Re: [FRIAM] a further tangent
This is a great idea. But ONLY if we think of it as a remedy, not as a remediation. I would always argue for the minimalification of latinate suffixes. But it really is a great idea. Nick -Original Message- From: friam-boun...@redfish.com [mailto:friam-boun...@redfish.com] On Behalf Of lrudo...@meganet.net Sent: Monday, March 26, 2012 3:29 PM To: friam@redfish.com Subject: [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 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 further tangent
Nick, I didn't (and wouldn't) use the noun remediation (at least, not to mean remedy). As verbs, remediate and remedy have different senses to me (and to the OED). In particular, the OED says (and I agree--though I don't claim this was in my mind) that remediate includes the sense of counteract, and remedy doesn't. This is a great idea. But ONLY if we think of it as a remedy, not as a remediation. I would always argue for the minimalification of latinate suffixes. But it really is a great idea. Nick -Original Message- From: friam-boun...@redfish.com [mailto:friam-boun...@redfish.com] On Behalf Of lrudo...@meganet.net Sent: Monday, March 26, 2012 3:29 PM To: friam@redfish.com Subject: [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)? 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
Dear Doug, I am afraid that the black hole example is already too technologically dense for me, so I am going to punt on the project of luring you inside my walls and slaughtering you there, and just out-right tell you what I think . The argument began with my detecting in you (perhaps wrongly) the belief that you, unlike the religious, can get along without some sort of faith in your life. Most people I have known in the past who have reached this conclusion have done so through their confidence in induction. What do I need with faith if I can just collect the evidence and act on it?' And the answer is that without faith of some sort, there is no foundation for induction. The argument for this position is famously from Hume. A version of it is colorfully laid out by Nelson Goodman in his The New Riddle of Induction. So let's say, I want to learn if grass is green. My religious buddy says, Look in the Bible. I am sure it's in there somewhere.' My atheist buddy says, nonsense, go out and look at the grass. I'm an atheist, so I go out and start collecting samples of grass. I collect a hundred samples and I bring them back in announce that I am satisfied that all grass is green. At which point my religious buddy says, No, No, you have no evidence there that Grass is green. All you have is evidence that grass is grue. Grue!? I say. What's Grue? Charitably forgoing the opportunity to ask, I dunno. What's Grue with you? my religious buddy simply says, It's the property of being Green until your last measurement, and Blue thereafter. Nonsense, I reply. What kind of a property is THAT? Nature doesn't HAVE properties like that. Perhaps that's been true, he replies, but only up till now! In other words, our belief in induction is based on our plausible but unfounded belief in induction, i.e., faith. Nick -Original Message- From: friam-boun...@redfish.com [mailto:friam-boun...@redfish.com] On Behalf Of glen e. p. ropella Sent: Monday, March 26, 2012 11:40 AM To: The Friday Morning Applied Complexity Coffee Group Subject: 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 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
Re: [FRIAM] a further tangent
With apologies to everyone but Lee: The word remediation could be two entirely different words, one arising from remedy and the other arising from mediate. The first mediation failed, so we agreed to remedy the situation by conducting a remediation is a perfectly intelligible sentence without any redundancy. Bugger the OED. It's full of latinate obfuscation. Nick -Original Message- From: lrudo...@meganet.net [mailto:lrudo...@meganet.net] Sent: Tuesday, March 27, 2012 11:08 AM To: Nicholas Thompson; The Friday Morning Applied Complexity Coffee Group Subject: Re: [FRIAM] a further tangent Nick, I didn't (and wouldn't) use the noun remediation (at least, not to mean remedy). As verbs, remediate and remedy have different senses to me (and to the OED). In particular, the OED says (and I agree--though I don't claim this was in my mind) that remediate includes the sense of counteract, and remedy doesn't. This is a great idea. But ONLY if we think of it as a remedy, not as a remediation. I would always argue for the minimalification of latinate suffixes. But it really is a great idea. Nick -Original Message- From: friam-boun...@redfish.com [mailto:friam-boun...@redfish.com] On Behalf Of lrudo...@meganet.net Sent: Monday, March 26, 2012 3:29 PM To: friam@redfish.com Subject: [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)? 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] tangents upon tangents!
With apologies to everyone but Lee: The word remediation could be two entirely different words, one arising from remedy and the other arising from mediate. The first mediation failed, so we agreed to remedy the situation by conducting a remediation is a perfectly intelligible sentence without any redundancy. Bugger the OED. It's full of latinate obfuscation. Nick I don't read sports pages often, but once I was *very* pleased to learn from a baseball article in the Boston Globe that a certain manager was going to resign, rather than resign. ObModeling (not agent-based)/ObFuscation: the proper setting for mechanics is the tangent bundle of the tangent bundle... 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] Depth peeling successfully implemented in WebGL
In the easy-to-use WebGL-based GlowScript 3D programming environment
(glowscript.org) you can now specify the opacity of an object (other
than curve, ring, and helix). The following statement creates a
cyan-colored cube that has low opacity (high transparency):
box( {color.cyan, opacity:0.2 } )
Here is a demo:
http://www.glowscript.org/#/user/GlowScriptDemos/folder/Examples/program/Transparency
The technique used is depth peeling which correctly handles
transparency at the pixel level. Simpler transparency schemes, in
which objects are ordered back-to-front on the basis of their centers,
fail to make the correct display if, for example, two transparent
objects intersect each other.
The open source is at
https://bitbucket.org/davidscherer/glowscript/overview. In the Source
folder the key files are lib/glow/WebGLRenderer.js and the shader
files which are found in the shader folder.
Bruce
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
Thanks, Nick, you describe an interesting way of establishing a life-view. Not quite sure how to answer, except to say that if I have faith in anything, it is in evidence. If I have accrued a sufficient pile of evidence that supports a conclusion about some observation, then I'll probably believe it. If my collected evidence is such that the inescapable conclusion is that nothing is constant, then I suppose I'd eventually come around to believe that, so long as I had a constant framework from which to corroborate and verify the inconsistencies. Otherwise, I'd continue to look for the missing pieces of the puzzle (a reference to the cosmological artifacts I sent you earlier). As to religion: for me it's a big No thank you to any cult mindthink that requires brainless acceptance of a supernatural homo-centric benevolent/malevolent boogyman. And that goes double for one particular cult whose belief system is predicated upon hieroglyph-inscribed disappearing golden tablets. Oh, and I guess that goes triple for any cult that attempts to dictate what kind of skivies I must wear to become a member of the club. I guess you could say that it would take a *miracle* to get me to assent to becoming a member of any of the existing flocks of theist-following sheep out there. In retrospect, I suppose I do have faith in one other fairly immutable quality -- the accuracy of my bullshit detector. --Doug On Tue, Mar 27, 2012 at 11:47 AM, Nicholas Thompson nickthomp...@earthlink.net wrote: Dear Doug, ** ** I am afraid that the black hole example is already too technologically dense for me, so I am going to punt on the project of luring you inside my walls and slaughtering you there, and just out-right tell you what I think . The argument began with my detecting in you (perhaps wrongly) the belief that you, unlike the religious, can get along without some sort of faith in your life. Most people I have known in the past who have reached this conclusion have done so through their confidence in induction. “What do I need with faith if I can just collect the evidence and act on it?’ And the answer is that without faith of some sort, there is no foundation for induction. The argument for this position is famously from Hume. A version of it is colorfully laid out by Nelson Goodman in his *The New Riddle of Induction *. So let’s say, I want to learn if grass is green. My religious buddy says, “Look in the Bible. I am sure it’s in there somewhere.’ My atheist buddy says, “nonsense, go out and look at the grass.” I’m an atheist, so I go out and start collecting samples of grass. I collect a hundred samples and I bring them back in announce that I am satisfied that all grass is green. At which point my religious buddy says, No, No, you have no evidence there that Grass is green. “All you have is evidence that grass is grue.” “Grue!?” I say. “What’s Grue?” ** ** Charitably forgoing the opportunity to ask, “I dunno. What’s Grue with you?” my religious buddy simply says, “It’s the property of being Green until your last measurement, and Blue thereafter. “ “Nonsense,” I reply. “What kind of a property is THAT? Nature doesn’t HAVE properties like that. ** ** “Perhaps that’s been true”, he replies, *but only up till now*!” ** ** In other words, our belief in induction is based on our plausible but unfounded belief in induction, i.e., faith. ** ** Nick ** ** ** ** -Original Message- From: friam-boun...@redfish.com [mailto:friam-boun...@redfish.com] On Behalf Of glen e. p. ropella Sent: Monday, March 26, 2012 11:40 AM To: The Friday Morning Applied Complexity Coffee Group Subject: 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
Re: [FRIAM] Just as a bye-the-way
Doug wrote In retrospect, I suppose I do have faith in one other fairly immutable quality -- the accuracy of my bullshit detector Well, why not. it's always worked in the past .. . Nick From: friam-boun...@redfish.com [mailto:friam-boun...@redfish.com] On Behalf Of Douglas Roberts Sent: Tuesday, March 27, 2012 2:55 PM To: The Friday Morning Applied Complexity Coffee Group Subject: Re: [FRIAM] Just as a bye-the-way Thanks, Nick, you describe an interesting way of establishing a life-view. Not quite sure how to answer, except to say that if I have faith in anything, it is in evidence. If I have accrued a sufficient pile of evidence that supports a conclusion about some observation, then I'll probably believe it. If my collected evidence is such that the inescapable conclusion is that nothing is constant, then I suppose I'd eventually come around to believe that, so long as I had a constant framework from which to corroborate and verify the inconsistencies. Otherwise, I'd continue to look for the missing pieces of the puzzle (a reference to the cosmological artifacts I sent you earlier). As to religion: for me it's a big No thank you to any cult mindthink that requires brainless acceptance of a supernatural homo-centric benevolent/malevolent boogyman. And that goes double for one particular cult whose belief system is predicated upon hieroglyph-inscribed disappearing golden tablets. Oh, and I guess that goes triple for any cult that attempts to dictate what kind of skivies I must wear to become a member of the club. I guess you could say that it would take a miracle to get me to assent to becoming a member of any of the existing flocks of theist-following sheep out there. In retrospect, I suppose I do have faith in one other fairly immutable quality -- the accuracy of my bullshit detector. --Doug On Tue, Mar 27, 2012 at 11:47 AM, Nicholas Thompson nickthomp...@earthlink.net wrote: Dear Doug, I am afraid that the black hole example is already too technologically dense for me, so I am going to punt on the project of luring you inside my walls and slaughtering you there, and just out-right tell you what I think . The argument began with my detecting in you (perhaps wrongly) the belief that you, unlike the religious, can get along without some sort of faith in your life. Most people I have known in the past who have reached this conclusion have done so through their confidence in induction. What do I need with faith if I can just collect the evidence and act on it?' And the answer is that without faith of some sort, there is no foundation for induction. The argument for this position is famously from Hume. A version of it is colorfully laid out by Nelson Goodman in his The New Riddle of Induction. So let's say, I want to learn if grass is green. My religious buddy says, Look in the Bible. I am sure it's in there somewhere.' My atheist buddy says, nonsense, go out and look at the grass. I'm an atheist, so I go out and start collecting samples of grass. I collect a hundred samples and I bring them back in announce that I am satisfied that all grass is green. At which point my religious buddy says, No, No, you have no evidence there that Grass is green. All you have is evidence that grass is grue. Grue!? I say. What's Grue? Charitably forgoing the opportunity to ask, I dunno. What's Grue with you? my religious buddy simply says, It's the property of being Green until your last measurement, and Blue thereafter. Nonsense, I reply. What kind of a property is THAT? Nature doesn't HAVE properties like that. Perhaps that's been true, he replies, but only up till now! In other words, our belief in induction is based on our plausible but unfounded belief in induction, i.e., faith. Nick -Original Message- From: friam-boun...@redfish.com [mailto:friam-boun...@redfish.com] On Behalf Of glen e. p. ropella Sent: Monday, March 26, 2012 11:40 AM To: The Friday Morning Applied Complexity Coffee Group Subject: 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
Re: [FRIAM] Just as a bye-the-way
Very clever. --Doug On Tue, Mar 27, 2012 at 3:37 PM, Nicholas Thompson nickthomp...@earthlink.net wrote: Doug wrote ** ** In retrospect, I suppose I do have faith in one other fairly immutable quality -- the accuracy of my bullshit detector ** ** Well, why not. it’s always worked in the past …. . ** ** Nick ** ** *From:* friam-boun...@redfish.com [mailto:friam-boun...@redfish.com] *On Behalf Of *Douglas Roberts *Sent:* Tuesday, March 27, 2012 2:55 PM *To:* The Friday Morning Applied Complexity Coffee Group *Subject:* Re: [FRIAM] Just as a bye-the-way ** ** Thanks, Nick, you describe an interesting way of establishing a life-view. ** ** Not quite sure how to answer, except to say that if I have faith in anything, it is in evidence. If I have accrued a sufficient pile of evidence that supports a conclusion about some observation, then I'll probably believe it. ** ** If my collected evidence is such that the inescapable conclusion is that nothing is constant, then I suppose I'd eventually come around to believe that, so long as I had a constant framework from which to corroborate and verify the inconsistencies. Otherwise, I'd continue to look for the missing pieces of the puzzle (a reference to the cosmological artifacts I sent you earlier). ** ** As to religion: for me it's a big No thank you to any cult mindthink that requires brainless acceptance of a supernatural homo-centric benevolent/malevolent boogyman. And that goes double for one particular cult whose belief system is predicated upon hieroglyph-inscribed disappearing golden tablets. Oh, and I guess that goes triple for any cult that attempts to dictate what kind of skivies I must wear to become a member of the club. I guess you could say that it would take a *miracle* to get me to assent to becoming a member of any of the existing flocks of theist-following sheep out there. ** ** In retrospect, I suppose I do have faith in one other fairly immutable quality -- the accuracy of my bullshit detector. ** ** --Doug ** ** On Tue, Mar 27, 2012 at 11:47 AM, Nicholas Thompson nickthomp...@earthlink.net wrote: Dear Doug, I am afraid that the black hole example is already too technologically dense for me, so I am going to punt on the project of luring you inside my walls and slaughtering you there, and just out-right tell you what I think . The argument began with my detecting in you (perhaps wrongly) the belief that you, unlike the religious, can get along without some sort of faith in your life. Most people I have known in the past who have reached this conclusion have done so through their confidence in induction. “What do I need with faith if I can just collect the evidence and act on it?’ And the answer is that without faith of some sort, there is no foundation for induction. The argument for this position is famously from Hume. A version of it is colorfully laid out by Nelson Goodman in his *The New Riddle of Induction *. So let’s say, I want to learn if grass is green. My religious buddy says, “Look in the Bible. I am sure it’s in there somewhere.’ My atheist buddy says, “nonsense, go out and look at the grass.” I’m an atheist, so I go out and start collecting samples of grass. I collect a hundred samples and I bring them back in announce that I am satisfied that all grass is green. At which point my religious buddy says, No, No, you have no evidence there that Grass is green. “All you have is evidence that grass is grue.” “Grue!?” I say. “What’s Grue?” Charitably forgoing the opportunity to ask, “I dunno. What’s Grue with you?” my religious buddy simply says, “It’s the property of being Green until your last measurement, and Blue thereafter. “ “Nonsense,” I reply. “What kind of a property is THAT? Nature doesn’t HAVE properties like that. “Perhaps that’s been true”, he replies, *but only up till now*!” In other words, our belief in induction is based on our plausible but unfounded belief in induction, i.e., faith. Nick -Original Message- From: friam-boun...@redfish.com [mailto:friam-boun...@redfish.com] On Behalf Of glen e. p. ropella Sent: Monday, March 26, 2012 11:40 AM To: The Friday Morning Applied Complexity Coffee Group Subject: 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
Re: [FRIAM] Just as a bye-the-way
Nice gloss of Goodman. But it also suggests a problem with philosophy: the need to make *demonstrably true* statements. Induction in mathematics is a proof technique. When applied to reality it doesn't work because the axiom of induction isn't available for reality. But then notion of a *true statement* as applied to *reality *is a bit of a stretch anyway. Yet philosophers keep insisting that it's important to make statements that can be shown to be *true*. But that's a cause lost before one even begins because there is no real connection between words and things -- only imagined connections. *-- Russ* On Tue, Mar 27, 2012 at 2:53 PM, Douglas Roberts d...@parrot-farm.netwrote: Very clever. --Doug On Tue, Mar 27, 2012 at 3:37 PM, Nicholas Thompson nickthomp...@earthlink.net wrote: Doug wrote ** ** In retrospect, I suppose I do have faith in one other fairly immutable quality -- the accuracy of my bullshit detector ** ** Well, why not. it’s always worked in the past …. . ** ** Nick ** ** *From:* friam-boun...@redfish.com [mailto:friam-boun...@redfish.com] *On Behalf Of *Douglas Roberts *Sent:* Tuesday, March 27, 2012 2:55 PM *To:* The Friday Morning Applied Complexity Coffee Group *Subject:* Re: [FRIAM] Just as a bye-the-way ** ** Thanks, Nick, you describe an interesting way of establishing a life-view. ** ** Not quite sure how to answer, except to say that if I have faith in anything, it is in evidence. If I have accrued a sufficient pile of evidence that supports a conclusion about some observation, then I'll probably believe it. ** ** If my collected evidence is such that the inescapable conclusion is that nothing is constant, then I suppose I'd eventually come around to believe that, so long as I had a constant framework from which to corroborate and verify the inconsistencies. Otherwise, I'd continue to look for the missing pieces of the puzzle (a reference to the cosmological artifacts I sent you earlier). ** ** As to religion: for me it's a big No thank you to any cult mindthink that requires brainless acceptance of a supernatural homo-centric benevolent/malevolent boogyman. And that goes double for one particular cult whose belief system is predicated upon hieroglyph-inscribed disappearing golden tablets. Oh, and I guess that goes triple for any cult that attempts to dictate what kind of skivies I must wear to become a member of the club. I guess you could say that it would take a *miracle* to get me to assent to becoming a member of any of the existing flocks of theist-following sheep out there. ** ** In retrospect, I suppose I do have faith in one other fairly immutable quality -- the accuracy of my bullshit detector. ** ** --Doug ** ** On Tue, Mar 27, 2012 at 11:47 AM, Nicholas Thompson nickthomp...@earthlink.net wrote: Dear Doug, I am afraid that the black hole example is already too technologically dense for me, so I am going to punt on the project of luring you inside my walls and slaughtering you there, and just out-right tell you what I think . The argument began with my detecting in you (perhaps wrongly) the belief that you, unlike the religious, can get along without some sort of faith in your life. Most people I have known in the past who have reached this conclusion have done so through their confidence in induction. “What do I need with faith if I can just collect the evidence and act on it?’ And the answer is that without faith of some sort, there is no foundation for induction. The argument for this position is famously from Hume. A version of it is colorfully laid out by Nelson Goodman in his *The New Riddle of Induction*. So let’s say, I want to learn if grass is green. My religious buddy says, “Look in the Bible. I am sure it’s in there somewhere.’ My atheist buddy says, “nonsense, go out and look at the grass.” I’m an atheist, so I go out and start collecting samples of grass. I collect a hundred samples and I bring them back in announce that I am satisfied that all grass is green. At which point my religious buddy says, No, No, you have no evidence there that Grass is green. “All you have is evidence that grass is grue.” “Grue!?” I say. “What’s Grue?” Charitably forgoing the opportunity to ask, “I dunno. What’s Grue with you?” my religious buddy simply says, “It’s the property of being Green until your last measurement, and Blue thereafter. “ “Nonsense,” I reply. “What kind of a property is THAT? Nature doesn’t HAVE properties like that. “Perhaps that’s been true”, he replies, *but only up till now*!” In other words, our belief in induction is based on our plausible but unfounded belief in induction, i.e., faith. Nick -Original Message-
Re: [FRIAM] Just as a bye-the-way
Dear Doug and Russ, Russ, I have been reading a lot of CS Peirce who defines truth as what will in the long run be agreed upon if we keep doing science about the world, and real as all that is true, as that upon which rational inquiry converges. Its a strange view, but it seems to have had a profound effect on the people who taught the people who taught us in graduate school. Even though Peirce and rorty have both been called pragmatists, he is about as far from Rorty as you can get. Peirces father was America;s first and foremost mathematical star, and Peirce took much of his inspiration from statistical mathematics of the time. He would say things like, what is true about humans is what an insurance company can make money betting on, in the long run. Doug, I didnt MEAN to be clever.(Accused of being flippant AND clever in the same correspondence, and I dont want to be either) It was just such a wonderful example of how faith plays a role in drawing any conclusion from experience, that I wanted to underline it. There is a great philosophical joke which philosophers use to make fun of psychologists: there once was a drunk who fell off a ten story building. And as it happened, there were psychologists with pencils and clipboards standing on each of the balconies to hear what he said as he went by. It was, So far, so good. Talebs Black Swan is another great example. The problem is how do we continue doing science given the problem of induction. What I am liking about Peirce is that he charts a reasonable course between sophomoric skepticism (eg Rorty, Fish, etc.) and naïve empiricism. He so values rational inquiry that he makes it the measure of all things, even meaning. Thanks to you both, Nick From: friam-boun...@redfish.com [mailto:friam-boun...@redfish.com] On Behalf Of Russ Abbott Sent: Tuesday, March 27, 2012 4:27 PM To: The Friday Morning Applied Complexity Coffee Group Subject: Re: [FRIAM] Just as a bye-the-way Nice gloss of Goodman. But it also suggests a problem with philosophy: the need to make demonstrably true statements. Induction in mathematics is a proof technique. When applied to reality it doesn't work because the axiom of induction isn't available for reality. But then notion of a true statement as applied to reality is a bit of a stretch anyway. Yet philosophers keep insisting that it's important to make statements that can be shown to be true. But that's a cause lost before one even begins because there is no real connection between words and things -- only imagined connections. -- Russ On Tue, Mar 27, 2012 at 2:53 PM, Douglas Roberts d...@parrot-farm.net wrote: Very clever. --Doug On Tue, Mar 27, 2012 at 3:37 PM, Nicholas Thompson nickthomp...@earthlink.net wrote: Doug wrote In retrospect, I suppose I do have faith in one other fairly immutable quality -- the accuracy of my bullshit detector Well, why not. its always worked in the past . . Nick From: friam-boun...@redfish.com [mailto:friam-boun...@redfish.com] On Behalf Of Douglas Roberts Sent: Tuesday, March 27, 2012 2:55 PM To: The Friday Morning Applied Complexity Coffee Group Subject: Re: [FRIAM] Just as a bye-the-way Thanks, Nick, you describe an interesting way of establishing a life-view. Not quite sure how to answer, except to say that if I have faith in anything, it is in evidence. If I have accrued a sufficient pile of evidence that supports a conclusion about some observation, then I'll probably believe it. If my collected evidence is such that the inescapable conclusion is that nothing is constant, then I suppose I'd eventually come around to believe that, so long as I had a constant framework from which to corroborate and verify the inconsistencies. Otherwise, I'd continue to look for the missing pieces of the puzzle (a reference to the cosmological artifacts I sent you earlier). As to religion: for me it's a big No thank you to any cult mindthink that requires brainless acceptance of a supernatural homo-centric benevolent/malevolent boogyman. And that goes double for one particular cult whose belief system is predicated upon hieroglyph-inscribed disappearing golden tablets. Oh, and I guess that goes triple for any cult that attempts to dictate what kind of skivies I must wear to become a member of the club. I guess you could say that it would take a miracle to get me to assent to becoming a member of any of the existing flocks of theist-following sheep out there. In retrospect, I suppose I do have faith in one other fairly immutable quality -- the accuracy of my bullshit detector. --Doug On Tue, Mar 27, 2012 at 11:47 AM, Nicholas Thompson nickthomp...@earthlink.net wrote: Dear Doug, I am afraid that the black hole example is already too technologically dense for me, so I am going to punt on the project of luring you inside my walls and slaughtering you there, and
Re: [FRIAM] Just as a bye-the-way
I like C D Broad's take on this: Induction is the glory of science and the scandal of philosophy. (1926, The Philosophy of Francis Bacon). I think there's a lot of truth in this... induction is simply not a problem for science and scientists. Scientists have used induction to give the most amazing, useful awe-inspiring descriptions of the universe and its contents. Sure, philosophers can hop around shouting You can't do that! It's not possible! but you know what? We just did. —R 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] Clarifying Induction Threads
Owen, As I understand it: Doug announced his ordination. After a bit of banter, Doug made some generalizations about religious and non-religious people based on his past experience but... the ability to draw conclusions from past experience is a bit philosophically mysterious. The seeming contradiction between Doug's disavowal of faith and his drawing of conclusion based on induction set off Nick. Nick attempted to draw Doug into an open admittance that he accepted the truth of induction as an act of faith. But Nick never quite got what he was looking for, and this lead to several somewhat confused sub-threads. Eventually Nick just laid the problem out himself. However, this also confused people because, 1) the term 'induction' is used in many different contexts (e.g., to induce an electric current through a wire), and 2) there is lots of past evidence supporting the effectiveness of induction. The big, big, big problem of induction, however, is that point 2 has no clear role in the discussion: If the problem of induction is accepted, then no amount of past success provides any evidence that induction will continue to work into the future. That is, just as the fact that I have opened my eyes every day for the past many years is no guarantee that I will open my eyes tomorrow, the fact that scientists have used induction successfully the past many centuries is no guarantee that induction will continue to work in the next century. These threads have now devolved into a few discussions centered around accidentally or intentionally clever statements made in the course conversation, as well as a discussion in which people can't understand why we wouldn't simply accept induction based on its past success. The latter are of the form Doesn't the fact that induction is a common method in such-and-such field of inquiry prove its worth? Hope that helps, Eric On Tue, Mar 27, 2012 10:05 PM, Owen Densmore o...@backspaces.net wrote: Could anyone summarize the recent several thread that originated with this one? I'm sorry to have to ask, but we seem to have exploded upon an interesting stunt, but with the multiple threads (I Am The Thread Fascist) and the various twists and turns, I'd sorta like to know what's up! -- Owen 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] Clarifying Induction Threads
The inductive argument for induction [paraphrased from Eric]: The fact that induction has been so successful in the past should convince of its usefulness in the future. *-- Russ Abbott* *_* *** Professor, Computer Science* * California State University, Los Angeles* * Google voice: 747-*999-5105 Google+: https://plus.google.com/114865618166480775623/ * vita: *http://sites.google.com/site/russabbott/ *_* On Tue, Mar 27, 2012 at 9:49 PM, ERIC P. CHARLES e...@psu.edu wrote: Owen, As I understand it: Doug announced his ordination. After a bit of banter, Doug made some generalizations about religious and non-religious people based on his past experience but... the ability to draw conclusions from past experience is a bit philosophically mysterious. The seeming contradiction between Doug's disavowal of faith and his drawing of conclusion based on induction set off Nick. Nick attempted to draw Doug into an open admittance that he accepted the truth of induction as an act of faith. But Nick never quite got what he was looking for, and this lead to several somewhat confused sub-threads. Eventually Nick just laid the problem out himself. However, this also confused people because, 1) the term 'induction' is used in many different contexts (e.g., to induce an electric current through a wire), and 2) there is lots of past evidence supporting the effectiveness of induction. The big, big, big problem of induction, however, is that point 2 has no clear role in the discussion: If the problem of induction is accepted, then no amount of past success provides any evidence that induction will continue to work into the future. That is, just as the fact that I have opened my eyes every day for the past many years is no guarantee that I will open my eyes tomorrow, the fact that scientists have used induction successfully the past many centuries is no guarantee that induction will continue to work in the next century. These threads have now devolved into a few discussions centered around accidentally or intentionally clever statements made in the course conversation, as well as a discussion in which people can't understand why we wouldn't simply accept induction based on its past success. The latter are of the form Doesn't the fact that induction is a common method in such-and-such field of inquiry prove its worth? Hope that helps, Eric On Tue, Mar 27, 2012 10:05 PM, *Owen Densmore o...@backspaces.net*wrote: Could anyone summarize the recent several thread that originated with this one? I'm sorry to have to ask, but we seem to have exploded upon an interesting stunt, but with the multiple threads (I Am The Thread Fascist) and the various twists and turns, I'd sorta like to know what's up! -- Owen 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 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
