An “isthmus” and a “bottleneck” are opposites. An isthmus provides a narrow but essential connection between two things (landmass, associations, causal chains). A bottleneck is the same except the connection is held back by its limited bandwidth. In the case of a bottleneck, increasing its bandwidth is top priority. In the case of an isthmus, keeping it open or discovering it in the first place is top priority.
I have a habit of making up pretty words for myself to remember important concepts, so I’m calling it an “isthmus variable” when it’s the thing you need to keep mentally keep track of in order to connect input with important task-relevant parts of your network.
When you’re optimising the way you optimise something, consider that “isthmus variables” is an isthmus variable for this task.
An “isthmus” and a “bottleneck” are opposites. An isthmus provides a narrow but essential connection between two things (landmass, associations, causal chains). A bottleneck is the same except the connection is held back by its limited bandwidth. In the case of a bottleneck, increasing its bandwidth is top priority. In the case of an isthmus, keeping it open or discovering it in the first place is top priority.
I have a habit of making up pretty words for myself to remember important concepts, so I’m calling it an “isthmus variable” when it’s the thing you need to keep mentally keep track of in order to connect input with important task-relevant parts of your network.
When you’re optimising the way you optimise something, consider that “isthmus variables” is an isthmus variable for this task.
I like the word and I like the idea of an opposite to “bottleneck”