Re: [FRIAM] Ants and Bees, Oh My.

Robert Cordingley Tue, 10 Jul 2007 12:21:16 -0700

I think you are saying that societies use enculturation to apply theirown rules as part of a self-organizing, self programming CAS. And ittakes a lot of (human) energy or pain to change direction, assuming theCAS that we are part of is actually non-deterministic.

Robert C.

John Goekler wrote:

While I don't disagree with the broad assessments of the Iraq fiascopresented here, I think we have to very careful about valuing 'our'truth more highly than 'their' truth.

There is, after all, a universe for every physicist.

Is it not possible that 'truth' is no more than an emergent propertyof the CAS we might call the observer? (Or the 'reporting party' asthey say in the police logs.)

It can certainly be argued that 'truth' is entirely subjective. Thatit is dependent upon the initial conditions or context of the observer(culture, education, personal experience, etc.); the rules (what theCAS believes it must pay attention to and assign meaning to dependingon its own unique heuristics); and relationship (what other agents orsystems the CAS holds in high enough regard that it will allow itselfto assign meaning to data and rules they offer that are outside itsnormal parameters and would otherwise be rejected).

Or as they say in the spook biz, 'Whose truth?  Which truth?'

On 7/10/07, *Pamela McCorduck* <[EMAIL PROTECTED]<mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED]>> wrote:


    Sorry, Phil, I misread and hence misquoted.  My mistake.

I personally know no one, scientist or otherwise, who does not

    speak out against this war.  (No, that's not true.  I am
    acquainted with some people who feel so invested in this
    administration and Republicanism in general that they think the
    majority of us have simply failed to see the light, and history

will show, blah blah blah. There's no arguing with such people.That's their "truth.") As for the tales the members of the

    administration who promulgated this war tell their mirrors, I have

no idea. They got orders from God?I'm told that after Vietnam, the junior officers who had watched

    the senior officers lie their way through
    light-at-the-end-of-the-tunnel stuff until the last moment said to
    each other: we will never do that; we will resign first.   Some
    did.  Some told the truth to power and were quickly replaced
    (Shinseki, for example).   Others understood that the president is
    commander in chief of the armed forces under our constitution, and
    however wrong-headed his ideas might be, it was their duty to
    follow those orders, because that was an oath they had taken.

It's never easy.

    On Jul 9, 2007, at 10:18 PM, phil henshaw wrote:

    I guess I think science is mostly an art of speaking accurately
    about those things it is possible to be accurate about.   Since
    it seems the fault in Iraq, is that our army is at war with an
    indigenous culture, because it mistakenly tried to 'clean-up' the
    violent objectors to our occupation as if they were stragglers in
    Saddam's army, and so stirred up a firestorm of hatred for us
    that had not been there before, people should speak plainly about
    it and not defer to the rules of polite conversation when
    perpetuates a war crime of any large or small proportion.   We
    should be truthful when we know the truth.   Accepting the right
    of anyone to have any opinion does not mean that you need to not
    state the facts you know yourself with their full value.

You did slightly misquote me, though, my phrase "comity of

    political/military deceit"   you substituted 'defeat' for some
    reason.   Comity is the way to getting along with people, and
    hides a lot of what goes into the sausage of government, a glue
    that holds all kinds of things together. I'm not suggesting we
    abandon that, but for speaking plane and true where it matters,
    dropping the polite 'well you may be right' nod of deference for
    people who are clearly committing great crimes.

Phil Henshaw ¸¸¸¸.·´ ¯ `·.¸¸¸¸

    ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
    680 Ft. Washington Ave

NY NY 10040tel: 212-795-4844e-mail: [EMAIL PROTECTED] <mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED]>explorations: www.synapse9.com <http://www.synapse9.com/>

        -----Original Message-----
        *From:* [EMAIL PROTECTED]
        <mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
        [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] *On Behalf Of *Pamela
        McCorduck
        *Sent:* Monday, July 09, 2007 10:05 AM
        *To:* The Friday Morning Applied Complexity Coffee Group
        *Subject:* Re: [FRIAM] Ants and Bees, Oh My.

        I must have missed where science was deferring to  the
        "comity of political/military defeat."  Most scientists, and
        for that matter, most professional military people, deplore
        this gap, though gap is too nice a word for blindly pursuing
        ideology in the face of facts.  If you follow it at all, you
        know that the present administration has gutted scientific
        committees meant to advise or make scientific policy for the
        government and loaded them with politically safe
        ignoramuses.  But you find the same pattern in many
        significant areas--health care, the drug problem, education,

foreign policy generally.I put it to an historian I know: when did we stop being a

        nation of Yankee pragmatists and start being a nation of
        ideologues?

        On Jul 9, 2007, at 5:03 AM, phil henshaw wrote:

        Well, where's the gap between knowledge and it's practical
        use then?  We're using a method in Iraq designed for certain
        failure (because of strategies modeled on attacking a
        phantom enemy unlike the one actually interfering with our
        plans)  and causing huge harm in every direction.  add the
        15% of our own soldiers that come bask with serious
        permanent psycological dammage.
        http://content.nejm.org/cgi/content/full/351/1/13 from New
        Eng J of Med.  I was looking to see if young soldiers would
        be more senstitive to mental damage from it, as i would
        expect, but this article doesn't break that out.   If sci
        defers to the 'comity of plotical/military deceit' , as it
        would look to me is the problem, what's the point of calling
        it science?

Phil Henshaw ¸¸¸¸.·´ ¯ `·.¸¸¸¸

        ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
        680 Ft. Washington Ave

NY NY 10040tel: 212-795-4844e-mail: [EMAIL PROTECTED] <mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED]>explorations: www.synapse9.com <http://www.synapse9.com/>

            -----Original Message-----
            *From:* [EMAIL PROTECTED]
            <mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
            [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] *On Behalf Of *Pamela
            McCorduck
            *Sent:* Sunday, July 08, 2007 10:02 PM
            *To:* The Friday Morning Applied Complexity Coffee Group
            *Subject:* Re: [FRIAM] Ants and Bees, Oh My.


            On Jul 8, 2007, at 7:31 PM, phil henshaw wrote:

            Good observation, about using young mend when they are
            most maleable for making platoons and follow
            commands.    It's the opportunity for emergent
            structure, as well as in this case, people who wish to
            exploite it, that makes the difference.   I don't
            generally buy the evolutionary value laden self
            interest of genes idea for what makes systems powerful,
            but how the confluence of diverse factors and a
            catalyst actually engage a developmental process.  And
            it's often contradictions like the fact that these are
            not the men most fit for the job, but the ones dumb
            enough for the job, that raises the questions that
            reveal what's actually going on.   Older men would
            think more.  Bad for armies!

I had no idea when I read this (a revelation to me at

            the time) whether it was empirical observation all
            senior officers in armies understood, or grounded  in
            biology.  Both, apparently, but for centuries, empirical
            observation served well enough.

As for your next two paragraphs, Phil, I do believe many

            in the military understand the situation completely--my
            80-year-old cousin, who served as a member of the
            British SAS in WW II, yelled at me on the phone last

night: "A field army can never fight a guerilla army."It's no secret. Whether the officers who understand it

            have--or once had--the power to do anything about  it I
            don't know, but it seems unlikely.  Those who once
            balked have been replaced.  Our military is quite
            properly under the direction of civilians.  I hope it
            will always be so, even when the civilians fail as
            egregiously to understand things as they have failed  in
            this instance.

            "One is often told that it is a very wrong thing to

attack religion, because religion makes men virtuous.So I am told; I have not noticed it."

Bertrand Russell



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        "One is often told that it is a very wrong thing to attack
        religion, because religion makes men virtuous.  So I am told;
        I have not noticed it."

Bertrand Russell

    ============================================================
    FRIAM Applied Complexity Group listserv
    Meets Fridays 9a-11:30 at cafe at St. John's College
    lectures, archives, unsubscribe, maps at http://www.friam.org
    <http://www.friam.org/>


    "One is often told that it is a very wrong thing to attack
    religion, because religion makes men virtuous.  So I am told; I
    have not noticed it."

Bertrand Russell

    ============================================================
    FRIAM Applied Complexity Group listserv
    Meets Fridays 9a-11:30 at cafe at St. John's College
    lectures, archives, unsubscribe, maps at http://www.friam.org
    <http://www.friam.org/>


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============================================================
FRIAM Applied Complexity Group listserv
Meets Fridays 9a-11:30 at cafe at St. John's College
lectures, archives, unsubscribe, maps at http://www.friam.org

============================================================
FRIAM Applied Complexity Group listserv
Meets Fridays 9a-11:30 at cafe at St. John's College
lectures, archives, unsubscribe, maps at http://www.friam.org

Re: [FRIAM] Ants and Bees, Oh My.

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