I don't know the difference between "nomothetic" and "idiographic", but I am
interested in the area between idiosyncratic, irregular descriptions and
symmetric, regular theories. History is often the former, an idiosyncratic
description of events and names specific for a certain time and country.
Mathematics is usually the latter, because it is based on symmetries and
precise rules to describe regularities. In the area between we can find
phenomena like path-dependent evolution and adaptation.For example as Edwin
Holt ("The concept of consciousness") noticed the concept of an environmental
cross section helps to explain subjective consciousness which is in a sense
both specific to an individual but also predictable if we know the exact cross
section of the environment. George H. Mead ("Mind, Self & Society") also argues
that all individual selves are reflections of the social process. I believe we
discussed it a few years ago.In the case of Donald Trump we can also observe
how subjective objects and objective theories overlap. There is certainly no
one like Donald, and yet there are many people especially among managers who
have a Narcissistic Personality Disorder as mental health professionals have
warned us ("The dangerous case of Donald Trump"). In addition to this
psychological interpretation Sarah Kendzior describes in her new book ("Hiding
in plain sight") that his behavior is not uncommon for authoritarian systems.-J.
-------- Original message --------From: [email protected] Date: 4/10/20
06:01 (GMT+01:00) To: 'The Friday Morning Applied Complexity Coffee Group'
<[email protected]> Subject: [FRIAM] The Self Case OK, Glen, fair enough and
stipulated. I hope you know how much I value your perspective. But ...One of
the constant debates in my field (well, perhaps more accurately, in the field
of most of the members of my Department, was between the "nomothetic" and the
"idiographic". Knowing you as well as I do, I know that before I get to the
end of this sentence you will have looked those terms up and come to understand
them better than I do. But still, to bolt the argument to the ground, a bit,
let me explain them myself. It is like the difference between the graph in a
scientific paper of the mean value of the independent variable and the values
of the dependent variable, as interpolated -- that's nomothetic -- and the
picture of three individual subjects which represent the values of the
independent variable -- that's idiographic. Nomothetic study seeks to get at
the laws that relate one kind of thing to another; the other seeks to capture
the ... dare I say .... essence of a phenomenon through a single instance.
Physics writing is often said to be nomothetic; history writing is said to be
idiographic. Psychology is said to be both. Studies of rats in mazes are
nomothetic in intent; we really DON'T give a damn for the individual rat. But
clinical case studies are definitely idiographic. My field -- ethology -- has
often been torn between the two impulses, and the idiographic gave way in the
end to the nomothetic. To my regret, while I was on sabbatical in the
Maddingley {ethological} Field Station in Cambridge, England I met a woman,
Joan Hall Craggs, who had managed to record and sonogram all the song types
sung by a single male black bird during his 18 year (could that be right?!)
career. She had binder upon binder of them in her office, all beautifully
preserved, dated, and fieldnoted. I am afraid, when she died, the whole lot
went in the dumpster. A nomothetical scientist would argue that such a record
would tell one nothing about "blackbirds"; an idiographic scientist would
claim that without such a record, we would never know what was possible for a
black bird. (By the way, a "black bird" in England is a very close relative of
our American robin'\; robins, in England are something else entirely.) Now,
I have already stipulated that, in a sense my focusing on my individual case is
to some extent narcissistic and, well, stupid. However, focusing on a single
case is not necessarily either. And since I know my case best of all, and
since the home church is living it right now, I think keeping the Santa Fe
numbers before us GROUNDS us and helps us, perhaps, not to think of "cases" and
"deaths" in the disembodied way that we do when we are performing as nomothetic
scientists. Every nomothetic case is an intersection of just a few variables
of interest; every idiographic case is the intersection of an infinity of
variables, any one of which may be of interest to somebody. Thinking of the
“self-case”, helps to keep that fact in view. Thanks as always for you
insights, Hope to see you tomorrow. Nick Nicholas ThompsonEmeritus Professor
of Ethology and PsychologyClark
[email protected]https://wordpress.clarku.edu/nthompson/
-----Original Message-----From: Friam <[email protected]> On Behalf Of
u?l? ?Sent: Thursday, April 9, 2020 4:26 PMTo: FriAM
<[email protected]>Subject: Re: [FRIAM] covid19.healthdata.org OK. This is
definitely a different message from what I thought you said. I thought you were
saying their estimates were optimistic. And since their estimates include their
uncertainty bands, that includes not peaking till much later than what their
chart might suggest, maybe 4.5k deaths PER DAY at the peak, 125k dead overall,
etc. If we consider the outside of their uncertainty, that's not optimistic at
all. You can go back to MA right now. And if you're super careful, you can most
likely do it without getting infected. So, your "pessimism" is not about the
peak, total bed availability, or whatever. Your pessimism seems to have more to
do with *you* (and your immediate clique). That you could go ahead and do what
you need to do now, but won't, isn't pessimism about these estimates. It's fear
for your own condition. That's understandable, of course, but not really about
this estimate or its methods. On 4/9/20 2:49 PM, [email protected]
wrote:> Perhaps they seem optimistic to me only because mine have been so
pessimistic. I have assumed that I am immobilized here in Santa Fe for the
next year. I even put up a list on my wall of 365 days and have been crossing
them off, one by one. What I see on that site suggests to me that I might
actually get to my garden in Massachusetts by early June. I just heard an
interview with Daniel Kahneman (who is in my age range) who says essentially
that he expects to stay home for the rest of his life because of the disease.
I just heard from Dave West (He's fine!) who decided to make a run for home
from Amsterdam and essentially had a 747 to himself. Perhaps now is exactly
the time to make a run for MA. > > So, you see, my thinking about all of this
is deranged and intensified by its personal implications. So perhaps I ought
to be keeping my thoughts to myself. I have my favorite dog in this fight; too
much skin in this game. > > My pessimistic view is that until we are back to
contact tracing levels everybody should stay home. Others seem to imagine
essentially eliminating the disease from the population by social distancing in
the next month. and then going back pretty much to business as usual. I WANT
those "others" to be right, but I am having a hard time selling it to myself.
At the minimum, any restarting would require public health departments to have
the power to snatch contacts off the street, throw them in sterilized vans, and
cart them off to motels to watch Fox News for two weeks. Apparently, people
boarding airplanes in Wuhan, are doing so in hazmat gear. I just don't see
that happening, here. Even at the current "peak", SW airlines is not screening
passengers or taking temps at the gate. > > I read some where that Trump is
losing a Billion dollars (a month? from the crisis. Hey, every cloud has a
silver lining. --☣ uǝlƃ .-. .- -. -.. --- -- -..-. -.. --- - ... -..-. .- -.
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