Variant Knot Vs. New Knot - who cares?

General Discussion
21

Derek

I’m with you on the description issue. The problem to me is that if I say “here’s a new fixed loop” it can be described technically but finding the “original” knot which I have inadvertantly rediscovered cannot be done by searching for a description in similar language because there isn’t one. I would like to look for one or more key differences (a bit like fingerprint comparison but actually the reverse of that process) and then decide - on a case by case basis - whether “new” or “variant” or neither were appropriate. There must be dozens if not more knots in the public domain which are without ABOK so could we not use an empirical approach - try some of the simpler ones and gradually learn what to look for? Two examples - the Beer knot, distinguished by the material it’s tied in and method of aligning the material before tying (otherwise it’s just an overhand knot) and an eye splice in kernmantel rope which is completely different from spliced laid rope, described in text would probably be quite lengthy but at a glance they are only similar at a very superficial level. Over time we build a knowledge base of experience (and there are threads here which go into some detail comparing knots)- as long as you can find something to compare the “new” knot with!

Unfortunately we are not starting from scratch with ABOK on the shelf, just published, and sitting back awaiting “new” knots to appear - they are out there already so the job of recording progess has a lot of catching up to do.

Barry

Barry

22

I thought we were looking for a way to distinguish between knots, not for a way to describe all knots. Even if we have all knots in front of us in description we could only make the comparison by having somebody who has tied the knot before and knows its turns and twists be able to look at the knot and say “yes, but if you do this it is exactly the same, so this may be a variant” How many of us when looking at a knot look at it from only one perspective? That simply does not ring true - we twist and turn it, we try to undo or relieve it a little and we examine it from all sides. With a drawing we do this mentally as we seek out the pattern. I remain unconvinced that drawings alone will help determine the newness, and certainly not that a number will decide the newness - it is when we have someone who has tied that knot (or something like it) before that we have the beginning of pattern recognition. Computers are WAY behind - they can barely recognize faces yet and that only from a single perspective. :slight_smile:

SR

23

Absolutely right - but you still need to find the known knot or knots which may have been rediscovered or varied before you can begin to establish similarities to and differences from the proposed knot. Drawings and photos are not enough to draw a firm conclusion but they are enough to establish that a knot or knots are worth shortlisting as possibles among the already known knots thus leading to a more detailed comparison by whatever method seems appropriate to the case in point. And then the difficulty starts but I am afraid I don’t see an abstract discussion of how this might be done getting us very much further although it has served to stimulate a useful discussion. Until there is somewhere where known knots can be reliably found to provide the starting point in locating a comparator I am not sure how far one can get - at the risk of being repetitive ABOK is simply not sufficiently up to date to be the only reference work.

Numbering has nothing to do with newness per se - it is simply an unambiguous (and language independent) way to communicate the identity of a particular knot from a numbered collection of knots thus I can suggest that my new loop knot is derived from knot #5678 but in my opinion qualifies as new because… Then the experts examine ponder and decide. Whether minor variations are included and given a distinguishing number is really up to the people managing the collection - in the short term this is probably more trouble than it’s worth.

Barry

24

Thanks Barry,

Effectively that puts this topic to bed I think. I like your thinking - I was going to suggest having a new “Encyclopedia” of knots as a referent point made up of actual tied knots each (or more likely several) mounted on boards that were then kept in some repository such as the British Library or the Smithsonian Museum. That could then be used as a deposit of useful knowledge - quite a task! ;D

SR

25
When the good people who make up the requisite committee of the IGKT get together to discuss a purported "new" knot, just what is it they seek and how do they make the differentiation? Maybe one of them will be kind enough to respond ...

One of them will. I’ve been a bit slow in so doing, looking back over some old notes
et cetera. --and over a now aged draft of an article “On New Knots” I’d begun for
Knotting Matters , which has languished unfinished; I’ll excerpt from it here. But
I can present some of the history and the rationale of the committee, here.

My motivation for establishing the New-Knot Claims Assessment Committee
(back in 1999-November, pub’d in km67:03-6, June 2000) was, as stated:

In response to the issue raised in km57:57 and in various KM Letters, most notably that from Roger Miles [km58:12], the Council has approved the formation of a committee of the IGKT to handle the initial validation of new knot claims. Guild Member Dan Lehman, who made the proposal to the Council, has been appointed as its chairman. This committee is named "New Knots Claims Assessment Committee (NKCAC)"; its purpose is to receive, review, and give technical opinion on claims by members and others: that a knot is unknown in knot literature and is valid in terms of performance.

One obvious relief as I saw it was the removal of such Is-it-New? queries
from KM when in many cases the answer was clear. (E.g., one fellow,
as did I ca. '73, “invented” the Marlinespike hitch – no benefit to having
KM pages carry such a claim or question, and then the answer(s). The
Perfection/Anglers Loop has appeared more than once there; and some
other, single bowline-in-the-bights have been repeatedly presented.)
Beyond that, our “assessment” was hoped to put a candidate novelty
through some pulling & testing and various-materials checking.

That was the glorious if naive intent of the committee. Over time,
various of the members lost interest or failed to find it, and this
poor manager left some matters idle, even. (Roger, e.g., decided
he only liked symmetric bends–no loops or hitches for him! (Hence
my remark re the Hobart meeting.) Brion only added to our work:
he forwarded some claims!) And in most instances, frankly, the
candidate knots were well shy of inspiring, IMHO. Our one published
report addressed a set of knots whose claim to novelty came sort of
second-hand–relayed of an Italian book read by Swede Sten Johansson;
most of the “new” knots were found, largely in [u]EKFR, and some
more likely novelties were deemed the sort of things about which a
good inventor would want to keep quiet! :wink: (Frankly, I think that much
of [u]EKFRopework is invention, & dubious.)

I decided that “new” would be manifest as “new to us” and that meaning
that we’d not found it in our collective resources–though there is only so
much not in Ashley (ample, but not well put anywhere else --well, of
course “ample”: infinity minus a few hundred equals . . . infinity). Imagine
the application of this criterion to what I subsequently found in considerable
usage on both sides of the Atlantic, and call “Reverse Groundline Hitch”
–a seizing hitch (also my term) used by commercial fishermen to bind
together netting & ground-/head-lines! --haven’t seen it in a book, as I
distinguish it from the Groundline H. in loading & purpose (& materials!).
But it’s hardly “new”; and probably some small publication DOES show
it, but that is so far unknown to me.

This leads me to some strong assertions: (1) it?s easy to invent new knots; (2) novelty, per se, is a small (and, of course, fleeting!) value for a knot. If you accept my views on new, you should surely come to agree with (1): even Ashley hasn?t all so vast a collection of structures in ABOK*, and other books add little more; it?s simple to step outside of these published knots with a slight alteration to them--presto, ?new knot?. (*Simplistic claims for ABOK having ?over 3500 knots? are based on the illustration ID #s, many of which don?t identify knots, and many knots are illustrated more than once; the number of actual knots, esp. practical ones, is far smaller: e.g., only about 50 each of bends & single-loop knots, and 100 hitches are given.) I should also remark that I take ?knot? to be specific: e.g., contrary Harry Asher, I do not believe that Ashley was aware of Asher?s ?Shakehands? bend (or the corresponding loopknot), as the knot of that structure shown in ABOK (#1031) is loaded differently. So, one then must shrug ?so what?? (as C.Warner has privately challenged me). Here, the bar of worthiness is applied: I?m happy to credit, with a published presentation, knots that have some possible worth--be it in function or in (interestingly novel) structure--; for the others, I can simply confirm to the enquirer that we?ve found no match (and qualify the significance of that), and give our rationale for assessing a knot as dubious. Thus, we must ask what [i]rope problem[/i] the knot solves, and how it compares with known solutions. Perhaps its value isn?t confirmed, but only suggested--and we then assess an uncertain future for it.

Well, what hangs on new ?!
–to the inventor, fame? Rather unlikely; and the IGKT isn?t giving prizes or certificates
for the discovery of a new knot.
–or just respect from one?s peers? But maybe this shouldn?t depend on being first:
if a child discovers the well-known knots for herself, isn?t that most meritorious?!
Or do we just weigh some absolute value of the invented knots, irrespective of each
inventor?s reach to discover them? In the case of the IGKT, we at most give the new
knot and its inventor(s) recognition and whatever publicity derives from being
featured in KM; perhaps, in some special cases, we might go further, and advocate
the invention to other forums–such as SAIL, Climbing, or a Scouting magazine.
And in giving recognition, we shall try to use words carefully to not imply more
than some objective truth that So-&-so has found this knot, and viola!
Now, even of those knots that can be found in the literature, there are some
that ought to be more widely known, to ?us?–e.g., it was of scant value that the
?new? #1425a (added to [u]ABOK ) was published by Phil Smith in his obscure book.
Thus, Hunter?s (re-)discovery of it made a big splash: voila, here we are today,
IGKT! (And hence my name for it, “SmitHunter?s Bend”–which isn?t used by hunters,
riggers, or smiths!) Some things bear repeating. There might also be cases of
a new tying method or link to some other knots (from which the ?new? candidate
was derived).

A more reasonably practical/productive course for the IGKT to take is to try to
map/articulate a knotting universe of structures, aiming to organize what is
known, and through serendipity (a good name for lack of rigor!) and the use
of a check list as noted above for any tangle (i.e., exploring it for different
loading profiles), and other methods of projection , this universe can be
proactively enlarged–not just sitting back and waiting for the odd (some are
quite so!) query about a “new” knot from the outside world. --a sort of building
of a [u]Greater ABoK , as it were. --for which, yes, a good knot-ID system
would be most helpful. Nevermind about names so much, or don’t let that issue
hamper progress; there is much confusion and via the internet the rapidfire
spread of nonsense, re knot names. Still, Wikipedia e.g. can stand as a now
global reference cleaned of the nonsense, and offers one hope towards that.

Derek opined, as have several others in the past,

it is highly probable that every knot and variation we create will have been created already by someone, somewhere, sometime in this world.
which I greet with ambivalence. For some cases, it's true--i.p., that grand knot that bound together knot "tyers" from around the world (and, I will again crusade, [i]should be the logo for the so-bound guild, it's right-angle four ends symbolizing the major compass points, E-W, N-S !![/i] )--; but in others, I think that both the difference in historical materials (anything like nylon monofilament fishing line?) and the witnessed lack of ingenuity in known knots & novelties leads me to seriously doubt the assertion. But at least one can yet argue "Who knows?!" and cast the doubt. Again, what hangs on "new"?

As for “variant”, that is much a judgement call, in my mind. One can e.g. think
of the simplest knot, the Overhand, tied as a binder around something; then
of loading one end to make it a hitch (which can be effective in some cases);
then of making what Ashley calls a Half hitch (and I class as a noose-hitch),
which will work in some cases qua ring-hitch; and then in the form slightly
different in which the tail is set back around the object under the SPart like
a minimal Timber Hitch. These are now four distinct , be they
one knot or several or variants. And although simple, it seems that we’ll find
such cases where useful variations are simply overlooked. (Among my more
recent discoveries: a re-dressing of the infamous Granny knot, which looks
quite good, in some material–secure when slack, strong-looking, and easy
to loosen (pull ends) (in some other materials, alas, its stability under load
isn’t so good. While its only a re-dressing, I regard it as distinct and “new”.)

[well, whew, I need to be doing other errands! --all for now]

–dl*

26

Whew!

Reading up on all these posts makes me think that we are addressing more than one issue here.

  1. What is a new knot, variant, etc?
  2. How do we catalog them?

I don’t think we’ve still come to a conclusive answer to number 1. But I think that to create a IGKT numbering system isn’t a bad idea. And I don’t think that it even matters whether or not a knot is “new” to be put into the catalog. As to the example of the Killick hitch and the Timber hitch, are they different knots or just variations? Yes. But they can still be catalogued, given separate numbers.

This still doesn’t answer question 1, but it may not be necessary to have an exact definition. I don’t know.

And for next week, let’s come up with a definition of sports, with the bonus question, is Chess a sport? (Please no, let’s not)

27

Dan

I had no idea that there already was as ‘New Knot Claims Assessment Committee’. In fact when Lindsey mentioned earlier to Paco that he should send his knot to the Guild for assessment, I was certain that he was exercising a ‘leg pull’.

So, questions questions —

Is the committee still in operation?
Who are its members?
What is your remit and what is the basis for guiding your decision making?
but perhaps most importantly, what have the committee ‘assessed’ and where have you recorded your assessments?
and
How come you haven’t mention your role or this committee when ‘new knots’ have been posted onto this forum? Were they ‘captured’ by the committee and assessed behind the scenes?

What did the committee make of Dave Roots lovely Myrtle Knot (collapsed Constrictor on self, forming a bend or a loop)? or Paco’s knot which led to this thread?

What system have you used to designate the new knots that have been found to be ‘new to you’ and what are your thoughts on using an extended ABoK numbering system?

Derek

28

As usual Dan, I have given myself the opportunity of reading you writings (especially the important ones) more than once, and as ever even more jumps out on the subsequent reads.

I really am astounded and more than a little disappointed that this hugely important committee is not writ large across every Guild surface. For example, why on earth isn’t there an NKCAC board on this Forum? Surely the Guild realises that no matter what a persons age, when you come upon the wonderful world of knots, there is barely greater excitement than discovering a new structure (even if it is the most popular ‘new knot’ ever discovered). It matters not how good or great the discovery is, and most are not looking for kudos, it matters only that people are ‘playing’ with cord and discovering ways of making it structurally interact with itself in ways that were new to them.

Surely we should be promoting this passion and interest, even down to handing out certificates for - ‘This Months Marlin Spike Knot invention goes to …’ discovering this knot for oneself is a great thing, not something to be ashamed of. Had I discovered it, then I would have loved to have been awarded an IGKT certificate stating that Derek Smith had Invented / Discovered the famous Marlinspike Hitch on such and such a date. – The Guild commends his budding knotmanship.

And when someone really does discover/invent and new knot or method of tying, then what nicer than to receive an IGKT certificate for their contribution to the knotting world. On the one hand it is 50 pence worth of paper and postage, on the other it is a powerful means of reinforcing the pleasure to be had from knotting as a hobby.

One observation I would offer though is that it might be wise to consider divorcing the establishment of ‘Newness’ from ‘Usefulness’. Yes, someone might have submitted a really crappy knot that will (should) never see the light from beyond the trouser pocket, but that should not detract from the fact that its discoverer was part of the effort to map our world of knots. Evaluation of a knots usefulness is probably better left to the wider world of practical evaluation and critical review through the medium of the likes of this forum.

Would we double the size of KM if we published every new knot and method submitted? and even if we did, so what? It demonstrates the measure of interest amongst members for this sport. All knots do not have to be ‘Matthew Walkers’ to justify accolade, they just have to promote the fun of knotting.

So Dan, what are the guidelines for submitting a knot or method to ‘eN Kack’ and where are the submissions to be made?

Lindsey, what is your remit for publication of these little jewels and what format do you require, and can you regularly publicise this committee?

Mel, can we have an ‘eN Kack’ board please - ‘For the submission and discussion of proposed new and variant knots and methods of tying and knot usefulness’

Derek

29

I like the ideas in this but suggest that although KM is a good way to congratulate and recognise members’ efforts it is (at present at least) restricted to members. Given the remit of the Guild as a public charity would it be more appropriate to devote a section of the website to showing new knots - starting with those not published in Ashley but already in the public domain (though not unfortunately in one place)? This in itself might inspire non-members to join and it provides support for our educational aims. A section for the NKCAC and its work could sit alongside. This may prove advantageous in the UK because of the Charity legislation under which the Guild operates - we must demonstrate a “public benefit” to retain charitable status (the fact that the benefits of our efforts are potentially worldwide is to be welcomed).

Barry

30

Excellent idea Barry, but it needs volunteers.

Perhaps Forum members can start to amass material here for transfer to the website. At least we will see how much volunteer interest it attracts.

Derek

31

So, knotting has become “sport”, then!? Maybe in addition to Practical & Decorative
forums we need “Sport”–threads like “Most New Knots in a Week Award” or something.
But we most certainly do NOT need a eNKack board.

The absurdity of this should sink in to those with reasonable reflection; to others, I’'m
not sure it’s worth debating. The last thing we need is a system of certificates for
“invention”.

Derek Smith had Invented / Discovered the famous Marlinspike Hitch on such and such a date. -- The Guild commends his budding knotmanship
... or cites him w/penalty for poor research skills? (This has all the sound of the frequent practice of posters asking questions of forum residents that Google would've answered.)

Look, there is ample, worthwhile work to be done in just putting the limited published
knowledge into order–including killing the abundant nonsense, and qualifying much of
the remainder as “best guess” and wanting a sound basis. Ashley alone has more knots
than most are familiar with, so why do you want any more–those “new” knots of lore?
Doesn’t it say something worth SHOUTING and remarking that several books of whom
are regarded as prominent knot tyers have not even gotten so simple–and so worthwhile,
practically (though I’m yet to find it, “in the wild”)–a knot as Ashley’s “Oysterman’s” Stopper
correct? There is an enormous amount of slop to clean up with extant knots before getting
over-excited by oddball “new” knots, especially were those to be garnered mostly in the
hope of winning some certificate!

[u]Pocket Guide to Knots & Splices , pp.48-9 , by Des Pawson

[u]Knots
–by Richard Hopkins, p.58
–by Gordon Perry, p.24

[u]Ultimate Enclopedia of Knots & Ropework , p.118, by Geoffrey Budworth

… et al.!
And in one case, well, it got bungled enough in a book I contributed to
([u]Outdoor Knots --but contrary Clyde, it wasn’t me who bungled it),
and renamed the “Bowline Stopper”, which is the right knot pulled on the
wrong end! amazing (& “new”)

Among things crossing the NKCAC’s purview were the Scott Knot, seen here
in a sort of re-birth towards that certificate (as I wryly noted) and the Karash
Loop (Google gets it at its own site and in a Cavers’ forum discussion). The
former was published by Owen “New Knots Inc.” Nuttall in KM, for whatever
that was worth (no certificate), and the latter was seen as [u]EKFR 's “Twist
Bowline” correspondent to the Bowline’s Bowline on a Bight–which reveals
a twin-eye-making mechanism (insert eye-bight tip and do back-flip) that
will work on most any eyeknot (so, just think of the potential projection into
many, many “new” knots!).

Need I reiterate the curious history of the Guild’s founding based upon a “new”
“Hunter’s Bend” knot that (1) really wasn’t so new as thought, and (2) isn’t all
so appealing as various then-extant knots such as Ashley’s Bend #1452, #1425,
& Rosendahl’s Bend? SmitHunter’s is an okay knot, which thrilled me to discover
back in 1973, but does it deserve all that hoopla in the face of those other bends?
No.

If I wanted to, I could contribute a “new” knot daily for 3 years or more (newer ones
tend to pop up in mulling over the knots in preparation for illustration, I find). And
to what end, given how little is appreciation of things already out in the published
knot-space, AND things not there but in the wild ? In another current thread here,
we have some new bowlines not only revealed but heading for some testing–and
the general case of a bowline-around-3-diameters, one way or another; AND at
last a decent indication of where a bowline breaks. (Although the absence of this
did not prevent Dick Chisholm from posting a sometimes-cited paper about it,
quite wrong, but demonstrating the power of “structural analysis”–yeah, right.
And Derek was going to demonstrate in a similar nevermind-reality way the
dangers of the bowline’s “Gee Spot”?! Well, re that, you can just shift the location
a little, I think, and still go with one thrust of the argument vis-a-vis a knot giving
some broader compression/constriction. Barnes found such spots in the center
of the Blood knot for monofilament nylon.)

The grand work to be done in knotting closest to this “new knot” lust is the
classification of knots, and in building that the exploration by a rigorous
checklist examination of “knots” that result from each given “tangle”. In
the process, knot-making mechanisms (e.g., insert eye tip into nub, back-flip
bighTip to lock) can be witnessed & extracted & applied in other cases.
One will soon find this to be a huge task, and might engage some shorthand
ways to signal “and much of the same lies in that direction”; I can, without
tying, conceive of the quadruple Grapevine Bend (= quintuple Fisherman’s knot),
and I don’t care to check for its existence in publications or create a certificate for it.

As for continuing Ashley’s numbering? --no, no: for one, his numbers aren’t
aren’t all for “knots”; and a good classification system should have an entry-ID
that is more sophisticated re connoting/denoting its referent (but that is quite
a challenge). Names are clearly a troubling issue; the best we can do at the
moment is to fight the more obvious mis-naming as we find it, which only adds
to the already confused names situation. (One effort might be to establish the
way to apply such qualifiers as “double”.) Conceivably, Ashey’s numbers could
serve as temporary IDs in extension either by adding to the numbers (in the
sense of #3854 + n), or using them as a component of a new number (e.g.,
“1452.a”, “1452.b”, & “1452.c”, vs. “1452.1”, … --former for dressings of the
extant knot; the last for a “new” knot deemed best corresponding to 1452!?).

Other grand work is to get out into the various fields with knotting components
and observe what is actually done. This was my troubled urging for the good
folks of PAB who join in a Fisherman’s festival in September and so are in place
to rub shoulders and share/gain knowledge with/from them; that my urging fell
flat for want of volunteer interest speaks to me about where the Guild needs
action–and it’s not to go to expend it on flights of fancy in finding “new” knots.
In any case, novelty needs a firmer base of “familiar” to distinguish itself from.

And we can look to the on-going project to create an Improved Index for [u]ABOK
to see how well some once-celebrated actions are doing (and whether in fact
it actually IS “on-going”).

–dl*

32

So, one day a member of a rare breed, that of ‘Budding Knotter’, is twiddling away and comes across a brilliant hauling knot - sooper easy to tie, even inline, balanced in pull on a hauling handle, doesn’t jam, extremely strong and best of all, it comes undone with a twist or by slipping out the hauling handle.

Our Novice is excited at ‘finding’ such a useful knot and naturally wants to know more - is it new? what is it called? etc. etc.

It seems you would have this interested novice scouring Google rather than face ‘penalty for poor research skill’

Now our novice can take a picture of their knot, but you cannot Google a picture, only text, so perhaps they Googled - ‘hauling knot’ - sorry, you won’t find easy reference to the marlinspike hitch that way. If you were not that much of a novice and you had FCB4 you might draw the diagram and click ‘Find’ - then you would be lucky because the binary signature would take you to this page http://theknotlibrary.wikidot.com/100011 and they would have been in luck with discovering what it was called for themselves. But fewer novices will know about FCB4 than will know the name of the marlinspike hitch, so that is an improbable source of knowledge.

How then would you have them discover the identity of their knot? Scour the internet for pictures of knot, scour books. Yes of course that would work for this knot eventually, but our budding knotter might loose interest long before success and the world of knotting might loose a new recruit.

How much easier to have a well signposted place to go, to describe your knot and post a picture and ask other interested people if they recognise it.

And if we did have such a place and if they did come to it, then the very last thing they should be met with is censure for not being professional enough to have known that they were asking such a ‘silly question’ and not to bother the very busy experts.

I would suggest to you that if eNKacK had to serve a thousand discoveries of the marlinspike hitch, that the world of knotting would be much more prolific and fun and secure than it is today. Far from thinking that an eNKack board would be an absurd addition, I believe that it is an important enhancement to the service that the Guild purports to provide whilst at the same time it would reduce the amount of ‘silly questions’ that might get fired in the direction of our NKCAC resource.

Anyway, enough of my opinion - any chance of some response to the rest of my post?

Is the committee still in operation? Who are its members? What is your remit and what is the basis for guiding your decision making? but perhaps most importantly, what have the committee 'assessed' and where have you recorded your assessments? and How come you haven't mention your role or this committee when 'new knots' have been posted onto this forum? Were they 'captured' by the committee and assessed behind the scenes?

What did the committee make of Dave Roots lovely Myrtle Knot (collapsed Constrictor on self, forming a bend or a loop)? or Paco’s knot which led to this thread?

What system have you used to designate the new knots that have been found to be ‘new to you’ and what are your thoughts on using an extended ABoK numbering system?

…, what are the guidelines for submitting a knot or method to ‘eN Kack’ and where are the submissions to be made?

Lindsey, what is your remit for publication of these little jewels and what format do you require, and can you regularly publicise this committee?

Derek

33

I don’t think Dan is against all questioning any more than you are against any independent research. I’ll let him speak for himself.

As an aside, I doubt many people would download a program from an essentially unknown source. Red flag city. And if the program only checks a handful of knots, I doubt even the most trusting users would bother.

34

I agree Roo, do you think there is any chance of the Guild promoting FCB4 ??

Derek

35

Uh, the Guild isn’t exactly Microsoft. They are hardly in a position to vouch for the soundness of software.

36

Once again i don’t think that the “topology” is the only answer, but rather how the force is conducted through the formation/topology, and the functions those mechanics make.

Case in point, if we take a turn and cross 1 leg over it, and pull we can have a type of hitch, but if we pull the other leg we just have a crossed turn(?). So, a Clove wouldn’t be 2 opposing Hitches (as might be described by topology); but rather a 'Crossed Turn" and a Hitch(?). Anyway, by whatever name, the lacing/topology/static picture are the same; but as the dynamics of force and motion take place, the lacings obviously have a differance.

In the Bowline example, we can describe the Bowline as a SheetBend to self to form eye(like an Anchor to self to form eye creates a dblNoose), but should also note that now the ‘lock’/choke turns from a Hitch in the SheetBend (no tension on the Bitter End after Hitch) to a Half Hitch in Bowline(tension force on both ends of “Hitch” formation).

A Clove or Constrictor are symetrical, so are same lacing name and function pulled from either direction/leg. But, wouldn’t a “Bag Knot” be the same topology, but called a different name if pulled by the opposite leg(Bitter End). It still holds very well, is formed same, but the dynamics of force flow thru differently.

A Cow pulled by either leg is still a Cow, but; pulled by both legs evenly, is a Girth, etc.

37

Unless the conduits of forces (or lack of forces) is considered part of the topology. For example; standing part, free end, and loop legs should all be considered integral parts of topology in my opinion.