date:20170608

I feel that I have been "there" from (near) the inception of the 
Complexity Bubble you refer to.

I'm not sure if you are mixing a metaphor here...  though it does seem 
that the source domain is the same in both metaphors:   1) A bubble like 
a housing or tulip bubble which just keeps expanding until it bursts 
from it's own unsustainable expansion; 2) A bubble like the kind that we 
put children with no immune system inside of.

I wonder if this concise paragraph you offer here isn't what you are 
mostly getting on about with circular definitions?  I DO think that 
Complexity Science (if there is such a thing in reality) has the 
properties you speak of:  "If you understand the lingo then you 
understand the questions and if you don't then you don't."

My own memory/opinion is that Complexity Science grew up out of various 
existing fields such as Nonlinear Physics and Dynamical Systems theory.  
The colloquial term "Chaos" has a fairly decent description on Wikipedia:

   *Chaos theory* is a branch of mathematics
    focused on the behavior
   of dynamical systems
    that are highly
   sensitive to initial conditions
   . 'Chaos' is an
   interdisciplinary theory stating that within the apparent randomness
   of chaotic complex systems
   , there are
   underlying patterns, constant feedback loops
   , repetition,
   self-similarity ,
   fractals , self-organization
   , and reliance on
   programming at the initial point known as /sensitive dependence on
   initial conditions/.

I don't believe that anyone invoked the Wikipedia entry for Complex 
Systems which I find on the whole fairly reasonable:

   https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Complex_system

and

   https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Complex_systems

which seem a bit overlapping and redundant to me (In Wikipedia? Never!)

Sadly, I think an earlier quote (from Marcus) that said roughly "nobody 
understands mathematics, they just get used to it" might apply a bit to 
Complex Systems/Science.

I realize this may not be helpful, and I appreciate your frustrations.  
I also seem to remember that Owen(?) gave a pointer to Melanie 
Mitchell's "Complexity Explorer"  course on "Intro to Complexity": 
https://www.complexityexplorer.org/courses/74-introduction-to-complexity-spring-2017 
which I *think* can actually be taken out of sync with the group that 
started in April.

I DO think that one of the more interesting points of Complexity Science 
is to get at the basic nature of Emergence as you suggest.   Perhaps 
that is "creation itself" or at least "life itself"?

Mumble,

 - Steve

On 6/8/17 7:17 PM, Nick Thompson wrote:

Dear All,

I wonder the extent to which you would all agree that there is a bit 
of a complexity bubble: i.e., if you know the lingo, then you can 
understand the questions; if you don't know the lingo, then you can't 
understand what complexity people are on about.  So, one kind of 
project a group like us could work on is breaking out of the bubble. 
That would require putting the complexity problem in a form that any 
ordinary mortal can understand.   Here’s my attempt: I think what you 
are up to is coming up with a general theory of creation, more general 
even than natural selection.  You want to offer a theory that accounts 
for the emergence of complex structures (/sensu Thompsoni/) in the 
universe. Now that’s a program that anybody outside the bubble could 
understand.

How wrong am I about that?

Nick

Nicholas S. Thompson

Emeritus Professor of Psychology and Biology

Clark University

http://home.earthlink.net/~nickthompson/naturaldesigns/

-Original Message-
From: Friam [mailto:friam-boun...@redfish.com] On Behalf Of glen ?
Sent: Thursday, June 08, 2017 6:39 PM
To: The Friday Morning Applied Complexity Coffee Group 
Subject: Re: [FRIAM] tools, trollers, and language

I think you and I on the same page.  My first thought (before the 
concept-mapping tools) was to collaboratively develop an ontology so 
that we could all talk about the same things.  But my guess is that 
would just cause even more hemming and hawing over terms.  Regardless 
of tools, someone needs to run point.  If there's a lead author and 
the other participants can "get behind" that author's objective, then 
it would work.

On 06/08/2017 03:05 PM, Steven A Smith wrote:

> I have found concept mapping tools to be helpful in this context, 
but usually in live-brainstorming sessions... with one (or more) 
operators clicking and typing and dragging and connecting while others 
chatter out loud, then shifting the mouse/keyboard(s) to another(s).

>

Re: [FRIAM] tools, trollers, and language


Nick -

I share your concern about the current place of political (and generally 
public?) discourse.  I am heartened by the work of Krista Tippet and her 
many interviewees in what she calls "The Civil Conversation Project 
" with a psuedo abstract of:



 /Speaking together differently in order to live together
 differently. /

   /The Civil Conversations Project seeks to renew common life in a
   fractured and tender world. We are a conversation-based,
   virtues-based resource towards hospitable, trustworthy relationship
   with and across difference. We honor the power of asking better
   questions, model reframed approaches to entrenched debates, and
   insist that the ruptures above the radar do not tell the whole story
   of our time. We aspire to amplify and cross-pollinate the generative
   new realities that are also being woven, one word and one life at a
   time./

This plug aside, I understand your interest in mind or concept mapping 
software to help identify and perhaps illuminate for others differences 
in language and maybe more fundamentally, values?   I'm curious how you 
feel about the use of the term "mind" in this case rather than 
"concept"? It seems like with your background (evolutionary psychology?) 
that you would find THOSE terms to have very specific meaning and while 
"mind mapping" is catchy and colloquial, do you *really* think such 
tools actually map anything significant about the mind?  As Glen 
suggested, perhaps this kind of hair-splitting is what pollutes threads 
to the point they die?  If you think so, feel free to ignore the 
question and proceed. I think *I* am OK to make the translation on the 
fly if I need to.


In any case, if sfX were still standing, or if you were in SFe right 
now, I'd offer to join you in an interactive session of this kind at 
SimTable with a projector and mouse and maybe a few other locals to 
shout out directions at whomever was "driving" in the moment.  I believe 
it might be at least interesting if not actually more productive than 
the kinds of banter we have all exchanged here on the topic(s).


Maybe when you return from the swamp?

- Steve


On 6/8/17 7:05 PM, Nick Thompson wrote:


Hi, everybody,

If only because of my despair concerning the current state of our 
national political discourse, mind mapping tools are of great interest 
to me. Some of us briefly considered using such tools to moderate 
conversation between people who disagree.   Would such a tool help to 
determine whether you-all are using complexity terms in roughly the 
same way or whether, in the interest of keeping the conversation 
going, you are letting slide fundamental differences in what you take 
complexity to be?


In any case, don’t let this thread die.

Nick

Nicholas S. Thompson

Emeritus Professor of Psychology and Biology

Clark University

http://home.earthlink.net/~nickthompson/naturaldesigns/ 



*From:*Friam [mailto:friam-boun...@redfish.com] *On Behalf Of *Tom Johnson
*Sent:* Thursday, June 08, 2017 7:18 PM
*To:* The Friday Morning Applied Complexity Coffee Group 


*Subject:* Re: [FRIAM] tools, trollers, and language

Steve:

I think the mind mapping developer you are thinking of is Ron Newman 
-- ron.new...@gmail.com 


TJ




Tom Johnson
Institute for Analytic Journalism -- Santa Fe, NM USA
505.577.6482(c)   505.473.9646(h)
Society of Professional Journalists 
*Check out It's The People's Data 
*


http://www.jtjohnson.com  t...@jtjohnson.com 




On Thu, Jun 8, 2017 at 4:05 PM, Steven A Smith > wrote:


Glen -

I have found concept mapping tools to be helpful in this context,
but usually in live-brainstorming sessions... with one (or more)
operators clicking and typing and dragging and connecting while
others chatter out loud, then shifting the mouse/keyboard(s) to
another(s).

I know we have a mind-mapping ( I prefer concept-mapping) tool
developer on the list...  I'm blanking his name, though I know he
has been active off and on!  I hope he catches this and pitches
in.  I believe he was heading toward web-enabled, simultaneous
editing capabilities.   I did some tests and provided some
feedback on an early version a few years ago..

My only significant experience in this is with CMAPtools and a few
others driven by various project-lead's preferences, but never
really adopted by myself.

I was in the process of developing some more formal tools with UNM
for the NSF a few years ago, based on formalisms being developed

Re: [FRIAM] tools, trollers, and language


Nick -

My read is that Owen was teasing you... by all understandings I have of 
teasing, it is always oblique.


My read on "not unkind" was that he was suggesting that your post was 
perhaps deliberately provocative, which I also think it was, but in a 
positive way which adds to the quality of the discussions here.


O.P. is an acronym for "Original Post".

- Steve


On 6/8/17 6:53 PM, Nick Thompson wrote:


Hi, Owen,

This would all be a lot easier if you would just say what you think.

What was the “unkind way” that your message was “not in” ?

And what the dickens is an O.P.?

Nick

Nicholas S. Thompson

Emeritus Professor of Psychology and Biology

Clark University

http://home.earthlink.net/~nickthompson/naturaldesigns/ 



*From:*Friam [mailto:friam-boun...@redfish.com] *On Behalf Of *Owen 
Densmore

*Sent:* Thursday, June 08, 2017 6:08 PM
*To:* The Friday Morning Applied Complexity Coffee Group 


*Subject:* Re: [FRIAM] tools, trollers, and language

No, my troll comment was meant for Nick's OP. Not in an unkind way, 
but ...


On Thu, Jun 8, 2017 at 4:05 PM, Steven A Smith > wrote:


Glen -

I have found concept mapping tools to be helpful in this context,
but usually in live-brainstorming sessions... with one (or more)
operators clicking and typing and dragging and connecting while
others chatter out loud, then shifting the mouse/keyboard(s) to
another(s).

I know we have a mind-mapping ( I prefer concept-mapping) tool
developer on the list...  I'm blanking his name, though I know he
has been active off and on!  I hope he catches this and pitches
in.  I believe he was heading toward web-enabled, simultaneous
editing capabilities.   I did some tests and provided some
feedback on an early version a few years ago..

My only significant experience in this is with CMAPtools and a few
others driven by various project-lead's preferences, but never
really adopted by myself.

I was in the process of developing some more formal tools with UNM
for the NSF a few years ago, based on formalisms being developed
by Tim Goldsmith (dept. Psychology) at UNM.   The presumption WAS
(IS) that we all have reserved lexicons and for a collaborative
group to develop a common one, there has to be a lot of discussion
and negotiation.  Our example was a group of climate change
scientists who (un)surprisingly used identical terms in very
similar contexts with very different intentions and meanings in
some cases.   It isn't too surprising when you realize that an
ocean scientist and an atmospheric scientist are very interested
in many of the same physical properties, but with different
emphasis and within different regimes.  Pressure, density,
humidity, salinity, vorticity all seem to have pretty clear
meanings to any scientist using them, but the relative importance
and interaction between them has different implications for each
group.

Needless to say, we didn't finish the tools before the funding ran
out.  This is now nearly 8 years old work... the ideas area still
valid but without a patron and without SME's to "test on" it is
hard to push such tools forward.   My part included building the
equivalent of what you call "mind maps" from the differing lexical
elements, floating in N-space and "morphing" from each individual
(or subgroup's) perspective to some kind of common perspective...
with the intention of helping each individual or subgroup
appreciate the *different* perspective of the others.

This is modestly related to my work in "faceted ontologies" (also
currently not under active development) where "multiple lexicons"
is replaced by "multiple ontologies"   or in both cases, the
superposition of multiple lexicons/ontologies.

I haven't worked with Joslyn since that 2007? paper... but we
*tried* a joint project with PNNL/NREL a couple of years ago, but
it failed due to inter-laboratory politics I think.   He's an
equally brilliant/oblique character as you...   take that for what
it is worth!

I liked Frank's double-dog-dare to you.   I think that is one of
the good things you bring out in this list, all kinds of others'
feistiness!  It was also good that you could both call it for what
it was.  It makes me want to read Kohut... I have special reasons
for trying to apprehend alternate self-psychology models right
now, though from your's and Frank's apparent
avoidance(/dismissal?) of Kahut and my immediate phonetic
slip-slide to Camus, I'm a little leery.

On 6/8/17 2:33 PM, glen ☣ wrote:

We quickly polluted that thread, too.  But it drives home the
point that an email list is _not_ a (good) collaborative
production tool.

Aha! I

Re: [FRIAM] IS: Does Complexity have a circularity problem WAS: Any non-biological complex systems?

2017-06-08 Thread Marcus Daniels

Glen writes:

"But at least you can vary the direction without changing layers.  More 
complicated layering would be something like doping a silicon chip or spray 
painting a complicated surface ... or perhaps sand blasting something, where 
you turn it within the directional gradient."

Why does there need to be any spatial property?  Why not a graph?

Marcus

FRIAM Applied Complexity Group listserv
Meets Fridays 9a-11:30 at cafe at St. John's College
to unsubscribe http://redfish.com/mailman/listinfo/friam_redfish.com
FRIAM-COMIC http://friam-comic.blogspot.com/ by Dr. Strangelove

Re: [FRIAM] tools, trollers, and language


Yes!  thanks!

The tool is IdeaTreeLive  and attempts to 
address *some* of the issues discussed here.   If Ron is still live on 
this list, I trust he will weigh in.  He's clearly thought a lot about 
these issues (as several of us obviously have) but with a commercially 
viable tool perspective rather than a fairly academic or research 
perspective (speaking for myself).


- Steve

On 6/8/17 5:17 PM, Tom Johnson wrote:

Steve:
I think the mind mapping developer you are thinking of is Ron Newman 
-- ron.new...@gmail.com 


TJ



Tom Johnson
Institute for Analytic Journalism -- Santa Fe, NM USA
505.577.6482(c)   505.473.9646(h)
Society of Professional Journalists 
*Check out It's The People's Data 
*
http://www.jtjohnson.com  t...@jtjohnson.com 




On Thu, Jun 8, 2017 at 4:05 PM, Steven A Smith > wrote:


Glen -

I have found concept mapping tools to be helpful in this context,
but usually in live-brainstorming sessions... with one (or more)
operators clicking and typing and dragging and connecting while
others chatter out loud, then shifting the mouse/keyboard(s) to
another(s).

I know we have a mind-mapping ( I prefer concept-mapping) tool
developer on the list...  I'm blanking his name, though I know he
has been active off and on!  I hope he catches this and pitches
in.  I believe he was heading toward web-enabled, simultaneous
editing capabilities.   I did some tests and provided some
feedback on an early version a few years ago..

My only significant experience in this is with CMAPtools and a few
others driven by various project-lead's preferences, but never
really adopted by myself.

I was in the process of developing some more formal tools with UNM
for the NSF a few years ago, based on formalisms being developed
by Tim Goldsmith (dept. Psychology) at UNM.  The presumption WAS
(IS) that we all have reserved lexicons and for a collaborative
group to develop a common one, there has to be a lot of discussion
and negotiation.  Our example was a group of climate change
scientists who (un)surprisingly used identical terms in very
similar contexts with very different intentions and meanings in
some cases.   It isn't too surprising when you realize that an
ocean scientist and an atmospheric scientist are very interested
in many of the same physical properties, but with different
emphasis and within different regimes.   Pressure, density,
humidity, salinity, vorticity all seem to have pretty clear
meanings to any scientist using them, but the relative importance
and interaction between them has different implications for each
group.

Needless to say, we didn't finish the tools before the funding ran
out.  This is now nearly 8 years old work... the ideas area still
valid but without a patron and without SME's to "test on" it is
hard to push such tools forward.  My part included building the
equivalent of what you call "mind maps" from the differing lexical
elements, floating in N-space and "morphing" from each individual
(or subgroup's) perspective to some kind of common perspective...
with the intention of helping each individual or subgroup
appreciate the *different* perspective of the others.

This is modestly related to my work in "faceted ontologies" (also
currently not under active development) where "multiple lexicons"
is replaced by "multiple ontologies"  or in both cases, the
superposition of multiple lexicons/ontologies.

I haven't worked with Joslyn since that 2007? paper... but we
*tried* a joint project with PNNL/NREL a couple of years ago, but
it failed due to inter-laboratory politics I think.   He's an
equally brilliant/oblique character as you...   take that for what
it is worth!

I liked Frank's double-dog-dare to you.   I think that is one of
the good things you bring out in this list, all kinds of others'
feistiness!  It was also good that you could both call it for what
it was.  It makes me want to read Kohut... I have special reasons
for trying to apprehend alternate self-psychology models right
now, though from your's and Frank's apparent
avoidance(/dismissal?) of Kahut and my immediate phonetic
slip-slide to Camus, I'm a little leery.

On 6/8/17 2:33 PM, glen ☣ wrote:

We quickly polluted that thread, too.  But it drives home the
point that an email list is _not_ a (good) collaborative
production tool.

Aha! I haven't heard from Cliff since my work for the

Re: [FRIAM] IS: Does Complexity have a circularity problem WAS: Any non-biological complex systems?

Hi, Glen,

Missed this the first time.  

Late, here, so I will just say a little.  According to the scientific metaphor 
game I understand, we would now start to cash out the onion metaphor.  Does the 
relation between the layers in an onion REALLY capture what you are after.  I 
would guess not, because (I am holding an onion now) the layers in an onion 
have relatively little to do with one another.  You can slide one with respect 
to the other.  I am guessing that you are looking for a metaphor in which one 
layer interacts with another.  (Ugh.  I have to go wash my hands.)  Remember, 
you can make a metaphor to an abstract onion.  A model has to have its own 
reality beyond it’s use to represent your notion of layer.  

Nik 

Nicholas S. Thompson
Emeritus Professor of Psychology and Biology
Clark University
http://home.earthlink.net/~nickthompson/naturaldesigns/

-Original Message-
From: Friam [mailto:friam-boun...@redfish.com] On Behalf Of glen ?
Sent: Thursday, June 08, 2017 12:40 PM
To: The Friday Morning Applied Complexity Coffee Group 
Subject: Re: [FRIAM] IS: Does Complexity have a circularity problem WAS: Any 
non-biological complex systems?

You seem to be asking for people other than me to respond.  But I doubt anyone 
will try to explain a troll like me. >8^)

I don't have any idea what you mean by "a kind of hen".  So, I'll let that go.  
Stratum is a good word, but like level, it implies a direction, namely up-down 
("something laid down").  I do mean something very much like level and stratum, 
except without implying a (constant) direction.  Onion is a better analog than, 
say, genus or battalion.  There's still a symmetry in the directions from the 
center of the onion.  But at least you can vary the direction without changing 
layers.  More complicated layering would be something like doping a silicon 
chip or spray painting a complicated surface ... or perhaps sand blasting 
something, where you turn it within the directional gradient.

It's important to graduate from the naive concept of levels to the more 
sophisticated concept of layers because, e.g. in Russ' urban systems, there are 
all different types of flows and ebbs, gradients of different speeds, 
directions, types, etc. that "paint" things on the system in varied ways.  It's 
not a singular hierarchy in any sense.

If you grok the poverty of the concept of the "landscape" in evolution, then 
you should grok the poverty of the concept of "level" in cumulative structures.

That's the best I can do to explain it.  Sorry for my inadequacy.

On 06/07/2017 06:32 PM, Nick Thompson wrote:
> Here is Glen's thoughtful post of January 20, reborn. To be honest, I don’t 
> understand it.  Not a bit.  I am hoping that perhaps one or more of the rest 
> of you can help me get it.  Let’s start with one baby step.  What is meant by 
> LAYER in this text? The possible meanings open to me are, (1) a kind of hen; 
> (2) a stratum in a substance; or (3) a level in a hierarchical descriptive 
> scheme.  So, “genus” is a level as is “battalion”. Are any of these meanings 
> relevant to Glen’s post?  

--
☣ glen

FRIAM Applied Complexity Group listserv
Meets Fridays 9a-11:30 at cafe at St. John's College to unsubscribe 
http://redfish.com/mailman/listinfo/friam_redfish.com
FRIAM-COMIC http://friam-comic.blogspot.com/ by Dr. Strangelove

FRIAM Applied Complexity Group listserv
Meets Fridays 9a-11:30 at cafe at St. John's College
to unsubscribe http://redfish.com/mailman/listinfo/friam_redfish.com
FRIAM-COMIC http://friam-comic.blogspot.com/ by Dr. Strangelove

Re: [FRIAM] tools, trollers, and language

2017-06-08 Thread Russ Abbott

Complex system and emergence reached their hype peak around 2,000. The
bubble burst for emergence
,
but complex system

seems to be hanging on. Unfortunately, Google's NGram viewer only goes up
to 2008.

On Thu, Jun 8, 2017 at 6:17 PM Nick Thompson 
wrote:

> Dear All,
>
>
>
> I wonder the extent to which you would all agree that there is a bit of a
> complexity bubble: i.e., if you know the lingo, then you can understand the
> questions; if you don't know the lingo, then you can't understand what
> complexity people are on about.  So, one kind of project a group like us
> could work on is breaking out of the bubble.  That would require putting
> the complexity problem in a form that any ordinary mortal can understand.
> Here’s my attempt:  I think what you are up to is coming up with a general
> theory of creation, more general even than natural selection.  You want to
> offer a theory that accounts for the emergence of complex structures (*sensu
> Thompsoni*) in the universe.  Now that’s a program that anybody outside
> the bubble could understand.
>
>
>
> How wrong am I about that?
>
>
>
> Nick
>
>
>
> Nicholas S. Thompson
>
> Emeritus Professor of Psychology and Biology
>
> Clark University
>
> http://home.earthlink.net/~nickthompson/naturaldesigns/
>
>
>
>
>
> -Original Message-
> From: Friam [mailto:friam-boun...@redfish.com] On Behalf Of glen ?
> Sent: Thursday, June 08, 2017 6:39 PM
> To: The Friday Morning Applied Complexity Coffee Group 
> Subject: Re: [FRIAM] tools, trollers, and language
>
>
>
>
>
> I think you and I on the same page.  My first thought (before the
> concept-mapping tools) was to collaboratively develop an ontology so that
> we could all talk about the same things.  But my guess is that would just
> cause even more hemming and hawing over terms.  Regardless of tools,
> someone needs to run point.  If there's a lead author and the other
> participants can "get behind" that author's objective, then it would work.
>
>
>
>
>
> On 06/08/2017 03:05 PM, Steven A Smith wrote:
>
> > I have found concept mapping tools to be helpful in this context, but
> usually in live-brainstorming sessions... with one (or more) operators
> clicking and typing and dragging and connecting while others chatter out
> loud, then shifting the mouse/keyboard(s) to another(s).
>
> >
>
> > I know we have a mind-mapping ( I prefer concept-mapping) tool developer
> on the list...  I'm blanking his name, though I know he has been active off
> and on!  I hope he catches this and pitches in.  I believe he was heading
> toward web-enabled, simultaneous editing capabilities.   I did some tests
> and provided some feedback on an early version a few years ago..
>
> >
>
> > My only significant experience in this is with CMAPtools and a few
> others driven by various project-lead's preferences, but never really
> adopted by myself.
>
> >
>
> > I was in the process of developing some more formal tools with UNM for
> the NSF a few years ago, based on formalisms being developed by Tim
> Goldsmith (dept. Psychology) at UNM.   The presumption WAS (IS) that we all
> have reserved lexicons and for a collaborative group to develop a common
> one, there has to be a lot of discussion and negotiation.  Our example was
> a group of climate change scientists who (un)surprisingly used identical
> terms in very similar contexts with very different intentions and meanings
> in some cases.   It isn't too surprising when you realize that an ocean
> scientist and an atmospheric scientist are very interested in many of the
> same physical properties, but with different emphasis and within different
> regimes.   Pressure, density, humidity, salinity, vorticity all seem to
> have pretty clear meanings to any scientist using them, but the relative
> importance and interaction between them has different implications for each
> group.
>
> >
>
> > Needless to say, we didn't finish the tools before the funding ran out.
> This is now nearly 8 years old work... the ideas area still valid but
> without a patron and without SME's to "test on" it is hard to push such
> tools forward.   My part included building the equivalent of what you call
> "mind maps" from the differing lexical elements, floating in N-space and
> "morphing" from each individual (or subgroup's) perspective to some kind of
> common perspective... with the intention of helping each individual or
> subgroup appreciate the *different* perspective of the others.
>
> >
>
> > This is modestly related to my work in "faceted

Re: [FRIAM] tools, trollers, and language

Dear All, 

 

I wonder the extent to which you would all agree that there is a bit of a 
complexity bubble: i.e., if you know the lingo, then you can understand the 
questions; if you don't know the lingo, then you can't understand what 
complexity people are on about.  So, one kind of project a group like us could 
work on is breaking out of the bubble.  That would require putting the 
complexity problem in a form that any ordinary mortal can understand.   Here’s 
my attempt:  I think what you are up to is coming up with a general theory of 
creation, more general even than natural selection.  You want to offer a theory 
that accounts for the emergence of complex structures (sensu Thompsoni) in the 
universe.  Now that’s a program that anybody outside the bubble could 
understand.

 

How wrong am I about that?  

 

Nick 

 

Nicholas S. Thompson

Emeritus Professor of Psychology and Biology

Clark University

http://home.earthlink.net/~nickthompson/naturaldesigns/

 

 

-Original Message-
From: Friam [mailto:friam-boun...@redfish.com] On Behalf Of glen ?
Sent: Thursday, June 08, 2017 6:39 PM
To: The Friday Morning Applied Complexity Coffee Group 
Subject: Re: [FRIAM] tools, trollers, and language

 

 

I think you and I on the same page.  My first thought (before the 
concept-mapping tools) was to collaboratively develop an ontology so that we 
could all talk about the same things.  But my guess is that would just cause 
even more hemming and hawing over terms.  Regardless of tools, someone needs to 
run point.  If there's a lead author and the other participants can "get 
behind" that author's objective, then it would work.

 

 

On 06/08/2017 03:05 PM, Steven A Smith wrote:

> I have found concept mapping tools to be helpful in this context, but usually 
> in live-brainstorming sessions... with one (or more) operators clicking and 
> typing and dragging and connecting while others chatter out loud, then 
> shifting the mouse/keyboard(s) to another(s).

> 

> I know we have a mind-mapping ( I prefer concept-mapping) tool developer on 
> the list...  I'm blanking his name, though I know he has been active off and 
> on!  I hope he catches this and pitches in.  I believe he was heading toward 
> web-enabled, simultaneous editing capabilities.   I did some tests and 
> provided some feedback on an early version a few years ago..

> 

> My only significant experience in this is with CMAPtools and a few others 
> driven by various project-lead's preferences, but never really adopted by 
> myself.

> 

> I was in the process of developing some more formal tools with UNM for the 
> NSF a few years ago, based on formalisms being developed by Tim Goldsmith 
> (dept. Psychology) at UNM.   The presumption WAS (IS) that we all have 
> reserved lexicons and for a collaborative group to develop a common one, 
> there has to be a lot of discussion and negotiation.  Our example was a group 
> of climate change scientists who (un)surprisingly used identical terms in 
> very similar contexts with very different intentions and meanings in some 
> cases.   It isn't too surprising when you realize that an ocean scientist and 
> an atmospheric scientist are very interested in many of the same physical 
> properties, but with different emphasis and within different regimes.   
> Pressure, density, humidity, salinity, vorticity all seem to have pretty 
> clear meanings to any scientist using them, but the relative importance and 
> interaction between them has different implications for each group.

> 

> Needless to say, we didn't finish the tools before the funding ran out.  This 
> is now nearly 8 years old work... the ideas area still valid but without a 
> patron and without SME's to "test on" it is hard to push such tools forward.  
>  My part included building the equivalent of what you call "mind maps" from 
> the differing lexical elements, floating in N-space and "morphing" from each 
> individual (or subgroup's) perspective to some kind of common perspective... 
> with the intention of helping each individual or subgroup appreciate the 
> *different* perspective of the others.

> 

> This is modestly related to my work in "faceted ontologies" (also currently 
> not under active development) where "multiple lexicons" is replaced by 
> "multiple ontologies"   or in both cases, the superposition of multiple 
> lexicons/ontologies.

> 

> I haven't worked with Joslyn since that 2007? paper... but we *tried* a joint 
> project with PNNL/NREL a couple of years ago, but it failed due to 
> inter-laboratory politics I think.   He's an equally brilliant/oblique 
> character as you...   take that for what it is worth!

> 

> I liked Frank's double-dog-dare to you.   I think that is one of the good 
> things you bring out in this list, all kinds of others' feistiness!  It was 
> also good that you could both call it for what it was.  It makes me want to 
> read Kohut... I have special reasons

Re: [FRIAM] tools, trollers, and language

Hi, everybody, 

 

If only because of my despair concerning the current state of our national 
political discourse, mind mapping tools are of great interest to me. Some of us 
briefly considered using such tools to moderate conversation between people who 
disagree.   Would such a tool help to determine whether you-all are using 
complexity terms in roughly the same way or whether, in the interest of keeping 
the conversation going, you are letting slide fundamental differences in what 
you take complexity to be?

 

In any case, don’t let this thread die. 

 

Nick   

 

Nicholas S. Thompson

Emeritus Professor of Psychology and Biology

Clark University

  
http://home.earthlink.net/~nickthompson/naturaldesigns/

 

From: Friam [mailto:friam-boun...@redfish.com] On Behalf Of Tom Johnson
Sent: Thursday, June 08, 2017 7:18 PM
To: The Friday Morning Applied Complexity Coffee Group 
Subject: Re: [FRIAM] tools, trollers, and language

 

Steve:

I think the mind mapping developer you are thinking of is Ron Newman --  
 ron.new...@gmail.com

 

TJ






Tom Johnson
Institute for Analytic Journalism   -- Santa Fe, NM USA
505.577.6482(c)505.473.9646(h)
Society of Professional Journalists   
Check out It's The People's Data 
 

http://www.jtjohnson.com 
t...@jtjohnson.com  


 

On Thu, Jun 8, 2017 at 4:05 PM, Steven A Smith  > wrote:

Glen -

I have found concept mapping tools to be helpful in this context, but usually 
in live-brainstorming sessions... with one (or more) operators clicking and 
typing and dragging and connecting while others chatter out loud, then shifting 
the mouse/keyboard(s) to another(s).

I know we have a mind-mapping ( I prefer concept-mapping) tool developer on the 
list...  I'm blanking his name, though I know he has been active off and on!  I 
hope he catches this and pitches in.  I believe he was heading toward 
web-enabled, simultaneous editing capabilities.   I did some tests and provided 
some feedback on an early version a few years ago..

My only significant experience in this is with CMAPtools and a few others 
driven by various project-lead's preferences, but never really adopted by 
myself.

I was in the process of developing some more formal tools with UNM for the NSF 
a few years ago, based on formalisms being developed by Tim Goldsmith (dept. 
Psychology) at UNM.   The presumption WAS (IS) that we all have reserved 
lexicons and for a collaborative group to develop a common one, there has to be 
a lot of discussion and negotiation.  Our example was a group of climate change 
scientists who (un)surprisingly used identical terms in very similar contexts 
with very different intentions and meanings in some cases.   It isn't too 
surprising when you realize that an ocean scientist and an atmospheric 
scientist are very interested in many of the same physical properties, but with 
different emphasis and within different regimes.   Pressure, density, humidity, 
salinity, vorticity all seem to have pretty clear meanings to any scientist 
using them, but the relative importance and interaction between them has 
different implications for each group.

Needless to say, we didn't finish the tools before the funding ran out.  This 
is now nearly 8 years old work... the ideas area still valid but without a 
patron and without SME's to "test on" it is hard to push such tools forward.   
My part included building the equivalent of what you call "mind maps" from the 
differing lexical elements, floating in N-space and "morphing" from each 
individual (or subgroup's) perspective to some kind of common perspective... 
with the intention of helping each individual or subgroup appreciate the 
*different* perspective of the others.

This is modestly related to my work in "faceted ontologies" (also currently not 
under active development) where "multiple lexicons" is replaced by "multiple 
ontologies"   or in both cases, the superposition of multiple 
lexicons/ontologies.

I haven't worked with Joslyn since that 2007? paper... but we *tried* a joint 
project with PNNL/NREL a couple of years ago, but it failed due to 
inter-laboratory politics I think.   He's an equally brilliant/oblique 
character as you...   take that for what it is worth!

I liked Frank's double-dog-dare to you.   I think that is one of the good 
things you bring out in this list, all kinds of others' feistiness!  It was 
also good that you could both call it for what it was.  It makes me want to 
read Kohut... I have special reasons for trying to apprehend alternate 
self-psychology models

Re: [FRIAM] tools, trollers, and language

Hi, Owen,  

 

This would all be a lot easier if you would just say what you think.  

 

What was the “unkind way” that your message was “not in” ?

 

And what the dickens is an O.P.?   

 

Nick 

 

 

 

 

Nicholas S. Thompson

Emeritus Professor of Psychology and Biology

Clark University

  
http://home.earthlink.net/~nickthompson/naturaldesigns/

 

From: Friam [mailto:friam-boun...@redfish.com] On Behalf Of Owen Densmore
Sent: Thursday, June 08, 2017 6:08 PM
To: The Friday Morning Applied Complexity Coffee Group 
Subject: Re: [FRIAM] tools, trollers, and language

 

No, my troll comment was meant for Nick's OP. Not in an unkind way, but ...

 

On Thu, Jun 8, 2017 at 4:05 PM, Steven A Smith  > wrote:

Glen -

I have found concept mapping tools to be helpful in this context, but usually 
in live-brainstorming sessions... with one (or more) operators clicking and 
typing and dragging and connecting while others chatter out loud, then shifting 
the mouse/keyboard(s) to another(s).

I know we have a mind-mapping ( I prefer concept-mapping) tool developer on the 
list...  I'm blanking his name, though I know he has been active off and on!  I 
hope he catches this and pitches in.  I believe he was heading toward 
web-enabled, simultaneous editing capabilities.   I did some tests and provided 
some feedback on an early version a few years ago..

My only significant experience in this is with CMAPtools and a few others 
driven by various project-lead's preferences, but never really adopted by 
myself.

I was in the process of developing some more formal tools with UNM for the NSF 
a few years ago, based on formalisms being developed by Tim Goldsmith (dept. 
Psychology) at UNM.   The presumption WAS (IS) that we all have reserved 
lexicons and for a collaborative group to develop a common one, there has to be 
a lot of discussion and negotiation.  Our example was a group of climate change 
scientists who (un)surprisingly used identical terms in very similar contexts 
with very different intentions and meanings in some cases.   It isn't too 
surprising when you realize that an ocean scientist and an atmospheric 
scientist are very interested in many of the same physical properties, but with 
different emphasis and within different regimes.   Pressure, density, humidity, 
salinity, vorticity all seem to have pretty clear meanings to any scientist 
using them, but the relative importance and interaction between them has 
different implications for each group.

Needless to say, we didn't finish the tools before the funding ran out.  This 
is now nearly 8 years old work... the ideas area still valid but without a 
patron and without SME's to "test on" it is hard to push such tools forward.   
My part included building the equivalent of what you call "mind maps" from the 
differing lexical elements, floating in N-space and "morphing" from each 
individual (or subgroup's) perspective to some kind of common perspective... 
with the intention of helping each individual or subgroup appreciate the 
*different* perspective of the others.

This is modestly related to my work in "faceted ontologies" (also currently not 
under active development) where "multiple lexicons" is replaced by "multiple 
ontologies"   or in both cases, the superposition of multiple 
lexicons/ontologies.

I haven't worked with Joslyn since that 2007? paper... but we *tried* a joint 
project with PNNL/NREL a couple of years ago, but it failed due to 
inter-laboratory politics I think.   He's an equally brilliant/oblique 
character as you...   take that for what it is worth!

I liked Frank's double-dog-dare to you.   I think that is one of the good 
things you bring out in this list, all kinds of others' feistiness!  It was 
also good that you could both call it for what it was.  It makes me want to 
read Kohut... I have special reasons for trying to apprehend alternate 
self-psychology models right now, though from your's and Frank's apparent 
avoidance(/dismissal?) of Kahut and my immediate phonetic slip-slide to Camus, 
I'm a little leery.

On 6/8/17 2:33 PM, glen ☣ wrote:

We quickly polluted that thread, too.  But it drives home the point that an 
email list is _not_ a (good) collaborative production tool.

Aha! I haven't heard from Cliff since my work for the 
PSL.  He supposedly works up at PNNL.  Thanks for 
that article.

Yes, I took Owen to be calling Russ' post a trolling post.  But "troll" is like 
"complex", meaningless out of context.

I'm completely baffled why "layer" isn't understood ... makes me think I must 
be wrong in some deep way.  But for whatever it's worth, I believe I understand 
and _agree_ with Nick's circularity criticism of mechanistic explanations for 
complexity, mostly because of a publication I'm helping develop that tries to 
classify several different senses of

Re: [FRIAM] tools, trollers, and language

2017-06-08 Thread Tom Johnson

Steve:
I think the mind mapping developer you are thinking of is Ron Newman --
ron.new...@gmail.com

TJ



Tom Johnson
Institute for Analytic Journalism   -- Santa Fe, NM USA
505.577.6482(c)505.473.9646(h)
Society of Professional Journalists 
*Check out It's The People's Data
*
http://www.jtjohnson.com   t...@jtjohnson.com


On Thu, Jun 8, 2017 at 4:05 PM, Steven A Smith  wrote:

> Glen -
>
> I have found concept mapping tools to be helpful in this context, but
> usually in live-brainstorming sessions... with one (or more) operators
> clicking and typing and dragging and connecting while others chatter out
> loud, then shifting the mouse/keyboard(s) to another(s).
>
> I know we have a mind-mapping ( I prefer concept-mapping) tool developer
> on the list...  I'm blanking his name, though I know he has been active off
> and on!  I hope he catches this and pitches in.  I believe he was heading
> toward web-enabled, simultaneous editing capabilities.   I did some tests
> and provided some feedback on an early version a few years ago..
>
> My only significant experience in this is with CMAPtools and a few others
> driven by various project-lead's preferences, but never really adopted by
> myself.
>
> I was in the process of developing some more formal tools with UNM for the
> NSF a few years ago, based on formalisms being developed by Tim Goldsmith
> (dept. Psychology) at UNM.   The presumption WAS (IS) that we all have
> reserved lexicons and for a collaborative group to develop a common one,
> there has to be a lot of discussion and negotiation.  Our example was a
> group of climate change scientists who (un)surprisingly used identical
> terms in very similar contexts with very different intentions and meanings
> in some cases.   It isn't too surprising when you realize that an ocean
> scientist and an atmospheric scientist are very interested in many of the
> same physical properties, but with different emphasis and within different
> regimes.   Pressure, density, humidity, salinity, vorticity all seem to
> have pretty clear meanings to any scientist using them, but the relative
> importance and interaction between them has different implications for each
> group.
>
> Needless to say, we didn't finish the tools before the funding ran out.
> This is now nearly 8 years old work... the ideas area still valid but
> without a patron and without SME's to "test on" it is hard to push such
> tools forward.   My part included building the equivalent of what you call
> "mind maps" from the differing lexical elements, floating in N-space and
> "morphing" from each individual (or subgroup's) perspective to some kind of
> common perspective... with the intention of helping each individual or
> subgroup appreciate the *different* perspective of the others.
>
> This is modestly related to my work in "faceted ontologies" (also
> currently not under active development) where "multiple lexicons" is
> replaced by "multiple ontologies"   or in both cases, the superposition of
> multiple lexicons/ontologies.
>
> I haven't worked with Joslyn since that 2007? paper... but we *tried* a
> joint project with PNNL/NREL a couple of years ago, but it failed due to
> inter-laboratory politics I think.   He's an equally brilliant/oblique
> character as you...   take that for what it is worth!
>
> I liked Frank's double-dog-dare to you.   I think that is one of the good
> things you bring out in this list, all kinds of others' feistiness!  It was
> also good that you could both call it for what it was.  It makes me want to
> read Kohut... I have special reasons for trying to apprehend alternate
> self-psychology models right now, though from your's and Frank's apparent
> avoidance(/dismissal?) of Kahut and my immediate phonetic slip-slide to
> Camus, I'm a little leery.
>
> On 6/8/17 2:33 PM, glen ☣ wrote:
>
>> We quickly polluted that thread, too.  But it drives home the point that
>> an email list is _not_ a (good) collaborative production tool.
>>
>> Aha! I haven't heard from Cliff since my work for the PSL<
>> https://www.psl.nmsu.edu/>.  He supposedly works up at PNNL.  Thanks for
>> that article.
>>
>> Yes, I took Owen to be calling Russ' post a trolling post.  But "troll"
>> is like "complex", meaningless out of context.
>>
>> I'm completely baffled why "layer" isn't understood ... makes me think I
>> must be wrong in some deep way.  But for whatever it's worth, I believe I
>> understand and _agree_ with Nick's circularity criticism of mechanistic
>> explanations for complexity, mostly because of a publication I'm helping
>> develop that tries to classify several different senses of the word
>> "mechanistic".  The 1st attempt was rejected by the journal, though. 8^(
>> But repeating

Re: [FRIAM] tools, trollers, and language


I think you and I on the same page.  My first thought (before the 
concept-mapping tools) was to collaboratively develop an ontology so that we 
could all talk about the same things.  But my guess is that would just cause 
even more hemming and hawing over terms.  Regardless of tools, someone needs to 
run point.  If there's a lead author and the other participants can "get 
behind" that author's objective, then it would work.


On 06/08/2017 03:05 PM, Steven A Smith wrote:
> I have found concept mapping tools to be helpful in this context, but usually 
> in live-brainstorming sessions... with one (or more) operators clicking and 
> typing and dragging and connecting while others chatter out loud, then 
> shifting the mouse/keyboard(s) to another(s).
> 
> I know we have a mind-mapping ( I prefer concept-mapping) tool developer on 
> the list...  I'm blanking his name, though I know he has been active off and 
> on!  I hope he catches this and pitches in.  I believe he was heading toward 
> web-enabled, simultaneous editing capabilities.   I did some tests and 
> provided some feedback on an early version a few years ago..
> 
> My only significant experience in this is with CMAPtools and a few others 
> driven by various project-lead's preferences, but never really adopted by 
> myself.
> 
> I was in the process of developing some more formal tools with UNM for the 
> NSF a few years ago, based on formalisms being developed by Tim Goldsmith 
> (dept. Psychology) at UNM.   The presumption WAS (IS) that we all have 
> reserved lexicons and for a collaborative group to develop a common one, 
> there has to be a lot of discussion and negotiation.  Our example was a group 
> of climate change scientists who (un)surprisingly used identical terms in 
> very similar contexts with very different intentions and meanings in some 
> cases.   It isn't too surprising when you realize that an ocean scientist and 
> an atmospheric scientist are very interested in many of the same physical 
> properties, but with different emphasis and within different regimes.   
> Pressure, density, humidity, salinity, vorticity all seem to have pretty 
> clear meanings to any scientist using them, but the relative importance and 
> interaction between them has different implications for each group.
> 
> Needless to say, we didn't finish the tools before the funding ran out.  This 
> is now nearly 8 years old work... the ideas area still valid but without a 
> patron and without SME's to "test on" it is hard to push such tools forward.  
>  My part included building the equivalent of what you call "mind maps" from 
> the differing lexical elements, floating in N-space and "morphing" from each 
> individual (or subgroup's) perspective to some kind of common perspective... 
> with the intention of helping each individual or subgroup appreciate the 
> *different* perspective of the others.
> 
> This is modestly related to my work in "faceted ontologies" (also currently 
> not under active development) where "multiple lexicons" is replaced by 
> "multiple ontologies"   or in both cases, the superposition of multiple 
> lexicons/ontologies.
> 
> I haven't worked with Joslyn since that 2007? paper... but we *tried* a joint 
> project with PNNL/NREL a couple of years ago, but it failed due to 
> inter-laboratory politics I think.   He's an equally brilliant/oblique 
> character as you...   take that for what it is worth!
> 
> I liked Frank's double-dog-dare to you.   I think that is one of the good 
> things you bring out in this list, all kinds of others' feistiness!  It was 
> also good that you could both call it for what it was.  It makes me want to 
> read Kohut... I have special reasons for trying to apprehend alternate 
> self-psychology models right now, though from your's and Frank's apparent 
> avoidance(/dismissal?) of Kahut and my immediate phonetic slip-slide to 
> Camus, I'm a little leery.

-- 
☣ glen


FRIAM Applied Complexity Group listserv
Meets Fridays 9a-11:30 at cafe at St. John's College
to unsubscribe http://redfish.com/mailman/listinfo/friam_redfish.com
FRIAM-COMIC http://friam-comic.blogspot.com/ by Dr. Strangelove

Re: [FRIAM] tools, trollers, and language

Yes, I suppose that one could say that Nick is the best kind of Troll 
here...  I always appreciate his (deliberately) naive questions and hair 
splitting even when it IS the hair on my own chinny chin chin!




On 6/8/17 4:08 PM, Owen Densmore wrote:
No, my troll comment was meant for Nick's OP. Not in an unkind way, 
but ...


On Thu, Jun 8, 2017 at 4:05 PM, Steven A Smith > wrote:


Glen -

I have found concept mapping tools to be helpful in this context,
but usually in live-brainstorming sessions... with one (or more)
operators clicking and typing and dragging and connecting while
others chatter out loud, then shifting the mouse/keyboard(s) to
another(s).

I know we have a mind-mapping ( I prefer concept-mapping) tool
developer on the list...  I'm blanking his name, though I know he
has been active off and on!  I hope he catches this and pitches
in.  I believe he was heading toward web-enabled, simultaneous
editing capabilities.   I did some tests and provided some
feedback on an early version a few years ago..

My only significant experience in this is with CMAPtools and a few
others driven by various project-lead's preferences, but never
really adopted by myself.

I was in the process of developing some more formal tools with UNM
for the NSF a few years ago, based on formalisms being developed
by Tim Goldsmith (dept. Psychology) at UNM.  The presumption WAS
(IS) that we all have reserved lexicons and for a collaborative
group to develop a common one, there has to be a lot of discussion
and negotiation.  Our example was a group of climate change
scientists who (un)surprisingly used identical terms in very
similar contexts with very different intentions and meanings in
some cases.   It isn't too surprising when you realize that an
ocean scientist and an atmospheric scientist are very interested
in many of the same physical properties, but with different
emphasis and within different regimes.   Pressure, density,
humidity, salinity, vorticity all seem to have pretty clear
meanings to any scientist using them, but the relative importance
and interaction between them has different implications for each
group.

Needless to say, we didn't finish the tools before the funding ran
out.  This is now nearly 8 years old work... the ideas area still
valid but without a patron and without SME's to "test on" it is
hard to push such tools forward.  My part included building the
equivalent of what you call "mind maps" from the differing lexical
elements, floating in N-space and "morphing" from each individual
(or subgroup's) perspective to some kind of common perspective...
with the intention of helping each individual or subgroup
appreciate the *different* perspective of the others.

This is modestly related to my work in "faceted ontologies" (also
currently not under active development) where "multiple lexicons"
is replaced by "multiple ontologies"  or in both cases, the
superposition of multiple lexicons/ontologies.

I haven't worked with Joslyn since that 2007? paper... but we
*tried* a joint project with PNNL/NREL a couple of years ago, but
it failed due to inter-laboratory politics I think.   He's an
equally brilliant/oblique character as you...   take that for what
it is worth!

I liked Frank's double-dog-dare to you.   I think that is one of
the good things you bring out in this list, all kinds of others'
feistiness!  It was also good that you could both call it for what
it was.  It makes me want to read Kohut... I have special reasons
for trying to apprehend alternate self-psychology models right
now, though from your's and Frank's apparent
avoidance(/dismissal?) of Kahut and my immediate phonetic
slip-slide to Camus, I'm a little leery.

On 6/8/17 2:33 PM, glen ☣ wrote:

We quickly polluted that thread, too.  But it drives home the
point that an email list is _not_ a (good) collaborative
production tool.

Aha! I haven't heard from Cliff since my work for the
PSL. He supposedly works up at
PNNL.  Thanks for that article.

Yes, I took Owen to be calling Russ' post a trolling post. 
But "troll" is like "complex", meaningless out of context.


I'm completely baffled why "layer" isn't understood ... makes
me think I must be wrong in some deep way.  But for whatever
it's worth, I believe I understand and _agree_ with Nick's
circularity criticism of mechanistic explanations for
complexity, mostly because of a publication I'm helping
develop that tries to classify several different senses of the
word "mechanistic".  The 1st attempt was rejected by the
journal, though. 8^( But repeating Nick's

Re: [FRIAM] tools, trollers, and language

2017-06-08 Thread Owen Densmore

No, my troll comment was meant for Nick's OP. Not in an unkind way, but ...

On Thu, Jun 8, 2017 at 4:05 PM, Steven A Smith  wrote:

> Glen -
>
> I have found concept mapping tools to be helpful in this context, but
> usually in live-brainstorming sessions... with one (or more) operators
> clicking and typing and dragging and connecting while others chatter out
> loud, then shifting the mouse/keyboard(s) to another(s).
>
> I know we have a mind-mapping ( I prefer concept-mapping) tool developer
> on the list...  I'm blanking his name, though I know he has been active off
> and on!  I hope he catches this and pitches in.  I believe he was heading
> toward web-enabled, simultaneous editing capabilities.   I did some tests
> and provided some feedback on an early version a few years ago..
>
> My only significant experience in this is with CMAPtools and a few others
> driven by various project-lead's preferences, but never really adopted by
> myself.
>
> I was in the process of developing some more formal tools with UNM for the
> NSF a few years ago, based on formalisms being developed by Tim Goldsmith
> (dept. Psychology) at UNM.   The presumption WAS (IS) that we all have
> reserved lexicons and for a collaborative group to develop a common one,
> there has to be a lot of discussion and negotiation.  Our example was a
> group of climate change scientists who (un)surprisingly used identical
> terms in very similar contexts with very different intentions and meanings
> in some cases.   It isn't too surprising when you realize that an ocean
> scientist and an atmospheric scientist are very interested in many of the
> same physical properties, but with different emphasis and within different
> regimes.   Pressure, density, humidity, salinity, vorticity all seem to
> have pretty clear meanings to any scientist using them, but the relative
> importance and interaction between them has different implications for each
> group.
>
> Needless to say, we didn't finish the tools before the funding ran out.
> This is now nearly 8 years old work... the ideas area still valid but
> without a patron and without SME's to "test on" it is hard to push such
> tools forward.   My part included building the equivalent of what you call
> "mind maps" from the differing lexical elements, floating in N-space and
> "morphing" from each individual (or subgroup's) perspective to some kind of
> common perspective... with the intention of helping each individual or
> subgroup appreciate the *different* perspective of the others.
>
> This is modestly related to my work in "faceted ontologies" (also
> currently not under active development) where "multiple lexicons" is
> replaced by "multiple ontologies"   or in both cases, the superposition of
> multiple lexicons/ontologies.
>
> I haven't worked with Joslyn since that 2007? paper... but we *tried* a
> joint project with PNNL/NREL a couple of years ago, but it failed due to
> inter-laboratory politics I think.   He's an equally brilliant/oblique
> character as you...   take that for what it is worth!
>
> I liked Frank's double-dog-dare to you.   I think that is one of the good
> things you bring out in this list, all kinds of others' feistiness!  It was
> also good that you could both call it for what it was.  It makes me want to
> read Kohut... I have special reasons for trying to apprehend alternate
> self-psychology models right now, though from your's and Frank's apparent
> avoidance(/dismissal?) of Kahut and my immediate phonetic slip-slide to
> Camus, I'm a little leery.
>
> On 6/8/17 2:33 PM, glen ☣ wrote:
>
>> We quickly polluted that thread, too.  But it drives home the point that
>> an email list is _not_ a (good) collaborative production tool.
>>
>> Aha! I haven't heard from Cliff since my work for the PSL<
>> https://www.psl.nmsu.edu/>.  He supposedly works up at PNNL.  Thanks for
>> that article.
>>
>> Yes, I took Owen to be calling Russ' post a trolling post.  But "troll"
>> is like "complex", meaningless out of context.
>>
>> I'm completely baffled why "layer" isn't understood ... makes me think I
>> must be wrong in some deep way.  But for whatever it's worth, I believe I
>> understand and _agree_ with Nick's circularity criticism of mechanistic
>> explanations for complexity, mostly because of a publication I'm helping
>> develop that tries to classify several different senses of the word
>> "mechanistic".  The 1st attempt was rejected by the journal, though. 8^(
>> But repeating Nick's point back in my own words obviously won't help, here.
>>
>> Yes, I'm willing to help cobble together these posts into a document.
>> But, clearly, I can't be any kind of primary.  If y'all don't even
>> understand what I mean by the word "layer", then whatever I composed would
>> be alien to the other participants.  One idea might be to use a "mind
>> mapping" tool and fill in the bubbles with verbatim snippets of people's
>> posts ... that might help avoid the bias

Re: [FRIAM] tools, trollers, and language

Glen -

I have found concept mapping tools to be helpful in this context, but
usually in live-brainstorming sessions... with one (or more) operators
clicking and typing and dragging and connecting while others chatter out
loud, then shifting the mouse/keyboard(s) to another(s).

I know we have a mind-mapping ( I prefer concept-mapping) tool developer
on the list... I'm blanking his name, though I know he has been active
off and on! I hope he catches this and pitches in. I believe he was
heading toward web-enabled, simultaneous editing capabilities. I did
some tests and provided some feedback on an early version a few years ago..

My only significant experience in this is with CMAPtools and a few
others driven by various project-lead's preferences, but never really
adopted by myself.

I was in the process of developing some more formal tools with UNM for
the NSF a few years ago, based on formalisms being developed by Tim
Goldsmith (dept. Psychology) at UNM. The presumption WAS (IS) that we
all have reserved lexicons and for a collaborative group to develop a
common one, there has to be a lot of discussion and negotiation. Our
example was a group of climate change scientists who (un)surprisingly
used identical terms in very similar contexts with very different
intentions and meanings in some cases. It isn't too surprising when
you realize that an ocean scientist and an atmospheric scientist are
very interested in many of the same physical properties, but with
different emphasis and within different regimes. Pressure, density,
humidity, salinity, vorticity all seem to have pretty clear meanings to
any scientist using them, but the relative importance and interaction
between them has different implications for each group.

Needless to say, we didn't finish the tools before the funding ran out.
This is now nearly 8 years old work... the ideas area still valid but
without a patron and without SME's to "test on" it is hard to push such
tools forward. My part included building the equivalent of what you
call "mind maps" from the differing lexical elements, floating in
N-space and "morphing" from each individual (or subgroup's) perspective
to some kind of common perspective... with the intention of helping each
individual or subgroup appreciate the *different* perspective of the others.

This is modestly related to my work in "faceted ontologies" (also
currently not under active development) where "multiple lexicons" is
replaced by "multiple ontologies" or in both cases, the superposition
of multiple lexicons/ontologies.

I haven't worked with Joslyn since that 2007? paper... but we *tried* a
joint project with PNNL/NREL a couple of years ago, but it failed due to
inter-laboratory politics I think. He's an equally brilliant/oblique
character as you... take that for what it is worth!

I liked Frank's double-dog-dare to you. I think that is one of the
good things you bring out in this list, all kinds of others'
feistiness! It was also good that you could both call it for what it
was. It makes me want to read Kohut... I have special reasons for
trying to apprehend alternate self-psychology models right now, though
from your's and Frank's apparent avoidance(/dismissal?) of Kahut and my
immediate phonetic slip-slide to Camus, I'm a little leery.

On 6/8/17 2:33 PM, glen ☣ wrote:

We quickly polluted that thread, too. But it drives home the point that an
email list is _not_ a (good) collaborative production tool.

Aha! I haven't heard from Cliff since my work for the
PSL. He supposedly works up at PNNL. Thanks for
that article.

Yes, I took Owen to be calling Russ' post a trolling post. But "troll" is like
"complex", meaningless out of context.

I'm completely baffled why "layer" isn't understood ... makes me think I must be wrong in
some deep way. But for whatever it's worth, I believe I understand and _agree_ with Nick's
circularity criticism of mechanistic explanations for complexity, mostly because of a publication
I'm helping develop that tries to classify several different senses of the word
"mechanistic". The 1st attempt was rejected by the journal, though. 8^( But repeating
Nick's point back in my own words obviously won't help, here.

Yes, I'm willing to help cobble together these posts into a document. But, clearly, I can't be any kind of
primary. If y'all don't even understand what I mean by the word "layer", then whatever I composed
would be alien to the other participants. One idea might be to use a "mind mapping" tool and fill
in the bubbles with verbatim snippets of people's posts ... that might help avoid the bias introduced by the
secretary. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_concept-_and_mind-mapping_software I also don't care that
much about the meaning of "complex". So, my only motivation for helping is because y'all tolerate
my idiocy.

On 06/08/2017 12:52 PM, Steven A

[FRIAM] tools, trollers, and language

We quickly polluted that thread, too.  But it drives home the point that an 
email list is _not_ a (good) collaborative production tool.

Aha! I haven't heard from Cliff since my work for the 
PSL.  He supposedly works up at PNNL.  Thanks for 
that article.

Yes, I took Owen to be calling Russ' post a trolling post.  But "troll" is like 
"complex", meaningless out of context.

I'm completely baffled why "layer" isn't understood ... makes me think I must 
be wrong in some deep way.  But for whatever it's worth, I believe I understand 
and _agree_ with Nick's circularity criticism of mechanistic explanations for 
complexity, mostly because of a publication I'm helping develop that tries to 
classify several different senses of the word "mechanistic".  The 1st attempt 
was rejected by the journal, though. 8^(  But repeating Nick's point back in my 
own words obviously won't help, here.

Yes, I'm willing to help cobble together these posts into a document.  But, 
clearly, I can't be any kind of primary.  If y'all don't even understand what I 
mean by the word "layer", then whatever I composed would be alien to the other 
participants.  One idea might be to use a "mind mapping" tool and fill in the 
bubbles with verbatim snippets of people's posts ... that might help avoid the 
bias introduced by the secretary. 
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_concept-_and_mind-mapping_software I also 
don't care that much about the meaning of "complex".  So, my only motivation 
for helping is because y'all tolerate my idiocy.

On 06/08/2017 12:52 PM, Steven A Smith wrote:
> I admit to being over my depth, at least in attention, if not in ability to 
> parse out your dense text, and more to the point, the entire thread(s) which 
> gives me more sympathy with Nick who would like a tool to help organize, 
> neaten up, trim, etc. these very complex ( in the more common meaning of the 
> term) discussions. My experience with you is that you always say what you 
> mean and mean what you say, so I don't doubt that there is gold in that 
> mine... just my ability to float the overburden and other minerals away with 
> Philosopher's Mercury (PhHg) in a timely manner.
> 
> I DO think Nick is asking for help from the rest of us in said parsing...   
> to begin, I can parse HIS first definition of "layer" is as a "laying hen"... 
> a chicken (or duck?) who is actively laying eggs.   A total red-herring to 
> mix metaphors here on a forum facilitated by another kind of RedFish 
> altogether... a "fish of a different color" as it were, to keep up with the 
> metaphor (aphorism?) mixology.
> 
> I DON'T think Owen was referring to you when he said: "troll", I think he was 
> being ironical by suggesting Russ himself was being a troll.  But I could be 
> wrong.   Owen may not even remember to whom his bell "trolled" in that 
> moment?  In any case, I don't find your contribution/interaction here to be 
> particularly troll-like.  Yes, you can be deliberately provocative, but more 
> in the sense of Socrates who got colored as a "gadfly" (before there were 
> trolls in the lexicon?).   Stay away from the Hemlock, OK?
> 
> I'm trying to sort this (simple?) question of the meaning (connotations) of 
> layering you use, as I have my own reserved use of the term in "complex, 
> layered metaphors" or alternately "layered, complex metaphors"... but that is 
> *mostly* an aside.   I believe your onion analogy is Nick's "stratum" but I 
> *think* with the added concept that each "direction" (theta/phi from 
> onion-center) as a different "dimension".   Your subsequent text suggests a 
> high-dimensional venn diagram.   My own work in visualization of  Partially 
> Ordered Sets (in the Gene Ontology) may begin to address some of this, but I 
> suspect not.
> 
>https://arxiv.org/pdf/1312.4935.pdf
> 
> I may continue to dig into this minefield of rich ore and interesting veins, 
> but it has gotten beyond (even) me as a multiple attender who thrives on this 
> kind of complexity (with limits apparently!).
> 
> I think I heard you suggest that YOU would volunteer to pull in the various 
> drawstrings on this multidimensional bag forming of a half-dozen or more 
> branching threads...  I'll see if I can find that and ask some more pointed 
> questions that might help that happen?
> 
> I truly appreciate Nick's role (as another Socrates?) teasing at our language 
> to try to get it more plain or perhaps more specific or perhaps more concise? 
>  Is there some kind of conservation law in these dimensions?

-- 
☣ glen

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Re: [FRIAM] IS: Does Complexity have a circularity problem WAS: Any non-biological complex systems?

Glen -

I admit to being over my depth, at least in attention, if not in ability
to parse out your dense text, and more to the point, the entire
thread(s) which gives me more sympathy with Nick who would like a tool
to help organize, neaten up, trim, etc. these very complex ( in the more
common meaning of the term) discussions. My experience with you is that
you always say what you mean and mean what you say, so I don't doubt
that there is gold in that mine... just my ability to float the
overburden and other minerals away with Philosopher's Mercury (PhHg) in
a timely manner.

I DO think Nick is asking for help from the rest of us in said
parsing... to begin, I can parse HIS first definition of "layer" is as
a "laying hen"... a chicken (or duck?) who is actively laying eggs. A
total red-herring to mix metaphors here on a forum facilitated by
another kind of RedFish altogether... a "fish of a different color" as
it were, to keep up with the metaphor (aphorism?) mixology.

I DON'T think Owen was referring to you when he said: "troll", I think
he was being ironical by suggesting Russ himself was being a troll. But
I could be wrong. Owen may not even remember to whom his bell
"trolled" in that moment? In any case, I don't find your
contribution/interaction here to be particularly troll-like. Yes, you
can be deliberately provocative, but more in the sense of Socrates who
got colored as a "gadfly" (before there were trolls in the lexicon?).
Stay away from the Hemlock, OK?

I'm trying to sort this (simple?) question of the meaning (connotations)
of layering you use, as I have my own reserved use of the term in
"complex, layered metaphors" or alternately "layered, complex
metaphors"... but that is *mostly* an aside. I believe your onion
analogy is Nick's "stratum" but I *think* with the added concept that
each "direction" (theta/phi from onion-center) as a different
"dimension". Your subsequent text suggests a high-dimensional venn
diagram. My own work in visualization of Partially Ordered Sets (in
the Gene Ontology) may begin to address some of this, but I suspect not.

https://arxiv.org/pdf/1312.4935.pdf

I may continue to dig into this minefield of rich ore and interesting
veins, but it has gotten beyond (even) me as a multiple attender who
thrives on this kind of complexity (with limits apparently!).

I think I heard you suggest that YOU would volunteer to pull in the
various drawstrings on this multidimensional bag forming of a half-dozen
or more branching threads... I'll see if I can find that and ask some
more pointed questions that might help that happen?

I truly appreciate Nick's role (as another Socrates?) teasing at our
language to try to get it more plain or perhaps more specific or perhaps
more concise? Is there some kind of conservation law in these dimensions?

- Steve

On 6/8/17 10:40 AM, glen ☣ wrote:

You seem to be asking for people other than me to respond. But I doubt anyone
will try to explain a troll like me. >8^)

I don't have any idea what you mean by "a kind of hen". So, I'll let that go. Stratum
is a good word, but like level, it implies a direction, namely up-down ("something laid
down"). I do mean something very much like level and stratum, except without implying a
(constant) direction. Onion is a better analog than, say, genus or battalion. There's still a
symmetry in the directions from the center of the onion. But at least you can vary the direction
without changing layers. More complicated layering would be something like doping a silicon chip
or spray painting a complicated surface ... or perhaps sand blasting something, where you turn it
within the directional gradient.

It's important to graduate from the naive concept of levels to the more sophisticated
concept of layers because, e.g. in Russ' urban systems, there are all different types of
flows and ebbs, gradients of different speeds, directions, types, etc. that
"paint" things on the system in varied ways. It's not a singular hierarchy in
any sense.

If you grok the poverty of the concept of the "landscape" in evolution, then you should
grok the poverty of the concept of "level" in cumulative structures.

That's the best I can do to explain it. Sorry for my inadequacy.

On 06/07/2017 06:32 PM, Nick Thompson wrote:

Here is Glen's thoughtful post of January 20, reborn. To be honest, I don’t
understand it. Not a bit. I am hoping that perhaps one or more of the rest of
you can help me get it. Let’s start with one baby step. What is meant by
LAYER in this text? The possible meanings open to me are, (1) a kind of hen;
(2) a stratum in a substance; or (3) a level in a hierarchical descriptive
scheme. So, “genus” is a level as is “battalion”. Are any of these meanings
relevant to Glen’s post?

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Re: [FRIAM] apologies for using the list, but need help

2017-06-08 Thread john balwit

Patrick Chavez, Busy Bee,. Tell'im John Balwit referred him.

> On Jun 7, 2017, at 7:54 PM, Prof David West  wrote:
> 
> anyone in Santa Fe know an honest electrician? I need someone to get a
> permit and inspection to put in an electric meter. Time is critical.
> 
> dave west
> 
> 
> FRIAM Applied Complexity Group listserv
> Meets Fridays 9a-11:30 at cafe at St. John's College
> to unsubscribe http://redfish.com/mailman/listinfo/friam_redfish.com
> FRIAM-COMIC http://friam-comic.blogspot.com/ by Dr. Strangelove

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Re: [FRIAM] Peculiar pattern found in ‘random’ prime numbers : Nature News & Comment

2017-06-08 Thread Owen Densmore

Yeah, kinda fascinating observation, thanks.

On Thu, Jun 8, 2017 at 11:02 AM, glen ☣  wrote:

> Smells a little like Benford's Law? https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/
> Benford's_law
>

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Re: [FRIAM] Peculiar pattern found in ‘random’ prime numbers : Nature News & Comment

Smells a little like Benford's Law? https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Benford's_law

On 06/08/2017 09:55 AM, Owen Densmore wrote:
> Kinda fascinating new paper on prime numbers:
> 
> Prime numbers near to each other tend to avoid repeating their last digits,
> the mathematicians say: that is, a prime that ends in 1 is less likely to
> be followed by another ending in 1 than one might expect from a random
> sequence. “As soon as I saw the numbers, I could see it was true,” says
> mathematician James Maynard of the University of Oxford, UK. “It’s a really
> nice result.”
> 
> http://www.nature.com/news/peculiar-pattern-found-in-random-prime-numbers-1.19550

-- 
☣ glen

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[FRIAM] Peculiar pattern found in ‘random’ prime numbers : Nature News & Comment

2017-06-08 Thread Owen Densmore

Kinda fascinating new paper on prime numbers:

Prime numbers near to each other tend to avoid repeating their last digits,
the mathematicians say: that is, a prime that ends in 1 is less likely to
be followed by another ending in 1 than one might expect from a random
sequence. “As soon as I saw the numbers, I could see it was true,” says
mathematician James Maynard of the University of Oxford, UK. “It’s a really
nice result.”

http://www.nature.com/news/peculiar-pattern-found-in-random-prime-numbers-1.19550

   -- Owen

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Re: [FRIAM] IS: Does Complexity have a circularity problem WAS: Any non-biological complex systems?