シナジーのメタファー１

(1) Ironic principle

A　Introduction

　Thomas Mann keeps a distance from reality; on one hand to consider the irony as true as possible, and on the other to criticize it. That is ironic. The critical distance could be considered an ironic distance. In fact, a kind of constraint is set to the critical conciseness.
　The constraint counteracts the requirement for an exhaustively specified concept language from the nature of language medium. Fuzzy logic maintains that as the complexity of a system increases, our ability to make precise and yet nontrivial assertions about its behavior diminishes. For example, it is very difficult to prove a theorem about the behavior of an economic system that is of relevance to real-world economics.

B Characteristics

　The subjectivity could be taken as the common characteristic. The fuzzy theory leads not to the objectivity, but to the subjectivity in the science, while the principle that underlies the way taken by Thomas Mann and Hans Castorp shows the intention for self-conquest. However, that concept is individual, while this one is super-individual. Anyway, the problem is an individual identification for both concepts.

C Word choice

　The ironic words of Thomas Mann such as adjectives and adverbs don’t lose the object at all, only the real nucleus during intentional incorrectness, while the concept of a fuzzy set is vague such as “big people” or “more or less” which is neither extensional nor intensional.
Hanamura (2005) deals with the easy mode of thought with fuzzy logic. Fuzzy logic is an extension of classical logic. Fuzzy logic considers not only the classic cut-and-dry states such as yes/no, true/false, but also the many intermediate states.
　For example, I consider the lower limit of the set “long” as three weeks to visit in the summer vacation. The classic logic assigns each length of stay to the set “long”, which is 21 days or longer, but not under 21 days. Therefore, if the length of stay is 22 days, it’s definitely long, if it’s 20 days, it’s not so much.
　The comic affair (difference of only 2 days) corresponds neither to human mode of thought nor to everyday experience such as “very”, “about”. However, it can be explained by the membership value in the fuzzy logic. For example, a length of stay of 20 days could belong to the set “long” at 95%, a length of stay of 18 days (86%) as fairly long.
　The technique of regulation of fuzzy logic, that is, the fuzzy control needs only a verbal description, what one does in which condition. Strictly speaking, the fuzzy control consists of three modules: fuzzification, inference and defuzzification.

花村嘉英（2005）「計算文学入門−Thomas Mannのイロニーはファジィ推論といえるのか？」より英訳 translated by Yoshihisa Hanamura