I do not prefer my paintings to Van Gogh's. You must mean something else.
Frank Wimberly 140 Calle Ojo Feliz Santa Fe, NM 87505 505 670-9918 Research: https://www.researchgate.net/profile/Frank_Wimberly2 On Tue, Aug 18, 2026, 3:05 PM <[email protected]> wrote: > If we look at the common proverbs around the world about taste > https://share.gemini.google/E8f2XkRCDpay we find that > > * everyone has their own taste. What one person likes, another may not. > * everybody prefers their own work, products or creations over anyone > else's. > > As you say in English "There's no accounting for taste" and "Every > potter praises his own pot". > > People prefer not only their own work, ideas, or ways of doing things > over anyone else's, they also prefer the way of doing things which their > group (or the group to which they want to belong to) is doing over > things other groups do. In India for example there are many vegetarians > who would refuse to eat a steak. > > It is a kind of self-similar path dependency (my favorite FRIAM topic > according to Gemini). The macroscopic culture is path-dependent, but on > a microscopic level each individual is path-dependent too. > > -J. > > > On 2026-08-18 20:55, Eric Charles wrote: > > Good point! > > The "scale" at which we view a given event does seem to affect whether > > we see it as an example of free will or not. > > > > Personally, I would (contra Claude) say that the reflexive pulling of > > hand away from the hot stove which it touched was "zero" free will, > > not "low" free will. > > > > Choosing the steak seem like a high free-will example, under (my) > > normal circumstances, but I could certainly imagine various > > social-and-cultural pressures modifying my view of someone else's > > choice of steak. For example, if you could show me that Bill chose > > steak every time, without fail, that the three people before him > > ordered steak, and that he never ordered steak otherwise, I would be > > less confident in my "free will" attribution. Maybe it was literally > > beaten into him at some point in his life? Maybe he's just likes to go > > with the crowd? > > > > On a related note, I feel like I should throw some Gilbert Ryle into > > the mix (because I was just flipping through one of his books): > > > >> One of the chief intellectual origins of what I have yet to prove to > >> be the Cartesian category-mistake seems to be this. When Galileo > >> showed that his methods of scientific discovery were competent to > >> provide a mechanical theory which should cover every occupant of > >> space , Descartes found in himself two conflicting motives. As a man > >> of scientific genius he could not but endorse the claims of > >> mechanics, yet as a religious and moral man he could not accept, as > >> Hobbes accepted , the discouraging rider to those claims, namely > >> that human nature differs only in degree of complexity from > >> clockwork. The mental could not be just a variety of the mechanical. > >> > >> > >> He and subsequent philosophers naturally but erroneously availed > >> themselves of the following escape-route. Since mental-conduct words > >> are not to be construed as signifying the occurrence of mechanical > >> processes, they must be construed as signifying the occurrence of > >> non-mechanical processes; since mechanical laws explain movements in > >> space as the effects of other movements in space , other laws must > >> explain some of the non-spatial workings of minds as the effects of > >> other non-spatial workings of minds. The difference between the > >> human behaviours which we describe as intelligent and those which we > >> describe as unintelligent must be a difference in their causation ; > >> so, while some movements of human tongues and limbs are the effects > >> of mechanical causes, others must be the effects of non-mechanical > >> causes, i.e. some issue from movements of particles of matter, > >> others from workings of the mind. > >> ..... > >> Since, according to the doctrine, minds belong to the same category > >> as bodies and since bodies are rigidly governed by mechanical laws, > >> it seemed to many theorists to follow that minds must be similarly > >> governed by rigid non-mechanical laws. The physical world is a > >> deterministic system, so the mental world must be a deterministic > >> system. Bodies cannot help the modifications that they undergo, so > >> minds cannot help pursuing the careers fixed for them. > >> Responsibility, choice, merit and demerit are therefore inapplicable > >> concepts — unless the compromise solution is adopted of saying > >> that the laws governing mental processes, unlike those governing > >> physical processes, have the congenial attribute of being only > >> rather rigid. The problem of the Freedom of the Will was the problem > >> how to reconcile the hypothesis that minds are to be described in > >> terms drawn from the categories of mechanics with the knowledge that > >> higher-grade human conduct is not of a piece with the behaviour of > >> machines. > >> .... > > > >> [Descartes] had mistaken the logic of his problem. Instead of asking > >> by what criteria intelligent behaviour is actually distinguished > >> from non-intelligent behaviour, he asked "Given that the principle > >> of mechanical causation does not tell us the difference, what other > >> causal principle will tell us?" He realised that the problem was not > >> one of mechanics and assumed that it must therefore be one of some > >> counterpart to mechanics. > > > > On Mon, Aug 17, 2026 at 4:15 PM Jochen Fromm <[email protected]> > > wrote: > > > >> "Do I act of my own free will when I select a certain steak from > >> the menu and request a certain doneness?" > >> > >> A good question. Sociologists argue that the personal taste that > >> someone has normally fits to the class or tribe that he belongs to - > >> or wants to belong to. Bourdieu, Wilson and Olah argue taste is a > >> mechanism of class distinction. What we experience as an instinctive > >> preference - liking jazz rather than pop music, wine rather than > >> beer, Ascot horse races rather than Formula 1 competitions - is > >> shaped by our upbringing, education, social environment and position > >> within the class structure. > >> > >> + Pierre Bourdieu, "Distinction: A Social Critique of the Judgement > >> of Taste" > >> > >> + Carl Wilson, "Let's Talk About Love: Why Other People Have Such > >> Bad Taste" > >> > >> + Nathalie Olah, "Nathalie Olah, "Bad Taste: Or the Politics of > >> Ugliness"" > >> > >> Best > >> > >> Jochen > >> > >> -------- Original message -------- > >> From: Eric Charles <[email protected]> > >> Date: 8/17/26 12:31 AM (GMT+01:00) > >> To: The Friday Morning Applied Complexity Coffee Group > >> <[email protected]> > >> Subject: Re: [FRIAM] New philosophy book > >> > >> Well... as you point out in the book, I "Serves as the list's > >> operational skeptic and meeting chronicler. Consistently advocates > >> for "sciencing the problem" and tethering complex philosophical > >> concepts back to empirical behavioral testing (e.g., "rats in > >> mazes")." 😅 > >> > >> In that vein I think the crucial starting point would be to find at > >> least a few examples in which we agree someone acted of their own > >> free will and a few examples in which they did not act of their own > >> free will, and integrate those examples to determine the difference. > >> > >> > >> Do I act of my own free will when I select a certain steak from the > >> menu and request a certain doneness? Does the mugging victim act of > >> their own free will when a gun is pointed at their child and their > >> wallet requested? When my kid asks where we are going, and I tell > >> them I want to take the scenic route to school today, was that free > >> will? Etc. Whatever we find freewill to be, when we have finished > >> engaging in that task, I doubt we will find discussion of quantum > >> mechanics or structural-decay-that-might-make-the-past-unknowable to > >> be relevant. > >> > >> (And, by "doubt" I am not asserting certainty of irrelevance, I only > >> mean that I do not think it will be the outcome, but I could be > >> wrong.) > >> > >> Best, > >> Eric > >> > >> On Sat, Aug 15, 2026 at 1:28 PM Jochen Fromm <[email protected]> > >> wrote: > >> > >>> A long and thoughtful post Jon. I like the drunkard's streetlight > >>> metaphor. > >>> Physicists would not agree that "the world" unfolds > >>> deterministically. The weather for example that Nick mentions so > >>> often is unpredictable in the long run - as you know due to chaos > >>> theory and the butterfly effect. > >>> Biological systems in turn have and keep low internal entropy > >>> because of their high degree of internal order and complexity. > >>> Human behavior is operating 4 or 5 levels above the physical level > >>> of atoms and molecules, on top of and in a low-entropy biological > >>> system. > >>> I see the problem differently, more from a human and less from a > >>> mere physical perspective. For me the interesting thing is why we > >>> can have free will although our behavior is determined by our > >>> habits, our emotional reactions, and the character formed by our > >>> past environments. By the wiring of our hardware so to speak. > >>> The interesting question for me is not if a human mind can > >>> magically break the laws of physics by some kind of quantum woo, > >>> but how constraints, habits, and conscious interventions interact > >>> and which forms of agency emerge from it. > >>> But I agree that we should not to let a 17th-century view of the > >>> universe dictate the terms of 21st-century thinking. It is > >>> probably better to see human freedom and agency as a dynamic > >>> spectrum. Some people have fewer cognitive degrees of freedom than > >>> others, and there are moments where we show full free will, and > >>> others where we lack it. > >>> Instead of asking, "Did this person act out of free will?", we > >>> should probably better ask "Given their biological state, stress > >>> level, history, psychological conditioning, and available > >>> information, how many meaningful alternative paths could this > >>> system actually evaluate and take in that moment?" > >>> > >>> -J. > >>> > >>> -------- Original message -------- > >>> From: Jon Zingale <[email protected]> > >>> Date: 8/15/26 6:21 PM (GMT+01:00) > >>> To: The Friday Morning Applied Complexity Coffee Group > >>> <[email protected]> > >>> Subject: Re: [FRIAM] New philosophy book > >>> > >>> Jochen, > >>> > >>> Implicit in many of the group's discussions of free will and > >>> determinism is the premise that the world unfolds > >>> deterministically, and that the remaining question is whether > >>> something extra exists that can escape or modify that mechanism. I > >>> do not think that this setup is necessary or given. More > >>> importantly, I think it installs a false dichotomy at the center > >>> of what may be an ill-posed problem. > >>> > >>> Locally, and for many purposes, causal accounts work > >>> extraordinarily well. We can often treat physical laws as stable, > >>> or at least as evolving according to some effective computable > >>> rule. We can model bounded domains, specify state variables, solve > >>> or approximate equations, and aim to obtain predictive control. > >>> Nothing I wish to say here denies that success. > >>> > >>> But a successful local model is not yet a warrant for the stronger > >>> metaphysical conclusion that there exists a complete global state > >>> of the universe, that this state retains every relevant > >>> distinction in a lossless way, and that its entire evolution is > >>> specified by a computable rule. Those are substantive further > >>> assumptions. > >>> > >>> My disagreement with the "aggregation of history" picture begins > >>> here. A world with finite physical resources cannot > >>> straightforwardly be assumed to be an indefinitely accumulating, > >>> lossless record of arbitrarily fine distinctions. Entropy and > >>> information bounds are often read as limits on how much > >>> information can be stored in a finite region with finite energy. > >>> At a minimum, physical history must be represented through > >>> selective persistence: some distinctions become stable records, > >>> some are dispersed into inaccessible correlations, some are erased > >>> relative to a scale of description, and some cease to be > >>> recoverable by any physically available process. > >>> > >>> So I wonder whether *the total state of the universe* is doing > >>> more metaphysical work than it has earned. If one allows that the > >>> global unfolding may involve non-computable structure, then no > >>> finite internal description can, in general, serve as a complete > >>> ledger of that unfolding. The universe cannot stand outside itself > >>> with a second, lossless copy of its own full history. > >>> > >>> I am not claiming that noncomputability establishes free will. I > >>> am asking whether the familiar determinism vs free will framing > >>> already presupposes an idealized total-state picture that may not > >>> be physically meaningful. > >>> > >>> There is a related mathematical point. Scientists understandably > >>> favor well-posed models: operators and dynamical systems with > >>> domains, regularity, stability, and convergence properties > >>> sufficient for analysis and prediction. But those are selected > >>> virtues, not neutral evidence that the space of possible physical > >>> evolutions is itself globally well behaved. Compact operators, for > >>> example, are a special class. They map bounded sets to relatively > >>> compact sets and are necessarily bounded, but they are not > >>> representative of all operators one might write down. I would like > >>> to not confuse the tractability of the mathematical objects we can > >>> successfully use with a demonstration that reality is exhausted by > >>> such objects. > >>> > >>> The same caution applies to computability. Under the ordinary > >>> Lebesgue measure on the reals, the computable reals form a > >>> countable set and therefore a set of *measure-zero*. By contrast, > >>> algorithmically random sequences are typical under the fair-coin > >>> measure. That is, Martin-Löf random sequences have *measure-one*. > >>> Of course, there is no canonical uniform distribution over *all > >>> laws* or *all operators*, so this is not a probability calculation > >>> showing that physical law is non-computable. It is an admonition > >>> against quietly assuming computability merely because computable > >>> descriptions are the ones available to us. > >>> > >>> I am imagining the drunkard under the streetlight metaphor. It is > >>> sensible to look where mathematical models offer light: computable > >>> dynamics, well-posed initial-value problems, bounded domains, > >>> compactness arguments, and stable approximations. But their > >>> usefulness does not establish that the deep structure of the > >>> universe is confined to those regions of conceptual illumination. > >>> > >>> For me, the more difficult thought is that materialism may imply > >>> not a perfectly preserved cosmic archive, but an unfolding in > >>> which persistence is selective and forgetting is real. Perhaps > >>> there is no complete *deep history* available even in principle. > >>> Instead there may only exist present structures bearing partial, > >>> transformed, scale-dependent traces of what preceded them. I am > >>> tempted to say that what leaves no trace whatsoever *never > >>> existed* in any ontologically robust sense. I suppose I am arguing > >>> for a surprisingly shallow image of history. > >>> > >>> If so, the future may be genuinely productive (immanence) rather > >>> than merely unknown to us. Not necessarily because an agent steps > >>> outside causality, but because the global boundary conditions, > >>> state description, and rule of unfolding are not available in the > >>> form demanded by classical determinism. > >>> > >>> This may make *free will* the wrong label. We may all be acting in > >>> ways that are locally causal, constrained, and intelligible while > >>> global determinism remains undefined, ungrounded, or simply > >>> irrelevant. I do not yet know what positive concept should replace > >>> it. But I do not think that uncertainty should be hidden by > >>> accepting the *determinism vs free will* dichotomy as our starting > >>> point. > >>> > >>> My two cents. > >>> > >>> Jon .- .-.. .-.. / ..-. --- --- - . .-. ... / .- .-. . / .-- .-. > >>> --- -. --. / ... --- -- . / .- .-. . / ..- ... . ..-. ..- .-.. > >>> FRIAM Applied Complexity Group listserv > >>> Fridays 9a-12p Friday St. Johns Cafe / Thursdays 9a-12p Zoom > >>> https://bit.ly/virtualfriam > >>> to (un)subscribe > >>> http://redfish.com/mailman/listinfo/friam_redfish.com > >>> FRIAM-COMIC http://friam-comic.blogspot.com/ > >>> archives: 5/2017 thru present > >>> https://redfish.com/pipermail/friam_redfish.com/ > >>> 1/2003 thru 6/2021 http://friam.383.s1.nabble.com/ > >> .- .-.. .-.. / ..-. --- --- - . .-. ... / .- .-. . / .-- .-. --- -. > >> --. / ... --- -- . / .- .-. . / ..- ... . ..-. ..- .-.. > >> FRIAM Applied Complexity Group listserv > >> Fridays 9a-12p Friday St. Johns Cafe / Thursdays 9a-12p Zoom > >> https://bit.ly/virtualfriam > >> to (un)subscribe > >> http://redfish.com/mailman/listinfo/friam_redfish.com > >> FRIAM-COMIC http://friam-comic.blogspot.com/ > >> archives: 5/2017 thru present > >> https://redfish.com/pipermail/friam_redfish.com/ > >> 1/2003 thru 6/2021 http://friam.383.s1.nabble.com/ > > .- .-.. .-.. / ..-. --- --- - . .-. ... / .- .-. . / .-- .-. --- -. --. > > / ... --- -- . / .- .-. . / ..- ... . ..-. ..- .-.. > > FRIAM Applied Complexity Group listserv > > Fridays 9a-12p Friday St. Johns Cafe / Thursdays 9a-12p Zoom > > https://bit.ly/virtualfriam > > to (un)subscribe http://redfish.com/mailman/listinfo/friam_redfish.com > > FRIAM-COMIC http://friam-comic.blogspot.com/ > > archives: 5/2017 thru present > > https://redfish.com/pipermail/friam_redfish.com/ > > 1/2003 thru 6/2021 http://friam.383.s1.nabble.com/ > > .- .-.. .-.. / ..-. --- --- - . .-. ... / .- .-. . / .-- .-. --- -. --. / > ... --- -- . / .- .-. . / ..- ... . ..-. ..- .-.. > FRIAM Applied Complexity Group listserv > Fridays 9a-12p Friday St. Johns Cafe / Thursdays 9a-12p Zoom > https://bit.ly/virtualfriam > to (un)subscribe http://redfish.com/mailman/listinfo/friam_redfish.com > FRIAM-COMIC http://friam-comic.blogspot.com/ > archives: 5/2017 thru present > https://redfish.com/pipermail/friam_redfish.com/ > 1/2003 thru 6/2021 http://friam.383.s1.nabble.com/ >
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