paper I’m working on

TITLE

The Tapestry Method for Social Linguistic Consensus: Insights into Object Oriented Programming and a Proposed Foundation for the Decentralized Web

ABSTRACT

Members of a community, whether digital or biological, cannot communicate without language: a commonly accepted set of methods and tools for abstract representation and transmission of information. But how does the requisite consensus arise in the absence of a centralized authority? In this paper we propose the tapestry model as a solution to the problem of social linguistic consensus and consider its application in two quite distinct realms: digital and biological. In the digital realm, communities are composed of users who communicate using apps built from shared digital tools including digital standards, specifications, schemas, libraries, repositories, ontologies, etc. In the biological realm, communities are composed of human beings who communicate in speech or in writing using conventional languages: English, Chinese, etc. We propose the tapestry model to be an existing feature of the central nervous system, with the power and flexibility of human language being a testament to its utility. However, with the possible exception of large language models, the tapestry method does not characterize the digital tools of today. In this essay we outline an implementation of the tapestry method to the digital realm for realization of the decentralized web. Furthermore, the tapestry model may provide insights into the structure and function of class and object in object oriented programming as well as insights into the occasionally touted claim that OOP is a reflection of how we as human beings think.