The Pattern
The Pattern is a periodic fractal algorithm that describes a complex quantity or scale. Object classes which employ this algorithm to represent a value are not only self-comparable (ie., one instance of a Skill can be compared with another to determine which is greater), but also intra-comparable (a Quality can be compared to a Skill). This comparison can, depending on the context, yield a simple "less-than/greater-than" value, or can generate more complex interactions.
The Pattern's behaviour is derived from the dynamics of the subject-object relationship present in human development (such as that posited by Jean Piaget for cognitive development and later extended to ethical development by Robert Kegan and others), mapped via some unified science theory onto a slightly modified Periodic Table of the Elements. The object which has behaviour which is modelled by the Pattern contains a collection of attributes which are part of this mapping. The attributes are based on the idea that any object which uses the Pattern has a series of developmental levels of increasing complexity, each of which represents a kind of balance between subject and predicate object (subjects being the way objects define themselves; predicates being what they define as being "other"). The idea is that each object gradually refines its self-definition as it develops, gradually deciding that elements it once used to define itself are actually not part of the self, but rather attributes that the self has (and is thus able to manipulate).
For the topics which are difficult to anthropomorphise, like a Skill or a Statistic it is helpful sometimes to consider the subject as it relates to its practitioner or owner. For instance, instead of trying to ask the question "what does the 'archery' skill think of as its 'self'?", it is easier to ask "what does a practitioner of archery think of as the absolute essence of the skill?"
In the FaerieMUD instance it is perhaps easier to go all out and anthropomorphize. For instance, you can think of archery's self as a Goddess of Archery or even as "the self of the programmer who programmed the archery skill."
Attributes
The attributes of a single element on the Pattern may (depending on its Balance) have the following attributes (most of which are derived from the primary one -- its Atomic Number.:
- Balance or Period - a value from -1 to 5 indicating which period it belongs to; derived from; derived from Atomic Number.
- Dependency - either inclusive or independent; derived from Balance (even numbered balances are independent; odd numbered balances are inclusive.
- Group - a value from 1 to 18 indicating which group or eco-relation it belongs to; derived from Atomic Number.
- Historical Orientation - a value which indicates whether the current identity is worded in the vocabulary of the current or previous Balance; derived from Group. Vocabularies have two possible values:
- Current Balance - corresponding to an inability to look at the Developmental Object except in its current state, meaning the ability to teach others at earlier periods will be severely hampered
- Previous Balance - corresponding to an ability to express the values of the current period in terms understandable to those in the previous period, meaning the ability to teach will be enhanced
- Interior Group - a value between 1 and 8 (inclusive) indicating the eco-relation of some aspect of the "inner life" of the Developmental Object (such as a soul or ego or essence)
- Hidden Group - a seldom-used value (rarely anything except sacrificial satisfaction) between 1 to 3 (inclusive) indicating the eco-relation of the "interior life" of some internal entity in an interior object (such as a soul of the soul, or a principle, which never progresses beyond commensal laudation)
- Actually "never progresses beyond" is a bit of an overstatement. It never progresses beyond this as a part of something's interior life. At the point where reaches commensal laudation, it emerges as a separate entitity (usually a minor deity?) which can grow and develop independent of that from which it has sprung. If the immortal statistics of the parent's spirit have progressed to the point where apotheosis is possible, she may be offered the chance to role-play this deity the next time she dies, but the parent entity itself is no longer responsible for the development.
- Season? - a value (Spring, Summer, Autumn or Winter) derived from Group indicating the object's relationship to change (conservative or open, risk-taking or safe)
Attributes In-depth
At the base level, the Pattern has two attributes which begin to define its nature as a developmental object: Balance and Dependency.
The element's balance defines the period on the periodic tables to which it belongs (with a slightly offset numbering scheme), and is an integer, ranging from -1 to 5 (but perhaps we may want to look beyond to 6 or 7, see below).
- -1: Pre-natal
- Refers to the pre-instantiated state where the object is not yet distinguished from its environment (like pre-natal in human development, hunter-gatherer in the development of human cultures, etc.).
- 0: Incorporative
- The first independant level of development when the object is defined by what it takes into itself; it doesn't "have" its hunger, it "is" its hunger.
- 1: Impulsive
- Defined by its impulses and perceptions; it "has" hunger, but it "is" its impulses.
- 2: Imperial
- defined by its needs; it "has" perceptions; it "is" its needs.
- 3: Interpersonal
- defined by its relationships; it "has" needs, but it "is" its relationships.
- 4: Institutional
- defined by ideology; it "has" relationships, but it "is" institution.
- 5: Interindividual
- defined by principles; it "has" institutions and ideologies, but it "is" values.
Dependence is a general description of the focus of the balance: "inclusive" dependency for odd-numbered balances; "independant" for even-numbered balances. Inclusive balances are based on interaction or a feeling of community, while independent balances emphasize autonomy and individual freedom.
Balance 0 (and all subsequent balances) inherit balance number and dependance from Balance -1, but they also add another attribute which is based on its relationship with its environment (that which it takes from). There are eight different kinds of relationships based on ecological theory:
| -,- | -,0 | -,+ | ''or'' | zero | I | II | ''or'' | VIII | I | II |
| 0,- | 0,+ | VII | III | VII | III | |||||
| +,- | +,0 | +,+ | VI | V | IV | VI | V | IV |
Balance 1 inherits balance number, dependance and eco-relationship from Balance 0, but adds no more attributes.
Balance 2 inherits all of these attributes from Balance 0, adding historical orientation and Interior Group 1?. Historical orientation has two possible values -- oriented to previous balance's vocabulary and oriented to current balance's vocabulary. For Balance 2, this is the difference between saying "we are no longer impulsive" and saying "we are in control." Interior Group 1? has eight possible values (the EcoRelations), but only three are expressed in Balance 2. The rest appear in Balance 4 as part of the genius path. Interior Group 1 represents the relationship between the self and the first sub-self (ego or whatever the self decides to call it).
Balance 3 inherits balance number, dependance, eco-relations and historical orientation from Balance 2 (for Balance 3, historical orientation is the difference between saying "we are no longer greedy" and saying "we share"). It adds Interior Group 2?, which has eight possible values (the EcoRelations). Only three of these values are expressed in Balance 3. The rest appear in Balance 5 as part of the genius path. Interior Group 2 represents the relationship between the self and the second sub-self (the soul or whatever the self decides to call it).
Balance 4 inherits all of these attributes, adding Interior Group 3? and Hidden Group 1? as new attributes. Each of these have EcoRelations as their values, but they can only have the first three relations -- sacrificial satisfaction, evangelical predation, or commensal laudation. Interior Group 3 represents the relationship between the self and the third sub-self (the id or whatever the self decides to call it). Hidden Group 1 represents the relationship between the self and the first sub-sub-self ("my affiliations" or whatever the self decides to call it).
Balance 5 inherits all of these attributes, adding Interior Group 4? and Hidden Group 2? as new attributes. Each of these have EcoRelations as their values, but they can only have the first three relations -- sacrificial satisfaction, evangelical predation, or commensal laudation. Interior Group 4 represents the relationship between the self and the fourth sub-self (the ??? or whatever the self decides to call it). Hidden Group 2 represents the relationship between the self and the second sub-sub-self ("my principles" or whatever the self decides to call it).
The following paragraph may be deprecated (per Scotus):
In addition, non-defining attributes can be added at any level. For instance at Balance 3, memberships can be added. These can be guilds, nations, alliances, classes (in the socio-economic sense) or whatever else is appropriate to the kind of relationship. Non-defining attributes can derive from the main relationship class (as in memberships) or from any of the individual instances (as in metal or non-metal for the elements class).
There is a possibility of further extension of the balance number because the systematization of this whole process may give us insight into the next levels of development. We can, for instance, extrapolate the contradictions which can be found in basing identity on values and hypothesize (as some have already done on a philosophical level) about a new balance based on "right relations." I think we need not develop this now, but we should leave open the possibility in the future by allowing balance numbers beyond 5, even though we may not be ready to instantiate them at present.
-- Ged The Greys Hain - 18 May 2000
The Pattern is also known as "The God Fractal" because of an obscure reference to Terry Gilliam's Time Bandits. The dwarves in that movie explain that God was so busy creating the big things (good and evil, original sin, etc.) that he didn't have time to do all the details (bushes and rocks and stuff). So, he left those details to the dwarves (who eventually got fed up with the grunt work, stole the map of all time and space, and proceeded charge through history, stealing whatever they could get their hands on).
The principle of The Pattern Object is that God did program... er, create the littlest details (down to subatomic particles). But he created them as fractals which contained all the necessary characteristics of bushes and rocks and trees all the way up to the really big stuff like good and evil. Whether this is theologically correct, metaphysically correct, or even scientifically correct is irrelevant, however, because it is programmatically correct.
In other words, programmers need to be able to program objects at the most basic level so that they will be able to re-use as much code as possible. So, the only way to create a world as interesting as the real world is to use a model which can be applied fractally to as many different kinds of objects as possible.
The Pattern Object is our humble (or not-so-humble) attempt to do this. It is based on the idea that most of the interesting things in the world are emergent objects (in terms of ComplexityTheory) which are developmental in nature. That is, they are composed of smaller components and have characteristics which develop over time.
-- ScotusTheProsyFaerie? - 20 May 2000
Rare Earths
Starting with the Imperial Balance an interesting thing begins to happen: Changes become possible in the internals of the Pattern which do not have immediately obvious impacts on the external view of the Developmental Object being modeled by the Pattern.
There are three varieties of internal changes which do not affect valence (the primary chemical characteristics of the element, which are also known as EcoRelations). The first variety occurs in Group VIIIB (under the 26th element (Iron), the 27th element (Cobalt) and the 28th element (Nickel). The second variety occurs only in the last two period of the periodic table and corresponds to the unique status of the Rare Earths. The third variety occurs within both of the rare earth series (the Lathanide series and the Actinide Series) are represented on the periodic table by Samarium, Europium and Gadolinium as well as Plutonium, Americium and Curium.
Because they are all related to one another, all three varieties are discussed in more detail under Rare Earths.
-- Scotus - 08 Jul 2000 from a seed planted by JJ and Steve
Genius
Just as the Noble Gases? trigger major quests which require a choice which enables FairieMUD to simulate the effect of good and evil in the FaerieMUD world, so the Group VIIIB elements (under Iron, Cobalt and Nickel) trigger a series of minor quests which require choices which allow us to simulate genius in all its forms and guises and degrees.
The first choice is to commit to development. The second is to commit to a specific variety. And the third choice is to commit to some form of antithesis. The effects of the first two are immediate and obvious. The effects of the final one is to open doors far down the path of development (specifically the doors into the detour known as the rare earths). If those doors are not opened, it is possible to fool oneself into believing you have achieved mastery when true mastery lay down the corridors which (because the doors were unopened) you didn't even know existed.
For example, if you choose magic at the first choice, the second choice is between sorceror-style magic and cleric-style magic. But the third is between magic and technology (the antithesis of magic). Choosing technology does not preclude your development in magic, but it opens the possibility, when you reach the rare earths, of learning to augment your magic with technology, allowing you to substitute electricity for manna and similar short-cuts.
-- Scotus - 08 Jul 2000 with major input from Jayjay and Steve
There is a further refinement of the Genius concept possible which makes it a more generic concept applicable to any Developmental Object.
-- Scotus and Ged working collaboratively - 08 Jul 2000
The Practice of Self
In re-writing the Pattern descriptions as I understand them, it occurs to me that really every other discipline to which The Pattern may be applied is difficult to think about unless you consider it in the context of a "thinker" -- a sentient entity which can consider, and change its mind about, the quintessential core of the considered discipline. It is a comparative rarity that this considered "self" is actually the entity doing the thinking; it's almost always something which is, in some ways, already outside the thinker to begin with, but the thinker, in the need to refine their relationship with the discipline, seeks to purify the included "self" in the same way that the ethical thinker does with herself. It seems, then, that it may be interesting to think of ethics as a practice, too: a practice whose aim is to be truely one's own "self", and nothing else.
-- Ged The Greys Hain - 03 Mar 2003
I'm not sure I agree with this comment, although I certainly see where its motivations come from. I prefer to think of all Pattern-based entities in FaerieMUD as definers rather than thinkers. A cell defines itself via a cell wall, whereas a mind defines itself by the way it thinks about itself. Both are autopoietic in the sense that they define themselves and both go through stages in the evolving way they define themselves which are remarkably similar to one another. We tend to think of self-definition in terms of thinking because we are thinkers. But cells define themselves in ways which are similar, even though no thinking is involved.
This, I think, is what Varela and Maturana were getting at in "Autopoiesis."
It is a little more abstract to think of a genre of magic or a skill as being self-defining, but when you think about it that is exactly what they are. A skill cannot be thought of as a skill unless (as part of the process of developing as a skill) it takes part (admittedly in a very abstract sense) in its own definition. That is, if the process of learning a skill doesn't involve defining what it is that is being learned, the skill can never become more than an unrelated series of actions. The same could be said of traits.
I think.
-- Scotus - 26 Apr 2003
I didn't say that they are thinkers, I said that they are difficult (for me) to think about except in the context of a "thinker". I put that word in quotes because I wasn't really confortable with the terminology; "definer" is certainly a better word for it. My "sentient entity which can which can consider, and change its mind about, the quintessential core" is, I think, not at all dissimilar from your autopoetic entities which "go through stages in the evolving way they define themselves". The "thinking" part is just a mechanism which I have found useful when trying to empathize with (or I suppose anthropomorphize) the entity doing the defining. This sort of mental tool is necessary for me in order to model something as abstract as The Pattern in code, and to consider how something which derives its context from a thinking being (eg., a Skill, a Relationship) might be said to redefine itself.
I'm not sure I understand what you mean by a skill being "self-defining": do you mean to say that a skill can develop on its own without any interaction with any other entity? It would seem to me that some kind of context or medium is necessary in order for there to be change. A skill owned by a character (at least as we've defined them up to now) is a kind of projection of the Platonic ideal of the Skill onto a stateful reality, a reality in which the instance of the skill can be distinguished from other projections, and it is only the instance of the skill which develops. The instance of the skill cannot exist without the context of a character, and only the interaction of the character with the skill causes redefinition of the skill's "self".
Also, did you mean "statistics" instead of "traits" in the last sentence? Traits are periodic (or contain a periodic element), but aren't developmental...
-- GedTheGreysHain - 28 Apr 2003
Three kinds of things which are governed by The Pattern are: Developmental Objects, The Forge, and materials. Walking The Pattern? is a part of the magic system which is also related to The Pattern.
When creating a new periodic table based on The Pattern, it is good to copy the PatternTemplate into your newly created page.
See also matter, groups?, periods? and EcoRelations.
small addendum (a.k.a Pattern for dummies)
I couldn't quite grasp all of the above, so after talking to the authors for a while, figured that it really all boiled down to this:
All the different elements within the environment which progress, tend to progress in a similar fashion to the periodic table. This then lends itself to modelling progression in anything (skills, qualities, civilisations, whatever) using the same model. As a direct result, comparison between normally incomparable things becomes possible.
-- AodhanMacRhuairi? - 26 Jun 2003
