Recursive Transition Networks and Obscure Relations to Linguistic Interplay.. :P (Document 7)
So I thought it would be a good idea to take a look at recursion visually portrayed in terms of nodes. This idea was what I wanted to implement with my conceptual mapping piece. It uses language to demonstrate explain its purpose with deeper meaning and abstraction in GEB, but we can gain a general idea of what recursion does.
Looking at diagram (b) for Fancy Noun, has two nodes on the upper path and one node on the lower path for Fancy Noun. Also note that at some paths there are still instructions to be executed. Now first off, this diagram would make no sense if there did not exist a direct non recursive base path from Ornate Noun -> End, otherwise we would create an out of control potentially nonsensical statement that would continue eternally and never end... The loop must be broken. We can recurse as much as we like but the first time we receive an 'End' we begin returning back through all the levels. This is what a single expanded node in the network looks like.
Now you could imagine if all the fancy nouns were expanded on a single network... Copies of the entire structure would nest within itself, which could further be expanded until infinity. Also, a statement born of this network is:
"The strange bagels that the purple cow without horns gobbled"
