All,
I continue to be concerned with sloppy use of sexual metaphors here. It seems
to me that masturbation is a lot more like doing stuff without thinking than it
is like thinking about stuff without doing.
I would agree that no science is done by people who think but do not act; on
the other hand, bad science is done by people who act without thinking.
Now I suppose that bad science is better than no science; but why have these
suddenly become the alternatives? I am in this conversation because I believe
that if we are willing to hammer out some of these conceptual issues, we will
do better, sharper work on complexity. I have no interest in blather for
blather's sake. But, iff I and some of your colleagues want to pursue such a
project, what's it to yah? Wish us well and get back to what you were doing.
If we turn up something useful, you can be surprized and grateful. If we dont,
well, ....
nick
Nicholas S. Thompson
Emeritus Professor of Psychology and Ethology,
Clark University ([email protected])
http://home.earthlink.net/~nickthompson/naturaldesigns/
----- Original Message -----
From: Douglas Roberts
To: The Friday Morning Applied Complexity Coffee Group
Cc: aku
Sent: 7/11/2009 4:58:38 PM
Subject: Re: [FRIAM] Philosophy, Mathematics, and Science
Let me make sure I understand what you just said, Owen, by paraphrasing what I
thought I heard:
Owen: "There are more people on this list who want to talk about doing things
then there are people who actually want to do things, or, perhaps, even have
relevant experience at doing things."
Or, an even shorter synopsis: Talk is cheap.
If that is in fact what you were suggesting, I wholeheartedly agree. IMO, the
latest chatter about philosophy certainly meets this description. I openly
admit a bias against philosophy, and in particular against philosophical
discussions about philosophy because they invariably come across as giant
exercises in mental masturbation.
Not, mind you, that I have anything against masturbation, mental or otherwise.
It's just that nothing ever comes of it, so to speak.
If you meant something else, sorry to have misunderstood. Otherwise, I believe
I share your preference to actually engage in interesting work, rather than
just talking about the philosophies of how to accomplish work.
--Doug
On Sat, Jul 11, 2009 at 4:32 PM, Owen Densmore <[email protected]> wrote:
I'm not clear on why there is such a culture clash on this list around
Philosophy, Mathematics, and Science...
I think the conflict may be nearly trivial: constructing things.
Many of us, especially at the sfComplex, were hoping to create a synergistic
community, where the whole was greater than its parts. Specifically,
cross-discipline projects (Stephen's Hollywood model) creating fascinating
technology with complexity being a foundational piece. The TED conferences in
the complex domain.
The philosophical conversations thus far have not contributed to this, and
indeed have created a second culture: folks who want to talk about things.
Talking is great, but for some of us becomes a distraction when not helping
create a foundation for creating things.
There is a good example of a middle ground. Nick had the Moth (My way or the
highway) alternative to the traditional iterated prisoner's dilemma. It was
concrete enough to result in a project and a couple of papers.
So my hunch is that the "Please God No" reaction is along that line: many if
not most of us are interested in creating things.
Thus to make the conversations more acceptable, it would be reasonable for it
to suggest an investigation or project. The failure to summarize is just an
example of how non-constructive the philosophic conversations have been.
-- Owen
On Jul 11, 2009, at 3:11 PM, Steve Smith wrote:
I'm not clear on why there is such a culture clash on this list around
Philosophy, Mathematics, and Science...
I know only of one specific person on the list who has a significantly
alternate perspective.
Whether we know of them (formally) or not, there are philosophical traditions
which we are products of.
Most of us here are interested in the topics of mathematics, science, language,
etc. *because* we were exposed to these ideas and modes of thought from an
early age and from many angles. Even if we grew up in a household where there
was a modicum of magical thinking and animism around us, the larger world, and
most *any* practical-minded western family today is going to be acting and
speaking with a lot of rational and empirical modes.
We got that way by being raised in a time and culture where that is how most
people (try to) understand the world. If were were trained in mathematics or
the sciences, we were almost surely trained by people who were grounded deeply
in this philosophy.
Most of us here are empiricists and rationalists, which roughly implies that we
are logical positivists. These are philosophical traditions. Philosophy (in
this case, Western tradition) is a method or system of organizing the human
experience.
Epistemology is the branch of (Western) Philosophy concerned with the nature
and the limitations of human knowledge. Metaphysics is the branch concerned
with the fundamental nature of being and the world. Science and Mathematics
reside almost exclusively within Metaphysics and Epistimology. There are
aspects of both which touch on (or are informed by) Aesthetics and Ethics, but
the meat is in the study of knowledge and the study of the world.
Most criticism I hear (here and otherwise, explicit or implicit) seems to come
down to one of two (mis)understandings:
Serious sounding talk about anything we don't understand is
"Philosophy" and we either therefore hold it in awe or (more often) dismiss it.
For some folks (few on this list), the same treatment is given to
"Mathematics" and "Science" for approximately the same reasons.
The "white males" who show up most notably throughout our history as
the shapers of Philosophy (and Mathematics and Science) were products of their
social/cultural milieu and their personal failings in the realm of human and
social equality, justice, etc. do not necessarily discredit the work that is
associated with them.
Why can't we simply accept that most of us have a particular attachment and
fondness for the empirical and rational subsets of philosophy and that the
*rest* of it is mostly outside of our experience and perhaps interest. And
*within* these subdomains of Philosophy, why can't we admit that our specific
methods are derived from the more general ones of metaphysics, epistomology,
and sometimes aesthetics and ethics?
For those who have experience/interest in other systems than Western
Philosophy, I think similar things are true, with the most notable exception
(in my observation) that empiricism and rationality do not play as central of a
role. It seems *precisely* this which draws many (not so many here, but many
in the larger world) to other traditions...
It is outside the scope of this particular posting to go into the merits of
Empiricism and Rationality _vs_ other modes of knowledge and experience except
to say that this particular Choir (FRIAM members) who for the most part sings
*only* in the keys of E and R to be squabbling as if some of us are in a
completely different key when in fact, the only problem is that few if any of
us have perfect pitch.
- Steve
I think I need to take a long Motorcycle Ride (stopping to clean my plugs,
adjust my valves, synchronize my carburators, lubricate my chain, and tear down
and rebuild my forks at least once along the way).
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