On 2/28/22 10:19 AM, glen wrote:
Very cool! Thanks. I need this. I've made a new friend with an MD focused on Psychiatry. She's a psychodynamics therapist (which I've ranted about with Frank). At supper, I consistently used the word "argument", e.g. "We have a lot of arguments in our future". She and her husband kept objecting to the word "argument", insisting that we use softer words like "discussion" or whatever. After lots of poking and shredding, it came to the concept of foundationalism ... the idea that there *can be* some common ground within which to be collaboratively adversarial. I'm skeptical that such foundations are even possible, much less findable and measurable. But as long as we can identify *that* we're assuming such a foundation, defining a game of some sort, then I can play along nearly as if I actually agree on that foundation, at least for awhile.Maybe this construct will help us find a way to do that without anyone feeling bullied.
And maybe for some (of us) the feeling of being bullied is necessary to activate the adversarial mode needed? I sense that, among contrarians (of which we have a couple of full-timers and myriad part-timers here?) there is an ideation on their (your) part that your collaborator (opponent) *must* feel confronted (if not bullied) to achieve the activation potential that might be measured by Kahneman's "15 point IQ rise"? As a subject of well-intentioned confrontation by "the Loyal Opposition", I do find contradiction, confrontation, disagreement to be useful to provoking/managing my own participation.
I am naturally both skeptical and critical on the inside but have been trained into being overtly cooperative in most contexts. I think it is MY adaptation to real-world bullies who want to create a pretext for conflict that invites more bullying (see Putin v Ukraine). I therefore (I think) seek out those who do not have so much of that adaptation but in fact, are not actually died-in-the-wool bullies... just ones who play that role on TV (or at the Pub or in Internet Fora).
Another fascinating (and relevant IMO) article in the Atlantic does a pretty good job of outlining a perspective on the complexity of self-other consciousness/awareness from a particular evolutionary-theoretic point of view. Maybe right up Nick's alley?
https://www.theatlantic.com/science/archive/2016/06/how-consciousness-evolved/485558/This whole thing rhymes (I find) with the Generative Adversarial Network discussions we've had here in the past.
And for some of us, maybe we can fold in Hypergraphs also... ;^)
On 2/28/22 08:19, Steve Smith wrote:Glen wrote, a few weeks ago, about an old friend/colleague who had been out of touch who confronted him with having "bullied him intellectually" a while back. I didn't think too much of it at the time because I experience Glen's confrontational style to be more about contrarianism than bullying, though on sensitive subjects it is hard not to feel any assertive disagreement otherwise.This list traffic, I find, has a mix of fraternalism and adversarialism that can be both disarming and uncomfortable at times, which I believe is part of the reason for the lurker/poster and the female/male participant ratios. I may not be calibrated well on that topic. It is just an intuition.In any case, the following Edge lecture on "Adversarial Collaboration" really rung a bell with me:https://www.edge.org/adversarial-collaboration-daniel-kahneman He covered several interesting and relevant (to me) topics:1. Confirmation Bias is widespread, insidious, and hard to detect in oneself.2. People don't change their minds.3. Healthy attempts to change another's mind can be beneficial to both sides in spite of the above.5. "Angry Science" is supported by mob/tribalism, but does not serve.5. "Adversarial Collaboration" is a good alternative to "Angry Science"And most poignant to my own aging/transition process:*/Old people don't really kick themselves. Their regret is wistful, almost pleasant. It's not emotionally intense./*All in all, I found the topic and Kahneman's treatment very interesting, both in observing the general progress of Science and in my own navigation through this ever-expandingly complex world, with or without the help of experts and peers.
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