So, I live in a pre keplerian village. On a hill in the middle of the village
is a monastery where lives a monk who rings a bell at sunrise every day. A
model explanation circulates around the village that the sun is attached to the
Monk's bellrope and that it is his ringing the bell that raises the sun. Many
people in the village take this model to be "true" (wetftm) and conduct their
lives in accordance with it. Are they WACKO?
Just asking.
N
Nicholas S. Thompson
Emeritus Professor of Psychology and Ethology,
Clark University ([email protected])
http://home.earthlink.net/~nickthompson/naturaldesigns/
http://www.cusf.org [City University of Santa Fe]
----- Original Message -----
From: Russ Abbott
To: The Friday Morning Applied Complexity Coffee Group
Sent: 12/2/2009 2:19:49 PM
Subject: Re: [FRIAM] Game theorists hope to solve world's crises
Lots of strong words and sentiments.
Glen, do you distinguish between perceptions/[perspectives, models and
scientific theories? Do you think of people who believe enough in quantum
theory, general relativity, biological evolution, even Newtonian dynamics to
act on it as certifiably WACKO? That's not to say that these theories won't
ever be revised, overturned, etc. But to call people who act on what those
theories predict WACKO seems extreme.
What about the model you have in your head as you cross the street? That model
included cars coming at you. Not acting on that model seems more WACKO than
acting on it?
I think it would be useful to refine your statement a bit. Waiting for the
light to change at a busy intersection (because of your model of how traffic
lights, traffic, etc. work--which is not always the way it is but which works
often enough and which may include drunk drivers and cases in which cars run
red lights) seems more sane than following Jim Jones to Guyana.
-- Russ
On Wed, Dec 2, 2009 at 10:29 AM, Marcus G. Daniels <[email protected]> wrote:
glen e. p. ropella wrote:
It's not that some models
are more wrong than others. It's that models are rhetorical devices.
When you meet a person who really _believes_ her own rhetoric to the
extent that they are convicted, committed, and unwaveringly confident in
their own rhetoric ... well, then you KNOW you've got a certifiable
WACKO on your hands. Following their consulting would be like following
Jim Jones to Guyana ...
I think that in these circles if game theory makes propaganda more compelling
that is all that matters.
Why describe something when you can influence it?
Marcus
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Meets Fridays 9a-11:30 at cafe at St. John's College
lectures, archives, unsubscribe, maps at http://www.friam.org
