The Problem with Connecting Dots.....

Leifer

Senior Member.
When connecting dots .......which image gives you the best picture ?....visually, or cognitive/logically ?

Same dots connected....in different ways....



(http://www.100open.com/2008/12/connecting-dots-and-valuing-networks/)

There are many ways of connections, depending on the application.
Roads for example.
Electronic circuitry.
Airline destinations.
Social media connections.
Connecting random occurrences to make them seem as if they now have order.

The problem is how to decide if the dots connected are meaningful and logically effective, or are they random, or some other way ?
Maybe they connect 1 dot to 50 dots, because that's what's wanted (a goal).
Maybe they connect a ratio of intersections/points ?
Do they follow a meaningful path that efficiently eases their connection in a particular order ? (if that's what you want to happen).
Or are they connected subjectively, to create a new pattern where there was none before, to invent a new explanation ?

Carl Sagan explaining this... (skip to 4:00 minutes)
(sorry for lousy site)
 
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When connecting dots .......which image gives you the best picture ?....visually, or cognitive/logically ?

Same dots connected....in different ways....



(http://www.100open.com/2008/12/connecting-dots-and-valuing-networks/)

There are many ways of connections, depending on the application.
Roads for example.
Electronic circuitry.
Airline destinations.
Social media connections.

The problem is how to decide if the dots connected are meaningful and logically effective, or are they random, or some other way ?
Maybe they connect 1 dot to 50 dots, because that's what's wanted.
Maybe they connect a ratio of intersections/points ?
Do they follow a meaningful path that efficiently eases their connection in a particular order ? (if that's what you want to happen).
Or are they connected subjectively, to create a new pattern where there was none before ?

Carl Sagan explaining this... (skip to 4:00 minutes)
(sorry for lousy site)
Thank you to the third power.
 
Last edited by a moderator:
I've wanted to make a Conspiracists Join the Dots books before.

It'd consist of pages and pages of random dots and sheets of number stickers.

I reckon it'd sell quite well on ebay as a novelty, although I've never checked if it's already been done and chances are it has.
 
We certainly live by the use of connecting dots, like in road maps. Google maps will connect you to the most "efficient" route.
Connecting dots is really a form of mapping.

Chihuahua Mexico
to Alberdeen, SD
to Galveston, TX
to Salt Lake, UT
to Fort Wayne, IN
back to Chihuahua, Mexico
mapping_google.jpg mapping_google2.jpg
 
Reminds me of Richard Hoagland and his asinine attempt to make sense of the all the points in an area of Mars as proof someone did something. LOL.
 
yeah funny thing being able to take several arbitrary points, connect them, and say by His Noodly Appendage it seems like this was placed here on purpose. (Although I'm sure Hoagland isn't a Pastafarian.)
 
Very often, dots are connected linearly, in line...like a math equation written out.... a+b=c.
I'm no mathematician, but there are often pauses and computations during that path that if not resolved as the "line-of-dots" continues (and added input), a proper result is unobtainable.
Maybe that's not dots per se ....that's perhaps a series of dashes that are linear and often reversible in direction.
There is also the algebraic "unknown factor" "x" which may not be revealed until a and b are resolved/known....so there is sometimes a skipping back and forth.

This is simple math, and I failed algebra in highschool because the teacher was so boring.....yet as an artist back then, I understood the basics of M.C.Escher's birds, and how to create them.

I drew this for him this on the chalkboard....and I passed the class, barely.........even though it was not really algebra.

Untitled.gif
 
I could get better at this, but here's a try.....

Just dots...

dots_only.jpg

Indian dots...

minus_cacti.jpg

Cacti dots....

minus_indian.jpg

All together....

Untitled-1.jpg


So an Indian and Cacti are related, because of the dots (??)
 
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