Re: [FRIAM] sui generis

2024-01-09 Thread Frank Wimberly
Frank Zappa!  Now that was a long time ago.

---
Frank C. Wimberly
140 Calle Ojo Feliz,
Santa Fe, NM 87505

505 670-9918
Santa Fe, NM

On Tue, Jan 9, 2024, 10:35 AM glen  wrote:

> I agree almost completely. Where I may disagree goes back to a
> conversation we (I've forgotten who was "there", though) had on vFriAM
> awhile back. There is something to uniqueness. An expression from the Very
> Weird is different from expressions from the less weird. I tend to think of
> it in terms of non-convex space and strictures in the manifold. If you've
> got a pathologically malformed space and "we" are all meandering around in
> that space, then some proportion of us will end up in little niches with
> few (or zero) neighbors. The puffs of "content" expressed by those weirdos
> will be more unique than the puffs from those with many neighbors.
>
> Of course, if you have zero neighbors, then your puffs may not be
> "remembered" at all by anyone. (I prefer "recognized" to "remembered". But
> to each her own.) So, there's some λ parameter for weirdness. Personally,
> although I appreciate, say, Frank Zappa's expressions, I don't enjoy many
> of them. Similarly, I don't appreciate or enjoy the expressions of Taylor
> Swift. But without such large pockets of convex space, where would our
> little white holes of weirdness be? We'd have no safe harbor at all.
>
> On 1/9/24 08:47, Prof David West wrote:
> > Ancient Greek notions of "creativity" lacked any sense of egocentric
> novelty. To 'create' was to 'remember'. This was grounded in the more
> general philosophy that denied the possibility of "something-from-nothing."
> >
> > In my Design Thinking book, there is a large section about this and
> about who "creation" is akin to midwifery, assisting something to express
> itself.
> >
> > Just as a midwife lacks "authorship" of a baby, so too do all
> "intellectuals" lack authorship of novel, innovative, or creative work—
> despite the boilerplate prefacing every Ph.D. thesis.
> >
> > davew
> >
> > On Tue, Jan 9, 2024, at 10:28 AM, glen wrote:
> >>
> https://www.science.org/content/article/billionaire-launches-plagiarism-detection-effort-against-mit-president-and-all-its
> >>
> >>
> https://thehill.com/policy/technology/4392624-new-york-times-chatgpt-lawsuit-poses-new-legal-threats-to-artificial-intelligence/
> >>
> >> I just can't help but analogize between Intelligent Design and these
> >> arguments of ownership/novelty of [ahem] "content". It all feels like
> >> the argument from design to me. For a paywalled for-profit like the NYT
> >> to go after a for-profit like OpenAI and a rapacious
> >> <
> https://www.thenation.com/article/society/william-ackman-harvard-donor/>
> >> billionaire to go after prestige-mongering elite institutions seems
> >> like a clear instance of elite overproduction
> >> . And to have it
> >> all leveraged on the fantasy fulcrum of novelty and ownership is making
> >> my head spin.
> >>
> >> But deep down, there's something to be said about intuitionism. At our
> >> last salon, someone asked how much ontological status we might give to
> >> stories about the Astral Plane. My answer derives entirely from what
> >> little I know about intersubjectivity and cross-species mind reading.
> >> If there is a commonality to nootropic or psychonaut experience, it
> >> derives from our common *structure*, including whatever deeply
> >> historical things like genetic memory that may (not) exist.
> >>
> >> It's fine to give lip service to intellectual humility. But such
> >> rhetoric can't persuade ... uh ... "people" like Ackman. Surely ...
> >> surely people like that are smart enough to grok things like gen-phen
> >> maps, robustness and polyphenism, etc. Right? And if they do get it,
> >> then we grass tufts can go on about our work, trying to be open, accept
> >> and apply credit and blame to the best of our abilities and ignore
> >> these fighting elephants. Right?
> >>
> >> --
> >> ꙮ Mɥǝu ǝlǝdɥɐuʇs ɟᴉƃɥʇ' ʇɥǝ ƃɹɐss snɟɟǝɹs˙ ꙮ
>
>
> --
> ꙮ Mɥǝu ǝlǝdɥɐuʇs ɟᴉƃɥʇ' ʇɥǝ ƃɹɐss snɟɟǝɹs˙ ꙮ
>
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Re: [FRIAM] sui generis

2024-01-09 Thread glen

I agree almost completely. Where I may disagree goes back to a conversation we (I've forgotten who was 
"there", though) had on vFriAM awhile back. There is something to uniqueness. An expression from 
the Very Weird is different from expressions from the less weird. I tend to think of it in terms of 
non-convex space and strictures in the manifold. If you've got a pathologically malformed space and 
"we" are all meandering around in that space, then some proportion of us will end up in little 
niches with few (or zero) neighbors. The puffs of "content" expressed by those weirdos will be more 
unique than the puffs from those with many neighbors.

Of course, if you have zero neighbors, then your puffs may not be "remembered" at all by anyone. (I 
prefer "recognized" to "remembered". But to each her own.) So, there's some λ parameter 
for weirdness. Personally, although I appreciate, say, Frank Zappa's expressions, I don't enjoy many of them. 
Similarly, I don't appreciate or enjoy the expressions of Taylor Swift. But without such large pockets of 
convex space, where would our little white holes of weirdness be? We'd have no safe harbor at all.

On 1/9/24 08:47, Prof David West wrote:

Ancient Greek notions of "creativity" lacked any sense of egocentric novelty. To 'create' 
was to 'remember'. This was grounded in the more general philosophy that denied the possibility of 
"something-from-nothing."

In my Design Thinking book, there is a large section about this and about who 
"creation" is akin to midwifery, assisting something to express itself.

Just as a midwife lacks "authorship" of a baby, so too do all "intellectuals" 
lack authorship of novel, innovative, or creative work— despite the boilerplate prefacing every 
Ph.D. thesis.

davew

On Tue, Jan 9, 2024, at 10:28 AM, glen wrote:

https://www.science.org/content/article/billionaire-launches-plagiarism-detection-effort-against-mit-president-and-all-its

https://thehill.com/policy/technology/4392624-new-york-times-chatgpt-lawsuit-poses-new-legal-threats-to-artificial-intelligence/

I just can't help but analogize between Intelligent Design and these
arguments of ownership/novelty of [ahem] "content". It all feels like
the argument from design to me. For a paywalled for-profit like the NYT
to go after a for-profit like OpenAI and a rapacious

billionaire to go after prestige-mongering elite institutions seems
like a clear instance of elite overproduction
. And to have it
all leveraged on the fantasy fulcrum of novelty and ownership is making
my head spin.

But deep down, there's something to be said about intuitionism. At our
last salon, someone asked how much ontological status we might give to
stories about the Astral Plane. My answer derives entirely from what
little I know about intersubjectivity and cross-species mind reading.
If there is a commonality to nootropic or psychonaut experience, it
derives from our common *structure*, including whatever deeply
historical things like genetic memory that may (not) exist.

It's fine to give lip service to intellectual humility. But such
rhetoric can't persuade ... uh ... "people" like Ackman. Surely ...
surely people like that are smart enough to grok things like gen-phen
maps, robustness and polyphenism, etc. Right? And if they do get it,
then we grass tufts can go on about our work, trying to be open, accept
and apply credit and blame to the best of our abilities and ignore
these fighting elephants. Right?

--
ꙮ Mɥǝu ǝlǝdɥɐuʇs ɟᴉƃɥʇ' ʇɥǝ ƃɹɐss snɟɟǝɹs˙ ꙮ



--
ꙮ Mɥǝu ǝlǝdɥɐuʇs ɟᴉƃɥʇ' ʇɥǝ ƃɹɐss snɟɟǝɹs˙ ꙮ

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Re: [FRIAM] sui generis

2024-01-09 Thread Prof David West
Ancient Greek notions of "creativity" lacked any sense of egocentric novelty. 
To 'create' was to 'remember'. This was grounded in the more general philosophy 
that denied the possibility of "something-from-nothing."

In my Design Thinking book, there is a large section about this and about who 
"creation" is akin to midwifery, assisting something to express itself.

Just as a midwife lacks "authorship" of a baby, so too do all "intellectuals" 
lack authorship of novel, innovative, or creative work— despite the boilerplate 
prefacing every Ph.D. thesis.

davew

On Tue, Jan 9, 2024, at 10:28 AM, glen wrote:
> https://www.science.org/content/article/billionaire-launches-plagiarism-detection-effort-against-mit-president-and-all-its
>
> https://thehill.com/policy/technology/4392624-new-york-times-chatgpt-lawsuit-poses-new-legal-threats-to-artificial-intelligence/
>
> I just can't help but analogize between Intelligent Design and these 
> arguments of ownership/novelty of [ahem] "content". It all feels like 
> the argument from design to me. For a paywalled for-profit like the NYT 
> to go after a for-profit like OpenAI and a rapacious 
>  
> billionaire to go after prestige-mongering elite institutions seems 
> like a clear instance of elite overproduction 
> . And to have it 
> all leveraged on the fantasy fulcrum of novelty and ownership is making 
> my head spin.
>
> But deep down, there's something to be said about intuitionism. At our 
> last salon, someone asked how much ontological status we might give to 
> stories about the Astral Plane. My answer derives entirely from what 
> little I know about intersubjectivity and cross-species mind reading. 
> If there is a commonality to nootropic or psychonaut experience, it 
> derives from our common *structure*, including whatever deeply 
> historical things like genetic memory that may (not) exist.
>
> It's fine to give lip service to intellectual humility. But such 
> rhetoric can't persuade ... uh ... "people" like Ackman. Surely ... 
> surely people like that are smart enough to grok things like gen-phen 
> maps, robustness and polyphenism, etc. Right? And if they do get it, 
> then we grass tufts can go on about our work, trying to be open, accept 
> and apply credit and blame to the best of our abilities and ignore 
> these fighting elephants. Right?
>
> -- 
> ꙮ Mɥǝu ǝlǝdɥɐuʇs ɟᴉƃɥʇ' ʇɥǝ ƃɹɐss snɟɟǝɹs˙ ꙮ
>
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> 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/

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[FRIAM] sui generis

2024-01-09 Thread glen

https://www.science.org/content/article/billionaire-launches-plagiarism-detection-effort-against-mit-president-and-all-its

https://thehill.com/policy/technology/4392624-new-york-times-chatgpt-lawsuit-poses-new-legal-threats-to-artificial-intelligence/

I just can't help but analogize between Intelligent Design and these arguments of ownership/novelty 
of [ahem] "content". It all feels like the argument from design to me. For a paywalled 
for-profit like the NYT to go after a for-profit like OpenAI and a rapacious 
 billionaire to go 
after prestige-mongering elite institutions seems like a clear instance of elite overproduction 
. And to have it all leveraged on the 
fantasy fulcrum of novelty and ownership is making my head spin.

But deep down, there's something to be said about intuitionism. At our last 
salon, someone asked how much ontological status we might give to stories about 
the Astral Plane. My answer derives entirely from what little I know about 
intersubjectivity and cross-species mind reading. If there is a commonality to 
nootropic or psychonaut experience, it derives from our common *structure*, 
including whatever deeply historical things like genetic memory that may (not) 
exist.

It's fine to give lip service to intellectual humility. But such rhetoric can't persuade 
... uh ... "people" like Ackman. Surely ... surely people like that are smart 
enough to grok things like gen-phen maps, robustness and polyphenism, etc. Right? And if 
they do get it, then we grass tufts can go on about our work, trying to be open, accept 
and apply credit and blame to the best of our abilities and ignore these fighting 
elephants. Right?

--
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://bit.ly/virtualfriam
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