Re: [FRIAM] Entropy, irreversibility and inference at the foundations of statistical physics

[David Eric Smith]

Thanks Roger, 

Yes, Dill is very good.  He’s not one of the flashy ones, like, e.g. Peter 
Wolynes or some of the other high-profile Names.  He has a solid kind of 
workman-like style, but he knows a wide variety of foundation methods, 
including some of the difficult ones like glass methods.  The thing I 
particularly appreciate about him is that, when something has gone far enough 
along that it could be widely understood, but it seems like all the treatments 
of it remain either obscure and convoluted, or trite and annoying, Dill will 
write some good review that gets the main concepts straight and separates them 
from distractions, lays them out in the right order and with the right goals, 
and then says each of them in the correct way, instead of some dumb little 
tropey quote that is going around.

Just now I am reading some of his older work on protein folding, where the 
usual treatments are okay, but often seem maddening and sort of shallow in 
their categories.  Dill is a great relief to find, and I am lucky he worked in 
that area (too!).

Eric

.

> On May 4, 2024, at 11:38 PM, Roger Critchlow  wrote:
> 
> My google news feed is generally infuriating, but then it redeems itself by 
> finding something like this:
> 
> Jonathan Asher Pachter, Ying-Jen Yang, and Ken A. Dill, 
> https://www.nature.com/articles/s42254-024-00720-5, in Nature Reviews Physics.
> 
>> Statistical physics relates the properties of macroscale systems to the 
>> distributions of their microscale agents. Its central tool has been the 
>> maximization of entropy, an equilibrium variational principle. Recent work 
>> has sought extensions to non-equilibria: across processes of change both 
>> fast and slow, in the Jarzynski equality and fluctuation relations and other 
>> tools of stochastic thermodynamics, using large deviation theory or others. 
>> When recognized as an inference principle, entropy maximization can be 
>> generalized for non-equilibria and applied to path entropies rather than 
>> state entropies, becoming the principle of maximum caliber, which we 
>> emphasize in this Review. Our primary goal is to enhance crosstalk among 
>> researchers working in disparate silos, comparing and contrasting different 
>> approaches while pointing to common roots.
> 
> There's a preprint from last October, too.  https://arxiv.org/abs/2310.06070
> 
> -- rec --
> 
> -. --- - / ...- .- .-.. .. -.. / -- --- .-. ... . / -.-. --- -.. .
> FRIAM Applied Complexity Group listserv
> Fridays 9a-12p Friday St. Johns Cafe   /   Thursdays 9a-12p Zoom 
> https://linkprotect.cudasvc.com/url?a=https%3a%2f%2fbit.ly%2fvirtualfriam=E,1,THpFqjyV7vtEB6_1P-ja4VhhVYiEoi6cAx0XLqNdMDEKhK5Q1eSKX-C1Ecwtd3GLtNAOtBAgG42fS-rGZsYqIeoSIv8eVfqrAA8qNk6pGz5Aglr7Hb81jSfisg,,=1
> to (un)subscribe 
> https://linkprotect.cudasvc.com/url?a=http%3a%2f%2fredfish.com%2fmailman%2flistinfo%2ffriam_redfish.com=E,1,-20YD3Xjg41QoHkHpA0Pm-LqoQAdPtZIxYiq9pfKDSDHXlDluCF3YFF8mQgKz5tJshQsOBimUHdhTt73EIGFENlY9CZt_YonUi3RAHZOGQx0LC934ZEoQw,,=1
> FRIAM-COMIC 
> https://linkprotect.cudasvc.com/url?a=http%3a%2f%2ffriam-comic.blogspot.com%2f=E,1,VD_G_nTO9Jdiq2e7GOD0R1FlVZqVKU_Exr20oJ6pnma1DX5c_rsmbPi83QoTnKSPEUug8hdjkAB8Q3btJ8SuaQRK5s3BL9GtXgOJZ8CrRcG1AHFS4nDdv7Y1hDc,=1
> archives:  5/2017 thru present 
> https://linkprotect.cudasvc.com/url?a=https%3a%2f%2fredfish.com%2fpipermail%2ffriam_redfish.com%2f=E,1,aLKdpeV6LmCxIYMD6PNL3l38SXKrEP9Xr_nMbfTtBsaHC_A5uP4tq2m4g_QfNLIHrr4GuxiAkU9Zxa7jln28Xfu50LZEJeQNPgjvvdzsnQ,,=1
>  1/2003 thru 6/2021  http://friam.383.s1.nabble.com/

-. --- - / ...- .- .-.. .. -.. / -- --- .-. ... . / -.-. --- -.. .
FRIAM Applied Complexity Group listserv
Fridays 9a-12p Friday St. Johns Cafe   /   Thursdays 9a-12p Zoom 
https://bit.ly/virtualfriam
to (un)subscribe http://redfish.com/mailman/listinfo/friam_redfish.com
FRIAM-COMIC http://friam-comic.blogspot.com/
archives:  5/2017 thru present https://redfish.com/pipermail/friam_redfish.com/
  1/2003 thru 6/2021  http://friam.383.s1.nabble.com/

Re: [FRIAM] death by ubiquity

[David Eric Smith]

I wonder:

Can you spin any large weight fast enough to get some gyroscopic stabilization 
over orientation?

I think about the large gangly designs that are favored for horizontal 
axis-of-rotation windmills, and think they will not respond nicely to twisting 
deformations.  It is one thing to put anchors in like guywires to keep the 
location fixed.  But depending on how high they want to reach, orientation is 
another matter, and underwater currents are not helpful for orientation if you 
are trying to tie something to a fixed surface location.  The length of cable 
used for large, laterally-extended moorings will probably admit some 
considerable flexibility. 

More likely they will just use sensors and active controls, using some of the 
power to run propellers to real-time noise-cancel water-current effects.  As 
long as the computer doesn’t fail, you’re good.

When we did ocean engineering in Texas, I learned what a hostile environment 
seawater is to _everything_ except maybe fish.  Thinking about aging and 
Arecibo. 

Eric



> On Mar 28, 2024, at 3:51 PM, Marcus Daniels  wrote:
> 
> Way offshore in some cases, but also deep.   Maybe the underwater mass could 
> help hold the platform in place?
>  
> https://www.aegirinsights.com/offshore-wind-in-california-faces-four-main-challenges-depth-waves-ports-and-grid-connection
>  
> 
>  
> The moon idea reminds me of this center:
>  
> https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Arctic_Region_Supercomputing_Center
>  
> From: Friam mailto:friam-boun...@redfish.com>> on 
> behalf of glen mailto:geprope...@gmail.com>>
> Date: Thursday, March 28, 2024 at 10:33 AM
> To: friam@redfish.com   >
> Subject: Re: [FRIAM] death by ubiquity
> 
> Bandwidth might be a problem. But the dark side of the moon seems like an 
> option ... assuming you can negotiate with the aliens that live over there. 
> The best thing about coral is you don't have to negotiate for their "land". 
> You can just take it and let them die like the stupid little creatures they 
> are.
> 
> https://www.cnn.com/2023/09/22/asia/south-china-sea-philippines-coral-reef-damage-intl-hnk/index.html
> 
> On 3/28/24 10:17, Marcus Daniels wrote:
> > It's not really my thing, but I noticed there were several very large 
> > exhibits at Supercomputing 23 for cooling technology.   Even immersive 
> > cooling solutions.  I think that could be improved a lot.   Without 
> > superconducting processors, I don't see how energy use can be dramatically 
> > reduced though.  For that there will just need to be new generation.
> > Could put these near large off short windfarms..
> > 
> > https://www.datacenterdynamics.com/en/news/china-deploys-1400-ton-commercial-underwater-data-center/
> >  
> > 
> > 
> > I suppose there are some that would say gentrification is genocide -- a 
> > slow coerced displacement.
> > 
> > -Original Message-
> > From: Friam mailto:friam-boun...@redfish.com>> 
> > On Behalf Of glen
> > Sent: Thursday, March 28, 2024 9:49 AM
> > To: friam@redfish.com 
> > Subject: Re: [FRIAM] death by ubiquity
> > 
> > Maybe. But way before that happens, it will(has) force(d) the disaffected 
> > (people, animals, plants) of any such region to die, move, or adapt.
> > 
> > In the Gaza kerfuffle, I've heard some describe coerced displacement as 
> > "genocide". I guess the more reasonble term is ethnic cleansing. The 
> > settlers seem mostly fine with their ethnic cleansing agenda. But, by 
> > analogy, how would we describe the coercive adaptation put upon a region by 
> > a massive water-sucking data center? Biology cleansing? If there really 
> > were an AI, would they worry about the forced displacement caused by their 
> > silicon incubators? ... or maybe "incubator" isn't a good word. How about 
> > "galls": https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gall Yeah, that might be a good 
> > analogy. The machines are parasitic. They hijack the iDNA (information 
> > generators) of the local biology to form galls within which they grow and 
> > thrive.
> > 
> > On 3/28/24 07:51, Marcus Daniels wrote:
> >> It will force innovation on energy-efficient microarchitecture (e.g. Groq) 
> >> and on renewable power generation near data centers.
> >>
> >> -Original Message-
> >> From: Friam mailto:friam-boun...@redfish.com>> 
> >> On Behalf Of glen
> >> Sent: Thursday, March 28, 2024 7:09 

Re: [FRIAM] death by ubiquity

[David Eric Smith]

I’m beginning to see a design.

Put underwater data centers in shallow-water sites off the coast of FLA that 
already hit 100F in the summer.  Those are already going to be dead of 
anything, kind of like radioactive waste dump sites.

Those sites then become magnets for hurricanes, which can all be amplified to 
Category 5 in their late stages, no matter how they started out.  Hurricanes 
are very efficient conveyors of heat from the ocean to the top of the 
atmosphere where it can radiate into space.  This cooling mechanism will of 
course be episodic, but with enough frequency and strength, one could compute 
what the average transport would be, and the fluctuation statistics.

If one is going to destroy the atmosphere to play computer games, at least make 
use of its mechanisms at their full scale.

Eric



> On Mar 28, 2024, at 1:17 PM, Marcus Daniels  wrote:
> 
> It's not really my thing, but I noticed there were several very large 
> exhibits at Supercomputing 23 for cooling technology.   Even immersive 
> cooling solutions.  I think that could be improved a lot.   Without 
> superconducting processors, I don't see how energy use can be dramatically 
> reduced though.  For that there will just need to be new generation.Could 
> put these near large off short windfarms.. 
> 
> https://linkprotect.cudasvc.com/url?a=https%3a%2f%2fwww.datacenterdynamics.com%2fen%2fnews%2fchina-deploys-1400-ton-commercial-underwater-data-center%2f=E,1,iSe-Z5ZgjC33Rnu1MYasXsWIWRWbCCYpftTHj5V7qORdIAfNVrWjP6TwzQBm074VDw6l78KrK-KBcGJ3Aeumd6VItGlN5EzC4pQRlmvLxUnc=1
> 
> I suppose there are some that would say gentrification is genocide -- a slow 
> coerced displacement. 
> 
> -Original Message-
> From: Friam  On Behalf Of glen
> Sent: Thursday, March 28, 2024 9:49 AM
> To: friam@redfish.com
> Subject: Re: [FRIAM] death by ubiquity
> 
> Maybe. But way before that happens, it will(has) force(d) the disaffected 
> (people, animals, plants) of any such region to die, move, or adapt.
> 
> In the Gaza kerfuffle, I've heard some describe coerced displacement as 
> "genocide". I guess the more reasonble term is ethnic cleansing. The settlers 
> seem mostly fine with their ethnic cleansing agenda. But, by analogy, how 
> would we describe the coercive adaptation put upon a region by a massive 
> water-sucking data center? Biology cleansing? If there really were an AI, 
> would they worry about the forced displacement caused by their silicon 
> incubators? ... or maybe "incubator" isn't a good word. How about "galls": 
> https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gall Yeah, that might be a good analogy. The 
> machines are parasitic. They hijack the iDNA (information generators) of the 
> local biology to form galls within which they grow and thrive.
> 
> On 3/28/24 07:51, Marcus Daniels wrote:
>> It will force innovation on energy-efficient microarchitecture (e.g. Groq) 
>> and on renewable power generation near data centers.
>> 
>> -Original Message-
>> From: Friam  On Behalf Of glen
>> Sent: Thursday, March 28, 2024 7:09 AM
>> To: friam@redfish.com
>> Subject: [FRIAM] death by ubiquity
>> 
>> 
>> As we frivolously replace meatspace conversation with obsequious chatbots, 
>> the world burns.
>> 
>> The industry more damaging to the environment than airlines 
>> https://www.telegraph.co.uk/business/2023/05/30/silicon-valley-data-giants-net-zero-sustainability-risk/
>> 
>> https://linkprotect.cudasvc.com/url?a=https%3a%2f%2fwww.asce.org%2fpublications-and-news%2fcivil-engineering-source%2fcivil-engineering-magazine%2fissues%2fmagazine-issue%2farticle%2f2024%2f03%2fengineers-often-need-a-lot-of-water-to-keep-data-centers-cool=E,1,Sop2nf9konextrtG3oBpTvI1ElsYhv_yjv16MWdXBVdBf4OCMSw4K43uIqnWn6T_W3d-dhNfncnmO9IBhqM6MBS0s_mHbHI_G9Y8EEOy=1
> 
> -- 
> ꙮ Mɥǝu ǝlǝdɥɐuʇs ɟᴉƃɥʇ' ʇɥǝ ƃɹɐss snɟɟǝɹs˙ ꙮ
> 
> -. --- - / ...- .- .-.. .. -.. / -- --- .-. ... . / -.-. --- -.. .
> FRIAM Applied Complexity Group listserv
> Fridays 9a-12p Friday St. Johns Cafe   /   Thursdays 9a-12p Zoom 
> https://linkprotect.cudasvc.com/url?a=https%3a%2f%2fbit.ly%2fvirtualfriam=E,1,frSQj7JN0Q0exuyot1BV09pmXfVXvplWDG69C0Rs_BNmmYaQXOO9QIgQwHUXBwLCbWdEjWtx4zDLwr40LVk0YxBDntQAAXUMAtjb6_1w2PuJlsoX=1
> to (un)subscribe 
> https://linkprotect.cudasvc.com/url?a=http%3a%2f%2fredfish.com%2fmailman%2flistinfo%2ffriam_redfish.com=E,1,Hc1IEDjJxvY-dyPIuvQgwo_v9bL4o3YHjiaREpIpJWEP93OYLbqIK0dSnjs9zDK0Wr_kH35FTlTUBEVtAKWv1Ec8DNN5n-8_YGlKw-odVYR2ywqglyiT9QkpgA,,=1
> FRIAM-COMIC 
> https://linkprotect.cudasvc.com/url?a=http%3a%2f%2ffriam-comic.blogspot.com%2f=E,1,PK0Yn_OY8qI1PrXjPd7fY4JaRdZhGINKusDk6fPpfg07TIno5kgKYt4aqFZtgKz2-fXsNC3dpA2THEk1zq2oTSjPE5QPtHKVuDx6Krj4czQv_pwLLDHt4cgORUE,=1
> archives:  5/2017 thru present 
> https://linkprotect.cudasvc.com/url?a=https%3a%2f%2fredfish.com%2fpipermail%2ffriam_redfish.com%2f=E,1,wOl-OQxzXxMeMNtJO6LV6i6h4Nbq55sM-wA68GwE662ItjxHOtWmt0sEov74TOgQSX32kaLQRZJsaxPf1IO4PrwmpcGoVjazPQA-YYQ7L-3bjnCerQ,,=1
>  1/2003 thru 6/2021  

Re: [FRIAM] The lies of Trump and ecDNA

[David Eric Smith]

I don’t suppose I want to make some strident argument about his being or not 
being on the ballot, since there are good reasons a careful system of laws 
might want to allow someone to run for an office even from a prison (didn’t 
Lula da Silva have to do that?)

But trump needs to get his ass hauled into a proper court, and that promptly, 
for two reasons that have nothing to do with hail Mary’s to keep him out of 
office.  

1. It has been extravagantly exhibited what many people already gripe about 
both substantively and out of habit: that the notion of “rule of law” is so 
strained in this country by the deferences given to the rich and the powerful 
(particularly the politically powerful) as to approach bitter irony.  But to 
those who love nothing so much as to complain and cast judgment: things can be 
worse, and gangster countries or absolute information-firewall countries make 
that visceral lest we forget.  In order that what is already not good, not get 
much worse, at some point we have to find that there is _some_ limit to the 
indulgences given.  Otherwise we just let it all go and aren’t even going to 
try.  

2. Also “of course”, but surprisingly hard to get heard in a crowd: the letter 
of law doesn’t do much good if we are in Humpty-Dumpty world where any word is 
allowed to mean anything, and many words can simply be ignored on the premise 
that they mean nothing at all.  There is a sense of good-faith interpretation 
of law, which is by nature not written into the letters of laws that the good 
faith is needed to protect — although good law systems do use the letters of 
the law to get as much robustness per unit of good faith as possible, by 
feeding back to education, certification standards, incentives, visibility, and 
so forth.  It is not enough to haul his ass before judges and juries, they have 
to be real judges that feel obliged to good faith and competence.  And any 
juries have to somehow be protected from brownshirts, at least so we don’t have 
to rely on heroes to even accept the jury assignment without fleeing the 
country for their own safety.  Again, one could sort of sit on the sidelines, 
and suppose that whatever currently happens is about all there can be, but with 
SCOTUS giving near-weekly examples of the Humpty-Dumpty version, we are 
reminded that among degrees of sub-optimality, some are clearly way worse than 
others, so there is still something to actively work to hold onto.


To the extent that anything might bear on keeping him off the ballot, I don’t 
at all mind that the 14th amendment has some detailed language tailored to some 
Civil War insurrectionists that could lead to that outcome.  But since this is 
a federal standard, applying to a federal office, and since the question of 
whether one has engaged in insurrection is not a mere matter of fact like age 
or citizenship, but a matter of legal interpretation, it seems pretty simple to 
require that any decisions on that matter should probably be made in a federal 
court.  (It is so weird that, with all the noise I have heard on this matter 
from talking heads, I haven’t heard the above thing just said that way, which 
seems to me the smallest and most elementary place to start.  Not sure why.)

I haven’t tried to read (and don’t have the education to understand 
technically) what is in Smith’s charges of trump, and even Humpty-Dumpty aside, 
I don’t know how their specific language would interact in law with the 
language of the 14th.  But until there is some federal commitment on the 
charges that are currently indicted, I don’t see how any substantive 
conversation on any of that gets anywhere.  If he should get convicted of some 
palette of the charges, and some court should decide that those charges are 
suitably close to what the constitution wants in terms like “insurrection”, and 
they throw him off, that’s fine with me.  Or of there is some legal argument 
that you have to have actually been a general in a bona fide war to count as an 
insurrectionist, that would be a shame to have to let it go so far, but I could 
listen to why it is argued that way and try to decide whether there is some 
protection in such leeway that I can understand.  trump is not that important 
in a long-term sense (though even sudden cardiac death only lasts a few 
minutes, and yet has certain long-term impacts), and keeping him out by the 
vote long enough that he dies of MacDonalds also doesn’t solve the problem of 
the run to fascism in the U.S., which is very obviously a social phenomenon 
even if it includes institutional assistance.  But I guess to return to the 
theme at the start: there is some notion of a worldview upheld by some minimal 
set of planks of basic sanity, and if everything is just left to drift until 
none of those remain, we have much less to work with than the 
naturally-selected norms of wild animal populations to underpin life.  To just 
watch that happen and do nothing seems blame-worthy.

Re: [FRIAM] The Regenerative Development Manifesto

[David Eric Smith]

Merle, hi and thank you for this,

But I think it must be another Eric Smith, because I am not recognizing the 
term.  Is this something I wrote in a post at some point?  I know there were 
exchanges on how far our engineered world is from full recycling of everything, 
and that that is the only paradigm that could properly be called sustainable.  
While I am keenly aware of this all the time, I don’t recall my having 
contributed anything of substance to the discussion.

All best, 

Eric




> On Feb 24, 2024, at 10:19 AM, Merle Lefkoff  wrote:
> 
> I'm getting ready to "use" the wonderful " Regenerative Manifesto" in many 
> ways.  I want to make sure I give proper attribution.  
> 
> David Eric Smith?
> 
> -- 
> Merle Lefkoff, Ph.D.
> Center for Emergent Diplomacy
> emergentdiplomacy.org 
> <https://linkprotect.cudasvc.com/url?a=http%3a%2f%2femergentdiplomacy.org=E,1,uZ8kXlMD7ZzXeCaTVy-WUq3a37zEJi2qRWB8HI-vgHuyPi61NUZfSP5Xn0AORKGePDgwlZ1P9yxXtKem3LI1FylhpUUFHhnW8fAVuncdSYmn8rtno86JF5Zer55a=1>
> Santa Fe, New Mexico, USA
> 
> mobile:  (303) 859-5609
> 
> -. --- - / ...- .- .-.. .. -.. / -- --- .-. ... . / -.-. --- -.. .
> FRIAM Applied Complexity Group listserv
> Fridays 9a-12p Friday St. Johns Cafe   /   Thursdays 9a-12p Zoom 
> https://linkprotect.cudasvc.com/url?a=https%3a%2f%2fbit.ly%2fvirtualfriam=E,1,LAmo_HyLpAQT82rNALBlYmzlNR-fwFxTazKYTOy2wTlI4lCHjoi5BO8976lPfL73IOQHqnVGqLQAqYdew4m08vqxWG6xrfA9ki4UnlEJK5nYWnXHYkRXokCoQQ,,=1
> to (un)subscribe 
> https://linkprotect.cudasvc.com/url?a=http%3a%2f%2fredfish.com%2fmailman%2flistinfo%2ffriam_redfish.com=E,1,XEvuilrcys2zN8gSuxHxPM7Oi2uufBmYgmx01-QJia9p9mJHKMzMeEul9Y0UCugUZjdKbcKgrUXCTP8oAXNNu7QMQeXpDNWVBAAWQMF33BlVQBL7vwqr=1
> FRIAM-COMIC 
> https://linkprotect.cudasvc.com/url?a=http%3a%2f%2ffriam-comic.blogspot.com%2f=E,1,KWtO1zOCdBU6OT_oEu3Uzh3K2JiCWDp6xvm2i7yvF1RwL9uvNn9fbI_8ChDyE5oLQjSJGbR8o41tH-3iGKFPxp_OM3h-6tzc-NzgL0kqefGSt-CUjC2m5w,,=1
> archives:  5/2017 thru present 
> https://linkprotect.cudasvc.com/url?a=https%3a%2f%2fredfish.com%2fpipermail%2ffriam_redfish.com%2f=E,1,CHHBjmEwCBJJlVCObytDA3v94GpnWqW8IJW-gqdttehALz_LWfmVfLbQbKLbyR9w8ZIpYLCEX-8s0YvRDbGwEKmGshXAC3Vsuz-UVY8tr3quqX8e3gC1wg,,=1
>  1/2003 thru 6/2021  http://friam.383.s1.nabble.com/

-. --- - / ...- .- .-.. .. -.. / -- --- .-. ... . / -.-. --- -.. .
FRIAM Applied Complexity Group listserv
Fridays 9a-12p Friday St. Johns Cafe   /   Thursdays 9a-12p Zoom 
https://bit.ly/virtualfriam
to (un)subscribe http://redfish.com/mailman/listinfo/friam_redfish.com
FRIAM-COMIC http://friam-comic.blogspot.com/
archives:  5/2017 thru present https://redfish.com/pipermail/friam_redfish.com/
  1/2003 thru 6/2021  http://friam.383.s1.nabble.com/

Re: [FRIAM] The problems of interdisciplinary research

[David Eric Smith]

It’s kind of fascinating.

I imagine that one of the next concepts to come into focus will be “curiosity”. 
 I remember a discussion years ago (15? 18?), I think involving David K., about 
what the nature of “curiosity” is and what role it plays in learning.  

Where the paper talks about supervision to train weights, but eschewing 
“search” per se as a component of the capability learned, it makes me think of 
the role of search in the pursuit of inputs, the ultimate worth of which you 
can’t know at the time of searching.  I can imagine (off the cuff) that 
whatever one wants to mean by “curiosity”, it has some flavor of a non-random 
search, but one not guided by known criteria, rather by appropriateness to fit 
existing gaps in (something: confidence? consistency?).

This also seems like it should tie into Leslie Valiant’s ideas in Probably 
Approximately Correct about how to formally conceptualize teaching in relation 
to learning.  I guess Valiant is now considered decades passe, as AI has 
charged ahead.  But the broad outlines of his argument don’t seem like they 
have become completely superseded.

We already have “attention” as a secret sauce with important impacts.  I wonder 
when some shift of architectural paradigm will include a design that we think 
is a good formalization of the pre-formal gestures toward curiosity.

Eric



> On Feb 10, 2024, at 8:19 PM, Marcus Daniels  wrote:
> 
> If one takes results like this -- https://arxiv.org/abs/2402.04494 -- and 
> then consider what happens with, say, Code Llama, it seems plausible that it 
> is representing both the breadth and depth of what humans know about large 
> and complex code bases.   It is not clear to me why knowledge can’t be 
> extended far beyond what the highest-bandwidth humans can learn in a 
> lifetime.   I agree mastery of the idiomatic patterns could constrain 
> invention, though.   For software engineering, the most impressive people to 
> me are those that can navigate large and complex code bases, often 
> remembering a lot of the code, but also can discard whole modules at a time 
> and reimagine them.Managers are suspicious of such people because 
> managers want to modularize expertise for division of labor.   Scrum is in 
> some sense a way to impede the development of expertise and to deny the need 
> for it.
>  
> From: Friam mailto:friam-boun...@redfish.com>> On 
> Behalf Of David Eric Smith
> Sent: Saturday, February 10, 2024 2:25 AM
> To: The Friday Morning Applied Complexity Coffee Group  <mailto:friam@redfish.com>>
> Subject: Re: [FRIAM] The problems of interdisciplinary research
>  
> There’s a famous old rant by von Neumann, known at least by those who were 
> around to hear it, or so I was told by Martin Shubik.  
>  
> von Neumann was grumping that “math had become too big; nobody could 
> understand more than 1/4 of it”.  As always with von Neumann, the point of 
> saying something included an element of self-aggrandizement: von Neumann was 
> inviting the listener to notice that _he_ was the one who could understand a 
> quarter of all existing math at the time (whether or not such an absurdity 
> could be called “true” in any sense).
>  
> I have wondered if this problem marks a qualitative threshold from which to 
> define a “complex systems” science.  The premise would be that all 
> innovations ultimately occur in individual human heads, triggered somehow.  
> (And much of the skill of science is to structure your environment of reading 
> and experience and people to “trigger” you in productive ways, since insight 
> isn’t something that can be willed into existence).  But those ideas need to 
> be answerable to the fullest scope of whatever is currently understood that 
> is pertinent.  
>  
> The old answer used to be to cram more and more of current knowledge into 
> single heads as the fuel for their insights, and then to limit to more and 
> more rarified heads that could hold the most and still come up with 
> something.  
>  
> But at some point, that model no longer works because there is a limit (some 
> kind of extreme-value distribution, I guess) to what human heads can hold, at 
> all.
>  
> The project then shifts over into an effort of community design with explicit 
> concerns that are not reducible to head-packing.  How do good insights come 
> into existence, still limited by heads, but properly responsible to much more 
> knowledge than the heads do, or even could, contain?  
>  
>  
> I can, of course, shoot down my own way of saying this, immediately.  In a 
> sense, engineers have been doing this for some very very long time.  No 
> “person” knows what is in a 777 aircraft (or for the Europeans, an A380).  
> Those cases still feel different to me somehow, and like a more standard 

Re: [FRIAM] The problems of interdisciplinary research

[David Eric Smith]

It is an interesting question.

A colleague of mine, to whom I refer either affectionately (sometimes) or in 
exasperation (most times) as The Mystic believes that this utilization was what 
the Phenomenologists were after, though he considers only Husserl and Fink the 
real deal, and the others as closeted hair-splitting Analyticals who didn’t 
understand the purpose (which, like the purpose of everything of any worth, is 
Mysticism).  He also believes that the European phenomenologists were sort of 
undergrads at this, whereas the Vedic Hindus were maybe impressive post-docs, 
along with maybe Daoists and some Confucians, Buddhists in general were the 
professoriate, and among them the Tibetans the true grandmasters.  (He will 
give somewhat more credit to the Medieval Christian mystics in Europe — the 
group studied by people like Barry McGinn — than to their post-enlightenment 
descendants in philosophy.)  I tend to get lost in the hierarchy of holies, 
since it seems to vary depending on what I might have said that he needs to 
tell me was wrong.  But I feel like I remember patterns in things said to me 
over many conversations over the span of years, going into decades.

And of course, I say “he believes”, as if I didn’t recognize the complete 
absurdity of that, as I have no place or way to say anything about what he 
believes, never having said (or asked, or seemingly, even thought) anything 
that he doesn’t consider an error so categorical as to be hard for him to 
express.  

But, without about the honor due to Sartre’s self-taught man, I can continue to 
listen and try to remember the surface forms of what gets told to me.  The idea 
that there should be room for growth here doesn’t seem crazy to me.  

Eric



> On Feb 10, 2024, at 11:55 AM, Prof David West  wrote:
> 
> Eric said:
> 
> "there is a limit (some kind of extreme-value distribution, I guess) to what 
> human heads can hold, at all."
> 
> I must disagree. 
> 
> It may very well be true that the human mind-brain is limited in the amount 
> of 'formal-abstract' knowledge (mathematical, scientific, computational—the 
> stuff you learn in school) it can hold; that kind of knowledge represents a 
> small portion of what every human 'knows'. (Maybe 10%)
> 
> The exemplar of 'non-formal-abstract' knowledge possessed by everyone is 
> culture: "a complex whole consisting, in part, of language, norms, values, 
> worldviews, technologies, behaviors, and appearances." This kind of knowledge 
> can grow without limit (excepting maybe death) as long as one remains open to 
> its acquisition with varied experiences, travel, engagement with the "other," 
> and reading (for pleasure as well as purpose).
> 
> An interesting question: can (and if yes, how) might this knowledge be 
> utilized in service of innovation, insight, and understanding? I believe the 
> the answers are "yes" and "via evocative contextualization." An example of 
> the latter is the "Wheel of Life" Thankgka painting I have hanging above my 
> desk. (attached)
> 
> davew
> 
> 
> 
> 
> On Sat, Feb 10, 2024, at 4:25 AM, David Eric Smith wrote:
>> There’s a famous old rant by von Neumann, known at least by those who were 
>> around to hear it, or so I was told by Martin Shubik.  
>> 
>> von Neumann was grumping that “math had become too big; nobody could 
>> understand more than 1/4 of it”.  As always with von Neumann, the point of 
>> saying something included an element of self-aggrandizement: von Neumann was 
>> inviting the listener to notice that _he_ was the one who could understand a 
>> quarter of all existing math at the time (whether or not such an absurdity 
>> could be called “true” in any sense).
>> 
>> I have wondered if this problem marks a qualitative threshold from which to 
>> define a “complex systems” science.  The premise would be that all 
>> innovations ultimately occur in individual human heads, triggered somehow.  
>> (And much of the skill of science is to structure your environment of 
>> reading and experience and people to “trigger” you in productive ways, since 
>> insight isn’t something that can be willed into existence).  But those ideas 
>> need to be answerable to the fullest scope of whatever is currently 
>> understood that is pertinent.  
>> 
>> The old answer used to be to cram more and more of current knowledge into 
>> single heads as the fuel for their insights, and then to limit to more and 
>> more rarified heads that could hold the most and still come up with 
>> something.  
>> 
>> But at some point, that model no longer works because there is a limit (some 
>> kind of extreme-value distribution, I guess) to what human heads 

Re: [FRIAM] The problems of interdisciplinary research

[David Eric Smith]

There’s a famous old rant by von Neumann, known at least by those who were 
around to hear it, or so I was told by Martin Shubik.  

von Neumann was grumping that “math had become too big; nobody could understand 
more than 1/4 of it”.  As always with von Neumann, the point of saying 
something included an element of self-aggrandizement: von Neumann was inviting 
the listener to notice that _he_ was the one who could understand a quarter of 
all existing math at the time (whether or not such an absurdity could be called 
“true” in any sense).

I have wondered if this problem marks a qualitative threshold from which to 
define a “complex systems” science.  The premise would be that all innovations 
ultimately occur in individual human heads, triggered somehow.  (And much of 
the skill of science is to structure your environment of reading and experience 
and people to “trigger” you in productive ways, since insight isn’t something 
that can be willed into existence).  But those ideas need to be answerable to 
the fullest scope of whatever is currently understood that is pertinent.  

The old answer used to be to cram more and more of current knowledge into 
single heads as the fuel for their insights, and then to limit to more and more 
rarified heads that could hold the most and still come up with something.  

But at some point, that model no longer works because there is a limit (some 
kind of extreme-value distribution, I guess) to what human heads can hold, at 
all.

The project then shifts over into an effort of community design with explicit 
concerns that are not reducible to head-packing.  How do good insights come 
into existence, still limited by heads, but properly responsible to much more 
knowledge than the heads do, or even could, contain?  


I can, of course, shoot down my own way of saying this, immediately.  In a 
sense, engineers have been doing this for some very very long time.  No 
“person” knows what is in a 777 aircraft (or for the Europeans, an A380).  
Those cases still feel different to me somehow, and like a more standard 
expansion of the concept of the assembly line and modularization of tasks 
through reliable interfaces (the various ideas behind object design etc.)  I 
imagine that the interesting problem of idea-finding for complex phenomena are 
those that arise when you have modularized as much as you can, and you have run 
out of interesting things to add within the modules, because the things you 
can’t see transcend them.

But of course I haven’t “made” anything of this string of words, like a 
self-help consultancy or the presidency of any institution.

Eric


> On Feb 9, 2024, at 7:45 PM, Roger Critchlow  wrote:
> 
> Yeah, it seems like the premise of the cartoon, or maybe Jochen's 
> interpretation, was that people have limited scopes of application, and the 
> average scope of application doesn't include interdisciplinary research.  But 
> there are people who have larger scope and have a lot of fun doing 
> interdisciplinary projects.  And if an interdisciplinary group can adapt to 
> its participant areas of strength, lots of interesting things can happen.  
> 
> -- rec --
> 
> On Fri, Feb 9, 2024 at 3:19 PM Frank Wimberly  > wrote:
>> I didn't read the article but Carnegie Mellon, where I worked for almost 20 
>> years, prides itself on the amount of interdisciplinary research 
>> accomplished there..  Herb Simon had appointments in psychology, computer 
>> science, business and public policy, I believe.  I was a coauthor of papers 
>> in robotics, public policy, computer science and philosophy.
>> 
>> On Fri, Feb 9, 2024 at 1:54 PM Jochen Fromm > > wrote:
>>> Tom Gauld describes most of the problems of interdisciplinary research in a 
>>> single image
>>> https://www.newscientist.com/article/2389834-tom-gauld-on-areas-of-expertise/
>>> 
>>> -J.
>>> 
>>> -. --- - / ...- .- .-.. .. -.. / -- --- .-. ... . / -.-. --- -.. .
>>> FRIAM Applied Complexity Group listserv
>>> Fridays 9a-12p Friday St. Johns Cafe   /   Thursdays 9a-12p Zoom 
>>> https://bit.ly/virtualfriam 
>>> 
>>> to (un)subscribe http://redfish.com/mailman/listinfo/friam_redfish.com 
>>> 
>>> FRIAM-COMIC http://friam-comic.blogspot.com/ 
>>> 
>>> archives:  5/2017 thru present 
>>> https://redfish.com/pipermail/friam_redfish.com/ 

Re: [FRIAM] Breaking Bad and Free Will

[David Eric Smith]

I mostly sit on the sidelines in these freewill and choice discussions, because 
I don’t know what anybody else wants from the terms and the language using 
them.  I wonder whether the people using them know what they want from them, or 
if they would regard that as a meaningful thing to ask of someone.  So I hear 
evidence of this or that degree of regularity or context-sensitivity, and have 
no idea what problem they are supposed to be addressing.

But it leaves me wondering what questions I could ask that would give me some 
traction.

First, how much of this freewill and choice language is really anchored in its 
main features in the nature of human experience, and how much is exercise of a 
culturally inherited and partly arbitrary speech convention?  I mean this in 
the sense one might ask of language: there is some evidence that aspects of 
language use are inherently human and regular, as we see from invented 
isolated-group languages (deaf kids etc.) or from pidgin-creole transitions.  
But any particular language is of course conventional in much of its structure, 
and most kids raised without a language will not, by themselves, create a 
substitute in time.

I can imagine there are aspects of both for the freewill and choice thing.

But what would be the “native and unambiguous” aspect?  I feel like to say 
anything, I first have to think of the activities going on in the mind like a 
hive of bees, partly autonomous but partly coordinated.  Other activities also 
always-working are serving to maintain coordination where it is needed.  For 
example, if my elbow moves in one direction, then the laws of physics say it 
will not have moved in some different direction.  So while there may be many 
chaotic inputs to elbow movement, at some point they need to resolve into an 
action that there will only be one of.

So if, David Chalmers-like, I am to claim that there is an experiential aspect 
called “feeling that I choose”, what the hell should that refer to?  I could 
guess that, in cases where there is some significant spread in the contributors 
to an action, and the resolving activities have to do some work against some 
tension to resolve to some definite action, the self-modeling and 
self-reporting aspects of awareness might present those as a report of a 
tension, to which evolved language will then attach a tag “choosing” so that we 
can refer to it in ourselves and in each other.  It seems like I remember 
reading, years ago when this was in a spate of articles, about the anterior 
cingulate gyrus and the amygdala as brain regions that go active when some kind 
of conflict or heterogeneous input needs to be resolved somehow.

Thus: to the extent that Cheyne-Stokes breathing doesn’t even need the brain, 
it is pretty hierarchical, and I don’t expect that it will ever report itself 
too me as offering freedom to “choose” something.  Presumably it won’t report 
itself at all.  But other things look more like Seely’s process of a hive of 
bees choosing where to migrate.  Lots of signals come in from significantly 
independent origins, and there can be a long period of balance among several 
possible outcomes before something tips, and the hive goes somewhere.  That 
tension will feel to me like some symbol needs to be attached to the tipping, 
and there is an opportunity for some “choice” or “will” term to get attached to 
those kinds of feelings.

But then what is all this “choice” and “free will” language doing, beyond just 
allowing us to label feelings?  Where does it come from?  What role is it 
playing?  

I can imagine that it is something like a socially constructed prosthetic 
system.  There is lots of stuff that happens in mind-activity, which minds 
don’t carry out regularly (or maybe at all) in isolation, but which they can 
scaffold their way through by evolving external prosthetic systems.  So, game 
boards for playing combinatorial games.  Counting and rhythm for dealing with 
enumeration, time and other stuff.  Many structure of language for organizing 
thought patterns and images.  We wouldn’t say that the minds aren’t “thinking” 
or “solving” whatever the problem is because they employ a prosthetic system in 
doing so.  We can instead say that, like neoteny and like lots of other things 
that are extreme in human minds, they have taken on capacity for a lot of 
complexity by offloading the completion of many parallelizable tasks to 
constructed niches, which the minds as a community then generate, maintain, and 
evolve.

Likewise, one can imagine that these abstractions of “will” and “choice” get 
used by some of the resolving-activities, to direct attention or imagination 
(among the many places it could be directed at any moment) to images of others, 
social sanction, imaginations of fear of blame, guilt, reprisal, or whatever, 
and then one navigates through the language-mediated rules of that game, to 
results that feed back as part of the resolution-activity to send the 

Re: [FRIAM] "SSRN-id3978095.pdf" was shared with you

[David Eric Smith]

Agreed.

There is an even easier logic that _could be_ for these questions.  It would 
center on how much agency is given to a person by inhabiting an office, and 
where exclusion of the person needs to be done to keep that agency from 
enabling actions that destroy whatever system “the country” has collectively 
granted legitimacy.  In that priority, the looser the cannon, the more 
important to vet the pattern of directions in which it tends to point.

I expect we all know what the outcome will be.  Since current SCOTUS has 
demonstrated that some word-sausage can be composed and prepended to any 
predetermined agenda, and the participants in The Spectacle will provide an 
endless stream of entertainment commentary but not do anything, and the various 
chickens will squawk but not do anything, the majority will come up with 
something that may as well be random and then follow it by saying the electoral 
college will get to decide.

Quite apart from the question of “offices”, there was another side of the 
question that to me seemed sensible as reasoning.  The question of citizenship 
or age are matters of “record”, not exactly like “laws of physics”, but 
questions over which there has been little enough effort to claim reality 
doesn’t apply to them that there isn’t much “legalism” to deciding them.  In 
contrast, whether one is or is not an insurrectionist is explicitly a matter of 
legal decision.  One could say that, since states administer elections 
(federalism and all that), their own courts should be permitted to determine 
this question in whatever higgledy-piggledy way they like.  In other matters, 
the states-rights club like this line of sophistry.  But even within the 
constitution, there probably is a distinction between “administering” an 
election and dictating what the criteria for national-level elections even 
_are_; the states are not permitted (I imagine, but I am not a constitutional 
scholar) to decide that one state goes by Russian rules, another by Chinese 
rules, another by Finnish rules, and another by South-Sudanese rules).  And by 
that criterion, since this is an election to a national office, one could argue 
that the legal decision on whether X has or hasn’t engaged in an insurrection 
should probably be something determined and handed down in a federal court, 
which then supersedes idiosyncratic state-level court decisions.  Would have 
been nice if we didn’t have two years of foot-dragging and procrastination 
before any of that movement started, so we could have such a decision in place 
now to refer to.  But if SCOTUS wanted to do something that wasn’t 
transparently contemptuous toward the concept of law, they could rule that the 
federal indictments on insurrection should be pushed to decision, and that 
decision should then dictate eligibility under the 14th in the “triggering” 
interpretation that is usually put forward.

On the current timeline, nearly nothing is going to get done before the 
republican primaries run.  But if enough pressure could be brought against the 
ones who keep upholding the delays, it could be done before the generals.  If 
the R party want to put him on their primaries, knowing that if he is convicted 
he is instantly disqualified from the generals, that is their business.  I have 
not heard anything to the effect that the constitution says political parties 
should be prevented from making self-defeating decisions toward their own 
stated goals, quite apart from whether the goals have any worth or value.  So 
they can take a roll at the casino, and bet over shooting themselves in the 
foot if they lose.  

Again, though, in a world now stuffed at the officeholder level by people who 
act always in bad faith, these arguments about sense or function are a pastime 
for the commentariat and other people who don’t really matter.

Eric



> On Jan 9, 2024, at 5:53 AM, Marcus Daniels  wrote:
> 
> If Trump had been a staffer for a senator, he’d be SOL in this view?  If 
> that’s a good predicate for disqualification, it seems weird to specifically 
> not give an override to vetted individuals (appointed insurrectionists) 
> versus unvetted-by-appointment yet vetted by prior election.  
>  
> From: Friam mailto:friam-boun...@redfish.com>> on 
> behalf of glen mailto:geprope...@gmail.com>>
> Date: Monday, January 8, 2024 at 7:08 AM
> To: friam@redfish.com   >
> Subject: Re: [FRIAM] "SSRN-id3978095.pdf" was shared with you
> 
> The argument seems pretty clear to me. "Officer" is jargonal, not intuitive. 
> Were I to read it charitably, I'd agree. Appointees are not elected. Electees 
> should have more leeway than appointees ... like the difference between an 
> elected Sheriff and her deputies. But like all dichotomies, this one is a bit 
> false, especially given that the [Vice]Presidents aren't really elected at 
> all. The Electoral College process feels more like a complicated appointment 

Re: [FRIAM] The last Lighthouse Keeper in America

[David Eric Smith]

I was thinking more like judges and prosecutors than about celebrities.

They seem to be the ones who look back at the snarling dog and say I deal with 
mobsters every day.  Get out of my way; I have a job to do.

E


> On Dec 27, 2023, at 6:28 PM, Steve Smith  wrote:
> 
> Rambling Ode to (mostly) Trucks:
> 
> On 12/27/23 10:59 AM, Marcus Daniels wrote:
>> What I saw on my trip were hundreds of late model giant pickup trucks jacked 
>> way up off the ground driving around 90mph with the usual markings.
>> How do the proles afford them?  Not yet post-scarcity.  Hmm.
> Re: LMGPTJOtG - Last time I drove the corridor you describe I remember having 
> my doors blown off by one of those "cowboy cadillacs"  with bumper stickers 
> reading Trump 2016 and If it ain't King James, it ain't Bible.   I'm sure 
> there is a Trump 2020 and 2024 sticker on there (or overlayed) now. 
> 
> Re: Bible tangent -  I recently bought a used Bible off the interwebs for 
> reasons I'm sure you don't want me to elaborate here, and learned a bit too 
> much about the myriad *modern* translations/editions and versions,  with KJ 
> influencing them all significantly.   I chose a 1951 version the Catholic 
> Church produced to try to align with Protestant versions without letting go 
> of any of their own principles/tenants.   A sort of peace offering?   I was 
> raised agnostic-unto athiest but surrounded by Protestants and Impinged with 
> Catholics until I started choosing escaped/reformed/recovering Catholics as 
> partners as an adult.
> 
> Re: Can't wait for the machines to take over- When we invented gods in our 
> own image we did a bad job, I'm not sure we are doing any better with the AI? 
>  Please gods, not in Elon's image!  But hope springs infernal.
> 
> Re: REC Banks/Culture -  glad to hear someone else is as voracious as I am 
> with Science and Fiction... my library still holds a dozen or so books from 
> REC's library when he left SFE (10 years ago?)... but I don't remember any 
> SciFi, just SciFact?   
> 
> Re: Eric's cryptic comment about "last keeper of Democracy being a Black 
> Woman - " Michele, Oprah, and Kamala seem like the likely candidates in 
> exponentially decreasing order of likelihood?   I see an adjacent-possible 
> path fitting Biden's and the DNC's handling of 2024 strategy?   When does 
> Biden step down/out?  After Trump implodes entirely?  After election?  Some 
> acute aging-related event?  If Haley squeeks the primary away from DJT?  
> While she might qualify as "woman of color", not Black and not particularly a 
> "keeper of Democracy" unless of course, we measure such by small handfulls of 
> shred?  I'd want Kamala to beat her, but not sure where all those 
> Trumpster-Dumpsters would come down?   Some probably couldn't vote for *any* 
> woman?
> 
> Re:  Big Trucks and post Scarcity -  On our last road trip, Mary's favorite 
> cousin (our age) arrived (Northern NE) to meet us for dinner one of those 
> cowboy cadillacs... looked like it had been in a bar-fight.   Golfball and 
> bigger hail the week before he said.   
> 
> He had just come from the insurance adjuster who offered him a $50k check for 
> the repairs (spangled windshield, ball-peened hood/roof, and some minor pings 
> in every panel and toolbox)...   which he was upset about since replacement 
> was $70k.   Not a single functional issue outside of windshield visibility.  
> I'd have had a $500 windshield put in, paid off the loan (which I would never 
> have taken out, myself) and worn the beating like a sabre scar, but he was 
> dead set on getting it repaired whilst grumbling at the downtime when he'd 
> have to drive one of the (equally big/expensive) company trucks (he owns a 
> tree trimming service, so it would host a bucket and chipper, slows him down 
> on the straightaways?).  
> 
> I didn't check for bumper stickers but am pretty sure they would say 
> Trump/Pence with Pence struck through with a Sharpie (maybe a noose drawn 
> on?).  He might have missed the small Biden/Harris one on the back of Mary's 
> ($5k new to us) 15 year old Prius (215k miles and no hail damage)... I just 
> smiled when he railed about the cost of fuel (a lot of "I did that" Biden 
> stickers on the gas pumps there) thinking about the 50mpg I was getting 
> unless I drafted behind a truck like his (then 60)...  
> 
> Mary is excellent about not talking politics with family... most of her 
> generation of relatives (and all of their survining parents) are died-in-wool 
> conservative and about half of the next generation are too.  One tween 
> grand-niece sported a "I'll be Baaack Trump-Terminator" T-shirt when we met 
> up with them... I'm pretty sure it was for our benefit.   I wanted to send 
> her a Dark-Brandon one to round out the closet, but Mary thought she 
> might/not recognize the snark in it and either way it would be futile.
> 
> Love of Pickup Trucks - I grew up with pickup-trucks as the best 
> value-versatility vehicle, 

Re: [FRIAM] The last Lighthouse Keeper in America

[David Eric Smith]

I increasingly think the last keeper of democracy in the U.S. will be a black 
woman.  Everybody else seems afraid.  The perennial complaints about Neville 
Chamberlain come to mind.

But still, best wishes for the New Year to you Jochen and to All.

Eric



> On Dec 26, 2023, at 4:39 AM, Jochen Fromm  wrote:
> 
> Merry Christmas from Berlin! It must be Farolitos time now in Santa Fe, 
> right? Here in Berlin we have plenty of Christmas markets where you get hot 
> mulled wine. At Christmas Eve I was in the "American Church of Berlin" which 
> is over 120 years old. It was mostly empty though. 
> 
> While Donald Trump embodies the bad site of America - adultery, fraud, hate, 
> lies, greed and the rest of the mortal sins - the church classically 
> represents the good side of America: the selfless care for others, Christian 
> values and the feeling that everybody is welcome.
> 
> It is sad to see churches slowly dying out like the old lighthouses at the 
> coast which showed ships the right way for centuries but are now turning into 
> mere tourist attractions. Will democracy die out together with the churches 
> too? 
> 
> This article about the last lighthouse keeper in the U.S. makes me wonder if 
> president Biden will be the last keeper of democracy in America before the 
> land falls into the darkness of a Trump dictatorship. What do you think? 
> https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2023/11/06/the-last-lighthouse-keeper-in-america
> 
> -J.
> -. --- - / ...- .- .-.. .. -.. / -- --- .-. ... . / -.-. --- -.. .
> FRIAM Applied Complexity Group listserv
> Fridays 9a-12p Friday St. Johns Cafe   /   Thursdays 9a-12p Zoom 
> https://linkprotect.cudasvc.com/url?a=https%3a%2f%2fbit.ly%2fvirtualfriam=E,1,MfR7QY5u51Gek4F9oRb_H-rpZMkBj6daRnKfn-mPdVfgv1KCKR3uwkL-6pQSk9QZ2o6DH1O9z4veyG1ABO5_B_QnwteY8TmVGT8xbDorDUIX8haTKmNsCIZz=1
> to (un)subscribe 
> https://linkprotect.cudasvc.com/url?a=http%3a%2f%2fredfish.com%2fmailman%2flistinfo%2ffriam_redfish.com=E,1,f2TWbvpGcjkqirB14icZsxL3RYnDEpqO0ZOQAX12e-05QcrhOncVBYD0HuGJtYyvLkyiAIfTPkEiLATEIIxAyoXbK0bwQgMG19N9ssSobFRcT6RdzdzLd6e5=1
> FRIAM-COMIC 
> https://linkprotect.cudasvc.com/url?a=http%3a%2f%2ffriam-comic.blogspot.com%2f=E,1,ZJNM_l7mA-1WkFb0SoV7NPNkMmK44OPkHcAKeX3APz3xso8KqnPtL9saQI5WJZzUc21pad08IvlPyhPbhPbJEIH34UgyQT74CxPKP6EBUouiHZD3=1
> archives:  5/2017 thru present 
> https://linkprotect.cudasvc.com/url?a=https%3a%2f%2fredfish.com%2fpipermail%2ffriam_redfish.com%2f=E,1,12Fs6Aum0-Kg-G8oQHsrc9kqev9gb8kgkm5D13AtyVXeM750k0n4RndfXRe3ddOq3WHNZkPYn56KNAFyyGYI2DA4Tc-7AOwh43bDgLKWjq09ow,,=1
>  1/2003 thru 6/2021  http://friam.383.s1.nabble.com/


-. --- - / ...- .- .-.. .. -.. / -- --- .-. ... . / -.-. --- -.. .
FRIAM Applied Complexity Group listserv
Fridays 9a-12p Friday St. Johns Cafe   /   Thursdays 9a-12p Zoom 
https://bit.ly/virtualfriam
to (un)subscribe http://redfish.com/mailman/listinfo/friam_redfish.com
FRIAM-COMIC http://friam-comic.blogspot.com/
archives:  5/2017 thru present https://redfish.com/pipermail/friam_redfish.com/
  1/2003 thru 6/2021  http://friam.383.s1.nabble.com/

Re: [FRIAM] Working for the Military Institute of Technology Causes Cognitive Dissonance

[David Eric Smith]

Wanted to say thank you for this.

I don’t know that I find Dresser’s psychologizing of Chomsky persuasive at all. 
 But it’s nice that what leaks through the general history is Chomsky’s 
commitment as an operator.

I liked that they had the little video clip in there.  What comes through (to 
me, so bright that it quenches out everything else) is the one constant of 
Chomsky, across his history and in all the modes of his activity: the 
superciliousness, and the attitude of Olympian contempt he puts on, at all 
times, standing in judgment of everyone and everything.  

The way Dresser doesn’t roll over to Chomsky’s assertion of absolute 
domination, in the main text, was kind of a relief, though his blithe dismissal 
of Chomsky’s having had any substantive reason for being an influencer looked 
like trouble.  The comments — surprisingly content-rich — unpack that trouble, 
but even there the exchange is interesting.  The defenders say Dresser misses 
the point of the syntactic work and mis-represents by taking things out of 
context (I think probably true), and then Dresser answers by providing explicit 
statements that are hard to understand as being any less ridiculous than he 
claims, since they are asserted with characteristic Chomskian authoritarianism. 
 What I take this for is evidence of what I see as the major pattern: Chomsky’s 
writing is as close to Newspeak as we probably have in something that is 
glossed by some as a science (and that, in a good world, could be, and is 
trying to become, more of a science).  His writing, over the decades and lots 
of books (here referring to the linguistics) has essentially no stable 
constructive assertions, yet at every point the delivery is “This is what I say 
and this is what I have always said.”

(Not that Dresser comes out of this looking like any much-better character.  
Claiming he isn’t out to write a hit-piece on Chomsky’s intellectual 
contributions, while transparently wanting mainly to do that, and then at the 
end saying how grateful he is for Chomsky’s activism, rings pretty 
disingenuous.  I am also struck because to me the style of The Man is 
recognizably the same in both.  But enough on Dresser.  He will be forgotten by 
tomorrow, so one can just comment on the content of the writing.)

I don’t know where Chomsky ranks in the guruness indices.  But he is a case 
study in the patterns of meme-authoritarianism.  A vast discourse of negative 
statements, which (seen in many people I have to deal with) seem to have only 
the goal of denying something specific somebody else is trying to say or to do, 
accompanied by shifting, or shifty, assertive-sounding statements, but ones 
that turn out to be slippery enough that you are never permitted to attach a 
meaning to them and decide for yourself whether they are valid or not.  Any 
judgment you pass against the constructive-sounding statements can always be 
parried by an accusation that you are too low a life-form to have understood 
the wisdom they encode.  Johnny Yune did this nicely in the ancient camp-movie 
They Call me Bruce (maybe the sequel), in the line “You are not ready for the 
tech-a-niques of the master.)

Not sure why I feel compelled to compose typologies of the styles of shiftiness 
in the world.  The impulse to see some fingerprints that occur repeatedly seems 
to scratch some itch.

Eric



> On Dec 8, 2023, at 7:54 AM, Roger Frye  wrote:
> 
> https://aeon.co/essays/an-anthropologist-studies-the-warring-ideas-of-noam-chomsky
> 
> -. --- - / ...- .- .-.. .. -.. / -- --- .-. ... . / -.-. --- -.. .
> FRIAM Applied Complexity Group listserv
> Fridays 9a-12p Friday St. Johns Cafe   /   Thursdays 9a-12p Zoom 
> https://linkprotect.cudasvc.com/url?a=https%3a%2f%2fbit.ly%2fvirtualfriam=E,1,RVh5I_OSkx6gAWMMOkKEYLQOEJN74xKK5R3la6mfTpmPlt1IBjVazeSbQSTbKbAxQji87grlMApg1r4fLjhWq0uLpRlcWoygnnQstrlhZ1WhCZozkdI,=1
> to (un)subscribe 
> https://linkprotect.cudasvc.com/url?a=http%3a%2f%2fredfish.com%2fmailman%2flistinfo%2ffriam_redfish.com=E,1,ZbtdTuHCsdPl2Rh_N05LMdRWY4qr7p8adVsWunB6YZ-bBCU6bAN9OzOEF7Js-xnCkEfyZyy2o4KbcxRkjrRcFJhsE7_UNLYp65FosiTKM5sqyQ,,=1
> FRIAM-COMIC 
> https://linkprotect.cudasvc.com/url?a=http%3a%2f%2ffriam-comic.blogspot.com%2f=E,1,1o3MuIdAd2B-h91edK12jG0ZRGDbXW3O9Z3Keix2OCfOz4O4vWukURT1tBUfKI9AvKREkNcCOXZRDUfuWf6ijvoygeJXn0Fma9P2i4_HP5VupJQ5HmqmNes-4M4,=1
> archives:  5/2017 thru present 
> https://linkprotect.cudasvc.com/url?a=https%3a%2f%2fredfish.com%2fpipermail%2ffriam_redfish.com%2f=E,1,11ngnGtLTcEqISne021xnGG2C0Th13t9-_Gl4fZ9bj5kdEq0KMKSUXo-dXKyElLRUDKvsi24tT4266OxHrMDzj5CIilBY6suS-JAQLOvcFGTGOQ,=1
>  1/2003 thru 6/2021  http://friam.383.s1.nabble.com/

-. --- - / ...- .- .-.. .. -.. / -- --- .-. ... . / -.-. --- -.. .
FRIAM Applied Complexity Group listserv
Fridays 9a-12p Friday St. Johns Cafe   /   Thursdays 9a-12p Zoom 
https://bit.ly/virtualfriam
to (un)subscribe http://redfish.com/mailman/listinfo/friam_redfish.com
FRIAM-COMIC 

Re: [FRIAM] metathesis

[David Eric Smith]

So there’s a fun frivolous branch from the cases you list here.

I happen to share your allergy at the not-nuclear (can’t even bring myself to 
type it).

But on aks, I learned something a few years ago (10?) from our phonologist 
colleague Ian Maddieson when we were doing language work together.  Apparently, 
that pronunciation has gone back and forth several times in history.  At least 
one of the early foundation forms was axiom, and the aks was directly from 
that.  If I remember correctly, it had changed to ask just before the time of 
Shakespeare’s writing.  I think I distinctly remember Ian’s saying, though, 
that it was unstable and had gone back and forth a couple of times, but I don’t 
recall his saying when.

One of the things I would ask John McWhorter if I had access to him, since he 
has a lot of knowledge of cryptic roots of Black American English in various 
dialects in Britain at colonial times, is whether there were minority dialects 
sequestered somewhere in the isles where aks had been preserved, and that is 
the American origin, along with retention of the habitual tense (he be walkin 
by, contrasted with the present progressive he walkin by), or whether ask -> 
aks was a re-innovation that took place in the Americas, because that 
particular consonant cluster is labile and invites change.

Eric



> On Dec 1, 2023, at 8:21 AM, glen  wrote:
> 
> 
> So, on the death of The War Criminal, I've been reflecting on the most 
> irritating thing to me about George W Bush's stint: nukular. Sure. It's 
> irritating that he started a war for no good reason. If we learn anything 
> from Kissinger's treatment by the press, it's that those sorts of things 
> don't actually matter.
> 
> But the way you pronounce "nuclear"? That matters ... to me, anyway. I've 
> managed to grind off the burrs in my thinking when someone says "axe" instead 
> of "ask", glottals their Ts, etc. But I just can't get over nukular. Every 
> time someone says it that way, whatever it was I was doing or thinking goes 
> straight out the fscking window. With, say, "axe", I can actually do it 
> myself without feeling shame. Same with t-flapping. (And vocal fry.)
> 
> Wikipedia gives me a nice list of triggerable attributes of language: 
> metathesis, elision, epenthesis, flapping, assimilation, dissimilation, etc. 
> My request, here, is for examples from anyone that rankle you or that you've 
> overcome. Presumably, the more aware I am with others' struggles with such, 
> the less I'll be triggered by my own.
> 
> -- 
> ꙮ Mɥǝu ǝlǝdɥɐuʇs ɟᴉƃɥʇ' ʇɥǝ ƃɹɐss snɟɟǝɹs˙ ꙮ
> 
> -. --- - / ...- .- .-.. .. -.. / -- --- .-. ... . / -.-. --- -.. .
> FRIAM Applied Complexity Group listserv
> Fridays 9a-12p Friday St. Johns Cafe   /   Thursdays 9a-12p Zoom 
> https://linkprotect.cudasvc.com/url?a=https%3a%2f%2fbit.ly%2fvirtualfriam=E,1,r1OBNNZ7-afGfEHO0KY-jCECITZzULCPB3AtSKJ419HlhVA-wIjJAihxfI2j_g723DKEmKVOWMM505HKqsSEGaxRuH9nD4ZUEh9yuFxJ=1
> to (un)subscribe 
> https://linkprotect.cudasvc.com/url?a=http%3a%2f%2fredfish.com%2fmailman%2flistinfo%2ffriam_redfish.com=E,1,C-Jrg4mYGb3UaPUF9B2qsM0Wua1kZ_goMNt_q4wQfNIm0RT-wFBA2Plwl5Tez0P0zWYrCM1JkyzWUzNKyLsA01s1tMNLCEs-kXtl3AB660IGlVLf=1
> FRIAM-COMIC 
> https://linkprotect.cudasvc.com/url?a=http%3a%2f%2ffriam-comic.blogspot.com%2f=E,1,V9XY9mV2UIqxseLnOUUjhwc3TZyQKf0Y_jLOq0uLLZxzRdL7w4Lh-8_t_DQGVGQrAoNR32HTbUjhMlIbc5wyuTRWUSwM1rwuddOMVY7nrVrJ1QHtUZo8eZ0,=1
> archives:  5/2017 thru present 
> https://linkprotect.cudasvc.com/url?a=https%3a%2f%2fredfish.com%2fpipermail%2ffriam_redfish.com%2f=E,1,vz0HgyW91GA-Q2-KAtgRlbag5OKEmWtX2i0RCsFVRYfmmKDAT1usIY5LdcKssw9DrzTc0OeLsS2J-BV2KPeYMImQOixw7dnPUhoMMNdKyMB_MC6mYop_59s8=1
> 1/2003 thru 6/2021  http://friam.383.s1.nabble.com/


-. --- - / ...- .- .-.. .. -.. / -- --- .-. ... . / -.-. --- -.. .
FRIAM Applied Complexity Group listserv
Fridays 9a-12p Friday St. Johns Cafe   /   Thursdays 9a-12p Zoom 
https://bit.ly/virtualfriam
to (un)subscribe http://redfish.com/mailman/listinfo/friam_redfish.com
FRIAM-COMIC http://friam-comic.blogspot.com/
archives:  5/2017 thru present https://redfish.com/pipermail/friam_redfish.com/
  1/2003 thru 6/2021  http://friam.383.s1.nabble.com/

Re: [FRIAM] Mirror Neurons & Intersubjective Reality

[David Eric Smith]

Just getting to this one, days late….

> On Nov 15, 2023, at 8:58 AM, Steve Smith  wrote:
> 
> I have not (yet) read this critically, the introduction just tweaked my 
> (confirmation biased) interests:
> 
> https://medicalxpress.com/news/2023-11-brain.html 
> Here
>  is one of several research stories that Elwyn Berlekamp told to me during a 
> visit to SFI many years ago in which I was his host (the closest I will ever 
> come to the experience of those who hosted Erdos).  

Elwyn was one of the principles of the MSRI research into mathematical analysis 
of combinatorial games.  

Here was one project:

Subjects are shown a chessboard with pieces on it, for a short time, after 
which the board is cleared (remember Searching for Bobby Fisher: “Here; I’ll 
help you”), and the subject is asked to reconstruct the piece locations.

The subjects were in two categories: high-level chess players, and ordinary 
people who don’t really play seriously, though perhaps they understand the 
rules of the game.

I will recount to you the outcomes as they were told to me.  I have not gone 
back to original sources so I don’t know if some stylization was added to 
“sharpen the edges” of the picture.

1.  For pieces placed on a board by computer-random number generators, the 
experts and the novices were not much different in speed or reliability of 
replacing pieces.

2. When the arrangements were not randomly generated, but rather taken from 
various stages in the play of games by high-level players, suddenly a big gap 
opened up.  The novices did about the same as they had done for randomly placed 
pieces at similar sparseness etc.  The experts got much faster and more 
reliable.

The experimenters, of course, wanted to say something mechanistic about why.  
To do this they put eye-trackers on the subjects, to find out what they were 
looking at when presented with the blankened board and asked to rebuild.  So: 
what did the experts look at first?  This is where the tension of the joke is 
set up, to prepare for the punchline.

3. The place the experts looked first was at the “next good move” from what had 
been the position, and they then backfilled the pieces in the positions that 
had made it the next good move.


I find this story delightful.  If I were less lazy and really needed it for 
anything, maybe I would do the work to find out how reliable it is.

Eric



-. --- - / ...- .- .-.. .. -.. / -- --- .-. ... . / -.-. --- -.. .
FRIAM Applied Complexity Group listserv
Fridays 9a-12p Friday St. Johns Cafe   /   Thursdays 9a-12p Zoom 
https://bit.ly/virtualfriam
to (un)subscribe http://redfish.com/mailman/listinfo/friam_redfish.com
FRIAM-COMIC http://friam-comic.blogspot.com/
archives:  5/2017 thru present https://redfish.com/pipermail/friam_redfish.com/
  1/2003 thru 6/2021  http://friam.383.s1.nabble.com/

Re: [FRIAM] Theil

[David Eric Smith]

I actually saw your post second, Frank, but had to smile when I did.  

Benefits/defects of reading emails in reverse chronological.

Eric


> On Nov 13, 2023, at 7:31 PM, Frank Wimberly  wrote:
> 
> Were you responding to my post, Eric?  Probably not.
> 
> ---
> Frank C. Wimberly
> 140 Calle Ojo Feliz, 
> Santa Fe, NM 87505
> 
> 505 670-9918
> Santa Fe, NM
> 
> On Mon, Nov 13, 2023, 6:43 PM David Eric Smith  <mailto:desm...@santafe.edu>> wrote:
>> Well in that case, definitely look up the interview he did with Sara Walker 
>> and Lee Cronin.
>> 
>> I will not comment further.
>> 
>> Eric
>> 
>> 
>> 
>>> On Nov 13, 2023, at 5:57 PM, Steve Smith >> <mailto:sasm...@swcp.com>> wrote:
>>> 
>>> 
>>> 
>>> On 11/13/23 12:06 PM, glen wrote:
>>>> You might want to check the Gurometer. Lex has an entry: 
>>>> 
>>>> https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1Oe-af4_OmzLJavktcSKGfP0wmxCX0ppP8n_Tvi9l_yc/edit?usp=sharing
>>>>  
>>>> 
>>>> While Lex's scores are relatively low compared to some of the wackos on 
>>>> the list, we are known by association. And many of Lex's guests score 
>>>> relatively high. 
>>> Fascinating resource,  thanks!  You are a veritable font (fount) of things 
>>> like this that I should probably be able to find for myself.
>>> 
>>> I had to look a little to find a key to the columns of the  table, I don't 
>>> know if this is the preferred or only one, but it seemed close enough to be 
>>> useful for my purposes:
>>> 
>>> https://techhenzy.com/gurometer/ 
>>> <https://linkprotect.cudasvc.com/url?a=https%3a%2f%2ftechhenzy.com%2fgurometer%2f=E,1,-jmX3-GnKvHRZ-U6g3sLfGsk8ntKDTZ0snin2zifY--Hno29Qx92h9fhySz8IXtuihWQCxiEVogT6296DEPPb4qsdNHWD6ZIX5ul4F-34Wihzhuu=1>
>>> I haven't listened to enough of Lex's podcasts (did I mention 1-2 hours 
>>> each?!) to be able to evaluate what his "coupling" is with his guests... 
>>> even without the GuruMeter I felt that theme ("known by association") from 
>>> the more prominent/recent interviewees he has engaged... but my contingent 
>>> judgement of the *content* and *style* of the interviews counterbalanced 
>>> that almost to an extreme.   Which is why I brought it up here.
>>> 
>>> Implicit but likely opaque/arcane to your own references to community 
>>> (self) policing and ?agonism?, I feel (with limited experience so far) that 
>>> Fridman may well provide a regulating role within some community (of 
>>> Galaxy-Brain Gurus?)...
>>> 
>>> I doubt I will get the 'round t'uits but it seems like there is a tensor 
>>> product to be explored among these folks and their various interactions 
>>> with one another...   something interesting might emerge?   Maybe this only 
>>> occurs to me because Lex is more of a coupling agent than a primary source 
>>> of any ideas/theories/positions from what I've seen so far.   I haven't 
>>> investigated the GuruMeter guys enough to understand their methods but I 
>>> take it for granted they are not unserious in this work.
>>> 
>>> 
>>> 
>>>> 
>>>> On 11/13/23 10:08, Steve Smith wrote: 
>>>>> It seems (maybe only to me?) that "will" is what defines the intersection 
>>>>> of memory and imagination?   The free-will-less-ness-ers among us (ala 
>>>>> Sopolsky 
>>>>> <https://www.theguardian.com/books/2023/oct/24/determined-life-without-free-will-by-robert-sapolsky-review-the-hard-science-of-decisions>
>>>>>  
>>>>> <https://linkprotect.cudasvc.com/url?a=https%3a%2f%2fwww.theguardian.com%2fbooks%2f2023%2foct%2f24%2fdetermined-life-without-free-will-by-robert-sapolsky-review-the-hard-science-of-decisions=E,1,91wHpfNIkmXC-CnGi3PazdL_hQlw2NlNpCoVT3nJCuot5r9OAZsB0usPuLlH6_6rlBoDorx2bLYVT55_T9jETx_-4wilrXWAjG-3MNgonMWE9w,,=1>)
>>>>>  may find this an entirely specious thing to consider or discuss (though 
>>>>> without free will, what means "specious" or "discuss" or "consider" sans 
>>>>> free-will?). 
>>>>> 
>>>>> I recently discovered Lex Fridman's podcasts 
>>>>> <https://lexfridman.com/podcast/> 
>>>>> <https://linkprotect.cudasvc.com/url?a=https%3a%2f%2flexfridman.com%2fpodcast%2f=E,1,QWrnSg3KQcihreIAIaA74In11b90OwQV4DbIgelWBXYN4Ud1PK0WvNTlNakcIB0zdfgEMx2X6t8b-1_TPyUhzXpNMlaFz3z4sKIKjXliw

Re: [FRIAM] Theil

[David Eric Smith]

Well in that case, definitely look up the interview he did with Sara Walker and 
Lee Cronin.

I will not comment further.

Eric



> On Nov 13, 2023, at 5:57 PM, Steve Smith  wrote:
> 
> 
> 
> On 11/13/23 12:06 PM, glen wrote:
>> You might want to check the Gurometer. Lex has an entry: 
>> 
>> https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1Oe-af4_OmzLJavktcSKGfP0wmxCX0ppP8n_Tvi9l_yc/edit?usp=sharing
>>  
>> 
>> While Lex's scores are relatively low compared to some of the wackos on the 
>> list, we are known by association. And many of Lex's guests score relatively 
>> high. 
> Fascinating resource,  thanks!  You are a veritable font (fount) of things 
> like this that I should probably be able to find for myself.
> 
> I had to look a little to find a key to the columns of the  table, I don't 
> know if this is the preferred or only one, but it seemed close enough to be 
> useful for my purposes:
> 
> https://techhenzy.com/gurometer/ 
> 
> I haven't listened to enough of Lex's podcasts (did I mention 1-2 hours 
> each?!) to be able to evaluate what his "coupling" is with his guests... even 
> without the GuruMeter I felt that theme ("known by association") from the 
> more prominent/recent interviewees he has engaged... but my contingent 
> judgement of the *content* and *style* of the interviews counterbalanced that 
> almost to an extreme.   Which is why I brought it up here.
> 
> Implicit but likely opaque/arcane to your own references to community (self) 
> policing and ?agonism?, I feel (with limited experience so far) that Fridman 
> may well provide a regulating role within some community (of Galaxy-Brain 
> Gurus?)...
> 
> I doubt I will get the 'round t'uits but it seems like there is a tensor 
> product to be explored among these folks and their various interactions with 
> one another...   something interesting might emerge?   Maybe this only occurs 
> to me because Lex is more of a coupling agent than a primary source of any 
> ideas/theories/positions from what I've seen so far.   I haven't investigated 
> the GuruMeter guys enough to understand their methods but I take it for 
> granted they are not unserious in this work.
> 
> 
> 
>> 
>> On 11/13/23 10:08, Steve Smith wrote: 
>>> It seems (maybe only to me?) that "will" is what defines the intersection 
>>> of memory and imagination?   The free-will-less-ness-ers among us (ala 
>>> Sopolsky 
>>> 
>>>  
>>> )
>>>  may find this an entirely specious thing to consider or discuss (though 
>>> without free will, what means "specious" or "discuss" or "consider" sans 
>>> free-will?). 
>>> 
>>> I recently discovered Lex Fridman's podcasts 
>>>  
>>> 
>>>  and was quite surprised by several things (albeit with very limited 
>>> sampling... all of his most recent interview with Musk and a bit of his 
>>> interview with Isaacson and about half of the Harari one):   I don't 
>>> significantly disagree with the general mistrust of Musk in his 
>>> Autistic-ish style and affect, but I'd say that Lex brings out the best in 
>>> him, showing him to be capable of thoughtful and even empathetic-ish 
>>> observations.  As I understand it (from my reading of Isaacson's biography 
>>> of Musk) brother Kimball may also be a significantly similar "regulating 
>>> influence" on Elon.   Grimes maybe, maybe not.  The other mothers of his 
>>> children, same-same... probably each and all of them for a period of time 
>>> or within certain frameworks.   And again, same with the children... though 
>>> maybe projection on my part having been moderately well-regulated in 
>>> several modes by my own children during each of their phases (right up to 
>>> their current middle-agedness). 
>>> 
>>> As an aside, Fridman's other interviews also all sound potentially 
>>> fascinating... though I cringe at the fact/thought of interviews with 
>>> Netanyahu, KanYE, Kushner, Rogan... the commentary I've read around 
>>> those interviews tends to skew toward "how could you normalize (amplify?) 
>>> those A**holes by even giving them the time of the day???!!!?".   Lex's 
>>> interviews are definitely long-form (1-2 hours) 

Re: [FRIAM] more agonism

[David Eric Smith]

Yeah; restricted reply.  I wasn’t going to write it at the time, but given the 
linked article below, which is _much_ more sophisticated, I feel obliged to say 
that the problems are much lower-level.

I don’t know if the whole blog is written by Zach Elliot, and I only read the 
one page you linked.  So my reply is only to that one page.

There was never a chance for that page to have a meaningfully wrong point, 
because it was already dead on the criterion that “words should refer to 
something”.

Here was the content of what he actually did and showed:

1. There is a summary statistic that takes one of two values for 99,8% of the 
individuals in some sample.  (Here, a 23rd-chromosome-pair description type).  
If I ignore the other 0.02%, I can group the individuals into  two sets from 
the value of that summary statistic.

2. There are a lot of other summary statistics that are also defined, which 
take ranges of values, such as height or whatever.

3. For any other summary statistic, I can plot the conditional distribution of 
its values over either of the sub-populations I constructed from the first 
statistic.

4. The act of being plotted, for those other summary statistics, doesn’t reach 
back into the material world and change my having first grouped the individuals 
into two sets and then plotted conditional distributions.


There is some program on “public literacy” or something recommended by such 
observations.  Not sure how to characterize it.

Eric


> On Oct 25, 2023, at 12:29 PM, glen  wrote:
> 
> Along these same lines, I know there's a significant contingent of "Presties" 
> on this list. And I still don't have a good note-taking app that I find 
> convenient enough to use. So I'll post this here, in part because it's a 
> higher order form of ad hominem, in part because of our Presty friends, and 
> in part because I need to note it somewhere so I can find it again.
> 
> Bayesian Injustice
> Why rational people often replicate unfairness
> https://linkprotect.cudasvc.com/url?a=https%3a%2f%2fkevindorst.substack.com%2fp%2fbayesian-injustice=E,1,qf8la1ZXp90RP5ovOvlQlsD2eBsn5XL_lbse7h-GK-U5Iir8Q9FGEZB_G7AqnBSaLP2hbtdDzn_-nW4eldc3LX5EQJ3vJp7UP3TOQqts=1
> 
> A tiny part of the red flag for Zach Elliott's bullshit (cf 
> https://linkprotect.cudasvc.com/url?a=https%3a%2f%2fsimonesun.com%2fblog%2f2022%2f5%2f12%2fstop-pretending-transphobia-is-scientific-debate=E,1,dAq8WLSUwlWyrTV2gDDuZ-hqOCl0wXb8GgBiyKnjz15SSJ-1PG4VCf_5xHiaWEQ3KoOLWBApCZnjeqWtHmlX8qTO3QhOu6hqlAYUet27OuBk3SadxC_G=1
>  for why I assert his rhetoric is designed bullshit), is his training 
> institution, Oklahoma State. I'm sure it's a fine school ... maybe not as 
> good as mine (Texas A), but prolly in the same tier. And neither OSU nor 
> TAMU produce what I'd call well-rounded students ... at least not like what 
> I've seen come out of Reed (in Portland) or Evergreen (here). And while Reed 
> definitely has some prestige, I don't think Evergreen's in the same tank.
> 
> Yet another tangent: We have an upcoming election for several commissioner 
> and director spots on various local boards. Now, I don't know most of these 
> people. I see all the yard signs and such. We got a flyer in the mail where a 
> challenger pointed out the entitlement of an incumbent. ("Do you know who I 
> am? I'm the fscking mayor of Tenino!" 8^D) Yaddayadda. But what do you do 
> when you're aware of your own ignorance but still believe in voting? You have 
> a similar risk for zetetic injustice. I ended up almost blindly taking the 
> recommendation for 3 of the board seats, the candidates for which I was 
> completely ignorant. But everyone else on the ballot was equally "legible" 
> ... I think.
> 
> I've had the same complaint about the fideistic shunt surrounding open source 
> software. Just because some package is open source, doesn't mean you should 
> import it, for a wide variety of reasons. A really funny example is 
> https://linkprotect.cudasvc.com/url?a=https%3a%2f%2fqz.com%2f646467%2fhow-one-programmer-broke-the-internet-by-deleting-a-tiny-piece-of-code%2c=E,1,PbHiCW_HWqyXH_fi689XhoejIBPpwRz-qny-zIVr9z6F6I_ahgSJ3f4__sRoKFIrORMPzWNekCEWjybibONroaQAda32TPnIzpINfeOM0IgPx6yPdZFMjLbFR0s,=1
>  which provides a moral something like "Yeah, maybe reinventing the wheel 
> isn't as bad as they say it is." High order legibility is not only a function 
> of the legibility of the atoms, but also of the composition, including both 
> composition through time (e.g. provenance of data) and composition over space 
> (high-order or cumulative structures).
> 
> And finally, just a tangent about Zach's trumpeting that he's written books. 
> https://www.reuters.com/technology/chatgpt-launches-boom-ai-written-e-books-amazon-2023-02-21/
>  To be honest, I think I'd ascribe more *Authority* to a ChatGPT-written book 
> on Gender Dichotomy than to a Zach Elliott book on it ... which is to say, 
> Authority=0. Is Zach more or less legible than ChatGPT? I just 

Re: [FRIAM] Language Model Understanding

[David Eric Smith]

 Jerry 
> Rothwell, which follows Mitra's three-year experiment and the impact of his 
> work on children and educators around the world³. You can also read more 
> about Mitra's ideas and experiences in his book "The School in the Cloud: The 
> Emerging Future of Learning"⁴..
> 
> Source: Conversation with Bing, 2023/10/08
> (1) Sugata Mitra: Build a School in the Cloud | TED Talk. 
> https://www.ted.com/talks/sugata_mitra_build_a_school_in_the_cloud.
> (2) Sugata Mitra creates a School in the Cloud | Prize-winning wishes | TED 
>  
> https://www.ted.com/participate/ted-prize/prize-winning-wishes/school-in-the-cloud.
> (3) The School in the Cloud - United Nations Western Europe. 
> https://unric.org/en/the-school-in-the-cloud/ 
> <https://linkprotect.cudasvc.com/url?a=https%3a%2f%2funric.org%2fen%2fthe-school-in-the-cloud%2f=E,1,P04gf7AkTCBw5Pu_pIZ15Sa4DD1-gfP_8k-B2baFWOI2jWFHYyPbbaBsn0OsnINICl6TI9QThLvR2A5qOglBMS7zz_Tmtt90LZBHRFp-=1>.
> (4) The School in the Cloud by Sugata Mitra (ebook) - eBooks.com 
> <https://linkprotect.cudasvc.com/url?a=https%3a%2f%2feBooks.com=E,1,wsixh_9R4QKLkD8DtVqVcLh8kGp_7BfjsaQ5St9_onGfLCa4Ou6JZjv0T2UFtSbIYPqSp0o5p5t2ZJssBHfXMnLUgHb4gPP2_oEKNle93g,,=1_add=1>
>  
> https://www.ebooks.com/en-us/book/209765777/the-school-in-the-cloud/sugata-mitra/
>  
> <https://linkprotect.cudasvc.com/url?a=https%3a%2f%2fwww.ebooks.com%2fen-us%2fbook%2f209765777%2fthe-school-in-the-cloud%2fsugata-mitra%2f=E,1,ALPLtj1Pd8Kx3SVvle5l5lE2km7dGj6PWIWblhALEROHD-5OllWa3vIAV_dpaEw1Tt9GJyLnLfyIb5iufGiV8vo3uAWeoE-zwANhJFQ5BQ,,=1>.
> (5) undefined. https://www.ted.com/contact%29.
> (6) en.wikipedia.org <http://en.wikipedia.org/>. 
> https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sugata_Mitra.
> 
> On Sun, 8 Oct 2023 at 11:20, David Eric Smith  <mailto:desm...@santafe.edu>> wrote:
>> In reading about the role of LLMs in personalization, I just realized how to 
>> further destroy education.  As in many of these things, one starts with an 
>> insight that is basically good, and then hands it to a SV company to be 
>> turned into something profoundly nihilistic.
>> 
>> The lecturer sits at “the front” of wherever this happens.  The body of 
>> students sit in something that makes them manifestly a group.  But what the 
>> lecturer says isn’t what they hear.  The lecturer speaks into a computer, 
>> and the students all wear headsets (probably full VR immersions).  An 
>> intervening LLM, which has been trained on exchanges with each student and 
>> with the lecturer, replaces whatever the lecturer says with a “personalized” 
>> version of the “content” which is then fed to each student.
>> 
>> No two people will have heard quite the same version of anything.  I guess, 
>> if they ever wanted to discuss the material with each other, another LLM 
>> could be recruited to stand between them to convert what either of them said 
>> into a different stream for the other to hear.  That can be an additional 
>> service for being “in the class”, which one can purchase for a fee, like the 
>> fee to get on an airplane earlier in the line than some other passenger who 
>> paid a lower fee.
>> 
>> The only thing I find weird is that I haven’t already head this suggested 
>> 1000 times even in the popular press.  It seems like the first idea that 
>> would occur to any SV engineer, or (though probably requiring a cognitive 
>> exoskeleton) any university administrator.
>> 
>> Eric
>> 
>> Oh yeah, p.s.:  The insight that wasn’t evil is that this is the difference 
>> between lectures and books or other broadcast media.  In a real lecture, in 
>> the old world where people spent time with each other, the teacher gets to 
>> know the students enough to learn what they can use, and renders the 
>> material with empathy for that.  I’ll leave the reader to put together which 
>> parts of the resulting exchange get left out of my LLM implementation.
>> 
>> p.p.s.  I should mention, has any of you read this book?
>> 
>> Nihilistic Times — Wendy Brown
>> hup.harvard.edu
>>  <https://www.hup.harvard.edu/catalog.php?isbn=9780674279384>Nihilistic 
>> Times — Wendy Brown 
>> <https://www.hup.harvard.edu/catalog.php?isbn=9780674279384>
>> hup.harvard.edu <https://www.hup.harvard.edu/catalog.php?isbn=9780674279384>
>> 
>> I got to spend a little time in the orbit of this woman last year (didn’t 
>> really “meet”, since I was just a quiet sitter-in in a group’s weekly 
>> discussion), and she seems to me like just a fine mind.  The book is a 
>> chautauqua of sorts, not aspiring to a destination per se.  But it is a good 
>> combina

Re: [FRIAM] Language Model Understanding

[David Eric Smith]

Zang!  I had not made that connection.

Hmmh.  What do I think?  I seem to have viewed uninterpreted models much as I 
view a hammer or a shovel; as a tool in the world for doing a certain job (in 
this case, a job of perceiving the world in valid ways), neither here nor there 
w.r.t. questions of nihilism.

Where then would I try to center nihilism?  (It’s being a topic I haven’t spent 
a lot of time on historically).  Maybe if I had to choose one phrase, it would 
be “the devaluation of values”.   Brown uses it in her book, but I think it is 
old and standardized.  Don’t know if it came from Nietzsche or Weber, or is 
much older than either of them.  

How would I orient to try to address such questions, that I do not want to go 
into support of bombs?  I think my current cast of mind is that there is a 
large class of “discovered thing”, meaning that they are not willed into 
existence, but are brought into existence (if there is even any bringing) 
through lived experience, and “noticed” after the fact.  Or maybe given in the 
ineffable from the start, and noticed along the way (all of Descartes’s cogito, 
the rest of “the self”, and much else).  It seems to me that there is room for 
aesthetics to be given much more and better attention than perhaps it has had 
in philosophy (or whoever is in charge of this question).  Aesthetics certainly 
not being the only domain from which discovered things can originate, but 
useful in that we can recognize it as a source, but not have the impulse to 
conflate it with dogma, as many other notions of “belief” tend to drift into.

Hmm.

Eric


> On Oct 8, 2023, at 12:30 PM, Marcus Daniels  wrote:
> 
> Eric writes:
> 
> “Bears on how many things make up the machinery of nihilism, extending well 
> beyond relations I recognized as part of an integration, though mentioning 
> many things I rail against in daily life.”
> 
> The willingness of physicists to use uninterpreted models, e.g., quantum 
> mechanics, seems like nihilism to me.  I don’t mean that in a judgmental way, 
> nor do I mean it in an admiring way.  On the other hand, there are many 
> people, I reckon most people, that provide their beliefs as both explanations 
> and justifications.   Bombs follow soon after.
> 
> Marcus
> -. --- - / ...- .- .-.. .. -.. / -- --- .-. ... . / -.-. --- -.. .
> FRIAM Applied Complexity Group listserv
> Fridays 9a-12p Friday St. Johns Cafe   /   Thursdays 9a-12p Zoom 
> https://linkprotect.cudasvc.com/url?a=https%3a%2f%2fbit.ly%2fvirtualfriam=E,1,ShGlU_SgSFn6qQxIQzSbX1zV_TbPcFyWbM7JZI-jGJqjGA6nfiLQbKWbCtLQ_vYw77xQZecqwHoUIMWWeJXUUuptPPLgcybwh2w3dGiW=1
> to (un)subscribe 
> https://linkprotect.cudasvc.com/url?a=http%3a%2f%2fredfish.com%2fmailman%2flistinfo%2ffriam_redfish.com=E,1,Mf35VNzl6xjcJG5_4Mncrxke5ecSEFMW1rG6s3NHef9F-wPO05iiNYiR45MSKazTnJWSrz1NeYWbWhCmeJC3ylViuKDMz4IsfZZtP9M-Py9xRWdqyGM,=1
> FRIAM-COMIC 
> https://linkprotect.cudasvc.com/url?a=http%3a%2f%2ffriam-comic.blogspot.com%2f=E,1,087gn5rrF7FE5ZFlhfGgKEw7FNCCq1uyVbDO_8s5g8ZAKfYH6v2V2iDtwUY_BU4AyYW7uPGg4MlSYXWwMdPyyC4O452Vdb0Pj1gUAeQ6R3kqyNmc=1
> archives:  5/2017 thru present 
> https://linkprotect.cudasvc.com/url?a=https%3a%2f%2fredfish.com%2fpipermail%2ffriam_redfish.com%2f=E,1,ylCec7QvPBnRtW8HhpVtYcWVNCaZmBr5toTnnopf2mcqpjzxSsKNxSF3SNaCu1bbhR9aZTYzmJgXy02a_XHnNqp5ehv-9HQy-wOFmhlpPjFuVnn-Ves,=1
>  1/2003 thru 6/2021  http://friam.383.s1.nabble.com/

-. --- - / ...- .- .-.. .. -.. / -- --- .-. ... . / -.-. --- -.. .
FRIAM Applied Complexity Group listserv
Fridays 9a-12p Friday St. Johns Cafe   /   Thursdays 9a-12p Zoom 
https://bit.ly/virtualfriam
to (un)subscribe http://redfish.com/mailman/listinfo/friam_redfish.com
FRIAM-COMIC http://friam-comic.blogspot.com/
archives:  5/2017 thru present https://redfish.com/pipermail/friam_redfish.com/
  1/2003 thru 6/2021  http://friam.383.s1.nabble.com/

Re: [FRIAM] saRNA

[David Eric Smith]

Yeah.  

My first thought on looking at this was that getting the dosing right is going 
to be a bear.  Now you not only have to deal with variation among people in 
mRNA expression levels, but you have to manage variation in the amplifier by an 
RDRP (RNA-dependent RNA polymerase).  

My thoughts drifted to financial derivatives, which can be used to hedge a 
portfolio to smooth out fluctuations in the underlying, because a little money 
with a big amplifier can be used to purchase an insurance contract.  What could 
go wrong?

Also drifted to Hilary’s snapchat, and the robustness of things that don’t have 
too many layers of internal distribution and persistence: “These messages go 
away by themselves” was probably one of the things that made the original mRNA 
vaccines as manageable as they were.

But, engineers gonna engineer.  Will be interesting to see what the news is as 
more gets done.

Eric


> On Sep 10, 2023, at 1:08 PM, glen  wrote:
> 
> https://sciencebasedmedicine.org/self-amplifying-rna-vaccines/?utm_source=rss_medium=rss_campaign=self-amplifying-rna-vaccines
>  
> 
> 
> "It is also likely that there will be another round of fear-mongering about 
> the new technology. It probably best for scientists to get ahead of this, to 
> introduce and explain the technology to the public, so that at least it will 
> be somewhat familiar before the next COVID. "
> -. --- - / ...- .- .-.. .. -.. / -- --- .-. ... . / -.-. --- -.. .
> FRIAM Applied Complexity Group listserv
> Fridays 9a-12p Friday St. Johns Cafe   /   Thursdays 9a-12p Zoom 
> https://linkprotect.cudasvc.com/url?a=https%3a%2f%2fbit.ly%2fvirtualfriam=E,1,neQXnQDEQnGYw8ILWcUH51HwGMqmiQ-Xsx72FKNxKUcQnXgkwKnXBSwysFf7bv_LbVNQQQSex1gv3qafCEjNZVkBWl2BsljeVAsQ1flf1D5_OXk,=1
> to (un)subscribe 
> https://linkprotect.cudasvc.com/url?a=http%3a%2f%2fredfish.com%2fmailman%2flistinfo%2ffriam_redfish.com=E,1,BTCU5nVKJCTpFEdsZf4QKgvfj3FXmryUeFEdWbTMp5lrWBUvNdacaBsLTaaB8XQHmXbSak0rOomR4Nx1kOdFzUNZLrluAciSmX8s8-mYXZyBeA0AX_vL=1
> FRIAM-COMIC 
> https://linkprotect.cudasvc.com/url?a=http%3a%2f%2ffriam-comic.blogspot.com%2f=E,1,WvkLBiPNdWOOOoYV3tDunTDx9KGzGrWUrasVX0psNwvkSnvSu1M7xXIUOvMmb54mdpeQtSH1vlfZGRKLyHOgmC6O-1OupjXV144cmQSb69LyEUitESm47w,,=1
> archives:  5/2017 thru present 
> https://linkprotect.cudasvc.com/url?a=https%3a%2f%2fredfish.com%2fpipermail%2ffriam_redfish.com%2f=E,1,IiOf1ebDZs59KMxWyqQZccDBf90mSh0dJ6GrmNVld0ukLpXdg0Bmn1zq1Wp3oFJsBFqAbe0m6hGkZFAcbVb5INB3WxxAxhHorndvkY3blA,,=1
>  1/2003 thru 6/2021  http://friam.383.s1.nabble.com/

-. --- - / ...- .- .-.. .. -.. / -- --- .-. ... . / -.-. --- -.. .
FRIAM Applied Complexity Group listserv
Fridays 9a-12p Friday St. Johns Cafe   /   Thursdays 9a-12p Zoom 
https://bit.ly/virtualfriam
to (un)subscribe http://redfish.com/mailman/listinfo/friam_redfish.com
FRIAM-COMIC http://friam-comic.blogspot.com/
archives:  5/2017 thru present https://redfish.com/pipermail/friam_redfish.com/
  1/2003 thru 6/2021  http://friam.383.s1.nabble.com/

Re: [FRIAM] Democracy & Autocracy

[David Eric Smith]

I think your points are correct, Jochen, while to me there is also another 
important thing that I want to be able to frame, and find that I cannot in any 
satisfying way.

Having lived under trump et al.’s (and it is a big et al.) daily degradation 
and violation of every aspect of decent or even sane life for years, I along 
with many others feel almost frantic wanting somebody to DO SOMETHING TO STOP 
ALL THIS!!!  But the slowness, incompleteness, and partial resignation we see 
in the legal response reflects to me the fundamental problem of democracy as 
the people practicing it think they understand it.  They appreciate that the de 
jure institutions of a law can be employed by autocrats and other corrupt 
actors as readily as by the polity as a whole.  They also understand that a 
significant wing of a populace can become fascist, at which point it is not a 
counterweight to the corrupt, but an enabling resource for them.  So they are 
trying, on one hand, to use the law to exercise force to counteract and contain 
the abusers, but they are hoping to do so in such a way that the precedents 
within that use of the law are as hard as possible to hijack by the 
authoritarian elements that clearly intend to do that wherever they can find 
strategies for it.  

The interesting question for me is whether their efforts to use law in this way 
are really making a difference.  It will be great if they can pound some of 
these bad actors, and it is a good division of labor that the federal case is 
narrow for the sake of being very robust to prosecute, while the Georgia state 
case takes on a _much_ more complicated and difficult prosecution for the sake 
of acknowledging more of the scope of the wrongdoing.  But at the end, will 
they have created legal precedent that better holds off fascist abuses going 
forward?  How will we decide, since we have only this run of the tape as it is 
playing out?  One wants to use empirical validation to update one’s views of 
how causation works, but for these situations that are so large they are 
effectively sui generis, it is hard to set up a protocol to do so.

Eric


> On Aug 16, 2023, at 5:44 AM, Jochen Fromm  wrote:
> 
> The countless indictments against Trump remind me of the innumerous 
> indictments against Navalny in Russia. The indictments against Trump look to 
> me totally justified. He tried to undermine and to destroy the democratic 
> system by all kinds of lies and deceit and treachery, by the things that Ruth 
> Ben-Ghiat calls the authoritarian playbook - by violence, corruption, lying, 
> election fraud. Now the democratic system is strong enough to protect itself 
> and strikes back. 
> https://open.substack.com/pub/lucid/p/to-escape-prosecution-mussolini-had 
> 
> 
> The indictments against Navalny on the other hand are similar in magnitude, 
> but they are clearly fabricated. Again we have a system - this time an 
> autocratic and authoritarian one - which defends itself. In Navalny's case we 
> can observe a deceitful autocratic system that fights against an opponent by 
> using unjustified indictments and deceitful accusations. In Trump's case we 
> can observe a democratic systems that defends itself against a deceitful 
> opponent by using truthful and justified indictments.
> 
> What's interesting to me is that democracy and autocracy as a system are 
> apparently both resilient and resistant to change. If the system is 
> threatened, then it tries to protect itself. This could be observed also in 
> the protests in 2020 in Belarus after the election and in the protests in 
> 2022 in Russia after the invasion that have been squashed by mass 
> imprisonments. The protests in Iran in 2022 have been silenced by mass 
> imprisonments and capital punishments as well. 
> 
> Democratic backsliding can happen, but it doesn't have to as long as the 
> democratic system is able to defend itself. Similarly a collapse of an 
> autocratic system is not happening if the system is able to silence protests 
> by mass imprisonments and capital punishments. This blog article from last 
> year still seems to fit.
> https://blog.cas-group.net/2022/05/modeling-democratic-backsliding-into-authoritarianism/
>  
> 
> 
> -J.
> 
> 
> -. --- - / ...- .- .-.. .. -.. / -- --- .-. ... . / -.-. --- -.. .
> FRIAM Applied Complexity Group listserv
> Fridays 9a-12p Friday St. Johns Cafe   /   Thursdays 9a-12p Zoom 
> 

Re: [FRIAM] Swirlies redux

[David Eric Smith]

The uncanny valley for me in this is its extraordinary astuteness for the use 
patterns of weasel wording in the kind of hostage-video writing that any 
scientist who is still alive to work will have done in grant proposals, 
responses to referee reports and other such things.  Given how blithe it is 
about things like magnitude (c.f. Cris Moore’s example in the SFI public 
lecture about its proposing prime factors for some large number), it is 
incredibly sharp about how weasel words are used to try to get credit for 
something while accepting no responsibility.  Various combinations of 
insinuation, promulgation of bad categories, and other sleights of hand.

I can envision a kind of scientific literature that consists only of good-faith 
writing, in which if you think there is a resemblance or pattern you are 
allowed to say so and explain what you are cueing off of, and if you can’t cash 
it out you can try to make clear where you are stuck.  But in a world where all 
decision-making has gone down the drain of trying to get something for nothing, 
I can’t imagine that scientific literature as a component, uncorrupted by the 
hefty amount of all this other stuff.

Eric


> On Aug 6, 2023, at 5:20 AM, Stephen Guerin  
> wrote:
> 
> Yeah those students got a C+ for sloppy conclusions with no evidence.
> 
> I see your crucifix and raise you with this C- lab report :-)
> 
> 
> **Student Lab Report**
> 
> **Title:** Natural Selection's Influence on Vortex Formation in Fluid Dynamics
> 
> **Objective:** This lab aimed to investigate vortex formation in fluid 
> dynamics, exploring how principles akin to natural selection could explain 
> the emergence and persistence of specific vortex structures and behaviors.
> 
> **Method:** The experiment utilized two 2-liter clear plastic bottles, water, 
> a tube connector, and glitter to observe vortex formation.
> 
> **Findings:**
> 
> 1. **Emergence of Dominant Vortex Patterns:** Certain vortex patterns 
> persisted over time while others dissipated. The more stable and efficient 
> patterns became dominant, akin to how natural selection allows favorable 
> traits to prevail.
> 
> 2. **Adaptation to System Changes:** When the system's conditions were 
> altered, different vortex patterns emerged, demonstrating adaptability 
> comparable to organisms responding to environmental changes.
> 
> 3. **Efficiency as a Selection Criterion:** Vortices that allowed quicker 
> drainage succeeded in the system. This efficiency served as a selection 
> criterion, parallel to how natural selection favors traits that enhance 
> survival or reproduction.
> 
> 4. **Real-World Applicability:** The concept was extended to real-world 
> weather systems, where specific patterns may persist due to their stability 
> or efficiency, analogous to the operation of natural selection in biological 
> systems.
> 
> **Conclusion:** This investigation into vortex formation through the lens of 
> natural selection offered a unique perspective on fluid dynamics. By 
> identifying principles common to both natural selection and vortex behavior, 
> we gained insights into why certain structures emerge and persist. This 
> approach has potential implications for understanding various physical 
> phenomena, from small-scale fluid dynamics to large-scale weather systems, 
> and could even offer insights into interdisciplinary areas where physics and 
> biology converge.
> 
> On Sat, Aug 5, 2023, 1:51 PM David Eric Smith  <mailto:desm...@santafe.edu>> wrote:
>> It’s great that the principle of least action applies only to vortices.  
>> Kinda like a crucifix, that wards off whatever crucifixes ward off.
>> 
>> Eric
>> 
>> 
>> 
>>> On Aug 6, 2023, at 12:09 AM, Stephen Guerin >> <mailto:stephen.gue...@simtable.com>> wrote:
>>> 
>>> There were 10 or so intermediate prompts to drive chatGPT to that lab 
>>> report.
>>> 
>>> On Sat, Aug 5, 2023, 8:52 AM Stephen Guerin >> <mailto:stephen.gue...@simtable.com>> wrote:
>>>> chatGPT, you are a graduate student at c the Santa Fe Institute's complex 
>>>> systems summer school, write a lab report on your experiences with the 
>>>> tornado in a tube. 
>>>> 
>>>> 
>>>> **Student Lab Report**
>>>> 
>>>> **Title:** Insights into Fluid Dynamics and Symmetry Breaking via 'Tornado 
>>>> in a Tube'
>>>> 
>>>> **Objective:** This lab aimed to explore the critical principles of fluid 
>>>> dynamics, including the principle of least action, surface tension, broken 
>>>> symmetry, and their impacts on fluid behavior, using the 'tornado in 

Re: [FRIAM] Swirlies redux

[David Eric Smith]

It’s great that the principle of least action applies only to vortices.  Kinda 
like a crucifix, that wards off whatever crucifixes ward off.

Eric



> On Aug 6, 2023, at 12:09 AM, Stephen Guerin  
> wrote:
> 
> There were 10 or so intermediate prompts to drive chatGPT to that lab report.
> 
> On Sat, Aug 5, 2023, 8:52 AM Stephen Guerin  > wrote:
>> chatGPT, you are a graduate student at c the Santa Fe Institute's complex 
>> systems summer school, write a lab report on your experiences with the 
>> tornado in a tube. 
>> 
>> 
>> **Student Lab Report**
>> 
>> **Title:** Insights into Fluid Dynamics and Symmetry Breaking via 'Tornado 
>> in a Tube'
>> 
>> **Objective:** This lab aimed to explore the critical principles of fluid 
>> dynamics, including the principle of least action, surface tension, broken 
>> symmetry, and their impacts on fluid behavior, using the 'tornado in a tube' 
>> experiment. We introduced variations in the system's orientation, structural 
>> changes, and the application of external forces to further understand these 
>> principles.
>> 
>> **Method:** Our setup included two 2-liter clear plastic bottles, water, a 
>> tube connector, and glitter for fluid visualization. We followed the 
>> procedure outlined in the lab exercise, with additional testing for 
>> different system orientations, external force applications, and structural 
>> modifications.
>> 
>> **Findings:**
>> 
>> 1. **Role of Surface Tension in Vertical Setup:** With the bottles 
>> vertically aligned, surface tension at the bottleneck significantly slowed 
>> the drainage process. This resulted in a droplet-like flow and a drainage 
>> time of 8 minutes and 12 seconds.
>> 
>> 2. **Influence of External Forces:** By applying an external force to the 
>> system—squeezing the top bottle in pulses—we managed to overcome the surface 
>> tension resistance. This modified approach expedited the drainage process to 
>> a time of 1 minute and 47 seconds.
>> 
>> 3. **Impact of System Orientation:** We then experimented with tilting the 
>> bottles to different angles. A tilt of approximately 42 degrees provided the 
>> quickest drainage time—2 minutes and 32 seconds. The tilt balanced the 
>> inflow of air and the outflow of water, thereby managing the effects of 
>> surface tension effectively.
>> 
>> 4. **Vortex Formation, Symmetry Breaking and the Principle of Least 
>> Action:** In the next step, we swirled the top bottle to form a vortex, 
>> leading to a broken symmetry in angular momentum. This energy-efficient 
>> pathway embodied the principle of least action, allowing the water to 
>> overcome the surface tension barrier and to drain in an impressive 18 
>> seconds. This broken symmetry enabled the efficient dissipation of the 
>> gradient between the bottles.
>> 
>> 5. **Effects of Structural Changes:** Our final test involved an open-ended 
>> tube setup. Here, we observed noticeable changes in fluid behavior. The 
>> vortex's efficiency in gradient dissipation decreased due to interference 
>> from the ambient pressure, indicating the crucial role structural features 
>> play in fluid dynamics.
>> 
>> **Conclusion:** The 'tornado in a tube' experiment, complemented by our 
>> additional tests, provided a comprehensive understanding of fluid dynamics 
>> principles. The observed differences in drainage times highlighted the 
>> significant impact of system orientation, the principle of least action, 
>> surface tension, and broken symmetry on fluid dynamics. These findings offer 
>> deeper insights into fluid behavior and are applicable to a range of 
>> real-world phenomena, from weather systems to biological processes.
>> 
>> On Fri, Aug 4, 2023, 8:05 PM Nicholas Thompson > > wrote:
>>> Ok, folks. I apologize to those of you who are fed up with my kitchen 
>>> physics, but there has been a bit of a development in that saga that I want 
>>> to share with those few of you who aren’t.   Years ago, I came home for the 
>>> summer with my ears ringing with the notion that structures are formed to 
>>> dissipate gradients.  Please set aside any teleological implications of 
>>> this statement and ask the question in its most neutral form:  Do the 
>>> structures that sometimes form as a gradient is dissipated dissipate it 
>>> more quickly once the structure has been formed.   Or, as I came to 
>>> interpret it, does facilitating the formation of such a structure speed the 
>>> dissipation of the gradient.
>>> 
>>> I was the family dishwasher at the time.  I deplore washing dishes, but I 
>>> love messing around with warm soapy water, and so I started to experiment 
>>> with starting the vortex that forms after you pull the plug out of the sink 
>>> before I pulled the plug.  Quickly, it became apparent that facilitating 
>>> the vortex formation in that way GREATLY SLOWED the emptying of the sink.  
>>> Triumphally, I wrote Steve on Friam only to 

Re: [FRIAM] Swirlies redux

[David Eric Smith]

Goddamnit.  “The fact that you can stir water ….”  (Not “store water”)

Goddamned spell-changer does not work with a 12-inch screen and eyes that no 
longer work.

> On Aug 5, 2023, at 11:38 AM, David Eric Smith  wrote:
> 
> I think you have several variables in play at the same time here, Nick, and 
> that will make it challenging to get clear what-all is involved, and what is 
> controlling in what combinations.
> 
> 0. Let me say something general, which won’t be comprehensible within this 
> bullet, but which I will unpack a little in a later one.  I _expect_ that for 
> some fairly symmetric shapes like soda bottles or sinks and drain pipes or 
> whatever, under constant atmospheric conditions etc., water of properties 
> that doesn’t change while it flows (not clear this applies to dishwashing 
> remnant water with soap foams and scums), and so forth, there would be some 
> unique steady state that was the true dynamical state the system would settle 
> into over a sufficiently long time.  The simplest set of questions you could 
> try to ask about would be the properties of that steady state: what it does 
> as a transport process; what boundary conditions it depends on, etc.  What 
> that means is, no bifurcations into several possible, but distinct, 
> indefinitely long-persisting steady flow conditions. Give me that expectation 
> for now, so I can make another point.  Proving when it applies will be some 
> nightmare of going into details, which I probably couldn’t do, certainly 
> don’t have time and patience to try, and probably couldn’t put into English 
> even if I could do it.  From that one question, everything else gets harder 
> because more dimensions come into play.  In particular, there could a whole 
> continuous parameter range of long-lived transients, which decay toward the 
> long-term steady state only very slowly.  Your problem as a dishwasher or 
> bottle tilter is: you may not have as long to wait as it takes those 
> transients to decay.  It’s Keynses “in the long run, we are all dead” 
> (Strictly: that was the point he was making.)
> 
> 1. So at the least, the fact that you can store the water before pulling the 
> plug, and affect the drain time, means you can put different amounts of 
> angular momentum into the water that cannot get transferred out fully, fast 
> enough to not leave an imprint on the draining.  Since the only way to get 
> down the drain is to first get _to_ the drain, if you put enough angular 
> momentum into the water, it makes it harder for any of it to get to the 
> center.  Why (among other factors) hurricane eyes don’t close.  So indeed, 
> you can stir in a way that gives the water slower access to the drain, and 
> causes it to take longer to all get through it.  
> 
> 2. There is a different issue of closed versus open.  The reason the soda 
> bottles mouth-to-mouth are so useful is that the only way water can go down 
> is if air goes up.  But the bottles are small enough that for air to bubble 
> up through the water requires getting through enough surface tension that it 
> significantly affects the draining.  Having “enough” vortex to obviate that 
> need then speeds your drainage.  But with the soda bottles too, if you spun 
> them continuously, to keep introducing angular momentum to the water faster 
> than it could transfer away toward the steady state by dissipation, I think 
> it is sure you can affect the drainage.  I suspect the shape of the soda 
> bottles is such that angular momentum equalizes toward the steady state more 
> quickly.  A sink with a flat bottom should be very hard, because you can put 
> in tons of angular momentum that doesn’t get quickly reflected back.  (Also, 
> square or round perimeter and bowl shape of the sink, how full is it relative 
> to width, and other such things.  It can get as complicated as billiards (not 
> really, but figuratively), if you consider all the momentum reflecting 
> around.). 
> 
> 3. The hard thing to do in emails or posts, and which really will require 
> some computer program in the general case, is to figure out how gravity — in 
> the infinitely long term — interacts with pressure and wall friction to 
> resupply angular momentum to maintain a steady-state vortex, for a given 
> vessel shape, mouth width, etc.  
> 
> The question of when you can make a universalizing claim, such as “symmetry 
> breaking (like adding a rotation) will certainly increase or decrease a 
> downward flow”, remains an important one, and many of us have daily instances 
> of that problem in one or another area (ecological dynamics, physiology 
> versus natural selection in populations, and on and on).  So, good to have 
> ongoing interest.  The amount one has to say to have spoken carefully, to 
>

Re: [FRIAM] Swirlies redux

[David Eric Smith]

I think you have several variables in play at the same time here, Nick, and 
that will make it challenging to get clear what-all is involved, and what is 
controlling in what combinations.

0. Let me say something general, which won’t be comprehensible within this 
bullet, but which I will unpack a little in a later one.  I _expect_ that for 
some fairly symmetric shapes like soda bottles or sinks and drain pipes or 
whatever, under constant atmospheric conditions etc., water of properties that 
doesn’t change while it flows (not clear this applies to dishwashing remnant 
water with soap foams and scums), and so forth, there would be some unique 
steady state that was the true dynamical state the system would settle into 
over a sufficiently long time.  The simplest set of questions you could try to 
ask about would be the properties of that steady state: what it does as a 
transport process; what boundary conditions it depends on, etc.  What that 
means is, no bifurcations into several possible, but distinct, indefinitely 
long-persisting steady flow conditions. Give me that expectation for now, so I 
can make another point.  Proving when it applies will be some nightmare of 
going into details, which I probably couldn’t do, certainly don’t have time and 
patience to try, and probably couldn’t put into English even if I could do it.  
From that one question, everything else gets harder because more dimensions 
come into play.  In particular, there could a whole continuous parameter range 
of long-lived transients, which decay toward the long-term steady state only 
very slowly.  Your problem as a dishwasher or bottle tilter is: you may not 
have as long to wait as it takes those transients to decay.  It’s Keynses “in 
the long run, we are all dead” (Strictly: that was the point he was making.)

1. So at the least, the fact that you can store the water before pulling the 
plug, and affect the drain time, means you can put different amounts of angular 
momentum into the water that cannot get transferred out fully, fast enough to 
not leave an imprint on the draining.  Since the only way to get down the drain 
is to first get _to_ the drain, if you put enough angular momentum into the 
water, it makes it harder for any of it to get to the center.  Why (among other 
factors) hurricane eyes don’t close.  So indeed, you can stir in a way that 
gives the water slower access to the drain, and causes it to take longer to all 
get through it.  

2. There is a different issue of closed versus open.  The reason the soda 
bottles mouth-to-mouth are so useful is that the only way water can go down is 
if air goes up.  But the bottles are small enough that for air to bubble up 
through the water requires getting through enough surface tension that it 
significantly affects the draining.  Having “enough” vortex to obviate that 
need then speeds your drainage.  But with the soda bottles too, if you spun 
them continuously, to keep introducing angular momentum to the water faster 
than it could transfer away toward the steady state by dissipation, I think it 
is sure you can affect the drainage.  I suspect the shape of the soda bottles 
is such that angular momentum equalizes toward the steady state more quickly.  
A sink with a flat bottom should be very hard, because you can put in tons of 
angular momentum that doesn’t get quickly reflected back.  (Also, square or 
round perimeter and bowl shape of the sink, how full is it relative to width, 
and other such things.  It can get as complicated as billiards (not really, but 
figuratively), if you consider all the momentum reflecting around.). 

3. The hard thing to do in emails or posts, and which really will require some 
computer program in the general case, is to figure out how gravity — in the 
infinitely long term — interacts with pressure and wall friction to resupply 
angular momentum to maintain a steady-state vortex, for a given vessel shape, 
mouth width, etc.  

The question of when you can make a universalizing claim, such as “symmetry 
breaking (like adding a rotation) will certainly increase or decrease a 
downward flow”, remains an important one, and many of us have daily instances 
of that problem in one or another area (ecological dynamics, physiology versus 
natural selection in populations, and on and on).  So, good to have ongoing 
interest.  The amount one has to say to have spoken carefully, to figure out 
what categories are coherent for which to try to generate answers, remains 
striking (at least to me).

Eric



> On Aug 5, 2023, at 11:05 AM, Nicholas Thompson  
> wrote:
> 
> Ok, folks. I apologize to those of you who are fed up with my kitchen 
> physics, but there has been a bit of a development in that saga that I want 
> to share with those few of you who aren’t.   Years ago, I came home for the 
> summer with my ears ringing with the notion that structures are formed to 
> dissipate gradients.  Please set aside any teleological implications 

Re: [FRIAM] What is an agent [was: Philosophy and Science}

[David Eric Smith]

Stephen, 

Too much good here for me almost-even to be able to read in scarce time, but on 
your final point 6, about whether various dissipative structures are complex, 
or not by what measure:

Do you know Yoshi Oono’s wonderful idiosyncratic book The Nonlinear World?
https://link.springer.com/book/10.1007/978-4-431-54029-8
The Nonlinear World
link.springer.com

I believe it’s the final chapter (Toward complexity), which apparently one can 
just download:
https://link.springer.com/content/pdf/10.1007/978-4-431-54029-8_5?pdf=chapter%20toc
Toward Complexity
link.springer.com

in which he argues that the phenomena you mention are only “pseudo-complex”.  
Yoshi, like David but with less of the predictable “Darwin-was-better; now what 
subject are we discussing today?” vibe, argues that there is a threshold to 
“true complexity” that is only crossed in systems that obey what Yoshi calls a 
“Pasteur principle”; they are of a kind that effectively can’t emerge 
spontaneously, but can evolve from ancestors once they exist.  He says 
(translating slightly from his words to mine) that such systems split the 
notion of “boundary conditions” into two sub-kinds that differ qualitatively.  
There are the “fundamental conditions” (in biology, the contents of genomes 
with indefinitely deep ancestry), that mine an indefinite past sparsely and 
selectively, versus ordinary “boundary conditions”, which are the dense 
here-and-now.  The fundamental conditions often provide criteria that allow the 
complex thing to respond to parts of the here-and-now, and ignore other parts, 
feeding back onto the update of the fundamental conditions.  

I don’t know when I will get time to listen to David’s appearance with Sean, so 
with apologies cannot know whether his argument is similar in its logic.  But 
Yoshi’s framing appeals to me a lot, because it is like a kind of spontaneous 
symmetry breaking or ergodicity breaking in the representations of information 
and how they modulate the networks of connection to the space-time continuum.  
That seems to me a very fertile idea.  I am still looking for some concrete 
model that makes it compelling and useful for something I want to solve.  (I 
probably have written this on the list before, in which case apologies for 
being repetitive.  But this mention is framed specifically to your question 
whether one should be disappointed in the demotion of the complexity in 
phenomena.)


Sorry for such a long email.  I thought this one would be short.  I haven’t 
tried to answer Russ yet because I expected that one to be long, and cannot 
yet….

Eric






> On Jul 18, 2023, at 4:37 AM, Stephen Guerin  
> wrote:
> 
> Russ,
> 
> "agent" is an overloaded word in our work. While there's overlap, I don't 
> think there will ever be a single definition to cover them all. I break our 
> use into two classes: software architecture design and discussions around 
> Agency (ie acting on its own or others behalf)
> 
> Software Design and Architecture
> I use the term "agent" when in software design less about "agency" and is 
> more about communicating the software architecture pattern of minimal 
> centralized control through actors with simulated or actual concurrency. 
> While we are often interested in issues around agency, I think it's important 
> to preserve this use of "agent" in software without bringing in  a second 
> word like agency. Both are suitcase words 
>  ala Minsky.  Simulated 
> concurrency might have a scheduler issuing "step" or "go" events to these 
> "agents" but we try to minimize any global centralized coordinator of logic 
> and we expect coordination to emerge from the interaction of the agents (eg 
> flocking, ising or ant foraging model). The term agent is used to distinguish 
> from other approaches like object-oriented, procedural and functional. While 
> agents are certainly implemented with objects, procedural and functional 
> patterns we tend to mean the agents are semi-autonomous in their actions. 
> Pattie Maes in the 90s described agents as objects that can say "no" :-) 
> Relatedly, Uri Wilensky stresses the use of "ask" to request the action of 
> another agent without the ability do directly do so. This use of "ask" was 
> locked into the api in later versions of Netlogo.
> agents in agent-based modeling which in Netlogo are turtles, links and 
> patches. Or in other frameworks might be lagrangian particles and eulerian 
> cells and links/edges. I call these lowercase "a" agents. Often we focus on 
> the interaction behaviors between many lightweight agents and less on 
> internal logic. I often say ABM might be better termed Interaction Based 
> Modeling. Interactions are often hybrid between turtles, links and patches.
> agents in multi-agent systems and distributed AI. It's a rough distinction 
> but here the agents tend to be heavier on internal processes and less focused 
> on the interactions. It's less 

Re: [FRIAM] What is an agent [was: Philosophy and Science}

[David Eric Smith]

Thank you Dave,

Yes, one of the fourteeners I should climb, and before I get too old to do it.

Eric



> On Jul 16, 2023, at 3:51 AM, Prof David West  wrote:
> 
> If you have not read it — I highly recommend The Tree of Knowledge by 
> Humberto Maturana and Francisco Varela. Self organization from simple to 
> complex via a single mechanism. 
> 
> On Fri, Jul 14, 2023, at 7:30 PM, David Eric Smith wrote:
>> I have had a version of this problem for several years, because I want to 
>> start with small-molecule chemistry on early planets, and eventually talk 
>> about biospheres full of evolving actors.  I have wanted to have a rough 
>> category system for how many qualitative kinds of transitions I should need 
>> to account for, and to explain within ordinary materials by the action of 
>> random processes.  Just because I am not a(n analytical) philosopher, I have 
>> no ambition to shoehorn the universe into a system or suppose that my 
>> categories subsume all questions even I might someday care about, or that 
>> they are sure to have unambiguous boundaries.  I just want a kind of sketch 
>> that seems like it will carry some weight.  For now.
>> 
>> Autonomy: One early division to me would be between matter that responds 
>> “passively” to its environment moment-by-moment, and as a result takes on an 
>> internal state that is an effectively given function of the surroundings at 
>> the time, versus one that has some protection for some internal variables 
>> from the constant outside harassment, and a source of autonomous dynamics 
>> for those internal variables.  One could bring in words like “energy”, but I 
>> would rather not for a variety of reasons.  Often, though, when others do, I 
>> will understand why and be willing to go along with the choice.
>> 
>> Control: The category of things with autonomous internal degrees of freedom 
>> that have some immunity from the slings and arrows of the immediate 
>> surroundings is extremely broad.  Within it there could be very many 
>> different kinds of organizations that, if we lack a better word, we might 
>> call “architectures”.  One family of architectures that I recognize is that 
>> of control systems.  Major components include whatever is controlled (in 
>> chem-eng used to be called “the plant”), a “model” in the sense of Conant 
>> and Ashby, “sensors” to respond to the plant and signal the model, and 
>> “effectors” to get an output from the model and somehow influence the plant. 
>>  One could ask when the organization of some material system is well 
>> described by this control-loop architecture.  I think the control-loop 
>> architecture entails some degree of autonomy, else the whole system is 
>> adequately described by passive response to the environment.  But probably a 
>> sophist could find counterexamples.
>> 
>> One could ask whether having the control-loop architecture counts as having 
>> agency.  By discriminating among states of the world according to their 
>> relation to states indexed in the model, and then acting on the world (even 
>> by so little as acting on one’s own position in the world), one could be 
>> said to express some sort of “goal”, and in that sense to have “had” such a 
>> goal.  
>> 
>> Is that enough for agency?  Maybe.  Or maybe not.
>> 
>> Reflection: The controller’s model could, in the previous level, be 
>> anything.  So again very broad.  Presumably a subset of control systems have 
>> models that incorporate some notion of a a “self”, so they could not only 
>> specifically model the conditions of the world, but also the condition of 
>> the self and of the self relative to the world, and then all of these 
>> variables become eligible targets for control actions.  
>> 
>> Conterfactuals and simulation: autonomy need not be limited to the receiving 
>> of signals and responding to them with control commands.  It could include 
>> producing values for counterfactual states within the controller’s model, of 
>> playing out representations of the consequences of control signals (another 
>> level of reflection, this time on the dynamics of the command loop), and 
>> then choosing according to a meta-criterion.  Here I have in mind something 
>> like the simulation that goes on in the tactical look-ahead in combinatorial 
>> games.  We now have a couple levels of representation between wherever the 
>> criteria are hard-coded and wherever the control signal (the “choice”) acts. 
>>  They are all still control loops, but it seems likely that control loops 
>> can have different enough major catego

Re: [FRIAM] What is an agent [was: Philosophy and Science}

[David Eric Smith]

I have had a version of this problem for several years, because I want to start 
with small-molecule chemistry on early planets, and eventually talk about 
biospheres full of evolving actors.  I have wanted to have a rough category 
system for how many qualitative kinds of transitions I should need to account 
for, and to explain within ordinary materials by the action of random 
processes.  Just because I am not a(n analytical) philosopher, I have no 
ambition to shoehorn the universe into a system or suppose that my categories 
subsume all questions even I might someday care about, or that they are sure to 
have unambiguous boundaries.  I just want a kind of sketch that seems like it 
will carry some weight.  For now.

Autonomy: One early division to me would be between matter that responds 
“passively” to its environment moment-by-moment, and as a result takes on an 
internal state that is an effectively given function of the surroundings at the 
time, versus one that has some protection for some internal variables from the 
constant outside harassment, and a source of autonomous dynamics for those 
internal variables.  One could bring in words like “energy”, but I would rather 
not for a variety of reasons.  Often, though, when others do, I will understand 
why and be willing to go along with the choice.

Control: The category of things with autonomous internal degrees of freedom 
that have some immunity from the slings and arrows of the immediate 
surroundings is extremely broad.  Within it there could be very many different 
kinds of organizations that, if we lack a better word, we might call 
“architectures”.  One family of architectures that I recognize is that of 
control systems.  Major components include whatever is controlled (in chem-eng 
used to be called “the plant”), a “model” in the sense of Conant and Ashby, 
“sensors” to respond to the plant and signal the model, and “effectors” to get 
an output from the model and somehow influence the plant.  One could ask when 
the organization of some material system is well described by this control-loop 
architecture.  I think the control-loop architecture entails some degree of 
autonomy, else the whole system is adequately described by passive response to 
the environment.  But probably a sophist could find counterexamples.

One could ask whether having the control-loop architecture counts as having 
agency.  By discriminating among states of the world according to their 
relation to states indexed in the model, and then acting on the world (even by 
so little as acting on one’s own position in the world), one could be said to 
express some sort of “goal”, and in that sense to have “had” such a goal.  

Is that enough for agency?  Maybe.  Or maybe not.

Reflection: The controller’s model could, in the previous level, be anything.  
So again very broad.  Presumably a subset of control systems have models that 
incorporate some notion of a a “self”, so they could not only specifically 
model the conditions of the world, but also the condition of the self and of 
the self relative to the world, and then all of these variables become eligible 
targets for control actions.  

Conterfactuals and simulation: autonomy need not be limited to the receiving of 
signals and responding to them with control commands.  It could include 
producing values for counterfactual states within the controller’s model, of 
playing out representations of the consequences of control signals (another 
level of reflection, this time on the dynamics of the command loop), and then 
choosing according to a meta-criterion.  Here I have in mind something like the 
simulation that goes on in the tactical look-ahead in combinatorial games.  We 
now have a couple levels of representation between wherever the criteria are 
hard-coded and wherever the control signal (the “choice”) acts.  They are all 
still control loops, but it seems likely that control loops can have different 
enough major categories of design that there is a place for names for such 
intermediate layers of abstraction to distinguish some kinds as having them, 
from others that don’t.

How much internal reflective representation does one want to require to satisfy 
one or another concept of agency?  None of them, in particular?  A particular 
subset?

For different purposes I can see arguing for different answers, and I am not 
sure how many categories it will be broadly useful to recognize.

Eric


> On Jul 15, 2023, at 8:28 AM, Russ Abbott  wrote:
> 
> I'm not sure what "closure to efficient cause" means. I considered using as 
> an example an outdoor light that charges itself (and stays off) during the 
> day and goes on at night. In what important way is that different from a 
> flashlight? They both have energy storage systems (batteries). Does it really 
> matter that the garden light "recharges itself" rather than relying on a more 
> direct outside force to change its batteries? And they both have on-off 

Re: [FRIAM] Watch "The Most Important Idea in Physics: The Principle of Least Action - Ask a Spaceman!" on YouTube

[David Eric Smith]

Couple of small PSAs:

> On Jul 4, 2023, at 12:28 AM, Nicholas Thompson  
> wrote:
> 
> And why do we keep calling it by it/s cult name, rather than calling it what 
> it is?  The difference between the energy of a moving object conveyed by its 
> velocity and that conveyed by its position in a field. If you want jargon,  
> why not just call it Ev-Ep.  

It is a subset of cases in mechanics where the Lagrangian equals a kinetic 
energy minus a potential energy.  It is a subset of those cases in which the 
kinetic energy is some quadratic function of velocities and some parameters.  
It is a subset of cases where Lagrangians and Actions even describe the 
variables in mechanics.  The concept of Lagrangian is not defined by any one or 
another of these instances, and the concept of action (in the subset of cases 
where it is a time-integral in a single time variable of a Lagrangian) is not 
defined by any particular one of the indefinitely-variable functional forms 
that the action might evaluate to.(When read aloud in my voice, one should 
hear a tedious echo of harping that the concept of entropy is not defined by 
the functional form of an equilibrium entropy for one or another Gibbs 
ensemble.)

If we wish to talk about the consequence of books for the course of the 
enlightenment, why do we use that cult name “book”, and not just pick up a copy 
of Moby Dick and say “the things in which the word whale appears here and here 
and here”?


Now that Glen informs us that Sutter did mention calculus of variations, it is 
okay for me to just say the following and not go off on a long tangent: If I 
tell you that the daisy-chain recursion (aka the calculus of variations) that 
identifies the trajectory minimizing an action — because its (let’s say) 
potential term is a function of position and its (let’s say) kinetic term is a 
function of the rates of change of positions, so trying to reduce a function of 
them both chains together positions across time, and this is what “equations of 
motion” are — implies that the energy is conserved (unless blah blah blah, or 
else this sentence never ends), and that that is what the minus sign is buying 
you, don’t you feel infinitely better now that I have used the terms “energy” 
and “conserved"?  Doesn’t your intuition feel infinitely more empowered, ready 
to go out into the world and know what’s what?

I hope not.  Aristotle thought about motion and we know because he wrote things 
down.  Probably people before him thought about motion and didn’t write things 
down.  Surely people after him thought about motion, he having made that okay 
to do.  We waited until Newton before anybody had quantities showing that a 
concept “energy” was coherent and consequential.  We had to wait another 
century-and-a-bit until Emmy Noether (using ideas from Lagrange) related energy 
conservation to invariance under the passage of time, so that the idea started 
to be anchored in some bigger context, and wasn’t just a placeholder term 
floating in a void.  (This wasn’t what Leibniz meant by “windowless monad”, but 
I wish it had been; I would love to use that appellation for the placeholder 
status of all our terms not yet embedded in any wider contexts. (Integrated, 
one might say.))

I don’t say the above to mock the request for something intuitive about what 
least action is doing in one or another of its functional forms.  If I thought 
I had something useful to say that fulfills the request as stated I would write 
it here.  (The above observation about “why the minus sign” and conservation of 
energy is a bit in that direction, though it requires you to grind out the 
equations to watch it work, and in any case all this is more cleanly done by 
converting the Least Action formulation into its Hamiltonian equivalent and 
then showing how we have non-overlapping trajectories in a certain kind of 
picture of the space of possible conditions.)   It is not at all a bad request 
to make, and to extrapolate up from instances is a practice without which I 
could never get to an understanding of anything.  But I think this notion that 
one’s “intuition” is now empowered should be handled about like a pet 
rattlesnake.  Or Eve’s apple.  In it lies every temptation to conflate 
understanding with familiarity and the offloading onto habit, and if you go 
that route you may as well try to climb out of a black hole.


Just while we’re at it:

> my long-time mentor, Stephen Guerin.  He has learned to be very careful 
> around me, but I can tell that in his own private modeling -- the kind I urge 
> you to tell me about above -- he believes that the lightening bolt internally 
> models all the possible routes to ground and then chooses the least action 
> path. 

Stephen is a generous friend indeed, to let you throw up strawman caricatures 
of such malice for his thinking, just for the joy he knows it gives you to 
throw sand into the gears of any conversation.  A man like that can make a 

Re: [FRIAM] The Three Toed Sloth meets the Shoggoth

[David Eric Smith]

ike it needs a 
> complementary, shadow node and edge of parameters that regulate the graph. I 
> guess the graph "plus" its complementing shadow is also a (larger?) graph. 
> But are they different things? Or the same thing? And if they're different 
> things, meta-things, is there an infinite regress lying about? (e.g. the 
> parameter graph also needs its own parameter graph, etc.)
> 
> I know I shouldn't hit Send on this one
> 
> On 6/24/23 20:03, David Eric Smith wrote:
>> Stephen, thank you for these,
>> Continuous your paragraphs at the bottom, there is a project I have wanted 
>> to pursue off and on for 25 years, and which gets cheaper each year.  I 
>> probably described it before on the list (maybe more than once), in which 
>> case apologies for the repeat.
>> The neoclassical paradigm from much of the past century turned on finding 
>> price systems as the separating hyperplanes that separated convex models of 
>> consumer preference and producer technology.  Besides the fact that those 
>> models are often not-even-wrong, lots else, like ecosystems, the polity, 
>> etc., are left out of the account altogether.
>> A conceptually easy piece of low-hanging fruit, though laborious to populate 
>> with data, would be to make an underlying model of the system you are trying 
>> to analyze economically as a real-goods input-output problem.  Then you 
>> could find the separating hyperplanes that are price systems relating it to 
>> whatever-other model you want to make of decision priorities.
>> Real-goods input-output analysis, with price systems as the separating 
>> hyperplanes, is ancient; it is called the von Neumann growth model.  Like 
>> many other things von Neumann, it was picked up, demonstrated, played with 
>> for a bit, and largely abandoned as people went wherever-else.
>> Today, of course, input-output models become far more useful than they ever 
>> could have been in von Neumann’s time, because big computation allows us to 
>> aggregate patchwork descriptions into larger models, which track the 
>> stoichiometric dependencies between the sectors.  This is some part of the 
>> information that the separating hyperplanes discard (by their nature and 
>> construction).  The models are of course hypergraphs, which means we know 
>> things about their topological analysis, and can study correlation of 
>> fluctuations as well as constraints on average behavior.  Systems biology 
>> now does this sort of thing routinely with models big enough that they are 
>> no longer just illustrative “toys”, where the separating hyperplanes are 
>> biological molecule inventories needed for cells to reproduce, and outputs 
>> of wastes to the surroundings can be tracked and their consequences computed 
>> as well.  All the usual stuff.
>> Most importantly, since ecology is already stoichiometric (in terms of much 
>> more than just chemical elements), we can put the Venn diagram in the right 
>> order, with the economy < polity < society < ecosphere, and at least 
>> represent ecological inputs and outputs as the containers for transient 
>> economic activity.
>> Another thing that would be a good use for the capacity of organizations 
>> like google to vacuum up data would be to embed lifecycle analysis of things 
>> like energy systems, water systems, or other factors impacted by human 
>> demography into whole-system cost analyses, where “costs” are first and 
>> foremost represented by real materials and embodied free energy, and we can 
>> later project them onto smaller decision variables (such as money prices) if 
>> those address particular problems.
>> I have a recently-graduated student who is enthusiastic about hypergraphs 
>> and looking for general things to do with them, and we might have some EU 
>> collaborators who will put in a proposal to do bits on this if they can get 
>> their time protected.  I don’t know if this goes anywhere, but the idea 
>> seems obvious, and it would be nice for somebody to have time and interest 
>> to work on it.  There must be some class of decision variables that could be 
>> served by such tools.
>> Anyway,
>> Eric
>>> On Jun 25, 2023, at 7:27 AM, Stephen Guerin  
>>> wrote:
>>> 
>>> Thanks, Roger.
>>> 
>>> I put a copy of Shalizi and Farrell's paper for discussion here:
>>> https://linkprotect.cudasvc.com/url?a=https%3a%2f%2fredfish.com%2fpapers%2ftemp20230624%2fshaliziFarrell_AI_Economist.pdf=E,1,m2nJFtd7iFa86CuE9FCY9CQkVkfHrpw3839u8WWk4epQ9Dy3EVib3NC_DBECSVK5UNlHjlG0hLEjQ23rhXmE6__0NPrgc3IACXkSzuHeXbiorKv-NQ,,=1
>>>  

Re: [FRIAM] Trees as wind farms.

[David Eric Smith]

My guess would be that plants are not energy-limited.

At the scale of a leaf on a tree in a forest, or a fiber in a tassel on a 
wheat-blade in a field, the delivery rate for wind energy is some tiny number — 
I won’t try to give it here, because I will surely get it wrong — in contrast 
to light-harvesting, which is capturing and trying to hang onto little hand 
grenades.  (The energy in any visible photon is about 10x the bond energy of 
the strongest C-C bonds, so just catching these things and not breaking the 
molecule is one of biology’s major innovations.)  So it may be that the 
complexity of using wind is large enough, and the reward for the energy any 
given mechanism might harvest small enough, that it just never takes.

One could go into a long harangue about the various evidences that plants are 
not energy-limited, just because they are a delightful enlightening window on 
the biology around us, but it doesn’t really add to the main point in the last 
paragraph (the way plants have moved everything onto sugar chemistry because 
they are nitrogen limited, the ways C4 plants concentrate carbonates because 
they are water-limited, or the fact that green is blue in NM because they 
already have more light than they can use at the water levels of high desert 
and mountains).

Interestingly, the chemical free energy that wind delivers by evaporating water 
and then moving it away from the leaf surface is probably larger than the 
mechanical energy of twirling the leaf, though again I should provide numbers 
if I want to make this guess.  Or maybe you are already right: that the 
twirling of the leaf is an evolved property somehow using the mechanical 
energy, and we just don’t know the literature well enough to know if this 
observation has been developed.

I know the above isn’t a great argument, as it is reasonable to harvest big 
energy packages to do big jobs, and small energy packages to do smaller jobs, 
within the same system.  But maybe (?) we would have to go outside energy as a 
simple currency to understand what is or what is not captured?  I do think your 
example of water pumping is a compelling one, since we know the problem is hard 
and plants need a solution, and we know from things like leg-contractions to 
pump blood in mammals, that other organisms capture mechanical energy sometimes 
when it is available. 

Eric


> On Jun 28, 2023, at 5:53 AM,  
>  wrote:
> 
> Thanks Glen,  
> I have no problem with agency in plants if you have no problem with agency in 
> humans.  Plants even have intentionality, meaning that a world can be 
> described relevant to a plant's needs, an umwelt, if you will.  I like 
> Barry's idea that trees are bad collectors energy, but why? Poplar leaves 
> twirl in the wind; at the nano-scopic level, there are all sorts of rotors 
> and turbines.  The poplar doesn't have to collect energy if it can focus it 
> locally, say on bud growth at the bud next to the leave stem.  
> 
> N
> 
> -Original Message-
> From: Friam  On Behalf Of glen
> Sent: Tuesday, June 27, 2023 1:29 PM
> To: friam@redfish.com
> Subject: Re: [FRIAM] Trees as wind farms.
> 
> "make use of" imputes agency on the trees. A better way to phrase it would be 
> how/whether trees benefit from wind. But, if I'm a little more generous, 
> maybe you're asking if there are any transduction or energy storage 
> mechanisms triggered by the wind.
> 
> https://bsapubs.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.3732/ajb.93.10.1466
> "Touch, wind, and wounding all induced increased lipoxygenase (LOX) mRNA 
> transcription in wheat (Triticum aestivum L.) seedlings (Mauch et al., 1997). 
> The mechanical stress induced response occurred within 1 h after treatment, 
> and the amount of transcript was reported to be strongly dose-dependent. LOXs 
> are involved or implicated in a number of metabolic pathways associated with 
> plant growth and development, ABA biosynthesis, senescence, mobilization of 
> lipid reserves, wound responses, resistance to pathogens, formation of fatty 
> acid hydroperoxides, and synthesis of jasmonic acid and traumatic acid (for 
> review, see Mauch et al., 1997)."
> 
> Maybe?
> 
> On 6/27/23 09:19, Barry MacKichan wrote:
>> I would think the energy is too dispersed to be collectable. At risk of 
>> bending this infant thread … you reminded me of John Muir:
>> 
>> It has been said that trees are imperfect men, and seem to bemoan their 
>> imprisonment rooted in the ground. But they never seem so to me. I never saw 
>> a discontented tree. They grip the ground as though they liked it, and 
>> though fast rooted they travel about as far as we do. They go wandering 
>> forth in all directions with every wind, going and coming like ourselves, 
>> traveling with us around the sun two million miles a day, and through space 
>> heaven knows how fast and far!
>> 
>> —Barry
>> 
>> On 27 Jun 2023, at 11:38, Nicholas Thompson wrote:
>> 
>>Sitting here at the farm, watching the Normandy 

Re: [FRIAM] The Three Toed Sloth meets the Shoggoth

[David Eric Smith]

Stephen, thank you for these,

Continuous your paragraphs at the bottom, there is a project I have wanted to 
pursue off and on for 25 years, and which gets cheaper each year.  I probably 
described it before on the list (maybe more than once), in which case apologies 
for the repeat.

The neoclassical paradigm from much of the past century turned on finding price 
systems as the separating hyperplanes that separated convex models of consumer 
preference and producer technology.  Besides the fact that those models are 
often not-even-wrong, lots else, like ecosystems, the polity, etc., are left 
out of the account altogether.

A conceptually easy piece of low-hanging fruit, though laborious to populate 
with data, would be to make an underlying model of the system you are trying to 
analyze economically as a real-goods input-output problem.  Then you could find 
the separating hyperplanes that are price systems relating it to whatever-other 
model you want to make of decision priorities.

Real-goods input-output analysis, with price systems as the separating 
hyperplanes, is ancient; it is called the von Neumann growth model.  Like many 
other things von Neumann, it was picked up, demonstrated, played with for a 
bit, and largely abandoned as people went wherever-else.

Today, of course, input-output models become far more useful than they ever 
could have been in von Neumann’s time, because big computation allows us to 
aggregate patchwork descriptions into larger models, which track the 
stoichiometric dependencies between the sectors.  This is some part of the 
information that the separating hyperplanes discard (by their nature and 
construction).  The models are of course hypergraphs, which means we know 
things about their topological analysis, and can study correlation of 
fluctuations as well as constraints on average behavior.  Systems biology now 
does this sort of thing routinely with models big enough that they are no 
longer just illustrative “toys”, where the separating hyperplanes are 
biological molecule inventories needed for cells to reproduce, and outputs of 
wastes to the surroundings can be tracked and their consequences computed as 
well.  All the usual stuff.

Most importantly, since ecology is already stoichiometric (in terms of much 
more than just chemical elements), we can put the Venn diagram in the right 
order, with the economy < polity < society < ecosphere, and at least represent 
ecological inputs and outputs as the containers for transient economic activity.

Another thing that would be a good use for the capacity of organizations like 
google to vacuum up data would be to embed lifecycle analysis of things like 
energy systems, water systems, or other factors impacted by human demography 
into whole-system cost analyses, where “costs” are first and foremost 
represented by real materials and embodied free energy, and we can later 
project them onto smaller decision variables (such as money prices) if those 
address particular problems.

I have a recently-graduated student who is enthusiastic about hypergraphs and 
looking for general things to do with them, and we might have some EU 
collaborators who will put in a proposal to do bits on this if they can get 
their time protected.  I don’t know if this goes anywhere, but the idea seems 
obvious, and it would be nice for somebody to have time and interest to work on 
it.  There must be some class of decision variables that could be served by 
such tools.

Anyway, 

Eric



> On Jun 25, 2023, at 7:27 AM, Stephen Guerin  
> wrote:
> 
> Thanks, Roger. 
> 
> I put a copy of Shalizi and Farrell's paper for discussion here:
>https://redfish.com/papers/temp20230624/shaliziFarrell_AI_Economist.pdf 
> 
> 
> (As this is a not a public email list, I think it's fair use to post a link 
> to the article for discussion. I will delete the file tomorrow so the public 
> archive will have a dead link)  
> 
> Also, here's a link to Weitzman's Hyperplane Theory referenced in the article.
> https://scholar.harvard.edu/files/weitzman/files/economicsproofseparating.pdf
> 
> In some ways Bill Macready and Mohammed El-Beltagy (cc'd) were trying to 
> build a version of Weitzman's Hyperplane for economic allocation with 
> BiosGroup's Prowess Software 20 years ago extending price only auctions to 
> the hyperplanes of price, time, quality and other multidimensional metrics.
> 
> Mohammed and I have been talking off list these last couple months of the 
> same points as the article that modern corporations and governments were some 
> fo the first AIs that we're struggling to understand proper governance and 
> how the challenge of what AI governance may look like.
> 
> -Stephen
> 
> 

Re: [FRIAM] The Three Toed Sloth meets the Shoggoth

[David Eric Smith]

I didn’t pay to read the economist, but the summary of the article given in the 
twitter thread is one I like.

Meaning: the framework of reasoning they use seems insightful and of the right 
kind to me.  We had a version of it earlier in the Ted Chiang article linked 
from the Cory Doctorow article that Glen sent around.  I particularly like 
their argument that this is the reflective system that makes a 
perception/control apparatus possible.  A very Shubik-like thing to emphasize.  
Also gives the “niche construction” perspective, that we build these 
environments and then inhabit them because they confer a quite specific and 
describable category of functions we would not choose to live without.

I suppose this is now something like a meme, in that enough people have given 
takes on it that no one person gets to be the sole in-seer of it now.  All to 
the good.

I wonder if the next thing to be asked along this line is when does the change 
of timescale become a qualitatively important thing?  When is “faster 
different”, to paraphrase Phil Anderson?  That could be one sense in which 
LLMs, deep fakes, or more sophisticated linked systems of the above, could be 
the same in the sense of falling within the Farrell/Shalizi/Chiang framework, 
but also different in the sense that a flow that is laminar at one rate can 
become turbulent at a faster rate, because the corrections to inputs are no 
longer faster than the changes of the inputs.

Very valuable sources to be hooked into, though.  Thank you Roger.

Eric



> On Jun 25, 2023, at 5:55 AM, Roger Critchlow  wrote:
> 
> I was trawling through my saved bookmarks looking for insights into 
> Prigozhin's mutiny, when I stumbled to http://bactra.org/weblog/ 
> 
>  and found that Henry Farrell and Cosma Shalizi have just published an essay 
> in The Economist, 
> https://www.economist.com/by-invitation/2023/06/21/artificial-intelligence-is-a-familiar-looking-monster-say-henry-farrell-and-cosma-shalizi,
>  paywalled of course, but there is a twitter listicle version at 
> https://twitter.com/henryfarrell/status/1671547591262191618
> 
> -- rec --
> -. --- - / ...- .- .-.. .. -.. / -- --- .-. ... . / -.-. --- -.. .
> FRIAM Applied Complexity Group listserv
> Fridays 9a-12p Friday St. Johns Cafe   /   Thursdays 9a-12p Zoom 
> https://linkprotect.cudasvc.com/url?a=https%3a%2f%2fbit.ly%2fvirtualfriam=E,1,bQXvqMP0ioJOk2qwgYNQYEdhSi_BjoiltDVxddb19-5RGGp2nUBuWWjeJbJmCA8J5qmvRxKUBl2_FSV-w2j-6zIwhzVRRm5-zRr7T_sbUf0qs1Zu0iuE=1
> to (un)subscribe 
> https://linkprotect.cudasvc.com/url?a=http%3a%2f%2fredfish.com%2fmailman%2flistinfo%2ffriam_redfish.com=E,1,o7L830Cvho880IrH4VuP6LB6Lw_OPFpOznVFb-kYvI_x9ULsB6pOpkYCVNI5WQEzKNbuN1hCAvJMIMYmEqCa5rSBdo2Wiw-up-T8FWz_jC_xkN8,=1
> FRIAM-COMIC 
> https://linkprotect.cudasvc.com/url?a=http%3a%2f%2ffriam-comic.blogspot.com%2f=E,1,ZdYPhI27limatL4pmK3sAP5gm6EF0Qxz3Oz8FG998U4sYekbQmek5dJjq3JAodDd-zdubUzgJ6MBCdYCy3GzufNPlcMs-qte7sShIAsmNwCl7w,,=1
> archives:  5/2017 thru present 
> https://linkprotect.cudasvc.com/url?a=https%3a%2f%2fredfish.com%2fpipermail%2ffriam_redfish.com%2f=E,1,6aWewzdZuxB0dzsSSt5Xua7pWRHYKjgt0siFd_5u-S-cfPMVMb7AHYE_vKnApOViQF2yBNciu-4qB0XS3LcyyxtNJifUv9uz6_xIGLbh=1
>  1/2003 thru 6/2021  http://friam.383.s1.nabble.com/

-. --- - / ...- .- .-.. .. -.. / -- --- .-. ... . / -.-. --- -.. .
FRIAM Applied Complexity Group listserv
Fridays 9a-12p Friday St. Johns Cafe   /   Thursdays 9a-12p Zoom 
https://bit.ly/virtualfriam
to (un)subscribe http://redfish.com/mailman/listinfo/friam_redfish.com
FRIAM-COMIC http://friam-comic.blogspot.com/
archives:  5/2017 thru present https://redfish.com/pipermail/friam_redfish.com/
  1/2003 thru 6/2021  http://friam.383.s1.nabble.com/

Re: [FRIAM] Radical Empiricism

[David Eric Smith]

Very good Frank.

Smacked for making generalizations.  As it should be.

Eric


> On Jun 5, 2023, at 10:48 AM, Frank Wimberly  wrote:
> 
> As one of the few, if not the only, person who has been a full time employee 
> of a philosophy department for multiple years, I am quick to defend my former 
> colleagues.  Read "Actual Causation and Thought Experiments" by Glymour and 
> Wimberly in J. K. Campbell, M. O'Rourke & H. S. Silverstein (eds.), Causation 
> and Explanation. MIT Press
> 
> You don't have to read thousands, or even hundreds, of pages to be able to 
> grok that paper.
> 
> ---
> Frank C. Wimberly
> 140 Calle Ojo Feliz, 
> Santa Fe, NM 87505
> 
> 505 670-9918
> Santa Fe, NM
> 
> On Sun, Jun 4, 2023, 7:30 PM David Eric Smith  <mailto:desm...@santafe.edu>> wrote:
>> So there’s a rather concrete way in which one can imagine ChatGPT’s being 
>> particularly useful as a time-saver.
>> 
>> I have heard it said (and find it persuasive), that philosophy is different 
>> from physics because what philosophers want to do and settle for being is 
>> different from that for physicists.
>> 
>> A physicist can pick up F = ma and start from there to get something done.
>> 
>> Each philosopher is, in a sense, a new beginning of the universe, and you 
>> are expected to read thousands of pages of his composition to be permitted 
>> to engage with him. That is a good barrier to exclude pretty-much-everbody 
>> from most conversations.
>> 
>> But there are specific topics on which engaging with this group is a game of 
>> whack-a-mole, and it would be _so_ satisfying to catch that damned mole far 
>> enough out of the hole to pin him down to the board for once.
>> 
>> It is on this point:  
>> 
>> Summarizing what, as Marcus rightly says, as been repeated 10^n times 
>> before, CGTP quotes:
>> At the core of radical empiricism is the concept of "pure experience." 
>> According to James, pure experience refers to the immediate, unmediated 
>> apprehension of reality, devoid of any conceptual or interpretative filters. 
>> It involves experiencing the world as it is, without imposing preconceived 
>> notions or theories onto the experience.
>> 
>> What the HELL does anyone think this is supposed to refer to?  I am not 
>> asking whether it actually does refer to anything, but rather what anyone 
>> believes he is saying by it.
>> 
>> And I can ask that in a rather concrete way.  Were James to engage with 
>> Husserl, would he claim that the access to the “immediate apprehension” is 
>> by way of the same portal as Husserl’s epoche? 
>> 
>> I ask because they set themselves up to make a particular style of 
>> assertion.  
>> 
>> By analogy, we have seen that human bodies can do things like Amanars and 
>> any of the 4 Bileses (which should have been 5, and would have been were it 
>> not for COVID).  But that doesn’t mean every human body can do any of them.  
>> There is rather a lot of specific training that goes into becoming one of 
>> the bodies that can do any of this.
>> 
>> The various “internal” experience-focused philosophers present these things 
>> as doable, but technical and particular and requiring training.
>> 
>> But if you then ask what that is about, you get either a demand to follow 
>> several thousand pages in each person’s formulation, or the kind of cloudy 
>> motivational life-coach speech that almost all of the CGPT summary is 
>> composed of.  (Reminds me of something I once heard said of chimp speech: if 
>> you aren’t there working with them, you cannot anticipate how mind-numbingly 
>> repetitive it is).  
>> 
>> So rather than asking “what it is” (the skill or whatever), I can ask “If 
>> they were arguing with each other, would they even assert to each other, 
>> each with his supposed privileged appreciation of the mysteries, assert or 
>> deny that they are referring to the same thing.
>> 
>> This might allow us to not have to approach the full body of philosophical 
>> literature as if each corpus were Sui generis.  
>> 
>> Eric
>> 
>> 
>> 
>> 
>> 
>>> On Jun 5, 2023, at 2:43 AM, Jochen Fromm >> <mailto:j...@cas-group.net>> wrote:
>>> 
>>> ChatGPT now allows sharing conversations. I've asked it about William James 
>>> book "Essays in Radical Empiricism"
>>> https://chat.openai.com/share/375aef4e-a8d6-467e-8061-bd85b341c46b 
>>> <https://linkprotect.cudasvc.com/url?a=https%3a%2f%2fchat.openai.com%2f

Re: [FRIAM] Radical Empiricism

[David Eric Smith]

So there’s a rather concrete way in which one can imagine ChatGPT’s being 
particularly useful as a time-saver.

I have heard it said (and find it persuasive), that philosophy is different 
from physics because what philosophers want to do and settle for being is 
different from that for physicists.

A physicist can pick up F = ma and start from there to get something done.

Each philosopher is, in a sense, a new beginning of the universe, and you are 
expected to read thousands of pages of his composition to be permitted to 
engage with him. That is a good barrier to exclude pretty-much-everbody from 
most conversations.

But there are specific topics on which engaging with this group is a game of 
whack-a-mole, and it would be _so_ satisfying to catch that damned mole far 
enough out of the hole to pin him down to the board for once.

It is on this point:  

Summarizing what, as Marcus rightly says, as been repeated 10^n times before, 
CGTP quotes:
At the core of radical empiricism is the concept of "pure experience." 
According to James, pure experience refers to the immediate, unmediated 
apprehension of reality, devoid of any conceptual or interpretative filters. It 
involves experiencing the world as it is, without imposing preconceived notions 
or theories onto the experience.

What the HELL does anyone think this is supposed to refer to?  I am not asking 
whether it actually does refer to anything, but rather what anyone believes he 
is saying by it.

And I can ask that in a rather concrete way.  Were James to engage with 
Husserl, would he claim that the access to the “immediate apprehension” is by 
way of the same portal as Husserl’s epoche? 

I ask because they set themselves up to make a particular style of assertion.  

By analogy, we have seen that human bodies can do things like Amanars and any 
of the 4 Bileses (which should have been 5, and would have been were it not for 
COVID).  But that doesn’t mean every human body can do any of them.  There is 
rather a lot of specific training that goes into becoming one of the bodies 
that can do any of this.

The various “internal” experience-focused philosophers present these things as 
doable, but technical and particular and requiring training.

But if you then ask what that is about, you get either a demand to follow 
several thousand pages in each person’s formulation, or the kind of cloudy 
motivational life-coach speech that almost all of the CGPT summary is composed 
of.  (Reminds me of something I once heard said of chimp speech: if you aren’t 
there working with them, you cannot anticipate how mind-numbingly repetitive it 
is).  

So rather than asking “what it is” (the skill or whatever), I can ask “If they 
were arguing with each other, would they even assert to each other, each with 
his supposed privileged appreciation of the mysteries, assert or deny that they 
are referring to the same thing.

This might allow us to not have to approach the full body of philosophical 
literature as if each corpus were Sui generis.  

Eric





> On Jun 5, 2023, at 2:43 AM, Jochen Fromm  wrote:
> 
> ChatGPT now allows sharing conversations. I've asked it about William James 
> book "Essays in Radical Empiricism"
> https://chat.openai.com/share/375aef4e-a8d6-467e-8061-bd85b341c46b 
> 
> 
> -J.
> 
> -. --- - / ...- .- .-.. .. -.. / -- --- .-. ... . / -.-. --- -.. .
> FRIAM Applied Complexity Group listserv
> Fridays 9a-12p Friday St. Johns Cafe   /   Thursdays 9a-12p Zoom 
> https://linkprotect.cudasvc.com/url?a=https%3a%2f%2fbit.ly%2fvirtualfriam=E,1,4Ej-3WkzCsdOezlOTkNab8YSgaX0yBT2eojMrJ5Omb3C9jhx2WvM4dgLzpGaWvUDS5G11eH0hi6f2CP8LuQiU78N4nd8_nDmSPnYUPlAc6HvS3mraZcO1Qss=1
> to (un)subscribe 
> https://linkprotect.cudasvc.com/url?a=http%3a%2f%2fredfish.com%2fmailman%2flistinfo%2ffriam_redfish.com=E,1,7UO9MBznliGp4Ek_7Dak6ZLg17WCuRvQCgxeIJstHzlJoGNlQvD9H4mOo2t5LncTVYA8tuHHGTrui48T1bFuBa7PXsRW6FysGC0wFQXsUViHEw8,=1
> FRIAM-COMIC 
> https://linkprotect.cudasvc.com/url?a=http%3a%2f%2ffriam-comic.blogspot.com%2f=E,1,B_buInP9H5oxYYkhlHmXI68kDO2iBRDRQethn2JQ3c_ljlNE9ZVadzeU6Qdh6_Fa0A9yVLoV49pQvjBZGjZaJ_c9hOHvO4xNL-jSIUN5xnbmFN-3=1
> archives:  5/2017 thru present 
> https://linkprotect.cudasvc.com/url?a=https%3a%2f%2fredfish.com%2fpipermail%2ffriam_redfish.com%2f=E,1,VnXrX4FDt09ZztvgT19Hj7VoPT2kByVzA1OBWuAc2v3UJFg3anNk8_1CMzgkSAHaMaHnGDe9BjLhPoq0QfqIU7f5_OFy-a5JGil4NlmHq1q_=1
>  1/2003 thru 6/2021  http://friam.383.s1.nabble.com/

-. --- - / ...- .- .-.. .. -.. / -- --- .-. ... . / -.-. --- -.. .
FRIAM Applied Complexity Group listserv
Fridays 9a-12p Friday St. Johns Cafe   /   Thursdays 9a-12p Zoom 
https://bit.ly/virtualfriam
to (un)subscribe http://redfish.com/mailman/listinfo/friam_redfish.com
FRIAM-COMIC 

Re: [FRIAM] crackpots and privilege

[David Eric Smith]

at objective othering would rely solely on coherent traits, 
> fingers vs. claws, hair vs. fur, cortex or no cortex. A human now would be 
> insignificantly different from a human then. If the apocalypse doesn't 
> transform us into something other than human, whatever is rebuilt will be 
> strikingly similar to what we have now.
> 
> 
> On 5/28/23 11:29, David Eric Smith wrote:
>> I’m not sure elitist, Steve,
>> That’s one bad habit that I don’t think they have.
>> More along the line, I suspect, of “out of ordinary people who mostly get 
>> mowed down, here and there will be some pockets that started to pay 
>> attention and got lucky enough to have time to make a culture of it, of 
>> sorts”
>> Wes Jackson likes the term “saving remnant”.
>> I happen to be in Sweden just now, and it has me thinking about sci-fi 
>> futures, ad also Nietzsche’s “last man” etc.
>> Also on this theme is the very interesting SFI lecture “living with 
>> distrust”, which signals things I have seen (Ernst Fehr?) and others say 
>> about the Ache and Machiguenga and other groups.
>> What do I think the saving remnant will be?  I imagine people who lost all 
>> the epigenetic marks associated with domestication, and took on hormone 
>> profiles more like chimps.  Or “born this way” to PTSD.
>> Take any wild animal, and contemplate just how _different_ they are from us. 
>>  Never lazy.  Never un-vigilant.  Or read Jonathan Shay’s Achilles in 
>> Vietnam.
>> Suppose all the people who remain have survived only because they are that.  
>> Unwind not only the past 70 years of developed-world tranquility, but the 
>> history of human domestication since at least the younger dryas.  Maybe a 
>> lot longer ago than that.
>> What is it like to have your Time Machine and go spend a weekend with those 
>> guys in their home?  Jared Diamond would be jealous.  Somehow not the domain 
>> of peace and spirituality that I think first-worlders like to project onto 
>> first-nationers, and which might even be true for the first-nationers, since 
>> they are also from a milder time by a lot than a large extinction.
>> I wish I had the imagination to be interesting.  It would be invigorating to 
>> read someone who could really imagine a different world, and a different us, 
>> and take you there in some convincing way.
>> Eric
>>> On May 28, 2023, at 6:55 PM, Steve Smith  wrote:
>>> 
>>> Eric -
>>> 
>>> Thanks for passing this link around here.   I suspect most here have the 
>>> background to appreciate/parse this < insert Steve Martin's "hear me now 
>>> and believe me later" SNL skit> but maybe not an "affordance to know" the 
>>> more acute implications of it.
>>> 
>>> One of the things I find (most) interesting in the RGND rhetoric is their 
>>> (appropriate) invocation of Complex Systems ideas as well as the 
>>> convergence of human consciousness (mostly from a neuroscience perspective) 
>>> and the complex systems which are the techno-social-economic systems that 
>>> are our energo-materio culture which is the engine that is spinning the 
>>> earth-systems out of the orbits they were in pre-anthropocene (150 or 15000 
>>> years?)
>>> 
>>> I may be reading them wrong, but this feels like "yet another" elitist 
>>> trope, this time on (nanotech?) steroids:
>>> 
>>>/In short, we think it’s probable that MTI civilization will collapse 
>>> catastrophically but that pockets of people with a rising level of 
>>> consciousness and awareness of our eco-predicament will survive and act as 
>>> the seeders of a new world.///
>>> 
>>> I particularly appreciated your pithy observation:
>>> 
>>>/But here, we can maybe somehow combine the capitalists and the GNDers.  
>>> The concentration in the rate and provision of services, and of the 
>>> ownership of the proceeds by whoever the rulers turn out to be, leaves the 
>>> rest of us free to die off in peace, and not carry on the guilt of being 
>>> ecological criminals.  It’s a win-win./
>>> 
>>> /
>>> /
>>> 
>>> Thanks to Sabine (as Cassandra) and Eric and Marcus for raising this to my 
>>> attention...  queing it up to provide background for my read lead me to her 
>>> Collective Stupidity episode <https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=25kqobiv4ng>.
>>> 
>>> I am left wondering if/how LLMs reflect/relate to Wisdom/Stupidity of 
>>> Crowds?   Seems like LLMs are literally the encapsulation

Re: [FRIAM] crackpots and privilege

[David Eric Smith]

t;>>> 
>>>>> -- rec --
>>>>> 
>>>>>> On Tue, May 30, 2023 at 10:04 AM Marcus Daniels >>>>> <mailto:mar...@snoutfarm.com>> wrote:
>>>>> 
>>>>>"What do I think the saving remnant will be?  I imagine people who 
>>>>> lost all the epigenetic marks associated with domestication, and took on 
>>>>> hormone profiles more like chimps.  Or “born this way” to PTSD."
>>>>> 
>>>>>In stories like Elysium, the saving remnant survives.  Why doesn't 
>>>>> popular science fiction consider the future in which only Elysium 
>>>>> endures?We have lots of experience on earth making sure that 
>>>>> communities are partitioned by socioeconomic status.All of the saving 
>>>>> remnants I see around here are homeless or hovering near death due to use 
>>>>> of heroin and fentanyl.   The deer, however, happily munch on my front 
>>>>> yard plants.
>>>>> 
>>>>>https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Elysium_(film) 
>>>>> <https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Elysium_(film)>
>>>>>-Original Message-
>>>>>From: Friam >>>> <mailto:friam-boun...@redfish.com>> On Behalf Of glen
>>>>>Sent: Tuesday, May 30, 2023 7:27 AM
>>>>>To: friam@redfish.com <mailto:friam@redfish.com>
>>>>>Subject: Re: [FRIAM] crackpots and privilege
>>>>> 
>>>>>"Somehow not the domain of peace and spirituality that I think 
>>>>> first-worlders like to project onto first-nationers, and which might even 
>>>>> be true for the first-nationers, since they are also from a milder time 
>>>>> by a lot than a large extinction."
>>>>> 
>>>>>IDK, man. Are wild animals different from us in any significant way? 
>>>>> Are they actually never lazy, never unvigilant, etc? Or, perhaps, is the 
>>>>> attribution of vigilance (and hence never unvigilance) an illusion born 
>>>>> of othering? A standard whipping post for me is this "Are you a cat 
>>>>> person or a dog person" cocktail party ice breaker. Admitting the false 
>>>>> dichotomy, dog people tend to think of cats as non-social, selfish, 
>>>>> blahblah. Cat people tend to think of dogs as slobbery, vapid, etc. It's 
>>>>> complete nonsense born of arbitrary delusions.
>>>>> 
>>>>>But of course, there is something to be said of the built environment. 
>>>>> It would be difficult for a human reared in a city to navigate the 
>>>>> Mongolian desert. But is that difference any greater than plopping a city 
>>>>> dweller 13,000 years in the past? Are office or political games 
>>>>> significantly different from the "games" wild babies play under the 
>>>>> vigilant eye of their den mother? Yeah, I know. I'm putting too much 
>>>>> weight on "significant". Obviously, everything's different from 
>>>>> everything else. (I regret not being able to engage more with Jon's 
>>>>> exploration of Deleuze.) But my conservatism tells me that objective 
>>>>> othering would rely solely on coherent traits, fingers vs. claws, hair 
>>>>> vs. fur, cortex or no cortex. A human now would be insignificantly 
>>>>> different from a human then. If the apocalypse doesn't transform us into 
>>>>> something other than human, whatever is rebuilt will be strikingly 
>>>>> similar to what we have now.
>>>>> 
>>>>> 
>>>>>>On 5/28/23 11:29, David Eric Smith wrote:
>>>>>> I’m not sure elitist, Steve,
>>>>>> 
>>>>>> That’s one bad habit that I don’t think they have.
>>>>>> 
>>>>>> More along the line, I suspect, of “out of ordinary people who mostly 
>>>>>> get mowed down, here and there will be some pockets that started to pay 
>>>>>> attention and got lucky enough to have time to make a culture of it, of 
>>>>>> sorts”
>>>>>> 
>>>>>> Wes Jackson likes the term “saving remnant”.
>>>>>> 
>>>>>> I happen to be in Sweden just now, and it has me thinking about sci-fi 
>>>>>> futures, ad also Nietzsche’s “last man” etc.
>>>>>> 
>&

Re: [FRIAM] crackpots and privilege

[David Eric Smith]

I’m not sure elitist, Steve,

That’s one bad habit that I don’t think they have.

More along the line, I suspect, of “out of ordinary people who mostly get mowed 
down, here and there will be some pockets that started to pay attention and got 
lucky enough to have time to make a culture of it, of sorts”

Wes Jackson likes the term “saving remnant”.

I happen to be in Sweden just now, and it has me thinking about sci-fi futures, 
ad also Nietzsche’s “last man” etc.

Also on this theme is the very interesting SFI lecture “living with distrust”, 
which signals things I have seen (Ernst Fehr?) and others say about the Ache 
and Machiguenga and other groups.

What do I think the saving remnant will be?  I imagine people who lost all the 
epigenetic marks associated with domestication, and took on hormone profiles 
more like chimps.  Or “born this way” to PTSD.  

Take any wild animal, and contemplate just how _different_ they are from us.  
Never lazy.  Never un-vigilant.  Or read Jonathan Shay’s Achilles in Vietnam.

Suppose all the people who remain have survived only because they are that.  
Unwind not only the past 70 years of developed-world tranquility, but the 
history of human domestication since at least the younger dryas.  Maybe a lot 
longer ago than that.

What is it like to have your Time Machine and go spend a weekend with those 
guys in their home?  Jared Diamond would be jealous.  Somehow not the domain of 
peace and spirituality that I think first-worlders like to project onto 
first-nationers, and which might even be true for the first-nationers, since 
they are also from a milder time by a lot than a large extinction.

I wish I had the imagination to be interesting.  It would be invigorating to 
read someone who could really imagine a different world, and a different us, 
and take you there in some convincing way.

Eric


> On May 28, 2023, at 6:55 PM, Steve Smith  wrote:
> 
> Eric -
> 
> Thanks for passing this link around here.   I suspect most here have the 
> background to appreciate/parse this < insert Steve Martin's "hear me now and 
> believe me later" SNL skit> but maybe not an "affordance to know" the more 
> acute implications of it.
> 
> One of the things I find (most) interesting in the RGND rhetoric is their 
> (appropriate) invocation of Complex Systems ideas as well as the convergence 
> of human consciousness (mostly from a neuroscience perspective) and the 
> complex systems which are the techno-social-economic systems that are our 
> energo-materio culture which is the engine that is spinning the earth-systems 
> out of the orbits they were in pre-anthropocene (150 or 15000 years?)
> 
> I may be reading them wrong, but this feels like "yet another" elitist trope, 
> this time on (nanotech?) steroids:
> 
> In short, we think it’s probable that MTI civilization will collapse 
> catastrophically but that pockets of people with a rising level of 
> consciousness and awareness of our eco-predicament will survive and act as 
> the seeders of a new world. 
> 
> I particularly appreciated your pithy observation:
> 
> But here, we can maybe somehow combine the capitalists and the GNDers.  The 
> concentration in the rate and provision of services, and of the ownership of 
> the proceeds by whoever the rulers turn out to be, leaves the rest of us free 
> to die off in peace, and not carry on the guilt of being ecological 
> criminals.  It’s a win-win.
> 
> 
> 
> Thanks to Sabine (as Cassandra) and Eric and Marcus for raising this to my 
> attention...  queing it up to provide background for my read lead me to her 
> Collective Stupidity episode <https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=25kqobiv4ng>.  
> 
> I am left wondering if/how LLMs reflect/relate to Wisdom/Stupidity of Crowds? 
>   Seems like LLMs are literally the encapsulation of collective knowledge.
> 
> Sabine's invocation of "Information Cascades" was interesting in contrast 
> with entrainment and canalization.   Will LLMs in some way help us avoid 
> these short-circuits/shunts?  Or aggravate them?
> 
> - Steve
> 
> On 5/28/23 2:46 AM, David Eric Smith wrote:
>> This comment leads to an interesting angle that I haven’t heard.
>> Bill Rees, whom you can find here:
>> https://www.realgnd.org/writes numerous papers about how 90% of us need to 
>> die, or that this is just what will happen whether we articulate such a need 
>> or not.  I won’t go so far as to say that Rees “wants” 90% of us to die (see 
>> the smiling grandfatherly bearded ecologist photo in the pages), but after a 
>> long life of writing Jeremiads and not seeing the world change its ways, he 
>> seems so defeated by frustration that I read in him a deep and now 
>> constitutive misanthropy.
>> 
>> (btw: the

Re: [FRIAM] Brad Smith, MSFT President, on AI

[David Eric Smith]

That’s actually a strong plus. 

> On May 28, 2023, at 7:42 PM, Marcus Daniels  wrote:
> 
> Another fun fact about Rees is his fascination with bugs.  Not so much 
> misanthropy as a desire to see a proliferation of diverse life forms?
> 
>> On May 28, 2023, at 10:03 AM, Russ Abbott  wrote:
>> 
>> 
>> Very impressive Face-the-Nation  interview 
>> with Brad Smith, MSFT President. He spoke directly and intelligently about 
>> issues regarding AI.
>> -. --- - / ...- .- .-.. .. -.. / -- --- .-. ... . / -.-. --- -.. .
>> FRIAM Applied Complexity Group listserv
>> Fridays 9a-12p Friday St. Johns Cafe   /   Thursdays 9a-12p Zoom 
>> https://bit.ly/virtualfriam 
>> 
>> to (un)subscribe http://redfish.com/mailman/listinfo/friam_redfish.com 
>> 
>> FRIAM-COMIC http://friam-comic.blogspot.com/ 
>> 
>> archives:  5/2017 thru present 
>> https://redfish.com/pipermail/friam_redfish.com/ 
>> 
>>  1/2003 thru 6/2021  http://friam.383.s1.nabble.com/
> -. --- - / ...- .- .-.. .. -.. / -- --- .-. ... . / -.-. --- -.. .
> FRIAM Applied Complexity Group listserv
> Fridays 9a-12p Friday St. Johns Cafe   /   Thursdays 9a-12p Zoom 
> https://linkprotect.cudasvc.com/url?a=https%3a%2f%2fbit.ly%2fvirtualfriam=E,1,Q4vn3CAg7hehElZQqunbForBCwRNFGtNuVVQ2JZqwNV0FTmLvtJ1yI-B3a4xr1n8BfJYGzDjz-3uP6xkt1k30IRBdJ_IFdNshwmf4bQL7HEsIAxwtjnhxmt6Xs0,=1
> to (un)subscribe 
> https://linkprotect.cudasvc.com/url?a=http%3a%2f%2fredfish.com%2fmailman%2flistinfo%2ffriam_redfish.com=E,1,NL1tIW8GTPERwKTUYHb8FuuDzORKOfQvxDtE76jqc_7tTgIvx6w9KQN_JF5DpDO-wF-2aDWnuJYmI3qbB7CFnnKYrgLkJElFcW4bhU138IGu=1
> FRIAM-COMIC 
> https://linkprotect.cudasvc.com/url?a=http%3a%2f%2ffriam-comic.blogspot.com%2f=E,1,4v9m4AxGKcsO4uFO5DoBENcIlyjL3-7Uh4WgidCa4r20tLB-VYvszV_uhwOaUyJy943Zc0Ci-Ywjg5h49v9kvDQHtd6JA9GRlRU0gwGFYsDbTiw,=1
> archives:  5/2017 thru present 
> https://linkprotect.cudasvc.com/url?a=https%3a%2f%2fredfish.com%2fpipermail%2ffriam_redfish.com%2f=E,1,nDc2k3_wQx5wCXFbOtl_QfSyXrDyV2kS3XxKRrFCicUZsMtBC4Do9kmUUBoTd8AaXlHuY2UhZNtKNZWRqukZvY6o34qdzdUwlS7B-TNo9CSPEbDQg7lTr7Cffr18=1
>  1/2003 thru 6/2021  http://friam.383.s1.nabble.com/

-. --- - / ...- .- .-.. .. -.. / -- --- .-. ... . / -.-. --- -.. .
FRIAM Applied Complexity Group listserv
Fridays 9a-12p Friday St. Johns Cafe   /   Thursdays 9a-12p Zoom 
https://bit.ly/virtualfriam
to (un)subscribe http://redfish.com/mailman/listinfo/friam_redfish.com
FRIAM-COMIC http://friam-comic.blogspot.com/
archives:  5/2017 thru present https://redfish.com/pipermail/friam_redfish.com/
  1/2003 thru 6/2021  http://friam.383.s1.nabble.com/

Re: [FRIAM] TruthGPT

[David Eric Smith]

Well at least it was written by a person.  ChatGPT would have used valid syntax 
in the first sentence.

> On Apr 20, 2023, at 6:35 AM, Steve Smith  wrote:
> 
> I was modestly impressed when Musk helped to get OpenAI formed and try to be 
> "righteous" with it's charter back in 201x?  But the way *IT* went was 
> disappointing and Musk's response with "TRUTHGPT!" is it's own brand of (I 
> should not be surprised?) disappointment.
> 
> https://truthgpt.gitbook.io/truthgpt-whitepaper/truthgpt/our-story 
> 
> This whole business reads like something Donald Trump would do?
> 
> I'd like to claim that you "can't brand Truth" but these two jokers do seem 
> to think they can?
> 
> -. --- - / ...- .- .-.. .. -.. / -- --- .-. ... . / -.-. --- -.. .
> FRIAM Applied Complexity Group listserv
> Fridays 9a-12p Friday St. Johns Cafe   /   Thursdays 9a-12p Zoom 
> https://linkprotect.cudasvc.com/url?a=https%3a%2f%2fbit.ly%2fvirtualfriam=E,1,FcTQRLJP6OQIa54ExDn8CP2D5cQgqV4QxIDdKhql8rXfX0wDyI-4aHx0tIMnsMcjvdL1CdoSg69HOhdeaP8AKy877RW361gH_IYWKayRUBCK18-loDI,=1
> to (un)subscribe 
> https://linkprotect.cudasvc.com/url?a=http%3a%2f%2fredfish.com%2fmailman%2flistinfo%2ffriam_redfish.com=E,1,YfkVZUNt6bYBWLpNcYiSvFAVKuuuT7e9ER4OAd6g2Pj-OX7DVQbHGzE0eCx7-jztVVJqmYvnmT06HTGg_uOpZQPjC4718wAjUREU2m8O=1
> FRIAM-COMIC 
> https://linkprotect.cudasvc.com/url?a=http%3a%2f%2ffriam-comic.blogspot.com%2f=E,1,YZ7tj5Swn4FbRPYmDp-W82lrCZDLJHFbL5j_j-Fu1QDA9TYrJMyJ0kw8FpgcezjCmt6vioFHjiMkbhq8OrXrLUmBNcVqGrIM8pbyTfK0cjYn2V43_kqC=1
> archives:  5/2017 thru present 
> https://linkprotect.cudasvc.com/url?a=https%3a%2f%2fredfish.com%2fpipermail%2ffriam_redfish.com%2f=E,1,6J2OOwYfSgSKFI0oQyMTDzPzYQq87AuBlhPbI_jxM89lJ6AXPEImBMqX5oSYsaIS6HmkAGwSmkUIWvtEZ0wpgtpznkewTsKvwpeLN2pQVu6u=1
>  1/2003 thru 6/2021  http://friam.383.s1.nabble.com/

-. --- - / ...- .- .-.. .. -.. / -- --- .-. ... . / -.-. --- -.. .
FRIAM Applied Complexity Group listserv
Fridays 9a-12p Friday St. Johns Cafe   /   Thursdays 9a-12p Zoom 
https://bit.ly/virtualfriam
to (un)subscribe http://redfish.com/mailman/listinfo/friam_redfish.com
FRIAM-COMIC http://friam-comic.blogspot.com/
archives:  5/2017 thru present https://redfish.com/pipermail/friam_redfish.com/
  1/2003 thru 6/2021  http://friam.383.s1.nabble.com/

[FRIAM] AI perception

[David Eric Smith]

So we’ve always known (or, in the modern, post-philosopher-driven era) that 
human perception is an active process, interrogating the world with 
pre-registering and presumptive frameworks to host “experience”, which are then 
activated by whatever is “out there” providing stimuli.  (In fairness, Kant was 
okay on this point already, though giving Kant credit for having seen modern 
insights is often somewhat like giving newspaper psychics credit for seeing 
those futures: it involves a bit of projection.  A UT prof for whom I used to 
work claimed that giving Kant credit for conceptualizing galaxies is such a 
projection; his philosophical reasoning was some bizarre metaphoric thing that 
has essentially no overlap with the modern physical system conceiving of 
galaxies.  So caveat emptor etc.)

And now this:
https://physics.aps.org/articles/v16/63?utm_campaign=weekly_medium=email_source=emailalert
(Commentary, IMO very lovely.)

Much of the BH observation wasn’t really to test general relativity any more, 
as its parameters are heavily enough constrained that there isn’t much 
wiggle-room for it to differ in the regime where these large, low-curvature BHs 
exist (and down to considerably smaller ones than that).  Really what the 
observations are about is testing astrophysics, using GR as the registering 
framework.

In a sense, though, the AIoSphere now has a perception phenomenon that no 
person within it has.  It can “see” BHs that are not, case by case, producing 
the data “seen”.  The usual scientist’s impulse is to panic, that we are losing 
control of the validation of things because we now mix too much 
pre-registration with “the data”.  But of course in a Bayesian-updating view of 
science, where the integration of everything ever measured is also part of the 
data, not just the proximal input, it is no more odd that GR constrained by 
gravitational-wave ringdown and other features should be a prior constraint on 
the telescope images, than that people should see the world with eyes filtered 
through accreting billions of years of biological evolution.  Particle physics 
has been finding rare events in accelerator snow for decades using 
pre-registering models; without them detection would be strictly impossible.

The upshot, though: as the whole human-social-cultural-scientific community, we 
are building up increasingly thick and autonomous layers of “seeing”, and AI 
pre-processing is going to rapidly and probably chaotically add to that.

What do we “think" about this?  Is there anything that needs to be thought 
about it?  Or is it an extension of what we already think is basically sound, 
and just needs to be embedded in new layers of feedback controllers, to 
function properly?

Eric


-. --- - / ...- .- .-.. .. -.. / -- --- .-. ... . / -.-. --- -.. .
FRIAM Applied Complexity Group listserv
Fridays 9a-12p Friday St. Johns Cafe   /   Thursdays 9a-12p Zoom 
https://bit.ly/virtualfriam
to (un)subscribe http://redfish.com/mailman/listinfo/friam_redfish.com
FRIAM-COMIC http://friam-comic.blogspot.com/
archives:  5/2017 thru present https://redfish.com/pipermail/friam_redfish.com/
  1/2003 thru 6/2021  http://friam.383.s1.nabble.com/

Re: [FRIAM] AI Musings

[David Eric Smith]

There’s a nice subtext to why this is true.  It isn’t only the mechanics of the 
task.

People care what bulldozer operators do.



> On Mar 30, 2023, at 10:58 AM, Frank Wimberly  wrote:
> 
> Not particularly relevant to your main point but Raj Reddy, close colleague 
> of Newell and Simon, once said, "It is easier use AI to replace a college 
> professor than a bulldozer operator" or words tho that effect.
> 
> Frank
> 
> ---
> Frank C. Wimberly
> 140 Calle Ojo Feliz, 
> Santa Fe, NM 87505
> 
> 505 670-9918
> Santa Fe, NM
> 
> On Thu, Mar 30, 2023, 8:50 AM Prof David West  > wrote:
>> The "AI Pause" made national TV news yesterday (long after those on this 
>> list noted and reacted to it) and that made me revisit a theme I have 
>> thought about since Newell, Simon, and Shaw created Logic Theorist.
>> 
>> Advocates take a caricature (perhaps too strong a word) of human 
>> intelligence, write a program to emulate it and declare the program 
>> "intelligent."
>> 
>> The original conceit: true intelligence was the kind of thinking exhibited 
>> by college professors and scientists. Almost trivial to emulate (Newell and 
>> Simon programmed Logic Theorist on 3x5 cards before Shaw was able to 
>> implement on a computer).
>> 
>> Maybe reading—correctly converting text to sound, like a child—was more 
>> indicative of human intelligence, and Sejnowski created NetTalk. that, 
>> somewhat eerily, produced discoveries of sounds, and errors, and achieved 
>> near perfect ability to "read." Listen to the tapes sometime and contrast 
>> them with tapes of a human child learning to read. Of course, comprehension 
>> of what was read did not make the cut.
>> 
>> State of the art improved dramatically and the caricatures of human 
>> intelligence are more sophisticated and the achievements of the programs 
>> more interesting.
>> 
>> But, it seems to me there is still a critical gap. We can program an AI (or 
>> let one learn) to fly a commercial jet as well or better than a human 
>> pilot—BUT, could even the best of of breed of such an AI pull a 
>> Shullenberger and land on the Hudson River? 
>> 
>> Another factor behind the "hysteria" (sorry for the sexism) over AIs causing 
>> massive unemployment is a corollary to the caricaturization of human 
>> intelligence. Since the Industrial Revolution, and certainly since the age 
>> of Taylorism and the rise of automation; work itself has been dehumanizing.
>> 
>> If you define human work in terms of what can be done by a computer then it 
>> is tautological to claim an AI is intelligent because it can perform human 
>> work.
>> 
>> I was contemplating ChatAIs and quickly realized that my profession—college 
>> professor—was one at immense risk of replacement. I would bet good money 
>> that a ChatAI could produce, and maybe deliver, lectures far better than any 
>> I created in 30 years teaching. And probably most, if not all, of the 
>> presentations I made at professional conferences over the years.
>> 
>> I am still vain enough to think that some of the papers and books I have 
>> written are beyond an AI, and certain that no AI could do as well in 
>> spontaneious Q after a presentation than I.
>> 
>> Bottom line, I still believe that AI can and does equate to HI, only when 
>> some aspect of HI is ommitted from the equation. This is not essentialism, 
>> but analogous to the digitization of a sine wave, no matter the finite 
>> sampling rate, there is always some missing information.
>> 
>> davew
>> 
>> -. --- - / ...- .- .-.. .. -.. / -- --- .-. ... . / -.-. --- -.. .
>> FRIAM Applied Complexity Group listserv
>> Fridays 9a-12p Friday St. Johns Cafe   /   Thursdays 9a-12p Zoom 
>> https://bit.ly/virtualfriam 
>> 
>> to (un)subscribe http://redfish.com/mailman/listinfo/friam_redfish.com 
>> 
>> FRIAM-COMIC http://friam-comic.blogspot.com/ 
>> 
>> archives:  5/2017 thru present 
>> https://redfish.com/pipermail/friam_redfish.com/ 
>> 
>>   1/2003 thru 6/2021  http://friam.383.s1.nabble.com/
> -. --- - / ...- .- .-.. .. -.. / -- --- .-. ... . / -.-. --- -.. .
> FRIAM Applied Complexity Group 

Re: [FRIAM] a little help from my friends

[David Eric Smith]

One could tweak this in even the most blunt way to make it more convincing.

The author and his son spend a pretty-much unbearable number of hours sitting 
in one chair typing on keyboards in front of screens, during which the narrator 
….

Eric



> On Mar 30, 2023, at 10:22 AM, Stephen Guerin  
> wrote:
> 
> PromptCraft to GPT4:
> "Give a summary of Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance but replace the 
> idea of the quality of maintaining a motorcycle to the quality of software 
> code"
> 
> ChatGPT:
> Zen and the Art of Software Code Maintenance is an introspective and 
> philosophical journey that examines the concept of "Quality" as it relates to 
> the development and maintenance of software code. The book follows the 
> narrator and his son, Chris, as they embark on a cross-country motorcycle 
> trip, during which the narrator weaves together reflections on his past, his 
> experience as a programmer, and deep philosophical musings.
> 
> At the heart of the story is the idea of "Quality" in software code, as the 
> narrator grapples with the tension between the classical and romantic 
> perspectives. The classical perspective values a methodical, systematic 
> approach to software development, focusing on the technical aspects of 
> programming and the structure of the code. The romantic perspective, on the 
> other hand, emphasizes the beauty, creativity, and individualism inherent in 
> software development.
> 
> Throughout the narrative, the narrator explores the importance of achieving a 
> balance between these two perspectives in order to create and maintain 
> high-quality software code. He argues that a true understanding of "Quality" 
> transcends these perspectives, and that the best code is crafted when the 
> programmer is fully present and engaged in the process.
> 
> Through the metaphor of motorcycle maintenance, the book provides valuable 
> insights into the importance of mindfulness, the nature of problem-solving, 
> and the pursuit of excellence in the world of software development. 
> Ultimately, Zen and the Art of Software Code Maintenance is a 
> thought-provoking meditation on the metaphysics of software code and the 
> quest for a deeper understanding of "Quality" in our increasingly digital 
> world.
> 
> ___
> stephen.gue...@simtable.com 
> CEO, https://www.simtable.com 
> 
> 1600 Lena St #D1, Santa Fe, NM 87505
> office: (505)995-0206 mobile: (505)577-5828
> 
> 
> On Thu, Mar 30, 2023 at 8:10 AM Prof David West  > wrote:
>> I am keynoting the International Conference on Code Quality on April 22. It 
>> will be speculative and philosophical, but I would like to know "code 
>> quality" might mean, is taken for granted to mean, to professional coders. I 
>> know what it means for this conference, but would like a broader base from 
>> which to launch my flights of fancy.
>> 
>> davew
>> 
>> -. --- - / ...- .- .-.. .. -.. / -- --- .-. ... . / -.-. --- -.. .
>> FRIAM Applied Complexity Group listserv
>> Fridays 9a-12p Friday St. Johns Cafe   /   Thursdays 9a-12p Zoom 
>> https://bit.ly/virtualfriam 
>> 
>> to (un)subscribe http://redfish.com/mailman/listinfo/friam_redfish.com 
>> 
>> FRIAM-COMIC http://friam-comic.blogspot.com/ 
>> 
>> archives:  5/2017 thru present 
>> https://redfish.com/pipermail/friam_redfish.com/ 
>> 
>>   1/2003 thru 6/2021  http://friam.383.s1.nabble.com/
> -. --- - / ...- .- .-.. .. -.. / -- --- .-. ... . / -.-. --- -.. .
> FRIAM Applied Complexity Group listserv
> Fridays 9a-12p Friday St. Johns Cafe   /   Thursdays 9a-12p Zoom 
> https://linkprotect.cudasvc.com/url?a=https%3a%2f%2fbit.ly%2fvirtualfriam=E,1,g5x5NdUza5Gp0Nk03R5E7zw6BPpvjRyFv0GEU41BT04mOPtPPE0A2m0cYa7sfTPoJSRsRhcjOSBaWusf5JWKmjW72zRSYMN1nYGAkQeNz3f1krJ37HU,=1
> to (un)subscribe 
> 

Re: [FRIAM] NickC channels DaveW

[David Eric Smith]

That might qualify as a DDOS attack.

> On Jan 18, 2023, at 7:03 AM, Steve Smith  wrote:
> 
> I suppose pouring all of the FriAM traffic into (even my own bloviations) a 
> chatbot might be a bit usurious (the fool's errand of a fool errant)?
> 
> On 1/17/23 2:37 PM, glen wrote:
>> You might try using the OpenAI API directly. It takes some work, but not 
>> much.
>> 
>> https://linkprotect.cudasvc.com/url?a=https%3a%2f%2fopenai.com%2fapi%2f=E,1,HJ318n4srAACDIyWEzfPOzvMVtqgSqwLdvAizjLkkb1uDy5X4kPvoq_dYLKkkGFIA3DZ_FVdqrBvZUIyd5cGsQuJLe7SGEwu5RiJtC6GcsSxUoVp_V41JGDy=1
>> 
>> Or you could sign up for this:
>> 
>> https://azure.microsoft.com/en-us/blog/general-availability-of-azure-openai-service-expands-access-to-large-advanced-ai-models-with-added-enterprise-benefits/
>>  
>> 
>> I would hook you up to my Slack bot that queries GPT3 for every channel 
>> message. But that might get expensive with a verbose person like you! 8^D I 
>> can imagine some veerrryyy long prompts.
>> 
>> 
>> On 1/17/23 12:57, Steve Smith wrote:
>>> 
>>> On 1/17/23 1:08 PM, Marcus Daniels wrote:
 Dogs have about 500 million neurons in their cortex.  Neurons have about 
 7,000 synaptic connections, so I think my dog is a lot smarter than a 
 billion parameter LLM.  :-)
>>> And I bet (s)he channels *at least* one FriAM member's affect pretty well 
>>> also!
>>> 
>>> My 9 month old golden-doodle does as good of a job at that (I won't name 
>>> names) as my (now deceased 11 year old Akita and my 9 year old chocolate 
>>> dobie mix bot did) but nobody here really demonstrates the basic nature of 
>>> either my 9 month old tabby or her 20 year old black-mouser predecessor.
>>> There is very little overlap.
>>> 
>>> The jays and the woodpeckers and the finches and towhees and sparrows and 
>>> nuthatches and robins and the mating pair of doves and the several ravens 
>>> and the (courting?) pair of owls (that I only hear hooting to one another 
>>> in the night) and the lone (that I see) hawk and the lone blue heron (very 
>>> more occasionally) and the flock(lets) of geese migrating down the 
>>> rio-grande flyway... their aggregate neural complexity is only 
>>> multiplicative (order 100-1000x) that of any given beast... but somehow 
>>> their interactions (this is without the half-dozen species of rodentia and 
>>> leporidae and racoons and insects and worms and ) would seem to have a 
>>> more combinatorial network of relations?
>>> 
>>> I tried signing up to try chatGPT for myself (thanks to Glen's Nick Cave 
>>> blog-link) and was denied because "too busy, try back later" and realized 
>>> that it had become a locus for (first world) humans to express and combine 
>>> their greatest hopes and worse fears in a single place.
>>> 
>>> This seems like a higher-order training set?  Not just the intersection of 
>>> all things "worth saying" but somehow filtered/diffracted through "the 
>>> things (some) people are interested in in particular"...
>> 
>> 
> 
> -. --- - / ...- .- .-.. .. -.. / -- --- .-. ... . / -.-. --- -.. .
> FRIAM Applied Complexity Group listserv
> Fridays 9a-12p Friday St. Johns Cafe   /   Thursdays 9a-12p Zoom 
> https://linkprotect.cudasvc.com/url?a=https%3a%2f%2fbit.ly%2fvirtualfriam=E,1,Q1HAmGNq-4qQpfbq0DfLXuFeNbuzE822K_GzY0xfgdrSHyDpeUqW_VgLZ-2Kq19ijfCG9e7wEFdAv26S-o1Sl5oD1eU95cmoXWWA9H4-XcuGNF-mJXo9MBLiCQ,,=1
> to (un)subscribe 
> https://linkprotect.cudasvc.com/url?a=http%3a%2f%2fredfish.com%2fmailman%2flistinfo%2ffriam_redfish.com=E,1,w7n7oYM9aADeW_87EBwWg3qb__jTpRMuz3zJjVV31KOB36kJRxrRvicMMz2zxuD5U4FqugvocrX4ZnruPv7dVvjvq0UNtcUs4uEYPCQTIXR2-MF5GUmmBzxdTHQV=1
> FRIAM-COMIC 
> https://linkprotect.cudasvc.com/url?a=http%3a%2f%2ffriam-comic.blogspot.com%2f=E,1,vVM3Lmp0D4U8PPxQ6KGkDluW6BUNfKH8BBpOth_NPab-Uupf4IQO0h_8QZvB1QbXnQ1aKjAFUsycR-8ringk7QoZd8nfeqgEVpWuaB5TQodZFLjYMzofiA,,=1
> archives:  5/2017 thru present 
> https://linkprotect.cudasvc.com/url?a=https%3a%2f%2fredfish.com%2fpipermail%2ffriam_redfish.com%2f=E,1,FP8Iyk95eJ9RiKUEMxS166hzoBlr-Wtp2ltlp9feoQ25x-sK2Z3wBu8Z5gnUaXf5Qggt2XCac9Z24CCsm3s0UftsJp9SsfN8jgZn9JOoIhgEpYPZ=1
> 1/2003 thru 6/2021  http://friam.383.s1.nabble.com/


-. --- - / ...- .- .-.. .. -.. / -- --- .-. ... . / -.-. --- -.. .
FRIAM Applied Complexity Group listserv
Fridays 9a-12p Friday St. Johns Cafe   /   Thursdays 9a-12p Zoom 
https://bit.ly/virtualfriam
to (un)subscribe http://redfish.com/mailman/listinfo/friam_redfish.com
FRIAM-COMIC http://friam-comic.blogspot.com/
archives:  5/2017 thru present https://redfish.com/pipermail/friam_redfish.com/
  1/2003 thru 6/2021  http://friam.383.s1.nabble.com/

Re: [FRIAM] Dope Slap Thread

[David Eric Smith]

Thanks Nick,

I need to affirm and thank Glen for the other post, which does indeed attach to 
just what I was requesting.  But I won’t be able to get to that today.

I wanted to reply to this one yesterday, and will hope the idea hasn’t faded 
enough to miss what seemed to me an interesting direction your response below 
can go.

A denial of status for “the underlying” seems, to me, to be the evil cult that 
Neo-PoMo is selling.  Back to that in a second, but as that thought comes up, I 
recall Glen’s arguments over the hears that post-modernism wasn’t born evil; 
its later generations of carriers turned it into that.

But from this thread, I have a new articulation of what the non-evil early 
post-modernism might have been, or might have become.  One might say that, had 
post-modernism gone in its best direction, it would have been the project of 
showing how difficult and subtle a true pragmatism is, when one realizes that 
everything is “up for grabs”, to settle into a shorthand I used in the first 
post for the various unpackings I wrote later to mean the same thing.

It would absolutely not have been a denial of any status for “the underlying”, 
bur rather a call to understand what is the nature of the status of “the 
underlying” in relation to our activity, which can include both “within our 
activity” and “as context for our activity”.  

I don’t think one escapes it, and I think your statement below affirms how much 
you haven’t let it go, because you can’t.

You say “statistics is all we got”.  If you think “you[‘ve] got” statistics, 
then you have just committed to "a belief” (not a great word, but let me not 
digress to look for a better one) in an underlying that, in fact, you don’t 
have, or so I claim.  The categories, the activities of observing and 
casting-in-language that attach quantities to them, a language and logic of 
quantities, bring into existence quantity-concepts, accepted tracks of argument 
to manipulate them.  Without all that machinery, you don’t “have” any 
“statistics” to “do”.  In thinking “you[‘ve] got” it, you have just made the 
essential commitment to “an underlying” that creates a starting point from 
which the rest of your thought and discourse can even emanate.  To understand 
how and why you have done that, and probably why you have had to do that, is 
the exercise of figuring out what the status of “the underlying” is.  I think 
the correct point of view is that all that framework “statistics” that you act 
toward _as if_ “you[‘ve] got”, is structurally just another fluctuating 
pattern, analogous in its status to the sample-estimator values assigned to 
particular quantities that get used when you apply statistical conventions to 
some particular collection of experiences. 

Remember that I wrote, originally and then again in the second post, that the 
language of “sample estimators in relation to the underlying” was meant as an 
analogy — within a frame taken as the context to express it — for the much more 
interesting problem of arriving at faithful renderings.  _Within_ the 
illustration used to express the analogy, “the underlying” certainly exists, in 
the sense that it has as well-defined roles in the structure of the process as 
the states of knowledge which are values for the sample estimators.  I did 
_not_ say, and precisely did not _mean_ that the concreteness that “the 
underlying” has in the illustration of doing a statistical inference problem — 
more precisely, the peer status of the underlying and the sample-estimator 
values, which are precisely _as concrete_ as each other, however concrete that 
is, within that frame — then transports through to a comparably concrete 
“underlying” in pragmatism in the sense of truth-notions.  The intended service 
of the analogy is that it allows us to see both sample estimators and their 
“underlying” concretely, and thereby to recognize the differentness of their 
places in our own thought organization and use.  It is that thought 
organization and use that (as I am proposing it) maps through the analogy from 
the illustrative cartoon of a statistical inference application, to the general 
case of “coming to terms” with “the world".  But precisely because the frame 
that makes “the underlying” given, in the illustrating cartoon, does _not_ map 
through the analogy, we have a new project of understanding the nature of “the 
underlying” in the truth-notion problem.  

In my little self-invented world of uninformed story-telling, where that was 
what could be seen in early post-modernism, one can see how through whatever 
combination of error or malevolence, later generations (the Neo-PoMoists) would 
have heard (probably, by disposition, _chosen_ to hear) the original postmodern 
call to figure out the nature of the status of the underlying as a denial that 
there is any such status, reducing all of life to brute competitions for power, 
to which they then dedicated themselves, because that’s the kind of 

Re: [FRIAM] Dope slaps, anyone? Text displaying correctly?

[David Eric Smith]

ttps://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Standard_temperature_and_pressure>, it is the 
>> least dense metal and the least dense solid element. Like all alkali metals, 
>> lithium is highly reactive 
>> <https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Reactivity_(chemistry)> and flammable, and 
>> must be stored in vacuum, inert atmosphere, or inert liquid such as purified 
>> kerosene or mineral oil. When cut, it exhibits a metallic luster
>><https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Luster_(mineralogy)>, but moist air 
>> corrodes <https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Corrosion> it quickly to a dull 
>> silvery gray, then black tarnish. It never occurs freely in nature, but only 
>> in (usually ionic) compounds 
>> <https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chemical_compound>, such as pegmatitic 
>> <https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pegmatite> minerals, which were once the main 
>> source of lithium. Due to its solubility as an ion, it is present in ocean 
>> water and is commonly obtained from brines 
>> <https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Brine>. Lithium metal is isolated 
>> electrolytically <https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Electrolysis> from a mixture 
>> of lithium chloride <https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lithium_chloride> and 
>> potassium chloride <https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Potassium_chloride>.
>>On Sun, Jan 8, 2023 at 3:21 AM glen > <mailto:geprope...@gmail.com>> wrote:
>>This smacks of Feferman's claim that "implicit in the acceptance of 
>> given schemata is the acceptance of any meaningful substitution instances 
>> that one may come to meet, but which those instances are is not determined 
>> by restriction to a specific language fixed in advance." ... or in the 
>> language of my youth, you reap what you sow.
>>To Nick's credit (without any presumption that I know anything about 
>> Peirce), he seems to be hunting the same unicorn Feferman's hunting, 
>> something like a language-independent language. Or maybe something analogous 
>> to a moment (cf https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Moment_(mathematics) 
>> <https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Moment_(mathematics)>)?
>>While we're on the subject, Martin Davis died recently: 
>> https://linkprotect.cudasvc.com/url?a=https%3a%2f%2flogicprogramming.org%2f2023%2f01%2fin-memoriam-martin-davis%2f=E,1,VZmWR2PAPTVpvqTDeiAuu2Pz2HbpBa1UotvEWyEkAACxfwHwNMWQ1BRLlkoFvgvBJaMeSVUlPG5QvzJL0ky83PRIzeCvDW6q_yz0HbCdSQ8E1gGFIuA0gEnA-t8,=1
>>  
>> <https://linkprotect.cudasvc.com/url?a=https%3a%2f%2flogicprogramming.org%2f2023%2f01%2fin-memoriam-martin-davis%2f=E,1,-s981QTORa8B5t9HflatV0Klgtu2GrSY5W1FZ8kj9-CBJ_6cYLme0MndhKSl05xlHcT8rO7cA2yTIhonIrs7aLInB6ezrQYM7cnQCVTkGVKvfWR5f016LvkgwWk,=1>
>>  As terse as he was with me when I complained about him leaving Tarski out 
>> of "Engines of Logic", his loss will be felt, especially to us randos on the 
>> internet.
>>On 1/7/23 15:20, David Eric Smith wrote:
>> > Nick, the text renders.
>> >
>> > You use words in ways that I cannot parse.  Some of them seem very 
>> poetic, suggesting that your intended meaning is different in its whole cast 
>> from one I could try for.
>> >
>> > FWIW: as I have heard these discussions over the years, to the 
>> extent that there is a productive analogy, I would say (unapologetically 
>> using my words, and not trying to quote his) that Peirce’s claimed relation 
>> between states of knowledge and truth (meaning, some fully-faithful 
>> representation of “what is the case”) is analogous to the relation of sample 
>> estimators in statistics to the quantity they are constructed to estimate.
>> >
>> > We don’t have any ontological problems understanding sample 
>> estimators and the quantities estimated, as both have status in the ordinary 
>> world of empirical things.  In our ontology, they are peers in some sense, 
>> but they clearly play different roles and stand for different concepts.
>> >
>> > When we come, however, to “states of knowledge” and “truth” as 
>> “what will bear out in the long run”, in addition to the fact that we must 
>> study the roles of these tokens in our thought and discourse, if we want to 
>> get at the concepts expressive of their nature, we also have a hideously 
>> more complicated structure to categorize, than mere sample estimators and 
>> the corresponding “actual” values they are constructed to estimate.  For 
>> sample estimation, in some sense, we know that the representation for the 
>> estimator and the estimated

Re: [FRIAM] The WEBB seeing back to the first millennia

[David Eric Smith]

 then can infinite time really be similar to infinite space 
> without squinting? And is there really any way to unify infinite expanse with 
> infinite density? That seems akin to the claim that 1/∞ = 0 … and hearkening 
> back to the discussion of consequence operators, "=" ≠ "→". But maybe we can 
> say something like 1/∞ ←→ 0? (Aka 1/∞ →₊ 0⁺ ⋀ -1/∞ →₋ 0¯. IDK, though. I 
> don't think approaches from below is really the inverse of approaches from 
> above. Expansion and contraction just don't seem reversible to me. And is 0⁺ 
> = 0¯, anyway? 0 is an annihilator, right? Does that mean 0⁺ only annihilates 
> >0 and vice versa? Surely those who think about things like "white holes" 
> have handled all this, right?)
> 
> 
> A plugin for a discussion platform I'm testing doesn't handle time[zone] 
> well. If I post a poll and tell it to automatically close the poll at some 
> time (in PST or UTC). When I mentioned this to one of the participants, he 
> assumed we had all pretty much decided to always rely on atomic time. UTC 
> includes both atomic time and solar time, including the leap intervals. That 
> time is socially constructed in this way further reinforces that time is not 
> time, vapid as that point may be in the context of the limits of inference 
> from astronomy.
> 
> 
> On 12/28/22 09:30, David Eric Smith wrote:
>> Citing back to Owen:
>> Gil is right.  The universe could be infinite, and it is at the least big 
>> enough that we have no positive evidence so far that it isn’t infinite.
>> If it were infinitely large, but only finitely old, then at any given place, 
>> the only photons that could yet have sped past us would be those from a 
>> distance away that is less than the age divided by c.  But there would 
>> always be someplace enough further out that you are only now seeing it.  Cue 
>> lyrics to “The way we were”, of course
>> There is a thing I never learned to understand about cosmological models, 
>> which is how they reconcile finite age with infinite size.  Presumably 
>> infinity is infinity, and if your solution is always infinitely extended 
>> (flat or negative spatial curvature), then even if you go back to a Big Bang 
>> of infinite density in the finite past, that infinite density is still 
>> infinitely extended.  If there were positive spatial curvature and the 
>> universe were closed, one could just work in the finite-but-large.
>> (btw, of course, inflation doesn’t solve this; it just changes rates of 
>> various expansions in various eras.)
>> I guess cosmologists don’t worry about this, because they know there are 
>> enough phase transitions going on in the vacuum going back toward the 
>> beginning, that even if you appear to be negatively curved and open now, the 
>> current story may not extend all the way back.
>> Another thing that is fun to think about but that I don’t feel comfortable 
>> as having really internalized, is that old parts of the universe are like 
>> old cowboys: they never seem to be traveling away from you at faster than c; 
>> they just fade away in redshift to black.  So things can be totally 
>> unreachable at some finite time, yet never seem to have exceeded a finite 
>> speed limit to do it.
>> Eric
>>> On Dec 28, 2022, at 10:56 AM, Gillian Densmore >> <mailto:gil.densm...@gmail.com>> wrote:
>>> 
>>> (using a bad analogy) and those photons record what's going on like a on 
>>> going WEBB stream? so we now have essentially the ability to see old  
>>> streams (as it were) from photons any anything else that can get a snippet 
>>> of that. and basically light  does take time to show up.  it's not exactly 
>>> instant on the galatic scale (see also: Relativity). and so by the time 
>>> WEBB or any other other telescopes s mirrors cameras and blah blah blah 
>>> send that to our eyes those photons are now old reeely old. And the grand 
>>> expansion is  fast enough to go faster then light? or is it because the 
>>> universe is stupendously big. so it takes a while to get to where we can 
>>> snag some photons?
>>> 
>>> On Wed, Dec 28, 2022 at 10:49 AM Frank Wimberly >> <mailto:wimber...@gmail.com>> wrote:
>>> 
>>>My guess:  stars, including the Sun, are constantly producing and 
>>> emitting new photons.  This happens as a result of fusion and other 
>>> processes.
>>> 
>>>---
>>>Frank C. Wimberly
>>>140 Calle Ojo Feliz,
>>>Santa Fe, NM 87505
>>> 
>>>505 670-9918
>>>Santa Fe, NM
>>> 
>>

Re: [FRIAM] new thermal tech

[David Eric Smith]

The thermoacousktic one is interesting, and surprises me a bit.

I worked on these systems a bit in the mid-1990s, when in a kind of purgatory 
in a navy research lab that mostly did acoustics.

Broadly, there are two limiting cases for a thermoacoutic engine.  One uses a 
standing wave and is simple and robust to design and run.  The other uses a 
traveling wave and is much harder to tune and keep tuned.

A difference is that the SW version, which we might say runs on a 
“thermoacousktic cycle”, makes intrinsic use of the phase lag for diffusion of 
heat through a boundary layer.  As such, it has no nontrivial reversible limit, 
and has severe limits on the efficiency (or coefficient of performance, if you 
are running it as a refrigerator).  So hearing that they get COPs comparable to 
existing mechanical systems would make me suspicious of they were using SW.

The TW version runs on, effectively, the Stirling cycle, and in principle it 
does have a reversible, Carnot-efficient limit.  However, it has parasitic 
losses from viscous boundary layers.  The engineering limit you need to 
approach ideal thermal transfer efficiency is one that chokes off the flow of 
the working fluid, and makes the viscous drag explode.  Using an ideal gas like 
He reduces the viscosity, though also the heat capacity and diffusion rate 
through the fluid.

On their website, they have a little advertising graphic of a sound wave, which 
shows a traveling wave (or a mixed wave with large TW component).  It would be 
reasonable, if they are scientists or engineers, for them to make their public 
graphics true representations of at least qualitatively what their system does. 
 

In view of the fact that there is very little conceptual to do with a 
thermoacousktic engine, and it is all materials science and tweaking 
engineering details, I really wonder what would have taken 27 years to figure 
out, or to get around to doing.


For geeks who like this stuff, there is a fun continuum:

1. When I was a little kid, I got an ultra-simple Stirling engine from a mail 
advertisement (back when those weren’t all scams), and was delighted by it.

2. In reading more about Stirling cycles etc., I learned about “free-piston” 
Stirling engines, which have the same compartments and barriers, but use the 
compression-bounce of the gas to move the displacer piston rather than a 
mechanical linkage.

3. The TW thermoacousktic engine is just a free-piston Stirling without the 
piston: the shuttle of gas becomes the displacer.

4. Some years later, having been thrown out of String Theory for being too 
stupid to understand it, I was interested in the way adiabatic transformations 
look like mere coordinate deformations in state spaces, which means that one 
should be able to make Carnot-efficient reversible movement identical to 
equilibrium by use of a conformal field (the String Theorist’s universal 
symmetry transformation, back in those days).  So we can do thermoacousktic 
engines using String Theory (Horray!):
https://journals.aps.org/pre/abstract/10.1103/PhysRevE.58.2818 

http://www.santafe.edu/~desmith/PDF_pubs/Carnot_1.pdf 

and then 
https://journals.aps.org/pre/abstract/10.1103/PhysRevE.60.3633 

http://www.santafe.edu/~desmith/PDF_pubs/Carnot_2.pdf 

Papers I know no-one has ever had any interest in, and very possibly no-one has 
ever read.

I thought it was very fun to be able to derive Carnot’s theorem directly from a 
symmetry transformation, so entropy flux behaves like any other conserved 
quantity, rather than having to make arguments about limits to thermodynamic 
efficiency by daisy-chain proofs-by-contradiction (If you could do 
such-and-such, then by running an exemplar Carnot engine in reverse, you could 
make a perpetual-motion machine of type-XYZ).  But I never did anything with it 
that yielded a new calculation, as opposed to just a restatement of common 
knowledge.

Anyway…

Eric





> On Jan 6, 2023, at 8:27 AM, Roger Critchlow  wrote:
> 
> I was amused to see an announcement of a thermoacoustic heat pump  the other 
> day:
> 
>   
> https://www.pv-magazine.com/2023/01/02/residential-thermo-acoustic-heat-pump-produces-water-up-to-80-c/
>  
> 
> 
> then an ionocaloric refrigerator announcement turns up this morning
> 
>   https://newscenter.lbl.gov/2023/01/03/cool-new-method-of-refrigeration/ 
> 

Re: [FRIAM] Dope slaps, anyone? Text displaying correctly?

[David Eric Smith]

Nick, the text renders.

You use words in ways that I cannot parse.  Some of them seem very poetic, 
suggesting that your intended meaning is different in its whole cast from one I 
could try for.

FWIW: as I have heard these discussions over the years, to the extent that 
there is a productive analogy, I would say (unapologetically using my words, 
and not trying to quote his) that Peirce’s claimed relation between states of 
knowledge and truth (meaning, some fully-faithful representation of “what is 
the case”) is analogous to the relation of sample estimators in statistics to 
the quantity they are constructed to estimate.  

We don’t have any ontological problems understanding sample estimators and the 
quantities estimated, as both have status in the ordinary world of empirical 
things.  In our ontology, they are peers in some sense, but they clearly play 
different roles and stand for different concepts.

When we come, however, to “states of knowledge” and “truth” as “what will bear 
out in the long run”, in addition to the fact that we must study the roles of 
these tokens in our thought and discourse, if we want to get at the concepts 
expressive of their nature, we also have a hideously more complicated structure 
to categorize, than mere sample estimators and the corresponding “actual” 
values they are constructed to estimate.  For sample estimation, in some sense, 
we know that the representation for the estimator and the estimated is the 
same, and that they are both numbers in some number system.  If we wish to 
discuss states of knowledge and truth, everything is up for grabs: every 
convention for a word’s denotation and all the rules for its use in a language 
that confer parts of its meaning.  All the conventions for procedures of 
observation and guided experience.  All the formal or informal modes of 
discourse in which we organize our intersubjective experience pools and build 
something from them.  All of that is allowed to “fluctuate”, as we would say in 
statistics of sample estimators.  The representation scheme itself, and our 
capacities to perceive through it, are all things we seek to bring into some 
convergence toward a “faithful representation” of “what is the case”.

Speaking or thinking in an orderly way about that seems to have many technical 
as well as modal aspects.

Best, 

Eric


> On Jan 7, 2023, at 5:05 PM, Nicholas Thompson  wrote:
> 
> The relation between the believed in and the True is the relation between a 
> limited function and its limit. {a vector, and the thing toward which the 
> vector points?]   Ultimately  the observations that the function models 
> determine the limit, but the limit is not determined by any particular  
> observation or group of observations.  Peirce believes that The World -- if, 
> in fact, it makes any sense to speak of a World independent of the human 
> experience -- is essentially random and, therefore,  that contingencies among 
> experiences that lead to valid expectations are rare.  The apparition of 
> order that we experience is due to the fact that such predictive 
> contingencies--rare as they may be-- are extraordinarily useful to organisms 
> and so organisms are conditioned to attend  to them.  Random events are 
> beyond experience.  Order is what can be experienced. 
> -. --- - / ...- .- .-.. .. -.. / -- --- .-. ... . / -.-. --- -.. .
> FRIAM Applied Complexity Group listserv
> Fridays 9a-12p Friday St. Johns Cafe   /   Thursdays 9a-12p Zoom 
> https://linkprotect.cudasvc.com/url?a=https%3a%2f%2fbit.ly%2fvirtualfriam=E,1,u7FgMP8vm4fHiTW0U3rgvPE9r2t5kIzf_xFQNMb3ARSlP_q5duEv4pYS3k-N_n8IulmaZfRYLq4ORWs5RoTsr-p3wuF5nmKjYs20FlmVPy0w=1
> to (un)subscribe 
> https://linkprotect.cudasvc.com/url?a=http%3a%2f%2fredfish.com%2fmailman%2flistinfo%2ffriam_redfish.com=E,1,alS3mZm4sNbe1T2YOOJrUAFbgFQF4hXahJvirMvxvkMIlTabCCwl4x6PztexlomWiKSo0YQkdLMDeKhjhZgR07MTyaRyGLFc9yB2yiMgOx7pJyGM2A,,=1
> FRIAM-COMIC 
> https://linkprotect.cudasvc.com/url?a=http%3a%2f%2ffriam-comic.blogspot.com%2f=E,1,U2bOZpRyBVI0OWSG1o1ORsDLptqydGBNg9S9hwXgjhqfmB6Ccy7nZsqrjdflFIFIOe0mY9Ksbsho6d9Tb_vWD_L_zwHDBWxVL_fCVaL8omY6lon1Xw,,=1
> archives:  5/2017 thru present 
> https://linkprotect.cudasvc.com/url?a=https%3a%2f%2fredfish.com%2fpipermail%2ffriam_redfish.com%2f=E,1,zLyeztLI0_7t9GJOJ6-IWmDod_-mGxqK_gNYa4zBLyOfuSyEwlGEnexGr18-SPiqlAdOs1MUuHjd4rIN62y7YwCbFq3FlVUvJyEmjicqIz9QCvAt=1
>  1/2003 thru 6/2021  http://friam.383.s1.nabble.com/

-. --- - / ...- .- .-.. .. -.. / -- --- .-. ... . / -.-. --- -.. .
FRIAM Applied Complexity Group listserv
Fridays 9a-12p Friday St. Johns Cafe   /   Thursdays 9a-12p Zoom 
https://bit.ly/virtualfriam
to (un)subscribe http://redfish.com/mailman/listinfo/friam_redfish.com
FRIAM-COMIC http://friam-comic.blogspot.com/
archives:  5/2017 thru present https://redfish.com/pipermail/friam_redfish.com/
  1/2003 thru 6/2021  http://friam.383.s1.nabble.com/

Re: [FRIAM] new thermal tech

[David Eric Smith]

I assume “delivers” would have been a better word choice than “produces”.  

After we create better schools to teach our kids government and citizenship, we 
should move on and teach them to understand thermodynamics.


> On Jan 6, 2023, at 12:27 PM, Gary Schiltz  wrote:
> 
> Amusing indeed (the PV magazine article). The pump “reportedly
> produces 3 kW to 4 kW of heat for every kilowatt of power it
> consumes”. Say what?
> 
> On Fri, Jan 6, 2023 at 8:28 AM Roger Critchlow  wrote:
>> 
>> I was amused to see an announcement of a thermoacoustic heat pump  the other 
>> day:
>> 
>>  
>> https://linkprotect.cudasvc.com/url?a=https%3a%2f%2fwww.pv-magazine.com%2f2023%2f01%2f02%2fresidential-thermo-acoustic-heat-pump-produces-water-up-to-80-c%2f=E,1,SIXaeD9pWPwQ9_a2yQcA2Mb6Oa19--caDioiCnI9tb9wHtj9F3T-fS0FbAdlNeoJjozEjvgRHvMxxDB874D65rIXmYYzllXMzQ-xbTUOen3OXZ0wb7n6ON_lX3U,=1
>> 
>> then an ionocaloric refrigerator announcement turns up this morning
>> 
>>  
>> https://linkprotect.cudasvc.com/url?a=https%3a%2f%2fnewscenter.lbl.gov%2f2023%2f01%2f03%2fcool-new-method-of-refrigeration%2f=E,1,WtFGOsq-ZfdSeNDj-coqZXFEeJnYAea0pwlFL95XWPuzaTHMiuaDIsqM19iVS7Oaw1ElarAioZmixa4jBVRrZyrnp7sdhboRXZmwL4HYzjyNmyPqbA,,=1
>> 
>> It seems that you won't recognize your air conditioner in a few years.
>> 
>> -- rec --
>> -. --- - / ...- .- .-.. .. -.. / -- --- .-. ... . / -.-. --- -.. .
>> FRIAM Applied Complexity Group listserv
>> Fridays 9a-12p Friday St. Johns Cafe   /   Thursdays 9a-12p Zoom 
>> https://linkprotect.cudasvc.com/url?a=https%3a%2f%2fbit.ly%2fvirtualfriam=E,1,l2P4P2hAd9fOXrHFAqYE-soxRvcd-h7oG1MT-pwzYOcNLRhMJ0htXFfoau0plG4M8Sny3C4wi3OuWkOaPuGG7ig9z9x78f1OAPt8r97EV5kw=1
>> to (un)subscribe 
>> https://linkprotect.cudasvc.com/url?a=http%3a%2f%2fredfish.com%2fmailman%2flistinfo%2ffriam_redfish.com=E,1,Mv9je9W6-toCn2mSgebsBQ2oAvgPYBiznnu7oMzXwVVpVHCX5bHTuwkLHkMpS5xCLZNN1jOoUKDPMKGdl1DklBJnHT6qIi1-4MP3jz-xjyU06iWZj8gEGdY,=1
>> FRIAM-COMIC 
>> https://linkprotect.cudasvc.com/url?a=http%3a%2f%2ffriam-comic.blogspot.com%2f=E,1,LrVd5NHt3F5ZyNnYASIf5xseu84feQKjpBBwX-nIs29YXhMV8_76gf8cpBx-vaeUpFf-HGs2p2hq0x0mGoPN8kH0VhZGBCx3iClL1gICfwzbTw,,=1
>> archives:  5/2017 thru present 
>> https://linkprotect.cudasvc.com/url?a=https%3a%2f%2fredfish.com%2fpipermail%2ffriam_redfish.com%2f=E,1,uahCj4-Us9Y3YmIN-yVtgMzfbZ9PQRVMSGkO6IYV0N9KUU9ZFY1kQa3BLPFvEuXo3Aq1MJ2Cz_0O_ne5GEfvWgd-OkD5gkJxAvRbSAfX3t8NMsKUtaHB-cDpzOrn=1
>>  1/2003 thru 6/2021  http://friam.383.s1.nabble.com/
> 
> -. --- - / ...- .- .-.. .. -.. / -- --- .-. ... . / -.-. --- -.. .
> FRIAM Applied Complexity Group listserv
> Fridays 9a-12p Friday St. Johns Cafe   /   Thursdays 9a-12p Zoom 
> https://linkprotect.cudasvc.com/url?a=https%3a%2f%2fbit.ly%2fvirtualfriam=E,1,ISKO6LD8eQE8bCuHCQdZ0Gz68pToeZRW1lYvrOVc7g_fN_WR7boTcobKscWBk5yR1j-6b4R3aMqqzVOCJl2dqKUVnXNLqSONq-LfHDeMRXYahMWyKp3Af2c,=1
> to (un)subscribe 
> https://linkprotect.cudasvc.com/url?a=http%3a%2f%2fredfish.com%2fmailman%2flistinfo%2ffriam_redfish.com=E,1,pC4zTC9TPXexDYqD_66fvJzl2DnWmxO_oNw6VBrLvm-RLF3uuPCVIIKR2OJQCiTV2oiJs8vos0DyebFkCE1wop0EL_KPEX9Ubs3iXHiL7U0CbzBDf23s=1
> FRIAM-COMIC 
> https://linkprotect.cudasvc.com/url?a=http%3a%2f%2ffriam-comic.blogspot.com%2f=E,1,ZqqnEKAOuo-2XtVUgR8oNnQMs8sMJxA0yhR0UWNXecnKmVcuThV2HDMewZbrxblvfqZnqX-aDXbUG3c-hOx2euWFTs6SNgbC31UlEaVYkxcPI-I3NRM,=1
> archives:  5/2017 thru present 
> https://linkprotect.cudasvc.com/url?a=https%3a%2f%2fredfish.com%2fpipermail%2ffriam_redfish.com%2f=E,1,YibNlqRVSsKKWCkGgCh8hBTgGfw3eLYOMmtcJqSQH0k5GE8ekETSArYhdys_xonOo_aLWqzXbvccM9FgCHeUXvK_w9dvfSzQRuPukdWmSf30uA,,=1
>  1/2003 thru 6/2021  http://friam.383.s1.nabble.com/


-. --- - / ...- .- .-.. .. -.. / -- --- .-. ... . / -.-. --- -.. .
FRIAM Applied Complexity Group listserv
Fridays 9a-12p Friday St. Johns Cafe   /   Thursdays 9a-12p Zoom 
https://bit.ly/virtualfriam
to (un)subscribe http://redfish.com/mailman/listinfo/friam_redfish.com
FRIAM-COMIC http://friam-comic.blogspot.com/
archives:  5/2017 thru present https://redfish.com/pipermail/friam_redfish.com/
  1/2003 thru 6/2021  http://friam.383.s1.nabble.com/

Re: [FRIAM] more bullsh¡t

[David Eric Smith]

Your use of chatGTP, Pieter, is to my mind a very interesting thread.

There was a columnist for the New York Times many years ago, named William 
Safire.  I don’t even remember now what he wrote about, but he was known, and 
was significant to me, for being an example of “a good writer”.

Safire wrote something (column?  book?  article?) with the theme that, if one 
would write creatively, one should first do several years galley-rowing as an 
editor somewhere.  People who have an impulse to write “creatively” imagine all 
kinds of innovation in language that will be just dramatic and wonderful.  
Editors, who have had to deal with those imaginations in the writings of 
others, know that most such ideas are awful and need to be beaten out of the 
writer if he or she is ever to become good.  So Safire’s thesis was that you 
really need to do this, for a number of years and a large number of other 
people’s pieces, to squeeze the nonsense out of you and develop a solid 
understanding of your language.  Kind of like, in books on French cooking, the 
author says “why did we have to spend the first year cooking mixed vegetables 
in mayonnaise over and over again; I don’t even like mixed vegetables in 
mayonnaise.  To which the answer, of course, is that one develops what the 
French term “method”: experience with uniform sizing of each ingredient, 
correct relative sizing across ingredients, time of introduction to heat, and 
on and on, so that one gets control and has everything cooked to the intended 
degree reliably.  Only then has one gained the tools to create.

I have run Safire’s thesis by some writers I know to see what happened; my 
notable memories are the ones who hate it and think it is completely wrong.

But to Glen’s point that we should think of literary AI the way we think of 
pocket calculators (another thing I was not allowed to have in school; my 
parents thought it would make me stupid).  ChatGTP can be sort of the William 
Safire level of basic method in language, not intending or intended to create 
anything, but somehow, as you say, to find a kind of solid and central 
expression for things.  One might even think of the appropriate training 
schedule for a tool meant to do just that, which could be a bit different from 
the ad hoc training that is probably first-gen of these tools.

Eric

> On Jan 6, 2023, at 12:59 AM, Pieter Steenekamp  
> wrote:
> 
> As a native of South Africa, I have personally witnessed the shortcomings of 
> both our public primary and secondary education systems and the financial 
> barriers that prevent many from accessing private schools. In response, I 
> have dedicated the past year to establishing a private institution that is 
> not only affordable, but also committed to providing a high-quality 
> education. In reflecting on what constitutes a truly valuable education, I 
> have come to the conclusion that the most essential outcome is not the 
> acquisition of academic skills, but rather the development of strong 
> relationships - both with oneself and with the outside world. While it is not 
> possible to directly teach children how to cultivate such relationships, it 
> is possible to create an environment in which they can learn and grow through 
> unsupervised interactions with their peers.
> 
> Full disclosure: I have not kissed  Blarney Stone and my ability to write (or 
> speak for that matter) eloquently is just awful. I've written a paragraph and 
> then I asked chatGPT, who have kissed the Blamey Stone, to rephrase it more 
> eloquently. The above paragraph reflects exactly what I wish to say, but is 
> just expressed so much better.
> 
> On Fri, 6 Jan 2023 at 00:39, glen  > wrote:
> AI, Teaching, and "Our Willingness to Give Bullshit a Pass"
> https://dailynous.com/2023/01/05/ai-teaching-and-our-willingness-to-give-bullshit-a-pass/
>  
> 
> 
> The first time I heard this argument was from these guys:
> 
> https://www.audible.com/pd/Pill-Pod-104-AI-the-New-Crisis-of-Humanities-Education-Podcast/B0BPQ77Z8P
>  
> 
> 
> My phrasing of the idea being that tools like ChatGPT are analogous to 
> calculators, allowing the computer to do what it's good at and freeing humans 
> up to do what we're good at. Why require students to learn bullshit 
> rhetorical styling when we can teach them to think about the *substance* ... 
> a lesson many of us learned from Knuth's TeX a long time ago. The trick is 
> that tools like ChatGPT are built around the bullshit-generation use case. 
> What we need are tools built around the bullshit-detection use case.
> 
> With branch 

Re: [FRIAM] Friday AM

[David Eric Smith]

That number sounds familiar to me too.  I don’t know if it is right.  There 
seem to be very many nonagenarian movie stars and politicians in the papers 
every day, and I wonder if there really are 50x as many octogenarians at any 
time.  

OTOH, my understanding is that the Gompertz ramp (linear increase of mortality 
rate with age) saturates once you hit about 1/3.  Big question in that field 
(last I checked, which was some years ago) is why it saturates at all, and why 
around that level.  As for other low-parameter-dimension families of 
distributions, there are endless ways to curve-fit one exponential, so you have 
very limited ability to infer causation.  Any features that break the 
self-similarity become precious signals.

> On Jan 3, 2023, at 7:33 PM, Frank Wimberly  wrote:
> 
>   >For people it’s somewhere in the 70-80 ...
> 
> As I approach 80 I'm not happy about this.  I read or heard that a person 
> over 80 has about a 0.3 probability of dying each year.  I calculated, 
> possibly using incorrect assumptions, that that means that the conditional 
> probability of living to 90 given that you've lived to 80 is 0.02.
> 
> 
> ---
> Frank C. Wimberly
> 140 Calle Ojo Feliz, 
> Santa Fe, NM 87505
> 
> 505 670-9918
> Santa Fe, NM
> 
> On Tue, Jan 3, 2023, 5:14 PM glen  <mailto:geprope...@gmail.com>> wrote:
> Interesting paper. I'll have to read it more closely. But it doesn't strike 
> me that they address *premature* mortality, whatever that is. I can't help 
> but get a Theseus' Ship vibe. Even if the canalizing risks (welding, sky 
> diving, cholesterol, dehydration, etc.) are all hammered down, I'd expect the 
> noise to overwhelm the signal as the focus tightens. Anyway, I'll try to read 
> this over the next few days. Thanks.
> 
> 
> On 1/3/23 12:31, David Eric Smith wrote:
> > Long a favorite topic of mine.
> > 
> > Let me send you a link; almost-surely not the best, but done with ~1min of 
> > google searching images:
> > https://journals.plos.org/plosone/article?id=10.1371/journal.pone.0233384 
> > <https://linkprotect.cudasvc.com/url?a=https%3a%2f%2fjournals.plos.org%2fplosone%2farticle%3fid%3d10.1371%2fjournal.pone.0233384=E,1,IP2lRQTIaixu8LyLg-25T4_qoHKD8BbXnW2OwHxkgTnVhCJzUtGeM4k_HIkhve6wekD6dBwingUydEvAxhEOX7IxGpmJGJHaAgDZr0YtBjNXK6BMd1wW1JKZIA,,=1>
> >  <https://journals.plos.org/plosone/article?id=10.1371/journal.pone.0233384 
> > <https://linkprotect.cudasvc.com/url?a=https%3a%2f%2fjournals.plos.org%2fplosone%2farticle%3fid%3d10.1371%2fjournal.pone.0233384=E,1,cAvOaPo9S4OcrYrdedK0B_GvGCsuVyoPsb8NS9E8bS_PRscfTP4CIIQUn51ZuuzUDcE3UAlPXxkWJ7F2h3Ds14uuuaQgm8nUKqlWt0IhdhXpB4f-1LmvM66cRXB3=1>>
> > See the 5th figure for actual data, rather than models.
> > 
> > But my understanding is that Gompertz mortality statistics are unbelievably 
> > universal across metazoans.  The parameters can be shifted by lots of 
> > factors, but the functional form (which takes only a couple of parameters) 
> > is absurdly more robust than one would expect given all that varies.
> > 
> > Anyway, to the extent that there is Gompertz mortality, there is a natural 
> > associated age for age-associated-death.  For people it’s somewhere in the 
> > 70-80 range, and I think there can be as much as a 10-year difference 
> > across different world gene pools (Japanese being at the upper end, and 
> > maybe some other group in Central Asia east of the Caucasus; I forget).
> > 
> > A thing I remember being told by a guy who does this kind of work, there 
> > seem to be two modes between development-linked diseases (think, childhood 
> > leukemias), and age-associated diseases.  We have made remarkable progress 
> > on many of the former, and very little on many of the latter.  Also (and I 
> > got this from researchers at Einstein college in Yeshiva some years ago, or 
> > from a stack of their papers), if one avoids rather specific risk factors, 
> > like welding or smoking for lung cancers, or dioxin exposures for male 
> > breast cancers or the like, the leading predictor for most of the old-age 
> > diseases is just your age.  So it has (to me) the look of what Holmse’s 
> > Wonderful One-Hoss Shay would be if redone with Poisson statistics, to 
> > become a minimum-information process.  The nail that stuck up got hammered 
> > down (extra resources for any disease that becomes visible to selection) 
> > that now all the nails are at about the same height, and there is some kind 
> > of ambivalence frontier.
> > 
> > My own anecdotal experience suggests that my previous paragraphs can’t 
> > possibly be right, since there clearly are common and rare diseases of the 
> &g

Re: [FRIAM] Friday AM

[David Eric Smith]

Long a favorite topic of mine.

Let me send you a link; almost-surely not the best, but done with ~1min of 
google searching images:
https://journals.plos.org/plosone/article?id=10.1371/journal.pone.0233384 

See the 5th figure for actual data, rather than models.  

But my understanding is that Gompertz mortality statistics are unbelievably 
universal across metazoans.  The parameters can be shifted by lots of factors, 
but the functional form (which takes only a couple of parameters) is absurdly 
more robust than one would expect given all that varies.

Anyway, to the extent that there is Gompertz mortality, there is a natural 
associated age for age-associated-death.  For people it’s somewhere in the 
70-80 range, and I think there can be as much as a 10-year difference across 
different world gene pools (Japanese being at the upper end, and maybe some 
other group in Central Asia east of the Caucasus; I forget).

A thing I remember being told by a guy who does this kind of work, there seem 
to be two modes between development-linked diseases (think, childhood 
leukemias), and age-associated diseases.  We have made remarkable progress on 
many of the former, and very little on many of the latter.  Also (and I got 
this from researchers at Einstein college in Yeshiva some years ago, or from a 
stack of their papers), if one avoids rather specific risk factors, like 
welding or smoking for lung cancers, or dioxin exposures for male breast 
cancers or the like, the leading predictor for most of the old-age diseases is 
just your age.  So it has (to me) the look of what Holmse’s Wonderful One-Hoss 
Shay would be if redone with Poisson statistics, to become a 
minimum-information process.  The nail that stuck up got hammered down (extra 
resources for any disease that becomes visible to selection) that now all the 
nails are at about the same height, and there is some kind of ambivalence 
frontier.

My own anecdotal experience suggests that my previous paragraphs can’t possibly 
be right, since there clearly are common and rare diseases of the old.  But I 
didn’t make this stuff up, and got it from some serious literature.

Thanks, 

Eric



> On Jan 3, 2023, at 1:01 PM, glen  wrote:
> 
> ">144 mmol/l with 21% elevated risk of premature mortality". My last test a 
> week ago showed 144! Whew! I guess I have a normal risk for premature 
> mortality. 8^D
> 
> The concept of "premature death" is flat out ridiculous. But our inability to 
> well-define it raises some interesting questions.
> 
> • deprivation (by the dead, by the rest of us) - is the death of Ramanujan at 
> 32 *more* premature than the death of some rando at 32?
> • life expectancy seems like yet another instance of people not understanding 
> statistics
> • quality of life - is the death of a 20 year old born into and likely to 
> live in poverty *as* premature as the death of a 20 year old born with a 
> silver spoon?
> • natural selection - is it premature for a 35 year old who's bred, say, 10 
> children to die?
>  · or is it premature for them to die before their children have children? 
> I.e. is being a grandparent a necessary element of a breeder's life?
> • consequentialism - had Hitler dyed at age 35, would that have been 
> premature?
> 
> I know this seems like a tangent upon tangents. But it's not. It's nonsense 
> to relate serum Na to premature mortality because premature mortality is 
> nonsense. Prevalence of chronic disease seems, to me, a little more 
> well-formed ... but not by much. Biological age just seems like pseudoscience 
> to me, the flip side of Vampirism. I'd welcome an education, though.
> 
> On 1/2/23 13:34, Roger Critchlow wrote:
>> There was a hacker news item this morning about maintaining hydration and 
>> chronic illness:
>> https://linkprotect.cudasvc.com/url?a=https%3a%2f%2fwww.thelancet.com%2fjournals%2febiom%2farticle%2fPIIS2352-3964=E,1,faHDDOmfSmBCowvyxqbh2EUz38-Hun0lWmP7p9abh_tufHZOPXeJwvh0zeVEv_pEJaprXTWcos80ECDWoak-cqMSeiutR3SgT9gK0pLzL_sP_rE,=1(22)00586-2/fulltext
>>  
>> 
>> those who exceeded 142 mmol/l of serum sodium in middle age got sicker more 
>> often later in life.
>> It's the first measurement on my comprehensive metabolic panels.
>> It would be really funny if there actually was "One simple trick to staying 
>> healthy!", but it was only discovered after we had conditioned ourselves 
>> into never reading any article with such a title.
>> -- rec --
>> On Mon, Jan 2, 2023 at 2:04 PM glen > > wrote:
>>I think a mobility checkup would be more useful than blood tests. See if 
>> you can stand on one foot for 10 seconds. Spin you 

Re: [FRIAM] The WEBB seeing back to the first millennia

[David Eric Smith]

Citing back to Owen:

Gil is right.  The universe could be infinite, and it is at the least big 
enough that we have no positive evidence so far that it isn’t infinite.

If it were infinitely large, but only finitely old, then at any given place, 
the only photons that could yet have sped past us would be those from a 
distance away that is less than the age divided by c.  But there would always 
be someplace enough further out that you are only now seeing it.  Cue lyrics to 
“The way we were”, of course

There is a thing I never learned to understand about cosmological models, which 
is how they reconcile finite age with infinite size.  Presumably infinity is 
infinity, and if your solution is always infinitely extended (flat or negative 
spatial curvature), then even if you go back to a Big Bang of infinite density 
in the finite past, that infinite density is still infinitely extended.  If 
there were positive spatial curvature and the universe were closed, one could 
just work in the finite-but-large.

(btw, of course, inflation doesn’t solve this; it just changes rates of various 
expansions in various eras.)

I guess cosmologists don’t worry about this, because they know there are enough 
phase transitions going on in the vacuum going back toward the beginning, that 
even if you appear to be negatively curved and open now, the current story may 
not extend all the way back.

Another thing that is fun to think about but that I don’t feel comfortable as 
having really internalized, is that old parts of the universe are like old 
cowboys: they never seem to be traveling away from you at faster than c; they 
just fade away in redshift to black.  So things can be totally unreachable at 
some finite time, yet never seem to have exceeded a finite speed limit to do it.

Eric

> On Dec 28, 2022, at 10:56 AM, Gillian Densmore  wrote:
> 
> (using a bad analogy) and those photons record what's going on like a on 
> going WEBB stream? so we now have essentially the ability to see old  streams 
> (as it were) from photons any anything else that can get a snippet of that. 
> and basically light  does take time to show up.  it's not exactly instant on 
> the galatic scale (see also: Relativity). and so by the time WEBB or any 
> other other telescopes s mirrors cameras and blah blah blah send that to our 
> eyes those photons are now old reeely old. And the grand expansion is  fast 
> enough to go faster then light? or is it because the universe is stupendously 
> big. so it takes a while to get to where we can snag some photons?
> 
> On Wed, Dec 28, 2022 at 10:49 AM Frank Wimberly  > wrote:
> My guess:  stars, including the Sun, are constantly producing and emitting 
> new photons.  This happens as a result of fusion and other processes.
> 
> ---
> Frank C. Wimberly
> 140 Calle Ojo Feliz, 
> Santa Fe, NM 87505
> 
> 505 670-9918
> Santa Fe, NM
> 
> On Wed, Dec 28, 2022, 9:21 AM Owen Densmore  > wrote:
> In aj NYTimes article:
> https://www.nytimes.com/2022/12/27/science/astronomy-webb-telescope.html 
> 
> ..there is the usual discussion on "seeing back to the first several 
> millennia".
> 
> But, and be kind, why haven't these photons already sped past us? I suppose 
> it is because the exanssion is uniformly everywhere, we just kept ahead of 
> them? That seems unlikely given the expansion is slower than light.
> 
> -- Owen
> -. --- - / ...- .- .-.. .. -.. / -- --- .-. ... . / -.-. --- -.. .
> FRIAM Applied Complexity Group listserv
> Fridays 9a-12p Friday St. Johns Cafe   /   Thursdays 9a-12p Zoom 
> https://bit.ly/virtualfriam 
> 
> to (un)subscribe http://redfish.com/mailman/listinfo/friam_redfish.com 
> 
> FRIAM-COMIC http://friam-comic.blogspot.com/ 
> 
> archives:  5/2017 thru present 
> https://redfish.com/pipermail/friam_redfish.com/ 
> 
>   1/2003 thru 6/2021  http://friam.383.s1.nabble.com/ 
> 
> -. --- - / ...- .- .-.. .. -.. / -- --- .-. ... . / -.-. --- -.. .
> FRIAM Applied Complexity Group listserv
> 

Re: [FRIAM] talking to bots is fun for everyone

[David Eric Smith]

Glen, I think today you are fated to suffer death by a thousand tangents.

> On Dec 27, 2022, at 2:41 PM, glen  wrote:

First, though, thank you for saving me on the other point.  I was laughing at 
the structure of the whole conversation by then.  (And thinking about Turing 
tests for people.)  I was seeking a confirmation that there was an error in a 
piece of text.  Frank was committed to making true statements.

But now, the tangent:

> Brevity is your enemy. Previously, I asked gpt to contrast Richard Rorty and 
> CS Peirce. It gave me this super simplified answer that woefully 
> misrepresented both.

By God-knows-what route, I happened to notice this, and read it last week (or 
maybe a day ago…?):

https://harpers.org/archive/2023/01/trumpism-and-the-american-philosophical-tradition/
 


A colleague pushed Rorty on me, and as I have mentioned, I could not understand 
why I consider him so awful, and the colleague, with whom I get along very 
well, considers him a mentor, nearly a guru of some kind.  I got a partial 
answer this past summer, which was a testimonial to Rorty’s personal goodness 
of actions.

Anyway, I was pleased with about the first half of Edmundson’s analysis, 
because he takes Rorty to task for what I consider the right thing, which is 
killing truth for the sake of expediency in his own social-justice aims.  Some 
saying like “Those who would kill truth for the sake of social justice won’t 
have either”.

But then Edmundson makes hamburger of the second half, articulating his own 
position as an “idealist”, where he substitutes the word “Truth” as the 
provider of a whole basket of services, not one of which I would take to be the 
purview of truth, and all of which I would say are the purview of either 
Justice or Humanity.  How can a philosopher, so blithely, commit what seems to 
me such an elementary and blunderous category error?  

So I spent some time wondering whether there was any notion of Truth that got 
very far from what I think it to be: a foundation for more reliably selecting 
premises about what is the case; and would veer it more toward notions like 
Justice or Humanity, to me very different things though all of the above can 
serve as referees that stand above various contestants.  In any case, I didn’t 
forward to the list, to avoid self-incrimination.

But, since you bring up Rorty and Peirce, why not?  Edmundson did mention that 
Peirce had already tried to get distance by the time of James; Rorty I am sure 
has him rolling in his grave still.  But Edmundson didn’t mention _why_ James 
distracted from Peirce, Dewey essentially reversed him, and Rorty put the all 
the nail that would fit in that coffin.  Seemed to me like rather a large 
omission, but in the second half of the essay, maybe I see why.

Eric


-. --- - / ...- .- .-.. .. -.. / -- --- .-. ... . / -.-. --- -.. .
FRIAM Applied Complexity Group listserv
Fridays 9a-12p Friday St. Johns Cafe   /   Thursdays 9a-12p Zoom 
https://bit.ly/virtualfriam
to (un)subscribe http://redfish.com/mailman/listinfo/friam_redfish.com
FRIAM-COMIC http://friam-comic.blogspot.com/
archives:  5/2017 thru present https://redfish.com/pipermail/friam_redfish.com/
  1/2003 thru 6/2021  http://friam.383.s1.nabble.com/

Re: [FRIAM] talking to bots is fun for everyone

[David Eric Smith]

Are you sure Frank?

The sentence from gtp that I highlight said:

> "⊃" is the logical symbol for "implies." It is used to form conditional 
> statements in which the formula on the right is true only if the formula on 
> the left is true.

As I understand “implies” (or just the conditional if A then B), it means that 
the formula on the right is true _if_ the formula on the left is true.  Not 
“only if” as gtp is quoted to say above.  Correct would be “the formula on the 
right is _false_ _only if_ the formula on the left is _false_.  Conditional 
doesn’t say anything about whether B is true or false if A is not true.

Eric



> On Dec 27, 2022, at 11:46 AM, Frank Wimberly  wrote:
> 
> I've taken courses in formal logic at multiple levels.  All that notation is 
> familiar and the explanation seems correct if vacuous.
> 
> ---
> Frank C. Wimberly
> 140 Calle Ojo Feliz, 
> Santa Fe, NM 87505
> 
> 505 670-9918
> Santa Fe, NM
> 
> On Tue, Dec 27, 2022, 3:19 AM David Eric Smith  <mailto:desm...@santafe.edu>> wrote:
> Interesting.  Lack of global awareness duly noted.
> 
> But also, can you check me on this?:
> 
> > On Dec 26, 2022, at 7:21 PM, glen  > <mailto:geprope...@gmail.com>> wrote:
> > 
> > This exchange was interesting. I've never seen ⊃° used.
> > 
> > ⋄⋄
> > me: What is the difference between ⊃ and ⊢.
> > 
> > gpt: The symbol "⊃" is the logical symbol for "implies." It is used to form 
> > conditional statements in which the formula on the right is true only if 
> > the formula on the left is true. For example, the formula "A ⊃ B" can be 
> > read as "A implies B," and it means that if A is true, then B must also be 
> > true.
> 
> Am I somehow blanking on ordinary sign-flips, or mistaking left and right?
> 
> Seems B Is true _if_ A is true.  B is false _only if_ A is false == If A is 
> true, then B must also be true.
> 
> Given that English is not ensured to have any global internal logical 
> consistency, one can see making sentences that don’t close internally.  But 
> in areas where English is capable of being used with internal consistency, I 
> am surprised to see an “only if” transposed with an “if” everywhere.  Did I 
> completely misunderstand what “implies” means?
> 
> 
> On all this I feel completely exposed: I thought I remembered from Quine’s 
> little book on propositional calculus that “implies” isn’t even an elementary 
> operator; only enters in a context like modus ponens for proofs.  In 
> first-order logic one was supposed to write expressions such as “B or not(A)” 
> to mean “if A then B”.  And there was some other symbol (even simpler than 
> the entails) for that conditional.
> 
> Eric
> 
> 
> 
> -. --- - / ...- .- .-.. .. -.. / -- --- .-. ... . / -.-. --- -.. .
> FRIAM Applied Complexity Group listserv
> Fridays 9a-12p Friday St. Johns Cafe   /   Thursdays 9a-12p Zoom 
> https://bit.ly/virtualfriam 
> <https://linkprotect.cudasvc.com/url?a=https%3a%2f%2fbit.ly%2fvirtualfriam=E,1,FACgozR-UqqCXQNuQwGDcUKOr9F8z9par_ZMWYigt5pt0zR5SRseqvtZvhgeXNhXZtJbOBMArZ894NdK7CRcE5elLELfxS5zueuLVPCUFvPwUnQ_=1>
> to (un)subscribe http://redfish.com/mailman/listinfo/friam_redfish.com 
> <https://linkprotect.cudasvc.com/url?a=http%3a%2f%2fredfish.com%2fmailman%2flistinfo%2ffriam_redfish.com=E,1,Yhc5E5ab9UmYYG9HMLYkBuVWFStwPqiriJeHKTJEVbJx3gSi011Mhs_3KW7idMNg-N0XMR9DgpMC7rPIdS9XeZlcJ2U4se1WrqkjRwr_=1>
> FRIAM-COMIC http://friam-comic.blogspot.com/ 
> <https://linkprotect.cudasvc.com/url?a=http%3a%2f%2ffriam-comic.blogspot.com%2f=E,1,KjGjIbhNXx_Jkk8XVQeh0lyM3M6RydNqm286xij8qR8oHoHQcqigRNdtrPlFd2b8B98pogaXmWG6I4JoFfoHshueOTb-xfV86hrPhgpGlYoxVjU,=1>
> archives:  5/2017 thru present 
> https://redfish.com/pipermail/friam_redfish.com/ 
> <https://linkprotect.cudasvc.com/url?a=https%3a%2f%2fredfish.com%2fpipermail%2ffriam_redfish.com%2f=E,1,tKP0RmBbn5aXqMMP90FfZRUgR4SeRNAbCIPIHTmOOMKvYU9wbJQX8c6NaqJZF-ALbi5h5pfwbbR6XC7VfiNBZH8WQJvHUbf391P9nkUqxn-_LgrnFkGB5kRXKEY,=1>
>   1/2003 thru 6/2021  http://friam.383.s1.nabble.com/ 
> <http://friam.383.s1.nabble.com/>
> -. --- - / ...- .- .-.. .. -.. / -- --- .-. ... . / -.-. --- -.. .
> FRIAM Applied Complexity Group listserv
> Fridays 9a-12p Friday St. Johns Cafe   /   Thursdays 9a-12p Zoom 
> https://linkprotect.cudasvc.com/url?a=https%3a%2f%2fbit.ly%2fvirtualfriam=E,1,_spTYZpBgzfulo-KvqI8rEzXQnNQEKBsbLisXTlr_mycwxyzjQtVPPo1I2aErQUHbLfg7bzp1CSukQ6vEKVwLfp3fRDVEBuHthgGKeICow,,=1
> to (un)subscribe 
> https://linkprotect.cudasvc.com/url?a=http%3a%2f%2fredfish.com%2fmailman%2flistinfo%2ffriam_redfish.com=E,1,YGWVR0l_mWGwkSJgcqb-4MaGx3TabLJ_UEXMsf4RfIVpJRtH_z_87WR

Re: [FRIAM] talking to bots is fun for everyone

[David Eric Smith]

Interesting.  Lack of global awareness duly noted.

But also, can you check me on this?:

> On Dec 26, 2022, at 7:21 PM, glen  wrote:
> 
> This exchange was interesting. I've never seen ⊃° used.
> 
> ⋄⋄
> me: What is the difference between ⊃ and ⊢.
> 
> gpt: The symbol "⊃" is the logical symbol for "implies." It is used to form 
> conditional statements in which the formula on the right is true only if the 
> formula on the left is true. For example, the formula "A ⊃ B" can be read as 
> "A implies B," and it means that if A is true, then B must also be true.

Am I somehow blanking on ordinary sign-flips, or mistaking left and right?

Seems B Is true _if_ A is true.  B is false _only if_ A is false == If A is 
true, then B must also be true.

Given that English is not ensured to have any global internal logical 
consistency, one can see making sentences that don’t close internally.  But in 
areas where English is capable of being used with internal consistency, I am 
surprised to see an “only if” transposed with an “if” everywhere.  Did I 
completely misunderstand what “implies” means?


On all this I feel completely exposed: I thought I remembered from Quine’s 
little book on propositional calculus that “implies” isn’t even an elementary 
operator; only enters in a context like modus ponens for proofs.  In 
first-order logic one was supposed to write expressions such as “B or not(A)” 
to mean “if A then B”.  And there was some other symbol (even simpler than the 
entails) for that conditional.

Eric



-. --- - / ...- .- .-.. .. -.. / -- --- .-. ... . / -.-. --- -.. .
FRIAM Applied Complexity Group listserv
Fridays 9a-12p Friday St. Johns Cafe   /   Thursdays 9a-12p Zoom 
https://bit.ly/virtualfriam
to (un)subscribe http://redfish.com/mailman/listinfo/friam_redfish.com
FRIAM-COMIC http://friam-comic.blogspot.com/
archives:  5/2017 thru present https://redfish.com/pipermail/friam_redfish.com/
  1/2003 thru 6/2021  http://friam.383.s1.nabble.com/

Re: [FRIAM] technical notes on fusion announcement

[David Eric Smith]

I remember, as a kid, finding this idea wonderful, after reading one or another 
biography of Tesla.  Probably one of them was Prodigal Genius, by John O’Neill. 
 I remember at some young age, I had a chance to ask a power engineer about 
this, and got a kind pat on the head, and was told that the thermal loss rates 
are so high, that you lose most of your input before you can extract it at any 
significant distance.  I never followed up to try to do such a calculation 
myself.

Sometime, rather later, I had an English teacher who handed me Ayn Rand books, 
saying she found them hard to get through, and thinking they would keep me 
quiet for a while because I was generally being an annoyance to her.  (I forget 
this particular woman’s name; she was probably competent, but I don’t remember 
her class as being enjoyable, and I understood that she disliked me though her 
behavior never descended from being professional.)  They seemed easy enough to 
read, but I didn’t notice until sometime later that John Galt’s distribution 
and engine systems were her literary take on Tesla’s ionosphere distribution 
idea.  I didn’t understand (not being a very sophisticated reader), the extent 
to which Galt was probably meant to be modeled on Tesla.  How the same 
references keep circling back.

Eric

> On Dec 23, 2022, at 9:47 PM, Prof David West  wrote:
> 
> Instead of a cable - maybe Tesla’s unrealized broadcast technology? I don’t 
> remember the details but he was going to send power from Long Island, via the 
> ionosphere, to light the world expo in Paris. 
> 
> Davew
> 
> On Thu, Dec 22, 2022, at 2:16 PM, Steve Smith wrote:
>> Following the conception of a Transatlantic power cable, I just heard on the 
>> radio that a couple huge globe-ish spanning electrical-busses are under 
>> planning... one that might span from Thailand to Saudi Arabia (through 
>> northern India) with Solar (and other renewables?) tapping in along the way 
>> and load-shifting E/W with the sunlight and load.   Also maybe one that 
>> spans Australia which I believe to be about as wide as the US?   
>> 
>> Seems like TX's problems stemming from their own (short-sighted?) 
>> self-isolation might be good hosts/promoters of such a long-throw?   
>> 
>> I don't know what it would take to upgrade the national rail system to also 
>> be a load-balancing shadow network for renewable electricity?   I assume 
>> none of them are electrified (third rail) but maybe laying one, given the 
>> pre-existing right-of-way and regular inspection/maintenance/access 
>> available would be of interest?   But then maybe our FriAM member who is 
>> working on converting natural gas to pneumatic energy-transfer/storage knows 
>> more about all those issues?   Hybridized infrastructure across many types?  
>>  
>> 
>> Maybe the existing Diesel-Electric Engines (most of what is on the rail) 
>> could tap in mildly to reduce diesel consumption and do their own load 
>> leveling?   Fill empty tankers with water at the top of lines (where there 
>> *is* water) and carry it to low lying land, extracting the PE from the 
>> mass/elevation drop? Reline old asphalt/fuel-oil/etc tankers and provide 
>> boutique "Rocky Mountain" (or Cascades) branch-water to the big cities while 
>> extracting (maybe) enough energy from the elevation drop to at least pay to 
>> haul the damn empties back up the hill?   
>> 
>>  With me as the big "unintended consequence" chicken-little, I'm sure most 
>> if not all of my hare-brained schemes are truly just "asking for trouble", 
>> but I think it is inevitable that they will all be considered in the spirit 
>> of adjacent-technical-possibles...
>> 
>> National Railway System: 
>> https://www.arcgis.com/apps/mapviewer/index.html?webmap=96ec03e4fc8546bd8a864e39a2c3fc41
>>  
>> 
>>> This fusion video should be the standard for how to present every single 
>>> technological innovation, every so-called "renewable energy" device that is 
>>> too little, too late, and most importantly distracts us from thinking 
>>> seriously about how we shall survive climate catastrophe and continue to 
>>> live a flourishing life on earth.  Thank you Carl--I think you sent this 
>>> link to the group. 
>>> 
>>> On Fri, Dec 16, 2022 at 10:57 AM cody dooderson >> > wrote:
>>> I had never heard of a transatlantic power grid. That is an interesting 
>>> idea. The sun is probably shining somewhere on the earth at any given time. 
>>> Would a lot of energy get wasted with the long distances? 
>>> 
>>> On Fri, Dec 16, 2022, 10:46 AM Gillian Densmore >> > wrote:
>>> frank: ah! thanks. It seems like you've had 99 lives man.
>>> 
>>> On Fri, Dec 16, 2022 at 

Re: [FRIAM] technical notes on fusion announcement

[David Eric Smith]

I doubt the answer would be interesting, but one could give it as a Fermi 
problem to an undergraduate geology class (who don’t do Fermi problems; but the 
physicists won’t know any geology).

Terawatt-scale extraction of geothermal energy will increase the effective 
conduction of heat from the bottom of the mantle (directly or indirectly) to 
the surface, increasing the rate at which the solid inner core grows by 
freezing of the molten outer core.

How much, for how long, can we extract, until the inner core grows enough that 
the geodynamo shuts down, ending the Earth’s magnetic field, the van Allen 
belts etc., and exposing the atmosphere directly to spalling by protons from 
the solar wind?  

And you thought the shutdown of the north-atlantic thermohaline was a problem!

> On Dec 16, 2022, at 2:38 PM, Marcus Daniels  wrote:
> 
> I do like the microwave energy transmission idea.  I seem to recall that 
> https://www.quaise.energy 
> 
>  got their first test device from the Air Force in Albuquerque that was 
> experimenting with the devices for crowd control.   Think of it!   5G that 
> has a high-power beam forming mode that could disable pedestrians at any 
> location! 
> 
> https://www.osti.gov/servlets/purl/1169951 
> 
> Deep Geothermal Drilling Using Millimeter Wave Technology (Final Technical 
> Research Report) (Technical Report) | OSTI.GOV - Office of Scientific and 
> Technical Information 
> 
> Abstract. Conventional drilling methods are very mature, but still have 
> difficulty drilling through very deep,very hard and hot rocks for geothermal, 
> nuclear waste entombment and oil and gas applications.This project 
> demonstrated the capabilities of utilizing only high energy beams to drill 
> such rocks,commonly called ‘Direct Energy Drilling’, which has been the dream 
> of industry since the ...
> www.osti.gov 
> 
>  
> 
>  
> Quaise Energy 
> 
> Quaise is an energy company unlocking geothermal energy for the world 
> population through millimeter wave drilling technology.
> www.quaise.energy 
> 
> From: Friam  on behalf of Steve Smith 
> 
> Sent: Friday, December 16, 2022 11:38 AM
> To: friam@redfish.com 
> Subject: Re: [FRIAM] technical notes on fusion announcement
>  
> 
> On 12/16/22 10:56 AM, cody dooderson wrote:
>> I had never heard of a transatlantic power grid. That is an interesting 
>> idea. The sun is probably shining somewhere on the earth at any given time. 
>> Would a lot of energy get wasted with the long distances? 
> 
> Nikola Tesla is rolling in his magnetically shielded grave hearing all this 
> wasteful and under-inspired talk of long-range power transmission 
> 
>  via wires?
> my SF addled brain conjures a snow-piercer 
> 
>  style earth-circumscribing rail-line... the pylons can be driven so deep 
> into the earth's crust that they are tapped into the earth's inner heat, the 
> rails can be the DC conduit Marcus suggests.   There can be as many windmills 
> and tidal turbines placed 

Re: [FRIAM] models

[David Eric Smith]

Thanks Glen,


> On Dec 10, 2022, at 2:04 PM, glen  wrote:
> 
> Ah, sorry. It was just the SEP entry: 
> https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/intuitionism-ethics/
> I recommend Michael Huemer 
> <https://linkprotect.cudasvc.com/url?a=https%3a%2f%2fphilpapers.org%2fs%2fMichael%20Huemer=E,1,GCAjVsLoRwQbraVFFet0wN9K5TC-LyJMknzc6tkNO6qO8gY6c5hdskjYh2mbSV3nYOFzPmgj8kWNSzhWoh2zW2-L8fzUQDYGjFOsPo3SmhUl5tS-3uxpaCokZARm=1>
>  ... though I disagree with almost everything he writes. 8^D
> 
> 
> On 12/10/22 07:45, David Eric Smith wrote:
>> Glen, it looks like there were two copies of the same pain link there.  The 
>> one on ethical intuitionism seems to have been missing.  Do you still have 
>> it handy?
>> Eric
>>> On Dec 9, 2022, at 4:11 PM, glen  wrote:
>>> 
>>> Well, sure. You can always split hairs. But, generally, they're not such 
>>> divergent uses of the word. The difference between a testable scientific 
>>> thesis and an as yet unproven math sentence isn't that large. Science, in 
>>> general, is more tolerant to inconsistency than math languages. But as 
>>> EricS broached, things like intuitionism, hott's univalence, proof 
>>> assistants, etc. seem to me similar to some well-honed domains of science.
>>> 
>>> I do see a stark difference when we get up to the higher order languages 
>>> like psychology, though. In particular, I'm trying to make sense of the 
>>> psycho part of the biopsychosocial [cough] model (BPS): 
>>> https://linkprotect.cudasvc.com/url?a=https%3a%2f%2fcoepes.nih.gov%2fmodule%2fmr-lane-acute-farm-injury-chronic-pain%2fbiopsychosocial-model-health=E,1,rdU9xOlBczOzL-oUXcUH7nFJTLCyAERIIxyENQJOC5cTrdQkJuCJyA8yZtH10cNdmUPU-Xgn1Tn0Pcc1DTlMGTHG1Nu4erAxILXmQZpVlQ,,=1
>>> 
>>> It reminds me of "ethical intuitionism": 
>>> https://linkprotect.cudasvc.com/url?a=https%3a%2f%2fcoepes.nih.gov%2fmodule%2fmr-lane-acute-farm-injury-chronic-pain%2fbiopsychosocial-model-health=E,1,OlgPHfTROYLaKSGwpwtboiBkbroLvIXHUDR_iadGfT5k2QlRuyMBiSGCI64AUiwopal3SvdixbcA2y0Tqe8kV031dIy3BfGJUgCmBY-0knThW7U,=1
>>>  or things like "natural law": 
>>> https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/natural-law-ethics/ Or perhaps Nick's 
>>> definition of "logic". All these uses of "theory" seem closer to some sort 
>>> of anthropocentric sense of *mind* or mental activity. And that's pretty 
>>> far away from math's usage. But it still feels like a spectrum, not so much 
>>> a difference in kind. The main parameter(s) is(are) whatever methodology 
>>> for error correction, validation. *How* one claims to predict with and 
>>> validate the BPS is as diverse as the people who use the term. At best, the 
>>> methods are difficult to export from your mind/lab. At  worst, it's not a 
>>> coherent theory at all.
>>> 
>>> 
>>> On 12/9/22 11:11, Frank Wimberly wrote:
>>>> The use of the word "theory" in mathematics is different than in other 
>>>> realms.  For example group theory and measure theory are, to 
>>>> mathematicians, self contained systems of axioms and theorems.
>>>> ---
>>>> Frank C. Wimberly
>>>> 140 Calle Ojo Feliz,
>>>> Santa Fe, NM 87505
>>>> 505 670-9918
>>>> Santa Fe, NM
>>>> On Fri, Dec 9, 2022, 11:50 AM glen >>> <mailto:geprope...@gmail.com>> wrote:
>>>>Following a common thread between EricS' and SteveS' responses, I'm 
>>>> compelled to say that "model" is a useless term and we should find any and 
>>>> every reason to *stop* using it. I've found "analog" to be a more useful 
>>>> term. To EricS' point, an analog is something outside our selves. And to 
>>>> SteveS' point, it refines one's intention down to a more manageable subset 
>>>> of whatever some other might be trying to say. (And it further addresses 
>>>> the maps we call analogies and [ptouie] metaphors.) It's not objective, of 
>>>> course. But it's better than the nonsensical mess whatever yahoo might 
>>>> mean when they use the useless word "model".
>>>>As for "theory", my own arbitrary interactions with that word imply 
>>>> that a theory is nothing but a collection of hypo-theses. The extent to 
>>>> which the theses are more than hypo then tells us the extent to which the 
>>>> "theory" is operationally reliable (thanks for that phrase, Eric). The 
>>>> composition of theses into a theory isn't trivial. Again, in my limited 
&

Re: [FRIAM] models

[David Eric Smith]

Glen, it looks like there were two copies of the same pain link there.  The one 
on ethical intuitionism seems to have been missing.  Do you still have it handy?

Eric


> On Dec 9, 2022, at 4:11 PM, glen  wrote:
> 
> Well, sure. You can always split hairs. But, generally, they're not such 
> divergent uses of the word. The difference between a testable scientific 
> thesis and an as yet unproven math sentence isn't that large. Science, in 
> general, is more tolerant to inconsistency than math languages. But as EricS 
> broached, things like intuitionism, hott's univalence, proof assistants, etc. 
> seem to me similar to some well-honed domains of science.
> 
> I do see a stark difference when we get up to the higher order languages like 
> psychology, though. In particular, I'm trying to make sense of the psycho 
> part of the biopsychosocial [cough] model (BPS): 
> https://linkprotect.cudasvc.com/url?a=https%3a%2f%2fcoepes.nih.gov%2fmodule%2fmr-lane-acute-farm-injury-chronic-pain%2fbiopsychosocial-model-health=E,1,rdU9xOlBczOzL-oUXcUH7nFJTLCyAERIIxyENQJOC5cTrdQkJuCJyA8yZtH10cNdmUPU-Xgn1Tn0Pcc1DTlMGTHG1Nu4erAxILXmQZpVlQ,,=1
> 
> It reminds me of "ethical intuitionism": 
> https://linkprotect.cudasvc.com/url?a=https%3a%2f%2fcoepes.nih.gov%2fmodule%2fmr-lane-acute-farm-injury-chronic-pain%2fbiopsychosocial-model-health=E,1,OlgPHfTROYLaKSGwpwtboiBkbroLvIXHUDR_iadGfT5k2QlRuyMBiSGCI64AUiwopal3SvdixbcA2y0Tqe8kV031dIy3BfGJUgCmBY-0knThW7U,=1
>  or things like "natural law": 
> https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/natural-law-ethics/ Or perhaps Nick's 
> definition of "logic". All these uses of "theory" seem closer to some sort of 
> anthropocentric sense of *mind* or mental activity. And that's pretty far 
> away from math's usage. But it still feels like a spectrum, not so much a 
> difference in kind. The main parameter(s) is(are) whatever methodology for 
> error correction, validation. *How* one claims to predict with and validate 
> the BPS is as diverse as the people who use the term. At best, the methods 
> are difficult to export from your mind/lab. At  worst, it's not a coherent 
> theory at all.
> 
> 
> On 12/9/22 11:11, Frank Wimberly wrote:
>> The use of the word "theory" in mathematics is different than in other 
>> realms.  For example group theory and measure theory are, to mathematicians, 
>> self contained systems of axioms and theorems.
>> ---
>> Frank C. Wimberly
>> 140 Calle Ojo Feliz,
>> Santa Fe, NM 87505
>> 505 670-9918
>> Santa Fe, NM
>> On Fri, Dec 9, 2022, 11:50 AM glen > > wrote:
>>Following a common thread between EricS' and SteveS' responses, I'm 
>> compelled to say that "model" is a useless term and we should find any and 
>> every reason to *stop* using it. I've found "analog" to be a more useful 
>> term. To EricS' point, an analog is something outside our selves. And to 
>> SteveS' point, it refines one's intention down to a more manageable subset 
>> of whatever some other might be trying to say. (And it further addresses the 
>> maps we call analogies and [ptouie] metaphors.) It's not objective, of 
>> course. But it's better than the nonsensical mess whatever yahoo might mean 
>> when they use the useless word "model".
>>As for "theory", my own arbitrary interactions with that word imply that 
>> a theory is nothing but a collection of hypo-theses. The extent to which the 
>> theses are more than hypo then tells us the extent to which the "theory" is 
>> operationally reliable (thanks for that phrase, Eric). The composition of 
>> theses into a theory isn't trivial. Again, in my limited and arbitrary 
>> experience, people vary a great deal in the extent to which they consider 
>> the ways one thesis can be combined with another. If composition of theses 
>> into theory is *not* explicitly considered, the result is garbage, even if 
>> you're composing hyper-theses. c.f. my prior screeds on the unjustified 
>> dominance of *consistency* as fundamental to theoretical coherence, almost 
>> totally ignoring completeness.
>> At a recent conference, a friend presented knowledge graphs (KGs) 
>> as a way to organize "facts" (actually just cryptically justified 
>> sentences). We'd intended for me to give my arching presentation couching 
>> KGs in the larger space of computation, data lakes, warehousing, etc. But my 
>> friend had to talk first because we were late and he had a hard time wall. 
>> At the end of his talk (without the context I intended to paint), an 
>> audience member asked a "question": 'How is this any different than what we 
>> used to do in the '60s, writing ideas on index cards and laying them out on 
>> the floor? That's a KG!' My friend gave a polite and professional answer ... 
>> way more polite than how I would have answered. >8^D You've been warned. Do 
>> not invite me to your cocktail party.
>>Then I gave my talk, wherein I explained how multigraphs might resolve 
>> the apparent contradiction between data 

Re: [FRIAM] models

[David Eric Smith]

n.b. this is a fun note overall, and my only responding to one tiny part of it 
is not meant as a disregard of the rest; just acknowledgment that I am not 
prepared to imagine I can say anything original over much of the framing of the 
question.

But, to a detail:

> On Dec 8, 2022, at 9:44 PM, Prof David West  wrote:
> 
> 4- Is it correct to say that Quantum Physics has a superlative model, but no 
> theory? (The dictum to, "to shut up and compute" seems to support an 
> affirmative answer to this question.
> 5- is a metaphor a model?

People’s response to QM has always puzzled me.  I listen to their objections, 
and what I hear is “you can construct arguments without getting lost, but they 
don’t give you emotional reassurance, so you find the edifice unsatisfactory”.  

I would have expected the contemplatives, of all people, to be eager to engage 
with this question.  If you say to them, of anything they do, that they seem to 
be motivated by a desire for emotional stimulation, they will say (patiently or 
dismissively, according to their personalities) to you that emotion is a mere 
decoration; they would not traffic in such trivialities; they are referring to 
Awareness.  Just like cognition is a mere decoration, little more than 
“opinion” (c.f. a John Cogan essay on Fink’s direction of phenomenology); all 
just paintings on the wall of Plato’s cave; they are standing outside in the 
true light of Awareness, reachable only through a “self-meditation” on “I am”.  
(Those are not scare quotes; they are verbatims.)

I look at QM and I think:  Here you are given a chance to participate in 
constructions that satisfy some very stringent empirical conditions of truth, 
without the crutch of emotional reassurance, a thing that in so many other 
areas has allowed you to dodge the question of when you are really 
understanding by supposing that, if you feel okay about it, it must be okay.  
When we take that crutch away, you have an opportunity to explore a dimension 
of truth where you are not in danger of being tempted by your crutches, because 
they are no longer available.  Can you participate in an awareness of this 
notion of what is true or correct?


A colleague of mine mentioned a thing that I had never considered.  I haven’t 
checked it, but suspect it is correct just based on how these things go.  (Not 
hard to check; I am just too lazy and too busy.)  The assertion is that, in the 
spectrum of Hawking radiation around a black hole, the dominant intensity is at 
a wavelength corresponding to the diameter of the black hole.  (As with all 
things BH, it seems that every property is controlled directly by one number, 
so dimensional analysis gets you almost all the way to most answers.)  

So if you fall into a BH, whatever the correct resolution of the unitarity 
problem is, it presumably will entail that you _are_ Schroedinger’s cat.

I imagined wanting to write a paper with the title “Do I feel like 
Schroedinger’s cat?”.  (If only I had any actual article text to put after the 
title….)

The point was to have been, in the sentence “you are Schroedinger’s cat”, the 
problem words are not “Schroedinger’s cat”.  The problem words are “you” and 
“are”.  Schroedinger’s cat is the one operationally reliable part of that 
sentence.  It is the notions of “you” and “are” in our folk theories that are 
deficient, and this test problem offers us possible clues of how to improve 
them.  To try to understand how the aspect of subjectivity comes into existence 
in the world, without simply referencing it to an equally undefined trope of 
the “objective”.  Rather test subjectivity in an arena that was not constructed 
by its own presupposition of an ontology.

Because I don’t understand the core of the contemplative project (and also that 
of intuitionism as a “philosophy” (?) of mathematics), I am left to respond to 
the surface sounds of things.  And it is in the similarities of those sounds 
that I would imagine a shared interest in exploring notions of truth that are 
interesting precisely because, in a certain sense, they are “clean”.

But, that conversation about QM is going to go on in the track it has already 
worn for itself, because that is much what people prefer, and a little kibitzer 
on the sidelines is not going to get them to prefer otherwise.  

Eric



-. --- - / ...- .- .-.. .. -.. / -- --- .-. ... . / -.-. --- -.. .
FRIAM Applied Complexity Group listserv
Fridays 9a-12p Friday St. Johns Cafe   /   Thursdays 9a-12p Zoom 
https://bit.ly/virtualfriam
to (un)subscribe http://redfish.com/mailman/listinfo/friam_redfish.com
FRIAM-COMIC http://friam-comic.blogspot.com/
archives:  5/2017 thru present https://redfish.com/pipermail/friam_redfish.com/
  1/2003 thru 6/2021  http://friam.383.s1.nabble.com/

Re: [FRIAM] For Nick: tornadoes in the infrared

[David Eric Smith]

This is rather magnificent.  And the stable structure is an octagon.

If I don’t mis-remember, the stable vortex winds we see on the pole(s?) of 
Saturn is hexagonal.

Hmm.  Packing of conical objects in a sphere….

Eric



> On Nov 30, 2022, at 9:50 PM, Stephen Guerin  
> wrote:
> 
> One is as wide as the distance between Naples and NYC. winds can reach 220 
> miles per hour.  The yellow measures around 9 degrees and the dark red 
> reaches 181 degrees Fahrenheit.
> 
> NASA image from north pole of Jupiter. 
> -. --- - / ...- .- .-.. .. -.. / -- --- .-. ... . / 
> -.-. --- -.. .
> FRIAM Applied Complexity Group listserv
> Fridays 9a-12p Friday St. Johns Cafe   /   Thursdays 9a-12p Zoom 
> https://linkprotect.cudasvc.com/url?a=https%3a%2f%2fbit.ly%2fvirtualfriam=E,1,Phgm9sSGrziUl-p6hQwU6m0DiVuqX1Hz-6UnmCmlXWVrKVKMwe1z67vfooIcW1vAlaPTU0jUfp330QdoS4FUrOcLw4_j4TirJzJxH_zoJg3oqxip5cLcZyubKA,,=1
> to (un)subscribe 
> https://linkprotect.cudasvc.com/url?a=http%3a%2f%2fredfish.com%2fmailman%2flistinfo%2ffriam_redfish.com=E,1,eiDeWjyfM36k7yW9ewEcQ2oiy4pBeDS7FMaCm2MQRfKBp4Ox4HhTBtGYmDJmt4KZP70PmsygBLRFQoVDDuDuR3C3dsaCuk1a663Y8FnP2rjlRg,,=1
> FRIAM-COMIC 
> https://linkprotect.cudasvc.com/url?a=http%3a%2f%2ffriam-comic.blogspot.com%2f=E,1,cCAbnXNqSwGs4Oz2jV6EGw0MwRyhMmf9J1FevzRL9rbMmVn42cqiYoRDxrNEe_C2zD8pibhMXPT61woNmRqUvpuh6lvyg_YXUflznxH-7drasgVBeaG8G5E,=1
> archives:  5/2017 thru present 
> https://linkprotect.cudasvc.com/url?a=https%3a%2f%2fredfish.com%2fpipermail%2ffriam_redfish.com%2f=E,1,wtyhmNqLwixOBG8DiuGtSrvh909wNODoAaOtUTiaP3hbymW9edpEFzD6nY-tZ7Ik9JxrEL_Uh84WNC2EztZuHGwM0MqGJGNiHd_VHGTdNez2z81hS1cC=1
>  1/2003 thru 6/2021  http://friam.383.s1.nabble.com/

-. --- - / ...- .- .-.. .. -.. / -- --- .-. ... . / -.-. --- -.. .
FRIAM Applied Complexity Group listserv
Fridays 9a-12p Friday St. Johns Cafe   /   Thursdays 9a-12p Zoom 
https://bit.ly/virtualfriam
to (un)subscribe http://redfish.com/mailman/listinfo/friam_redfish.com
FRIAM-COMIC http://friam-comic.blogspot.com/
archives:  5/2017 thru present https://redfish.com/pipermail/friam_redfish.com/
  1/2003 thru 6/2021  http://friam.383.s1.nabble.com/

Re: [FRIAM] collective sheepishness

[David Eric Smith]

I wonder if there are ADHD sheep, who always want to move because after a few 
seconds they are bored where they are.

In a random assignment of leadership (leadersheep?), the ADHD ones might show 
up to take the lead role much more often, since they want to move much more 
often.

Come to think of it, I wonder how Aeschylus believed this should have been 
navigated in early Athenian democracies.

Maybe sheep also manage reputational effects, and discount the constant 
agitation of the always-bored (?)

Eric



> On Nov 21, 2022, at 9:26 AM, Roger Critchlow  wrote:
> 
> From hackernews 
> https://www.nature.com/articles/s41567-022-01769-8 
> 
> corrected link from comments to 
> "Sheep flocks alternate their leader and achieve collective intelligence"
> The secret sauce of american democracy.
> 
> -- rec --
> -. --- - / ...- .- .-.. .. -.. / -- --- .-. ... . / -.-. --- -.. .
> FRIAM Applied Complexity Group listserv
> Fridays 9a-12p Friday St. Johns Cafe   /   Thursdays 9a-12p Zoom 
> https://linkprotect.cudasvc.com/url?a=https%3a%2f%2fbit.ly%2fvirtualfriam=E,1,Po7_FpJDc9L76e7_gBKDMjLSKbWqlMIo5je2Dj0rc8nInjseaX7svQooa8NTVNcHUv2eb0Ft9QOYPgiuedMPwZqftZbXO44BR9IqoJRgFQxDMA,,=1
> to (un)subscribe 
> https://linkprotect.cudasvc.com/url?a=http%3a%2f%2fredfish.com%2fmailman%2flistinfo%2ffriam_redfish.com=E,1,74_-VJPAHPm9PPECvhOOtneWKNxl2_nOFB7gsI4Toe-LQy0A1DD62XmKwFBU_bDsdisXW89fMR7TDZm4qTw1moou0EREfvtwtqU5WAgEorhBYEFHFLCFmjFVmQ,,=1
> FRIAM-COMIC 
> https://linkprotect.cudasvc.com/url?a=http%3a%2f%2ffriam-comic.blogspot.com%2f=E,1,cFzP4pn0PhWRC56V9DL5MBcJTF3HXJMgSx01-CzpI4JY-X39psxFrGEHkz1E4v1aE00ndcDiW9IdKffLVYOQYxqvu5wdmW7LnibIxwf7696onHsu9kEFj6DAmauz=1
> archives:  5/2017 thru present 
> https://linkprotect.cudasvc.com/url?a=https%3a%2f%2fredfish.com%2fpipermail%2ffriam_redfish.com%2f=E,1,gm90Rww54d5p_5qxqk9uo73lfgH0KGMBnDTpIIfZaTbDs-47XUgcOtA5no2U0MooHASezeT-H2Tte8-18rW4x-LY4MLJpQuXYiSbJaoHsT2_MuPpGQeU7ngtIw2h=1
>  1/2003 thru 6/2021  http://friam.383.s1.nabble.com/

-. --- - / ...- .- .-.. .. -.. / -- --- .-. ... . / -.-. --- -.. .
FRIAM Applied Complexity Group listserv
Fridays 9a-12p Friday St. Johns Cafe   /   Thursdays 9a-12p Zoom 
https://bit.ly/virtualfriam
to (un)subscribe http://redfish.com/mailman/listinfo/friam_redfish.com
FRIAM-COMIC http://friam-comic.blogspot.com/
archives:  5/2017 thru present https://redfish.com/pipermail/friam_redfish.com/
  1/2003 thru 6/2021  http://friam.383.s1.nabble.com/

Re: [FRIAM] (not) leaving Twitter

[David Eric Smith]

On Nov 17, 2022, at 12:23 PM, Roger Critchlow  wrote:
> 
> The old Los Alamos National Bank, LANB, was founded by a LANL scientist as an 
> antidote to big-bank homogenization.  There are still hints of that origin in 
> https://www.linkedin.com/company/los-alamos-national-bank/ 
> , but LANB sold 
> itself out to a big bank several years ago.

Yeah, btw, that really sucked.

I got to know LANB when I had first moved to Los Alamos, was getting around 
only on foot, and was there sitting on their curb on a morning before work 
waiting for them to open.

Some guy in a suit came by and asked if he could help me, and I said something 
snotty and completely uncalled-for about bankers working bankers hours.  So he 
let me in and started the opening of an account for me.  That was Bill Enloe.

A few years later I needed a mortgage loan for a house, had just lost something 
like 100k in two days on a Pharma that didn’t get a good outcome on a clinical 
trial, which I had wanted to have for collateral, and could not sell a house in 
Austin that I was in because I had a renter who had just lost his job in the 
market downturn, and I wasn’t willing to throw him out, even as the house lost 
about 1k in market value per week as the whole market there was falling apart 
too.  Then got Salmonella or something from an egg sandwich in the ABQ airport 
flying back from somewhere (Austin?) to make the loan.  People who knew me said 
they had never seen anyone as white as I apparently was for several days after 
the first 24 hours of violent illness.  I went to the loan officer’s office, 
and after about a minute sitting there talking to her, asked if I could lie on 
my back on her floor while we spoke so I wouldn’t pass out.  Finished the loan 
negotiations in that form.  When my realtor asked to look through the various 
papers as part of negotiating the closure, he commented “man, you got a really 
good loan”.  I will protect the loan officer's name for her own privacy, but 
remember it instantly in any context.

In the decades after that, I spent increasing time with George Cowan at work 
and sometimes off-line, and got to learn a little more about the history of 
that effort, along with some of his others.  What an extraordinary guy he was, 
and it showed in the things he built.  He richly deserved the Baldridge award, 
and much more.

The bank that acquired them does not have that kind of history, I think.

Those kinds of proud relations have always been rare, and they seem to be 
damned near extinct any more.

Eric



-. --- - / ...- .- .-.. .. -.. / -- --- .-. ... . / -.-. --- -.. .
FRIAM Applied Complexity Group listserv
Fridays 9a-12p Friday St. Johns Cafe   /   Thursdays 9a-12p Zoom 
https://bit.ly/virtualfriam
to (un)subscribe http://redfish.com/mailman/listinfo/friam_redfish.com
FRIAM-COMIC http://friam-comic.blogspot.com/
archives:  5/2017 thru present https://redfish.com/pipermail/friam_redfish.com/
  1/2003 thru 6/2021  http://friam.383.s1.nabble.com/

Re: [FRIAM] Obligatory (and gratuitous?) screed about time changes.

[David Eric Smith]

Could we split the difference and put it half-way between the two?

That way we would be an even number of hours offset from India.

> On Nov 4, 2022, at 6:09 PM, Steve Smith  wrote:
> 
> as we all know I'm no fan of semi-annual clock changes... and I thought the 
> Sunshine Act  
> would put an 
> end to that nonsense even if did fall on the "wrong side" with a year-round 
> DST timesqew.   Looks like it is going to fail despite bipartisan support in 
> the Senate (unsurprising that Florida, closest to the equator, effected 
> least, would be the one to sponsor/promote it?)...  
> 
> Oregon (in coordination with CA/WA) have tried to take things into their own 
> hands independent of the rest of the country?
> 
> https://www.statesmanjournal.com/story/news/2022/11/03/oregon-daylight-saving-time-november-march/69613463007/
>  
> 
> 
> I suppose I could live with the sqew and just change the idioms from 12 noon 
> and 12 midnight to 11 noon and 11 midnight and call it a day/year/life.   
> Seems like it would just make more sense to sqew the 8-5 (or 9-4) for 
> bankers) an hour earlier instead, but what is the point of having a 
> state/federal/global government if it isn't going to decide for you how we 
> index time?
> 
> 
> 
> -. --- - / ...- .- .-.. .. -.. / -- --- .-. ... . / -.-. --- -.. .
> FRIAM Applied Complexity Group listserv
> Fridays 9a-12p Friday St. Johns Cafe   /   Thursdays 9a-12p Zoom 
> https://linkprotect.cudasvc.com/url?a=https%3a%2f%2fbit.ly%2fvirtualfriam=E,1,gTOGpqTsteJC-1TtE2_jwlwuD6YR1N42TNMCDBfDeuAi95pSt-V8RF-495bpKOhDnZF_CUxjkEt12IlEIk2Ky7sYsTysvnh3_SrdjKAgNg,,=1
> to (un)subscribe 
> https://linkprotect.cudasvc.com/url?a=http%3a%2f%2fredfish.com%2fmailman%2flistinfo%2ffriam_redfish.com=E,1,tA4JuXLOr37A5fYnVmy6B0SSBXgitDQev0FStTT3NoDzNBQ7Ta5z2h5BE_HmeNCFHqgtiT3GLxCbmAuh4MF2QqOo7SelbSx15oDwfZSEO7ANzArLVBKldgxvNw,,=1
> FRIAM-COMIC 
> https://linkprotect.cudasvc.com/url?a=http%3a%2f%2ffriam-comic.blogspot.com%2f=E,1,GFCar6n8HOH1infGuWs82RrlY8UCZtVdmBcYWMLs_tM0_tpVXTv2Imx5iOo8_weAPRqTaIiSjq3gLVhfRxwwM9EKAxcATm-LJC_ofoVLi72VexZ3KC6MUkw,=1
> archives:  5/2017 thru present 
> https://linkprotect.cudasvc.com/url?a=https%3a%2f%2fredfish.com%2fpipermail%2ffriam_redfish.com%2f=E,1,Uqh8FWR_7y4_yMNpUPPFg9XuKfoBVZIom_Tl9-6gnXnsSuwd0AEevc0FIwvuOBSbV9llCxRNNFaj8QZ-I98gctlQfGGI6IUmW6ALYZ6bcazgJXb4u1MMOGjKdw,,=1
>  1/2003 thru 6/2021  http://friam.383.s1.nabble.com/

-. --- - / ...- .- .-.. .. -.. / -- --- .-. ... . / -.-. --- -.. .
FRIAM Applied Complexity Group listserv
Fridays 9a-12p Friday St. Johns Cafe   /   Thursdays 9a-12p Zoom 
https://bit.ly/virtualfriam
to (un)subscribe http://redfish.com/mailman/listinfo/friam_redfish.com
FRIAM-COMIC http://friam-comic.blogspot.com/
archives:  5/2017 thru present https://redfish.com/pipermail/friam_redfish.com/
  1/2003 thru 6/2021  http://friam.383.s1.nabble.com/

Re: [FRIAM] moral of the story?

[David Eric Smith]

Well that’s a relief.

> On Oct 21, 2022, at 7:07 PM, glen  wrote:
> 
> Experiments Spell Doom for Decades-Old Explanation of Quantum Weirdness
> https://linkprotect.cudasvc.com/url?a=https%3a%2f%2fwww.quantamagazine.org%2fphysics-experiments-spell-doom-for-quantum-collapse-theory-20221020%2f=E,1,-mmN8nOyAT2DAXQn1N4CWTHewEcX_tBE1KTRff2jSA639X2Th5DcR2LoTctujAWwj5tagSkOawiqdKl-PPWaoBaehEsTm0ja-6WGjfG-kPEdvro0um5DOovMe9M,=1
>> (Weeks after he submitted his paper, he was struck by lightning on a hiking 
>> trip in Utah and killed.)
> Don't let you hypothesizers go hiking in Utah.
> 
> -- 
> ꙮ Mɥǝu ǝlǝdɥɐuʇs ɟᴉƃɥʇ' ʇɥǝ ƃɹɐss snɟɟǝɹs˙ ꙮ
> 
> -. --- - / ...- .- .-.. .. -.. / -- --- .-. ... . / -.-. --- -.. .
> FRIAM Applied Complexity Group listserv
> Fridays 9a-12p Friday St. Johns Cafe   /   Thursdays 9a-12p Zoom 
> https://linkprotect.cudasvc.com/url?a=https%3a%2f%2fbit.ly%2fvirtualfriam=E,1,HJKb0meXxkFFFHfylNUKqmGIEmQwhgq6eg6S5AdYBnqnlyy-fDcaf8MejY3hTPpiPqtRl81lMHgoboRkv-G5SGFA8tTwRspniKMQgPAZhiDSA2O1Qu5-L4ZmD1o,=1
> to (un)subscribe 
> https://linkprotect.cudasvc.com/url?a=http%3a%2f%2fredfish.com%2fmailman%2flistinfo%2ffriam_redfish.com=E,1,hakVAmfgPoVOHrnWAoOUWcRoD21CadGfmcDaIadC-3kwvoqUolma3XINr_769VObMt3nJ2mjLiFrvQJYmwUQxKKue4eQ86UX7ZK6Ogm0bM7lbH84CHK6=1
> FRIAM-COMIC 
> https://linkprotect.cudasvc.com/url?a=http%3a%2f%2ffriam-comic.blogspot.com%2f=E,1,jXsGRUZBaVF-WTB4TT_5fZ1kr7S3S3-KXI4wMqVDMT4IIo0Z2cnigy7oJ5b57Twu9rTPxZ1HGnwsk7gcMnNNhsDAjtofzbA_93tUfkv2iweODDlzmvQhuA,,=1
> archives:  5/2017 thru present 
> https://linkprotect.cudasvc.com/url?a=https%3a%2f%2fredfish.com%2fpipermail%2ffriam_redfish.com%2f=E,1,QlUttrGTdLOz8re1snuxqxE__UCt1tPOifdyAfa9Y-0LICgvXP8jC-aRmJu-jSFyS_F3q0-2iyY_ACYrJMXLMEfPeUbr_gbhK2Qkhxg-7BWRCmWw=1
> 1/2003 thru 6/2021  http://friam.383.s1.nabble.com/


-. --- - / ...- .- .-.. .. -.. / -- --- .-. ... . / -.-. --- -.. .
FRIAM Applied Complexity Group listserv
Fridays 9a-12p Friday St. Johns Cafe   /   Thursdays 9a-12p Zoom 
https://bit.ly/virtualfriam
to (un)subscribe http://redfish.com/mailman/listinfo/friam_redfish.com
FRIAM-COMIC http://friam-comic.blogspot.com/
archives:  5/2017 thru present https://redfish.com/pipermail/friam_redfish.com/
  1/2003 thru 6/2021  http://friam.383.s1.nabble.com/

[FRIAM] What is the response when bad faith is pervasive and coordinated?

[David Eric Smith]

https://www.nytimes.com/2022/09/28/us/politics/election-activists-voter-challenges.html
 


To moan about this may have some small role early, to try to raise awareness 
(to compensate for the absence of a News industry that functions as such).  But 
after that, it ceases to be a response, and decays into an abnegation and a 
waste of time.

Responses are institutional.  What is the institutional response to what, by 
now, sort of qualifies as a public movement to disintegrate the society?  “When 
in the Course of human events [a certain group of people decide] to dissolve 
the political bands which have connected them [with others]….”   For things 
that have been around for a long time, like frivolous use of lawsuits, we have 
arrived at some norms for throwing out mistakes and actively penalizing abuses, 
a kind of detente within which we can function at some level from day to day.  
For more acute recent changes, like handling immigration claims, we are not 
doing so, and we approach jamming transitions.  For this electoral contesting, 
I don’t know if there even is an institutional plan.

I would like to have something in my head about this that qualifies as a 
thought or an idea.

Eric


-. --- - / ...- .- .-.. .. -.. / -- --- .-. ... . / -.-. --- -.. .
FRIAM Applied Complexity Group listserv
Fridays 9a-12p Friday St. Johns Cafe   /   Thursdays 9a-12p Zoom 
https://bit.ly/virtualfriam
to (un)subscribe http://redfish.com/mailman/listinfo/friam_redfish.com
FRIAM-COMIC http://friam-comic.blogspot.com/
archives:  5/2017 thru present https://redfish.com/pipermail/friam_redfish.com/
  1/2003 thru 6/2021  http://friam.383.s1.nabble.com/

Re: [FRIAM] Automata with FFT

[David Eric Smith]

It’s funny; I know Bert.  

One of our colleagues played a role in bringing him out to work at Google in 
Tokyo.  

A mathematician (Will Cavendish) who has part-time support at IAS 
https://www.ias.edu/scholars/will-cavendish
is also interested in the mathematical dimensions of this, though I have only a 
glancing exposure to how those two together are trying to frame the problems.  
Because Bert has come at it more from the ALife/engineering approach, and 
Will’s interests run more in the direction of proving capabilities of broad 
classes of systems, often interested in their aggregation as categories  (and 
also about the role of simulation as a replacement for proof in systems that 
produce complicated enough state spaces), it should be a productive and 
interesting collaboration.  I don’t know how engaged others are in the Google 
group on this specific project, because I am too far outside that loop.

Eric 

> On Sep 23, 2022, at 4:03 PM, Jon Zingale  wrote:
> 
> https://arxiv.org/pdf/1812.05433.pdf 
> -. --- - / ...- .- .-.. .. -.. / -- --- .-. ... . / -.-. --- -.. .
> FRIAM Applied Complexity Group listserv
> Fridays 9a-12p Friday St. Johns Cafe   /   Thursdays 9a-12p Zoom 
> https://linkprotect.cudasvc.com/url?a=https%3a%2f%2fbit.ly%2fvirtualfriam=E,1,0pWzNXXX_Raq1eysHKyZRDqVeCy2N9yFnpvE7ppkOw8ohyJkCG___HK8xiT75dOTEj2sLBnpc2yeHoHiCzLQd5fPbpnK8tXfJim_ca1E=1
> to (un)subscribe 
> https://linkprotect.cudasvc.com/url?a=http%3a%2f%2fredfish.com%2fmailman%2flistinfo%2ffriam_redfish.com=E,1,1fwzu0qXJcoPS0fEaZcwW56FTdFRep42N9rDBi91_G2-PvGVGW2HzuAVcOPxE4osJJNtfCcw2yx0zVVHx1RlKlemHECAf6q7SrlZk2KL72RfJOw,=1
> FRIAM-COMIC 
> https://linkprotect.cudasvc.com/url?a=http%3a%2f%2ffriam-comic.blogspot.com%2f=E,1,I4Gv708ZTI4rOSVpH5Ua680y6GPxPt_Q8fpOnaz7Ewno-4sRs7jmmEcuBBLI4m0DgDXAd1LL-fe9tS1ElomDHGuwLXwKbwNJgMUFGkfThmA,=1
> archives:  5/2017 thru present 
> https://linkprotect.cudasvc.com/url?a=https%3a%2f%2fredfish.com%2fpipermail%2ffriam_redfish.com%2f=E,1,BpuhRd8UczAd-KUTPi2oL0WshLt3g6g8vXSP44WMywuXJOOFOcDRJdjP0KyqD5wpmQU0Xp10qw1i5sOdGvhB7DwhZAT1ZAYGqj0vhaEeXTKJC4XCsznLi7Y,=1
>  1/2003 thru 6/2021  http://friam.383.s1.nabble.com/

-. --- - / ...- .- .-.. .. -.. / -- --- .-. ... . / -.-. --- -.. .
FRIAM Applied Complexity Group listserv
Fridays 9a-12p Friday St. Johns Cafe   /   Thursdays 9a-12p Zoom 
https://bit.ly/virtualfriam
to (un)subscribe http://redfish.com/mailman/listinfo/friam_redfish.com
FRIAM-COMIC http://friam-comic.blogspot.com/
archives:  5/2017 thru present https://redfish.com/pipermail/friam_redfish.com/
  1/2003 thru 6/2021  http://friam.383.s1.nabble.com/

Re: [FRIAM] stygmergy, CA's, and [biological] development

[David Eric Smith]

There is a formalism for discrete-event dynamical systems known as “bond 
graphs”.  I haven’t read much about it, but Alan Perelson did some work on this 
when he was young and not famous.

Bond graphs seem to be a slightly more flexible construction than hypergraphs, 
and they contain a subset that are equivalent to hypergraphs.  

I bring them up here because bond graphs may admit a certain duality between 
states and events that interests me, as the right way to move the normal 
concept of Legendre/Lagrange-Hamilton duality for continuous dynamical systems 
into the limiting condition that all change is in discrete events, so the role 
of states and of the events that change states becomes maximally asymmetric, 
whereas in continuous Hamiltonian dynamics they are equivalent in the basic 
kinematics.

Speaking for the hypergraph, which I can describe without making the mistakes I 
would likely make for bond graphs: as I write the hypergraph, states are 
carried by one type of node (the “species” node) while events occur across one 
kind of link (a link connecting two “complexes”)   (Terminology from Horn and 
Jackson and Martin Feinberg for chemical reaction systems.)   The links between 
species and complexes, different in kind than the reaction-links connecting 
complexes, carry the system’s stoichiometry.

Anyway, If the usual duality between coordinates and their conjugate momenta in 
Hamiltonian dynamics were passed to this discrete-event limit, one would want 
to exchange the species nodes, which carry pure “coordinates” of state, with 
the links across which the events changing the state occur.  I forget now why I 
gave up trying to push this through sometime past, but I think it was that 
there is some non-equivalent role of nodes and links in the bipartite-graph way 
of representing the hypergraph that I could not see how to get past.  Bond 
graphs may have enough flexibility to find a proper involution exchanging 
states and events.

That old topic came to mind while I was watching the ant/pheromone thread, 
though not in any clean way.  From one view, ants have states, and pheromones 
mediate the dynamics by which they are updated.  But from another view, ants 
conduct the only events through which the state of the pheromone map is 
permitted to change.  Both of the foregoing characterizations are incomplete, 
as both ant and pheromone clearly have both state and dynamic properties.  But 
some more encompassing mapping that exchanged the part above was what I 
imagined.

I have seen a _very_ little bit of this category-theoretic mapping of large 
domains of representation to one another (through Barry Mazur), so I know that 
“objects” can be pretty heavy things, with a lot carried in the map.  But I was 
curious how either Legendre/Lagrange-Hamilton coordinate-momentum duality, or 
any state-event dualities in discrete-time systems might be classified, and 
whether there was some categorization in which the distinction between 
continuous-time dynamics and discrete-time dynamics (conceived as a limit, or 
as a primitive of its own) might be projected away.  

There is lots to do with entropy, quantum-classical correspondence principles, 
and the like, across this continuous-discrete divide.  Would a category 
representation that treated the continuous and discrete cases as the same also 
induce the map from entropy principles that I think is the right one to go from 
von Neumann entropies in the continuous, to the stochastic effective actions 
that are the correct entropies for the discrete case?  My above thoughts on it 
are surely not well-formed.

Eric




> On Oct 25, 2021, at 1:35 PM, Jon Zingale  wrote:
> 
> Thanks for understanding, Frank. Yes, the duality of vector spaces arises as 
> a particular instance with perfect duality only in the case of 
> finite-dimensional vector spaces. Here is a page outlining a broader 
> discussion: https://ncatlab.org/nlab/show/duality 
> 
> 
> Duality turns out to be a surprisingly general structural construction, and 
> to the degree that categories aim to characterize phenomena (group -> 
> symmetry, set -> size, Dyn -> behavior, etc...), I believe dualities in and 
> between categories can guide quite a lot of rational exploration.
> 
> .-- .- -. - / .- -.-. - .. --- -. ..--.. / -.-. --- -. .--- ..- --. .- - .
> FRIAM Applied Complexity Group listserv
> Zoom Fridays 9:30a-12p Mtn UTC-6  bit.ly/virtualfriam
> un/subscribe 
> https://linkprotect.cudasvc.com/url?a=http%3a%2f%2fredfish.com%2fmailman%2flistinfo%2ffriam_redfish.com=E,1,4uU_WPF54l9-J31qLTZx59VrQuPEefJ0sVs0NaGn4z40pJVubVXjV84OzodeZlDb3e7LiOcYUeRxkEonuKBcFndwLxRIBhoGFL9YGAZybiBLk93YJrED6Rk,=1
> FRIAM-COMIC 
> 

Re: [FRIAM] stygmergy, CA's, and [biological] development

[David Eric Smith]

When I was a very very little kid, there was a “question” my parents pointed 
out to me, which they thought might be an important puzzle to work through, but 
they were busy enough holding life together (more or less like hoping they 
could keep the various dams from breaking from one day to the next) that they 
didn’t lose a lot of time on it.  That one was:

“Is a tomato really a fruit or really a vegetable.”

I wonder if we can give a name to the class of constructions that are of this 
general kind, and distinguish them from the class of constructions that are of 
some other kind.

Eric



> On Oct 19, 2021, at 11:34 PM, Nicholas Thompson  
> wrote:
> 
> Ugh.  I was making fun of myself.  If everything is stigmergy then the word 
> has no interesting use.  
> 
>   I am in danger of confusing it with niche construction.  The concept offers 
> an  alternative to Lamarckian mechanisms for an organism to direct its own 
> evolution.  It's like the inheritance of acquired environments.  I think of 
> it as including such phenomena as squirrels and jays putting acorns in the 
> ground and thus providing an environment rich with food for the winter and 
> also, perhaps, in the very long run, future oak trees.  In some sense, the 
> environment that selects the organism is an environment that is selected by 
> the organism.   
> 
> I think the word does have a use, but only if we distinguish between things 
> left behind that positively affect  those that follow.  To my surprise, the 
> word is apparently of recent origin having been specifically invented to 
> apply to ant pheromone trails in the fifties.  So, I suppose we might narrow 
> it's meaning to objects left to convey information and leave niche 
> construction to apply to objects that provide shelter, nutrition or other 
> benefits to  the finder, eg., acorns, beaver dams, 
> 
> Thanks for pitching in, everybody.  You have helped to drive me out of my 
> post travel lassitude. 
> 
> Nick 
> 
> On Tue, Oct 19, 2021 at 8:36 PM Frank Wimberly  > wrote:
> Aren't we all immersed in stygmergy continuously while we're alive and maybe 
> before and after?  This is a possible interpretation of Nick's comment that 
> everything is stygmergy.
> 
> ---
> Frank C. Wimberly
> 140 Calle Ojo Feliz, 
> Santa Fe, NM 87505
> 
> 505 670-9918
> Santa Fe, NM
> 
> On Tue, Oct 19, 2021, 8:29 PM Marcus Daniels  > wrote:
> What I was driving at is that nature doesn’t give a damn whether we 
> categorize certain globs of stuff as “agents” or “environment” or 
> “transactions”.   Stigmergy could be going all the time in some subtle way we 
> can’t discern because we are looking at the pieces the wrong way.
> 
> > On Oct 19, 2021, at 1:05 PM, uǝlƃ ☤>$  > > wrote:
> > 
> > To be clear though, this requires a flexible understanding of "agent" or 
> > whatever's doing the indirect coordinating "through" the environment. I.e. 
> > "stygmergy" isn't very well defined.
> > 
> >> On 10/19/21 12:58 PM, Marcus Daniels wrote:
> >> Game of Life has been shown to be universal
> >> 
> >>  
> >> 
> >> https://uwe-repository.worktribe.com/output/822575/turing-machine-universality-of-the-game-of-life
> >>  
> >> 
> >>  
> >>  >>  
> >> >
> >> 
> >>  
> >> 
> >> I would expect there are many “intermediate lambda” CAs that behave this 
> >> way, and so could implement any simulation manifesting stigmergy.
> >> 
> >>  
> >> 
> >> *From:* Friam  >> > *On Behalf Of *Jochen Fromm
> >> *Sent:* Tuesday, October 19, 2021 12:40 PM
> >> *To:* The Friday Morning Applied Complexity Coffee Group 
> >> mailto:friam@redfish.com>>
> >> *Subject:* Re: [FRIAM] stygmergy, CA's, and [biological] development
> >> 
> >>  
> >> 
> >> Interesting point. What do the others think? 
> >> 
> >>  
> >> 
> >> I think if you start with an "X" at the top and consider the X as your 
> >> agent and the space to the left and right as the environment then yes, we 
> >> would have a kind of stygmergy model for an agent which interacts in a two 
> >> dimensional world (one space and one time dimension). It is a rather 
> >> limited model though. I am not sure if it is useful :-/
> >> 
> >>  
> >> 
> >> -J.
> >> 
> >>  
> >> 
> >>  
> >> 
> >>  Original message 

Re: [FRIAM] [dis]integrated

[David Eric Smith]

Very nice line in Hossenfelder's podcast, which works because of her rather 
Aspergers delivery.  

What one hears (with a fully sincere affect):

The society of truth-loving men no longer exists.

Had there been a written version, one might have found:

The “Society of Truth-Loving Men” no longer exists.

Both acceptable.

God Bless Sabine.

Eric


> On Oct 14, 2021, at 7:03 PM, uǝlƃ ☤>$  wrote:
> 
> Well, it seems obvious to me (admittedly at risk of imputation or 
> Dunning-Kruger) that we all have both modes in our repertoire. Maybe there 
> are subsets of us who lean hard one way or the other. But I guess that just 
> kicks the can down the road. Too much soldier ⇒ not recognizing when to 
> switch to scout mode. And vice versa, like those pitiful truth-s[uc|ee]kers 
> stuck in a conversation with a zero-sum logicbro.
> 
> It's error-correcting self-attention loops all the way down ... and up. And 
> if you're not exercising your  low/fast interrupts (capsaicin , yoga, LSD, 
> whatever), then you're probably not exercising your high/slow interrupts 
> (active listening, abandoning pet theories, etc.). The idea that we can 
> strengthen the high/slow interrupts without also strengthening the low/fast 
> ones seems fideistic to me ... like telekinesis or somesuch.
> 
> Tangentially, I'm somewhat of a fan of Goertzel. But this worries me:
> 
> Evidence for Psi: Thirteen Empirical Research Reports
> https://linkprotect.cudasvc.com/url?a=https%3a%2f%2fbookshop.org%2fbooks%2fevidence-for-psi-thirteen-empirical-research-reports%2f9780786478286=E,1,wzGTnONTUzfmGhmFisinj17cKD_FmLSmg1C_jkpPC7sVOugtqwM01wfgiWVMy-REH2Uh3iTdPDVZkxoyLD6KgPMA7EaeZbFT9W3s1xBj8TYNWS7w=1
> 
> Maybe one of you has read it? I'm told it contains some fantastic nuggets 
> about statistics, which makes me want a copy. And this video presents a good 
> argument, regardless of the gist:
> 
> How I learned to love pseudoscience
> https://youtu.be/bWV0XIn-rvY
> 
> But I worry about my own ability to switch from scout to soldier ... which is 
> why the right-wing morons I talk to at the pub don't immediately murder me. 
> Once they get to know me, they don't love me anymore.
> 
> On 10/14/21 3:29 PM, Marcus Daniels wrote:
>> Even with a scout mentality there is the problem of modeling the deck of 
>> alternative scenarios that arise from uncertainty in a map.The tendency 
>> to take imputed values for a set of unknown variables is a practical 
>> cognitive resource limitation that one can acknowledge or fail to 
>> acknowledge.To challenge a person’s gut feeling -- all those imputed 
>> values -- and to observe the exasperation (even perceived persecution) that 
>> may result from the challenge is how I distinguish scouts from soldiers.   
>> There are surely some tactical benefits to soldiers running toward the enemy 
>> with their bayonets to not spend a lot of time reflecting on how confident 
>> they are that the person they are running toward is their enemy.
>> 
>> From: Friam  On Behalf Of Jon Zingale
>> Sent: Thursday, October 14, 2021 1:17 PM
>> To: friam@redfish.com
>> Subject: Re: [FRIAM] [dis]integrated
>> 
>> 
>> The Scout Mindset
>> 
>> https://linkprotect.cudasvc.com/url?a=https%3a%2f%2fbookshop.org%2fbooks%2fthe-scout-mindset-why-some-people-see-things-clearly-and-others-don-t%2f9780735217553=E,1,3zlCRFjEuJJ-3kftNjvHchMqPeKe3NJ4etshrs4wu1bDoHn8FPIwjT3EQFSkYEwhrezzsXzlJpEUMPqu_LqT9xQCWzVTwu7FDuKwHQQxyx1k8f12UsFnn-dT=1
> 
> 
> -- 
> "Better to be slapped with the truth than kissed with a lie."
> ☤>$ uǝlƃ
> 
> 
> .-- .- -. - / .- -.-. - .. --- -. ..--.. / -.-. --- -. .--- ..- --. .- - .
> FRIAM Applied Complexity Group listserv
> Zoom Fridays 9:30a-12p Mtn UTC-6  bit.ly/virtualfriam
> un/subscribe 
> https://linkprotect.cudasvc.com/url?a=http%3a%2f%2fredfish.com%2fmailman%2flistinfo%2ffriam_redfish.com=E,1,oNtv9anMskayIBdLCUMVDec4kd4ozgMKDNHurar3RKqaQhwv5YOofhHy4BbEQGtyRR_FQLlJzsSFsVNYGsVEJCwGuBk-Q01arZUUD03AjKxgVMMSLQoVQQ,,=1
> FRIAM-COMIC 
> https://linkprotect.cudasvc.com/url?a=http%3a%2f%2ffriam-comic.blogspot.com%2f=E,1,OMYM_NLjhTJjiLSukn3KsxvnPIlWBajEFAUrL-6Fl7SdPJhWLLUYZVs3u4_d0L4-YFO_riHzQNoMjW7YrqTfC0_V4T-XAYsMbJ8y9AiHrg,,=1
> archives:
> 5/2017 thru present 
> https://linkprotect.cudasvc.com/url?a=https%3a%2f%2fredfish.com%2fpipermail%2ffriam_redfish.com%2f=E,1,k6sThdrRks9BGfx_CNvhzlmJTeSeZYCYEL7pAA1WpyBGUi56FUmsz9yrHitTpn4522wc9qDeCkMJmK1FAFG6t00XORfgvR3njkt-8kNzHZ03=1
> 1/2003 thru 6/2021  http://friam.383.s1.nabble.com/



.-- .- -. - / .- -.-. - .. --- -. ..--.. / -.-. --- -. .--- ..- --. .- - .
FRIAM Applied Complexity Group listserv
Zoom Fridays 9:30a-12p Mtn UTC-6  bit.ly/virtualfriam
un/subscribe http://redfish.com/mailman/listinfo/friam_redfish.com
FRIAM-COMIC http://friam-comic.blogspot.com/
archives:
 5/2017 thru present https://redfish.com/pipermail/friam_redfish.com/
 1/2003 thru 6/2021  http://friam.383.s1.nabble.com/

Re: [FRIAM] [dis]integrated

[David Eric Smith]

You are going to publish that first two paragraphs somewhere, right?

I would not have guessed such a large fraction of people could be taken out 
with so few words.

I am now going to go place an order here, 
https://themalamarket.com/ <https://themalamarket.com/>
for stuff I have had no access too, and am badly hoping their sources are good.

Eric


> On Oct 12, 2021, at 4:53 AM, uǝlƃ ☤>$  wrote:
> 
> I feel that way about anyone who "stands in awe" of anything, actually. We're 
> consistently bombarded with phrases like "the majesty of" this or that ... or 
> this or that "takes my breath away" and whatnot. Maybe we could call such 
> nonsense the Idioms of Awe. Religious belief is the favorite bogey of 
> atheists. But we find it everywhere. Back in Portland, I abutted so many 
> "foodies", it literally dis-gusted me. Food is fuel. That's it. No matter how 
> much the True Believers proselytize the latest fad, that Awesome New 
> Breakfast Place or whatever. It's just food. Please eat so we don't have to 
> hear you talk anymore.
> 
> We see it a lot in our obComplexity crowd. We see it in the Singularians. We 
> see it in the formalists and even the Dionysians. Runners are especially bad, 
> coonnssttantly yapping about their religion. But weightlifters are no better. 
> Even the mobility bros seem to have drunk the Kool-Aid. Pretty much anywhere 
> anyone can "get carried away" with something, you'll find the True Believers 
> waiting in the wings to swoop in and brainwash you.
> 
> At least the Rationalists have a method for mind-changing, unlike most True 
> Believers. But rationality isn't *fascinating*. People need to be fascinated. 
> My own pet theory is that our anatomy has been pressured toward fascination, 
> a desire to concentrate, to focus for an extended time. The trick is to ask, 
> given the target domain/problem/issue, how long do we need to focus on it? 
> Perhaps some domains really do need multiple generations of concentrating 
> individuals. Perhaps some domains only need a few people to focus on it for a 
> year or so.
> 
> In that context, those who are seemingly stuck in some gravity well of True 
> Belief are more pitiful than repulsive. (Or maybe they're repulsive *because* 
> they're so pitiable?) What we need is an education program that gives the 
> pathetic True Believers some tools that help them climb out of their hole. 
> But like the cops responding to a call from a homeless camp littered with 
> human feces and used needles, educating the True Believers can be dangerous. 
> The abyss stares back into you.
> 
> On 10/11/21 12:38 PM, David Eric Smith wrote:
>> Yeah I don’t know.  
>> 
>> For some years I was working in ocean-floor engineering, and got a feel for 
>> seawater.  For all the devices you design, it is all-surrounding and 
>> omnipresent.  It relentlessly intrudes through any crack, seam, or pore, and 
>> it corrodes whatever it touches.  For whatever reason, this describes the 
>> affect of my response to people’s religiosity.  The more genuine and sincere 
>> they are, the stronger my aversion to that in them.  It’s not even the same 
>> as being averse to the whole person.  There are people of whom I think the 
>> world, and to whom I am very attached, in whom I just have to work around 
>> this one radioactive thing.  n.b., however, that all such people are related 
>> to me by birth.  There don’t seem to be any ones I have sought out as 
>> friends of whom that happens to be the case.  Maybe, borderline, one or two 
>> Jews, who seem to have a decorum and sense of proper privacy (those 
>> particular people, I mean) for themselves and for others.
>> 
>> There is another metaphor that also serves.  I have a friend with fairly bad 
>> arachnophobia.  I was commenting that I didn’t know what that would feel 
>> like, as spiders don’t particularly bother me, was for example ticks do.  
>> She commented that it was funny, because her brother had said the same 
>> thing, using the same examples.  The reason, of course, is that most spiders 
>> prefer to mind their own business.  (Some Australian mouse spiders, perhaps 
>> less so.)  For ticks, their business is _you_.  Likewise, there is no box 
>> within which religiosity is content to stay.  It’s business is always _you_, 
>> so you can never turn your back on it in rest.
>> 
>> In trying to form a clear view, for my own purposes, of why I respond this 
>> way, in a quite different context earlier this week, I was thinking of 
>> trying to explain to someone that I grew up with religious people on me 
>> trying to force some kind of “religious conversion” and, 

Re: [FRIAM] Schwill Rock?

[David Eric Smith]

> On Oct 13, 2021, at 6:42 PM, Roger Critchlow  wrote:
> 
> 2. In practice, do the edge cases that Roger mentioned effectively get added 
> into the rewrite rules for the grammar or are they a separate kind of thing?
> 
> The edge cases are yours to deal with, they're totally legit potential 
> molecular structures, they'd be difficult to impossible to realize as 
> material structures, you have to pick where to draw the line.  And as to 
> whether it's impossible or only difficult to make, opinions may vary, and 
> many a chemist makes her reputation by showing a compound is only difficult 
> to make, but it can take years, or decades.

I have found the question of what counts as too-strained a ring to be one that 
puts me in my place.  One would think that, if C5 rings or C4O rings are 
uncomfortable enough that sugar-pucker is relatively stable and partly 
underpins different RNA and DNA conformers, then C4 rings should be a real 
problem, and C3 rings should be absurd.  

However, turns out that a very broad range of ferns are carcinogenic to eat, 
because of this compound:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ptaquiloside 

Including several varieties of fiddleheads that are staples in Korean and 
Japanese (some regions more than others) foods, or the brackens from which 
starches such as warabi mochi are made.  These compounds can amount to several 
percent of plant weight, I seem to recall when I actually _read_ the above 
article and others linked to it.

I think the C3 ring is the dangerous thing.  It isn’t very stable, which is why 
cooking makes most of these plants less toxic, and why the major problems of 
gastric cancers arise in grazing animals that make them main feedstocks.  But 
still….

How chemists know what is possible and what is not continues to baffle me.

Eric 



.-- .- -. - / .- -.-. - .. --- -. ..--.. / -.-. --- -. .--- ..- --. .- - .
FRIAM Applied Complexity Group listserv
Zoom Fridays 9:30a-12p Mtn UTC-6  bit.ly/virtualfriam
un/subscribe http://redfish.com/mailman/listinfo/friam_redfish.com
FRIAM-COMIC http://friam-comic.blogspot.com/
archives:
 5/2017 thru present https://redfish.com/pipermail/friam_redfish.com/
 1/2003 thru 6/2021  http://friam.383.s1.nabble.com/

Re: [FRIAM] Schwill Rock?

[David Eric Smith]

Yes.  Needing to do graph canonicalization deep in a loop that must run many 
times was a core problem for these guys:
https://cheminf.imada.sdu.dk/mod/ 
They are very Very concerned to use the most efficient algorithm known at any 
time for graph isomorphism and canonicalization. There are a pair of Dagstuhl 
Seminars (sponsored by the German Computer Science Society) where the state of 
the art on these things was one of the themes covered:
https://www.dagstuhl.de/en/program/calendar/semhp/?semnr=17452 

https://www.dagstuhl.de/en/program/calendar/semhp/?semnr=14452 

The seminars are required to publish a sort of white-paper at the end of each 
week with topics covered.  Although not suited to learning any given thing 
from, they may give helpful pointers to which methods are studied in 
association with each other in various problem domains.

I had mentioned MØD before in a thread that veered near these topics; apologies 
for repetition, but things gain salience at different times.

Eric



> On Oct 13, 2021, at 3:58 PM, Jon Zingale  wrote:
> 
> Oh, and here is a good article on the SMILES isomorphism problem:
> https://depth-first.com/articles/2021/10/06/molecular-graph-canonicalization/ 
> 
> 
> .-- .- -. - / .- -.-. - .. --- -. ..--.. / -.-. --- -. .--- ..- --. .- - .
> FRIAM Applied Complexity Group listserv
> Zoom Fridays 9:30a-12p Mtn UTC-6  bit.ly/virtualfriam
> un/subscribe 
> https://linkprotect.cudasvc.com/url?a=http%3a%2f%2fredfish.com%2fmailman%2flistinfo%2ffriam_redfish.com=E,1,Cf_vrTQ2XFTG767OFeXd1JYXOr4ZkCCRGbORv-GawDuVIYM-3olhwDUGilj6prNkJI5RHh4osgNF2vLFiXXtR3PszEbj6An7aMDk1o2Lwrk0-g,,=1
> FRIAM-COMIC 
> https://linkprotect.cudasvc.com/url?a=http%3a%2f%2ffriam-comic.blogspot.com%2f=E,1,Ev1c4aE_fW6zviOrW0bGOJLV5TNxW2O9nMcfZMNl4pyQyNukEQctNxnlXNzHEIwZl05BnzkQm2yXlpfVgZkIr7dy4ZLQqv4jRxaggnwz3QD4=1
> archives:
> 5/2017 thru present 
> https://linkprotect.cudasvc.com/url?a=https%3a%2f%2fredfish.com%2fpipermail%2ffriam_redfish.com%2f=E,1,lDoqZZoezVSz-Hz7qswH_DKff_ytuTpggY0sBp8tRh7Ykj6Qiod3FIb8AjJGWIeJvyvFOvj3zepv73A5IdqUgP1Bl6znGBXqOQVH2ELdVA,,=1
> 1/2003 thru 6/2021  http://friam.383.s1.nabble.com/


.-- .- -. - / .- -.-. - .. --- -. ..--.. / -.-. --- -. .--- ..- --. .- - .
FRIAM Applied Complexity Group listserv
Zoom Fridays 9:30a-12p Mtn UTC-6  bit.ly/virtualfriam
un/subscribe http://redfish.com/mailman/listinfo/friam_redfish.com
FRIAM-COMIC http://friam-comic.blogspot.com/
archives:
 5/2017 thru present https://redfish.com/pipermail/friam_redfish.com/
 1/2003 thru 6/2021  http://friam.383.s1.nabble.com/

Re: [FRIAM] Schwill Rock?

[David Eric Smith]

On 3:

https://depth-first.com/articles/2020/05/04/stereochemistry-and-atom-parity-in-smiles/
 




> On Oct 13, 2021, at 12:54 PM, Jon Zingale  wrote:
> 
> Thanks Roger, Marcus. I am a newbie in this area and so it might be good for 
> me to ask some potentially obvious questions about SMILES (since they are 
> used everywhere).
> 
> 1. Is the SMILES isomorphism problem equivalent to the graph isomorphism 
> problem, or is there some advantage from being context free parsable?
> 
> 2. In practice, do the edge cases that Roger mentioned effectively get added 
> into the rewrite rules for the grammar or are they a separate kind of thing?
> 
> 3. How is chirality handled?
> 
> .-- .- -. - / .- -.-. - .. --- -. ..--.. / -.-. --- -. .--- ..- --. .- - .
> FRIAM Applied Complexity Group listserv
> Zoom Fridays 9:30a-12p Mtn UTC-6  bit.ly/virtualfriam
> un/subscribe 
> https://linkprotect.cudasvc.com/url?a=http%3a%2f%2fredfish.com%2fmailman%2flistinfo%2ffriam_redfish.com=E,1,XYjbO1ZAVRlib8fPIFQWN4tyOji6_fwfRFrsnlUJjk9xEJHqP8Ko70k-qN6bfFMVt6uNqS7YL8Qidg02Ffgfg9xv8XKfQnyM5AWPmEhYAkrf=1
> FRIAM-COMIC 
> https://linkprotect.cudasvc.com/url?a=http%3a%2f%2ffriam-comic.blogspot.com%2f=E,1,Okl2WYznFj7N6cKJuOLYc7EyG7iF2i6TlimNEH_k31-XK564dYo-o89I0kIAjCoMUCTFVXsCKXOUZ7rfFdA6YFj2qQykT674bMjrXDZTtz6klTz0YKD_Bh-8_XXM=1
> archives:
> 5/2017 thru present 
> https://linkprotect.cudasvc.com/url?a=https%3a%2f%2fredfish.com%2fpipermail%2ffriam_redfish.com%2f=E,1,KGmT--s4vUHhSm9XmK0v0z4bd2EUpGRoKtiJb7OU5NGol5msc2ut0y-YXZMPyWYjWoUizIQ3lSJ1EnT6hC-OQTVJcwa4Fd-K26-eSWJswKNRwDI-YINdBIZHRw,,=1
> 1/2003 thru 6/2021  http://friam.383.s1.nabble.com/


.-- .- -. - / .- -.-. - .. --- -. ..--.. / -.-. --- -. .--- ..- --. .- - .
FRIAM Applied Complexity Group listserv
Zoom Fridays 9:30a-12p Mtn UTC-6  bit.ly/virtualfriam
un/subscribe http://redfish.com/mailman/listinfo/friam_redfish.com
FRIAM-COMIC http://friam-comic.blogspot.com/
archives:
 5/2017 thru present https://redfish.com/pipermail/friam_redfish.com/
 1/2003 thru 6/2021  http://friam.383.s1.nabble.com/

Re: [FRIAM] Schwill Rock?

[David Eric Smith]

Would this be of any use?

https://www.molgen.de/ 

It sounded like you were doing something that you want to be fast and in-line, 
and I don’t know if MOLGEN grants an API that offers that degree of 
flexibility.  People I know who have worked with it say that it is fairly 
sophisticated in creating physically realizable molecules while still retaining 
as much combinatorics as possible. 

Eric



> On Oct 13, 2021, at 1:17 AM, Roger Critchlow  wrote:
> 
> As long as you stick to basic CNO type chemistry, you can probably figure out 
> a valid SMILES generator pretty quickly.  But it might be easier to work in 
> the explicit molecule graph instead and just use SMILES as a content name 
> string.  The things that might go wrong after the SMILES input parses 
> correctly are 1) a ring that's strained because it's too tight a turn, 2) 
> steric hindrance between bulky sidechains occupying the same space, and 3) 
> something that no one has any idea how to make.  You could probably notice 1) 
> and 2) if you track the average energy per bond.
> 
> The benzodiazepines are a classic example of structuring the search around a 
> core framework and substituting side chains onto the core.  That's the way 
> the chemists do it in the wetlab.
> 
> OpenEyes (https://www.eyesopen.com/ 
> )
>  is running some online events this month that might be interesting.
> 
> -- rec --
> 
> On Tue, Oct 12, 2021 at 5:44 PM Marcus Daniels  > wrote:
> A search algorithm that, say, proposes a prefix or a suffix to a SMILES 
> string would need to have a way to autocomplete candidates before it could 
> use these descriptors to guide an optimization because the parsing step is 
> non-trivial, never mind the sanitization step (mentioned on that web page).   
>  
> 
>  
> 
> I will deflect blame on Jon for changing the topic from music to chemicals, 
> but presumably with enough debate their aesthetic preferences in music could 
> be formalized in theory or some rule-based way, as is manifest here.
> 
>  
> 
> From: Friam mailto:friam-boun...@redfish.com>> On 
> Behalf Of Roger Critchlow
> Sent: Tuesday, October 12, 2021 2:10 PM
> To: The Friday Morning Applied Complexity Coffee Group  >
> Subject: Re: [FRIAM] Schwill Rock?
> 
>  
> 
> Hmm, when I was in the drug discovery canal, the "descriptors" that you could 
> calculate from a SMILES string were legion. 
> 
>  
> 
> Here's the list for RDKIT, 
> https://www.rdkit.org/docs/GettingStartedInPython.html#list-of-available-descriptors
>  
> .
>   There are one bunch that depend entirely on the formula and molecular 
> structure.  Then there's a whole other bunch you can compute if you generate 
> 3d structures for the molecules, possibly multiplied by the number of low 
> energy structures the molecule can adopt.
> 
>  
> 
> What kind of plausibility were you looking for?  Does the SMILES string 
> specify a real molecule?  That's hard.  There are syntax errors in SMILES, 
> failures to close rings, valency errors, charge errors.  But there are lots 
> of syntactically valid SMILES that won't match any known molecule, either 
> because they're impossible or as yet to be determined.  The pharmas all have 
> their own lists of molecules of interest, but those are proprietary.  Looks 
> like there are various online databases, none that I'm familiar with.  If the 
> SMILES parses, you can try generating a 2d depiction and a 3d structure.  
> Those will throw exceptions if things get too weird.
> 
>  
> 
> -- rec --
> 
>  
> 
> On Tue, Oct 12, 2021 at 3:22 PM Marcus Daniels  > wrote:
> 
> I was playing with RDKIT the other day, and it wasn’t obvious how to get a 
> scalar quantity of plausibility of a molecule.   It seems a SMILES string is 
> right or wrong, and then maybe there are some warnings that can be trapped.   
> However, the benefits for search or fair sampling are different than the 
> needs of correctness checks, which is deeper property.   That isn’t quite a 
> fit to the music example where aesthetic considerations are subjective.
> 
>  
> 
> From: Friam mailto:friam-boun...@redfish.com>> On 
> Behalf Of Jon Zingale
> Sent: Tuesday, October 12, 2021 12:11 PM
> To: friam@redfish.com 
> Subject: Re: [FRIAM] Schwill Rock?
> 
>  
> 
> "I mean from the perspective of aesthetics. Understanding why Pandora is 
> messing it up means sampling the deep wells."
> 
>  
> 
> Yes, but not more than one has 

Re: [FRIAM] [dis]integrated

[David Eric Smith]

Yeah I don’t know.  

For some years I was working in ocean-floor engineering, and got a feel for 
seawater.  For all the devices you design, it is all-surrounding and 
omnipresent.  It relentlessly intrudes through any crack, seam, or pore, and it 
corrodes whatever it touches.  For whatever reason, this describes the affect 
of my response to people’s religiosity.  The more genuine and sincere they are, 
the stronger my aversion to that in them.  It’s not even the same as being 
averse to the whole person.  There are people of whom I think the world, and to 
whom I am very attached, in whom I just have to work around this one 
radioactive thing.  n.b., however, that all such people are related to me by 
birth.  There don’t seem to be any ones I have sought out as friends of whom 
that happens to be the case.  Maybe, borderline, one or two Jews, who seem to 
have a decorum and sense of proper privacy (those particular people, I mean) 
for themselves and for others.

There is another metaphor that also serves.  I have a friend with fairly bad 
arachnophobia.  I was commenting that I didn’t know what that would feel like, 
as spiders don’t particularly bother me, was for example ticks do.  She 
commented that it was funny, because her brother had said the same thing, using 
the same examples.  The reason, of course, is that most spiders prefer to mind 
their own business.  (Some Australian mouse spiders, perhaps less so.)  For 
ticks, their business is _you_.  Likewise, there is no box within which 
religiosity is content to stay.  It’s business is always _you_, so you can 
never turn your back on it in rest.

In trying to form a clear view, for my own purposes, of why I respond this way, 
in a quite different context earlier this week, I was thinking of trying to 
explain to someone that I grew up with religious people on me trying to force 
some kind of “religious conversion” and, in looking for a metaphor, the one 
that came to me was “like cops on a black man”.  And no matter how submissive I 
am and how much I would like to be cooperative, I so far have not found it in 
myself to want to go back into that.

It surprises me that these studies don’t seem to address questions of 
domination and constriction, and the degree to which being able to breathe 
matters to one or another person.

Eric



> On Oct 11, 2021, at 2:07 PM, Marcus Daniels  wrote:
> 
> Doesn't work for me.   My parents are in a very liberal church and (I think) 
> like it because it gives some structure and support in their community.   My 
> dad's (I think formative) education at a strong liberal arts college probably 
> contributed to my tendency to deconstruct things.   I'm not particularly 
> annoyed with their semi-religious activities, but there were plenty of people 
> in my high school that I found to be religious crazies who I almost felt 
> obligated to abuse.  That hardened my atheism, but really it was hard right 
> away in my early teenage years.
> 
> -Original Message-
> From: Friam  On Behalf Of u?l? ?>$
> Sent: Monday, October 11, 2021 9:43 AM
> To: FriAM 
> Subject: [FRIAM] [dis]integrated
> 
> Study: Atheists are Made By Their Parents 
> https://linkprotect.cudasvc.com/url?a=https%3a%2f%2fskepchick.org%2f2021%2f10%2fstudy-atheists-are-made-by-their-parents%2f=E,1,2G1IsnysW37qkXOrMoyLXGgacehySvzlBBD0wGXgUiHZFPFiq8oRkLu4J8VyPqz0vteY4F9ijy0I1jQMz57JJIg1WkOeQPeOqYDV9WgSFj4,=1
> 
> Much of the argument is about credible displays of faith and hypocrisy. I 
> thought this might be interesting following on the epically bent thread on 
> [in]consistency, as well as some old conversations about how well one can 
> describe/explain some historical decision/branch-point in their own life.
> 
> I land about where Rebecca does, I think.
> 
> --
> "Better to be slapped with the truth than kissed with a lie."
> ☤>$ uǝlƃ
> 
> 
> .-- .- -. - / .- -.-. - .. --- -. ..--.. / -.-. --- -. .--- ..- --. .- - .
> FRIAM Applied Complexity Group listserv
> Zoom Fridays 9:30a-12p Mtn UTC-6  bit.ly/virtualfriam
> un/subscribe 
> https://linkprotect.cudasvc.com/url?a=http%3a%2f%2fredfish.com%2fmailman%2flistinfo%2ffriam_redfish.com=E,1,EuSaMiS7akQMfjA5bNJcFfPBYlq5zA2JKnYGX8Ph37aYNGtUGKbvH8ifT2_5L-bcXVUrnOK1c05AOAJEDg-BCh7PUSsufLIHw_4b32VCleI-=1
> FRIAM-COMIC 
> https://linkprotect.cudasvc.com/url?a=http%3a%2f%2ffriam-comic.blogspot.com%2f=E,1,-LjUQkTs_h3uJfBkB36igDHfowdiKgaazxOUYzrN7X7M2lb-cdACqO9M7zBHiWNlzF1_e2NStdh3viIQBYELHa15il3vrPQ5vaTu23771PABGPio=1
> archives:
> 5/2017 thru present 
> https://linkprotect.cudasvc.com/url?a=https%3a%2f%2fredfish.com%2fpipermail%2ffriam_redfish.com%2f=E,1,jTI9ULoFOQ8MpSHjE80oL2HkwoeVQnl_GaHKTwqNpDAhEuZ1jekWFqFLmzsc29uOAJhlNamU0s4aZtfBhVMy9sNZpQmT7MdkUkzV65CHy-64eV46j0J9=1
> 1/2003 thru 6/2021  http://friam.383.s1.nabble.com/
> 
> .-- .- -. - / .- -.-. - .. --- -. ..--.. / -.-. --- -. .--- ..- --. .- - .
> FRIAM Applied Complexity Group listserv
> Zoom Fridays 9:30a-12p Mtn UTC-6  bit.ly/virtualfriam
> 

Re: [FRIAM] Unexpected success

[David Eric Smith]

I believe this observation connects to the thread on bogus medical predictions 
by AIs.  Also to the thread on “we speak different languages”, where somebody 
ran a translator program on the most-trollish non-language of the comments 
sections on social-media posts.  

>  To become successful [in too-large parts of science and technology] you have 
> to produce what millions of people want, and that can be a silly dance.

Eric

> On Oct 11, 2021, at 7:20 AM, Jochen Fromm  wrote:
> 
> There is a funny aspect about it, but it is not specific for a certain 
> country. The funny part for me is that he was never really successful as an 
> artist and lived a moderate life in a suburb of Nashville. It was a silly 
> dance posted by his daughter on TikTok that brought him success, not the hard 
> work or the good connections. To become successful you have to produce what 
> millions of people want, and that can be a silly dance.
> 
> -J.
> 
> 
>  Original message 
> From: Jochen Fromm 
> Date: 10/11/21 08:36 (GMT+01:00)
> To: The Friday Morning Applied Complexity Coffee Group 
> Subject: Re: [FRIAM] Unexpected success
> 
> No, not at all. Nobody has heard about it here. I have discovered the song in 
> the Canadian charts and then found reports on YouTube which explain the 
> TikTok story and the background here on WGN-TV
> https://youtu.be/3rtISNjb06k
> and here on CNBC
> https://youtu.be/IdozZS38Cso
> 
> If you see the YouTube reports then you will agree that Walker Hayes seems to 
> be a nice guy who is a good dad and deserves the unexpected success. Maybe he 
> is making fun of his own country, but I don't understand the song text good 
> enough to recognize the subtleties (upgrade? styrofoam?) and I have never 
> been to an Applebee's either. I don't know what it is like. 
> 
> J.
> 
> 
>  Original message 
> From: Marcus Daniels 
> Date: 10/11/21 06:15 (GMT+01:00)
> To: The Friday Morning Applied Complexity Coffee Group 
> Subject: Re: [FRIAM] Unexpected success
> 
> Is this how Germans make fun of Americans?
> 
>> On Oct 10, 2021, at 12:14 AM, Jochen Fromm  wrote:
>> 
>> 
>> Have you heard the story of Walker Hayes? He is a country singer from 
>> Franklin, Tennessee, who struggled to make a living in order to feed his 6 
>> six kids. During the pandemic he wrote a song "Fancy Like". After listening 
>> to his song his daughter convinced him that it needs a dance. The two 
>> recorded a dance together, uploaded it on TikTok and the song went viral. 
>> Applebees noticed it and turned it into a commercial. Now Walker has finally 
>> the commercial success he was looking for, thanks to Applebees, his daughter 
>> and a dance on TikTok. Have you tried a Bourbon Street Steak at Applebees? 
>> Is it good? 
>> https://youtu.be/HAU_-R3QGv8
>> 
>> -J.
>> 
>> 
>> 
>> .-- .- -. - / .- -.-. - .. --- -. ..--.. / -.-. --- -. .--- ..- --. .- - .
>> FRIAM Applied Complexity Group listserv
>> Zoom Fridays 9:30a-12p Mtn UTC-6  bit.ly/virtualfriam
>> un/subscribe http://redfish.com/mailman/listinfo/friam_redfish.com 
>> 
>> FRIAM-COMIC http://friam-comic.blogspot.com/ 
>> 
>> archives:
>> 5/2017 thru present https://redfish.com/pipermail/friam_redfish.com/ 
>> 
>> 1/2003 thru 6/2021  http://friam.383.s1.nabble.com/
> 
> .-- .- -. - / .- -.-. - .. --- -. ..--.. / -.-. --- -. .--- ..- --. .- - .
> FRIAM Applied Complexity Group listserv
> Zoom Fridays 9:30a-12p Mtn UTC-6  bit.ly/virtualfriam
> un/subscribe 
> https://linkprotect.cudasvc.com/url?a=http%3a%2f%2fredfish.com%2fmailman%2flistinfo%2ffriam_redfish.com=E,1,dW6_6aBk8gQPdnt_3bAOLZ4Og0jFw--eJipOiO2TVonk7_xbEmz8eh4Fxjy9sMssKuc6aa8UvWpRhar7vt8ny83WkXgrVwThrAn1XQBJkpGndfLJ=1
> FRIAM-COMIC 
> https://linkprotect.cudasvc.com/url?a=http%3a%2f%2ffriam-comic.blogspot.com%2f=E,1,At8bgYU-yCtIIihxTXaHZmCeDrR96oS6VzW3d78E23URoYohU50NcKoPmetkDHHdlneYKmgl3trN55GvJhXr3fmTEVHTfZeprSihimF28nYLwhw,=1
> archives:
> 5/2017 thru present 
> https://linkprotect.cudasvc.com/url?a=https%3a%2f%2fredfish.com%2fpipermail%2ffriam_redfish.com%2f=E,1,z07AhWqNsZzIIgmYj9xw07soiAUFGhAZMePu55UyC11Iyfcn8oLE7SPjhretDJgRqYLUIkL5u2uQCYEDCH7bIZn5IxEHI_Di_34GNwgeeOFcg0L06ahFVa8,=1
> 1/2003 thru 6/2021  http://friam.383.s1.nabble.com/


.-- .- -. - / .- -.-. - .. --- -. ..--.. / -.-. --- -. .--- ..- --. .- - .
FRIAM Applied Complexity Group 

Re: [FRIAM] Newborn Heart Rate

[David Eric Smith]

Dave, btw:

I was too quick with the “but” and passed over the “yes, “ part.

Your characterization of decompiling native competences that operate on many 
variables, to bring them under a kind of willed control, was a really helpful 
way to express the aims of some of these contemplative projects.  That one will 
stay with me.

Eric



> On Oct 8, 2021, at 2:48 AM, Prof David West  wrote:
> 
> David Eric Smith wrote:
> 
> "I cannot juggle hundreds of variables, and produce a result that would fail 
> _any_ test for randomness.  I can conceive that maybe there are people smart 
> enough to do that, but cannot imagine any-wise what it would feel like to be 
> one of them."
> 
> But  . . . . every human being does exactly that, all the time, more or less 
> effortlessly — certainly below the threshold of "conscious" awareness. 
> Billions of variables, including certain cell receptors "detecting" and 
> responding to quantum effects (like changes in spin induced by magnetic 
> fields).
> 
> Some Asian philosophies (Jnana Yoga, Tibetan Tantra) and most of the 
> Alchemical literature can be read as efforts to "decompile" this ability, 
> make it conscious, and apply it in "ordinary reality."
> 
> davew
> 
> 
> On Wed, Oct 6, 2021, at 9:28 AM, David Eric Smith wrote:
>> Gilding the lily, since I don’t disagree with anything that has specifically 
>> been said.
>> 
>> I have felt like, somewhere between the deliberate distortion of Emerson 
>> that reads “consistency is the hobgoblin of small minds” 
>> (Fun ref see 
>> https://www.lawfareblog.com/foolish-consistency-hobgoblin-little-minds-metadata-stay
>>  
>> <https://linkprotect.cudasvc.com/url?a=https%3a%2f%2fwww.lawfareblog.com%2ffoolish-consistency-hobgoblin-little-minds-metadata-stay=E,1,eDi2-qPUJiCHaxBuHu6hEtsX5zACULC0rSwdyjZWlqtz3g9dMx-Srjv0GOmSBli_E0wTCeTWHgyMkctCMC8qnJcRvftKmEVeHpB2eVddlwJ2NA,,=1>
>>  )
>> and what Scott Aaronson might call “the blankfaces of consistency”, 
>> there should be a sort of Herb Simon Watchmaker’s consistency.  The ability 
>> to check a form for consistency — even if I am alert that the system within 
>> which I am checking might be subject to overruling or revision — allows me 
>> to get past one thing and go to the next.  To clip together a sub-component 
>> of the watch and set it on the shelf, while assembling other sub-components, 
>> or to take the sub-components and assemble them relative to each other 
>> without having to constantly actively maintain the innards of each.  
>> 
>> To somebody with my innate limitations, that seems among the most valuable 
>> things in the world.
>> 
>> DaveW wrote this fabulous paean to never calling anything done, some months 
>> ago.  I can’t resurrect the text, and on my best living day could not 
>> compose its equal, but the gist was that sciences in which one arrives at 
>> conclusions are the pastimes of trivial minds.  Real Men do anthropology, 
>> where nothing is ever closed.  In a lovely rant on what a day in the life of 
>> a Real Man is like, a sentence contained a clause I am pretty sure I do have 
>> verbatim: “ . . . , juggling hundreds of variables, . . . “.
>> 
>> I cannot juggle hundreds of variables, and produce a result that would fail 
>> _any_ test for randomness.  I can conceive that maybe there are people smart 
>> enough to do that, but cannot imagine any-wise what it would feel like to be 
>> one of them. 
>> 
>> It seems it must be possible in this sense to cling to consistency like a 
>> life-raft, yet not elevate it to aa religious icon.  After all, life rafts 
>> only keep you alive, and in the big sweep of things, that isn’t _all_ that 
>> important. 
>> 
>> Eric
>> 
>> 
>> 
>>> On Oct 5, 2021, at 11:56 AM, uǝlƃ ☤>$ >> <mailto:geprope...@gmail.com>> wrote:
>>> 
>>> Yeah, I'm perfectly aligned with the freak among freaks sentiment, though 
>>> I'd argue we *do* live in that world, we just deny it with our false 
>>> beliefs. "The problem with communication is the illusion that it exists."
>>> 
>>> But the more important part of the argument surrounds whether consistency, 
>>> itself, is a matter of degree or kind. The analog world is full of graded 
>>> [in]consistency. You see it a lot with artifacts resulting from welding, 
>>> baking, brewing, etc. ... I even saw it often with the level 3 drafting at 
>>> lockheed. Any inconsistencies resulting from our designs, the effete 
>>> knowledge engineers, were *easily* overcome by the 

Re: [FRIAM] Copernican thresholds; was: Newborn Heart Rate

[David Eric Smith]

 about how humans should not learn that limits are a a 
part of what is real and therefore something to be more clearly seen, but 
rather see that limits are an illusion which can be transcended by various 
occult (sense of hidden in shadow) revelations to awareness, and my whole 
impulse is to read them as just an indulgence of the heroic frame from the epic 
era, and a kind of rejection of Copernican transitions, or indeed of a 
Copernican threshold.  Attentiveness to Copernican transitions seems to me like 
one of the resources achieved in the transition to modernity, because it could 
be worked into a philosophy and culture of restraint that we badly need.  The 
very occultness of the heroic transitions, which is always their first line of 
presentation (The Dao that can be told is not the Dao), strikes me as placing 
the evaluation of whether they are just the indulgence of the epic frame beyond 
any criteria for serious questioning.  If you are a devotee, you will Know it 
is True, and if you aren’t, your criteria of knowledge don’t matter anyway 
because they are all lost in illusion.  It just all feels like the religious 
frame for domination that I recoil from.  

It would be good to bring these questions into some kind of normal frame for 
evaluation, because of course to be less bored, to have more options, or just 
to see something really new, would be great.

Eric





> On Oct 8, 2021, at 2:48 AM, Prof David West  wrote:
> 
> David Eric Smith wrote:
> 
> "I cannot juggle hundreds of variables, and produce a result that would fail 
> _any_ test for randomness.  I can conceive that maybe there are people smart 
> enough to do that, but cannot imagine any-wise what it would feel like to be 
> one of them."
> 
> But  . . . . every human being does exactly that, all the time, more or less 
> effortlessly — certainly below the threshold of "conscious" awareness. 
> Billions of variables, including certain cell receptors "detecting" and 
> responding to quantum effects (like changes in spin induced by magnetic 
> fields).
> 
> Some Asian philosophies (Jnana Yoga, Tibetan Tantra) and most of the 
> Alchemical literature can be read as efforts to "decompile" this ability, 
> make it conscious, and apply it in "ordinary reality."
> 
> davew
> 
> 
> On Wed, Oct 6, 2021, at 9:28 AM, David Eric Smith wrote:
>> Gilding the lily, since I don’t disagree with anything that has specifically 
>> been said.
>> 
>> I have felt like, somewhere between the deliberate distortion of Emerson 
>> that reads “consistency is the hobgoblin of small minds” 
>> (Fun ref see 
>> https://www.lawfareblog.com/foolish-consistency-hobgoblin-little-minds-metadata-stay
>>  
>> <https://linkprotect.cudasvc.com/url?a=https%3a%2f%2fwww.lawfareblog.com%2ffoolish-consistency-hobgoblin-little-minds-metadata-stay=E,1,eDi2-qPUJiCHaxBuHu6hEtsX5zACULC0rSwdyjZWlqtz3g9dMx-Srjv0GOmSBli_E0wTCeTWHgyMkctCMC8qnJcRvftKmEVeHpB2eVddlwJ2NA,,=1>
>>  )
>> and what Scott Aaronson might call “the blankfaces of consistency”, 
>> there should be a sort of Herb Simon Watchmaker’s consistency.  The ability 
>> to check a form for consistency — even if I am alert that the system within 
>> which I am checking might be subject to overruling or revision — allows me 
>> to get past one thing and go to the next.  To clip together a sub-component 
>> of the watch and set it on the shelf, while assembling other sub-components, 
>> or to take the sub-components and assemble them relative to each other 
>> without having to constantly actively maintain the innards of each.  
>> 
>> To somebody with my innate limitations, that seems among the most valuable 
>> things in the world.
>> 
>> DaveW wrote this fabulous paean to never calling anything done, some months 
>> ago.  I can’t resurrect the text, and on my best living day could not 
>> compose its equal, but the gist was that sciences in which one arrives at 
>> conclusions are the pastimes of trivial minds.  Real Men do anthropology, 
>> where nothing is ever closed.  In a lovely rant on what a day in the life of 
>> a Real Man is like, a sentence contained a clause I am pretty sure I do have 
>> verbatim: “ . . . , juggling hundreds of variables, . . . “.
>> 
>> I cannot juggle hundreds of variables, and produce a result that would fail 
>> _any_ test for randomness.  I can conceive that maybe there are people smart 
>> enough to do that, but cannot imagine any-wise what it would feel like to be 
>> one of them. 
>> 
>> It seems it must be possible in this sense to cling to consistency like a 
>> life-raft, yet not elevate it to aa religious icon.  After all, life rafts 
>

Re: [FRIAM] Newborn Heart Rate

[David Eric Smith]

Gilding the lily, since I don’t disagree with anything that has specifically 
been said.

I have felt like, somewhere between the deliberate distortion of Emerson that 
reads “consistency is the hobgoblin of small minds” 
(Fun ref see 
https://www.lawfareblog.com/foolish-consistency-hobgoblin-little-minds-metadata-stay
 

 )
and what Scott Aaronson might call “the blankfaces of consistency”, 
there should be a sort of Herb Simon Watchmaker’s consistency.  The ability to 
check a form for consistency — even if I am alert that the system within which 
I am checking might be subject to overruling or revision — allows me to get 
past one thing and go to the next.  To clip together a sub-component of the 
watch and set it on the shelf, while assembling other sub-components, or to 
take the sub-components and assemble them relative to each other without having 
to constantly actively maintain the innards of each.  

To somebody with my innate limitations, that seems among the most valuable 
things in the world.

DaveW wrote this fabulous paean to never calling anything done, some months 
ago.  I can’t resurrect the text, and on my best living day could not compose 
its equal, but the gist was that sciences in which one arrives at conclusions 
are the pastimes of trivial minds.  Real Men do anthropology, where nothing is 
ever closed.  In a lovely rant on what a day in the life of a Real Man is like, 
a sentence contained a clause I am pretty sure I do have verbatim: “ . . . , 
juggling hundreds of variables, . . . “.

I cannot juggle hundreds of variables, and produce a result that would fail 
_any_ test for randomness.  I can conceive that maybe there are people smart 
enough to do that, but cannot imagine any-wise what it would feel like to be 
one of them. 

It seems it must be possible in this sense to cling to consistency like a 
life-raft, yet not elevate it to aa religious icon.  After all, life rafts only 
keep you alive, and in the big sweep of things, that isn’t _all_ that 
important. 

Eric



> On Oct 5, 2021, at 11:56 AM, uǝlƃ ☤>$  wrote:
> 
> Yeah, I'm perfectly aligned with the freak among freaks sentiment, though I'd 
> argue we *do* live in that world, we just deny it with our false beliefs. 
> "The problem with communication is the illusion that it exists."
> 
> But the more important part of the argument surrounds whether consistency, 
> itself, is a matter of degree or kind. The analog world is full of graded 
> [in]consistency. You see it a lot with artifacts resulting from welding, 
> baking, brewing, etc. ... I even saw it often with the level 3 drafting at 
> lockheed. Any inconsistencies resulting from our designs, the effete 
> knowledge engineers, were *easily* overcome by the gritty on-the-ground 
> engineers ... like smoothing out burrs or gluing together pieces that don't 
> quite fit.
> 
> In the special case of refined, crisply expressed propositions of digital 
> computation, inconsistency finding becomes a (perhaps the) powerful tool. 
> Debugging a serial program relies on it fundamentally. But it's softened a 
> bit in parallel algorithms. Inconsistency is broken up into multiple, yet 
> still crisp, types (race conditions, deadlocks, etc.). As approach "the real 
> world" and move away from digital computation, it seems, to my ignorant eye, 
> that [in]consistency softens more and more. Whether that softening takes the 
> form of a countable set of types or something denser, I don't know. But it 
> definitely takes on a different form.
> 
> Discussions like Frank and EricS are having about the stability of a limit 
> point (never mind the ontological status of that point) get at this nicely. 
> If you change the frame entirely (e.g. move to position-momentum) and the 
> "inconsistency" of the singularities *moves* (or disappears entirely), then a 
> focus on consistency is not as powerful of a tool. The focus becomes one of 
> which frame expresses the target domain "less inconsistently" ... aka with 
> fewer exceptions to the rule.
> 
> Yes, I know I've completely abused the word and its normal meaning.
> 
> On 10/4/21 12:03 PM, Marcus Daniels wrote:
>> I agree with some of that.   I mentioned the dependently typed programming 
>> language as one technology to know when I am being inconsistent.   It 
>> doesn't mean I stop everything to resolve the inconsistency, but I might 
>> point the headlights in some other direction to avoid the inconsistency 
>> (breadth first search instead of depth first).   Inconsistency finding is a 
>> tool, and preferably a semi-automated one.
>> 
>> I'd rather have the option of being a depth first searcher and not worry 
>> about shelter and food and health care.   I'm not talented enough to be 
>> among the small number of people that can survive (adequately) doing that 
>> sort of thing.   I think I wouldn't even like it in general, even if I were. 
>>   

Re: [FRIAM] Newborn Heart Rate

[David Eric Smith]

I think about as opposite to nugatory as one could get.

Wu wei more like having an affect “get itself done” without making a big noise 
about doing it.  A kind of more efficient getting-done by avoiding the 
distractions of self-conscious effort.


> On Oct 3, 2021, at 11:35 PM,  
>  wrote:
> 
> Speaking of words, I thought wuwei was interesting.  It seems to mean 
> “nugatory”.
>  
> Nick Thompson
> thompnicks...@gmail.com 
> https://wordpress.clarku.edu/nthompson/ 
> 
>  
> From: Friam mailto:friam-boun...@redfish.com>> On 
> Behalf Of Stephen Guerin
> Sent: Sunday, October 3, 2021 4:02 PM
> To: The Friday Morning Applied Complexity Coffee Group  >
> Subject: Re: [FRIAM] Newborn Heart Rate
>  
> On Sat, Oct 2, 2021 at 5:57 PM  > wrote:
>> Just to be clear – and perhaps nerdishly literal minded – I would NEVER 
>> claim that word play alone is science; I would only claim that it has a role 
>> to play.
>>  
>> On Sat, Oct 2, 2021 at 10:59 AM > > wrote:
>>>  You might help me distinguish between vicious DAWW and virtuous DAWW.  You 
>>> might exile me.  But you probably won’t get me to stop. 
>> 
>> If we follow the virtuous DAWW, it feels like wuwei  
>> science
>>  to me. Who needs action  
>> when you got words? We are but meat puppets playing with nirvana 
>> .
>> 
> Nick, I absolutely see the value in wordplay (DAWW) and do think it's an 
> important part of science and mathematics.
> 
> I was being perhaps a little too clever in my own mind with my obtuse DAWW 
> riff above.  At the risk of over parsing (like the risk of explaining a joke) 
>  virtuous DAWW triggered the homophone of the Dao (道) and its central concept 
> of wu-wei, which is often inaccurately translated as inaction but closer to 
> right action / Least (stationary) action in physics for me. 
>  
> This then triggered lyrics of one of my favorite songs, Plateau 
> 
>  from the Meat Puppets,  "who needs action when you got words". To me, the 
> line captures your and my relationship where I'm struggling with generalizing 
> the concept of Action in Complex Systems and you are working your thoughts 
> out with words. I find this a healthy dialogue!
>  
> And then I couldn't resist sharing the MTV unplugged concert where Nirvana 
> covered the Meat Puppets song with one of the Meat Puppets playing on stage. 
> The link to Youtube is to that line in the song in the performance.  So the 
> literal Meat Puppet playing with Nivana mutated to "we are but meat puppets 
> playing with Nirvana" gave me 15 minutes of interesting private contemplation 
> of a puppet master animating our puppets and wooing our puppet minds with 
> Nirvana.
>   
> Certainly too obtuse of references and self-indulgent to post but what the 
> hell.
> 
> So I really do appreciate your DAWW and was just trying to join in and play 
> with your dicking. :-)
> 
> .-- .- -. - / .- -.-. - .. --- -. ..--.. / -.-. --- -. .--- ..- --. .- - .
> FRIAM Applied Complexity Group listserv
> Zoom Fridays 9:30a-12p Mtn UTC-6  bit.ly/virtualfriam 
> 
> un/subscribe 
> https://linkprotect.cudasvc.com/url?a=http%3a%2f%2fredfish.com%2fmailman%2flistinfo%2ffriam_redfish.com=E,1,0hKg5nNVyMTwZ28Wq23pfo2xzn0L2FgLm2_aY_hfIXMUUAx6KpTUfo-YKuozVt1lb8EJjA7X87fFBzd8aFdoX01AOYNmoTXPY_-xdc7K1PnuBTnFm_IF7fLbsTY,=1
>  
> 
> FRIAM-COMIC 
> https://linkprotect.cudasvc.com/url?a=http%3a%2f%2ffriam-comic.blogspot.com%2f=E,1,otdM3mXOTQrtX5ZdHAOTv1aTVkvix2uYZwVPj-M3-6CnImVf72qiapEwMPwaZzSfFfMrNZHl0ONjHZ5anf0b0Fz_3Lj17sg3wMvOvdJX=1
>  
> 
> archives:
> 5/2017 thru present 
> 

Re: [FRIAM] Newborn Heart Rate

[David Eric Smith]

I am sure what you say below is right, Marcus, and it is true that I am 
focusing on a particular one of those definitions, albeit one that I think will 
ultimately be indispensable.

I can perhaps be less cryptic by saying that the definition I am concerned with 
is one that is about patterns in relations, and that I claim the life/non-life 
distinction is of the same mathematical kind as the difference between a frozen 
and a melted phase of matter (though applied on a different space than physical 
freezing or melting).

So if, given either ice or water, we were to restrict to the molecule-objects, 
and ask whether we can pull out a water molecule, and decide whether it is a 
frozen-type water molecule or a melted-type water molecule, we would recognize 
that that definition doesn’t go through, because frozenness or meltedness are 
not attributes “contained in”, or “possessed by” the molecules; rather they 
refer to distinct patterns in the relations among molecules in the bulk 
substance.  A relation among a collection of things is precisely the kind of 
perfectly sensible and describable pattern that, nonetheless, cannot be 
projected down into the things.  

How one gets from the analogy I just gave, to any claim about the living state, 
and whether one should believe my view on it, is too long to go into, and 
ultimately not that interesting.  My arguments aren’t great, and a lot more 
would be needed to make them really compelling.  I think they have more than 
nothing though.

But you are right: there could be lots of higher-level concerns with process 
integration in objects, where one can ask things about virions or about viral 
lifecycles, where alive/non-alive as a predicate goes through better.  Harping 
on the distinction between what can be said of the virion and what can be said 
of the viral lifecycle is something Patrick Forterre has done a lot of.  That 
question is less one that concerned me, because I feel like it is already 
well-understood, and doesn’t need anything subtle to be recognized, but Patrick 
is a thoughtful and reasonable guy, and his writing kind of pounds it into the 
ground, which is what journal papers are supposed to do.

Eric



> On Oct 3, 2021, at 12:51 PM, Marcus Daniels  wrote:
> 
> On the virus alive or non-alive question,  I think it would probably boil 
> down to different views of what life is.  Each “view”, I expect would 
> encompass hundreds of interacting predicates and one could imagine that some 
> of them could be shown to be unsatisfiable in some views, and satisfiable in 
> others.   Some predicates might take years to compute (e.g. simulate) one way 
> or the other.  Maybe some viruses are alive in some definitions and some are 
> not? 
>  
> From: Friam mailto:friam-boun...@redfish.com>> On 
> Behalf Of David Eric Smith
> Sent: Sunday, October 3, 2021 9:39 AM
> To: The Friday Morning Applied Complexity Coffee Group  <mailto:friam@redfish.com>>
> Subject: Re: [FRIAM] Newborn Heart Rate
>  
> To Nick (about non-computer examples of category errors), and 
> To Frank (about common-language cases where being relaxed can create 
> long-term troubles):
>  
> I spend a good bit of time in the book with Harold, and in some small 
> interviews I have done with various young people, and in some journal 
> articles (though only obliquely there), arguing that the question
>  
> “Is a virus alive or non-alive” 
>  
> contains a category error.   And if you don’t see that it does, then you are 
> using a notion of “life” that (sez I) ultimately will never be adequate for a 
> reliable scientific understanding of the origin of life, and of much else 
> about the nature of life.
>  
> I’m not sure it would map exactly to a type error in a typed language, but I 
> am not up to the modern standard about how sophisticated the logic of modern 
> languages is.  In any case, in ordinary language, it is not hard to analyze.
>  
> In the above sentence, the alive/non-alive dichotomy is syntactically cast as 
> a predicate.  The world of discourse is taken to be a world of objects.  A 
> binary predicate is supposed to sort the objects into two encompassing, 
> non-overlapping sets (aka, a partition): the alive ones and the non-alive 
> ones.  We are then asked which set to put virions into.  (People say 
> “viruses”, but generally they aren’t even being careful enough to realize 
> that the virion and the viral genomic lifecycle have to be discussed in 
> completely different ways, and that by “virus” one could be referring to 
> either of them.  They usually just mean the virion, if one were to use terms 
> carefully.) 
>  
> Now alive/dead is fine as a predicate.  Look at that seal on the beach.  Is 
> it an alive seal or a dead seal?  That all works fine, in the sense that 
> there is useful work for i

Re: [FRIAM] Newborn Heart Rate

[David Eric Smith]

gt;> language the compiler will cast 2 as 2.0 and do the obvious thing.  As I 
>> understand it a category error is a type error in natural language.  Most 
>> people ignore them outside of tight, logical discourse I think analogous to 
>> the behavior of forgiving compilers.
>>  
>> It's been 50 years since I studied compiler theory but I'm sure someone will 
>> correct my errors.
>>  
>> Frank
>>  
>>  
>> ---
>> Frank C. Wimberly
>> 140 Calle Ojo Feliz, 
>> Santa Fe, NM 87505
>> 
>> 505 670-9918
>> Santa Fe, NM
>>  
>> On Sun, Oct 3, 2021, 4:37 AM David Eric Smith > <mailto:desm...@santafe.edu>> wrote:
>>> Second note; apologies for two postings, because I forgot to include 
>>> something: 
>>>  
>>> In that last reply I meant to mention that there is no shame (though I 
>>> believe there is error) in committing to Zeno beyond necessity.  One 
>>> travels in illustrious company.  
>>>  
>>> I have wanted to write a semi-opinion piece entitled “In Price of Process; 
>>> In Praise of Hypergraphs”, with a nod to Tanizaki, and may even do it 
>>> someday.
>>>  
>>> The idea being that, while the Classical Mechanics got past Zeno’s rules of 
>>> argument with Hamiltonian mechanics formulated on phase space, the 
>>> thermodynamicists in a sense never did.  Evidence: Prigogine got a Nobel 
>>> for trying to derive rules of dynamics from properties of an entropy of 
>>> states.  That, of course, is not possible in general just by 
>>> dimension-counting.   The whole aching frustration of a real 
>>> non-equilibrium thermodynamics has been to try to get the GD physicists to 
>>> give up Zeno in the way they think about entropies for questions of 
>>> process.  The same is true for the geneticists and their “units of 
>>> selection” addiction.  There is clearly a big domain in which we have all 
>>> the tools to do at least both of these, and I am sure a good deal more 
>>> beyond (a domain in which the process space can have its important 
>>> parameters captured in hypergraphs), so there is no reason we can’t all 
>>> just start doing it now.  But thermo is committed to its ways of 70 years 
>>> ago, with de Groot and Mazur, or maybe even 90 years ago, stopping at the 
>>> innovations seen by Lars Onsager but then not really built upon much 
>>> further.  And population genetics to what was brought down from the 
>>> mountain on stone tables by Fisher, likewise in 1930.
>>>  
>>> So the idea that, where we have clear, useful, and trustworthy tools to get 
>>> past Zeno, we really should _just do it_, is still quite fresh, as I see it.
>>>  
>>> Eric
>>>  
>>>  
>>> 
>>> 
>>>> On Oct 3, 2021, at 12:09 AM, thompnicks...@gmail.com 
>>>> <mailto:thompnicks...@gmail.com> wrote:
>>>>  
>>>> EricS, 
>>>>  
>>>> Thanks, as always, for your response.  Everything you say here is 
>>>> interesting and relevant except perhaps where you represent me as an 
>>>> otiose idiot.  That makes me want to defend my post, rather than absorb 
>>>> your excellent response.  
>>>>  
>>>> Before I stifle my stupid defensive impulse, allow me to ask you a few  
>>>> questions.  Is not an inquiry into the relation between levels of 
>>>> organization of interest?  Are you entirely comfortable with the way that 
>>>> people talk about interlevel causation?  Is it of any interest to you that 
>>>> the three inference engines of a syllogism, all bridge different levels of 
>>>> organization?  Are not probability theory and calculus both conceptual 
>>>> bridges across levels organization?  Granting, ex hypothesi, that those 
>>>> bridges are virtuous,  does not their success have some implications for 
>>>> other ways in which we bridge levels of organization, as, say, 
>>>> brain/behavior reflections, or the relation between behavior acts and 
>>>> behavior motivations?  Is metaphor thinking a way of crossing directly 
>>>> from one particular to another without crossing any such bridges?   Is 
>>>> metaphor how we really think and is, therefore, logical analysis a poor 
>>>> proxy for virtuous thought.   
>>>>  
>>>> Thinking as an experience monist, everything that is is experience and all 
>>>> experiences are of other experiences.  So, levels of 

Re: [FRIAM] Newborn Heart Rate

[David Eric Smith]

 true, of course, of Jon, EricC, Glen or any of the kind folk who have 
> helped me think over these years.  
>  
> Anyway, thanks for your very relevant comments.  I shall study them carefully 
> tomorrow when I get up.  
>  
> All the best, 
>  
> Nick  
>  
>  
>  
> Nick Thompson
> thompnicks...@gmail.com <mailto:thompnicks...@gmail.com>
> https://wordpress.clarku.edu/nthompson/ 
> <https://linkprotect.cudasvc.com/url?a=https%3a%2f%2fwordpress.clarku.edu%2fnthompson%2f=E,1,FlKil6Oo-OcZgl78FjunjqYCa03v-EeN8BN8CwdDyjLHD_jatCwLzinRfqOjRK1t-unkmR727-kN4rAlm7dj8TLyUUpgoZZ9C6yLfABMPDC4=1>
>  
> From: Friam mailto:friam-boun...@redfish.com>> On 
> Behalf Of David Eric Smith
> Sent: Saturday, October 2, 2021 9:47 PM
> To: The Friday Morning Applied Complexity Coffee Group  <mailto:friam@redfish.com>>
> Subject: Re: [FRIAM] Newborn Heart Rate
>  
> I feel in this, Frank, like your comments will fall on deaf ears, for an 
> interesting reason.  The thing you summarize for Nick is precisely the thing 
> he wants to object to.
>  
> It seems to me that Nick believes that Zeno’s arrow paradox, 
> https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/paradox-zeno/ 
> <https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/paradox-zeno/>
> or something close to it, defines in some Platonic way the “right rules of 
> thought”.  Whatever Zeno’s rules of argument make ill-defined, we should 
> somehow believe isn’t really properly conceived, and _cannot be_.  
>  
> If I were to tell Nick (replace “momentum” where he has “acceleration” in the 
> sentences below), that in 1833, Hamilton took us beyond all the things Zeno 
> can’t do, by writing the states of objects in a 2-coordinate space, where one 
> coordinate is position and the other is momentum, and the two coordinates are 
> _independent of one another_, and in some important sense _symmetric_ and 
> _peer_ attributes of the object, I would not be addressing his objection to 
> calculus (which does define these things in limits as you say below), but I 
> would be arguing that physics may suggest the limit-definition from calculus 
> is not the most fundamental one.  If I were then to tell Nick that the 
> duality between being at a place (all position) and being in a state of 
> motion (all momentum) became in quantum mechanics the duality between 
> standing and traveling waves, and that we understand their independence and 
> peer status even more thoroughly in quantum mechanics than in Hamilton’s 
> classical mechanics, I would still not be addressing the unquiet about 
> calculus, but would perhaps be asserting that physical reality is even 
> further from needing its in-the-limit definitions.
>  
> But the part of this that is interesting (to me) is: why is this 
> Nick-as-I-perceive-him (which the real Nick may or may not be) convinced that 
> Zeno’s rules of argument are somehow the defined “right rules of thought”?  
> Why is anyone convinced that he knows ahead of time what rules are the right 
> rules of thought for anything?  Why are we not somehow always aware that all 
> these words and rules come up together somehow as parts of a 
> mutually-interdependent system, really “pulled up by their own bootstraps” in 
> a much more perfect way than the way that metaphor is used for the startup of 
> an operating system in a computer?  And if we were thus aware of the somehow 
> out-of-nowhere character of the bootstrapped systems within which all the 
> terms and rules take their meaning, how would it then change the way we think 
> about choosing which one to use?  The Platonists in their own words b believe 
> that truth somehow comes to them through the divine channel of thought from a 
> reality beyond experience.  I think they are more fond (in the original sense 
> of “crazy”) of their own preconceived notions than they are of the complexity 
> of experience, and mistake their preconceived notions for a more ultimate and 
> perfect, but in any case preferable “reality”.  If we get out of that habit, 
> how does our style of argument for what constitutes right thought change?
>  
> Neither here nor there to this thread, I did want to mention some weeks ago 
> that I really liked Glen’s formulation of The Will to Simulation.  I think 
> Nietzsche would have appreciated its irreverence, though he would have been 
> too vain and obstreperous to contribute anything to it.
>  
> Eric
>  
> p.s.  On the above, I could have stayed with Nick’s original query about 
> acceleration, and gone to physics.  I could have spoken of his very physical 
> self, standing here on the surface of the Earth, and accelerated away from 
> the world-line of an inertial observer in general relativity by the fact that 
> the Earth is in the

Re: [FRIAM] Newborn Heart Rate

[David Eric Smith]

 into those two categories with the accumulation of history.  

(Btw, precision and confidence are words that one should lose sleep over as 
well, if one wants to lose sleep over probability.)

Your answer to Frank about “who controls the language” seems to me not at all 
far from my argument that we have a system-choice decision to make, and the 
choice _of_ system probably is not made by constructions _within_ one or 
another of the systems eligible to be chosen.

Sitting here typing, I find there is an analogy that makes me feel happy and at 
ease with all this.  It is the smack-down by Teddy Seidenfeld, which Cosma 
Shalizi pointed me to and agrees with, that there is no “objective 
Bayesianism”.  There is no Platonic Bayesian Prior for which one can argue 
outside the context of the problem modeled.  Priors, like the likelihoods one 
applies to them, are things in the basket of hypotheses.  One looks at their 
consequences, all together, and then chooses however one will.  The point is 
not to ask God to save you from making a choice.  The point is to acknowledge 
and embrace that you will make a choice, and then accept that all the 
consequences of it are yours as well.

Eric



> On Oct 3, 2021, at 12:09 AM,  
>  wrote:
> 
> EricS, 
>  
> Thanks, as always, for your response.  Everything you say here is interesting 
> and relevant except perhaps where you represent me as an otiose idiot.  That 
> makes me want to defend my post, rather than absorb your excellent response.  
>  
> Before I stifle my stupid defensive impulse, allow me to ask you a few  
> questions.  Is not an inquiry into the relation between levels of 
> organization of interest?  Are you entirely comfortable with the way that 
> people talk about interlevel causation?  Is it of any interest to you that 
> the three inference engines of a syllogism, all bridge different levels of 
> organization?  Are not probability theory and calculus both conceptual 
> bridges across levels organization?  Granting, ex hypothesi, that those 
> bridges are virtuous,  does not their success have some implications for 
> other ways in which we bridge levels of organization, as, say, brain/behavior 
> reflections, or the relation between behavior acts and behavior motivations?  
> Is metaphor thinking a way of crossing directly from one particular to 
> another without crossing any such bridges?   Is metaphor how we really think 
> and is, therefore, logical analysis a poor proxy for virtuous thought.   
>  
> Thinking as an experience monist, everything that is is experience and all 
> experiences are of other experiences.  So, levels of organization are 
> experiences that have to be assembled out of other experiences.  Many MANY 
> years ago when I was working on Brown Thrasher song we tried to automate the 
> classification of the units of the song.   The birds can sing for hours and 
> rarely repeat themselves, but when they do, they do so very precisely.   So 
> they aren’t just improvising.  To this day I don’t think anybody has figured 
> out what they are doing.   When I quit, it wasn’t even clear we were parsing 
> the stream of sound into the right units!
>  
> The stream of experience is like that.  The structures of The World that 
> Frank talks about are all structures of experience, validatable only by 
> subsequent experiences.   We animals are not truth seekers, we are 
> consequence anticipators, and if there is any truth or reality, it must be in 
> the power those experiences we experience as true or real to anticipate 
> future experiences.   How does the stream of experience come to be organized? 
>  
>  
> These are the kinds of questions I am pursuing, here, and, lacking graduate 
> students, a laboratory, work study students, courses to teach, colleagues to 
> interact with, here is really the only place I can pursue them.   If the 
> assumptions I bring to bear that cause me ask these questions are too naïve, 
> onerous, or outlandish to entertain, then for god’s sake don’t try to 
> shoulder them.   You have done me many kindnesses in the past and you can 
> walk away from my confusions any moment without any debts whatsoever.   The 
> same is true, of course, of Jon, EricC, Glen or any of the kind folk who have 
> helped me think over these years.  
>  
> Anyway, thanks for your very relevant comments.  I shall study them carefully 
> tomorrow when I get up.  
>  
> All the best, 
>  
> Nick  
>  
>  
>  
> Nick Thompson
> thompnicks...@gmail.com <mailto:thompnicks...@gmail.com>
> https://wordpress.clarku.edu/nthompson/ 
> <https://linkprotect.cudasvc.com/url?a=https%3a%2f%2fwordpress.clarku.edu%2fnthompson%2f=E,1,FlKil6Oo-OcZgl78FjunjqYCa03v-EeN8BN8CwdDyjLHD_jatCwLzinRfqOjRK1t-unkmR727-kN4rAlm7dj8TLyUUpgoZZ9C6yLfABMPDC4=1

Re: [FRIAM] Newborn Heart Rate

[David Eric Smith]

I feel in this, Frank, like your comments will fall on deaf ears, for an 
interesting reason.  The thing you summarize for Nick is precisely the thing he 
wants to object to.

It seems to me that Nick believes that Zeno’s arrow paradox, 
https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/paradox-zeno/ 

or something close to it, defines in some Platonic way the “right rules of 
thought”.  Whatever Zeno’s rules of argument make ill-defined, we should 
somehow believe isn’t really properly conceived, and _cannot be_. 

If I were to tell Nick (replace “momentum” where he has “acceleration” in the 
sentences below), that in 1833, Hamilton took us beyond all the things Zeno 
can’t do, by writing the states of objects in a 2-coordinate space, where one 
coordinate is position and the other is momentum, and the two coordinates are 
_independent of one another_, and in some important sense _symmetric_ and 
_peer_ attributes of the object, I would not be addressing his objection to 
calculus (which does define these things in limits as you say below), but I 
would be arguing that physics may suggest the limit-definition from calculus is 
not the most fundamental one.  If I were then to tell Nick that the duality 
between being at a place (all position) and being in a state of motion (all 
momentum) became in quantum mechanics the duality between standing and 
traveling waves, and that we understand their independence and peer status even 
more thoroughly in quantum mechanics than in Hamilton’s classical mechanics, I 
would still not be addressing the unquiet about calculus, but would perhaps be 
asserting that physical reality is even further from needing its in-the-limit 
definitions.

But the part of this that is interesting (to me) is: why is this 
Nick-as-I-perceive-him (which the real Nick may or may not be) convinced that 
Zeno’s rules of argument are somehow the defined “right rules of thought”?  Why 
is anyone convinced that he knows ahead of time what rules are the right rules 
of thought for anything?  Why are we not somehow always aware that all these 
words and rules come up together somehow as parts of a mutually-interdependent 
system, really “pulled up by their own bootstraps” in a much more perfect way 
than the way that metaphor is used for the startup of an operating system in a 
computer?  And if we were thus aware of the somehow out-of-nowhere character of 
the bootstrapped systems within which all the terms and rules take their 
meaning, how would it then change the way we think about choosing which one to 
use?  The Platonists in their own words b believe that truth somehow comes to 
them through the divine channel of thought from a reality beyond experience.  I 
think they are more fond (in the original sense of “crazy”) of their own 
preconceived notions than they are of the complexity of experience, and mistake 
their preconceived notions for a more ultimate and perfect, but in any case 
preferable “reality”.  If we get out of that habit, how does our style of 
argument for what constitutes right thought change?

Neither here nor there to this thread, I did want to mention some weeks ago 
that I really liked Glen’s formulation of The Will to Simulation.  I think 
Nietzsche would have appreciated its irreverence, though he would have been too 
vain and obstreperous to contribute anything to it.

Eric

p.s.  On the above, I could have stayed with Nick’s original query about 
acceleration, and gone to physics.  I could have spoken of his very physical 
self, standing here on the surface of the Earth, and accelerated away from the 
world-line of an inertial observer in general relativity by the fact that the 
Earth is in the way of his free fall.  The gravity that he feels in the seat of 
his pants is the acceleration that is a property of his state.  But it was 
simpler to refer to momentum and to go back to Hamiltonian mechanics, which has 
an additional century behind it, and which really marked the turn away from 
Zeno and a definition of velocities in terms of derivatives by Lagrange, and 
toward a recognition of momentum as an inherent property.  If one can see that 
clearly and with familiarity, it is then a straightforward next step to say 
that Mach’s principle just said “if frame-independence applies to velocity, 
then why not also to rotational velocity, and what then do we do about 
acceleration”, and you get the case from general relativity.

> On Oct 1, 2021, at 10:00 PM, Frank Wimberly  wrote:
> 
> Nick, i hope this helps.  Given a fair die that hasn't been thrown the 
> probability that it will come up 2 (or any of the other particular values) on 
> the next throw is 1/6 by definition of fair.  Given that it has been thrown 
> and ceterus paribus the a posteriori probability that it shows 2 given that 
> it does is 1.0.  In that case the probabilities of each of the other values 
> is 0.0.
> 
> The acceleration of an object with constant 

Re: [FRIAM] A pretty cellular automata video

[David Eric Smith]

Doh!

I’m such a dolt, watching the pretty pictures.

They’re both Turing complete, correct?  Is there a natural sense of writing a 
program that, in that algorithmic representation, you know is somehow 
algorithmically deep in 110, which then becomes something algorithmically 
interesting under the corresponding representation in Life?  If one did that, 
would all the constructions be so forced that it was tedious and not 
elucidating of anything?  One is better to run “analog” and just relish the 
evident generative complexity?

Eric



> On Sep 30, 2021, at 5:33 AM, Steve Smith  wrote:
> 
> Jon -
>> https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=P2uhhAXd7PI_channel=ElliotWaite 
>> 
> I never cease to be surprised and fascinated watching simple rules generate 
> complex structure and dynamics.
> 
> I had a lot of complex reactions to this but I won't waste anyone's bandwidth 
> with my reflective rambling...  
> 
> Thanks for sharing...
> 
> - Steve
> 
> 
> 
> .-- .- -. - / .- -.-. - .. --- -. ..--.. / -.-. --- -. .--- ..- --. .- - .
> FRIAM Applied Complexity Group listserv
> Zoom Fridays 9:30a-12p Mtn UTC-6  bit.ly/virtualfriam
> un/subscribe 
> https://linkprotect.cudasvc.com/url?a=http%3a%2f%2fredfish.com%2fmailman%2flistinfo%2ffriam_redfish.com=E,1,PxI9-0YC37IZRbmX8yzr8L7NzcG0zWZyfe1Caz3tpULSakrmrdaMjyGQAgeJaM5E7osCBy-Rl1NRM_aPB1DysK2gF91ZC4rMv7p_L7eni1E3BpjPD8ln=1
> FRIAM-COMIC 
> https://linkprotect.cudasvc.com/url?a=http%3a%2f%2ffriam-comic.blogspot.com%2f=E,1,EuzfRrXUJAx31WsTjQt51toXK0V-JtJX22Hifwe9RQgoqRezsxMwu75RpdoTkfs5jPoKrh8ji43f8mVnYqKrrLyn-4xdKhbrQrYDQa3q4a4,=1
> archives:
> 5/2017 thru present 
> https://linkprotect.cudasvc.com/url?a=https%3a%2f%2fredfish.com%2fpipermail%2ffriam_redfish.com%2f=E,1,wG2gBrdVtU8ZrzTqXZXsF4fyKp7HKQR1Sq38ZxF8RNxX-c0xU2rIPk6DEN-WEBpkdVT2Rv-v2Xvvz97g9SHF20TWNVF1Mk6I-5_5u9sMkwnCJ0t6sP9BNX2bZg0,=1
> 1/2003 thru 6/2021  http://friam.383.s1.nabble.com/


.-- .- -. - / .- -.-. - .. --- -. ..--.. / -.-. --- -. .--- ..- --. .- - .
FRIAM Applied Complexity Group listserv
Zoom Fridays 9:30a-12p Mtn UTC-6  bit.ly/virtualfriam
un/subscribe http://redfish.com/mailman/listinfo/friam_redfish.com
FRIAM-COMIC http://friam-comic.blogspot.com/
archives:
 5/2017 thru present https://redfish.com/pipermail/friam_redfish.com/
 1/2003 thru 6/2021  http://friam.383.s1.nabble.com/

Re: [FRIAM] Advertents and Inadvertents

[David Eric Smith]

Yeah.  What a guy.  I had the impression there wasn’t anything he could master.

Currently: https://www.linkedin.com/in/dabacon/ 


Eric


> On Sep 24, 2021, at 6:09 AM, Marcus Daniels  wrote:
> 
> I once had an office by Dave Bacon.  Years later, and for many years, he held 
> the title of software engineer at Google.   By the definitions of people 
> here, he's a scholar and a scientist.But in the weird (?) world of 
> Silicon Valley, he probably was able to make more money and be more 
> influential keeping that title.   The important thing was that he was Dave 
> Bacon.
> 
> -Original Message-
> From: Friam  On Behalf Of u?l? ?>$
> Sent: Thursday, September 23, 2021 1:51 PM
> To: friam@redfish.com
> Subject: Re: [FRIAM] Advertents and Inadvertents
> 
> My comment about being a hack is *not* disparaging. It's a blunt fact and, to 
> the extent one can take pride in things, I take pride in it.
> 
> By "ontological", I mean attributed to the real/extant/actual world (avoiding 
> Peirce's distinction between real and extant) out there. I don't like the 
> plural "ontologies" at all. Instead of your language of "one's ontology", I 
> would prefer "one's model(s) of the world". Then epistemology would be the 
> study of those models and their fidelity to the world. The computer 
> technology sense of "ontology" is fairly close to "model of the world". So, I 
> don't like using the word in that context. But I must when I talk to those 
> people.
> 
> When I caution you against ontological commitment, I intend to talk about 
> commitment to things like monism, triadic sign-object-interpretant 
> thingamajiggies, and the ontological soundness of [in]advertents. When I 
> objected that inadvertents do not exist, I intended to pressure you into 
> distinguishing your model of the world from the world. If we can restrict 
> ourselves to never having *any* access to the real world out there, and only 
> talk about models of the world, then that will satisfy me. But to make it 
> clear that's what's happening, we might want to strip our language of those 
> words. Words like "world", "reality", "exists", etc. All we need discuss is 
> the plurality of models and how they compare.
> 
> If we do that, then we can say, let there be 2 models, M1 and M2. If M1⊂M2, 
> then the components, c∈M2 such that c∉M1 can be called "inadvertent" w.r.t. 
> M1. Or if, more generally, for any M1≠M2 such that c2∈M2, c2∉M1, c1∈M1, 
> c1∉M2, c1 is "inadvertent" w.r.t. M2 and c2 is inadvertent w.r.t. M1. We 
> could go further and talk about whether or not M1∪M2 is also a model? And if 
> it's not guaranteed that the arbitrary composition of 2 models yields a 
> model, then perhaps there are situations where 2 models might share a more 
> primitive (smaller, more compressed, more expressive) model. And we might be 
> able to ask, then, is there a "largest model", a model that expresses 
> everything all other models express.
> 
> 
> On 9/23/21 1:17 PM, thompnicks...@gmail.com wrote:
>> I despair when people whom I respect  disparage themselves.  "If Glen is a 
>> hack," I think, "what kind of a worm am I?"  I look at it this way.  We are 
>> all good at somethings, bad at others.  To the extent our strengths and 
>> weaknesses can compensate for one another, then that is a good thing.   Each 
>> offers what he has to offer; each takes from the pile of offerings what he 
>> needs.  It's a kind  of intellectual communism.  
>> 
>> I do what to open a short side bar with you concerning "ontology."  I don't 
>> think the distinction between phenomenon and epiphenomenon was ever 
>> "ontological" with me.Nor is the distinction between advertents and 
>> inadvertents.  So that makes me worry that we are using the term in 
>> different senses.   My understanding is that one's ontology is everything 
>> that one assumes to be.   Ontologies can be explicit or inexplicit. So, I 
>> can have an ontology and not know it.  You, therefore, have some 
>> considerable power to convince me of what my ontology actual is.  To the 
>> extent my ontology is explicit, it is a monist experience monism that 
>> insists that we live in a world of signs ... experiences that signify other 
>> experiences, but I don't think that ontology commits me to a world of 
>> advertents and inadvertents. 
>> 
>> Now I have heard you software wizards speak from time to time of 
>> "ontologies", and I am guessing that the word has some added spin for you 
>> that it does not for me.   So, I would like to straighten that out, if we 
>> could.  When you say that you fear the distinction is ontological with me, 
>> what exactly is it that you fear? 
>> 
>> By the way, as a behaviorist, I am inclined to more to make the error that 
>> human most enterprizes are inadvertent, then to make the error that 
>> biological ones are advertent.  
> 
> -- 
> "Better to be slapped with the truth than kissed with a lie."
> ☤>$ uǝlƃ
> 
> 
> 

Re: [FRIAM] ivermectin

[David Eric Smith]

 wanted to peg him as an icon of Nazism have material to draw from, 
and his own protestations, that he is not “a good German, but a very good 
European” become complicated to evaluate.  

But of course, who would possibly write all that irrelevant digression into a 
mailing-list post….

Eric



> On Sep 24, 2021, at 7:03 AM, Jochen Fromm  wrote:
> 
> Leni Riefenstahl? Ugh. Sounds like an example of Godwin's law: as an online 
> discussion continues, the probability of a reference or comparison to Hitler 
> or Nazis approaches 1.
> https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Godwin%27s_law
> 
> Here in Germany there is nearly every week a documentary on TV about the time 
> of the Nazis, often at midnight. Hitler's dogs, Hitler's drugs, Hitler's home 
> in Austria, etc. For me it feels as if the past is haunting us. There might 
> be a psychological aspect behind (collective) spooky phenomena :-/
> 
> -J.
> 
> 
> ---- Original message 
> From: David Eric Smith 
> Date: 9/23/21 23:45 (GMT+01:00)
> To: The Friday Morning Applied Complexity Coffee Group 
> Subject: Re: [FRIAM] ivermectin
> 
> So the Monbiot article below is really interesting.
> 
> Let me put in the link to a pdf (I don’t know whether legitimate or in 
> violation of some paywall) to an article I mentioned before:
> https://campus.albion.edu/gcocks/files/2013/08/Fascinating-Fascism.pdf 
> <https://linkprotect.cudasvc.com/url?a=https%3a%2f%2fcampus.albion.edu%2fgcocks%2ffiles%2f2013%2f08%2fFascinating-Fascism.pdf=E,1,GD2kduWeTsQVaHex1Um8pFzIjkTJGq6FbLdUPmPYq-Ie7n_v8dwyTsarS140673LSz4XngkRXIx3D26xDKrwmYNXxkrCRYTCos402V0ekx_L=1>
> specifically the first section on Leni Riefenstahl and what Sontag called 
> “fascist aesthetics”, a term that appears to have quite strongly affected my 
> thinking, because many things keep coming back to it and taking an 
> orientation from it.  (n.b. the criticism of Sontag’s philosophical style in 
> the great-fun article by Justin E.H. Smith that Glen forwarded a few days 
> ago; I am aware of that at the same time as sending this link because I think 
> there is worth in it.)
> 
> That the Nazis should have advocated many things that (raised in other 
> contexts) we consider good choices, like non-destructive land management or 
> things of that sort, the Sontag article brings me to the question of not what 
> they endorsed, but why they endorsed it.
> 
> I would quasi-summarize her idea of fascist aesthetics in a line or two by 
> saying that it wants ecstatic experience to be the ground for choosing.  I 
> couldn’t tell you why my dislike for this orientation is as intense as it 
> appears to be — I”m sure it reflects something wrong with me, but I don’t 
> really care, reflecting something else wrong with me I’m sure — but it seems 
> to be commanding decision-making in a lot of areas at the moment.  (b.t.w. 
> this is also why I can’t summon the delight in William James that some people 
> keep wanting me to experience, people who seem to think James and Peirce were 
> of a piece on what Pragmatism is, where to me they seem almost poles.)
> 
> There seem to be communities that are now dismayed, or just bored, with the 
> way scientific argument gives you a back-trace to its conclusions.  Arguing 
> that they follow from “first principles” is I think an error: all this 
> language is very much middle-out, and figuring out how to properly use a 
> middle-out language is a profound and interesting problem (“problem” sense of 
> “puzzle to be worked on”, not sense of “thing to be denied or rejected”).  
> But the back-trace connects some choices to other choices, and its big value 
> is that it is more than nothing.  Getting more than nothing is rather a rare 
> prize, and something worth working toward and then protecting if you can have 
> a little bit.
> 
> But those bored with it, who seem to endlessly repeat their position, and 
> when asked to clarify, will repeat it again, seem to have a position 
> something like “you’ll see when you see”.  It is distastefully close, in my 
> perception, to those who will say “you really are a spiritual person, and you 
> just won’t admit it.  When you stop resisting and admit it, you will come 
> around to where I am, and you will see.”  That doesn’t seem to me like any 
> way to make decisions that differs from what leaves us in our current mess, 
> since people have been doing it forever.  Yet those who are into it now are 
> convinced that this time they hold the true innovation.
> 
> Very hard for me to understand.
> 
> Eric
> 
> 
>> On Sep 24, 2021, at 1:57 AM, uǝlƃ ☤>$ > <mailto:geprope...@gmail.com>> wrote:
>> 
>> https://linkprotect.cudasvc.com/url?a=https%3a%2f%2fwww.theguardian.com%2fcomme

Re: [FRIAM] unplanned [sen|obsol]escence

[David Eric Smith]

Yes, this seems really important to me:

> That "antifa affiliated" guy who shot Tiny is probably susceptible to peer 
> pressure to *stop* carrying his gun to town, much like the Proud Boys coach 
> their participants not to start fights and always cooperate with the cops. 
> The more organized Antifa groups, like Rose City *do* coach their 
> participants more than the less organized groups do. But the difference in 
> both value alignment and tactics is obvious. If you're like my colleague, 
> you'll claim this is a "distinction without a difference". But the difference 
> is palpable if you're actually present.

Living sometimes in Atlanta, where the past of a civil rights movement that was 
purpose-driven, sophisticated, strategic, and disciplined has been kept alive a 
bit more than other places, I watch historical footage from the 60s, of strings 
of people singing quietly and clapping in time various religious songs while 
being herded into police vans, and I am awestruck at the dignity and the 
self-control.  If the current movements could get to that, at the scale of the 
many-more people that they include today, we could solve a lot of these 
problems. 

Eric




.-- .- -. - / .- -.-. - .. --- -. ..--.. / -.-. --- -. .--- ..- --. .- - .
FRIAM Applied Complexity Group listserv
Zoom Fridays 9:30a-12p Mtn UTC-6  bit.ly/virtualfriam
un/subscribe http://redfish.com/mailman/listinfo/friam_redfish.com
FRIAM-COMIC http://friam-comic.blogspot.com/
archives:
 5/2017 thru present https://redfish.com/pipermail/friam_redfish.com/
 1/2003 thru 6/2021  http://friam.383.s1.nabble.com/

Re: [FRIAM] Advertents and Inadvertents

[David Eric Smith]

Hi Nick,

Sorry to be slow.  A dozen branches on the exchange so far in which it would be 
nice to engage, but I have to forego almost-all those.

There may not be much I can offer to the question you ask below, even by way of 
opinion.  My general take is that if somebody wants to build something, I say 
build away; I have no wish to be somebody who sits on the sidelines and carps.  

Our worlds, our frameworks, and our sense of what constitute argument are so 
different that even after the work is done, I don’t know that I could evaluate 
what is moved by it.  I can give anecdotal examples of why, but probably not 
more.  You have, as part of a string of things below, the remarkable sentence:

> Think about the relation between functions and purposes. 


I would have been incapable of using the definite article in that sentence.  I 
take it that you live in a world where both those words have definite meanings, 
and where you know what those meanings are.  Not only are such meanings 
available to you, but I gather that they are the most interesting meanings for 
you, and that your various projects always regress back to attach to them 
somehow.  That that should be so, for a psychologist, seems perfectly sensible.

For all that I have to be a spectator.  If we are using the word “purpose” in a 
poetic or literary sense, then sure, I sort-of know about as much about what 
might be the intended meaning as the next guy met on the street.  If I hear the 
word “function” used by a biologist, I probably don’t even know at a poetic or 
literary level what was intended, and my main reaction is a stress response of 
heightened vigilance  It is like the line in the old-series Star Trek where 
Kirk says something about freedom, and the big savage-man perks up and says 
“Freedom?!  It is our worship word; you will not speak it!”.  When a biologist 
uses the word “function”, it conjures up for me an image of a dragon sitting 
guard on his gold, because it is attached somehow to that most-sacred of all 
worship words: “evolution”. c.f.:

Then said they unto him, Say now Shibboleth: and he said Sibboleth: for he 
could not frame to pronounce it right. Then they took him, and slew him at the 
passages of Jordan: and there fell at that time of the Ephraimites forty and 
two thousand.

I think you are born into that biological lineage, as innocently as you were 
born a New Englander.

In contrast, there is a narrow use of the word function that I will commit to, 
in which I can say just what I mean by it.  Probably few people or nobody else 
feels a need to use it in my sense (though it will be more familiar among 
engineers or physicists), and they would be willing to interact with my usage 
at a literary level.  But within my own frame of argument, I can be definite 
enough to mean a specific thing.  (Similar to what I can do for the word 
“emergence” in the specific sense of phase transition in thermodynamics.)  
There is no similarly definite usage I could attach to the word “purpose”, so 
there are ways of using it (as I could, internally, use “function”)  that are 
so far out of my reach.  

Yet for you, not only is it given that these terms have meaning; you can refer 
to _the_ relation between those meanings.  I dunno; it’s just a different style.

So in view of that, your wish to find out if there is a good dichotomy, between 
phenomena that are situated somehow along the line of a purpose, and those that 
are somehow out of that line as branches, effected by the progress down the 
main line, but only feeding back on it through (what?  Un-modeled environment 
effects?  Le Chatelier-type action/reaction oppositions? Ecosystem engineering 
or Niche Construction?— I can’t even know that, because I don’t know in your 
world how people think of when one is referring to a property of a model and 
when they just make declarations without talking about what is a model and what 
is something else) is one for which I will have to just witness the output and 
see if it seems insightful.

That doesn’t contribute, I know, and I apologize for the limitations.  But I 
hope the self-reporting above can trigger some sensitivity in you that when you 
just toss off a word in a sentence, there will be some words for which the 
givenness to you will be much larger stumbling blocks to others than it will 
for other words.  Figuring out which ones are the mines in that field can be 
slow work. 

Eric



> On Sep 24, 2021, at 2:18 AM,  
>  wrote:
> 
> Dear Glen and EricS
>  
> My friends are all too busy, so I have to turn to my frenemies for help. 
>  
> My palaver about epiphenomena grows out a much larger project: to identify 
> the resemblance among a bunch of concepts loosely related to the idea of  an 
> epiphenomenon.  Since the word has started to get us into trouble, I have 
> been searching around for another.  How about “inadvertent”?  To “advert” to 
> something is to orient toward it, to turn toward it, to point at it.  
> 

Re: [FRIAM] ivermectin

[David Eric Smith]

So the Monbiot article below is really interesting.

Let me put in the link to a pdf (I don’t know whether legitimate or in 
violation of some paywall) to an article I mentioned before:
https://campus.albion.edu/gcocks/files/2013/08/Fascinating-Fascism.pdf 

specifically the first section on Leni Riefenstahl and what Sontag called 
“fascist aesthetics”, a term that appears to have quite strongly affected my 
thinking, because many things keep coming back to it and taking an orientation 
from it.  (n.b. the criticism of Sontag’s philosophical style in the great-fun 
article by Justin E.H. Smith that Glen forwarded a few days ago; I am aware of 
that at the same time as sending this link because I think there is worth in 
it.)

That the Nazis should have advocated many things that (raised in other 
contexts) we consider good choices, like non-destructive land management or 
things of that sort, the Sontag article brings me to the question of not what 
they endorsed, but why they endorsed it.

I would quasi-summarize her idea of fascist aesthetics in a line or two by 
saying that it wants ecstatic experience to be the ground for choosing.  I 
couldn’t tell you why my dislike for this orientation is as intense as it 
appears to be — I”m sure it reflects something wrong with me, but I don’t 
really care, reflecting something else wrong with me I’m sure — but it seems to 
be commanding decision-making in a lot of areas at the moment.  (b.t.w. this is 
also why I can’t summon the delight in William James that some people keep 
wanting me to experience, people who seem to think James and Peirce were of a 
piece on what Pragmatism is, where to me they seem almost poles.)

There seem to be communities that are now dismayed, or just bored, with the way 
scientific argument gives you a back-trace to its conclusions.  Arguing that 
they follow from “first principles” is I think an error: all this language is 
very much middle-out, and figuring out how to properly use a middle-out 
language is a profound and interesting problem (“problem” sense of “puzzle to 
be worked on”, not sense of “thing to be denied or rejected”).  But the 
back-trace connects some choices to other choices, and its big value is that it 
is more than nothing.  Getting more than nothing is rather a rare prize, and 
something worth working toward and then protecting if you can have a little bit.

But those bored with it, who seem to endlessly repeat their position, and when 
asked to clarify, will repeat it again, seem to have a position something like 
“you’ll see when you see”.  It is distastefully close, in my perception, to 
those who will say “you really are a spiritual person, and you just won’t admit 
it.  When you stop resisting and admit it, you will come around to where I am, 
and you will see.”  That doesn’t seem to me like any way to make decisions that 
differs from what leaves us in our current mess, since people have been doing 
it forever.  Yet those who are into it now are convinced that this time they 
hold the true innovation.

Very hard for me to understand.

Eric


> On Sep 24, 2021, at 1:57 AM, uǝlƃ ☤>$  wrote:
> 
> https://linkprotect.cudasvc.com/url?a=https%3a%2f%2fwww.theguardian.com%2fcommentisfree%2f2021%2fsep%2f22%2fleftwingers-far-right-conspiracy-theories-anti-vaxxers-power=E,1,YQWY-Qx-D6GAp4uFSbw9DpsNm0UPherqjbJBTzVjSG_of5c03uW3M1Peo6dUo_IiTgPC8e0gxQA9PhkeNnQbLgsUGzPtJnH2zqUVd0qr3S7PDBI,=1
> 
> "The notion of the 'sovereign body', untainted by chemical contamination, has 
> begun to fuse with the fear that a shadowy cabal is trying to deprive us of 
> autonomy."
> 
> On 9/23/21 5:24 AM, Pieter Steenekamp wrote:
>> Well, I for one am always very suspicious of what my doctor tells me.
>> 
>> It's not that I'm against modern medicine, IMO they do wonders, but are 
>> their interests always aligned 100% with mine as a patient? Me thinketh not, 
>> modern medicine is money-driven.I go to the doctor for advice, but 
>> ultimately I claim responsibility for my own body; I don't abdicate my 
>> health to somebody else.
>> 
>> For example, I just listened to a documentary "Big Pharma - How much power 
>> do drug companies have? "https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-z_W3yRA9I8 
>>  on Youtube, going into details 
>> of the greed of the pharmaceutical companies.
>> 
> 
> -- 
> "Better to be slapped with the truth than kissed with a lie."
> ☤>$ uǝlƃ
> 
> 
> .-- .- -. - / .- -.-. - .. --- -. ..--.. / -.-. --- -. .--- ..- --. .- - .
> FRIAM Applied Complexity Group listserv
> Zoom Fridays 9:30a-12p Mtn UTC-6  bit.ly/virtualfriam
> un/subscribe 
> https://linkprotect.cudasvc.com/url?a=http%3a%2f%2fredfish.com%2fmailman%2flistinfo%2ffriam_redfish.com=E,1,7QY-CB0jY0-3m9FXskvIwFDd6gkxOSryK3iKrpu8Kpq_xLuoWLeD8aDpo_2iCSo7lvmJRNfFLd2ZgFMsf8VaVIp3uU1n9mj6svjFnIv6NSpxC9TgfYIPkw,,=1
> FRIAM-COMIC 
> 

Re: [FRIAM] unplanned [sen|obsol]escence

[David Eric Smith]

That might be where the Havana syndrome is coming from.

There actually are microwave-powered agents stalking these various CIA, and 
they need to recharge in situ from time to time, with a little sideband cooking 
of the biologicals in the beamline.

> On Sep 23, 2021, at 5:17 AM, Marcus Daniels  wrote:
> 
> Yes, I like the induction loop idea.   Or if I could switch between physical 
> realizations, a form that would allow for direct microwave delivery from 
> outer space.   Sure I might glow a little bit, but that would pass. 
>  
> From: Friam  On Behalf Of Steve Smith
> Sent: Wednesday, September 22, 2021 1:02 PM
> To: friam@redfish.com
> Subject: Re: [FRIAM] unplanned [sen|obsol]escence
>  
>  
> 
> Marcus -
> I was a user of Soylent for a while.  A problem with it is that it uses rice 
> flour that spoils.
> I guess I didn't know there was a ?commercial? product by that name.
> 
> I was of course, referencing that 70s B movie with Charlton Heston 
>  (the era of OmegaManHeston and 
> PlanetO'ApesHeston) before NRAColdDeadHandsHeston and after BenHurHeston and 
> MosesHeston.
> 
> https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4UPDUpjkHg0 
> 
>   What’s the point of it if you have to worry about preparation and its 
> integrity?  I want to pop in a battery my leg and be good to go!
> Wouldn't it be even more convenient to have inductive charging loops 
> everywhere and just stay topped off all the time (while in Eloi territory 
> anyway)? In the meantime, tinfoil hatters would imagine you can draw directly 
> from the power grid inductively.  My great uncles were famous for tapping the 
> power lines going by with a coil of wire on a long pole they could lay up 
> close to the wires going over and
> 
> If I were going fully post/trans human I think I'd want to grow a 
> peacock-like photosynthetic tailfeather array to capture sunlight directly.   
> Though I think the efficiency would have to be pretty high to support a 2000W 
> lifestyle .  At a solar flux of 
> 1000W/m^2 that looks like a shadow-print of 1mx2m or the cross section of at 
> typical grave?  3 m diameter peacock fan?
> 
>  
> From: Friam   On 
> Behalf Of Steve Smith
> Sent: Wednesday, September 22, 2021 11:21 AM
> To: friam@redfish.com 
> Subject: Re: [FRIAM] unplanned [sen|obsol]escence
>  
>  
> 
> On 9/22/21 12:00 PM, Marcus Daniels wrote:
> Steve writes:
> 
> < Is it a single spectrum?   I propose a few components:
> 
> Self Exploration
> Creativity Enhancement
> Medicating for Social Anxiety
> Medicating for Depression
> Self Identity/Expression
> Avoidance
> ...
> > 
> Being a vegan, for example, is an inconvenience and one will tend to impact a 
> group.   Not participating in the hedonism around you will make you stick 
> out. 
> I was fairly pure vegetarian from age 14-32.  I eased out of Vegetarianism by 
> eating meat whenever it was served and not "sharing" my vegetarianism 
> overtly, it was definitely making me "stick out" and I didn't enjoy the 
> conversations I usually had around it with both vegetarians and 
> non-vegetarians.I am now back to mostly vegetarian with a lean toward 
> veganism, based mostly on my broadening empathy with all living things and my 
> growing distaste for all things mega-industrial (agri-industry, animal 
> edition especially) and the implications for the health of the biosphere (and 
> maybe more acutely, the noosphere).   To most, this probably just seems like 
> knee-jerk bleeding-heart  ned-ludd-channeling tedium.
> 
> My peers are no longer whigged by any dietary preference/restriction I might 
> express (though I try to keep my dietary preferences to myself).  They don't 
> even blink at anyone eschewing anything...  Alcohol, sugar, gluten, caffiene, 
>  meat products, animal products, orange colored food, GMO, non-GMO, etc.   
> For health/vitality reasons, I have tried a number of dietary restrictions 
> (metabolism and inflammation related) so do occasionally have to "eat around" 
> what is served/offered as quietly as possible (or more likely just stick to a 
> green salad and water which is almost always available and almost always fits 
> any dietary restriction).
> 
> I'm surprised you would have no takers on a GMO-positive food club.  I have a 
> number of acquaintances who lean heavily into the food-replacement (e.g Huel) 
> and even synthetic food game.
> 
> https://huel.com/ 
> 
> https://www.eater.com/2019/5/14/18623258/impossible-foods-synthetic-lab-grown-meat-science
>  
> 

Re: [FRIAM] the cancellation arc

[David Eric Smith]

What do you call a Jewish Uber driver in Texas who takes women to clinics, 
because an upstander accepts danger and difficulty?

An Uber-mensch.


> On Sep 18, 2021, at 2:20 AM, Steve Smith  wrote:
> 
> 
>> More mob justice:
>> 
>> US rightwing group targets academics with Professor Watchlist 
>> https://linkprotect.cudasvc.com/url?a=https%3a%2f%2fwww.theguardian.com%2feducation%2f2021%2fsep%2f17%2fturning-point-usa-professor-watchlist=E,1,miq5rO3fImgOymXC9vDCVrtvmJneWtPFoCQS6bYK6nwxon3gkbrfCOHTq0XiRE3Sy5KnnET1iXU4J7WNGpDFt8YeKyCIMJxIojA4qr73rYk44TPWbop9bZs,=1
> 
> Just now reading a biography of Thoreau and learning a little more about
> the Transcendentalists and Utopians of that stripe makes me realize that
> this was also the era of Abolitionism and the Fugitive Slave Law which
> makes the TX Abortion shenanigans seem very tame.  Discussions about
> abolitionism often started with absurdisms such as trying to decide
> *when* it was OK to "own another human being" without the inverted
> perspective of "when is it ok, as a human being, to be owned"?
> 
> I chatted with a good friend this week, in CA after Newsom was absolved
> (or more to the point, Elder was rejected?) and he used the phrase "now
> that Texas has legalized hunting women from helicopters" and I nearly
> fell into NST's famed "Giggles" over the dark twistedness of it all (not
> to mention the oblique Palin reference).
> 
> I share Glen's multi-valence about being on the list being a badge of
> honor, yet also having real consequences.   I haven't seen any stories
> coming out of TX yet where individuals (say an Uber driver) have
> deliberately provoked an Anti-Choicer by say... claiming on social media
> that he/she had just driven a woman to an abortion clinic and asking 
> them to "bring it on".   Can only ONE person bring a lawsuit per
> incident?  What is the modern day Gibson/Sterling/Stephenson equivalent
> of Ambulance-Chasers???   Uber-stalkers I suppose?
> 
>> 
>> And because the Guardian doesn't seem to link directly to it:
>> https://linkprotect.cudasvc.com/url?a=https%3a%2f%2fprofessorwatchlist.org%2f=E,1,CN6uubvqiBZOZ48aFda2mtxMvH1uuHSpCH9dYyz3owF4ICWAQ-X9M8K83QrzyxLvSoGP_tAFEWYpVspowq-BeNJuKIAEivs5yjzmvdMHAg,,=1
>> 
>> Is this different from doxxing nazis? It would be a badge of honor to be on 
>> that list, I think. But their violence isn't merely implied.
>> 
>> On 9/16/21 6:09 AM, Roger Critchlow wrote:
>>> The Chronicle of Higher Education noticed that there have been two massive 
>>> cancellation protests against fraternities where sexual assaults were 
>>> reported in the past few months, in Kansas and Nebraska.  Is group 
>>> cancellation better/worse than individual cancellation?   Are students at 
>>> Kansas and Nebraska really liberal lynch mobs out to destroy the glorious 
>>> traditions of greek life?
>>> 
>>> https://www.chronicle.com/article/at-kansas-another-confrontational-protest-against-greek-life
>>>  
>>> 
>>> 
>>> They also incidentally brought up recent research on trigger warnings, a 
>>> crowd sourced clinical intervention for PTSD dating to the 1970's and a 
>>> long time tough-guy bug-a-boo.  
>>> 
>>> https://www.chronicle.com/article/the-data-is-in-trigger-warnings-dont-work 
>>> 
>> 
> 
> 
> .-- .- -. - / .- -.-. - .. --- -. ..--.. / -.-. --- -. .--- ..- --. .- - .
> FRIAM Applied Complexity Group listserv
> Zoom Fridays 9:30a-12p Mtn UTC-6  bit.ly/virtualfriam
> un/subscribe 
> https://linkprotect.cudasvc.com/url?a=http%3a%2f%2fredfish.com%2fmailman%2flistinfo%2ffriam_redfish.com=E,1,vAwsFjBo0nYHDqP7R5uNOMwHa-3mLW0vK2oEX0dDZiBcZxtU3rJCXGTyGsc-0kMrVlRB3eu0WOXqslSMQwpM1So4yUIuQmxTUr4vnCDOBp404JE,=1
> FRIAM-COMIC 
> https://linkprotect.cudasvc.com/url?a=http%3a%2f%2ffriam-comic.blogspot.com%2f=E,1,yem9QSA9CdnQC89Wl-SNhbg_1jEQDj0lEMOpEMNjobHdRxVQbpJxC4dLRTJSe7C35QW07nRdW6WMNiZaCBSlnTRpVXsTnIkDFRSnIO7KZ44_geY,=1
> archives:
> 5/2017 thru present 
> https://linkprotect.cudasvc.com/url?a=https%3a%2f%2fredfish.com%2fpipermail%2ffriam_redfish.com%2f=E,1,zmal698Xip8rYj0UHw7kF6XTfhPnj89-zdA3KarEvGF8M7f2vcnGOgO_fZtdAppA5GxDdZGiBr0GI1jssjmUMlPgE2S5r7nq6R30v4C12cCt3QjMKSU,=1
> 1/2003 thru 6/2021  http://friam.383.s1.nabble.com/



.-- .- -. - / .- -.-. - .. --- -. ..--.. / -.-. --- -. .--- ..- --. .- - .
FRIAM Applied Complexity Group listserv
Zoom Fridays 9:30a-12p Mtn UTC-6  bit.ly/virtualfriam
un/subscribe http://redfish.com/mailman/listinfo/friam_redfish.com
FRIAM-COMIC http://friam-comic.blogspot.com/
archives:
 5/2017 thru present https://redfish.com/pipermail/friam_redfish.com/
 1/2003 thru 6/2021  http://friam.383.s1.nabble.com/

Re: [FRIAM] Could this possibly be true?

[David Eric Smith]

 receipt of, a language that 
>> refers to a world beyond experience, that I imagine I would not have if it 
>> didn’t.
>> 
>> 
>> That didn’t buy you any of what you came for, I know.   Hopefully not time 
>> lost down a well, even so.
>> 
>> Eric
>> 
>> 
>> 
>> 
>>> On Sep 17, 2021, at 6:52 AM, >> <mailto:thompnicks...@gmail.com>> >> <mailto:thompnicks...@gmail.com>> wrote:
>>> 
>>> Hi, EricS
>>>  
>>> You faith in my consistency is touching (};-)]. 
>>>  
>>> I know that, in response to this, Nick will reply with a sequence of 
>>> English-language words that I find even more unparseable than the ones 
>>> above.  
>>>  
>>> Frankly, you shouldn’t have any faith that my average psychology colleague 
>>> will rescue me.  90% of them, directly or indirectly, make their living off 
>>> The Hard Problem.  
>>>  
>>> EricC and JonZ might do so, but they are  probably too busy.  
>>>  
>>> Given that I find my inability to communicate with you alarming and 
>>> distressing, and given that you find what I write so exasperating, is there 
>>> any way forward?  
>>>  
>>> Please understand that I am not fooling around, here.  
>>>  
>>> Are there any baby steps we could take?   If I can’t communicate with you 
>>> guys, small chance I will be able to communicate with ordinary mortals. 
>>>  
>>>  
>>> Nick  
>>>  
>>> Nick Thompson
>>> thompnicks...@gmail.com <mailto:thompnicks...@gmail.com>
>>> https://wordpress.clarku.edu/nthompson/ 
>>> <https://linkprotect.cudasvc.com/url?a=https%3a%2f%2fwordpress.clarku.edu%2fnthompson%2f=E,1,7DujyKj5BlPA-iLJk3HDHbbYf60pN4x1wLc2-4y8BhU7T98FngpaBqZeRQ7hpECyZN4GzK-mPCBf7x_afUfzbyUr1CYriZXSYMJPqZQk=1>
>>>  
>>> From: Friam mailto:friam-boun...@redfish.com>> 
>>> On Behalf Of David Eric Smith
>>> Sent: Thursday, September 16, 2021 5:32 PM
>>> To: The Friday Morning Applied Complexity Coffee Group >> <mailto:friam@redfish.com>>
>>> Subject: Re: [FRIAM] Could this possibly be true?
>>>  
>>> This is where there is a style of use of language that may be unique to 
>>> Nick among all humans, or may be a tribal custom among the psychologists, 
>>> but which the common man needs to be aware exists, so that he knows that 
>>> the way Nick/psychologists use words will be directly opposed to the way 
>>> the common man has always used them.
>>>  
>>>> If that question disappears for you under those circumstances, then I can 
>>>> simply admit that a pleasure is just the behavioral transition that occurs 
>>>> upon the achievement of set of circumstances, and escape the tautology by 
>>>> defining  a goal as the organization of behavior that points to a set of 
>>>> circumstances.  
>>>  
>>> So, in archery, the way the archer points the bow (organization of 
>>> behavior) is the “goal”, and the event of an arrow’s hitting a bullseye is 
>>> somehow not a goal.  Nick didn’t happen to use the word “function” in the 
>>> clip above; I have no idea what he would say a “function” is, but in the 
>>> earlier posts, it was as bizarrely glossed to me as this glossing of goal, 
>>> so I can’t even come up with a guess for how to imitate it.  
>>>  
>>> The plugging in of an address for the supermarket to the GPS while sitting 
>>> in the car in the driveway (organization of behavior) is the goal, not the 
>>> event of my arriving at the supermarket.
>>>  
>>> For me as a mechanic, the bullseye as a position for arrows is the goal 
>>> (applied to an object), or the event of the arrow’s arriving there is a 
>>> goal (applied to an outcome of a behavior) that serves as a selection 
>>> criterion among directions in which a bow might be pointed.  My pointing 
>>> the bow one way versus another is to me a function 
>>> for attaining that goal.  The event of arriving at a supermarket is the 
>>> goal that serves as a criterion for selection of which GPS location I plug 
>>> in; the act of plugging in that address is then a function for attaining 
>>> that goal.
>>>  
>>> I know that, in response to this, Nick will reply with a sequence of 
>>> English-language words that I find even more unparseable than the ones 
>>> above.  
>>>  
>>> The medita

Re: [FRIAM] the cancellation arc

[David Eric Smith]

Quick answer to your specific question below, Steve.

Whether or not it says more about the concept or about my accidental window on 
it, of course, I cannot know.

But to me, the cleanest example of a true epiphenomenon is the way neoclassical 
economics in its pure Arrow-Debreu form treats institutions.  The abstraction 
at the foundation is that there are these individuals — meant to somehow stand 
for people — who have well-formed preferences for their part of every possible 
allocation of some scarce basket of resources in every possible state of the 
world.  The General Equilibrium solutions are any allocations such that nobody 
in the society would be willing to accept any differing contract from the 
present one, which anybody else would be willing to offer.  There are issues of 
locality and connectedness of the set of all equilibria, etc., but let me not 
get off into the weeds of that here, which are not to this point.

Anyway, the GE economists of course understand that institutions exist.  They 
use money at the supermarket within the conventions of the laws, etc.  But in 
their foundation abstraction, whether any of those institutions exist or not is 
immaterial to the allocation of the resources basket achieved at the end, 
because that allocation is ultimately determined by the collection of all the 
individuals’ complete preference functions.  There is no work for an 
institution to do, so the institutions do no work.  In that sense they are 
epiphenomena.  

Martin Shubik’s pushback against the GE psychosis was the endlessly-repeated 
expression “Institutions are the carriers of process”.  Just for completeness’ 
sake, let me mention that Ken Arrow was wonderfully clearheaded about the 
pathology of the Arrow-Debreu foundation, right from the beginning, and in 
everything he did thereafter.  He put it out because it was a problem that 
could be solved, and occasionally the abstraction would have enough of an 
overlap with some case that it might be useful.  But it never was a religious 
icon to him.  Shubik and Arrow worked in quite different ways and styles, but 
in understanding that the ephiphenomanon characterization of institutions was a 
serious problem to be overcome, there was no struggle between them.

Eric



> On Sep 18, 2021, at 12:04 AM, Steve Smith  wrote:
> 
> My first thought in reading this (Glen and Jon in response/elaboration) is 
> that we are discussing whether the universe of comprehensions is (fully) 
> metrizeable or not.  I have some conjectures about (weighted) graph and 
> network metrization which may or may not have a play in this.   I'm not 
> enough of a math-hole to really properly think (much less speak) about the 
> higher order abstractions of topology that are invoked/implied in all this... 
>   
> 
> I'm also puzzled by the distinction between epi-phenomena and phenomena.   I 
> suspect the principals in this discussion here to be using similar but 
> different reserved terms from overlapping but distinct lexicons.   My 
> entirely intuitive/vernacular response to this is that it feels like 
> epi-phenomena "all the way down".   
> 
> Glen invoked "epi" as "nearly" and yet in vernacular use, I feel it always 
> carries the extra connotation of "on top of" or "in addition to" or "composed 
> with".   Cycles and epicycles in the copernican sense?   Isn't the "billiard 
> ball model" of molecular dynamics an "epiphenomen" when compared to a quantum 
> wave formulation of the "phenomenology of particle physics"?
> 
> I'm probably not reading/thinking/expressing this nearly carefully enough to 
> be relevant.
> 
> bumble,
> 
>   - Steve
> 
> On 9/16/21 8:03 PM, Jon Zingale wrote:
>> """
>> Were M absolutely, perfectly faithful to W, there would be no epiphenomena 
>> in M. I.e. epiphenomena do not exist...
>> """
>> 
>> I read Glen as saying that the collection of all comprehensions forms a 
>> space equipped with a meaningful notion of distance, and that if one were to 
>> treat the space analytically, one can arrive at a satisfactory definition of 
>> local epiphenomena.
>> 
>> For what it's worth, I still feel that free-constructions may be an 
>> insightful way to model epiphenomena, or maybe even (as in EricS's t-shirt 
>> post) the relationship that Lie groups have to their algebras.
>> 
>> 
>> .-- .- -. - / .- -.-. - .. --- -. ..--.. / -.-. --- -. .--- ..- --. .- - .
>> FRIAM Applied Complexity Group listserv
>> Zoom Fridays 9:30a-12p Mtn UTC-6  bit.ly/virtualfriam
>> un/subscribe http://redfish.com/mailman/listinfo/friam_redfish.com 
>> 
>> FRIAM-COMIC http://friam-comic.blogspot.com/ 
>> 

Re: [FRIAM] Could this possibly be true?

[David Eric Smith]

?

Well, my discourse can never happen except within the larger field of my 
experience, and I would do well to always keep that in mind.  That seems good.  
But what is there of the language I produce, and that we produce together?  It 
is generated within behavior, it is transacted in experience, indeed.  But what 
forms is it desirable for me to endow it with, or in which to try to use it and 
develop it?  Suppose it is capable of having forms that refer to an existence 
in ways such that that referral doesn’t care how my experience is or isn’t 
involved.  A biosphere could have sprung up on this planet, with all these 
insects and plants and fish and so forth, and with never people to comment 
about them.  They would be no less themselves.  A language capable of 
expressing (or aspiring to express) that frame is one I would like to use.  To 
conceive of a language that has structures in common with a world beyond 
experience, even though my talking in it is an event within behavior or 
experience, does not seem to me obviously logically incoherent.  Any more than 
living in a world that would have been much the same if I hadn’t been living in 
it seems incompatible with the inherent coherence — of a thing’s being 
whatever-all that thing is — of existing.

The question of “how would I know whether the language had ever achieved such 
an alignment, since my knowing takes place within experience” is of course fine 
to pursue.  But I think I can express a preference for trying for a language 
with that overall form, even if I don’t know how to answer the question about 
validation.  There is the issue of how I participate in a language, given 
whatever it is and whatever I am.  I have a mode of participation in, or 
engagement with, or use or receipt of, a language that refers to a world beyond 
experience, that I imagine I would not have if it didn’t.


That didn’t buy you any of what you came for, I know.   Hopefully not time lost 
down a well, even so.

Eric




> On Sep 17, 2021, at 6:52 AM,  
>  wrote:
> 
> Hi, EricS
>  
> You faith in my consistency is touching (};-)]. 
>  
> I know that, in response to this, Nick will reply with a sequence of 
> English-language words that I find even more unparseable than the ones above. 
>  
>  
> Frankly, you shouldn’t have any faith that my average psychology colleague 
> will rescue me.  90% of them, directly or indirectly, make their living off 
> The Hard Problem.  
>  
> EricC and JonZ might do so, but they are  probably too busy.  
>  
> Given that I find my inability to communicate with you alarming and 
> distressing, and given that you find what I write so exasperating, is there 
> any way forward?  
>  
> Please understand that I am not fooling around, here.  
>  
> Are there any baby steps we could take?   If I can’t communicate with you 
> guys, small chance I will be able to communicate with ordinary mortals. 
>  
>  
> Nick  
>  
> Nick Thompson
> thompnicks...@gmail.com <mailto:thompnicks...@gmail.com>
> https://wordpress.clarku.edu/nthompson/ 
> <https://linkprotect.cudasvc.com/url?a=https%3a%2f%2fwordpress.clarku.edu%2fnthompson%2f=E,1,7DujyKj5BlPA-iLJk3HDHbbYf60pN4x1wLc2-4y8BhU7T98FngpaBqZeRQ7hpECyZN4GzK-mPCBf7x_afUfzbyUr1CYriZXSYMJPqZQk=1>
>  
> From: Friam mailto:friam-boun...@redfish.com>> On 
> Behalf Of David Eric Smith
> Sent: Thursday, September 16, 2021 5:32 PM
> To: The Friday Morning Applied Complexity Coffee Group  <mailto:friam@redfish.com>>
> Subject: Re: [FRIAM] Could this possibly be true?
>  
> This is where there is a style of use of language that may be unique to Nick 
> among all humans, or may be a tribal custom among the psychologists, but 
> which the common man needs to be aware exists, so that he knows that the way 
> Nick/psychologists use words will be directly opposed to the way the common 
> man has always used them.
>  
>> If that question disappears for you under those circumstances, then I can 
>> simply admit that a pleasure is just the behavioral transition that occurs 
>> upon the achievement of set of circumstances, and escape the tautology by 
>> defining  a goal as the organization of behavior that points to a set of 
>> circumstances.  
>  
> So, in archery, the way the archer points the bow (organization of behavior) 
> is the “goal”, and the event of an arrow’s hitting a bullseye is somehow not 
> a goal.  Nick didn’t happen to use the word “function” in the clip above; I 
> have no idea what he would say a “function” is, but in the earlier posts, it 
> was as bizarrely glossed to me as this glossing of goal, so I can’t even come 
> up with a guess for how to imitate it.  
>  
> The plugging in of an address for the supermarket to the GPS while sitting in 
> the car in the driveway