Re: [FRIAM] Just as a bye-the-way
Russell Standish wrote circa 12-03-23 10:21 PM: In order to persuade me that induction is invalid, Here's a great example of how a belief in induction allows us to think in sloppy ways: http://www.rawstory.com/rs/2012/03/25/attorney-zimmerman-used-term-of-endearment-before-killing-trayvon-martin/ As usual, the question of the validity of induction is ill-formed because it assumes the law of the excluded middle. Sentences are either valid or invalid and not allowed to be semi-valid or valid-in-context but invalid-out-of-context. The fact is that sometimes induction is valid and sometimes it's not, depending on what the sentence says and the context in which it's said. 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] Just as a bye-the-way
This reminds me of a comment in the Physics vs. Chemistryhttp://downloads.bbc.co.uk/podcasts/radio4/timc/timc_20111219-1700a.mp3episode of the BBC's Infinite Monkey Cage: Chemistry is better than physics, because if something doesn't work you can't pretend that it does by sticking the word 'dark' in front of it. —R On Mon, Mar 26, 2012 at 10:15 AM, Douglas Roberts d...@parrot-farm.netwrote: Nick, you misunderstood me: So-called dark matter is a very important example, in that until a deeper understanding of cosmological physics is developed, induction can provide little insight into the the referenced phenomenon. Please take up dark matter in your discourse on induction. If, however, for some reason you find the topic of dark matter an unsatisfactory vehicle for this discussion, I have another waiting in the wings. --Doug 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] Just as a bye-the-way
This is a red herring. The argument for dark matter/energy need not be inductive. The inductive form is: o we've defined the set based on the laws of physics we've observed o everything is in this set o gravity seems stronger/weaker than predicted in some contexts .: there are unobserved members of the set: dark matter and energy. A non-inductive argument for dark matter/energy is just as valid: o the model we've induced is not completely consistent with the data o the laws characterize everything we've encountered so far .: there must be something we haven't encountered that will refine the laws. No induction is necessary to motivate a hypothesis for some form of matter that's imprecisely or inaccurately described by the laws we've, so far, induced. But parsimony suggests that a theory that assumes it's complete is more testable than a theory with metaphysical holes in it. So, the argument for dark matter _seems_ inductive, even though it's not. Only someone who assumes our laws are complete (fully refined) would think the argument is inductive. My sample is small. But I don't know of any physicists or cosmologists who think our laws cannot be modified. I.e. it's naive to assume identity between a scientific theory and the reasoning surrounding the pursuit of a scientific theory. Douglas Roberts wrote at 03/24/2012 03:08 PM: There's also an interesting dark matter inference that has found its way into grudging cosmological acceptance. This time the role of the inferred substance is to keep galaxies from flying apart, as it has recently been observed that based on the amount of their measurable, observable mass and rotational velocities, they should flung their stars off ages ago. --Doug On Sat, Mar 24, 2012 at 3:16 PM, Douglas Roberts d...@parrot-farm.net mailto:d...@parrot-farm.net wrote: I feel that I am being drawn in to an enemy encampment, but: Developing a proof would be far better than choosing to rely on inference, if the goal is to develop a larger-scale understanding of a system. Take dark energy as an example. Its presence is inferred from having observed that the rate of expansion of the observable universe began to accelerate relatively recently, on a cosmological time scale. In response to this, the cosmologists have inferred the existence of a mysterious energy with magical gravitational repulsive properties as a means to explain away an otherwise inexplicable observation. A much more satisfying approach will be to develop a sufficient understanding of the underlying physics of our universe from which a rigorous proof of the phenomenon could be derived. But, without that understanding, we are left with cosmological magic dust, instead of a real understanding of the observed dynamics. --Doug -- glen e. p. ropella, 971-222-9095, http://tempusdictum.com 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] Just as a bye-the-way
Glen, There is good reason to exclude the middle though. I am uncomfortable with the non-right-or-wrong options you have given. To me, it seems that an argument can only be correct if it specifies the circumstances under which it is correct (when the intended circumstances are always, we often don't explicitly specify, but that doesn't mean the circumstances are not part of the claim). For example, even the most esoteric conclusions in Euclidean geometry are understood to be correct in a world in which Euclid's 5 axioms hold; many current Republicans argue that individual mandates are a good idea, but only when the alternative is Hillary-care, a disparaging comment about a woman only evidences discrimination in a context that lacks an (roughly) equal number of disparaging comments about men, etc. Thus, rather than calling something valid-in-context, why not include the context in the thing, and then just call it valid? It seems to me that you are merely arguing for a more nuanced understanding of the many ways in which something can be invalid. I would agree with that. Eric On Mon, Mar 26, 2012 10:52 AM, glen e. p. ropella g...@tempusdictum.com wrote: Russell Standish wrote circa 12-03-23 10:21 PM: In order to persuade me that induction is invalid, Here's a great example of how a belief in induction allows us to think in sloppy ways: http://www.rawstory.com/rs/2012/03/25/attorney-zimmerman-used-term-of-endearment-before-killing-trayvon-martin/ As usual, the question of the validity of induction is ill-formed because it assumes the law of the excluded middle. Sentences are either valid or invalid and not allowed to be semi-valid or valid-in-context but invalid-out-of-context. The fact is that sometimes induction is valid and sometimes it's not, depending on what the sentence says and the context in which it's said. 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 Eric Charles Professional Student and Assistant Professor of Psychology Penn State University Altoona, PA 16601 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] Just as a bye-the-way
or by working with examples so staightfoward and free of technical detail that the context is obvious to all participants without a whole lot of explication . -Original Message- From: friam-boun...@redfish.com [mailto:friam-boun...@redfish.com] On Behalf Of glen e. p. ropella Sent: Monday, March 26, 2012 12:10 PM To: The Friday Morning Applied Complexity Coffee Group Subject: Re: [FRIAM] Just as a bye-the-way ERIC P. CHARLES wrote at 03/26/2012 11:01 AM: Thus, rather than calling something valid-in-context, why not include the context in the thing, and then just call it valid? Because that's difficult to do, as Dale's ongoing documentation of his actors indicates. Nick and Doug are both being flippant because a mailing list is not a conducive forum to rigorous conversation. They seemingly enjoy their lack of empathy toward the other, at least here ... probably not face-to-face. So, the likelihood either will assume the other has completely thought through the context in which they made their assertions is low. I.e. neither Doug nor Nick will assume the context is (adequately) included. (Indeed none of us are likely to assume that. That's one of the problems with e-mail and other online fora.) It seems to me that you are merely arguing for a more nuanced understanding of the many ways in which something can be invalid. I would agree with that. Yes, then we agree. But further, you can't get that nuance without either lots of text or densely packed terminology. -- glen e. p. ropella, 971-222-9095, http://tempusdictum.com 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] a tangent from Re: Just as a bye-the-way
Glen wrote: Nick and Doug are both being flippant because a mailing list is not a conducive forum to rigorous conversation. They seemingly enjoy their lack of empathy toward the other, at least here ... probably not face-to-face. So, the likelihood either will assume the other has completely thought through the context in which they made their assertions is low. I.e. neither Doug nor Nick will assume the context is (adequately) included. (Indeed none of us are likely to assume that. That's one of the problems with e-mail and other online fora.) My experience with mailing lists, e-mail and other online fora has not been as uniformly bad as yours appears to have been. Specifically, I have participated (and continue to participate) in several of each that *have been* (and are) conducive...to rigorous conversation. In the face of those good experiences, I am always puzzled by people (you are not necessarily one; see below) who generalize from their (presumably) bad experiences to the conclusion that e-mail and other online fora are irremediably flawed, and who further (I definitely don't think you're one of these) use that conclusion as a basis for actively undercutting those such fora that they are involved with. (Nick and I have been through just that experience on one forum, at that time local to us, which was eventually destroyed by one very malignant person in a position of power. [Nick might disagree with my version of events.]) I said that you're not *necessarily* concluding that the FRIAM forum (in particular) is *irremediably* flawed (you do, after all, continue to participate non-trivially). But you might think it is, so I ask you, do you? If not, how might it be remediated (practically or impractically)? One reason, by the way, that I think mailing lists, e-mail, and newsgroups (e.g., Usenet--but not Google Groups, god forbid) actually are *more* conducive...to rigorous conversation than many face-to- face fora is their asynchronicity. (Chat, by contrast, has all the disadvantages of face-to-faceness without any of its advantages, for me. There's nothing about the onlineness that makes them work--for me; an exchange of paper letters, if it could be done at the speed that used to be normal in London, with two deliveries a day, would be just as good. And phone calls are teh sux0r.) Lee Rudolph 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] a further tangent
I asked a (non-rhetorical) question: But you might think it is, so I ask you, do you? If not, how might it be remediated (practically or impractically)? It occurred to me that maybe this is something that could be investigated using ... AGENT BASED MODELING! (Indeed, maybe it has been.) That is, what qualities of an asynchronous distributed network of agents, passing messages about a changing collection of diverse-but-usually-though-not-always-somewhat-aligned topics (or maybe more specifically goals) are conducive to rigorous conversation (however that may be modeled), which qualities are neutral to it, and which qualities are anti-conducive to it? Anyone up to the challenge of investigating a toy example? (Alternatively, anyone know where in the literature the whole thing has been done, or shown to be undoable?) 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] a tangent from Re: Just as a bye-the-way
lrudo...@meganet.net wrote at 03/26/2012 02:08 PM: I said that you're not *necessarily* concluding that the FRIAM forum (in particular) is *irremediably* flawed (you do, after all, continue to participate non-trivially). But you might think it is, so I ask you, do you? If not, how might it be remediated (practically or impractically)? I definitely do NOT think abstracted media like e-mail lists and web forums are irredeemably flawed. (FWIW, I don't know why you said irremediably ... I'm still working on that.) To try to one-up your meta 8^), I'll further assert that I receive benefits beyond my contribution from most fora in which I participate ... and even some where I just lurk. But that's not the real issue. The real issue is whether such fora can assist with valid-in-context sentences. My claim is that abstracted media (including but not limited to journal articles and e-mail) are valuable precisely _because_ they prevent the sender from creating a closure. It's literally easy to have a happy go lucky, in-context conversation face-to-face. Any moron can do that. ;-) What's difficult is to have an in-context conversation under harsh conditions. These abstracted media _force_ us to read with empathy ... run little simulations in our heads imagining what the other party could possibly mean by their ridiculous assertions. That's what, in my opinion, remedies both journals and e-mail lists. Personally, I am usually frustrated with the face-to-face conversations I have. Everyone comes away from those claiming that I'm so precise in my language and, seemingly, have thought about whatever the arbitrary topic is beforehand. In reality, I just say whatever comes to my head and am astonished if/when it comes out coherent at all. I chalk it up to having a yankee dad and a cajun mom ... they canceled each other out nicely to create the mediocrity that defines me. The remedy for this coercion can only be for each participant to remember that a complex adaptive system lies at the other end of the wire. What you get out may be woefully tiny compared to what you put in _or_ what you get out might show a fantastic ROI. Those of us used to thinking linearly (e.g. my motorcycle will perform in proportion to the effort I spend maintaining it) will likely be disappointed until they abandon that linearity and embrace it as a complex system. One reason, by the way, that I think mailing lists, e-mail, and newsgroups (e.g., Usenet--but not Google Groups, god forbid) actually are *more* conducive...to rigorous conversation than many face-to- face fora is their asynchronicity. (Chat, by contrast, has all the disadvantages of face-to-faceness without any of its advantages, for me. There's nothing about the onlineness that makes them work--for me; an exchange of paper letters, if it could be done at the speed that used to be normal in London, with two deliveries a day, would be just as good. And phone calls are teh sux0r.) I agree with you. But I think the value lies in their inability to create a cognitive closure ... to carry adequate context for validity or invalidity to be obvious in any sense. Asynchronicity is part of this context-breaking, but not all of it. There's also lack of tone, lack of body language, etc. That lack of context is what stimulates our imaginations. Small people tend to insult others when their imaginations fail them lacking context. Large people tend to give others the benefit of the doubt because their imaginations fill in the blanks ... part of the Dunning-Kruger effect, I suspect. -- glen e. p. ropella, 971-222-9095, http://tempusdictum.com 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
