Thanks, Glen,
Kind of you to respond. I will do a bit of larding below. Nick Nicholas S. Thompson Emeritus Professor of Psychology and Biology Clark University http://home.earthlink.net/~nickthompson/naturaldesigns/ -----Original Message----- From: Friam [mailto:friam-boun...@redfish.com] On Behalf Of glen ? Sent: Tuesday, June 20, 2017 3:42 PM To: The Friday Morning Applied Complexity Coffee Group <friam@redfish.com> Subject: Re: [FRIAM] the role of metaphor in scientific thought Y'all say: In <http://redfish.com/pipermail/friam_redfish.com/attachments/20170619/f46244d3/attachment-0001.pdf> http://redfish.com/pipermail/friam_redfish.com/attachments/20170619/f46244d3/attachment-0001.pdf: > > > If our analysis is correct, then the distinction between explanation > and description takes on an entirely new importance in science. > ... > The young man thinks, "This is not a unique problem, I am just a > bachelor," and goes about his business with a happier heart. > However, such relief is the philosophical equivalent of a placebo, and > it may be short- lived. Knowing that he is a bachelor tells the young > man nothing about his predicament that he did not already know. He > knew that he was unmarried, and that is all that it means to say one is a > bachelor. Moreover, he has learned nothing that might help him find a > solution to the problem. > > But, it seems to me that "This is not a unique problem" is THE fundamental scientific point. It may be the only thing about science that anyone should care about. You even lectured me way back to be careful about conflating idiographic vs. NOM-othetic information (emphasis is purposeful). Circularity (of description or explanation) is irrelevant. What matters is the reproducibility of experiments. It doesn't matter what you think happens between the laser and the film. What matters is that it does the same thing every time you run the experiment and which changes to the experiment cause which changes to the outcome. [NST==>Wow, Glen. You are the only person I ever met who successfully squeezed positive heuristic out of the bachelor case. Well done!<==nst] You may notice this is the same sort of criticism I applied to your paper about filter explanations. Even _if_ a particular bit of reasoning is circular, as long as it's not trivially circular ("flat", "thin", or "shallow"), there is information to be gained from examining that _circle_, that loop. So, the loop of unmarried <=> bachelor has information in it, even if the only information is (as in your example), the guy learns that because the condition has another name, perhaps there are other ways of thinking about it ... other _circles_ to use. [NST==>I assume you would agree that “unmarried because unmarried” is perniciously circular. Right? Just checking. <==nst] Now, if instead of the vagaries of psychology and natural language, you were talking in math or logic, even thick loops are more easily reduced to their thin ("normalized", "canonical") form. So, we can conclude, the more formal the language used to express the circle, the more obvious the circle. But you're not talking in or about math or logic. You're talking about psychology, human thought, etc. in this paper. And therefore my response to you is: [NST==>I suppose that one could argue that any time one writes a sentence of the form, A is a B, one has launched into metaphor. <==nst] Are YOU relying too heavily on the (silly) metaphor of computer to brain? Software to thought? [NST==>I hope not. I HATE that metaphor. <==nst] >8^D I'm only on page 7. So, maybe you eventually address this point. [NST==>You are one of the few people on the planet to reach page 7. How could I cavil!<==nst] Sorry if that's the case. [NST==>I will be interested to see if the next few pages help in any way. Thanks again, glen<==nst] On 06/18/2017 09:46 PM, Nick Thompson wrote: > FWLIW, The attached PDF is from a book manuscript, pieces of which have been > kicking around for more than 40 years, which Eric Charles has been trying > unsuccessfully to get me to pull together into something publishable. If any > of you is curious, the text will help you to understand the things I said in > the recent complexity discussion and their relation to the “levels” > discussion and the metaphor discussion that follows. The specific discussion > on metaphor is late in the pdf, so that if that is what interests you, you > can safely skip to the first section on models. For me, a model is just a > scientific metaphor. Full stop. > > > > If anybody had comments to share, we, of course, would be deeply grateful. -- ☣ 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> http://redfish.com/mailman/listinfo/friam_redfish.com FRIAM-COMIC <http://friam-comic.blogspot.com/> http://friam-comic.blogspot.com/ by Dr. Strangelove
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