Eric, Thanks for forwarding Bob Shaw's work to the list. I had the honor of sharing a few pints with Bob at "Sweet Williams" Pub, in Michael Turvey's and Claudio Carello's basement :-)
Nick, check out the video Eric linked to and then maybe this paper: "Hints of Intelligence From First Principles" with his son Jeff. http://commons.trincoll.edu/robertshaw/files/2016/02/first_principles.pdf As we've discussed over the last few years, The Action Principle (energy * time) and least (stationary) action may provide a more fundamental selection principle in biology than natural selection and could be a mathematical formulation you're asking for. Many applied problems in complexity like ant algorithms using dual pheromone fields, level-set methods, and route search on a road network using simultaneous floodflill from both origins and destinations might be considered least action path selection. I make the claim on intuition - I expect Eric Smith would reject or accept this based on more formal understanding. On Sun, Oct 28, 2018 at 12:32 PM Eric Charles < eric.phillip.char...@gmail.com> wrote: > Bob Shaw has spend a good chunk of his career trying to do this at what I > would call a "lower level of analysis" even though that might not be the > right term. His "intentional dynamics" are about trying to use > dynamic-systems math to try to say what "intentionality" looks like in the > topology of an action. Thus, when I say "lower level" I mean that he is > interested in how one moves through the room to accomplish a goal, rather > than *that *one is doing a move-through-the-room option, which is what > Nick tends to focus on. That said, both approaches connect strongly, I > believe, with E.B. Holt's assertion that a central task of psychology is to > determine what aspects of the world our behavior is a function of, i.e., > the assertion that one is "*trying* to leave the room" is a *description* > about how one is acting, contextualized by an array of actions that would > result in an array of various outcomes. > > https://commons.trincoll.edu/robertshaw/ > https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=om0HV5TQkXw > > Bob's work might really appeal to some on the list, which is why I have > linked both to his webpage and a talk from a few years ago. Differential > geometry, Feynman path integral, system dynamics, etc. If you want to skip > the less contextualized technical stuff and get to the big picture of his > effort, regarding the relation between the math he is using and psychology, > you could start at minute 50 and watch for about 10 minutes. > > For a touch more context: Bob was a crucial player in the second > generation of "ecological psychologists", those who kept James J. Gibson's > work alive after his death. Gibson's work is now extremely influential in > the emerging fields of "embodied cognition" (often called "enactivisim" in > European contexts). That said, most researchers in the field aren't > mathematically sophisticated enough to connect with Bob's work, and it is > technically challenging to implement in experiments, as such, few are > working on the project besides Bob, which is unfortunate. > > > ----------- > Eric P. Charles, Ph.D. > Supervisory Survey Statistician > U.S. Marine Corps > <echar...@american.edu> > > > On Sun, Oct 28, 2018 at 6:53 AM ∄ uǝʃƃ <geprope...@gmail.com> wrote: > >> This description suffers from the same criticism I made before: you're >> assuming a *strict* hierarchy, where the higher order can only operate over >> whole components from the lower order. I.e. the gun's algorithm 1st >> chooses the type/medium of target (ballistic, air, water), then uses that >> type to select the specific tracking sub-algorithm. >> >> And while this is mostly how it's done in artificial systems, I suspect >> biology does NOT use strict hierarchies. A higher order function can >> operate over a mixture of operands, some complex wholes in that higher >> order and some from the lower orders. E.g. if the gun's higher order >> selection is based not only on the 3 types (ballistic, air, water), but >> also on a lower order measure like *speed*, then it may well use he same >> sub-algorithm for both air and water. So, it takes both high order >> constructs and low order constructs as its operands. >> >> You see your assumption of a strict hierarchy peeking through when you >> say sex is the only motive that is ESSENTIALLY social. What do you mean by >> "essentially"? Couldn't we say that *all* the behavior of all the social >> animals is, in part, social? ... including following others to the water >> hole? So, these functions would be mixed ... do not obey a strict >> hierarchy. >> >> On 10/27/18 11:32 PM, Nick Thompson wrote: >> > But the function that connects the two arrays will be different in the >> two kinds of gun because a surface target is capable of different sorts of >> motion from an aerial target. >> > [...] >> > So, the gun would display two levels of design, the lower level that >> relates trajectory to firing and the higher level that relates the lower >> level design to target type. >> > [...] >> > This conception of multiple hierarchical layers of design is a useful >> way to describe many of the phenomena that ethologists and socio-biologists >> are required to explain. … >> >> >> >> >> >> -- >> ∄ uǝʃƃ >> >> ============================================================ >> 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 >> > ============================================================ > 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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