LIFE: Love Infinitely Furthers Evolution by Sander R.B.E. Beals (buy e reader TXT) 📕

The housing is the Boundary, the parts of the Mouse are inside it.

The sensors used to be little wheels on a ball, now it is a cleverly reflected LED.

Its Subsystems are the sensors, translation logic (moves to pulses), and serial interface.

It's integrity is any diagnostic functions built in to report malfunctions to the PC.

Its buttons and scrollwheel are Interfaces, that enable us to manipulate it.

Its Metasystem is the human hand, which manipulates it.

Could it be any simpler? How about a human heart? I've just taken one of the many images of it on the Web, to help us with this exercise:

The boundary of the physical heart is the familiarly shaped organ, which is clearly visible on the right here. If we're talking electromagnetic boundaries, then the heart is way bigger, for it's signals have been measured up to 1.5 meters from the human body....

It clearly has sensors, or at least an interface to other bodyparts, because it tends to adjust its rhythm to the level required to feed the various parts of the body with fresh oxigenated blood (right the moment I reread that, an actor in the now playing Cowboys and Aliens said: "Don't know what it is, but it is bleeding!".)

Its subsystems are the chambers (atriae and ventricles) and valves, which work in unison to pump the blood through: the chambers pump it, and the valves keep it from flowing back in the wrong direction.

The heart has double chambers, which gives it two separate circuits to pump blood around. This redundancy means that it is harder to shut it down completely. If for instance a low red blood cell count impairs the flow of oxygen to the brain or other parts of the body, then the heart will start pumping faster sooner, to pick up the slack. The human will notice something is wrong, and will hopefully go see a doctor...

Its interfaces are the various blood vessels, with their scientific names. Some make blood flow inwards, others allow it to flow out. Basically, the red ones are for oxigen-rich blood going out, and the blue ones for oxygen-poor blood flowing in.

Its Metasystem is the human in which the Heart is beating. He or She has the responsability to make sure the Heart stays healthy, so it in turn can keep it's human happy.

Simple enough if you just have to take into consideration one view of the System. In most languages though, Heart is also that which loves, and I've seen little love in the above System Description, have you? It is more a defacto statement of the physical object called Heart. Why is that, you say? Simple: if we talk about a single System, then only love for itself can be seen in its description, and love for its environement. In order to make it more loving, we need to add one or more Systems, because Love implies interaction even if it is very distant...

And right that moment, Ultravox was picked out of my 38000+ MP3 collection, with their tear-jerker "Dancing... with Tears in my Eyes"

Even more synchronous might be the song that was played next: a Dutch song entitled: "Don't be afraid of my dick"... Talk about interfacing ;-) So that is my next subject: the Interface simplified to normal language.

Well, that was pretty painless! A few weeks or months ago I would sit down and try to define the Interface in a way that felt right, and then spend hours getting nowhere. Right now, after the System SevenSphere became my template, I put it together with only a few miss steps in between (Miss Steps, wonder where she's at ;-)

So yes, like stepdad put the three maps together in Journey 2 the Mysterious Island, I put Interface on System, and did my decryption thing on it. Now this may look a bit like a human relationship, but that is only because it also applies to that particular type of interface. In fact, you can view it much wider, like Enterprise hooking up with a new First Contact, or you plugging another screen into your PC.

So in this case, we start with yellow, which initially is the disconnected state. And that will have you looking for love in all the wrong places, like Leisure Suit Larry used to do. Or in the Enterprise case, just travelling through space, scanners wide open... The phase ends when a candidate system for the intended relationship or interface is detected.

We've often heard what comes next in the Star Trek scenario: hailing, response, and figuring out what the two intelligences mean to one another. In relationship land it is not all that different: we react to a signal from another, find out if it was indeed the signal we thought it to be, and build it from there. A certain matter of trust is required then. That goes for humans as well as new computer screens. Have you noticed that nowadays plugging in an extra screen makes Windows negotiate with it, and then automatically switch to use both screens?

After the Trust is built, the connection is established. For the human relational scenario, that may mean we make plans for a future together...

In the more succesful scenario though, these plans are a joint effort, resulting in something that can again be seen like a complete System. Why do you think they call it a Couple?

So yes, if we get to the step which was a Metasystem in the System diagram, we run into another brilliantly configured infinity loop: where both parties of the relationship or Interface consider the other (one of ) their Metasystem(s), their ties are strengthened.

Normally, such an Interface would remain, since there is nothing in the loop which disturbs it. Unless of course, one of the parties involved does something to either damage the Trust, or goes outside his designated role.... Usually that means a Disconnect.

Please note that the level of Trust is also coupled to the roles involved. If the link between screen and PC tells the PC the screen is only capable of a certain maximum resolution, then the PC will have to restrict its roles to those that don't exceed said resolution. Same with humans: if Free Will is disregarded, you can bet your bottom dollar that sooner or later the relationship ends....

Notice also, that the establishing of an Interface and the establishing of a Role are pretty much the same. It is just that now it is a further ironing out of the relationship between two already friendly Systems. Thus the blue sphere can in fact be visualized as a new SevenSphere, with Role in the center.

And then the reread was interrupted by an invitation from my ex for a macaroni dinner, which was augmented by an icecream dessert. And being there away from my writing I stumbled across a few movies that belonged in my collection, but somehow had ended up in hers: Short Circuit 2 and Deja Vu. Good for another night of fun. Like the funny robot I love input, and these two flicks are going to be it tonight!

And it pays off: right now I'm seeing a great piece of roleplaying by a bunch of mexican car thieves, who succesfully convince Johnny Five that they are the department of car stereos. Innocent as he is, Johnny 'processes' the street, and returns with a big stack of stereos! And his disbelief of the realisation that he has been 'flim-flammed' as he called it is honest and direct: no guilt, but a direct change in behavior as the next intruders find out to their disgrace. But there are multiple roles at work there, and the friendly Oscar and his thugs soon find out!

Back to roles then: they are like opposite ends of an interface, or a relationship. Just like the movie where Ben is now handed the book of Pinnochio by Number Five: is not the set of strings the interface between the master and his puppet? And is not Ben's loving urge to be with Sandy the one powerful example of a relationship that is yet to be established?

Hey, getting to talk to a person on a train is difficult even, unless you have something of a prompt, a catalyst to initiate the conversation. I wouldn't advertize having Johnny Five help you, but overhearing something might even do it. Don't mind me mumbling a bit, because I feel a SevenSphere coming up. I'll be back.....

And here it is: At first try, I'd added the Role diagram following later, without clearly realizing that a Role is not one per Interface, but rather one at each end of the Interface. So here we are with the End definition of the Role, which focuses on establishing the interface as one end proposes it, and the other one reacts.....

Of course this is again based on two related triangles, first of which attempts to gauge which reaction might be appropriate. Once that is determined, a reaction from the second triangle is selected. Of course there are other reactions one might take, as I discovered when I asked my darling colleague if I might be the next in line if she ever lost her current husband: she just looked at me with those big dark eyes, and said nothing for about seven seconds! No acceptance, no avoidance, and no countering, just the most open answer a guy can get in that situation: "anything is possible, but you will have to make it happen....." Added sync: I just told you which two movies I would be playing tonight, and since Short Circuit 2 just ended, that leaves us with Deja Vu with Denzel Washington and Paula Patton. And don't you know it, Paula could be the twin sister of that beautiful lady I talked about...

Now roles can get real hairy once you try to understand them. They exist in personal, social, familiar, military and business climates, and dozens of others areas. The basic elements of a Role are actually described on the right here. Let's see where this leads us, because first of all we are concerned with the balance of the Role, that reflects in the relationship which preceeds it. The following alternatives can be seen:

Dominant, which some might also see as Service-to-Self. Still they may not be that, because they might genuinely believe they know best what is good for others. This is in opposition to:

Serving, also sometimes seen as Service-to-Others. Still, these come in two flavors as well, those doing good because they feel the need to, and those doing it because of the joy they derive from it. It may seem unbalanced, but both Dominant and Serving together lead to a Balanced state as we will see soon.

The last of this Trinity is a balanced Role, where both are feeling the same about the parameters of the Role, and neither plays a leading part. They may still look up to one another, and act accordingly, but that just creates another infinity loop....

The above triangle is in turn completed by the second triangle, which is concerned with the effects that both partners get from their relationship:

No Fear 4 2: the No Fear label was an advertizing slogan back in the eighties I think, which clung to the mind like maple sirup. I know I desperately wanted to have one of those stickers, but it hasn't happened yet..... But since this is what both partners get from their mutual roles, the 'for two' was added as an afterthought just now.

Free Will 4 2: Free Will, believe it or not, is what we most fear to lose. We simply will avoid relationships where we are pushed into a role which denies us this. What about masochists, you say? Well, even in SM games, there is always a keyword with which the slave may stop the game.... That's free will as I see it. And their games? Both (regardless of their end of it) are in the game to please both the other and themselves!

Fun 4 2: with fear gone, and free will at the reigns, the couple is free to have nothing but more fun. Believe it or not, that is the Essence of the Incredible Machine!

And you were still not convinced that 4 2 is the answer to the question:

"What is the Meaning of Life?"

Now the aspects may be called something else, but essentially the above diagram represents any kind of Role. In business for instance, the shopkeeper may be seen as the dominant partner, yet at the same time it is said that "the client is King". So this is usually a nearly balanced situation, and both try to make sure that trade is going fair, by either garding themselves from it with countermeasures, or just trusting that the other party will treat them fairly. If too much fear exists in either party, the deal is broken, and the client goes elsewhere.

Another nice example are the computer scare tactics on the Web: