I'm sure this is confirmation bias piled atop. But *my* answer is that what we're
seeing is, writ large, *projection*. More specifically (I guess), it's the False
Consensus Effect <https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/False_consensus_effect> or
perhaps an assumed similarity bias.
But y'all know all this. So if I were to try to contribute, I'd argue that what
we're seeing is a kindasorta equivalence class of logics. Each of us (LLMs
included) may have our own particular inference pattern(s). But those patterns
are alike *enough* to all fit into a class. As long as any one subject doing
the mentalizing/projection is enough like the others doing their
mentalizing/projection, then the reflexive changes discussed in Kim et al
translate across all the subjects.
The way we might test such things is to develop digital twins for animals like
octopuses. Following Kim et al, if we (somehow) trained the machine to believe
it had 8 arms, then my guess is it would respond to us as if we had 8 arms ...
despite no authors they've been trained on actually had 8 arms. Is there a
difference between talking as-if you had 8 arms versus actually having 8 arms?
Psychopaths want to know!
On 8/12/26 5:38 PM, Santafe wrote:
Marcus’s example here is a better defense than Nick usually gives for being a
monist.
Also (or, because) it highlights just what the accounting identity of monism
includes, and everything that it leaves out.
On the flip side of what Kim et al. are asserting, we have the decades of
Heider-Simmel psychology experiments:
pmc-card-share.jpg
Attributing social meaning to animated shapes: A new experimental study of apparent
behavior <https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC7932368/>
nlm.nih.gov <https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC7932368/>
<https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC7932368/>
So, yes, we are seeing something. What are we seeing?
Eric
On Aug 13, 2026, at 7:52, Marcus Daniels <[email protected]> wrote:
In response to nothing, I was pleased by this: https://arxiv.org/pdf/2607.28607
No, it is REALLY nothing but patterns.
-----Original Message-----
From: Friam <[email protected]> On Behalf Of glen
Sent: Wednesday, August 12, 2026 3:50 PM
To: [email protected]
Subject: Re: [FRIAM] What is FRIAM and is it still alive
I think a globally sourced profile of each person is best. You don't need a
(L)LM ... or if you do, you'd have to somehow implement eras. I believe (but
can't defend) that people have said different things (and in different ways)
over the course of their contributions ... maybe partly in response to
reactions to their posts, here. But also as an evolution of their meatspace
generator. In any case, Dave and Russ have substack blogs, which can be used
for training. We know EricS communicates in other fora. I'm sure a lot of us
do. Tom's got artifacts like that SFNM opinion piece. Frank has a memoir. Etc.
As Nick's lamented several times, the bare content of the posts isn't adequate
for a publication (or any coherent artifact - even a simulation). It's similar
(I'm told) with novels. You don't actually write a novel, you write a *world*
in which the novel takes place - or the good writers do anyway. Training merely
on the posts here will , I think, result in degen and boring output.
On 8/12/26 8:50 AM, Marcus Daniels wrote:
I once wrote an ABM of the Swarm principals. (I undersold it at the time, it
was a decent sketch of how to use the Java layer.) I bet Claude or GPT could
read the whole FRIAM archive and build an ontology and a simulation.
Calibrating it to the message rates (yeah, thinking of Europe and Australia
too) and the personalities would take some work, but I bet it could be done.
Each conspicuous person could be a LLM fine-tuned to FRIAM content. That
would include people like Dave that insist that no such high-fidelity model is
possible. Or there could be skill files to avoid coding. A few paragraphs
on someone like Doug Roberts would be a no-brainer. Maybe the approach could
be applied to family therapy too.
*From: *Friam <[email protected]> on behalf of jofr
<[email protected]>
*Date: *Wednesday, August 12, 2026 at 8:32 AM
*To: *The Friday Morning Applied Complexity Coffee Group
<[email protected]>
*Subject: *Re: [FRIAM] What is FRIAM and is it still alive
A simple model is based on timezones. When I post something at 9 AM CET (or
CEST) Central European Time, then I usually get no response before 5 PM when it
it is 8 AM in California and 9 AM in Santa Fe. The posting times reflect where
a person is physically located.
The rest is more or less unpredictable. Posts could be correlated to even more
posts. Some kind of self-reinforcing bubble. It also reminds me of the famous
El-Farol Bar Problem which predicts visitors for a bar. Does this bar still
exist in Santa Fe?
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/El_Farol_Bar_problem
In general it seems to be unpredictable. I posted for example less in recent
weeks because my mail server provider from New York changed the settings and I
had difficulties to access this email account I am using now.
-J.
-------- Original message --------
From: Marcus Daniels <[email protected]>
Date: 8/12/26 5:05 PM (GMT+01:00)
To: The Friday Morning Applied Complexity Coffee Group
<[email protected]>
Subject: Re: [FRIAM] What is FRIAM and is it still alive
I was looking for a (null space) model of when and why a post occurs. Like why
a person would reach for the remote and change the TV station. It may have
nothing to do with the coherence or silliness of any particular programming.
Like going out for a cup of coffee or a smoke.
*From: *Friam <[email protected]> on behalf of jofr
<[email protected]>
*Date: *Wednesday, August 12, 2026 at 7:58 AM
*To: *The Friday Morning Applied Complexity Coffee Group
<[email protected]>
*Subject: *Re: [FRIAM] What is FRIAM and is it still alive
You mean a "credit model" depending on correspondence length and
authorship time? GitHub has a statistics page for repositories which
shows who has committed the most lines in what timeframe. And some
open source frameworks like Ruby on Rails list their most active
contributors https://contributors.rubyonrails.org
ChatGPT says about you Marcus that you are the most active poster by a
substantial margin. You win clearly in this category.
Nick and Glen are funnier according to ChatGPT though. ChatGPT is particularly fond of the Nick's
post "All those who think Steve was wrong raise your hands" and Glen's post "Say it
again … Say it again in a different way … Again … Again, damnit!"
-J.
-------- Original message --------
From: Marcus Daniels <[email protected]>
Date: 8/12/26 4:28 PM (GMT+01:00)
To: The Friday Morning Applied Complexity Coffee Group
<[email protected]>
Subject: Re: [FRIAM] What is FRIAM and is it still alive
Correspondence length and apparent authorship time that follows the
distribution of a compile/link cycle or system integration test suite execution
duration?
*From: *Friam <[email protected]> on behalf of
[email protected] <[email protected]>
*Date: *Wednesday, August 12, 2026 at 4:50 AM
*To: *The Friday Morning Applied Complexity Coffee Group
<[email protected]>
*Subject: *Re: [FRIAM] What is FRIAM and is it still alive
ChatGPT proposed these two laws:
FRIAM's First Law: We take difficult philosophical problems and worry
them to death until someone produces either a profound insight, a
completely insane hypothesis, or a phrase like "quantum woo".
FRIAM's Second Law: If a theory is suspiciously elegant, somebody on
the list will throw a shoe at it.
The reason I have asked ChatGPT and Gemini is I am writing a new
self-published book, and the first chapter is about FRIAM. Their
summaries are surprisingly good. I asked them to find funny anecdotes
in the FRIAM archives and they found a post from Nick that said "OK
friammers, All those who think Steve was wrong raise your hands" :-)
If you do NOT want to be mentioned in the chapter because it is too
much quantum woo for you then please let me know or raise your hand.
Will share a draft in a few days.
-J.
--
8647 ⊥ ɐןןǝdoɹ ǝ uǝןƃ
ὅτε oi μὲν ἄλλοι κύνες τοὺς ἐχϑροὺς δάκνουσιν, ἐγὰ δὲ τοὺς φίλους, ἵνα σώσω.
--
8647 ⊥ ɐןןǝdoɹ ǝ uǝןƃ
ὅτε oi μὲν ἄλλοι κύνες τοὺς ἐχϑροὺς δάκνουσιν, ἐγὰ δὲ τοὺς φίλους, ἵνα σώσω.
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