Re: <documenta X><blast> protocol
Alan * Sondheim (sondheim@panix.com)
Thu, 26 Jun 1997 04:42:39 -0400 (EDT)
Protocols - to the extent we can talk about the basic TCP/IP layering, are
more of structure than structuring agent; information is carried within
the scaffolding lamina. I think it's at least germane to consider the
TCP/IP protocol suite not as regulation so much as (broken) totality, in
the absence of which would be noise, and no communication channels. By
"totality" I mean a closed universe or potential well structured by the
protocol suite. To this extent, TCP/IP can also be considered a suit of
agreements or contracts among computers, creating the potential for ex-
change. Peirce wrote about a _sheet of assertion_ as fundamental to
inscription/communication; I've written elsewhere about symmetrical
substructures slotting communicative units. Finally, it should be noted
that protocol layers and suites relate to each other in complex ways that
are usually "nearly decomposable," and it is this last that makes the Net
relatively robust. (The term is from Herbert Simon.)
Alan