Patterns

With the premise that people eventually develop an idea of what a pattern is, we can sidestep the potentially lengthy and possibly inconclusive discussion of the complete definition of a pattern. Now, we can view a pattern as a structure, perhaps with the additional property of repetition in some dimension. A further interpretation is that a pattern is a set of statements, whose vocabulary may range an entire language. Most dictionary definitions of a pattern will inherit this general form. A different perspective on a pattern lies within the process of its recognition. In a sense, a pattern begins to exist, or have any tangible interface at the moment it is recognized. Thus the recognizer of a pattern contains knowledge of what a pattern is, and what it is not, and also a certain will and ability to recognize it. Then offcourse that which is recognized to have a pattern, or be a pattern does not on its own contain this knowledge, will and ability. It does not contain the concept of a pattern, but is instead is an instance of one, an instance of a concept which is defined strictly in the recognizer. The previous sentences cultivated certain linguistic ambiguities - is a pattern something can be, or that something can have, or both? This ambiguity proves difficult to resolve, due to the inherent ambiguity in the qualifiers is and has. Certainly if we suppose that anything begins to have any definition, or a meaning only when it is perceived, or conceived, then the is qualifier really denotes what something is perceived, or conceived to be. Any questions of the validity of these perceptions and conceptions, are litterally out of scope here, since we do not yet have a clear definition of the idea of validity itself. Notwithstanding the resultant incompleteness of the definition of the is qualifier, it seems possible to further consider the former notions. Overall, the use, or execution of the is qualifier then implies this perceptual/conceptual interaction between an object and the observer. Returning to patterns, the question of whether something can have a pattern, or be a pattern, becomes merely a matter of perceptual, or conceptual interest and focus, which again surfaces the notion of a will - defined in any of the usual ways. In this way, the recognition of a mattern is a sort of match between the recognizers notion of a pattern, and what the recognizer perceives of conceives. The word match, more specifically denotes the existence of some sort of similarity or equivelence class. The case that two objects belong to the same similarity class is thus denoted by the symbol 'match'. The properties and behaviors of this similarity class are essentially isomorphic to those of the notion of being similar. The recognizer then contains the implications of this similarity - more specifically, the similarity between some perceptual information and the concept of a pattern, results in the perceptual information being recognized as a pattern. And thus we behold a pattern. Surely a pattern is more than just an instance of this rather general notion of a similarity class, perception, etc. A pattern exhibits additional definable properties and behaviors, after all, without which this discussion is misnamed. The attempt to discover exactly what these properties are, results in a strange loop. As stated previously, a pattern is a structure and a recognition of a structure is really the process by which the appropriate similarity class is instantiated, percisely in the manner that perception of conception itself occurs. Layering recognition iteself onto a spectrum, one can judge the extent to which a structure may be a recognized as pattern, simultanuously creating another dimension with which to understand a pattern.