Euclidean or Projective Care?

How many dimensions does a written - narrative record have?

Sketching out some ideas, I asked the question on Google and as usual an AI Overview response followed - snippet:

AI Overview

A physical written record has two primary spatial dimensions (length and breadth/width) as a flat document, or three dimensions (including thickness or depth/height) when considering its physical form or binding. [1, 2]

In archival and Records Continuum theory, a written record exists dynamically across four conceptual dimensions: [1, 2].

I put the question to the Records Management list with the above snippet and received several useful suggestions and sources. Perhaps I can share that at a future point? 

Acutely aware of not pursuing maths and category theory for its own sake, the query was driven by an attempt to look at Hodges' model in mathematical terms. Starting, rather obviously with the models structure and axes. When the model is assembled, as per many posts, the vertical axis:

INDIVIDUAL
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GROUP

- shouts out the issue of parity and the distinction between mind and body. It does this at the individual and collective level. If we were to draw a silo, a cylinder springs to mind, and there are specific reasons for silos adopting this shape. Descartes gives us the perfect excuse, in the ongoing legacy. 

     Mathematical Visions

The question above came up from Joan L. Richards book 'Mathematical Visions' (c/o Lancaster Univ. library). Euclidean and the emergence of projective geometry is described. There is an interplay between 2D and 3D representation, that made me think about the health record and its dimensions. Not in a dataset sense (multi-dimensional), more generally and concretely(?). A patient's record on paper has physical dimensions (A4), there is a flow. An EHR has its virtual dimensions (discuss!). Abstractly the content is a time machine. At some point in a health encounter it is a literal 'history', the level of detail in accord with the context. The record might present the problem, premorbid situation, diagnosis, current state, observations and prognosis and much more.

I can revisit this, Richards provides a series of figures. We progress from two distinct circles (my silos) through to examples with a discussion of continuity and projection that sees the circles touching, then intersecting. This is a radical axis.

Richards, Joan L. (1988), Mathematical Visions: The Pursuit of Geometry in Victorian England, Boston: Academic Press, ISBN0-12-587445

Book cover: Amazon.

The invention of language

7 After the Fall

'Adam's one task in the Garden had been to invent language, to give each creature and thing its name. In that state of innocence, his tongue had gone straight to the quick of the world. His words had not been merely appended to the things he saw, they had revealed their essences, had literally brought them to life. A thing and its name were interchangeable. After the fall, this was no longer true. Names became detached from things, words devolved into a collection of arbitrary signs; language had been severed fom God. The story of the Garden, therefore, records not only the fall of man, but the fall of language.' 

    Paul Auster

In, Robert C. Stalnaker (2008) Our Knowledge of the Internal World. Oxford, GB: Oxford University Press. hb. p.132.

Auster, P. (1985) The New York Trilogy (New York: Penguin Books). p.52.

Mary Kelly - Post-Partum Document

From a visit to Liverpool Tate 13.6.2008:

 (Experimentum Mentis III: Weaning from the Dyad)

Individual

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      INTERPERSONAL    :     SCIENCES               

HUMANISTIC  --------------------------------------  MECHANISTIC      

 SOCIOLOGY  :    POLITICAL 

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Post-Partum Document. Documentation III: Analysed Markings And Diary Perspective Schema (Experimentum Mentis III: Weaning from the Dyad)

1975, Mary Kelly  © Tate 

'Chalk and crayon drawings by Mary Kelly’s son are overlayed with transcriptions, annotations and reflections based on their interactions as he began nursery. These panels are the third group of a six-part series, each documenting a formative moment in Kelly’s son's early life. Kelly has stated that Post-Partum Document is not ‘autobiographical’. She instead uses her story to suggest ‘an interplay of voices – the mother’s experience, feminist analysis, academic discussion, political debate’. The work subverts romanticised depictions of the mother-child relationship, presenting the experience as inevitably bound up with societal norms and gendered expectations.'

See also: Mary Kelly

  dyad : perspective : art

"Shift" c/o Jacqui Symons

"Title: Shift
Artist: Jacqui Symons
Medium: Triptych of Artists’ Books
Year: 2020

Presented as a triptych of artist-books, ‘Shift’ explores three nurses’ individual shifts showcasing the sheer length of each working day through to the complexity and constantly shifting demand on their time, energy, experience, knowledge and empathy. In 2019, Jacqui Symons was artist-in-residence at Central Manchester NHS Foundation Trust. As part of her residency, she shadowed three nurses; the ward sister, a junior sister and a staff nurse, during their 12 and a half hour shifts on an older people’s ward within the hospital. These concertina books chart every minute of these three shifts."

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 INTERPERSONAL    :     SCIENCES               

HUMANISTIC --------------------------------------  MECHANISTIC      

SOCIOLOGY  :   POLITICAL 

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Shift: 762 Minutes (detail)

Shift: 727 Minutes (detail)

"When opened, each book is almost 200 metres long - they aim to show the sheer amount of hard work and dedication of each nurse and what they achieved during every moment of their busy shifts.  I found three shifts physically, mentally and emotionally exhausting and I was only observing the nurses' work. The book on the right shows the Ward Sister's - the yellow pages charted breaks for eating, drinking and toilet breaks - less than 30 minutes over the duration of 12 and half hours." p.23.

Shift

My source:

"Shift (727 minutes, 762 minutes and 754 minutes)", Artists' Books. PrintMaking Today, Summer 2023, 32:126. p.23.

https://www.cellopress.co.uk/page/printmaking-today

Image and text: c/o and with thanks - Jacqui Symons

https://jacquisymons.co.uk/

An observational record and learning from 30,000 years ago

"A fascinating example is the shoulder blade of an ox unearthed in the 1980s (Figure 1) by archaeologists investigating a stone age encampment in the south of France. Carbon dating showed this to be approximately 30,000 years old. The bone was marked with inscriptions that the archaeologist couldn't decipher. It was clear they were neither a tally, nor a pattern, nor any recognisable form of writing. Late one night one of the archaeologists noticed the moon, and something in its shape caught his curiosity.

Aurignacian Lunar Calendar / diagram, drawing after Marshack, A. 1970; Notation dans les Gravures du Paléolithique Supérieur, Bordeaux, Delmas / Don’s Maps
Figure 1 my source: https://sservi.nasa.gov/articles/oldest-lunar-calendars/

Then it struck him. Here, on this fragment of bone, was a lunar calendar complete with 72 observations ... something like 1,600 generations ago. One of our common ancestors (statistically, all of us can claim a relationship to this thoughtful person) 30,000 years ago had the intellectual curiosity to watch the moon, night after night, and then transcribe these movements, at scale, onto the stone age equivalent of the back of an envelope, as he (or she) attempted to "think it through". What makes us human is our ability to think, learn and adapt to our changing environment. The story of the stone age learner gets even better when you imagine a small community of people (adults, adolescents, children on their laps) sitting around a campfire every night working out the meaning of the lunar phases together." pp.72-73.

Abbott, J. & Ryan, T. (2000). Chapter 4, How mass education eclipsed apprenticeship, The Unfinished Revolution: Learning, Human Behavior, Community, and Political Paradox, Stafford, UK: Network Educational Press. (The figure in the book does not include the bone.)

Previously: 'diagrams' , 'archaeology'

[I am also still trying to clear papers and books, as some posts will suggest.]