Re: [FRIAM] questions continued - reply to glen
-BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE- Hash: SHA1 Prof David West wrote: Major distraction prevented replying sooner. That's the beauty of e-mail! No cultural universals is the antidote to the disease of ethnocentrism Aha! I hadn't thought of that, at all. So, regardless of the finer points about universal, abstraction, and such, the proposition There are no cultural universals serves as a kind of dialectical tool to pop the audience out of any ethnocentric paradigm they might be in when they first hear it. And, of course, that proposition (neither true nor false, really) would continue to help refine rationale throughout one's research. Very cool. necro-cannabilism - there is no category change involved at all. In necro-cannabalism, in fact lineage is acknowledged and serves to set priorities - I get to consume the remains of my parents and children before the rest of the band gets their share. Would you mind citing an example of a culture that engaged in necro-cannabalism that acknowledges lineage? I had no idea such cultures existed. Or, if info is plentiful, is necro-cannabalism the primary key word? are made - in the form of all cultures abhor murder. To deny cultural universals in this context is simply stating that in the areas of world view, values, norms, beliefs, and language there is no more universality across cultures in the abstract than there is in the concrete. Even if there appears to be syntactic commonality (all cultures believe in the supernatural) there is not semantic consistency, each culture means something different for the same syntactic expression. I get the point, here, about the grounding changing between any two cultures. However, it's one thing to say that the semantic grounding _changes_, which is a weak argument for locality. It's much stronger to say that, when the semantic grounding changes from one culture to the next, there are no semantic _mappings_ between the two groundings that allow an invariant across any of those mappings. I.e. just because the semantic grounding changes doesn't mean it completely changes. There can be (and are, I suspect) some invariants when mapping the semantic groundings between any _two_ cultures. And I suspect there are invariants when those mappings are applied. That would mean that given any _two_ cultures, there are some identifiable universals (over the set of two). But as we increase the size of the set from two to three to N, the number of those invariants shrinks, perhaps quite rapidly. So, the weak form of There are no cultural universals simply acknowledges the uncertainty between any quantification over the set of cultures. But a strong form would precisely specify the quantification (over _all_ cultures, given any 10 cultures, given any 2 cultures, etc.) and it would reserve the word universal for over all cultures. But that would be an idealization or limit process because we're too ignorant of _all_ cultures (I suspect). Is there such a strong argument out there? Do we have some idea of how rapidly invariants fade as the number of cultures is increased? And if the number of invariants stays _pretty_ high over most (almost all) cultures and only collapses after some of the more bizarre cultures are added, then it's reasonable to say that there _are_ some practical (not ideal or theoretical) cultural universals (or almost universals). Sometimes it takes time to sort this issue out. Biology has only recently started to provide the evidence that suggests hardwired causes/origins for common supernatural experiences - neuro-theology. The supposed cultural notions of beauty and sexual attractiveness have been shown to originate in biological universals like bilateral symmetry, and the ability to smell each other's immune systems. Some of the most interesting, and unresolved, data is found in very basic phenomenon. For example, color perception / color terms in language. Cultures have 2 - n color terms in their language: If they have exactly two terms they are always black and white (or equivalents like, warm and cold) If they have exactly three terms, the third term is always red - (B / W / R) If they have exactly four terms, the fourth is always green - (B / W / R / G) Five, the fifth is always brown - (B / W / R / G / Br) Six, purple - (B / W / R / G / Br / P) Seven, plus, no pattern. In the cases 1-6 terms, why the commonality? Biology in the form of occular perception? Unlikely. Natural Law? Possible, but unsatisfactory. Culture? Unlikely. But doesn't rationale like this lead one to think that culture is, itself, just a convenient packaging of biology? I.e. all culture probably reduces to biology, we're just too ignorant to know _how_? - -- glen e. p. ropella, 971-219-3846, http://tempusdictum.com The world henceforth will be run by synthesizers, people able to put together the right information at the right
[FRIAM] cultural universals, continued
On Tue, 18 Mar 2008 11:24:18 -0700, glen e. p. ropella [EMAIL PROTECTED] said: Would you mind citing an example of a culture that engaged in necro-cannabalism that acknowledges lineage? I was thinking of the Yanomami when I wrote this paragraph. I would have to return to grad school notes to find others. That would mean that given any _two_ cultures, there are some identifiable universals (over the set of two). But as we increase the size of the set from two to three to N, the number of those invariants shrinks, perhaps quite rapidly. You can also have commonalities across a subset of all cultures - for example, there seem to be a limited number of kinship patterns with a given pattern shared by a number of cultures rather than a different kinship scheme for each culture. Is there such a strong argument out there? Do we have some idea of how rapidly invariants fade as the number of cultures is increased? I might depend on the specific practice (invariant) at issue. For instance: the practice of polygamy - specifically polygyny - sixty percent of the world's cultures practice/sanction polygyny to the invariant covers a large majority of cultures. At the same time, polyandry is practiced by less than ten cultures, so you almost immediately find variants. Within the ten - cultures that practice polandry, most of them (I don't remember the exact number) practice fraternal polyandry, so within the subset the invariant is high. But doesn't rationale like this lead one to think that culture is, itself, just a convenient packaging of biology? I.e. all culture probably reduces to biology, we're just too ignorant to know _how_? No, I think it is merely the fringe of unknowns where this there is uncertainty. I think that most anthropologists believe that most of their field of study is not reducible to biology. The exception being socio-biologists that do want to reduce all of culture to biology - humans and human culture are merely the means for genes to replicate themselves. I just remembered - the mind is a strange thing - the closest answer to your original question about differentiation of anthro from bio - social transmission. Culture is transmitted from one person to another, and more importantly from one generation to another via social mechanisms, not biological. davew - -- glen e. p. ropella, 971-219-3846, http://tempusdictum.com The world henceforth will be run by synthesizers, people able to put together the right information at the right time, think critically about it, and make important choices. - E.O. Wilson -BEGIN PGP SIGNATURE- Version: GnuPG v1.4.6 (GNU/Linux) Comment: Using GnuPG with Mozilla - http://enigmail.mozdev.org iD8DBQFH4AjSpVJZMHoGoM8RAq+2AJ9tq50KcXv5ZwClA0EXV0/yjEduCwCgnkyx yQqZvPLaxygKf944RfpmA3Y= =ftbJ -END PGP SIGNATURE- FRIAM Applied Complexity Group listserv Meets Fridays 9a-11:30 at cafe at St. John's College lectures, archives, unsubscribe, maps at http://www.friam.org FRIAM Applied Complexity Group listserv Meets Fridays 9a-11:30 at cafe at St. John's College lectures, archives, unsubscribe, maps at http://www.friam.org
[FRIAM] new Baez/Stay paper on category theory as ako Rosetta stone
Of possible interest to Category Theory buffs: John Baez and Mike Stay have a new paper entitled: Physics, Topology, Logic and Computation: A Rosetta Stone at: http://math.ucr.edu/home/baez/rosetta.pdf In the subsequent discussion at the N-Category Cafe at: http://golem.ph.utexas.edu/category/2008/03/physics_topology_logic_and_com.html#c015742 Mike Stay talks a bit about Actors in this framework, which those who talked to Dale Schumacher several weeks ago after his FRIAM talk might find interesting. (note to Dale, this is a bit different from what I had in mind (i.e. a population of heterogenous agents using CT to build and maintain neutral networks) during our FRIAM conversation, but it gives you a sense of how the correspondence between CT and Actors might be established.) Carl FRIAM Applied Complexity Group listserv Meets Fridays 9a-11:30 at cafe at St. John's College lectures, archives, unsubscribe, maps at http://www.friam.org
Re: [FRIAM] new Baez/Stay paper on category theory as ako Rosetta stone
Ok, now you're really screwing with my mind. Joan C. (Chandos) Baez ( http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Joan_Baez) writing a paper on Physics, Topology, Logic and Computation? I think not. Bad boy, Carl. --Doug -- Doug Roberts, RTI International [EMAIL PROTECTED] [EMAIL PROTECTED] 505-455-7333 - Office 505-670-8195 - Cell On Tue, Mar 18, 2008 at 8:29 PM, Carl Tollander [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: Of possible interest to Category Theory buffs: John Baez and Mike Stay have a new paper entitled: Physics, Topology, Logic and Computation: A Rosetta Stone at: http://math.ucr.edu/home/baez/rosetta.pdf In the subsequent discussion at the N-Category Cafe at: http://golem.ph.utexas.edu/category/2008/03/physics_topology_logic_and_com.html#c015742 Mike Stay talks a bit about Actors in this framework, which those who talked to Dale Schumacher several weeks ago after his FRIAM talk might find interesting. (note to Dale, this is a bit different from what I had in mind (i.e. a population of heterogenous agents using CT to build and maintain neutral networks) during our FRIAM conversation, but it gives you a sense of how the correspondence between CT and Actors might be established.) Carl FRIAM Applied Complexity Group listserv Meets Fridays 9a-11:30 at cafe at St. John's College lectures, archives, unsubscribe, maps at http://www.friam.org FRIAM Applied Complexity Group listserv Meets Fridays 9a-11:30 at cafe at St. John's College lectures, archives, unsubscribe, maps at http://www.friam.org
Re: [FRIAM] new Baez/Stay paper on category theory as ako Rosetta stone
OMG, John is Joan's cousin, unless there are two mathematical physicists named John Baez, or someone's been spiking wikipedia. -- rec -- On Tue, Mar 18, 2008 at 8:41 PM, Douglas Roberts [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: Ok, now you're really screwing with my mind. Joan C. (Chandos) Baez ( http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Joan_Baez) writing a paper on Physics, Topology, Logic and Computation? I think not. Bad boy, Carl. --Doug -- Doug Roberts, RTI International [EMAIL PROTECTED] [EMAIL PROTECTED] 505-455-7333 - Office 505-670-8195 - Cell On Tue, Mar 18, 2008 at 8:29 PM, Carl Tollander [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: Of possible interest to Category Theory buffs: John Baez and Mike Stay have a new paper entitled: Physics, Topology, Logic and Computation: A Rosetta Stone at: http://math.ucr.edu/home/baez/rosetta.pdf In the subsequent discussion at the N-Category Cafe at: http://golem.ph.utexas.edu/category/2008/03/physics_topology_logic_and_com.html#c015742 Mike Stay talks a bit about Actors in this framework, which those who talked to Dale Schumacher several weeks ago after his FRIAM talk might find interesting. (note to Dale, this is a bit different from what I had in mind (i.e. a population of heterogenous agents using CT to build and maintain neutral networks) during our FRIAM conversation, but it gives you a sense of how the correspondence between CT and Actors might be established.) Carl FRIAM Applied Complexity Group listserv Meets Fridays 9a-11:30 at cafe at St. John's College lectures, archives, unsubscribe, maps at http://www.friam.org FRIAM Applied Complexity Group listserv Meets Fridays 9a-11:30 at cafe at St. John's College lectures, archives, unsubscribe, maps at http://www.friam.org FRIAM Applied Complexity Group listserv Meets Fridays 9a-11:30 at cafe at St. John's College lectures, archives, unsubscribe, maps at http://www.friam.org
Re: [FRIAM] new Baez/Stay paper on category theory as ako Rosetta stone
Roger Critchlow wrote: OMG, John is Joan's cousin, unless there are two mathematical physicists named John Baez, or someone's been spiking wikipedia. -- re both seem about equally likely. FRIAM Applied Complexity Group listserv Meets Fridays 9a-11:30 at cafe at St. John's College lectures, archives, unsubscribe, maps at http://www.friam.org
