Re: [FRIAM] sometimes an onion is just an onion...

[Nick Thompson]

George Bernard Shaw Quotes. "The single biggest problem in communication is the 
illusion that it has taken place."

Nicholas S. Thompson
Emeritus Professor of Psychology and Biology
Clark University
http://home.earthlink.net/~nickthompson/naturaldesigns/


-Original Message-
From: Friam [mailto:friam-boun...@redfish.com] On Behalf Of glen ?
Sent: Thursday, June 15, 2017 11:57 AM
To: The Friday Morning Applied Complexity Coffee Group <friam@redfish.com>
Subject: Re: [FRIAM] sometimes an onion is just an onion...

On 06/15/2017 08:27 AM, Nick Thompson wrote:
> " It's the writer's job to balance and judge the amount of control ... ."
> 
> So I, as a writer, have to be very slow to be aggrieved when I am not 
> understood.  
> 
> It's like the salesman blaming the customers for his not making the sale. 


I don't know if it can be sourced.  But I really like the aphorism: The problem 
with communication is the illusion that it exists.


--
☣ glen


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Re: [FRIAM] sometimes an onion is just an onion...

[glen ☣]

On 06/15/2017 12:52 PM, Steven A Smith wrote:
> From my point of view, Glen Zigged, while I remained on course.  Of course, 
> from Glen's frame of reference, *he* was on a straight course and * Zagged.   
>  That is why iterative discussion is required for conversation?  

If you agree that iteration is necessary, then that implies that registration 
is always a process, never an instantaneous, atomic event.  Therefore we have 
to ask whether this process is always monotonic.  I.e. if Bob and Sally discuss 
topic X, will the differences in their understanding at time t ≥ that at time 
t+1?  If not, then we have to allow a difference between premature and 
mis-registration, which allows you to be right. [†]  If, however, it is 
monotonic, then we have to ask whether the process is, in principle, infinite.  
I.e. when registration concludes, is it because the Bob and Sally difference in 
understanding is = 0.0 or merely arbitrarily close to 0.0.  But in either case, 
you can't be right.  If the difference = 0.0, then there's no possibility of 
mis-registration.  If it's infinite, then we must have a shunt a cut-off 
threshold beyond which Bob or Sally calls it good enough and quits the 
iteration.  If the process is cut off before Bob and Sally agree well enough 
(within some error ball), enough for that to qualify as mis-registration, then 
that _is_ premature registration.

So, it seems to me you've cornered yourself, here.  If you know the process is 
iterative, yet you still mis-registered, why is it not premature registration?  
What is it about that concept you don't like?


[†] But if you take that route, you'll be forced to allow that even with an 
infinite amount of yapping at each other, Bob and Sally's understanding _might_ 
grow further and further apart.  And, I believe, that results in a 
contradiction with the premise that iterative discussion is required.  So, even 
if we allow it, we've proved your argument invalid.

-- 
☣ glen

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Re: [FRIAM] sometimes an onion is just an onion...

[Steven A Smith]

-
On 6/15/17 8:29 AM, Nick Thompson wrote:

Or to put it even more simply, an onion is never an onion.


And the finger pointing is not the moon.

   /When Bodhidharma came to China, he saw that most Chinese
   learners did not grasp the truth of Buddhism. They merely sought
   it through interpretation of texts and thought of the changing
   phenomena all around them as real action. Bodhidharma wished to
   make these eager learners see that the finger pointing at the
   moon is not the moon itself. The real truth is nothing but one’s
   own mind./

   //

   //- Kuei-feng Tsung-mi (780-841) 

Responding to Glen's *mis* vs *pre*... I still contend that I understood 
Glen to still be discussing *Complex Systems* rather than the simple 
distinction of "level" vs "layer" as an abstraction using the analogy of 
(or should we say metaphor) of the Onion as the *source* and various 
types of structure such as "layer" and "level".


So I accept the claim that I tend to see most (if not all) language as 
rooted in metaphor... but that was not what lead me to *mis*register 
Glen's point.From my point of view, Glen Zigged, while I remained on 
course.  Of course, from Glen's frame of reference, *he* was on a 
straight course and * Zagged.That is why iterative discussion is 
required for conversation?


   *Barn's burnt down*

   Barn's burnt down --
   now
   I can see the moon.

   - Mizuta Masahide



n

Nicholas S. Thompson
Emeritus Professor of Psychology and Biology
Clark University
http://home.earthlink.net/~nickthompson/naturaldesigns/


-Original Message-
From: Friam [mailto:friam-boun...@redfish.com] On Behalf Of ?glen?
Sent: Thursday, June 15, 2017 9:31 AM
To: The Friday Morning Applied Complexity Coffee Group <friam@redfish.com>
Subject: Re: [FRIAM] sometimes an onion is just an onion...

On 06/14/2017 05:36 PM, Steven A Smith wrote:

Hairsplitting here (again), but I don't see what Nick or I did as *premature* 
registration, maybe *mis*registration? Or am I being "premature" again?

Well, you could be right.  But I do think it's premature, not merely mis-.  What I think 
happened was y'all had been pre-adapted to perceive the onion as a source and complex 
systems as the target.  Because of the conversation we were having, your perception was 
oriented that way.  All your conceptual categories were ready, waiting to filter/parse 
any incoming signals according to that structure.  You were a "complex systems 
perception machine".  So, pretty much _anything_ I said would have been 
interpreted/filtered according to that pre-adapted conceptual structure.

Hence, when you started reading that email (wherein I tried to distinguish 
level vs layer with the onion example), your registration machinery was already 
engaged.  A way to avoid that _premature_ classification of what you saw would 
have been for you or Nick to read the email and ask whether that was the 
intention.  If, after asking, you had still decided it was what I intended, 
despite my saying it wasn't, then maybe it would be more correct to call it 
(merely) mis-registration.

BC Smith's point is simply that we don't approach reality with a (completely) 
open mind.  We are structured to impute an organization on the ambient milieu.  
And the fact that it was so difficult to break out of that preconceived 
structure of what we were talking about is evidence that it was premature, not 
merely mis-.

We all do it.  It's the human/animal condition.

--
␦glen?


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Re: [FRIAM] sometimes an onion is just an onion...

[Marcus Daniels]

Good job (narrowly) avoiding premature registration!

From: Friam [mailto:friam-boun...@redfish.com] On Behalf Of Frank Wimberly
Sent: Thursday, June 15, 2017 12:57 PM
To: The Friday Morning Applied Complexity Coffee Group <friam@redfish.com>
Subject: Re: [FRIAM] sometimes an onion is just an onion...

Shall we assume Renee' is Mrs. Glen?
Frank Wimberly
Phone (505) 670-9918

On Jun 15, 2017 12:40 PM, "glen ☣" 
<geprope...@gmail.com<mailto:geprope...@gmail.com>> wrote:
On 06/15/2017 11:23 AM, Marcus Daniels wrote:
> But as for consumers of some product like Shazam, I can't imagine that most 
> have any interest at all in how or why it works.

Excellent!  I keep finding nits to pick. 8^)  Again, I'm not so sure.  I had a 
difficult conversation today with Renee'.  She normally doesn't take her phone 
to work because cell phones aren't allowed outside the locker room and the 
battery just drains away hunting for signal anyway.  But today she had to find 
a way to record a video (I assume for school).  She knows the phone can do it 
because I've done it.  But she didn't know how to go from stills to video.  I 
tried "Swipe to the right."  But that didn't work because she thinks "Swipe to 
the right" means move your finger to the right.  I meant move your finger to 
the left so that you can see what's on the right side of the 3D object being 
rendered.  In my weirdly configured head, I'm manipulating the thing behind the 
interface, not my finger ... so I swipe the image to the right by moving my 
finger to the left.  I'm certain my language is wrong, but whatever.  We could 
make the same argument for things like Twitter or Slack.  What is that icon?  
What does it do?  Etc.  Of course, people like me just click and see what 
happens ... swipe this way, that way, bang it on the ground, whatever it takes 
to make the thing do something interesting.  People like Renee' _want_ to know 
what they're supposed to do.  And in that, they want to learn just enough about 
how/why it works so that they can know what they can do and how they can do it.

Anyhoo ... I suppose I could have simply said: interfaces aren't as 
operationally closed as we like to assume.


--
☣ glen

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Re: [FRIAM] sometimes an onion is just an onion...

[Marcus Daniels]

Glen writes:

"And in that, they want to learn just enough about how/why it works so that 
they can know what they can do and how they can do it."

With regard to my original remark to Nick, I claim that usually people really 
don't want to know something down to the quantum mechanics -- that is what I'd 
call a complete exposition.   They want to have practical operational 
knowledge.   Maybe they want to understand how to build a radio that uses a 
different frequency or modulation scheme, or they want to use a radio to 
control a remote device, or they want a remote device to operate autonomously 
in some hostile environment.   There are assumptions about the primitives of 
the conversation, and usually it is a function of the individuals' vocation or 
specialty.   Those that don't come equipped or accept those primitives are just 
not spoken to.  

Marcus

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Re: [FRIAM] sometimes an onion is just an onion...

[glen ☣]

On 06/15/2017 11:57 AM, Frank Wimberly wrote:
> Shall we assume Renee' is Mrs. Glen?

Yes, sorry ... another instance of me inscribing myself on the world.  However, 
our partnership is neither condoned nor authorized by any religion or 
government.

-- 
☣ glen


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Re: [FRIAM] sometimes an onion is just an onion...

[Frank Wimberly]

Shall we assume Renee' is Mrs. Glen?

Frank Wimberly
Phone (505) 670-9918

On Jun 15, 2017 12:40 PM, "glen ☣"  wrote:

> On 06/15/2017 11:23 AM, Marcus Daniels wrote:
> > But as for consumers of some product like Shazam, I can't imagine that
> most have any interest at all in how or why it works.
>
> Excellent!  I keep finding nits to pick. 8^)  Again, I'm not so sure.  I
> had a difficult conversation today with Renee'.  She normally doesn't take
> her phone to work because cell phones aren't allowed outside the locker
> room and the battery just drains away hunting for signal anyway.  But today
> she had to find a way to record a video (I assume for school).  She knows
> the phone can do it because I've done it.  But she didn't know how to go
> from stills to video.  I tried "Swipe to the right."  But that didn't work
> because she thinks "Swipe to the right" means move your finger to the
> right.  I meant move your finger to the left so that you can see what's on
> the right side of the 3D object being rendered.  In my weirdly configured
> head, I'm manipulating the thing behind the interface, not my finger ... so
> I swipe the image to the right by moving my finger to the left.  I'm
> certain my language is wrong, but whatever.  We could make the same
> argument for things like Twitter or Slack.  What is that icon?  What does
> it do?  Etc.  Of course, people like me just click and see what happens ...
> swipe this way, that way, bang it on the ground, whatever it takes to make
> the thing do something interesting.  People like Renee' _want_ to know what
> they're supposed to do.  And in that, they want to learn just enough about
> how/why it works so that they can know what they can do and how they can do
> it.
>
> Anyhoo ... I suppose I could have simply said: interfaces aren't as
> operationally closed as we like to assume.
>
>
> --
> ☣ glen
> 
> FRIAM Applied Complexity Group listserv
> Meets Fridays 9a-11:30 at cafe at St. John's College
> to unsubscribe http://redfish.com/mailman/listinfo/friam_redfish.com
> FRIAM-COMIC http://friam-comic.blogspot.com/ by Dr. Strangelove

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Re: [FRIAM] sometimes an onion is just an onion...

[glen ☣]

On 06/15/2017 11:23 AM, Marcus Daniels wrote:
> But as for consumers of some product like Shazam, I can't imagine that most 
> have any interest at all in how or why it works. 

Excellent!  I keep finding nits to pick. 8^)  Again, I'm not so sure.  I had a 
difficult conversation today with Renee'.  She normally doesn't take her phone 
to work because cell phones aren't allowed outside the locker room and the 
battery just drains away hunting for signal anyway.  But today she had to find 
a way to record a video (I assume for school).  She knows the phone can do it 
because I've done it.  But she didn't know how to go from stills to video.  I 
tried "Swipe to the right."  But that didn't work because she thinks "Swipe to 
the right" means move your finger to the right.  I meant move your finger to 
the left so that you can see what's on the right side of the 3D object being 
rendered.  In my weirdly configured head, I'm manipulating the thing behind the 
interface, not my finger ... so I swipe the image to the right by moving my 
finger to the left.  I'm certain my language is wrong, but whatever.  We could 
make the same argument for things like Twitter or Slack.  What is that icon?  
What does it do?  Etc.  Of course, people like me just click and see what 
happens ... swipe this way, that way, bang it on the ground, whatever it takes 
to make the thing do something interesting.  People like Renee' _want_ to know 
what they're supposed to do.  And in that, they want to learn just enough about 
how/why it works so that they can know what they can do and how they can do it.

Anyhoo ... I suppose I could have simply said: interfaces aren't as 
operationally closed as we like to assume.


-- 
☣ glen

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Re: [FRIAM] sometimes an onion is just an onion...

[Marcus Daniels]

Glen writes:

"But I think one of the key insights to all the yaddayadda around innovation 
and disruption is not that it doesn't need to be explained (in words).  It's 
about the "phase" change the market goes through as they grok it (fully digest 
it in behavior as well as thought).  Some weirdly configured people 
speak/listen and become convinced that a (hypothetical or prototypical) device 
will cause such a phase change.  And in that sub-population, language matters, 
both listening and speaking."

It would be interesting to be a fly on the wall at a VC meeting with a company 
like, say, Tri Alpha Energy.  The VC firms must have some access to some of 
those weirdly configured people who determine if milestones make any sense.   
But as for consumers of some product like Shazam, I can't imagine that most 
have any interest at all in how or why it works. 

Marcus

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Re: [FRIAM] sometimes an onion is just an onion...

[glen ☣]

On 06/15/2017 10:19 AM, Marcus Daniels wrote:
> Tech companies usually distinguish between marketing and R   Marketing is 
> about connecting with the customer.  R is about creating the magical device 
> that doesn't even need to be explained at a technical level.  So what if it 
> apparently breaks the laws of physics or reads your mind..  

I don't know if I agree with you about the purpose of R  Yes, it's about 
creating the magic device.  But I think one of the key insights to all the 
yaddayadda around innovation and disruption is not that it doesn't need to be 
explained (in words).  It's about the "phase" change the market goes through as 
they grok it (fully digest it in behavior as well as thought).  Some weirdly 
configured people speak/listen and become convinced that a (hypothetical or 
prototypical) device will cause such a phase change.  And in that 
sub-population, language matters, both listening and speaking.

But the important point is that I agree that this is a counter-argument to 
Nick's.  Nick's impetus to write to the specifications of the reader imply the 
analogous engineering to optimally fit the user/usage.  But engineering the 
device to optimally fit the user/usage isn't what tech companies want.  What 
they want is to create the device and have the percolation of it out into the 
world, change the world.  I.e. the creation isn't constricted to fit the 
audience.  The creation is intended to _change_ the audience.

Mikhail Epstein makes exactly this point in "Transformative Humanities": 
http://www.goodreads.com/book/show/14619587-the-transformative-humanities, a 
book I'm being forced to read by one of my friends.  It is as vitriolic about 
postmodernism as some on this mailing list.  So, I recommend it to anyone who 
cares about the uncertain state of the humanities.

-- 
☣ glen


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Re: [FRIAM] sometimes an onion is just an onion...

[Marcus Daniels]

Nick writes:

"So I, as a writer, have to be very slow to be aggrieved when I am not 
understood."

Tech companies usually distinguish between marketing and R   Marketing is 
about connecting with the customer.  R is about creating the magical device 
that doesn't even need to be explained at a technical level.  So what if it 
apparently breaks the laws of physics or reads your mind..  

Marcus

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Re: [FRIAM] sometimes an onion is just an onion...

[glen ☣]

Aha!

http://quoteinvestigator.com/2014/08/31/illusion/

> LET US RECAPITULATE A BIT: The great enemy of communication, we find, is the 
> illusion of it. We have talked enough; but we have not listened. And by not 
> listening we have failed to concede the immense complexity of our society–and 
> thus the great gaps between ourselves and those with whom we seek 
> understanding.


Note the emphasis on _listening_ rather than on speaking. >8^D


On 06/15/2017 08:57 AM, glen ☣ wrote:
> On 06/15/2017 08:27 AM, Nick Thompson wrote:
>> " It's the writer's job to balance and judge the amount of control ... ."
>>
>> So I, as a writer, have to be very slow to be aggrieved when I am not 
>> understood.  
>>
>> It's like the salesman blaming the customers for his not making the sale. 
> 
> 
> I don't know if it can be sourced.  But I really like the aphorism: The 
> problem with communication is the illusion that it exists.
> 
> 

-- 
☣ glen


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Re: [FRIAM] sometimes an onion is just an onion...

[glen ☣]

On 06/15/2017 08:27 AM, Nick Thompson wrote:
> " It's the writer's job to balance and judge the amount of control ... ."
> 
> So I, as a writer, have to be very slow to be aggrieved when I am not 
> understood.  
> 
> It's like the salesman blaming the customers for his not making the sale. 


I don't know if it can be sourced.  But I really like the aphorism: The problem 
with communication is the illusion that it exists.


-- 
☣ glen


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Re: [FRIAM] sometimes an onion is just an onion...

[Nick Thompson]

OK:

" It's the writer's job to balance and judge the amount of control ... ."

So I, as a writer, have to be very slow to be aggrieved when I am not 
understood.  

It's like the salesman blaming the customers for his not making the sale. 

Nick 

Nicholas S. Thompson
Emeritus Professor of Psychology and Biology
Clark University
http://home.earthlink.net/~nickthompson/naturaldesigns/


-Original Message-
From: Friam [mailto:friam-boun...@redfish.com] On Behalf Of glen ?
Sent: Thursday, June 15, 2017 10:54 AM
To: The Friday Morning Applied Complexity Coffee Group <friam@redfish.com>
Subject: Re: [FRIAM] sometimes an onion is just an onion...

On 06/15/2017 06:38 AM, Nick Thompson wrote:
> It is a writer's job to control the reference of his signs, in so far as s/he 
> can.


I disagree completely with the ultimate consequences of what you're saying.  
There is a philosophy in many branches of engineering to do exactly that: to 
engineer a device so that it optimally fits it's intended user/usage.  And 
that's all dandy.  However, art (for example) is not engineering.  Poetry is 
not engineering.  Math is not engineering.  Science is not engineering.  If we 
_always_ and forever try to clamp down on a creator's creative act in the way 
you intend, we'd either die an order death or explode into chaos.

It is a writer's job, except when it's not.  My guess is that it's the writer's 
job to balance and judge the amount of control to attempt.


> In writing code, you guys wouldn't put out a line of code without making 
> clear what language you were writing in, would you?  


Yes, absolutely!  In fact, the ability to program without specifying which 
language you're using is the holy grail of programming.


--
☣ glen


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Re: [FRIAM] sometimes an onion is just an onion...

[glen ☣]

On 06/15/2017 06:38 AM, Nick Thompson wrote:
> It is a writer's job to control the reference of his signs, in so far as s/he 
> can.


I disagree completely with the ultimate consequences of what you're saying.  
There is a philosophy in many branches of engineering to do exactly that: to 
engineer a device so that it optimally fits it's intended user/usage.  And 
that's all dandy.  However, art (for example) is not engineering.  Poetry is 
not engineering.  Math is not engineering.  Science is not engineering.  If we 
_always_ and forever try to clamp down on a creator's creative act in the way 
you intend, we'd either die an order death or explode into chaos.

It is a writer's job, except when it's not.  My guess is that it's the writer's 
job to balance and judge the amount of control to attempt.


> In writing code, you guys wouldn't put out a line of code without making 
> clear what language you were writing in, would you?  


Yes, absolutely!  In fact, the ability to program without specifying which 
language you're using is the holy grail of programming.


-- 
☣ glen


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Re: [FRIAM] sometimes an onion is just an onion...

[Marcus Daniels]

Nick writes:

"It is a writer's job to control the reference of his signs, in so far as s/he 
can.  In writing code, you guys wouldn't put out a line of code without making 
clear what language you were writing in, would you?"

Many non-trivial programs invent their own abstractions s and work within that 
set of primitives rather than just the ones provided by the language.   Many 
modern languages go to some length to provide facilities for this in the form 
of programmable code expansion -- code that forms code.  In some sense the 
"language you are writing in" must be learned per project.   This goes beyond 
what I would call notation.  As its definition is available in the project 
source code, at some point it becomes redundant to keep talking about it.

Marcus

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Re: [FRIAM] sometimes an onion is just an onion...

[Nick Thompson]

Or to put it even more simply, an onion is never an onion. 

n

Nicholas S. Thompson
Emeritus Professor of Psychology and Biology
Clark University
http://home.earthlink.net/~nickthompson/naturaldesigns/


-Original Message-
From: Friam [mailto:friam-boun...@redfish.com] On Behalf Of ?glen?
Sent: Thursday, June 15, 2017 9:31 AM
To: The Friday Morning Applied Complexity Coffee Group <friam@redfish.com>
Subject: Re: [FRIAM] sometimes an onion is just an onion...

On 06/14/2017 05:36 PM, Steven A Smith wrote:
> Hairsplitting here (again), but I don't see what Nick or I did as *premature* 
> registration, maybe *mis*registration? Or am I being "premature" again?

Well, you could be right.  But I do think it's premature, not merely mis-.  
What I think happened was y'all had been pre-adapted to perceive the onion as a 
source and complex systems as the target.  Because of the conversation we were 
having, your perception was oriented that way.  All your conceptual categories 
were ready, waiting to filter/parse any incoming signals according to that 
structure.  You were a "complex systems perception machine".  So, pretty much 
_anything_ I said would have been interpreted/filtered according to that 
pre-adapted conceptual structure.

Hence, when you started reading that email (wherein I tried to distinguish 
level vs layer with the onion example), your registration machinery was already 
engaged.  A way to avoid that _premature_ classification of what you saw would 
have been for you or Nick to read the email and ask whether that was the 
intention.  If, after asking, you had still decided it was what I intended, 
despite my saying it wasn't, then maybe it would be more correct to call it 
(merely) mis-registration.

BC Smith's point is simply that we don't approach reality with a (completely) 
open mind.  We are structured to impute an organization on the ambient milieu.  
And the fact that it was so difficult to break out of that preconceived 
structure of what we were talking about is evidence that it was premature, not 
merely mis-.

We all do it.  It's the human/animal condition.

--
␦glen?


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Re: [FRIAM] sometimes an onion is just an onion...

[Nick Thompson]

"All thought is in signs" 

C. S. Peirce. 

It is a writer's job to control the reference of his signs, in so far as s/he 
can.  In writing code, you guys wouldn't put out a line of code without making 
clear what language you were writing in, would you?  

n

Nicholas S. Thompson
Emeritus Professor of Psychology and Biology
Clark University
http://home.earthlink.net/~nickthompson/naturaldesigns/

-Original Message-
From: Friam [mailto:friam-boun...@redfish.com] On Behalf Of ?glen?
Sent: Thursday, June 15, 2017 9:31 AM
To: The Friday Morning Applied Complexity Coffee Group <friam@redfish.com>
Subject: Re: [FRIAM] sometimes an onion is just an onion...

On 06/14/2017 05:36 PM, Steven A Smith wrote:
> Hairsplitting here (again), but I don't see what Nick or I did as *premature* 
> registration, maybe *mis*registration? Or am I being "premature" again?

Well, you could be right.  But I do think it's premature, not merely mis-.  
What I think happened was y'all had been pre-adapted to perceive the onion as a 
source and complex systems as the target.  Because of the conversation we were 
having, your perception was oriented that way.  All your conceptual categories 
were ready, waiting to filter/parse any incoming signals according to that 
structure.  You were a "complex systems perception machine".  So, pretty much 
_anything_ I said would have been interpreted/filtered according to that 
pre-adapted conceptual structure.

Hence, when you started reading that email (wherein I tried to distinguish 
level vs layer with the onion example), your registration machinery was already 
engaged.  A way to avoid that _premature_ classification of what you saw would 
have been for you or Nick to read the email and ask whether that was the 
intention.  If, after asking, you had still decided it was what I intended, 
despite my saying it wasn't, then maybe it would be more correct to call it 
(merely) mis-registration.

BC Smith's point is simply that we don't approach reality with a (completely) 
open mind.  We are structured to impute an organization on the ambient milieu.  
And the fact that it was so difficult to break out of that preconceived 
structure of what we were talking about is evidence that it was premature, not 
merely mis-.

We all do it.  It's the human/animal condition.

--
␦glen?


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Re: [FRIAM] sometimes an onion is just an onion...

[┣glen┫]

On 06/14/2017 05:36 PM, Steven A Smith wrote:
> Hairsplitting here (again), but I don't see what Nick or I did as *premature* 
> registration, maybe *mis*registration? Or am I being "premature" again?

Well, you could be right.  But I do think it's premature, not merely mis-.  
What I think happened was y'all had been pre-adapted to perceive the onion as a 
source and complex systems as the target.  Because of the conversation we were 
having, your perception was oriented that way.  All your conceptual categories 
were ready, waiting to filter/parse any incoming signals according to that 
structure.  You were a "complex systems perception machine".  So, pretty much 
_anything_ I said would have been interpreted/filtered according to that 
pre-adapted conceptual structure.

Hence, when you started reading that email (wherein I tried to distinguish 
level vs layer with the onion example), your registration machinery was already 
engaged.  A way to avoid that _premature_ classification of what you saw would 
have been for you or Nick to read the email and ask whether that was the 
intention.  If, after asking, you had still decided it was what I intended, 
despite my saying it wasn't, then maybe it would be more correct to call it 
(merely) mis-registration.

BC Smith's point is simply that we don't approach reality with a (completely) 
open mind.  We are structured to impute an organization on the ambient milieu.  
And the fact that it was so difficult to break out of that preconceived 
structure of what we were talking about is evidence that it was premature, not 
merely mis-.

We all do it.  It's the human/animal condition.

-- 
␦glen?


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Re: [FRIAM] sometimes an onion is just an onion...

[Marcus Daniels]

"You're suggestion of memory limitations threw me at first. "

I was thinking of an exposition as a special-purpose program, and a 
highly-optimized implementation as having a lower memory requirements than a 
general purpose program.   If one had memory/attention limitations, it would 
make sense to externalize costs to the speaker and require they craft a set of 
rules that would be easy to recall and apply.   Academic literature strikes me 
this way sometimes.   Crafted for consumption for readers that may find narrow 
technical things are wrong, and won't add any other value. 

Your analysis makes sense to me.

Marcus


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Re: [FRIAM] sometimes an onion is just an onion...

[Steven A Smith]

G/M -

Hairsplitting here (again), but I don't see what Nick or I did as 
*premature* registration, maybe *mis*registration? Or am I being 
"premature" again?


BTW, B. Cantwell's "Origin of Objects"!  What a classic, I haven't heard 
anyone else reference this one in forever!


Marcus' riff on various archetypes of Agents capable of (having the 
propensity for) various types of errors is nearly poetic... and might 
even have some value in a nuanced agent-model of social (especially 
online, like this) interactions...


Or maybe it was just snark.   Seems like the Snarky Agent is a pretty 
complex one... bit more sophisticated than the Critic archetype?


- S


On 6/14/17 2:43 PM, glen ☣ wrote:

On 06/14/2017 01:29 PM, Marcus Daniels wrote:

The meaning is clear, but is this a term that is used in particular 
communities?   The reason I ask is that I deal with people all that time that 
do this, and I'd like to be able to whack a book over their head, since  they 
like to do that to others.

On 06/12/2017 10:39 AM, glen ☣ wrote:

Cf Brian Cantwell Smith in: 
https://global.oup.com/academic/product/philosophy-of-mental-representation-9780198250524?cc=us=en;

It's not clear to me how common the usage is.  In B.C. Smith's "On the Origin of Objects", he calls it 
"inscription error" instead.  In the book cited above, he states that he prefers "premature 
registration", mainly because it applies not only to programming/inscribing, but to things like what happened in 
this discussion (where Nick and Steve prematurely clamped on an onion metaphor I didn't intend).  I still prefer 
inscription error when I use it in a simulation context because the meaning is more clear.  In logic or rhetorical 
contexts, the standard "petitio principii" still works.






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Re: [FRIAM] sometimes an onion is just an onion...

[glen ☣]

On 06/14/2017 03:46 PM, Marcus Daniels wrote:
> Others behaviors come to mind, like the agent that requires or expects fully 
> contextualized unambiguous linear arguments.   This could be due to long term 
> memory limitations, due to a desire to teach (supervisory learning), or an 
> agent that defaults to priors in absence of systematic communication. 
> Premature registration could be a sign of a simple hardware failure or 
> inequitable / entitled expectations of the correspondent.   In organizations, 
> some roles might well be encouraged even if they aren't adaptive in general, 
> e.g. the boss vs. the nuanced facilitator.


You're suggestion of memory limitations threw me at first. But if we put it in 
terms of something like a "field of view" or a set of pattern bins, then we 
could have agents who select behaviors differently based on how many of their 
bins have something in it, and maybe some higher order properties like 
uniqueness of the bin contents, whether bin contents fit together in some way, 
etc.  E.g. An agent has 2 bins and registers object "flower" but does not 
register object "leaf" or "vase".  Without "leaf" or "vase", it has to fault, 
assume "gift bouquet", or any other conclusion but "still in ground".  (Or more 
usefully, an agent registers a sigmoid in one variable and expects/assumes a 
saturation in another variable, else the sigmoid it did recognize has too 
little context.)

I'm not sure how that might work for a teacher agent.  Maybe an outcome like "I 
see you have a flower but no leaves or vase.  Hence you have killed the flower 
and must now put it in a vase."  ... I guess that's the [Pedant agent].


-- 
☣ glen


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Re: [FRIAM] sometimes an onion is just an onion...

[Marcus Daniels]

Others behaviors come to mind, like the agent that requires or expects fully 
contextualized unambiguous linear arguments.   This could be due to long term 
memory limitations, due to a desire to teach (supervisory learning), or an 
agent that defaults to priors in absence of systematic communication.   
Premature registration could be a sign of a simple hardware failure or 
inequitable / entitled expectations of the correspondent.   In organizations, 
some roles might well be encouraged even if they aren't adaptive in general, 
e.g. the boss vs. the nuanced facilitator.

-Original Message-
From: Friam [mailto:friam-boun...@redfish.com] On Behalf Of glen ?
Sent: Wednesday, June 14, 2017 4:32 PM
To: The Friday Morning Applied Complexity Coffee Group <friam@redfish.com>
Subject: Re: [FRIAM] sometimes an onion is just an onion...


Beautiful!  Surely we don't need much imagination ...  Surely (!) there exist 
modal pattern recognizers we could (almost) drop into a simulation to at least 
implement your 4 agent types.  All we need is the right combination of search 
keywords to find them.  I wonder if Edelman's "neural darwinism" simulation 
system, which supposedly allowed an objective function to select amongst 
various multi-neuron clusters, would work.  Of course, I tried a few years ago 
to find code for the simulation(s) he claimed to have, and failed.

On 06/14/2017 03:13 PM, Marcus Daniels wrote:
> One can imagine a neural net with similar inputs and outputs but different 
> depths of hidden layers inhibiting & exciting internal neurons of the 
> network.  These would represent relevant contrastable features tied to 
> previous similar experiences.  Together they'd compete to activate one or 
> several neurons that correspond to one or several registrations.   
> 
> A lack of experience with ambiguity in inputs would be one explanation why 
> premature registration would occur.  [Naïve agents]   Another might be no 
> particular pressure to distinguish similar categories -- no cost for bad 
> predictions -- so no reinforcement of connections to other neurons.  
> [Unengaged agent]  Another might be that training had occurred on similar but 
> distinct data and re-training wasn't believed to be needed -- the learner had 
> been educated in a curriculum-based (programmed) way and believed that the 
> features in the environment were easier to contrast than they really were.  
> [Smug agent] 
> Finally, there's the no neurons available possibility... [Disabled 
> agent]
> 
> -Original Message-
> From: Friam [mailto:friam-boun...@redfish.com] On Behalf Of glen ?
> Sent: Wednesday, June 14, 2017 2:43 PM
> To: The Friday Morning Applied Complexity Coffee Group 
> <friam@redfish.com>
> Subject: Re: [FRIAM] sometimes an onion is just an onion...
> 
> 
> On 06/14/2017 01:29 PM, Marcus Daniels wrote:
>> The meaning is clear, but is this a term that is used in particular 
>> communities?   The reason I ask is that I deal with people all that time 
>> that do this, and I'd like to be able to whack a book over their head, since 
>>  they like to do that to others.
> 
> On 06/12/2017 10:39 AM, glen ☣ wrote:
>> Cf Brian Cantwell Smith in: 
>> https://global.oup.com/academic/product/philosophy-of-mental-represen
>> t
>> ation-9780198250524?cc=us=en&
> 
> It's not clear to me how common the usage is.  In B.C. Smith's "On the Origin 
> of Objects", he calls it "inscription error" instead.  In the book cited 
> above, he states that he prefers "premature registration", mainly because it 
> applies not only to programming/inscribing, but to things like what happened 
> in this discussion (where Nick and Steve prematurely clamped on an onion 
> metaphor I didn't intend).  I still prefer inscription error when I use it in 
> a simulation context because the meaning is more clear.  In logic or 
> rhetorical contexts, the standard "petitio principii" still works.


--
☣ glen


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Re: [FRIAM] sometimes an onion is just an onion...

[glen ☣]

Beautiful!  Surely we don't need much imagination ...  Surely (!) there exist 
modal pattern recognizers we could (almost) drop into a simulation to at least 
implement your 4 agent types.  All we need is the right combination of search 
keywords to find them.  I wonder if Edelman's "neural darwinism" simulation 
system, which supposedly allowed an objective function to select amongst 
various multi-neuron clusters, would work.  Of course, I tried a few years ago 
to find code for the simulation(s) he claimed to have, and failed.

On 06/14/2017 03:13 PM, Marcus Daniels wrote:
> One can imagine a neural net with similar inputs and outputs but different 
> depths of hidden layers inhibiting & exciting internal neurons of the 
> network.  These would represent relevant contrastable features tied to 
> previous similar experiences.  Together they'd compete to activate one or 
> several neurons that correspond to one or several registrations.   
> 
> A lack of experience with ambiguity in inputs would be one explanation why 
> premature registration would occur.  [Naïve agents]   Another might be no 
> particular pressure to distinguish similar categories -- no cost for bad 
> predictions -- so no reinforcement of connections to other neurons.  
> [Unengaged agent]  Another might be that training had occurred on similar but 
> distinct data and re-training wasn't believed to be needed -- the learner had 
> been educated in a curriculum-based (programmed) way and believed that the 
> features in the environment were easier to contrast than they really were.  
> [Smug agent] 
> Finally, there's the no neurons available possibility... [Disabled agent]
> 
> -Original Message-
> From: Friam [mailto:friam-boun...@redfish.com] On Behalf Of glen ?
> Sent: Wednesday, June 14, 2017 2:43 PM
> To: The Friday Morning Applied Complexity Coffee Group <friam@redfish.com>
> Subject: Re: [FRIAM] sometimes an onion is just an onion...
> 
> 
> On 06/14/2017 01:29 PM, Marcus Daniels wrote:
>> The meaning is clear, but is this a term that is used in particular 
>> communities?   The reason I ask is that I deal with people all that time 
>> that do this, and I'd like to be able to whack a book over their head, since 
>>  they like to do that to others.
> 
> On 06/12/2017 10:39 AM, glen ☣ wrote:
>> Cf Brian Cantwell Smith in: 
>> https://global.oup.com/academic/product/philosophy-of-mental-represent
>> ation-9780198250524?cc=us=en&
> 
> It's not clear to me how common the usage is.  In B.C. Smith's "On the Origin 
> of Objects", he calls it "inscription error" instead.  In the book cited 
> above, he states that he prefers "premature registration", mainly because it 
> applies not only to programming/inscribing, but to things like what happened 
> in this discussion (where Nick and Steve prematurely clamped on an onion 
> metaphor I didn't intend).  I still prefer inscription error when I use it in 
> a simulation context because the meaning is more clear.  In logic or 
> rhetorical contexts, the standard "petitio principii" still works.


-- 
☣ glen


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Re: [FRIAM] sometimes an onion is just an onion...

[Marcus Daniels]

One can imagine a neural net with similar inputs and outputs but different 
depths of hidden layers inhibiting & exciting internal neurons of the network.  
These would represent relevant contrastable features tied to previous similar 
experiences.  Together they'd compete to activate one or several neurons that 
correspond to one or several registrations.   

A lack of experience with ambiguity in inputs would be one explanation why 
premature registration would occur.  [Naïve agents]   Another might be no 
particular pressure to distinguish similar categories -- no cost for bad 
predictions -- so no reinforcement of connections to other neurons.  [Unengaged 
agent]  Another might be that training had occurred on similar but distinct 
data and re-training wasn't believed to be needed -- the learner had been 
educated in a curriculum-based (programmed) way and believed that the features 
in the environment were easier to contrast than they really were.  [Smug agent] 
Finally, there's the no neurons available possibility... [Disabled agent]

-Original Message-
From: Friam [mailto:friam-boun...@redfish.com] On Behalf Of glen ?
Sent: Wednesday, June 14, 2017 2:43 PM
To: The Friday Morning Applied Complexity Coffee Group <friam@redfish.com>
Subject: Re: [FRIAM] sometimes an onion is just an onion...


On 06/14/2017 01:29 PM, Marcus Daniels wrote:
> The meaning is clear, but is this a term that is used in particular 
> communities?   The reason I ask is that I deal with people all that time that 
> do this, and I'd like to be able to whack a book over their head, since  they 
> like to do that to others.

On 06/12/2017 10:39 AM, glen ☣ wrote:
> Cf Brian Cantwell Smith in: 
> https://global.oup.com/academic/product/philosophy-of-mental-represent
> ation-9780198250524?cc=us=en&

It's not clear to me how common the usage is.  In B.C. Smith's "On the Origin 
of Objects", he calls it "inscription error" instead.  In the book cited above, 
he states that he prefers "premature registration", mainly because it applies 
not only to programming/inscribing, but to things like what happened in this 
discussion (where Nick and Steve prematurely clamped on an onion metaphor I 
didn't intend).  I still prefer inscription error when I use it in a simulation 
context because the meaning is more clear.  In logic or rhetorical contexts, 
the standard "petitio principii" still works.


--
☣ glen


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Re: [FRIAM] sometimes an onion is just an onion...

[glen ☣]

On 06/14/2017 01:29 PM, Marcus Daniels wrote:
> The meaning is clear, but is this a term that is used in particular 
> communities?   The reason I ask is that I deal with people all that time that 
> do this, and I'd like to be able to whack a book over their head, since  they 
> like to do that to others.

On 06/12/2017 10:39 AM, glen ☣ wrote:
> Cf Brian Cantwell Smith in: 
> https://global.oup.com/academic/product/philosophy-of-mental-representation-9780198250524?cc=us=en;

It's not clear to me how common the usage is.  In B.C. Smith's "On the Origin 
of Objects", he calls it "inscription error" instead.  In the book cited above, 
he states that he prefers "premature registration", mainly because it applies 
not only to programming/inscribing, but to things like what happened in this 
discussion (where Nick and Steve prematurely clamped on an onion metaphor I 
didn't intend).  I still prefer inscription error when I use it in a simulation 
context because the meaning is more clear.  In logic or rhetorical contexts, 
the standard "petitio principii" still works.


-- 
☣ glen


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Re: [FRIAM] sometimes an onion is just an onion...

[Marcus Daniels]

Glen writes:

"It is nice to see another person admit to their premature registration!"

The meaning is clear, but is this a term that is used in particular 
communities?   The reason I ask is that I deal with people all that time that 
do this, and I'd like to be able to whack a book over their head, since  they 
like to do that to others.

Thanks,

Marcus

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Re: [FRIAM] sometimes an onion is just an onion...

[glen ☣]

Yes, an onion _does_ submit to a partial order if you use polar coordinates.

On 06/12/2017 10:52 AM, Nick Thompson wrote:
> At the risk of being dumb, I would say that when we peal an onion we get
> layers;  when we slice an onion, we get cross-sections;  is there any way we
> can get a "level" out of an onion?  


-- 
☣ glen


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Re: [FRIAM] sometimes an onion is just an onion...

[Nick Thompson]

Glen, 

At the risk of being dumb, I would say that when we peal an onion we get
layers;  when we slice an onion, we get cross-sections;  is there any way we
can get a "level" out of an onion?  

N

Nicholas S. Thompson
Emeritus Professor of Psychology and Biology
Clark University
http://home.earthlink.net/~nickthompson/naturaldesigns/


-Original Message-
From: Friam [mailto:friam-boun...@redfish.com] On Behalf Of Steven A Smith
Sent: Monday, June 12, 2017 1:25 PM
To: The Friday Morning Applied Complexity Coffee Group <friam@redfish.com>
Subject: Re: [FRIAM] sometimes an onion is just an onion...


Glen -
> It is nice to see another person admit to their premature registration!
Thanks.
I took it as a simple 'mis-registration'.  I'll think about "premature" 
a little more...
>I brought up an onion as an example of a thing that, when analyzed with
levels produces a different result than when analyzed with layers.
I think I get your point.  I admit to being guilty with you as some of my
professors in college were of marking you down for not "showing all the
steps" in a derivation.  I know you to be able to skip a level of
abstraction (take it for granted) without being explicit (to my 
apprehension anyway).They eventually quit giving me F's for that 
antisocialism and began to give me A's for the implied skill in not HAVING
to be so explicit when there was plenty of room to fill in the blanks
conceptually if one tried.
> You have to admit that slicing an onion produces different results 
> than prying off its layers one by one.  Rigth?j
and do I read you correctly that a sliced onion exhibits the abstraction of
levels (outside-in?) and their juxtaposed contrast each with the next or the
many with one or the few, while the peeled onion exhibits layers (each one
coherent in itself and only exposing, at most the next layer and/or the
remaining (sub) whole?

And in the immortal words of someone else here years ago "but will it
blend?" :
  http://www.willitblend.com/

Odd that some use "ideasthesia" and "conceptual blending" in similar 
ways to "conceptual metaphor". So "blending" itself is a 
metaphor...   recursion up the moibeus ourobourousian tailpipe?  Or is 
it down the rabbit hole?  Or is that more a literary allusion than a 
metaphor?   Go ask Alice, when she's ten feet tall!  Thank you Grace 
Slick!  I'm waiting for "Jefferson Wormhole" to form and transport us to
another universe.  Metaphorically speaking of course!

- Sneeze
>
> On 06/12/2017 10:01 AM, Steven A Smith wrote:
>> I always appreciate your corrections.  You are naturally the only one who
really knows what you meant when you brought it up.  I thought I remembered
that you invoked the onion and it's layers to try to explain your
distinction between levels and layers and the utility of the same in the
discussion of Complexity Science.
>>
>> I know how to slice onions with a knife, I've even been known to crush
small ones like a garlic clove,  and have even run them through a blender
for various culinary purposes, but in this discussion, I can't think why we
would have been talking about an onion if not as the source domain for a
metaphor.   Why were we talking about an onion?  I remember a discursion
into or near the embryological implications of how onions form their layers?



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Re: [FRIAM] sometimes an onion is just an onion...

[glen ☣]

On 06/12/2017 10:24 AM, Steven A Smith wrote:
> I took it as a simple 'mis-registration'.  I'll think about "premature" a 
> little more...

Cf Brian Cantwell Smith in: 
https://global.oup.com/academic/product/philosophy-of-mental-representation-9780198250524?cc=us=en;

> I think I get your point.  I admit to being guilty with you as some of my 
> professors in college were of marking you down for not "showing all the 
> steps" in a derivation.  I know you to be able to skip a level of abstraction 
> (take it for granted) without being explicit (to my apprehension anyway).
> They eventually quit giving me F's for that antisocialism and began to give 
> me A's for the implied skill in not HAVING to be so explicit when there was 
> plenty of room to fill in the blanks conceptually if one tried.

Yes, and I accept all the fault.  My academic friends are always on me about my 
non sequiturs.  Even one old boss of mine (forcefully) suggested it is the 
speaker's responsibility to speak so that the listener can understand.  I did 
and do think that's bvllsh!t.  It is the listener's responsibility to make some 
effort to listen with empathy, rather than _leap_ to whatever conclusion is 
most convenient for them.  But, hey, I got poor grades and still struggle to 
make a living.  So what do I know?

> and do I read you correctly that a sliced onion exhibits the abstraction of 
> levels (outside-in?) and their juxtaposed contrast each with the next or the 
> many with one or the few, while the peeled onion exhibits layers (each one 
> coherent in itself and only exposing, at most the next layer and/or the 
> remaining (sub) whole?

If we first admit there's a difference in the result, then we can move on to 
whether there is an analysis method that is more _natural_ to the object being 
analyzed.  EricS, in particular, used the phrase

 DES> there is a natural sense of a system’s own delimitation

An onion is an example where layer is a more natural procedure of separation 
than level.  And if we can ever get around to agreement on that point, then we 
can move on to analogies between things that are more natural to layer than 
level.


On 06/12/2017 10:10 AM, Steven A Smith wrote:> BTW
> Can you (Glen) state your position on the utility or place of metaphor in 
> your world-view?  We might (once again) be bashing around in different wings 
> of  Borges' "Library of Babel" ( 
> https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Library_of_Babel )

I was very put off by the reliance on "metaphors everywhere" in both Philosophy 
in the Flesh and Where Mathematics Comes From.  I think it leads to exactly the 
type of muddled thinking we've seen in this thread.

That said, being a simulant, I rely fundamentally on the spectrum of weak ⇔ 
strong analogy (both quant. and qual.).  So, I'm down with any power metaphors 
might bring us.  But as with everything, I'm a skeptic.


-- 
☣ glen


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Re: [FRIAM] sometimes an onion is just an onion...

[Steven A Smith]

Glen -

It is nice to see another person admit to their premature registration!  Thanks.
I took it as a simple 'mis-registration'.  I'll think about "premature" 
a little more...

   I brought up an onion as an example of a thing that, when analyzed with 
levels produces a different result than when analyzed with layers.
I think I get your point.  I admit to being guilty with you as some of 
my professors in college were of marking you down for not "showing all 
the steps" in a derivation.  I know you to be able to skip a level of 
abstraction (take it for granted) without being explicit (to my 
apprehension anyway).They eventually quit giving me F's for that 
antisocialism and began to give me A's for the implied skill in not 
HAVING to be so explicit when there was plenty of room to fill in the 
blanks conceptually if one tried.

You have to admit that slicing an onion produces different results than prying 
off its layers one by one.  Rigth?j
and do I read you correctly that a sliced onion exhibits the abstraction 
of levels (outside-in?) and their juxtaposed contrast each with the next 
or the many with one or the few, while the peeled onion exhibits layers 
(each one coherent in itself and only exposing, at most the next layer 
and/or the remaining (sub) whole?


And in the immortal words of someone else here years ago "but will it 
blend?" :

 http://www.willitblend.com/

Odd that some use "ideasthesia" and "conceptual blending" in similar 
ways to "conceptual metaphor". So "blending" itself is a 
metaphor...   recursion up the moibeus ourobourousian tailpipe?  Or is 
it down the rabbit hole?  Or is that more a literary allusion than a 
metaphor?   Go ask Alice, when she's ten feet tall!  Thank you Grace 
Slick!  I'm waiting for "Jefferson Wormhole" to form and transport us to 
another universe.  Metaphorically speaking of course!


- Sneeze


On 06/12/2017 10:01 AM, Steven A Smith wrote:

I always appreciate your corrections.  You are naturally the only one who 
really knows what you meant when you brought it up.  I thought I remembered 
that you invoked the onion and it's layers to try to explain your distinction 
between levels and layers and the utility of the same in the discussion of 
Complexity Science.

I know how to slice onions with a knife, I've even been known to crush small 
ones like a garlic clove,  and have even run them through a blender for various 
culinary purposes, but in this discussion, I can't think why we would have been 
talking about an onion if not as the source domain for a metaphor.   Why were 
we talking about an onion?  I remember a discursion into or near the 
embryological implications of how onions form their layers?




FRIAM Applied Complexity Group listserv
Meets Fridays 9a-11:30 at cafe at St. John's College
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Re: [FRIAM] sometimes an onion is just an onion...

[Steven A Smith]

BTW

I am (mostly) of the opinion (school of thought) that follows Lakoff and 
Johnson's premises from "Metaphors we Live by" (1980) where most 
language and thought involves metaphor.  I think Lakoff revisits this 
strongly from another direction with Nunez in "Where Mathematics Comes 
From/the Embodiment of Mind".


Previous to and outside of this school of thought, many/most seem think 
of metaphor as no more than a flowery linguistic construct mostly 
reserved for poetry and other imagistic writing?


Can you (Glen) state your position on the utility or place of metaphor 
in your world-view?  We might (once again) be bashing around in 
different wings of  Borges' "Library of Babel" ( 
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Library_of_Babel )


- Sieve


On 6/12/17 11:01 AM, Steven A Smith wrote:

Glen -

I always appreciate your corrections.  You are naturally the only one 
who really knows what you meant when you brought it up.  I thought I 
remembered that you invoked the onion and it's layers to try to 
explain your distinction between levels and layers and the utility of 
the same in the discussion of Complexity Science.


I know how to slice onions with a knife, I've even been known to crush 
small ones like a garlic clove,  and have even run them through a 
blender for various culinary purposes, but in this discussion, I can't 
think why we would have been talking about an onion if not as the 
source domain for a metaphor.   Why were we talking about an onion?  I 
remember a discursion into or near the embryological implications of 
how onions form their layers?


- Steve



On 6/12/17 10:45 AM, glen ☣ wrote:
Just to clarify, no, that's not at all what I did.  I did not propose 
onion as a source and layer as a target.  That completely misses my 
point.  An onion is a thing that can be sliced up, thought about, 
analyzed, by various different methods.  No metaphor involved.  This 
tendency to see metaphors everywhere is a strange disease we're 
inflicted with. 8^)



On 06/12/2017 09:39 AM, Steven A Smith wrote:
In the example at hand,  Glen invoked "an Onion" as the /source/ 
domain in a metaphor to try to understand the more general and 
abstract target domain of /layer/.  Other /source/ domains 
(deposition layers, skin, geology) were offered as well to offer 
conceptual parallax on this.




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Meets Fridays 9a-11:30 at cafe at St. John's College
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Re: [FRIAM] sometimes an onion is just an onion...

[glen ☣]

It is nice to see another person admit to their premature registration!  
Thanks.  I brought up an onion as an example of a thing that, when analyzed 
with levels produces a different result than when analyzed with layers.

You have to admit that slicing an onion produces different results than prying 
off its layers one by one.  Rigth?

On 06/12/2017 10:01 AM, Steven A Smith wrote:
> I always appreciate your corrections.  You are naturally the only one who 
> really knows what you meant when you brought it up.  I thought I remembered 
> that you invoked the onion and it's layers to try to explain your distinction 
> between levels and layers and the utility of the same in the discussion of 
> Complexity Science.
> 
> I know how to slice onions with a knife, I've even been known to crush small 
> ones like a garlic clove,  and have even run them through a blender for 
> various culinary purposes, but in this discussion, I can't think why we would 
> have been talking about an onion if not as the source domain for a metaphor.  
>  Why were we talking about an onion?  I remember a discursion into or near 
> the embryological implications of how onions form their layers?

-- 
☣ glen


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Meets Fridays 9a-11:30 at cafe at St. John's College
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