Structure, Content, Medium

I have been thinking about Art from the perspective of a Data Analyst and something occurred to me.

Databases have multiple levels:

1. Logical
2. Physical
3. Storage

And at each of these levels you have two states:

1. Qualitative
2. Quantitative

It made me think about a two dimensional binary

1. Art : Abstract / Qualitative
2. Math : Abstract / Quantitative
3. Poetry : Concrete / Qualitative
4. Science : Concrete / Quantitative

Logical tables contain the structure of the database while Physical tables contain the content of the database and Storage places the content on a medium.

I looked at this and wondered if the construct was able to abstract further.

1. Logical  :  Structure : Abstract / Concrete
2. Physical : Content : Qualitative / Quantitative
3. Storage : Medium : Form / Function

What this yielded was a three dimensional concept where each dimension had two states.  In other words, a binary cube.

Binary cubes have eight possible states

1. Abstract : Qualitative : Form
2. Abstract : Qualitative : Function
3. Abstract : Quantitative : Form
4. Abstract : Quantitative : Function
5. Concrete : Qualitative : Form
6. Concrete : Qualitative : Function
7. Concrete : Quantitative : Form
8. Concrete : Quantitative : Function

So we have a new set of Dimensions:

1. Structure
2. Content
3. Medium

And a new set of states:

1. Structure : Abstract / Concrete
2. Content : Qualitative / Quantitative
3. Medium : Form / Function

There are many 8 part models out there for system life cycles, system components, communication layers, data levels.  It would be interesting to see if there is any correlation between them and this abstraction.

Experiment

I have worked with the Empirical Process (Experiment) in the background my whole career. It is not really any different from the System Development Lifecycle (SDLC). However, I have never seen the process really stripped down. So here it is as minimal as I want to get it.

OSI Model : Yi Jing : Fusion

I have been working with the OSI Model for almost 25 years.  However, I was so busy attempting to tackle the technical concrete aspects of the model, I rarely had time to reflect on it abstractly.

Recently, while taking a sabbatical, it occurred to me that the OSI Model, with the infamous Layer 8 could be fitted into the Yi Jing using CONCRETE as the term for the broken lines and ABSTRACT as the term for the solid lines.  As the Yi Jing is a 3 bit binary system, there are 8 possible combinations.  Concrete could also be interpreted as Physical and Abstract could also be interpreted as Logical.

I still have to think more about the possible reasoning behind the structure below, but for right now I am just looking at it as two concepts that roughly fit together without significance.

• L1 : PHYSICAL
• CONCRETE : CONCRETE: : CONCRETE
• L2 : DATA LINK
• CONCRETE : CONCRETE : ABSTRACT
• L3 : NETWORK
• CONCRETE : ABSTRACT : CONCRETE
• L4 : TRANSPORT
• CONCRETE : ABSTRACT : ABSTRACT
• L5 : SESSION
• ABSTRACT : CONCRETE : CONCRETE
• L6 : PRESENTATION
• ABSTRACT : CONCRETE : ABSTRACT
• L7 : APPLICATION
• ABSTRACT : ABSTRACT : CONCRETE
• L8 : USER
• ABSTRACT : ABSTRACT : ABSTRACT