progress 
	with incomplete truths at their disposal.  

	So "this.foobar" is in a file, but the file doesn't compile.  We know its not C#
	even though our grammer thought it was.  An EXCEPTION has to be made, a DISTINCTION.

		ID: ([_a-zA-Z][_a-zA-Z0-9]*) - "foobar"

	We keep on adding different member names everytime we run across a C# file with typos.
	We may even run into a file with "this.foobar" and it does compile!  This will really
	confuse us (why was "foobar" fine for this file but not the other?).  Still, we
	keep on adding if-statements based on any DISTINCTION that exists between the two instances.

	Eventually we get some sleep and try to sort out the pattern in our head.  Then we
	realize, ah ha!  "this.X" never contains an ID outside of the member names.
	We make the tenantive assertion that "X in (members)" and check it against all past
	experiences.  Ah ha!  The assertion holds for all of them!  So we take that farily simple
	definition to be our new truth.  We may even go out and examine a bunch of C# files
	we hadn't looked at before, jsut to see if this assertion realyl will be true for all of 
	them.  When it comes back 100%, are confidence in it grows tremendously.

	So "X in (members)" is a CONSTRAINT discovered in hunt for similarity.  It
	is a statement of truth that makes an assertion over what can be seen in reality, 
	what to expect in experience.  






Statements of Truth

	Apothegm. “…an edgy, more cynical aphorism; such as, ‘Men are generally more careful of the breed of their horses and dogs than of their children.’" From “What’s the Difference? A Compendium of Commonly Confused and Misused Words” by Jeff Rovin (Ballantine Books, New York, 1994). 
	Aphorism. A concise definition, notably memorable. 
	Adage. An aphorism that has gained credibility by virtue of long use. 
	Cliché. An overly commonplace, hackneyed or trite saying. 
	Epigram. A poetic form of comment on a particular idea, occurrence, or person. 
	Epithet. A descriptive word or phrase that has become a popular formulation. 
	Gnome (Greek: gnome, from gignoskein, to know). A type of saying, especially an aphorism or a maxim, that is designed to provide instruction in a compact form. 
	Idiom. “…an expression whose meaning can’t be derived simply by hearing it, such as ‘Kick the bucket.’” From “What’s the Difference? A Compendium of Commonly Confused and Misused Words” by Jeff Rovin (Ballantine Books, New York, 1994). 
	Mantra. A religious or mystical syllable or poetic phrase. 
	Maxim. A fundamental priniciple or rule. A maxim is a wise saying, especially one intended to advise or recommend a course of conduct. In comparison to its approximate synonyms: saying, adage, saw, motto, epigram, proverb, aphorism, the term maxim stresses the succinct formulation of an ultimate truth, a fundamental principle, or a rule of conduct. The word derives from the Latin word maximus, "greatest", via an expression maxima propositio, "greatest premise". 
	Motto. A concise expression of motivation. 
	Platitude. A flat, insipid, trite, or weak remark. 
	Proverb. An expression of practical truth or wisdom. 
	Quip. A witty or funny observation. 
	Saw. A saying that is commonplace, longstanding and occasionally trite. 
	Witticism. A smart saying, notable for its form or style rather than its content.