BLACK BOX ENGINEERING
Written 11/10/24
Published 11/10/24
Black Box Engineering
Justin Bailey
What is a black box? Isn’t this a paradoxical question?
A black box is a thing that you don’t understand. You’ve simply assigned a label to it, like “model”, or “Claude”, or “black box”, or “thing”.
So it would make sense to consider “black box engineering” to be essentially a sum of our collective intuition trying to understand a thing (or the concept of “things”), without actually understanding the thing. In any other case, we might actually be able to understand and predict the behavior of the thing with sufficient (?) resolution, which would precisely constitute the thing as a “known” phenomenon rather than a “black box”.
So how might we analyze a black box, with little to no information about what it is, what it does, or what might be wrong with it? Very slowly and carefully, of course.
A thing generally has some coherent unifying principle(s) that aligns perspectives to it, e.g. an apple is red, and many people observe this. This is not to say the apple is objectively red, but rather to say that this assertion of redness is one that many people would align to in this case.
A thing generally has structure, or behavior. If it didn’t, or if the behavior is irrelevant/unobservable, then there would be no reason to pay attention to any resolute structure of the thing, beyond the notion that it is indeed a thing.
A thing is something that can be observed. If it can’t be observed, why would you purport some model of it?
A thing is a thing. If you disagree, write your own paper about it. If we are to assume that a thing is a thing, this is a meaningful statement in a language, with measurable consequences.
These are all words, in a language. This essay is a set of symbols. This set is a black box.
What does this set of symbols do?
C: tells you about things in a coherent manner
K: tells you about the states/behaviors of things
O: is observable
D: is useful/practical/relevant
The previous list is a set of symbols. This set is a black box.
What does this set of symbols do?
C: tells you about the essay in a coherent manner
K: tells you about the states/behaviors of the essay
O: is observable
D: is useful/practical/relevant
What is CKOD? These letters have yet to be explained here.
CKOD is a set of symbols. This set is a black box.
What does this set of symbols do?
C: describes metacognition in a coherent manner
K: describes the states/behaviors of metacognition
O: is observable
D: is useful/practical/relevant
It appears that CKOD is a set of symbols which intends to inform thinking about any particular thing, as demonstrated by its ability to organize information about things, this essay, itself, etc.
A model which intends to inform reasoning about other models is a metacognitive model, or metamodel, regardless of the contents/structure of the metamodel.
“Rock music” is a metamodel construct that resonates/responds strongly with certain styles of music. Understanding the general notion of rock music allows you to understand the notion of “punk music”, “soft rock”, or some equivalently concrete version of rock music.
CKOD is a metamodel construct that responds to knowledge models (including itself). Understanding CKOD allows you to understand how to think about “things” or “black boxes” in an optimized and efficient way.
