We quickly polluted that thread, too. But it drives home the point that an email list is _not_ a (good) collaborative production tool.
Aha! I haven't heard from Cliff since my work for the PSL<https://www.psl.nmsu.edu/>. He supposedly works up at PNNL. Thanks for that article. Yes, I took Owen to be calling Russ' post a trolling post. But "troll" is like "complex", meaningless out of context. I'm completely baffled why "layer" isn't understood ... makes me think I must be wrong in some deep way. But for whatever it's worth, I believe I understand and _agree_ with Nick's circularity criticism of mechanistic explanations for complexity, mostly because of a publication I'm helping develop that tries to classify several different senses of the word "mechanistic". The 1st attempt was rejected by the journal, though. 8^( But repeating Nick's point back in my own words obviously won't help, here. Yes, I'm willing to help cobble together these posts into a document. But, clearly, I can't be any kind of primary. If y'all don't even understand what I mean by the word "layer", then whatever I composed would be alien to the other participants. One idea might be to use a "mind mapping" tool and fill in the bubbles with verbatim snippets of people's posts ... that might help avoid the bias introduced by the secretary. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_concept-_and_mind-mapping_software I also don't care that much about the meaning of "complex". So, my only motivation for helping is because y'all tolerate my idiocy. On 06/08/2017 12:52 PM, Steven A Smith wrote: > I admit to being over my depth, at least in attention, if not in ability to > parse out your dense text, and more to the point, the entire thread(s) which > gives me more sympathy with Nick who would like a tool to help organize, > neaten up, trim, etc. these very complex ( in the more common meaning of the > term) discussions. My experience with you is that you always say what you > mean and mean what you say, so I don't doubt that there is gold in that > mine... just my ability to float the overburden and other minerals away with > Philosopher's Mercury (PhHg) in a timely manner. > > I DO think Nick is asking for help from the rest of us in said parsing... > to begin, I can parse HIS first definition of "layer" is as a "laying hen"... > a chicken (or duck?) who is actively laying eggs. A total red-herring to > mix metaphors here on a forum facilitated by another kind of RedFish > altogether... a "fish of a different color" as it were, to keep up with the > metaphor (aphorism?) mixology. > > I DON'T think Owen was referring to you when he said: "troll", I think he was > being ironical by suggesting Russ himself was being a troll. But I could be > wrong. Owen may not even remember to whom his bell "trolled" in that > moment? In any case, I don't find your contribution/interaction here to be > particularly troll-like. Yes, you can be deliberately provocative, but more > in the sense of Socrates who got colored as a "gadfly" (before there were > trolls in the lexicon?). Stay away from the Hemlock, OK? > > I'm trying to sort this (simple?) question of the meaning (connotations) of > layering you use, as I have my own reserved use of the term in "complex, > layered metaphors" or alternately "layered, complex metaphors"... but that is > *mostly* an aside. I believe your onion analogy is Nick's "stratum" but I > *think* with the added concept that each "direction" (theta/phi from > onion-center) as a different "dimension". Your subsequent text suggests a > high-dimensional venn diagram. My own work in visualization of Partially > Ordered Sets (in the Gene Ontology) may begin to address some of this, but I > suspect not. > > https://arxiv.org/pdf/1312.4935.pdf > > I may continue to dig into this minefield of rich ore and interesting veins, > but it has gotten beyond (even) me as a multiple attender who thrives on this > kind of complexity (with limits apparently!). > > I think I heard you suggest that YOU would volunteer to pull in the various > drawstrings on this multidimensional bag forming of a half-dozen or more > branching threads... I'll see if I can find that and ask some more pointed > questions that might help that happen? > > I truly appreciate Nick's role (as another Socrates?) teasing at our language > to try to get it more plain or perhaps more specific or perhaps more concise? > Is there some kind of conservation law in these dimensions? -- ☣ glen ============================================================ FRIAM Applied Complexity Group listserv Meets Fridays 9a-11:30 at cafe at St. John's College to unsubscribe http://redfish.com/mailman/listinfo/friam_redfish.com FRIAM-COMIC http://friam-comic.blogspot.com/ by Dr. Strangelove
