Frank, 

 

Well, as usual, it’s a question of who get’s the words.  In the world in which 
I was raised a velocity is a change in position over a change in time.  No 
change in distance,  no velocity.  Velocity at an instant is a mathematical 
fabulation in the same way that wanting at an instant is a fabulation.  My 
problem as a “thinker” is that I want to dismiss the latter, but I cannot 
dismiss the former.

N

 

Nick Thompson

 <mailto:[email protected]> [email protected]

 <https://wordpress.clarku.edu/nthompson/> 
https://wordpress.clarku.edu/nthompson/

 

From: Friam <[email protected]> On Behalf Of Frank Wimberly
Sent: Friday, October 1, 2021 10:01 PM
To: The Friday Morning Applied Complexity Coffee Group <[email protected]>
Subject: Re: [FRIAM] Newborn Heart Rate

 

Nick, i hope this helps.  Given a fair die that hasn't been thrown the 
probability that it will come up 2 (or any of the other particular values) on 
the next throw is 1/6 by definition of fair.  Given that it has been thrown and 
ceterus paribus the a posteriori probability that it shows 2 given that it does 
is 1.0.  In that case the probabilities of each of the other values is 0.0.

 

The acceleration of an object with constant velocity is 0.0.  If the velocity 
is changing the acceleration is the instantaneous change in velocity the 
knowledge of which is limited by the ability to measure that.  The acceleration 
of an object whose velocity is described by a closed form mathematical function 
is the derivative of that function as we learned in calculus.  The derivative 
is defined by limits.  This is theoretical and approximates what happens in the 
physical world.

 

Questions and comments are welcome.

 

Frank

 

 

---
Frank C. Wimberly
140 Calle Ojo Feliz, 
Santa Fe, NM 87505

505 670-9918
Santa Fe, NM

 

On Fri, Oct 1, 2021, 7:21 PM <[email protected] 
<mailto:[email protected]> > wrote:

I thought the conversation about probability, category errors, and crossing 
boundaries between levels of organization was interesting and I was sorry I had 
to leave it.   I want to say that to speak a die as having a probability of 1/6 
of coming up 6 on a single throw is a category error because it is not a 
property that can be displayed on a single throw.  It’s the same worry that I 
have often deployed about the calculus.  If we take the idea of a category 
error seriously, then acceleration is just not the sort of thing an object can 
have at an instant.    But just as clearly as this argument is too strong – 
lots of very nice longstanding bridges have been built with the calculus – so 
the argument is also too strong with respect to probability – lots of nice atom 
bombs have been built with probability theory … or something.  

 

I care about this because my standard account of such concepts as “wanting” is 
that they are properties of the population of responses to an object, not 
properties of any one of those responses.   We encounter the same problem with 
anecdotes and newspaper photographs designed to illustrate some general fact.  
If the generally fact is that “very few of the immigrants at the southern 
border are well treated” a single photograph looking peaked or hungry is 
irrelevant.  Equally irrelevant would be a picture of a bright eyed kid sitting 
in the lap of a border patrol officer eating a hot-fudge sundae.  

 

This makes me wonder about one of the foundations of psychological research, 
the statistics of inference, which I think Peirce invented.   Let a coin be 
thrown 10 times and each time come up heads.  What I think Peirce would  have 
me conclude is that that coin is unlikely to be drawn from a population of fair 
throws of a fair coin.   But, of coure, what we are likely to conclude is that 
“this coin is not fair.”    But that could be as misguided, couldn’t it, as 
concluding that the kid in the lap of the border patrol officers is being 
mistreated.   

 

I apologize, once more, for sharing my comfusions with you. 

 

n

 

Nick Thompson

 <mailto:[email protected]> [email protected]

 <https://wordpress.clarku.edu/nthompson/> 
https://wordpress.clarku.edu/nthompson/

 

From: Friam <[email protected] <mailto:[email protected]> > On 
Behalf Of Frank Wimberly
Sent: Friday, October 1, 2021 6:46 PM
To: The Friday Morning Applied Complexity Coffee Group <[email protected] 
<mailto:[email protected]> >
Subject: [FRIAM] Newborn Heart Rate

 


https://pediatrics.aappublications.org/content/61/1/119

 

This is for those who attended this morning's vFriam meeting.  I was 
Schachter's colleague, among a couple of others.

 

 

---
Frank C. Wimberly
140 Calle Ojo Feliz, 
Santa Fe, NM 87505

505 670-9918
Santa Fe, NM


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