Pattern In Everything

A pattern can be found in all kinds of things. What benefit is derived by articulating the existence of a pattern?

One Answer is ... (this is harder than I thought)

The naming of a pattern helps standardize our vocabulary for describing solutions to problem types. {Feel free to make this clearer}

Perhaps the perceived value of patterns can be maintained by asking the following question when discovering a new pattern:

Does the articulation of this new pattern fulfill a non academic purpose? {Feel free to make this a better question}

Articulating a pattern makes it easier to apply it in other areas. It makes it clear what the "essence" is as distinct from the "details" which can vary. This provides powerful leverage.

See also the traditional "scientific method."

MarkEichin

Naming is part of the process of "chunking", of collapsing a complex collection of entities into a single symbol which can then be manipulated as a unit. Names are tools for thinking with as well as for communicating with.

When you use the same name for two different things, you are claiming they have something in common. This is to make an abstraction, to ignore irrelevant detail. Once identified in this way, the abstraction is easier to recognize in a third thing. Patterns start jumping out at you.

I agree there is a danger of recognizing patterns which aren't there. The abstraction is then too detailed, not general enough; it doesn't recur. As Nietzsche would say, only the eternally recurring has value. -- DaveHarris

Patterns exhibit structure. The basis of structure is repetition. Hence, by eliminating repetition (i.e. by using patterns) we reduce the amount of data needed to encode the same information, in a perpetual attempt to reach core kernel knowledge, which is completely unpredictable. So, pattern use is a form of compression. -- JosephTurian

See PatternDictionaryGame SingleNamePatternsCreateConflicts

EditText of this page (last edited February 10, 2005)
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