Re: [FRIAM] FW: A PolyMath by any other name...

[thompnickson2]

Thanks, Glen.  

I am particularly glad for your good humor because I have so valued your 
comments on some of what I have published.   Keep close a colleague who will 
read what you write.  There is no greater friend an academic can have. 

Nick 

Nicholas Thompson
Emeritus Professor of Ethology and Psychology
Clark University
thompnicks...@gmail.com
https://wordpress.clarku.edu/nthompson/
 


-Original Message-
From: Friam  On Behalf Of u?l? ?
Sent: Monday, December 30, 2019 5:30 PM
To: FriAM 
Subject: Re: [FRIAM] FW: A PolyMath by any other name...

You have *nothing* to apologize for. As Steve hinted, I suspect most, if not 
all, of us cringe a bit when reading our own stuff (or even hearing our own 
voice: 
https://www.theguardian.com/film/2019/dec/18/adam-driver-walk-out-interview-npr-fresh-air-voice).
 I have 3 stories explicitly related to the point: 1) Something I once wrote 
offended so many people, it earned me the nickname "Nazi", the story of which 
held a prominent place in my friend's PhD dissertation. 2) While supporting 
Swarm, something I wrote offended a person so much, they *demanded* an apology 
from the group. And 3) a good friend and mentor once called me a "digital 
austistic" due to my seeming insensitivity in online interaction versus my 
seeming sensitivity in meat space.

I won't tell any of those stories, here, to save y'all from yet another TMI 
share. But I can say I don't regret any of those utterings. Would I say them 
now? No. But that's precisely *because* they were learning experiences. The 
only thing that prevents learning experiences is the *lack* of engagement. So, 
as long as you stay engaged, then apologies are surplus sugar that none of us 
really need ... though some of us -- not me -- really like sugar. 8^)

On 12/30/19 2:19 PM, thompnicks...@gmail.com wrote:
> Here I am, renewing my apology for yet a third time, it seems.
> 
> I was actually preaching my belief that we come to friam for different 
> things, and nobody should try to dictate what FRIAM is about.  But I sure as 
> hell had a strange way of putting it!  I am so grateful for Steve’s 
> contemporary correction, which says precisely what I wish I had said.
> 
> I have written to the list.  If I need to do anything more to regain 
> your trust, please let me know.
> 
> All the best, and thank you for your many insights, some of which are 
> on matters I understand.
> 
> I look forward to understanding more.

--
☣ uǝlƃ


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Meets Fridays 9a-11:30 at cafe at St. John's College to unsubscribe 
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Meets Fridays 9a-11:30 at cafe at St. John's College
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Re: [FRIAM] FW: A PolyMath by any other name...

[uǝlƃ ☣]

You have *nothing* to apologize for. As Steve hinted, I suspect most, if not 
all, of us cringe a bit when reading our own stuff (or even hearing our own 
voice: 
https://www.theguardian.com/film/2019/dec/18/adam-driver-walk-out-interview-npr-fresh-air-voice).
 I have 3 stories explicitly related to the point: 1) Something I once wrote 
offended so many people, it earned me the nickname "Nazi", the story of which 
held a prominent place in my friend's PhD dissertation. 2) While supporting 
Swarm, something I wrote offended a person so much, they *demanded* an apology 
from the group. And 3) a good friend and mentor once called me a "digital 
austistic" due to my seeming insensitivity in online interaction versus my 
seeming sensitivity in meat space.

I won't tell any of those stories, here, to save y'all from yet another TMI 
share. But I can say I don't regret any of those utterings. Would I say them 
now? No. But that's precisely *because* they were learning experiences. The 
only thing that prevents learning experiences is the *lack* of engagement. So, 
as long as you stay engaged, then apologies are surplus sugar that none of us 
really need ... though some of us -- not me -- really like sugar. 8^)

On 12/30/19 2:19 PM, thompnicks...@gmail.com wrote:
> Here I am, renewing my apology for yet a third time, it seems. 
> 
> I was actually preaching my belief that we come to friam for different 
> things, and nobody should try to dictate what FRIAM is about.  But I sure as 
> hell had a strange way of putting it!  I am so grateful for Steve’s 
> contemporary correction, which says precisely what I wish I had said.
> 
> I have written to the list.  If I need to do anything more to regain your 
> trust, please let me know. 
> 
> All the best, and thank you for your many insights, some of which are on 
> matters I understand. 
> 
> I look forward to understanding more.

-- 
☣ uǝlƃ


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
archives back to 2003: http://friam.471366.n2.nabble.com/
FRIAM-COMIC http://friam-comic.blogspot.com/ by Dr. Strangelove

Re: [FRIAM] A PolyMath by any other name...

[uǝlƃ ☣]

Oh. My. God. That was funny. I like cats. And, in March 2013, anyway, I'm free 
of toxoplasma gondii ... another benefit of being diagnosed with cancer! I get 
to claim that my like for cats has some other source.


On 12/30/19 2:20 PM, Marcus Daniels wrote:
> https://vimeo.com/69181785
> 
>   
> Eyeo2013 Ignite #12 - Kevin Slavin 
> Toxoplasmosis
> vimeo.com

-- 
☣ uǝlƃ


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

Re: [FRIAM] A PolyMath by any other name...

[Marcus Daniels]

https://vimeo.com/69181785
[https://www.bing.com/th?id=OVP.HIDBnQltACgoH5Vl6wxhtQEsCo=Api]
Eyeo2013 Ignite #12 - Kevin Slavin
Toxoplasmosis
vimeo.com


From: Friam  on behalf of Roger Critchlow 

Sent: Monday, December 30, 2019 3:14 PM
To: The Friday Morning Applied Complexity Coffee Group 
Subject: Re: [FRIAM] A PolyMath by any other name...

I see I replied to the wrong strand of the thread, this was Glen's contribution 
to which I was replying.

On Wed, Aug 12, 2015 at 9:01 AM glen 
mailto:g...@ropella.name>> wrote:
On 08/11/2015 08:36 PM, Steve Smith wrote:
> I'm surprised *anything* bores the living crap out of you!

What's not so boring is that Nick's crap _is_ alive!  But he may have the cause 
and effect reversed:

  https://www.mvppt.com/can-the-bacteria-in-your-gut-explain-your-mood/

> micro-organisms in the gut tickle a sensory nerve ending in the fingerlike 
> protrusion lining the intestine and carry that electrical impulse up the 
> vagus nerve and into the deep-brain structures thought to be responsible for 
> elemental emotions like anxiety.

Perhaps being bored doesn't get the living crap out of you.  Perhaps the living 
crap causes your boredom. 8^)

-- rec --

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Meets Fridays 9a-11:30 at cafe at St. John's College
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Re: [FRIAM] A PolyMath by any other name...

[Steven A Smith]

Oh Nick!

 Let me "chastise" you again .   This was so far from trash (your
original observation, my "chastisement", and your polite but unnecessary
"apology").   I was, of course, friendly-teasing you about your use of
the term "bored" while trying to acknowledge that PolyBores abound (esp.
on this list) and "boredom" is very much in the eye of the bored-beholder. 

This list/meetup is going on 15-18 years old now... I'm too lazy/skeered
to go look at the archives... and I don't know when I joined the list
(or made my first meetup)... I think it was before I took a year's
sabbatical in Berzerkely 2005/2006 as I think I remember making a
"meetup" at St. Johns during a (re)visit to LANL during that year.   I
have enjoyed watching the evolution of various character's characters on
this list, including your own...   I think we met at that meetup but I
didn't get to know you much at all until SfX days when you were noodling
a lot about noodling and had (recently) written the MOTH paper with
Guerin/Densmore...  

I am attracted to PolyBores, because/in-spite of their endless prattling
on various pet topics...   the signal-noise ratio always seems low at
first, but with enough listening (attentive as well as background) I
eventually begin to learn the language of such individuals and can begin
to at least speak a pidgin of sorts with them, or adopt the
pidgin/creole I hear them speaking with another who I might be closer in
spirit/language to.

I have off-list engagements with several from this list, some in person,
others online, some professional, others personal and while those
engagements have a much higher signal-noise ratio (because focused on
mutually interesting topics and including specific attempts to meet
halfway), the conversations here which I might not fully be able to
follow (over my head, beyond my patience, outside my ken, etc) often
"soften me up" for important/interesting conversations later on or in
private.   We are on a good day, a "rich, living batch", a PolySpecies
symbiotic colony of PolyMaths/PolyBores methinks.

I definitely hear you converging on more understanding  or at least more
shared language with others here...  and your tireless pursuit of many
topics Pearcian and otherwise, have provided both helpful "convergence"
and "divergence" in the sense of annealing..  

It was a (mild) shock for me to hear my own "voice" here 4+ years old,
but it was a reminder that we've been rattling on about the same things
for years now!

Which reminds me of one of my favorite "They Might Be Giants" song-lyrics:

https://greatsong.net/PAROLES-THEY-MIGHT-BE-GIANTS,LUCKY-BALL-CHAIN,335311.html

/I lost my lucky ball and chain//
//Now she's four years gone//
//Just five feet tall and sick of me//
//And all my rattling on/

/.../

/        I was young and foolish then,/

/        I am old and foolish now.../

/    ../

Carry On!

 - STeve/
/

On 12/30/19 2:51 PM, thompnicks...@gmail.com wrote:
>
> OUCH!
>
>  
>
> The person who said the internet is forever sure knew a thing.
>
>  
>
> Why we need to resurrect these posts, in particular, is unclear to me.
> Suffice it to say, I cannot recreate the context in which I would say
> such nasty things so /nastily.  /But the evidence that I did is
> overwhelming.  So.  All I can do is apologize again.  I have learned
> so much over the years from talking with glen and marcus.  Much of
> what they talk about is still foreign to me, but in the last year I
> feel I am understanding more, and would hate to have that channel
> gummed up by digging up this trash. 
>
>  
>
> But that is the consequence of having said stupid things; one is
> thereafter and forever dependent upon the grace and maturity of others. 
>
>  
>
> Nick
>
>  
>
> Nicholas Thompson
>
> Emeritus Professor of Ethology and Psychology
>
> Clark University
>
> thompnicks...@gmail.com 
>
> https://wordpress.clarku.edu/nthompson/
>
>  
>
>  
>
> *From:* Friam  *On Behalf Of *Roger Critchlow
> *Sent:* Monday, December 30, 2019 2:04 PM
> *To:* The Friday Morning Applied Complexity Coffee Group
> 
> *Subject:* Re: [FRIAM] A PolyMath by any other name...
>
>  
>
> Okay, resurrecting this four plus year old discussion because it
> matched a search for vagus.
>
>  
>
> https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC5807379/#B20 reports that
> electrical stimulation of the outer ear can stimulate the vagus nerve
> and has positive results for treating depression.  It's hitting a spot
> that acupuncture uses to treat depression.
>
>  
>
> -- rec --
>
>  
>
> On Thu, Aug 13, 2015 at 11:22 AM Nick Thompson
> mailto:nickthomp...@earthlink.net>> wrote:
>
> Steve,
>
>  
>
> Thank you for not chastising me, as I surely deserved.  I want to
> take this opportunity to renew my apology to the list. 
>
>  
>
> If you asked me to think deeply, I would say that boredom is
> actually one of those things that is in the eye of the beholder. 
>   

Re: [FRIAM] A PolyMath by any other name...

[Roger Critchlow]

I see I replied to the wrong strand of the thread, this was Glen's
contribution to which I was replying.

On Wed, Aug 12, 2015 at 9:01 AM glen  wrote:

> On 08/11/2015 08:36 PM, Steve Smith wrote:
> > I'm surprised *anything* bores the living crap out of you!
>
> What's not so boring is that Nick's crap _is_ alive!  But he may have the
> cause and effect reversed:
>
>   https://www.mvppt.com/can-the-bacteria-in-your-gut-explain-your-mood/
>
> > micro-organisms in the gut tickle a sensory nerve ending in the
> fingerlike protrusion lining the intestine and carry that electrical
> impulse up the vagus nerve and into the deep-brain structures thought to be
> responsible for elemental emotions like anxiety.
>
> Perhaps being bored doesn't get the living crap out of you.  Perhaps the
> living crap causes your boredom. 8^)
>

-- rec --

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
archives back to 2003: http://friam.471366.n2.nabble.com/
FRIAM-COMIC http://friam-comic.blogspot.com/ by Dr. Strangelove

Re: [FRIAM] Celeste Kidd - How to Know

[Roger Critchlow]

If you're deviant and you know it, clap your hands!

The sub-fact I liked, which might be in the Daxxy paper, is that people are
very good at evaluating their certainty with respect to facts about the
physical environment, but that same feeling of certainty is all over the
place respecting the metaphysical environment.  I guess we've known that
for a while.

-- rec --

On Mon, Dec 30, 2019 at 2:45 PM uǝlƃ ☣  wrote:

> Ha!  "There's a fun sub-result, which is, if you have a very deviant
> concept ... if you have a very weirdo concept that other people don't
> share, you're actually much more likely to be aware that you have a deviant
> concept."
>
> At least I *know* I'm a deviant.
>
>
> On 12/29/19 8:43 AM, Roger Critchlow wrote:
> > I thought she was arguing that very mechanisms that google, facebook,
> twitter, etc. are using right now to engage people's interest online are
> already engendering and entrenching all sorts of weird beliefs.  6-9
> minutes of activated charcoal advocacy videos and you're probably certain
> that black smoothies are okay, maybe even good for you.  There are no
> neutral platforms, because the order in which content is presented is never
> neutral, and it is especially biased if its goal is to keep you clicking.
> Whether this allows focused election manipulation seems dubious, but it
> does allow for thousands of bizarre theories to be injected into the public
> consciousness at low cost, and some of them even make money.  Hey, some of
> them, bizarre as they are, might turn out to be correct, not that the
> platforms have any interest in that aspect, because that wouldn't be
> neutral.
> > [...]
>
> >
> > On Sat, Dec 28, 2019 at 10:23 AM Steven A Smith  > wrote:
> >
> > REC -
> >
> > Good find!
> >
> > I am not closely following the development and results of GAN work,
> but it seems like this kind of study explicates at least ONE GOOD REASON
> for worrying about AI changing the nature of the world as we know it (even
> if it isn't a precise existential threat).   Convolved with Carl's offering
> around "weaponizing complexity", it feels more and more believable
> (recursion unintended) that the wielders of strong AI/ML will have the
> upper hand in any tactical and possibly strategic domain (warfare, public
> opinion, markets, etc.).
> > [...]
> >
> > On 12/27/19 8:21 PM, Roger Critchlow wrote:
> >> This talk was mentioned on hacker news this week and inspired my
> babbling at Saveur this morning.
> https://slideslive.com/38921495/how-to-know.  The talk was delivered at
> Neural IPS on December 9 and discusses recent research on how people come
> to believe they know something.
> >>
> >> This paper
> https://www.mitpressjournals.org/doi/full/10.1162/opmi_a_00017 describes
> the Amazon Mechanical Turk experiment on people becoming certain they
> understood the boolean rule they were being taught by examples.
>
> --
> ☣ uǝlƃ
>
> 
> 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
> archives back to 2003: http://friam.471366.n2.nabble.com/
> FRIAM-COMIC 
> http://friam-comic.blogspot.com/ by Dr. Strangelove
>

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

Re: [FRIAM] A PolyMath by any other name...

[thompnickson2]

OUCH!

 

The person who said the internet is forever sure knew a thing.

 

Why we need to resurrect these posts, in particular, is unclear to me. Suffice 
it to say, I cannot recreate the context in which I would say such nasty things 
so nastily.  But the evidence that I did is overwhelming.  So.  All I can do is 
apologize again.  I have learned so much over the years from talking with glen 
and marcus.  Much of what they talk about is still foreign to me, but in the 
last year I feel I am understanding more, and would hate to have that channel 
gummed up by digging up this trash.  

 

But that is the consequence of having said stupid things; one is thereafter and 
forever dependent upon the grace and maturity of others.  

 

Nick 

 

Nicholas Thompson

Emeritus Professor of Ethology and Psychology

Clark University

  thompnicks...@gmail.com

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

 

 

From: Friam  On Behalf Of Roger Critchlow
Sent: Monday, December 30, 2019 2:04 PM
To: The Friday Morning Applied Complexity Coffee Group 
Subject: Re: [FRIAM] A PolyMath by any other name...

 

Okay, resurrecting this four plus year old discussion because it matched a 
search for vagus.

 

https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC5807379/#B20 reports that 
electrical stimulation of the outer ear can stimulate the vagus nerve and has 
positive results for treating depression.  It's hitting a spot that acupuncture 
uses to treat depression.

 

-- rec --

 

On Thu, Aug 13, 2015 at 11:22 AM Nick Thompson mailto:nickthomp...@earthlink.net> > wrote:

Steve, 

 

Thank you for not chastising me, as I surely deserved.  I want to take this 
opportunity to renew my apology to the list.  

 

If you asked me to think deeply, I would say that boredom is actually one of 
those things that is in the eye of the beholder.  A person who is bored by a 
topic is just a person without the resources or energy to find what is 
interesting about it.  

 

Obviously I, the pot, who has been known the regale this list with commentary 
on Elevated Mixed Layers, should not be calling any pots black.  

 

Thanks, Steve, as always, for your good will. 

 

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 Steve Smith
Sent: Tuesday, August 11, 2015 11:36 PM
To: The Friday Morning Applied Complexity Coffee Group mailto:friam@redfish.com> >
Subject: [FRIAM] A PolyMath by any other name...

 

Nick!

I'm surprised *anything* bores the living crap out of you!  I hear tell of you 
staring for hours at water swirling down a drain, considering the philosophical 
and psychological implications of such,  and even more hours listening to the 
squawks of Ravens!

That said,  I have to say that Marcus' and Glen's conversation here was far 
enough above my head that I can't imagine finding the time to noodle out enough 
of the reserved lexicon to do more than gape at it awkwardly.   

I have a good friend who is a former AstroPhysicist who has reinvented himself 
a few times as a High Performance Simulation Scientist, then Virtual Reality 
Researcher, then Nueroscience Researcher.  He is definitely a PolyBore to 
anyone without experience or interest in those fields, but the hoot of it all 
is that one of his best and oldest collaborators has stuck with "Applied Math" 
for 50 years and he calls HIM a "MathHole"... they are finishing up a 
multi-year book project on their theory of Neural Function based in Category 
Theory.  I suspect even people who Neurophysiology and Category Theory find 
them Polybores!

I do like the duality of PolyMath/PolyBore... we might have more than a few 
such creatures here on this list!  

- Steve

Hi Owen, 

 

How’s your summer. 

 

I note that not only can glen and company participate in a conversation with me 
that bores the living crap out of you, but they can also participate in a 
conversation with you that bores the living crap out of me.  But I am not 
threatening to pick up my marbles and go home.  

 

I think it’s in the nature of things.  They are multitalented bores.  
Polybores, we might call them.  I guess being a polybore is the other side of 
being a polymath.  

 

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: Tuesday, August 11, 2015 7:41 PM
To: The Friday Morning Applied Complexity Coffee Group  
 
Subject: Re: [FRIAM] [EXTERNAL] Re: unikernels?

 

Thanks! Fascinating.

 

   -- Owen

 

On Tue, Aug 11, 2015 at 4:37 PM, Parks, Raymond 

Re: [FRIAM] Celeste Kidd - How to Know

[uǝlƃ ☣]

Ha!  "There's a fun sub-result, which is, if you have a very deviant concept 
... if you have a very weirdo concept that other people don't share, you're 
actually much more likely to be aware that you have a deviant concept."

At least I *know* I'm a deviant.


On 12/29/19 8:43 AM, Roger Critchlow wrote:
> I thought she was arguing that very mechanisms that google, facebook, 
> twitter, etc. are using right now to engage people's interest online are 
> already engendering and entrenching all sorts of weird beliefs.  6-9 minutes 
> of activated charcoal advocacy videos and you're probably certain that black 
> smoothies are okay, maybe even good for you.  There are no neutral platforms, 
> because the order in which content is presented is never neutral, and it is 
> especially biased if its goal is to keep you clicking.  Whether this allows 
> focused election manipulation seems dubious, but it does allow for thousands 
> of bizarre theories to be injected into the public consciousness at low cost, 
> and some of them even make money.  Hey, some of them, bizarre as they are, 
> might turn out to be correct, not that the platforms have any interest in 
> that aspect, because that wouldn't be neutral.
> [...]

> 
> On Sat, Dec 28, 2019 at 10:23 AM Steven A Smith  > wrote:
> 
> REC -
> 
> Good find!
> 
> I am not closely following the development and results of GAN work, but 
> it seems like this kind of study explicates at least ONE GOOD REASON for 
> worrying about AI changing the nature of the world as we know it (even if it 
> isn't a precise existential threat).   Convolved with Carl's offering around 
> "weaponizing complexity", it feels more and more believable (recursion 
> unintended) that the wielders of strong AI/ML will have the upper hand in any 
> tactical and possibly strategic domain (warfare, public opinion, markets, 
> etc.).   
> [...]
> 
> On 12/27/19 8:21 PM, Roger Critchlow wrote:
>> This talk was mentioned on hacker news this week and inspired my 
>> babbling at Saveur this morning.  
>> https://slideslive.com/38921495/how-to-know.  The talk was delivered at 
>> Neural IPS on December 9 and discusses recent research on how people come to 
>> believe they know something.
>>
>> This paper 
>> https://www.mitpressjournals.org/doi/full/10.1162/opmi_a_00017 describes the 
>> Amazon Mechanical Turk experiment on people becoming certain they understood 
>> the boolean rule they were being taught by examples.

-- 
☣ uǝlƃ


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
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FRIAM-COMIC http://friam-comic.blogspot.com/ by Dr. Strangelove

Re: [FRIAM] A PolyMath by any other name...

[Frank Wimberly]

No I meant Bruce Simon.  He works for a company that makes devices that
treat depression and migraines by stimulating the vagus nerve electrically.

Frsnk

---
Frank Wimberly

My memoir:
https://www.amazon.com/author/frankwimberly

My scientific publications:
https://www.researchgate.net/profile/Frank_Wimberly2

Phone (505) 670-9918

On Mon, Dec 30, 2019, 2:31 PM Steven A Smith  wrote:

> I believe that Bruce (if you mean Sherwood) went AWOL from this list,
> expatriating to WedTech when it was formed (5 or more years ago?), along
> with a few others.  I heard rumors of a contingent getting overly tired of
> our endless philosophical maunderings here, in favor of a more "actionable"
> set of discussions, whether it be CS/Tech details or "good places to
> eat/plumb/roof/get-drunk in Santa Fe", etc.I try to keep my own endless
> blather on esoteric topics on this list rather than our sister WedTech, but
> am not terribly disciplined about such things.   I could be wrong, Bruce
> (and others I assume expatriated) might well be lurking here...
>
> PolyBores R' US!
>
> Bruce, do you receive this list?
>
> ---
> Frank Wimberly
>
> My memoir:
> https://www.amazon.com/author/frankwimberly
>
> My scientific publications:
> https://www.researchgate.net/profile/Frank_Wimberly2
>
> Phone (505) 670-9918
>
> On Mon, Dec 30, 2019, 2:04 PM Roger Critchlow  wrote:
>
>> Okay, resurrecting this four plus year old discussion because it matched
>> a search for vagus.
>>
>> https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC5807379/#B20 reports that
>> electrical stimulation of the outer ear can stimulate the vagus nerve and
>> has positive results for treating depression.  It's hitting a spot that
>> acupuncture uses to treat depression.
>>
>> -- rec --
>>
>> On Thu, Aug 13, 2015 at 11:22 AM Nick Thompson <
>> nickthomp...@earthlink.net> wrote:
>>
>>> Steve,
>>>
>>>
>>>
>>> Thank you for not chastising me, as I surely deserved.  I want to take
>>> this opportunity to renew my apology to the list.
>>>
>>>
>>>
>>> If you asked me to think deeply, I would say that boredom is actually
>>> one of those things that is in the eye of the beholder.  A person who is
>>> bored by a topic is just a person without the resources or energy to find
>>> what is interesting about it.
>>>
>>>
>>>
>>> Obviously I, the pot, who has been known the regale this list with
>>> commentary on Elevated Mixed Layers, should not be calling any pots black.
>>>
>>>
>>>
>>> Thanks, Steve, as always, for your good will.
>>>
>>>
>>>
>>> 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 *Steve
>>> Smith
>>> *Sent:* Tuesday, August 11, 2015 11:36 PM
>>> *To:* The Friday Morning Applied Complexity Coffee Group <
>>> friam@redfish.com>
>>> *Subject:* [FRIAM] A PolyMath by any other name...
>>>
>>>
>>>
>>> Nick!
>>>
>>> I'm surprised *anything* bores the living crap out of you!  I hear tell
>>> of you staring for hours at water swirling down a drain, considering the
>>> philosophical and psychological implications of such,  and even more hours
>>> listening to the squawks of Ravens!
>>>
>>> That said,  I have to say that Marcus' and Glen's conversation here was
>>> far enough above my head that I can't imagine finding the time to noodle
>>> out enough of the reserved lexicon to do more than gape at it awkwardly.
>>>
>>> I have a good friend who is a former AstroPhysicist who has reinvented
>>> himself a few times as a High Performance Simulation Scientist, then
>>> Virtual Reality Researcher, then Nueroscience Researcher.  He is definitely
>>> a PolyBore to anyone without experience or interest in those fields, but
>>> the hoot of it all is that one of his best and oldest collaborators has
>>> stuck with "Applied Math" for 50 years and he calls HIM a "MathHole"...
>>> they are finishing up a multi-year book project on their theory of Neural
>>> Function based in Category Theory.  I suspect even people who
>>> Neurophysiology and Category Theory find them Polybores!
>>>
>>> I do like the duality of PolyMath/PolyBore... we might have more than a
>>> few such creatures here on this list!
>>>
>>> - Steve
>>>
>>> Hi Owen,
>>>
>>>
>>>
>>> How’s your summer.
>>>
>>>
>>>
>>> I note that not only can glen and company participate in a conversation
>>> with me that bores the living crap out of you, but they can also
>>> participate in a conversation with you that bores the living crap out of
>>> me.  But I am not threatening to pick up my marbles and go home.
>>>
>>>
>>>
>>> I think it’s in the nature of things.  They are multitalented bores.
>>> Polybores, we might call them.  I guess being a polybore is the other side
>>> of being a polymath.
>>>
>>>
>>>
>>> Nick
>>>
>>>
>>>
>>> Nicholas S. Thompson
>>>

Re: [FRIAM] A PolyMath by any other name...

[Steven A Smith]

I believe that Bruce (if you mean Sherwood) went AWOL from this list,
expatriating to WedTech when it was formed (5 or more years ago?), along
with a few others.  I heard rumors of a contingent getting overly tired
of our endless philosophical maunderings here, in favor of a more
"actionable" set of discussions, whether it be CS/Tech details or "good
places to eat/plumb/roof/get-drunk in Santa Fe", etc.    I try to keep
my own endless blather on esoteric topics on this list rather than our
sister WedTech, but am not terribly disciplined about such things.   I
could be wrong, Bruce (and others I assume expatriated) might well be
lurking here...  

PolyBores R' US!

> Bruce, do you receive this list?
>
> ---
> Frank Wimberly
>
> My memoir:
> https://www.amazon.com/author/frankwimberly
>
> My scientific publications:
> https://www.researchgate.net/profile/Frank_Wimberly2
>
> Phone (505) 670-9918
>
> On Mon, Dec 30, 2019, 2:04 PM Roger Critchlow  > wrote:
>
> Okay, resurrecting this four plus year old discussion because it
> matched a search for vagus.
>
> https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC5807379/#B20 reports
> that electrical stimulation of the outer ear can stimulate the
> vagus nerve and has positive results for treating depression. 
> It's hitting a spot that acupuncture uses to treat depression.
>
> -- rec --
>
> On Thu, Aug 13, 2015 at 11:22 AM Nick Thompson
> mailto:nickthomp...@earthlink.net>>
> wrote:
>
> Steve,
>
>  
>
> Thank you for not chastising me, as I surely deserved.  I want
> to take this opportunity to renew my apology to the list. 
>
>  
>
> If you asked me to think deeply, I would say that boredom is
> actually one of those things that is in the eye of the
> beholder.  A person who is bored by a topic is just a person
> without the resources or energy to find what is interesting
> about it. 
>
>  
>
> Obviously I, the pot, who has been known the regale this list
> with commentary on Elevated Mixed Layers, should not be
> calling any pots black. 
>
>  
>
> Thanks, Steve, as always, for your good will.
>
>  
>
> 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 *Steve Smith
> *Sent:* Tuesday, August 11, 2015 11:36 PM
> *To:* The Friday Morning Applied Complexity Coffee Group
> mailto:friam@redfish.com>>
> *Subject:* [FRIAM] A PolyMath by any other name...
>
>  
>
> Nick!
>
> I'm surprised *anything* bores the living crap out of you!  I
> hear tell of you staring for hours at water swirling down a
> drain, considering the philosophical and psychological
> implications of such,  and even more hours listening to the
> squawks of Ravens!
>
> That said,  I have to say that Marcus' and Glen's conversation
> here was far enough above my head that I can't imagine finding
> the time to noodle out enough of the reserved lexicon to do
> more than gape at it awkwardly.  
>
> I have a good friend who is a former AstroPhysicist who has
> reinvented himself a few times as a High Performance
> Simulation Scientist, then Virtual Reality Researcher, then
> Nueroscience Researcher.  He is definitely a PolyBore to
> anyone without experience or interest in those fields, but the
> hoot of it all is that one of his best and oldest
> collaborators has stuck with "Applied Math" for 50 years and
> he calls HIM a "MathHole"... they are finishing up a
> multi-year book project on their theory of Neural Function
> based in Category Theory.  I suspect even people who
> Neurophysiology and Category Theory find them Polybores!
>
> I do like the duality of PolyMath/PolyBore... we might have
> more than a few such creatures here on this list! 
>
> - Steve
>
> Hi Owen,
>
>  
>
> How’s your summer.
>
>  
>
> I note that not only can glen and company participate in a
> conversation with me that bores the living crap out of
> you, but they can also participate in a conversation with
> you that bores the living crap out of me.  But I am not
> threatening to pick up my marbles and go home. 
>
>  
>
> I think it’s in the nature of things.  They are
> multitalented bores.  Polybores, we might call them.  I
> guess being a 

Re: [FRIAM] A PolyMath by any other name...

[Marcus Daniels]

https://www.cbsnews.com/news/psychedelic-drugs-lsd-active-agent-in-magic-mushrooms-to-treat-addiction-depression-anxiety-60-minutes-2019-12-29/


From: Friam  on behalf of Roger Critchlow 

Sent: Monday, December 30, 2019 2:04 PM
To: The Friday Morning Applied Complexity Coffee Group 
Subject: Re: [FRIAM] A PolyMath by any other name...

Okay, resurrecting this four plus year old discussion because it matched a 
search for vagus.

https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC5807379/#B20 reports that 
electrical stimulation of the outer ear can stimulate the vagus nerve and has 
positive results for treating depression.  It's hitting a spot that acupuncture 
uses to treat depression.

-- rec --

On Thu, Aug 13, 2015 at 11:22 AM Nick Thompson 
mailto:nickthomp...@earthlink.net>> wrote:

Steve,



Thank you for not chastising me, as I surely deserved.  I want to take this 
opportunity to renew my apology to the list.



If you asked me to think deeply, I would say that boredom is actually one of 
those things that is in the eye of the beholder.  A person who is bored by a 
topic is just a person without the resources or energy to find what is 
interesting about it.



Obviously I, the pot, who has been known the regale this list with commentary 
on Elevated Mixed Layers, should not be calling any pots black.



Thanks, Steve, as always, for your good will.



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 Steve Smith
Sent: Tuesday, August 11, 2015 11:36 PM
To: The Friday Morning Applied Complexity Coffee Group 
mailto:friam@redfish.com>>
Subject: [FRIAM] A PolyMath by any other name...



Nick!

I'm surprised *anything* bores the living crap out of you!  I hear tell of you 
staring for hours at water swirling down a drain, considering the philosophical 
and psychological implications of such,  and even more hours listening to the 
squawks of Ravens!

That said,  I have to say that Marcus' and Glen's conversation here was far 
enough above my head that I can't imagine finding the time to noodle out enough 
of the reserved lexicon to do more than gape at it awkwardly.

I have a good friend who is a former AstroPhysicist who has reinvented himself 
a few times as a High Performance Simulation Scientist, then Virtual Reality 
Researcher, then Nueroscience Researcher.  He is definitely a PolyBore to 
anyone without experience or interest in those fields, but the hoot of it all 
is that one of his best and oldest collaborators has stuck with "Applied Math" 
for 50 years and he calls HIM a "MathHole"... they are finishing up a 
multi-year book project on their theory of Neural Function based in Category 
Theory.  I suspect even people who Neurophysiology and Category Theory find 
them Polybores!

I do like the duality of PolyMath/PolyBore... we might have more than a few 
such creatures here on this list!

- Steve

Hi Owen,



How’s your summer.



I note that not only can glen and company participate in a conversation with me 
that bores the living crap out of you, but they can also participate in a 
conversation with you that bores the living crap out of me.  But I am not 
threatening to pick up my marbles and go home.



I think it’s in the nature of things.  They are multitalented bores.  
Polybores, we might call them.  I guess being a polybore is the other side of 
being a polymath.



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: Tuesday, August 11, 2015 7:41 PM
To: The Friday Morning Applied Complexity Coffee Group 

Subject: Re: [FRIAM] [EXTERNAL] Re: unikernels?



Thanks! Fascinating.



   -- Owen



On Tue, Aug 11, 2015 at 4:37 PM, Parks, Raymond 
mailto:rcpa...@sandia.gov>> wrote:

  The original articles/blogs are from the U of Cambridge Xen folks and a 
somewhat buzzword lovin' sysadmin.  The current trend in using someone else's 
computer (SEC, more commonly called cloud) is LInux containers and docker.  The 
articles predict that the future is unikernels.  A unikernel is application 
specific, like containers, but in the form of a monolithic VM that includes the 
specific application and necessary kernel services for that app.  At least two 
of the current unikernel projects use functional languages - OCaml and Haskell. 
 The Xen model is for a developer to specify the kernel services they need, 
develop the application code, develop the configuration code, and the whole 
thing gets turned into a monolithic VM that runs in the Xen hypervisor.  In 
theory, this makes for greater efficiency and less chance of the tail wagging 
the dog.  By that latter, I mean 

Re: [FRIAM] A PolyMath by any other name...

[Frank Wimberly]

Bruce, do you receive this list?

---
Frank Wimberly

My memoir:
https://www.amazon.com/author/frankwimberly

My scientific publications:
https://www.researchgate.net/profile/Frank_Wimberly2

Phone (505) 670-9918

On Mon, Dec 30, 2019, 2:04 PM Roger Critchlow  wrote:

> Okay, resurrecting this four plus year old discussion because it matched a
> search for vagus.
>
> https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC5807379/#B20 reports that
> electrical stimulation of the outer ear can stimulate the vagus nerve and
> has positive results for treating depression.  It's hitting a spot that
> acupuncture uses to treat depression.
>
> -- rec --
>
> On Thu, Aug 13, 2015 at 11:22 AM Nick Thompson 
> wrote:
>
>> Steve,
>>
>>
>>
>> Thank you for not chastising me, as I surely deserved.  I want to take
>> this opportunity to renew my apology to the list.
>>
>>
>>
>> If you asked me to think deeply, I would say that boredom is actually one
>> of those things that is in the eye of the beholder.  A person who is bored
>> by a topic is just a person without the resources or energy to find what is
>> interesting about it.
>>
>>
>>
>> Obviously I, the pot, who has been known the regale this list with
>> commentary on Elevated Mixed Layers, should not be calling any pots black.
>>
>>
>>
>> Thanks, Steve, as always, for your good will.
>>
>>
>>
>> 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 *Steve
>> Smith
>> *Sent:* Tuesday, August 11, 2015 11:36 PM
>> *To:* The Friday Morning Applied Complexity Coffee Group <
>> friam@redfish.com>
>> *Subject:* [FRIAM] A PolyMath by any other name...
>>
>>
>>
>> Nick!
>>
>> I'm surprised *anything* bores the living crap out of you!  I hear tell
>> of you staring for hours at water swirling down a drain, considering the
>> philosophical and psychological implications of such,  and even more hours
>> listening to the squawks of Ravens!
>>
>> That said,  I have to say that Marcus' and Glen's conversation here was
>> far enough above my head that I can't imagine finding the time to noodle
>> out enough of the reserved lexicon to do more than gape at it awkwardly.
>>
>> I have a good friend who is a former AstroPhysicist who has reinvented
>> himself a few times as a High Performance Simulation Scientist, then
>> Virtual Reality Researcher, then Nueroscience Researcher.  He is definitely
>> a PolyBore to anyone without experience or interest in those fields, but
>> the hoot of it all is that one of his best and oldest collaborators has
>> stuck with "Applied Math" for 50 years and he calls HIM a "MathHole"...
>> they are finishing up a multi-year book project on their theory of Neural
>> Function based in Category Theory.  I suspect even people who
>> Neurophysiology and Category Theory find them Polybores!
>>
>> I do like the duality of PolyMath/PolyBore... we might have more than a
>> few such creatures here on this list!
>>
>> - Steve
>>
>> Hi Owen,
>>
>>
>>
>> How’s your summer.
>>
>>
>>
>> I note that not only can glen and company participate in a conversation
>> with me that bores the living crap out of you, but they can also
>> participate in a conversation with you that bores the living crap out of
>> me.  But I am not threatening to pick up my marbles and go home.
>>
>>
>>
>> I think it’s in the nature of things.  They are multitalented bores.
>> Polybores, we might call them.  I guess being a polybore is the other side
>> of being a polymath.
>>
>>
>>
>> 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:* Tuesday, August 11, 2015 7:41 PM
>> *To:* The Friday Morning Applied Complexity Coffee Group
>>  
>> *Subject:* Re: [FRIAM] [EXTERNAL] Re: unikernels?
>>
>>
>>
>> Thanks! Fascinating.
>>
>>
>>
>>-- Owen
>>
>>
>>
>> On Tue, Aug 11, 2015 at 4:37 PM, Parks, Raymond 
>> wrote:
>>
>>   The original articles/blogs are from the U of Cambridge Xen folks and a
>> somewhat buzzword lovin' sysadmin.  The current trend in using someone
>> else's computer (SEC, more commonly called cloud) is LInux containers and
>> docker.  The articles predict that the future is unikernels.  A unikernel
>> is application specific, like containers, but in the form of a monolithic
>> VM that includes the specific application and necessary kernel services for
>> that app.  At least two of the current unikernel projects use functional
>> languages - OCaml and Haskell.  The Xen model is for a developer to specify
>> the kernel services they need, develop the application code, develop the
>> configuration code, and the whole thing gets turned into a monolithic 

Re: [FRIAM] A PolyMath by any other name...

[Roger Critchlow]

Okay, resurrecting this four plus year old discussion because it matched a
search for vagus.

https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC5807379/#B20 reports that
electrical stimulation of the outer ear can stimulate the vagus nerve and
has positive results for treating depression.  It's hitting a spot that
acupuncture uses to treat depression.

-- rec --

On Thu, Aug 13, 2015 at 11:22 AM Nick Thompson 
wrote:

> Steve,
>
>
>
> Thank you for not chastising me, as I surely deserved.  I want to take
> this opportunity to renew my apology to the list.
>
>
>
> If you asked me to think deeply, I would say that boredom is actually one
> of those things that is in the eye of the beholder.  A person who is bored
> by a topic is just a person without the resources or energy to find what is
> interesting about it.
>
>
>
> Obviously I, the pot, who has been known the regale this list with
> commentary on Elevated Mixed Layers, should not be calling any pots black.
>
>
>
> Thanks, Steve, as always, for your good will.
>
>
>
> 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 *Steve
> Smith
> *Sent:* Tuesday, August 11, 2015 11:36 PM
> *To:* The Friday Morning Applied Complexity Coffee Group <
> friam@redfish.com>
> *Subject:* [FRIAM] A PolyMath by any other name...
>
>
>
> Nick!
>
> I'm surprised *anything* bores the living crap out of you!  I hear tell of
> you staring for hours at water swirling down a drain, considering the
> philosophical and psychological implications of such,  and even more hours
> listening to the squawks of Ravens!
>
> That said,  I have to say that Marcus' and Glen's conversation here was
> far enough above my head that I can't imagine finding the time to noodle
> out enough of the reserved lexicon to do more than gape at it awkwardly.
>
> I have a good friend who is a former AstroPhysicist who has reinvented
> himself a few times as a High Performance Simulation Scientist, then
> Virtual Reality Researcher, then Nueroscience Researcher.  He is definitely
> a PolyBore to anyone without experience or interest in those fields, but
> the hoot of it all is that one of his best and oldest collaborators has
> stuck with "Applied Math" for 50 years and he calls HIM a "MathHole"...
> they are finishing up a multi-year book project on their theory of Neural
> Function based in Category Theory.  I suspect even people who
> Neurophysiology and Category Theory find them Polybores!
>
> I do like the duality of PolyMath/PolyBore... we might have more than a
> few such creatures here on this list!
>
> - Steve
>
> Hi Owen,
>
>
>
> How’s your summer.
>
>
>
> I note that not only can glen and company participate in a conversation
> with me that bores the living crap out of you, but they can also
> participate in a conversation with you that bores the living crap out of
> me.  But I am not threatening to pick up my marbles and go home.
>
>
>
> I think it’s in the nature of things.  They are multitalented bores.
> Polybores, we might call them.  I guess being a polybore is the other side
> of being a polymath.
>
>
>
> 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:* Tuesday, August 11, 2015 7:41 PM
> *To:* The Friday Morning Applied Complexity Coffee Group
>  
> *Subject:* Re: [FRIAM] [EXTERNAL] Re: unikernels?
>
>
>
> Thanks! Fascinating.
>
>
>
>-- Owen
>
>
>
> On Tue, Aug 11, 2015 at 4:37 PM, Parks, Raymond 
> wrote:
>
>   The original articles/blogs are from the U of Cambridge Xen folks and a
> somewhat buzzword lovin' sysadmin.  The current trend in using someone
> else's computer (SEC, more commonly called cloud) is LInux containers and
> docker.  The articles predict that the future is unikernels.  A unikernel
> is application specific, like containers, but in the form of a monolithic
> VM that includes the specific application and necessary kernel services for
> that app.  At least two of the current unikernel projects use functional
> languages - OCaml and Haskell.  The Xen model is for a developer to specify
> the kernel services they need, develop the application code, develop the
> configuration code, and the whole thing gets turned into a monolithic VM
> that runs in the Xen hypervisor.  In theory, this makes for greater
> efficiency and less chance of the tail wagging the dog.  By that latter, I
> mean that one of the major issues in securing computer systems of systems
> is that one gets all of a system one includes (i.e DNS Bind) even though
> one uses one small feature.   That means all of the vulnerabilities as well
> as all the features that are not used.
>
>
>
>   As I said in a previous post, 

Re: [FRIAM] postmodern methods

[Frank Wimberly]

For what it's worth, Cosma Shalizi once wrote in a paper, "Wimberly et al.
raise an important issue...", which had to do with lack of sychronization
of cells in a sample when trying to apply algorithms to infer genetic
regulatory net works.

As for whether science offers a monolithic royal road to the truth:  I
earned an MS in psychology during  the confusion of my youth and I've
studied enough physics (e.g. Symon) to realize that those two disciplines
share very little methodologically.

Frank

---
Frank Wimberly

My memoir:
https://www.amazon.com/author/frankwimberly

My scientific publications:
https://www.researchgate.net/profile/Frank_Wimberly2

Phone (505) 670-9918

On Mon, Dec 30, 2019, 11:36 AM uǝlƃ ☣  wrote:

> Because I failed to precisely satisfy what I inferred from EricS's post
> [†], I've engaged in a little self-criticism regarding what I thought when
> Dave wrote the phrase "postmodern methods". My intro to postmodernism was
> from Umberto Eco, who circumscribed postmodernism nicely in the following 2
> links:
>
>
> https://alittlefish.wordpress.com/2008/03/03/umberto-ecos-definition-of-postmodernism/
>
> https://artsfuse.org/141261/fuse-interview-a-talk-about-postmodernism-with-umberto-eco/
>
> Then Feyerabend's Against Method convinced me that any claims to Truth are
> suspicious at best. Further, any claims to any kind of One True Method are
> similarly suspicious. (We all know there is no The Scientific Method... but
> we can't help our tendency to Grand Unified Models and even the best of us
> slip and refer to science as if it has a singular method.)
>
> In any case, I came across this document (preserved by our friend Cosma
> [‡]):
>
>   http://bactra.org/chomsky-on-postmodernism.html
>
> And I find myself in complete agreement with Chomsky's distrust ... but
> not his dismissive stance, assuming it really is written by him. It seems
> like much of his complaint could be mitigated if we think of
> post[modern|structural] hooha as "method" instead of "theory" or
> "philosophy". *That's* what was triggered in my head when Dave wrote
> "postmodern methods". I then traded "method" for "analytics" in classifying
> world-interaction as power vs. truth analytics. Subconsciously, I think I
> can't/shouldn't call what little I know of post[modern|structural] ways of
> cutting up the world as "method" at all. (Though this book <
> https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/14618961-the-transformative-humanities>
> challenges that conclusion to an extent, in spite of Epstein's apparent
> disappointment with postmodernism.)
>
> So, y'all have, again, helped me be a little more judicious with my
> language. Thanks very much! And Happy New Year!
>
>
>
> [†] A plea for (some, any hint of a) constructive/generative and scalably
> testable framework for interacting with the world, put forth by a
> *postmodernist* pragmatist. If it wasn't clear, Rescher's *not* a
> postmodernist.
>
> [‡] Cosma's got a *lot* of content related to postmodernism. I'm not smart
> enough to parse out just *how* disapproving he is of it all, though. 8^)
> Maybe he's mostly rubber-necking. It's difficult to pull your eyes off
> horrible catastrophe.
>
> --
> ☣ uǝlƃ
>
> 
> 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
> archives back to 2003: http://friam.471366.n2.nabble.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
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FRIAM-COMIC http://friam-comic.blogspot.com/ by Dr. Strangelove

[FRIAM] postmodern methods

[uǝlƃ ☣]

Because I failed to precisely satisfy what I inferred from EricS's post [†], 
I've engaged in a little self-criticism regarding what I thought when Dave 
wrote the phrase "postmodern methods". My intro to postmodernism was from 
Umberto Eco, who circumscribed postmodernism nicely in the following 2 links:

  
https://alittlefish.wordpress.com/2008/03/03/umberto-ecos-definition-of-postmodernism/
  
https://artsfuse.org/141261/fuse-interview-a-talk-about-postmodernism-with-umberto-eco/

Then Feyerabend's Against Method convinced me that any claims to Truth are 
suspicious at best. Further, any claims to any kind of One True Method are 
similarly suspicious. (We all know there is no The Scientific Method... but we 
can't help our tendency to Grand Unified Models and even the best of us slip 
and refer to science as if it has a singular method.)

In any case, I came across this document (preserved by our friend Cosma [‡]):

  http://bactra.org/chomsky-on-postmodernism.html

And I find myself in complete agreement with Chomsky's distrust ... but not his 
dismissive stance, assuming it really is written by him. It seems like much of 
his complaint could be mitigated if we think of post[modern|structural] hooha 
as "method" instead of "theory" or "philosophy". *That's* what was triggered in 
my head when Dave wrote "postmodern methods". I then traded "method" for 
"analytics" in classifying world-interaction as power vs. truth analytics. 
Subconsciously, I think I can't/shouldn't call what little I know of 
post[modern|structural] ways of cutting up the world as "method" at all. 
(Though this book 
 
challenges that conclusion to an extent, in spite of Epstein's apparent 
disappointment with postmodernism.)

So, y'all have, again, helped me be a little more judicious with my language. 
Thanks very much! And Happy New Year!



[†] A plea for (some, any hint of a) constructive/generative and scalably 
testable framework for interacting with the world, put forth by a 
*postmodernist* pragmatist. If it wasn't clear, Rescher's *not* a postmodernist.

[‡] Cosma's got a *lot* of content related to postmodernism. I'm not smart 
enough to parse out just *how* disapproving he is of it all, though. 8^) Maybe 
he's mostly rubber-necking. It's difficult to pull your eyes off horrible 
catastrophe.

-- 
☣ uǝlƃ


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
archives back to 2003: http://friam.471366.n2.nabble.com/
FRIAM-COMIC http://friam-comic.blogspot.com/ by Dr. Strangelove