- A data sequence is a pattern.
- Patterns are everywhere.
- Some patterns are more attractive than others.
- Attractor patterns are attractors of human attention.
What makes a pattern aesthetically pleasing?
Aesthetically pleasing patterns evolve from a process of natural selection. The same process which is at work in various forms of genetic algorithms whether human based genetic algorithms (HBGAs) or interactive genetic algorithm (IGAs) the aesthetic quality is determined by the selector which in these examples must be human.
Measuring pattern attractiveness
An obvious way to measure the attractiveness of various different candidate patterns is to use the process of selection. For example in a market based approach to selection the patterns could be product designs. How do we determine whether or not the product is successful or a failure? By the popularity of the product, and how often it is used.
- Example: If the product pattern is a game then you could track how often the game is played to determine how attractive the game is.
- Example: If the product pattern is a song then you could track how often the song is listened to in order to determine how attractive it is.
- Example: If the product pattern is a website then you can see how often the website is visited and for how long visitors stay in order to determine how attractive it is.
Attractor patterns are sticky
In order for an attractor to be sticky a person has to not want to stop paying attention to it, not want to get rid of it, because it encourages psychological attachment to itself. For example the habit of checking email or Facebook are examples because both product patterns are sticky.
Measuring stickiness of a pattern
A pattern is sticky if people continue to pay attention to a particular pattern as a habit. This could be because the pattern fulfils some psychological need or it could be because the pattern meets a critical utility.
A token is only effective as an attractor if a lot of people want it. A lot of people will only want it if it's exchangeable for something a lot of people want. If it's exchangeable for something that a lot of people want a whole lot of then it's going to be extremely effective as an attractor token but it is still just only an attractor token.
The purpose of attractor tokens is to stimulate stigmergy
The purpose of attractor tokens is to attract the swarm of attention. These attractor tokens and attractor patterns in general facilitate the process of stigmergy. Stigmergy is what actually coordinates and directs the swarm allowing for swarm intelligence to emerge.
References
Chang, J. F., & Shi, P. (2011). Using investment satisfaction capability index based particle swarm optimization to construct a stock portfolio. Information Sciences, 181(14), 2989-2999.
Miller, P. (2007). Swarm theory. National Geographic, 212(1), 1-17.
You just explained why #introduceyourself posts featuring hot chicks in summerly attire tend to attrack a lot of upvotes from the predominantly male Steem stakeholder population. We are genetically programmed to radar lock-on a specific type of curvy attractor pattern that increases greatly our chances of survival as infants. I'm not even kidding. To be precise, I'm in the superposed state of making a tongue in cheek joke and being dead serious at the same time.
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People are attracted to beauty in all it's forms. The female form is beautiful to both males and females, so we should not make the assumption that only males are voting it up unless there are statistics showing that this is the case. On the other side of the coin, you could also claim that males will be voted up by the same mechanism and from what I know about Steemit there is balance between genders on this platform.
Not trying to anthropomorphize beauty or attractiveness, my point is that any pattern can be attractive. For example if you look at stock charts and trading analysis then you'll recognize certain candle patterns signal a buy. People looking at prices will notice certain prices are more attractive and it signals to buy. So by a data pattern in the most abstract sense of the word, it applies literally to any information pattern which attracts attention (which is a scarce resource!).
This partially also explains why when people see huge payouts on Steemit, or touching stories of rags to riches, then many more people join. While I do not have the data to back up what I'm saying, I would say it might be worth it to collect the data using a sort of A/B hypothesis testing to see if more people tend to join Steemit on days when certain stories are trending than others, or during times when there is a very high payout going toward unexpected individuals.
I would like to see the results of the hypothesis test and since the data is available the results can be compiled. Anyone want to crunch the numbers?
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Patterns are truly amazing!
As a coloring book artist I see it everyday in my art.
Sometimes I think I've created a total new piece of art, But once I look at it. I realize it's just a mix of other things I've created.
Hence, creating patterns from my past art!
I think when we notice the patterns we can begin to move away if necessary if thats the desired response!
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Yes patterns are everywhere and many patterns are beautiful. For example the sea shell contains the Fibonnaci sequence if you map it to numbers. There is beauty in patterns, in numbers, and in art.
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Hi @dana-edwards Patterns can also be related to music. Im a dj and musical producer in my spare time.
What you are saying is exactly how music and visual concepts mix together. The way I see it in today's musical production world you also follow patterns, these patterns create different types of music.
Todays technology is changing the way we created music and because of this mix language connected through "patterns" both visual and sonar are converge into one.
Here is my favorite example:
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Thanks. Too many unknown words. Will learn.
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In the case of Steemit we could be talking about content. Content attracts people to the site and makes the site sticky. Stickiness is based on a psychological effect which I could go into in future posts but it's based around reinforcement. Email, or Facebook timelines, are good examples because the intermittent reinforcement causes us to keep checking our timelines to see if someone posted something, or to see if we got likes (psychic credits).
Steemit has so much more power to become the most stick social media site on the Internet. Not only does it have the psychic credits in the form of likes, but it also has the attractor patterns both in the form of attractive tokens (Steem Dollars/Steem Power) but also in the content itself. People interact with Steem just to consume the content and as more people join and provide fresh content then Steemit becomes more attractive, more sticky, etc.
References
The Psychology Easel. (2012, April 22). Retrieved Summer, 2016, from https://taradeliberto.blogspot.com/2012/04/keep-them-coming-back-for-more_22.html
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All these observed 'swarms' can't match the neuronal capacity of a single human.
The human brain is the most complex structure in the universe.
The number of possible neuronal connections is so much higher than the number of atoms in the universe that I can't even express it.
It is incomprehensibly gigantic, making the human behaviour incalcuable and can make any pattern obsolete.
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«I am so clever that sometimes I don’t understand a single word of what I am saying.» Oscar Wilde
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