"We need to nail down the metaphors: momentum, mass, velocity, constant, force, not to mention, particle, wave, string, quantum, atom. et. al."
My dad was a member of a team that designed and built nuclear submarines successfully. I wonder if they realized they were working with metaphors. Frank --- Frank C. Wimberly 140 Calle Ojo Feliz, Santa Fe, NM 87505 505 670-9918 Santa Fe, NM On Thu, May 14, 2020, 3:58 PM Prof David West <[email protected]> wrote: > Eric said: "Whenever a given range of phenomenon start to get scienced, we > rapidly find out that we need to nail down the vocabulary beyond the > flexibility usually allowed in lay conversations about a topic ... But in a > physics conversation we would take out the casual usages and limit > ourselves to the latter; momentum would be a property of mass at > velocity, which stays constant unless acted upon by a force." > > We need to nail down the metaphors: momentum, mass, velocity, constant, > force, not to mention, particle, wave, string, quantum, atom. et. al. > > davew > > > On Thu, May 14, 2020, at 10:57 AM, Eric Charles wrote: > > Jon, > "Decide" is a weird way to put it. > > Whenever a given range of phenomenon start to get scienced, we rapidly > find out that we need to nail down the vocabulary beyond the flexibility > usually allowed in lay conversations about a topic. We can, for example, > allow "He's got momentum" to mean all sorts of things in a lay > conversation. We might talk about broad social phenomenon such as how > "Bernie has momentum in the polls" or "M. Night Shyamalan's career lost > momentum after a string of flops, but he seems to be getting some of that > momentum back now", or about general laziness such as "I'm not going to do > the gardening my wife keeps asking about, because momentum", *and *we > also could mean that there is a movement that will not alter without the > application of force such as "He's not going to stop before he hits that > wall, too much momentum." But in a physics conversation we would take out > the casual usages and limit ourselves to the latter; momentum would be a > property of mass at velocity, which stays constant unless acted upon by a > force. Hell, Merrium-Webster even offers "momentum" a definition of "force > or speed of movement", where in that physics conversation "force" and > "speed" are clearly distinguished concepts, that are definitely *not * > momentum. > > Similarly, if we want to talk seriously about psychology, we need to nail > down some vocabulary that will allow us to talk/think rigorously about the > phenomenon in question. We need some terminology by which to refer to the > distinction between the movements of the dead duck (or rock) thrown out the > window and the movements of the live duck thrown out a window. And, as we > already covered, that distinction isn't *just *a matter of falling, > because we want to put Nick's post-defenestration flailing in the same > broad category as the more elegant movements of the live duck. > > Note that, if you aren't interested in *that *distinction that is a > different issue. Lot's of people aren't interested in any particular > specialized science, and that is entirely unrelated to whether the science > needs a specialized vocabulary to operate effectively. And while science > frequently go through phases of emphasizing vocabulary that refers to > processes that are not easy to observe, those can't be the terms that > define the domain of the science. What are the observable phenomenon that > lead us to ask questions about psychology? What are the methods by which > those observations are made? Until we answer those types of questions, it > is dramatically premature to start speculating about what > hidden-unobservables might be at play. And, there is every reason to > believe that our interest starts with behavior. "Why did he do that?" "Why > am I acting this way?" When we wonder "Why is he angry at me?", the start > of that question is a witnessed (or reported) action. > > Could other phenomenon end up in our bucket at some point? Sure, just like > in any other science. But you can't even figure out where those other > things start, until you know the limits of where the base concepts take > you. Though I think some followers of James J. Gibson's Ecological > Psychology, for example, take his contributions to the field farther than > is warranted, he absolutely showed that basic principles of perceptual > systems can get us much, much farther than previously thought, including > providing solutions to how people act successfully in situations where most > believe that advanced computational thinking is required. We need to nail > down the basic concepts, and then do the same type of push Gibson did to > determine their limits. > > In that context, it seems fair to begin using "behavior" in a more > technical sense. Once that is done, we could actually answer your question > about the tree and the falling seeds, but before that, it would just seem > like spinning our wheels. > > > ----------- > Eric P. Charles, Ph.D. > Department of Justice - Personnel Psychologist > American University - Adjunct Instructor > > <[email protected]> > > > On Wed, May 13, 2020 at 1:07 PM Jon Zingale <[email protected]> wrote: > > Eric, > I have some concern that once we *decide* the dead duck was not behaving, > that we would avoid the dropped coin. I get that we wouldn't want to > apply the verb *flailing* to the coin except perhaps in a moment of > poetry. > This is the season to witness cottonwood drifts, though. Better might > be the helicopter like motions of maple seedpods. These adaptations, > which carry the future of the species, are shaped so that they behave > meaningfully when coupled with their environment. Would you hesitate > to call the motions of the cottonwood seedpod, in its environment, > behavior? > Is it too early in this conversation, or even inappropriate to ask whose > behavior it would be? > > Frank, > Thank you for mentioning covariant tensors, I enjoyed walking > around my neighborhood thinking of them and of a response to you. > While it seems to me that a coffee cup is less abstract than a covariant > tensor, the latter isn't free of material or phenomenal foundation. If I > witness a grade schooler attempting to *pushforward* what I know to be > a covariant tensor, then I know that they are not likely thinking about a > covariant tensor, even if they wished that they were. If on the other hand, > they were clear on *pullingback* whatever it is they believed acted like a > covariant tensor, then I would likely believe they had a covariant tensor > in mind. Where the coffee cup, arguably is *just* a thing. A covariant > tensor is a thing which obeys strict rules of behavior. For example, while > I could use a coffee cup as a hammer, I am not convinced that I could > use a covariant tensor as a hammer. It may be the case that to resolve a > covariant tensor with an fMRI, we would need to witness one thinking of > a covariant tensor through time. > > Glen, > Maybe we could also use the term *bracketed* for those things which > we wish to keep outside of the Bekenstein bound. Like yourself, I am > not really a stickler for what terms we use. I would and have claimed > that *this is how the inductor behaves in this circuit* while explaining > to family or friends how one of my synthesizers works. What I would > like to glean in the context of this conversation is whether or not this > attribution to the inductor is a metaphor. If it is a metaphor here, then > I would like to understand why. > > .-. .- -. -.. --- -- -..-. -.. --- - ... -..-. .- -. -.. -..-. -.. .- ... > .... . ... > FRIAM Applied Complexity Group listserv > Zoom Fridays 9:30a-12p Mtn GMT-6 bit.ly/virtualfriam > unsubscribe http://redfish.com/mailman/listinfo/friam_redfish.com > archives: http://friam.471366.n2.nabble.com/ > FRIAM-COMIC http://friam-comic.blogspot.com/ > > .-. .- -. -.. --- -- -..-. -.. --- - ... -..-. .- -. -.. -..-. -.. .- ... > .... . ... > FRIAM Applied Complexity Group listserv > Zoom Fridays 9:30a-12p Mtn GMT-6 bit.ly/virtualfriam > unsubscribe http://redfish.com/mailman/listinfo/friam_redfish.com > archives: http://friam.471366.n2.nabble.com/ > FRIAM-COMIC http://friam-comic.blogspot.com/ > > > .-. .- -. -.. --- -- -..-. -.. --- - ... -..-. .- -. -.. -..-. -.. .- ... > .... . ... > FRIAM Applied Complexity Group listserv > Zoom Fridays 9:30a-12p Mtn GMT-6 bit.ly/virtualfriam > unsubscribe http://redfish.com/mailman/listinfo/friam_redfish.com > archives: http://friam.471366.n2.nabble.com/ > FRIAM-COMIC http://friam-comic.blogspot.com/ >
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