concept: recursion
concept-key: https://vernacular.cloud/0.0.1/tb22EX8ErTQeC7vXie2NOX6I/
Definition
That is "situated, contingent recursion". A **situated (space-time indexed), local (bounded neighborhood), history-cumulative, iterative reconfiguration of constraints that both closes and opens possibilities**—only knowable in its unfolding. Ontological iteration with a transformative reconfigurations of constraints and opportunities.
**Recursion:** the situated, time-indexed process by which a system’s current state locally reshapes the constraints governing its subsequent states, such that the space of possibilities is partially reconstituted at each iteration.
Two important clarifications to explicitly include in the paper:
- **Not fixed-rule recursion** (against Alan Turing-style readings)
- **Not self-reference only** (against Douglas Hofstadter-style popular interpretations)
You are using recursion as **ontological iteration with constraint transformation**.
Our definition is meant to blocks both:
- **determinism** (no full specification at the start), and
- **teleology** (no end-state doing explanatory work)
But a time-indexed actualization of possibility and impossibility: the iterative establishment off new constraints and new potentials.
Some modes of recursion
- sustained (externally sustained) like a whirlpool, and eddy. transfer of energy from outside
- stabilized (self stabilized) star
- metastable (threshold of collapse: sandpile, avalanche, market crash, neural consciousness)
- reproductive (virus)
- maintained (normative enaction)
!Victor Badinage Quotes by Theme#^16443b
Recursive iteration is by nature inductive. It gives us a rule to apply at the next iteration. It does not give a rule applicable to the ENTIRETY. That would be the antinomy of Absolute Necessity. the Myth of the Proven.
!Victor Badinage Quotes by Theme#^1c340f
- [ ] #Cite Wolfram on computational irreducibility in _A New Kind of Science_ (2002).
- [ ] #Edit Wolfram means recursion when he talks of the computational universe, contingent reachability
!Victor Badinage Quotes by Theme#^1c340f
BUT. Wolfram’s project looks like it’s about discreteness vs. continuity, but the real engine of his worldview is computational irreducibility — and he often conflates these two questions.
Mathematics collapses analog variation into crisp identity (A = A). Digital circuits collapse analog voltages into crisp identity (0/1). Formal semantics collapses messy reference into crisp model‑theoretic identity. Scientific method collapses messy phenomena into stable natural kinds.
Wolfram is doing something similar:
He collapses the analog/digital distinction into a single metaphysical thesis:
“The universe is discrete, therefore it is computational.”
Sentient praxis _is_ the epistemological intermediary that Davidson claims never to have found. Sentience selects and sorts its receptions according to a goal-oriented schema. The schema is modified for subsequent use. This is the the heuristic, cybernetic praxis, the learning curve, episodic experience.
Broader
this concept has broader concept X
Narrower
this concept has narrower concept Y
Related
enables the representation of associative (non-hierarchical) links, which can also be used to represent part-whole links that are not meant as hierarchical relationships.