Thus spake Steve Smith circa 11/27/2009 01:01 PM: >> In other words, a model isn't a model until it is _used_ rhetorically. >> > This is where we still differ. In 30 years of modeling and visualization > work, > I have found that very few models, simulations or visualizations of the > results > (visualizations often embedding their own models and simulation to fill in > for > the incompleteness of the models/simulations they are (re)presenting) get by > without being used _rhetorically_ but more often than not they were conceived > or > built with a much more _analytic_ intent and their major *value* often turns > out > to be _synthetic_. That is to say, a well conceived/designed/built model > (especially those with a strong visual representation component) often end up > exposing knew knowledge to the creators of the model. New relationships are > discovered that were obscured by the obscurity of the system being modeled or > formal language of the expression of the model.
Well said and I agree except that I believe _none_ of those models have gotten by without being used rhetorically. My guess is that if you identify the ones you think have gotten by without being used rhetorically, we could trace their lifetimes and find that they have at some point. > I'm still not clear that all models *must be* rhetorical devices, though I do > concede (again) that they are generally useful (and therefore used) for that. > > Can you make the case that analysis and synthesis are also forms of rhetoric? No. Analysis and synthesis are generic methods. They can be _used_ in any number of ways. And they happen spontaneously, as well as intentionally. So, while they are common tools in rhetoric, they are not always rhetorical. > I don't know that I'm justified in this, but I think of rhetoric as being an > intentional act of persuasion by a sentient being. If we expand rhetoric to > include the case where the _model_ persuades the _modeler_ to believe > something > formerly not understood (or believed) about the system _modeles_ then I would > concede. First, we do NOT need to expand the definition of "rhetoric". Yours suffices: an intentional act of a sentient being to persuade a sentient being. Second, let me restate my previous criteria: 1) models are extant objects with purposes and/or causes and effects of their own, independent of any referent and 2) they have a referent. So, given that, (1) is trivial to deal with because if we just assume realism, all "things" satisfy that. (2) is more difficult. _How_ does "referral" come about? Can an extant object, without any sentient beings involved, have a referent? Can one thing, objectively, "out there", _refer_ to something else? My claim is No. In order for something to be a model, there must be an intentional, sentient being that assigns the object to its referent. Now, why would a sentient being assign meaning (referent) to a symbol (model)? My answer is "to reason", to parse and understand the world. Here is where your methods of analysis and synthesis enter. But what does it really mean "to reason"? If you're a solipsist, then you can get away with saying something like: "to satisfy one's own sentient self". But if you admit that other sentient beings exist and, to an overwhelming degree, form and maintain your sentience, then it all boils down to communication and a kind of shared understanding of the world. I.e. you can't understand some thing unless other sentient beings also understand that thing (obviously to varying degrees). Hence, "to reason" requires sharing your understanding with your fellow sentient beings. You got your mind from others and they got their mind from you. This is true even if you're launched out into space right after you're born, because your life-support capsule has our mental constructs inscribed into it. Every object in the life-support capsule has a meaning, an intentionally designed in purpose, put there by us to keep you alive. Now, if "to reason" is an act of communication (where modeling is a specific type of communication), then all we need to establish is that _all_ communication is a type of rhetoric. What does it mean "to communicate"? When one sentient being tries to transduce the contents of their mind into signals and send them across various media so that they can be received and understood by another sentient being, what is the purpose? What is the intention of the sender? Is the sender's purpose to totally _brainwash_ the receiver so that the receiver can think no other thoughts than those thought by the sender? My claim is No. The sender's purpose is to do a good enough job explaining their thoughts so that the receiver can, at least, ... somewhat sympathize or empathize with the sender. The receiver need not agree in total, but just enough for the sender to feel like the message got through. So, if you buy that, then we have to talk about "persuasion". When you persuade someone, is it your intention to _brainwash_ the other person? Do you intend to take over their mind and make them think precisely the same way you do? Well, my answer is No. When we persuade, we attempt to use the receiver's mental conditions to find some common ground and just get them to move a little bit toward our mental conditions. We don't engage in mind control. We engage in persuasion. It's not coercion, but persuasion. That is rhetoric. And we do it, intentionally, every time we communicate. Hence, we do it every time we model. And, in fact, you cannot avoid rhetoric without also avoiding modeling. > But otherwise, I think claiming that modeling is always a form of > rhetoric hides that fact that most of (real) science is not about persuasion > but > rather discovery. Persuasion comes after discovery in *good science* methinks Hm. This would require a new thread that I don't want to start. But in short, I can say that science isn't about discovery, it's about the elimination of _false_ rhetoric. That means, that science is about a) generating rhetoric and then b) falsifying as much of it as possible. The idea is, then, that what's left over is somewhat true. >>> Can one write a simulation without a >>> model? >>> >> >> Yes. Simulations can come into being in all sorts of ways, including >> randomly. > > I do think that evolutionary programming could be claimed to fit this > somewhat, > but in the interest of splitting hairs, I would suggest that there is a "meta > model" involved... a model of what a "generic" simulation is, including some > kind of MOE to help guide the selection of the simulation. Although I sympathize with your approach, there are 2 strong arguments against this: 1) You've set things up so that you have an infinite progression (and, hence, regression). In order to use evolutionary programming so that a model arises with less intention, one needs meta-intention. Then, of course, we could construct a system that didn't create models, but creates modelers. Then we could construct modeler-constructors rather than modelers. Etc. It's better not to define words like "write" in this recursive way if we want to be able to distinguish between things like naturally occurring versus synthetic or artificially constructed. 2) One can accidentally write a simulation for something totally unrelated to what they intended to write. Or, which is more common, one can intend the simulation to be used for one thing; but it turns out to be much more useful to simulate another thing. Neither of these cases adhere to the "meta model" concept in the intentional sense you describe above. It's better to allow that any thing can be used to simulate any other thing, as long as we can acceptably ascribe (and circumscribe) the same attributes to both, regardless of the origins of either object. > When real world systems appear to mimic eachother, I would not call one a > simulation of the other but rather more like convergent or parallel evolution > or > more often, systems whose underlying dynamics are constrained/informed > (whatever > that means) by the same mathematics. It is *we*, the sentient beings who > impose on the two systems some kind of model that we then attribute according > to > our points of view, etc. Don't you think? Yes, most definitely. We agree completely, here. The sentient beings do the modeling using simulations. >> A model can be a theory or a thesis because a model can contain theorems >> and sentences. (And the way we use the term "hypothesis" in science, a >> model can also be a hypothesis... In fact, the way both words model and >> hypothesis are used in science, all models are hypotheses because some >> parts of every model are _always_ unjustified.) >> > And all models are always only partially validated? So there is some > imaginary > threshold of validation where you would call a model "mere rhetoric"? Much > rhetoric is grounded in anecdotal evidence and can even have *scads* of > anecdotal evidence (high quantity, very low quality). D Absolutely! Rhetoric is persuasion, not mind control. Models, as rhetorical devices, require _some_ validation; but it is context dependent as to how much and what type of validation is required to persuade. Perhaps when we have two physicists trying to persuade each other, the degree of validation is higher than when we have, say, two theologists trying to persuade each other. But just because the extent and type of validation required is context sensitive, doesn't mean the threshold is "imaginary". > And in my experience, the evidence that the client is more interested in > rhetoric than in the data or a valid model comes out near the end of the > project, not at the beginning. With suitable cynicism, it is easy to > anticipate this, but hard to anticipate the opposite (recognize a righteous > client when you see one). That's wise, and probably a lesson I haven't mastered. >> It's perfectly reasonable to build models that support a client's >> rhetoric as long as the client is willing to change their rhetoric when >> all the models built in support of the old rhetoric are falsified. > > Yeah... imagine that. It's a good idea and I suppose I've seen it happen > now > and again, but usually something almost *more* nefarious happens... instead > of > abandoning the old tired (and clearly misbegotten) rhetoric for something > more > well justified in the light of the data and the models (and.. and... and...) > I > often have found that the client simply adopts an even more bizzarre rhetoric > that isn't contradicted by the data/model but isn't necessarily well > supported > by it either. I have seen this to some extent. But with a clear research method, it's usually easy to minimize the bizarreness of the new rhetoric. In industry, we have the universal metric of money. If your bizarre rhetoric can't save you money, then albeit true, it's useless. And in science, we have the publication gauntlet. If you can't persuade at least a few people that your bizarre rhetoric is worth propagating, then albeit true, it's useless. So, bizarre rhetoric can only survive if it can be reified at least well enough to pass some fairly stringent testing. > I agree that *a* goal of modeling can be to reify the rhetoric. I suppose > I'm > coming around (a little) to your use of the term rhetoric... in that I > appreciate that well accepted and highly supported (by data and models) > theories > start out as pretty unsupported theories which start out as almost completely > unsupported hypothesis which are pretty much "rhetoric" even if the only one > being persuaded is the person creating the hypothesis and seeking a model > that > helps fit the data to it which in turn helps too shape where one should seek > more data. Yes. That's the gist, all hair splitting aside. >> Usually, during the process, >> what actually happens is that reality is used to measure the model. >> Then the model (and the rhetoric) is changed so that it matches up with >> reality. At that point, you have a good enough basis flip it around and >> start using the model to measure reality. >> > I'll have to think on this more, as I want to argue that the act of using > reality to measure the model involves inserting "yet another model" into the > game which is roughly what validation is all about anyway... stacking a > series > of more and more sophisticated models up from ones that seem to be so > brutally > simple that they cannot be argued. If you free yourself from the concept of "levels" and "stacking", then you'll have a much easier time. [grin] It's not stacking model upon model. It's an endless rhizomic bath where models (including sophisticated hierarchies, but not requiring them) form and dissolve, are compared and contrasted. Some cohere and stabilize for long times and wide extent. Most dissolve quickly. "Brutal simplicity" is an illusion, I think. I read what you're saying as "long times and wide extent". Some models are so widely applicable, and seem to always be true, that we just can't puncture them no matter what we try. > We should spawn a separate thread on this (or not). I choose "not". [grin] I've waxed filosofickle too much lately. -- glen e. p. ropella, 971-222-9095, http://agent-based-modeling.com ============================================================ 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
