Re: [FRIAM] Questions, rants and Raves...

[Vladimyr Burachynsky]

Gillian,

 

I recently started to use Processing 3.0.2  but not js only .pde as from 
Processing.org. The download was free

and a little quirky to set up but seems to work and you can download working  
source code from

Open Processing. Much that gets you up to speed quickly. I did notice some 
extremely compact code coming from gamers with some strange clever graphics 
from Europe. I also spend much time trying to build a website focusing on 
robotics and quirky stuff

using Wordpress. That may have been too much at once since I also forced myself 
to adopt Scripting to handle video or movie shorts.

 

https://processing.org/download/

https://www.openprocessing.org/

 

Most of the difficulty starts when trying to negotiate various sites for 
libraries to support building programs.

Github etc. 

Feel free to ask if you need help. I was never specifically a programmer but 
started so far back that it sometimes feels like Unix or C++ that does help me 
but might not help you any.

 

I admit that most code used and presented on Open Processing is written for web 
sites. 

The Graphics are great using OpenGL libraries natively, but awkward at times.

 

My goal is to develop multi-body animations to attract science minded users so 
now I feel like an old man trying to keep up with kids from modern Graphic 
Design Schools.  For some time I was confused by the js sites

which purport to allow web users to interact with web animations but mine are 
always too large to function this way so I stick to passive viewing… for now.

 

I used Mathematical Programming to model machine motion paths for robots but 
was trapped on my local machine with few viewers. I guess this is what “coming 
out of the closet feels like”

 

You are the first writer to openly ask such questions by my recollection. If 
the thread objects mail me directly if you can do so.

 

It is fun and sometimes aggravating even hair pulling.

vib

From: Friam [mailto:friam-boun...@redfish.com] On Behalf Of Gillian Densmore
Sent: March-05-17 11:10 AM
To: The Friday Morning Applied Complexity Coffee Group
Subject: [FRIAM] Questions, rants and Raves...

 

+Rant+

By Odins Mead! Dalight Savings stuff! ARG!!

I PERSONALLY like having the clock set suck that it's  a bit  more suny out can 
we not agree to regularly tweak clocks a little through out the year to 
Maximize Sun?

 

+Rave+

Processing

While brushing up on some tech skills as...why not?  Mostly do it as a hobby 
for my hobbya  just for fun blog I have set up.

 

I found the set up on Code Academy nice to use. leading to a question:

 

QUESTION:

I have Windows10 (Came with the computer).

-Any sage opinions on Processing for JavaScript?

The metod to my madness is looking for a small (FUN?) animations(?) to have a 
fun way to keep my tech skills upto date.

 

By all meens feel free to sugest other tools. 

 

The reason I started looking is I keep finding myself geeking out and then 
being frustrated with not be able to do X with my blog, and generally just 
wanting to be have a fun simple way to do things It's just a hobby for now, but 
more knowledge and able to use tools can never hurt.

 

Basically many novice guides sugest using ProcessingJS and I seem to rember 
many MANY rants and raves about that on this and the WedTech list, and are 
skeptical it's gotten better.

 

My real goals are: 

-Have FUN  first.

-Keep having fun keeping up tech skills on playground. Doing goofy FUN things. 

 

-iIf possible set up two playgrounds on my Sandbox10, my new blog  such that I 
can have fun building things or tinkering.

Any opinions for what languages and tools would be fun to do that with?

I've had an enormous amount of fun with python through CodeCombat. But as far 
as I know their's not a python for the Web, unless either Bruce or Ruth know 
better?

 

I some how picturing in my head a set up like this for example

Two sandbox or playround type places on the site so that when/if things go 
screw no big deal.

One might be for Text stuff starting the classic Greeting, and see if the 
doodads work.

 

The other for projects starting simple (and again FUN) working my way up. For 
example one page:Can I get a picture of a cat and a beer mug to show up?

And work my up to more fancy complicated things.

 

 I'd really like to try making a relatively simple game eventually. Like a 
StarShip shooting invaders or blocks kind of thing but first steps first!

 

 

I will not be offended if:

-Wrong list dude! Try WedTech!

-What..I'm confused? what do want to do? 

 

 

-


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Meets Fridays 9a-11:30 at cafe at St. John's College
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Re: [FRIAM] IS: Rhetoric in scientific arguments WAS: FW: Fractal discussion Landscape-bird songs

[Vladimyr Burachynsky]

Glen ,

I had a favorite student once that I favored and
explained this business like selling fast- food...

Give the managers and accountants what they want.
vib
Is that with or without mayo sir?


-Original Message-
From: Friam [mailto:friam-boun...@redfish.com] On Behalf Of glen ?
Sent: March-03-17 11:50 AM
To: The Friday Morning Applied Complexity Coffee Group
Subject: Re: [FRIAM] IS: Rhetoric in scientific arguments WAS: FW: Fractal 
discussion Landscape-bird songs


This one too ... though for some reason I thought someone had already posted it.

Incentive Malus
http://www.economist.com/news/science-and-technology/21707513-poor-scientific-methods-may-be-hereditary-incentive-malus


On 03/03/2017 09:37 AM, Roger Critchlow wrote:
> The article referenced in that blog post turns out to be open access 
> and pretty pertinent, too.
> 
>   http://rsos.royalsocietypublishing.org/content/3/9/160384
> 
> The natural selection of bad science, Paul E. Smaldino, Richard 
> McElreath,
> 
> -- rec --
> 
> On Fri, Mar 3, 2017 at 12:25 PM, Roger Critchlow  wrote:
> 
>> Here's a spin on Eric's question about how is trusting a scientist 
>> different from trusting an authority or a scholar.
>>
>>  http://sometimesimwrong.typepad.com/wrong/2017/03/
>> looking-under-the-hood.html
>>
>> concludes
>>
>> but, you might say, scientists *are *more trustworthy than used car
>>> dealers!  sure,** but we are also supposed to be more committed 
>>> to transparency.  indeed, transparency is a hallmark of science - 
>>> it's basically what makes science different from other ways of 
>>> knowing (e.g., authority, intuition, etc.).  in other words, it's 
>>> what makes us better than used car dealers.
>>
>>
>> The proposal is that authors of papers need to share more about the 
>> context of the paper so journals and readers get stuck with fewer lemons.

--
☣ glen


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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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Re: [FRIAM] IS: Rhetoric in scientific arguments WAS: FW: Fractal discussion Landscape-bird songs

[Vladimyr Burachynsky]

Eric,

 

I doubt an idea before I ever apply for a grant. Then I deceptively claim to be 
trying to replicate an authorities claims. But the devil within me recalls that 
at least once maybe more often , I have noticed

that the authority’s prediction failed. That knowledge is my group’s secret 
until publication. Then it becomes everyone’s knowledge.

 

I have in my memory a perfect “Black Swan” event. I suppose that I have more 
faith in water birds than in statisticians. Perhaps we often hide behind 
obscure math to shield our superstitious insights.

Some times using the math first reveals an outcome that is used as a gloss to 
hide the unknown. For instance the Griffith’s Crack Theory  widely held in 
Classic Mechanics. Exactly what is the use of a singularity zone

when a crack propagates in wild directions? The material does not use it but 
then at that scale the material uses Quantum Mechanics but the engineer favours 
The Classic Mechanics. So indeed certain materials do emit light

from crack tips. At the edges of any discipline anomalies will define limits or 
boundaries for paradigms. Without doubt and secret devilish memories Science 
would not evolve so quickly.

 

At this point I am reminded of an eminent chemist , Polanyi? who received the 
Nobel Prize and afterward became a philosopher who suspected something like 
superstition, drives many scientists much like

Isaac Newton.

I think as civilized people we prefer to stick with conduct rules knowing 
perfectly well how to violate them and the consequences of doing so. 

vib

I guess we should never believe the whole of PR.

 

From: Friam [mailto:friam-boun...@redfish.com] On Behalf Of Eric Charles
Sent: March-02-17 1:04 PM
To: The Friday Morning Applied Complexity Coffee Group
Subject: Re: [FRIAM] IS: Rhetoric in scientific arguments WAS: FW: Fractal 
discussion Landscape-bird songs

 

Glen, 

To "Peirce-up" the discussion of doubt a touch. To doubt something is to be 
unable to act as-if-it-were-true without reservation. So, for example, you do 
not doubt Newtonian mechanics under a wide range of conditions (you are willing 
to act as if it is true under many circumstances), however, there are 
conditions under which you would be nervous acting as if they were true. Your 
doubt is not absolute, and the "caveats" you refer to, could be expressed as a 
description of the circumstances under which you start to get nervous. 

 

Your description of replication is good, but non-typical (particularly among 
the chemists, which are Peirce's favorite scientist). We now think of 
replication as part of the falsification process, but that is actually a weird 
way to think about (a symptom of the degenerate state of many current fields). 
The most natural reasons to replicate a research report is a) because the 
outcome is itself useful or b) because you intend to build upon it. For 
example, if someone publishes a novel synthesis for artificial rubber, I would 
probably try to replicate it because I need artificial rubber, or because I 
intended to start with that artificial rubber and try to synthesize something 
new. Under those conditions, anyone trying to replicate would be very 
frustrated by a failure (given some tolerance for first attempts). 

 

Nick, 

I think Glen is prodding, in his second part at an extremely important point, 
and one that I have been wrestling with quite a bit lately. It is quite unclear 
why "trusting the work of other scientists" - as currently practiced - is not 
simply another deference to authority. The current resurgence of assertions 
that people shouldn't argue with scientists (e.g., that we should care what an 
astrophysicists thinks about vaccines, or what a geneticist thinks about 
psychology) is bad, and "science-skeptics" are not wrong when they attach a 
negative valence to such examples. Let us ignore those flagrant examples, 
however. How do I determine how much weight to give to a report in a "top 
journal" in psychology? Does it matter that I know full well most articles in 
top journals turn out to have problems (as flashy reports of unexpected results 
are prone to do)? And if I am suspicious of that, what do I make of the opinion 
of a Harvard full professor of psychology vs. a bartender who has been helping 
people with their problem for 5 decades? Etc. etc. etc. I think there is a very 
deep issue here, which I'm not sure I've ever seen explained well. I think, in 
part, it is a challenge that was not as prevalent even 50 years ago, but that 
may just be imagined nostalgia. 

 

 

 

 

 





---
Eric P. Charles, Ph.D.
Supervisory Survey Statistician

U.S. Marine Corps

 

On Wed, Mar 1, 2017 at 4:13 PM, glen ☣  wrote:


Heh, your lack of social salve has left me unclear on whether I should respond 
or which parts to respond to. >8^D  So, I'll just respond to what I think is 
the most important point.

>  That implies that what you say below supports 

Re: [FRIAM] Fractal discussion Landscape-bird songs

[Vladimyr Burachynsky]

I am attached to the thread’s name. It strikes me as so outlandish that it 
deserves attention.

 

On the speculated history of song-birds was a recent paper suggesting most if 
not all songbirds

appear to have had a singular ancestry from SE Asia or Australasia.

 

If you seek to embellish the voice of sauropods with something more familiar to 
modern ears try

cranes and herons. Melodic voices do seem to belong to Songbirds and not the 
aquatic residents.

 

You guys are looking for fractals and stepping over more obvious solutions. 
Just prune the branches not the entire forest of mathematics.

Any bird has only so much lung capacity

so every utterance is limited to that volume and it must be forcibly discharged 
to create an audible  wave.  To be detectable by the intended target that sound 
must fall into a range of frequency and

volume within the recipient’s capabilities. If the bird is unable to produce 
syrinx based sounds then it must devise an alternative like ruffed grouse or 
prairie chickens. They basically seem to

beat the crap out of their chests and can sound like English motorcycles for 
brief moments.

So let’s break away from some rather extreme avians from the Melodic Songsters 
of Poetry.

 

Did not the Audubon Society have a library of Bird vocalizations, at one time. 

By the way Frisch did this sort of thinking with Honey Bee Waggle Dances and 
paper and pencil.

As a student I had to read his work and found that the bees could sense extra 
dimensions which could include even more information, vibration and scent.

Glad you  are all back in a constructive mode. 

Suppose graphics of birdsongs could be transformed by functions from one 
species within a family to another to examine the environmental challenges that 
a species contends with

say Mountain species compared to Plains species. 

Nick, I must bow to your wisdom and tip my hat.

vib

oh, Jon I saw you code site and will try and recompile/run it in Maple or 
Processing since I am familiar with those  two.

Some days are harder than others while pulling a barge upstream.

Anyone recall any barge songs.

vib

 

From: Friam [mailto:friam-bounces

@redfish.com] On Behalf Of Jon Zingale
Sent: February-28-17 4:22 PM
To: friam@redfish.com
Subject: Re: [FRIAM] Fractal discussion Landscape-bird songs

 

Nick,

 

Well one way we may be able to understand

birdsong as fractal might be by studying the

underlying mechanism of the syrinx 
 . I can 

imagine this section of the birds trachea as a coupled

oscillator, that when driven far from equilibrium

could give way to trajectories along a strange

attractor (which would be fractal). In an attempt

to think about recovering the attractor from the

time-series of the bird song, I ran across Takens'

theorem last night. Then later last night (I couldn't

sleep) I coded up an example of Takens' theorem

in RubyProcessing 

 . What is amazing about this

theorem is that it suggests how to build a low-

dimensional manifold from a single dimensional

time-series! So freaking cool. As a test case, I

coded up the Lorenz equations and plotted the

manifold. Then I calculated just the time series

for the x dimension. Lastly, I reconstructed the

entire manifold (topologically) from just this one

coordinate! Included below is a screenshot of

the visualizer. It is actually more fun to watch in

motion, but the picture is telling in itself.

 

Jon

 


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Re: [FRIAM] FW: Fractal discussion Landscape-bird songs

[Vladimyr Burachynsky]

Nick,
Thank-you and let's talk about the birds in their complex landscape. Are they 
hatched with the neural equipment to sing... or do they discriminate their most 
ideal voices from the orchestra, only after learning their father's voice?

Do they mimic the Caruso's among themselves and regale these stars with more  
favorable advances

that leaves a large problem ... to sing in perfect mimicry  they would only 
confuse eachother and throw flowers at the wrong feet.

So as the birds can distinguish each other so we can distinguish opera stars. 
Does the Fractal component hide a unique cipher code?
Is it audibly detectable at great distance.
I am not much of a bird watcher anymore but can recall a few voices;  Ravens, 
Jays, Larks, Poor-wills/snipes? , Herons,Loons, ... That's a surprise I recall 
more than I thought at first. Not a very melodious group upon reflection, 
ah...If I close my eyes and concentrate they come alive again.

Only the crow  family in my experience tries to imitate other voices. Indeed I 
used to charm Ravens with my mimicry while working in the far north. I recall 
someone stating that Ravens could imitate the sound of a Honda Generator. But I 
can attest that they can change sounds as if they were speaking and the glass 
bell clang usually gets their attention. Crows do not like it so much since 
they fear Ravens. I suspect wolves understand some Raven calls. Just a northern 
perspective of mine.

I think the thread has merits and hope not to have caused anyone to spill a 
drink.
vib 

-Original Message-
From: Friam [mailto:friam-boun...@redfish.com] On Behalf Of Nick Thompson
Sent: February-25-17 12:56 AM
To: 'The Friday Morning Applied Complexity Coffee Group'
Subject: Re: [FRIAM] FW: Fractal discussion Landscape-bird songs

Speaking for the audience ... 

Or at least one member, thereof.   I have not understood a word any of you guys 
have said since I introduced the thread a week or so ago.  That's Ok.  That's 
great, in fact.  It's the nature of the FRIAM beast.  I love it when you 
experts go crazy on this list.

So long as you go NICE crazy.   If you are going to get grumpy, you can't do it 
on my thread.Ok? 

A point of this thread was to introduce  Alberto to FRIAM.  He should know we 
don't DO grumpy, here. (We really don't, A.)  No apologies necessary.   Just 
stop. 

As a fellow madman, I love you like brothers.  

Thanks, 

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 Vladimyr Burachynsky
Sent: Friday, February 24, 2017 7:49 PM
To: 'The Friday Morning Applied Complexity Coffee Group' <friam@redfish.com>
Subject: Re: [FRIAM] FW: Fractal discussion Landscape-bird songs

Gentlemen and audience,

The tempest ( Glen) and the captain of a small vessel (Robert) lashed to the 
mast. Are not in any form of disagreement by their own admissions.
OK, from my vantage point in the cold inhospitable North Lands , I sense a 
salient exchange of cannon fire.

Let's look at events Robert Wall introduced a novel idea Flow affecting 
individuals.
Vladimyr suggested that the description of Flow might be extended to Society or 
Social Groups. And that multiple low dimensional view points could recover 
higher dimensional realities.

Glen strongly protests this assertion.
Robert got backhanded when Glen denied that  Flow could be extended from the 
original individual to a group of individuals. I don't think Robert knew it was 
coming. If I am asked to judge this I will accuse Vladimyr of Meddling give 
points to Glen and a yellow flag for bending the rules of discourse. The two 
remain at the same point score and Vladimyr was told to leave the arena or shut 
up and just watch.
So complying with the judges warning...

he goes into the recesses of the internet and presents a coup against one of 
Glen's points about low and high dimensionality. 
This was a past attempt to compile two or more complex ideas into his personal 
self study device having no external value until Glen's position was declared.
https://1drv.ms/v/s!AjdC7pqwzaUUkxz3QBcDOoGZ2Lop
https://onedrive.live.com/?cid=14A5CDB09AEE4237=14A5CDB09AEE4237%212460=14A5CDB09AEE4237%212223=OneUp
both links to same site. It demonstrates Geometric Projection as a tool 
developed by early Renaissance Artists.


Next Vladimyr will demonstrate a complex system reduced to a lower dimension 
raising a point suggesting that complex ideas may be reduced to simple but 
dynamic neural structures and shared with other minds as memes.
https://onedrive.live.com/?cid=14A5CDB09AEE4237=14A5CDB09AEE4237%212236=14A5CDB09AEE4237%212223=OneUp
https://1drv.ms/v/s!AjdC7pqwzaUUkTzqvvk6JnRRFJX2
again both links to same display.
Vladimyr is trying to demonstrate the imminent feasibility of mapping complex 
ideas from higher dimensions  into lower dime

Re: [FRIAM] FW: Fractal discussion Landscape-bird songs

[Vladimyr Burachynsky]

Gentlemen and audience,

The tempest ( Glen) and the captain of a small vessel (Robert) lashed to the 
mast. Are not in any form of disagreement by their own admissions.
OK, from my vantage point in the cold inhospitable North Lands , I sense a 
salient exchange of cannon fire.

Let's look at events Robert Wall introduced a novel idea Flow affecting 
individuals.
Vladimyr suggested that the description of Flow might be extended to Society or 
Social Groups. And that multiple low dimensional view points could recover 
higher dimensional realities.

Glen strongly protests this assertion.
Robert got backhanded when Glen denied that  Flow could be extended from the 
original individual to a group of individuals. I don't think Robert knew it was 
coming. If I am asked to judge this I will 
accuse Vladimyr of Meddling give points to Glen and a yellow flag for bending 
the rules of discourse. The two remain at the same point score and Vladimyr was 
told to leave the arena or shut up and just watch.
So complying with the judges warning...

he goes into the recesses of the internet and presents a coup against one of 
Glen's points about low and high dimensionality. 
This was a past attempt to compile two or more complex ideas into his personal 
self study device having no external value until Glen's position was declared.
https://1drv.ms/v/s!AjdC7pqwzaUUkxz3QBcDOoGZ2Lop
https://onedrive.live.com/?cid=14A5CDB09AEE4237=14A5CDB09AEE4237%212460=14A5CDB09AEE4237%212223=OneUp
both links to same site. It demonstrates Geometric Projection as a tool 
developed by early Renaissance Artists.


Next Vladimyr will demonstrate a complex system reduced to a lower dimension 
raising a point suggesting that complex ideas may be reduced to simple but 
dynamic neural structures and shared with other minds as memes.
https://onedrive.live.com/?cid=14A5CDB09AEE4237=14A5CDB09AEE4237%212236=14A5CDB09AEE4237%212223=OneUp
https://1drv.ms/v/s!AjdC7pqwzaUUkTzqvvk6JnRRFJX2
again both links to same display.
Vladimyr is trying to demonstrate the imminent feasibility of mapping complex 
ideas from higher dimensions  into lower dimensions that all humans do daily.
This process of mapping to neural networks is a new area of science. Currently 
being investigated by Dr. Kate Jeffery here is an essay from Aeon
https://aeon.co/essays/how-cognitive-maps-help-animals-navigate-the-world?utm_source=Aeon+Newsletter_campaign=6652cf6dd1-EMAIL_CAMPAIGN_2017_01_25_medium=email_term=0_411a82e59d-6652cf6dd1-69341065

So complexity can be represented in lower dimensions as human beings do so all 
the time. Maps from lower dimensions can be re-constructed to display higher 
dimensionality admittedly subject to losses known or unknown depending on 
protocol.  Back and forth.
But Glen and all of us now must shift discussion to protocols and measures of 
veracity.

So where does this leave Robert Wall, relax sir , you may feel blasted but you 
are in a congregation and Flow is a useful symbol but needs more deliberation.
I have read your links for hours and rankle at the looseness of the pertinent 
details I wish for more at a neurological level. 
And just what does a detachment from moral restrictions mean when like many 
misanthropes ,  I think they never existed in the first place.

Perhaps society shapes our young brains and only the obstreperous, 
misanthropic, autotelic, defiant bewhiskered cranks  act as contradictory 
forces. Are we contributing to a renormalization of society? or simply amusing 
ourselves in our twilight years.
the next Bell clang starts a new round of intellectual pugilism 
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Russian_boxing
Well Robert do you actually think the Flow is always positive, melodious or 
beneficent...
Joy has taken on a kind of Christian mantle and now dissociates itself from the 
Joys of victory or triumph. I recall Obama's announcement of bin Laden's 
assassination and the explosion of unrestrained American Joy

Flow is probably best described with multiple orders of derivatives within the 
human minds. Let's work on this .



vib


-Original Message-
From: Friam [mailto:friam-boun...@redfish.com] On Behalf Of glen ?
Sent: February-24-17 4:48 PM
To: The Friday Morning Applied Complexity Coffee Group
Subject: Re: [FRIAM] FW: Fractal discussion Landscape-bird songs


OK.  Yes, thanks, that helps.  But I do think you disagree with me, only I may 
not have made myself clear enough for you to realize we disagree.  I'll 
interleave in the hopes of making my objections in context.

On 02/24/2017 01:44 PM, Robert Wall wrote:
> The last quote, to me, says that a group acting toward a common goal in, say 
> the way an individual in that group would, does *not *imply that the 
> "symbolic references" used to act rationaly in the world are all in align or 
> even perhaps in synchopation under an fMRI. YES! I can agree with this. And I 
> don't think that I disagreed.

But that's not what I'm saying.  Perhaps you're making what I'm 

Re: [FRIAM] FW: Fractal discussion Landscape-bird songs

[Vladimyr Burachynsky]

Glen,

I think Robert Wall is nudging close to an idea that he failed to adequately 
clarify but you may have nailed it while trying to deny it (this I call a 
backhanded strike). Last week there was a strange article about groups of 
people having the same memory that have no contact with each other. That shared 
memory was in fact  demonstrably false. It was regarding a misperceived memory 
of a TV show called Shazaam and some comedian called Sinbad... My mind retains 
utter garbage sometimes.

I never saw it but then it never actually happened. The investigators explained 
that so many of the false memory components overlapped reality
that the subjects truly believed some occurrence that was categorically 
disproved. So a society may well share memories of fictional events and act on 
delusions ie mobs.

If an individual may fall into a groove then how else can mass insanity be 
better explained. I always recall that in history strange things happen on mass 
scale. For instance during the heated animosity between the Greeks and Latins a 
feud broke out over religious icons. West was Iconophilic and the east was 
Iconoclastic. The Latins were so pissed they assembled an armada in Rimini or 
Ravenna and sailed this monstrosity down the Adriatic to defend the faith. 
Somewhere between Brindisi and Corfu the greatest historical storm destroyed 
the entire fleet of ships sparing Byzantium a certain defeat. So Leo made a few 
compromises and things sort of settled down but then another group of serious 
iconoclasts  made trouble the Paulicians. Then the Muslims came along and the 
world is still fractured in many ways. It always struck me as the height of 
insanity to go to war over Symbols and I think Monty Python once made a skit 
out of crusaders and muslims beating the crap out of each other with religious 
banners and gilded reliquaries. While the armed knights and Saracens looked on 
in amazement. Whether this ever happened , I do not know, but can guess. 
Perhaps " the groove" has a darkside a suicidal aspect, such as the Battle of 
Gallipoli, as well as the neutral individual features we love to discuss openly.

I always suspected that Hatred is transmitted from mothers to children as is 
influenza propagation. I recall some very strange conversations between my 
German Mother and Ukrainian Aunt that bordered on the rabid hatred of mad dogs. 
Then they just continued serving Christmas dinner in total silence,  when the 
men returned to the dinner table. My Uncle a  devout Catholic and former 
Ukrainian Cavalry Officer would think nothing of Beheading Russians long after 
he was defeated in the 1920's. Indeed he was otherwise a rational Civil 
Engineer with a penchant for Botany but he hated anything that sounded 
affiliated with Russia or Eastern Orthodoxy. I could never tell the difference 
except for the slanted foot support on the crucifix. Hardly enough reason for 
bloodshed.

But Dylan Rouffe and Alexandre Bisonette slaughtered  defenseless congregations 
and showed no shame nor regret. They may be said to have been proud  of what 
they did. Anders Brevijk may well have been in a dark trench at the time of his 
methodical depredations of children, again no shame. No one mentions that that 
slaughter by a single man exceeded anything in the Old Testament perhaps a 
Cuiness World Record. Populism may well be a filthy outpouring of bottled up 
hatred. And the perverted demagogues revel in the delusion that they can 
manipulate it to their personal benefits.

It is not a welcome insight into human nature, I apologize for  disturbing the 
peace.

Well Canada is sending taxis to the border to rescue Somali's ignorant of our 
cold. Now our old ladies think the sky is falling because of a few refugees 
trying to run from Trump. Back in the 1960's and 70's we took in hundreds of 
American draft dodgers  and the sun remained in Orbit. 

I must admit that I had some fun today speaking to a millennial visitor that 
could no longer abide liberal visciousness  in the media. Left or right they 
are both resorting to fascistic techniques. He expected me to support the right 
but i laughed it off, I am more of a centrist anarchist I confessed, the other 
side of the sphere, so there was no need to abuse my hospitality.


vib 



-Original Message-
From: Friam [mailto:friam-boun...@redfish.com] On Behalf Of glen ?
Sent: February-23-17 5:12 PM
To: The Friday Morning Applied Complexity Coffee Group
Subject: Re: [FRIAM] FW: Fractal discussion Landscape-bird songs


Right, I think I got that you meant society being in the zone.  You expressed 
doubt and I disagree with you -- meaning only that I have less doubt. 8^)  I 
think society can (and does, often) get into a zone/groove/flow.  Some symptoms 
that are often complained about are "mob behavior", "groupthink", etc.  Some 
symptoms that are lauded are "wisdom of crowds", "negative freedoms" (freedom 
to _not_ be mugged, etc.), low unemployment, etc.

My 

Re: [FRIAM] Wow! He did Good!

[Vladimyr Burachynsky]

 

Well, maybe Sanfa Fe and Winnipeg could become sister cities and piss off
both our federal governments.

Your Mayor has balls.

Maybe doing the right thing takes some special kind of  courage.

vib

 

 

From: Friam [mailto:friam-boun...@redfish.com] On Behalf Of Nick Thompson
Sent: February-23-17 1:43 PM
To: Friam
Subject: [FRIAM] Wow! He did Good!

 

To the local congregation:

 

Your Mayor, being firm with NPR's Robert Siegel.

 

http://www.npr.org/2017/01/25/511655818/despite-trump-actions-santa-fe-mayor
-vows-to-remain-a-sanctuary-city  

 

To the Diaspora, 

 

If this gets ugly, Santa Fe might need your help. 

 

Nick  

 

 

 

Nicholas S. Thompson

Emeritus Professor of Psychology and Biology

Clark University

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

 


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Re: [FRIAM] FW: Fractal discussion Landscape-bird songs

[Vladimyr Burachynsky]

To the congregation,

 

Oops, someone is watching….

 

I had Better pull up my trousers and get a shave

Jeez, I was only running off at the mouth about getting into TensorFlow code.

 

vib

 

From: Friam [mailto:friam-boun...@redfish.com] On Behalf Of Jon Zingale
Sent: February-23-17 12:29 PM
To: friam@redfish.com
Subject: Re: [FRIAM] FW: Fractal discussion Landscape-bird songs

 

​Thank you, those responsible for the

discussion regarding simulation​ and

the real. Here is a competition currently

sponsored by MIT where competitors write

AI to perform automated war: BattleCode  .

 

Jon Zingale

 


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Re: [FRIAM] FW: Fractal discussion Landscape-bird songs

[Vladimyr Burachynsky]

Glen, 
You are assuming that a very elaborate sophisticated machine based model will 
work better than swarms of  microbots stitching micro sized jpegs together.

Evolution by its persistence seems to prove that some small part is working 
correctly. This gives me some faith that we are not a lost cause. Furthermore 
the Impact of civilization has been underestimated. Writing allows the distant 
dead to still contribute to current investigations making their insights almost 
contemporary. I read the announcements of Google's   "Deep Think" and 
"TensorFlow" this week and was delighted to hear that this is Open Source Code.

I have a sense that AI's will become a stabilizing foundation of civilization 
and memory will no longer be limited to a single life time. Or a single POV.

A swarm of gnats with digital cameras and microphones may make a difference to 
all of us sooner than  a grand Nova Zeus machine.

Oh goody more Code to play with.
vib


-Original Message-
From: Friam [mailto:friam-boun...@redfish.com] On Behalf Of glen ?
Sent: February-21-17 4:26 PM
To: The Friday Morning Applied Complexity Coffee Group
Subject: Re: [FRIAM] FW: Fractal discussion Landscape-bird songs


Tesselation vs. approximation: Ah, right.  I was sloppy with my language.  
Sorry.

What you say in the blurb below is questionable because it implies something 
about the representations ... something like an equivalence of expressive power 
or somesuch.  If there is such a thing as expressive power, then a stronger 
representation should not be recoverable from a weaker one.  But I suppose if 
they all are built from the same type of basis set, then multiple weak ones 
allow recovery of strong ones.

I'm always fascinated by the emphasis we (all) place on coherence and internal 
consistency.  It seems like some sort of rhetorical fallacy, perhaps the 
fallacy fallacy.  Perhaps we can arrive at the truth in spite of completely 
flawed (e.g. self-inconsistent) representations?  Even a broken clock (Trump) 
is right (a)periodically.

On 02/21/2017 01:09 PM, Vladimyr Burachynsky wrote:
> In some manner every representation whatever default settings have been 
> applied should be recoverable with every other representation and coherent.
> The more coherent viewpoints the closer the approximation of Truth.


--
☣ glen


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Re: [FRIAM] FW: Fractal discussion Landscape-bird songs

[Vladimyr Burachynsky]

 or, perhaps, disappear as well. 
French social philosophers Jean Baudrillard and Gilles Deleuze also talk about 
symbolism, but it was at a social level.  As far as I am concerned, Flow can't 
be achieved at the level of society ... but, boy I wish that that were not so.  
Csikszentmihalyi talks about the opposite of Flow that occurs on a social level 
that often occurs when society has been thrown into a chaos as with war or 
Trumpism. 樂

 

Is mathematics invented or discovered?  This is a perennial topic that arises 
within my philosophy group.  It never really gets resolved, but how could it 
be?   It is the ultimate of symbolic reference systems because of its precision 
in predicting the way the world manifests itself to our perception. This is not 
so true of our other symbols or abstractions. So are they any different?  In a 
way, they are because mathematical symbols form from an axiom-driven language. 
But, notwithstanding Jerry Fodor's "built-in" syntactic language of thought, 
languages are human inventions based on metaphors [if you like George Lakoff].  
Languages work among cultures because they are more or less conventional 
(acceptable) to a culture.  The fact that they can be translated into other 
languages is because we are all immersed in the same reality. In this way, I 
tend to think of mathematics as invented. If you are a Platonist--a 
worldview--you will likely disagree. 

 

As I often do, I  kind of resonate with Vladimyr's thought, which you included 
in your post. It is very Csikszentmihalyi-est. I do think that simulations can 
lure us into thinking that they are an exact dynamic facsimile of the reality 
which they try to abstract into an analytical model.  There are all kinds of 
things about simulations that can lead us astray. Fidelity is one thing, 
obviously.  But, I think that the worst thing--and this is often the fate of a 
simulator because of time and funding--is when they get so complicated that no 
one understands the process for how the results were computed.  This--like with 
many neural networks--is when the simulator just become an Oracle.  This is 
kind of what happened with Henry Markam's Blue Brain Project 
<https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/why-the-human-brain-project-went-wrong-and-how-to-fix-it/>
 , building a simulation of something for which they didn't know the first 
principles.  I think also this is what John Horgan wrote about concerning what 
was going on at the Santa Fe Institute in his SA article From Complexity to 
Perplexity <http://www2.econ.iastate.edu/tesfatsi/hogan.complexperplex.htm> . 

 

But, as Vladimyr muses, maybe this is the best we can do ... and symbolic 
reference is what nature served up for us to cope, concerning what we are 
perceiving.  But, as with all smart systems, a smart entity will always try to 
challenge and refine those symbols with continuous feedback--FLOW.  However, in 
the larger scheme of things, it really doesn't matter if mathematics was 
invented or discovered. I mean, where did the concept of a hammer come from? 樂

 

Cheers

 

On Tue, Feb 21, 2017 at 11:13 AM, glen ☣ <geprope...@gmail.com> wrote:


There's no doubt that there's some kernel of truth to the concept of "flow" or 
"in the zone".  I always make the mistake of thinking others have had similar 
experiences to mine.  But at our journal club a few weeks ago, while discussing 
whether math is invented or discovered, one guy kept conflating mathematical 
symbols with their semantic grounding.  A couple of us kept trying to make the 
point that after you've abstracted all the symbols away from their grounding, 
so that you're just manipulating the symbols, you get into the state where you 
start to think of the math, itself, as having an ontological existence.  You're 
"in the zone", so to speak, where the math becomes real as opposed to a proxy 
for the real.  That the other guy couldn't grok it could be a sign that he's 
never entered that zone, hamstrung by his grounding to physical reality.

Or, he could have simply felt defensive because he thought we kept attacking 
him ... you never know how some people interpret the milieu.

On 02/20/2017 10:44 PM, Vladimyr Burachynsky wrote:
> Some music allows some people to focus longer. Maybe Taser jolts work for 
> others. The simulation lures us into fantasy lands. Which I kinda like 
> sometimes.
> Time links these sims of mine but temporality is a coincidence not a true 
> cause and we don't live long enough to test every contingency, so we make do 
> with delusions. There seems no path out of this box. The box just grows with 
> us.
> vib
>
> So why did evolution place so much emphasis on time...

--
☣ glen


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Re: [FRIAM] FW: Fractal discussion Landscape-bird songs

[Vladimyr Burachynsky]

Glen,

Thank You.

Now we enter into a salient area where dispute could arise if I take you too 
literally. 

The Mesh is irregular and can't be called a proper tessalation since there are 
no repeated elements or tiles. I assume VanHoutte only cheated slightly in his 
code'
The points positions on the surface are random but the connecting lines will be 
straight lines only touching the sphere at exactly the points. I suppose the 
Voronoi Cells can be regarded as highly irregular tiles that only touch the 
sphere at points. The higher my points count the better the resolution but the 
cells still only touch the sphere at points. The only way I know to place edges 
on a sphere is to use parametric equations connecting point to point using 
Geodesic Paths. Eventually those lines will converge on the 2  Pole Points and 
Pucker together.

There are several problems with the camera libraries I am using and this is 
probably due to the writers choice to keep the largest object centered in the 
screen.
There is also a back clipping plane that allows objects to disappear in the far 
distance, also a undisclosed camera field of view.


Indeed the earth mapping may be squashed as definitely is true of the sun. The 
two issues are only related by my inexcusable lack of technique.

In my effort to examine human visual bandwidth limitations some details are 
lost somewhere in the brain. For example some objects are spinning as well as 
rotating and others are translating  and rotating. The sun is growing while 
spinning but is not translating. It was my intent to baffle myself. What I did 
learn is that it is not difficult to do so, but that longer observation does 
establish and embed more details or features. So my brain might be overwhelmed 
in the short term but self corrects with time and effort. Other research shows 
that people see less than is really falling on their retinas. The brain only 
presents what it expects, not the truth. This undermines most philosophical 
discussions since our sight is less than virtuous.

In the case of Truth versus Representation we seem to be forced to apply 
imposed geometries and time... Or each observer imposes these elements and that 
is where most disputes arise. It seems humans need little reason to start to 
bicker.

I am slowly trying to build a website to present clever ideas  a very few are 
mine, but they all pertain to data visualization in some manner. 

In some manner every representation whatever default settings have been applied 
should be recoverable with every other representation and coherent.
The more coherent viewpoints the closer the approximation of Truth.
vib

vib

-Original Message-
From: Friam [mailto:friam-boun...@redfish.com] On Behalf Of ?glen?
Sent: February-21-17 10:13 AM
To: The Friday Morning Applied Complexity Coffee Group
Subject: Re: [FRIAM] FW: Fractal discussion Landscape-bird songs


Works perfectly!  And cool music, BTW.  I see now that you were talking about a 
tesselation of the sphere's surface.  I thought you intended a 3D irregular 
grid.  Regardless, I certainly didn't notice the camera issue.  I did notice an 
odd squashing of the earth textured sphere, though.

On 02/20/2017 10:12 PM, Vladimyr Burachynsky wrote:
> Glen,
> 
> The Voronoi Mesh  video distribution has been delayed by a connection 
> speed problem and currently can't even view my own cloud storage. I have 
> found a third oddity called for lack of anything better the camera position.
> as it moves I think at moments that the other two coordinate systems  become 
> conflated and it requires focused attention to account for distinct motions.
> 
> I think you have presented the problem in complex terms and have missed a 
> simple solution. Run it Backwards and forwards , just like in calculus.
> If you get the same input values from a certain output value set then it 
> usually got you full marks. I will get this problem solved yet.
> The most interesting insight is that each is connected by time... 
> 
> I am losing my vision so I wish to use what is left before it all 
> goes. This was all done in Processing  3.0.1 and I am learning it now but it 
> reminds me a  little of C++ from my old days. So if it runs backwards and 
> forwards just give a heuristic kick in the pants and watch...
> The original code libraries came from a physicist from Belgium, F. VanHoutte.
> There are so many things moving that my machine may not do a good job.
> My interest is to use these meshes to create Insect Wings for CGI.
> 
> https://1drv.ms/v/s!AjdC7pqwzaUUkxtarv1AjHWv1xVr
> 
> It is on the site but you may have to download it and open to see it. Good 
> Luck.
> let me know if it works.

--
␦glen?


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Re: [FRIAM] FW: Fractal discussion Landscape-bird songs

[Vladimyr Burachynsky]

From Glen,
And I agree that the illusions you mention are primarily associated with 
(inappropriate) reification through transforms.  You seem to be saying that 
some transforms present illusions and others present non-illusions (truth?).  I 
take the opposite position ... perhaps the post-modern position ... that all 
transforms present illusions (or all present truth).  The key is to know that 
you're seeing the image of a transform and cataloging that particular one 
(amongst its category of transforms that could have been used).  Then, whether 
your verification methods have failed you and the transform you're using is 
_not_ the one you think you're using, matters less -- and can be more readily 
debugged.
response by vib.

This sounds like a grad lounge debate. Indeed you are right. So to fix the 
problem force people to pay attention for more than 10 secs.
Some music allows some people to focus longer. Maybe Taser jolts work for 
others. The simulation lures us into fantasy lands. Which I kinda like 
sometimes.
Time links these sims of mine but temporality is a coincidence not a true cause 
and we don't live long enough to test every contingency, so we make do with 
delusions. There seems no path out of this box. The box just grows with us.
vib

So why did evolution place so much emphasis on time...


-Original Message-
From: Friam [mailto:friam-boun...@redfish.com] On Behalf Of glen ?
Sent: February-20-17 11:09 AM
To: The Friday Morning Applied Complexity Coffee Group
Subject: Re: [FRIAM] FW: Fractal discussion Landscape-bird songs


Rather than risk your thinking nobody wants to see it, I figured I'd chime in.  
I want to see the video of your cube surrounded by a voronoi tesselation.

The subject you raise comes up a lot in conversations with my clients.  The 
extent to which an actor's mechanism is local or global can be very important 
both functionally and technically.  Any spatial structure that is defined 
globally, then even if used only locally by an actor, presents a risk of 
inscription error (assuming one's conclusion).  But this often leads one down 
the road to ad infinitum problems with bottom-up modeling.  So, we have to 
compromise and allow at least some teleology.  The trick is to be disciplined 
or put in place checks and balances that help ensure acyclic reasoning.

And I agree that the illusions you mention are primarily associated with 
(inappropriate) reification through transforms.  You seem to be saying that 
some transforms present illusions and others present non-illusions (truth?).  I 
take the opposite position ... perhaps the post-modern position ... that all 
transforms present illusions (or all present truth).  The key is to know that 
you're seeing the image of a transform and cataloging that particular one 
(amongst its category of transforms that could have been used).  Then, whether 
your verification methods have failed you and the transform you're using is 
_not_ the one you think you're using, matters less -- and can be more readily 
debugged.

I.e. when we're looking at an ink blot, are we aware that the more prickly ones 
allow less ambiguity?

On 02/15/2017 06:20 PM, Vladimyr Burachynsky wrote:
> I have been mulling over the thread about Representation versus Dynamicism  
> for a bit and the differences that language imposes whenever 
> cross-disciplines attempt to converse. Today I was struggling with some code 
> to create Voronoi Meshes nested within each other based on nested spheres. 
> All look well enough until I introduced a primitive solid, a Cube and tried 
> to make everything spin in space.
> 
> I needed to decide which entity or sets were coupled to which… So thinking of 
> FEM procedures I decided to make the Voronoi Sets occupy the Global 
> Coordinate Position and attach the Cube as a Local Coordinate   System. This 
> is rather arbitrary and can go either way. The problem appears somewhat akin 
> to our thread, but I am aware that these distinctions are contained within 
> the same Simulation and neither reflects a reality except by coincidence. To 
> cope with multiple coordinate systems one requires a pertinent transformation 
> matrix but if one is reckless the results are meaningless. The appearance of 
> coupled systems may be illusionary and mistaken as causative.
> 
> I thought today there was also a mention in Science Daily of fractals in 
> Rorsach tests the more fractals, the more imaginative the observer’s answer.
> 
> https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2017/02/170214162838.htm
> 
> It will take a few days but will try and make a video out of the apparent 
> incongruity of these objects. The Cube is lacking any distinctive edge 
> embellishments and troubles the mind as unreal somehow.
> 
> Language always hampers exchange of ideas.

--
☣ glen


FRIAM Applied Complexity Group l

Re: [FRIAM] FW: Fractal discussion Landscape-bird songs

[Vladimyr Burachynsky]

Glen,

The Voronoi Mesh  video distribution has been delayed by a connection speed 
problem and currently can't even view my own cloud storage. I 
have found a third oddity called for lack of anything better the camera 
position. 
as it moves I think at moments that the other two coordinate systems  become 
conflated and it requires focused attention to account for distinct motions.

I think you have presented the problem in complex terms and have missed a 
simple solution. Run it Backwards and forwards , just like in calculus.
If you get the same input values from a certain output value set then it 
usually got you full marks. I will get this problem solved yet.
The most interesting insight is that each is connected by time... 

I am losing my vision so I wish to use what is left before it all goes. This 
was all done in Processing  3.0.1 and I am learning it now but it reminds me a  
little of C++
from my old days. So if it runs backwards and forwards just give a heuristic 
kick in the pants and watch...
The original code libraries came from a physicist from Belgium, F. VanHoutte.
There are so many things moving that my machine may not do a good job.
My interest is to use these meshes to create Insect Wings for CGI.

https://1drv.ms/v/s!AjdC7pqwzaUUkxtarv1AjHWv1xVr

It is on the site but you may have to download it and open to see it. Good Luck.
let me know if it works.
vib

-Original Message-
From: Friam [mailto:friam-boun...@redfish.com] On Behalf Of glen ?
Sent: February-20-17 11:09 AM
To: The Friday Morning Applied Complexity Coffee Group
Subject: Re: [FRIAM] FW: Fractal discussion Landscape-bird songs


Rather than risk your thinking nobody wants to see it, I figured I'd chime in.  
I want to see the video of your cube surrounded by a voronoi tesselation.

The subject you raise comes up a lot in conversations with my clients.  The 
extent to which an actor's mechanism is local or global can be very important 
both functionally and technically.  Any spatial structure that is defined 
globally, then even if used only locally by an actor, presents a risk of 
inscription error (assuming one's conclusion).  But this often leads one down 
the road to ad infinitum problems with bottom-up modeling.  So, we have to 
compromise and allow at least some teleology.  The trick is to be disciplined 
or put in place checks and balances that help ensure acyclic reasoning.

And I agree that the illusions you mention are primarily associated with 
(inappropriate) reification through transforms.  You seem to be saying that 
some transforms present illusions and others present non-illusions (truth?).  I 
take the opposite position ... perhaps the post-modern position ... that all 
transforms present illusions (or all present truth).  The key is to know that 
you're seeing the image of a transform and cataloging that particular one 
(amongst its category of transforms that could have been used).  Then, whether 
your verification methods have failed you and the transform you're using is 
_not_ the one you think you're using, matters less -- and can be more readily 
debugged.

I.e. when we're looking at an ink blot, are we aware that the more prickly ones 
allow less ambiguity?

On 02/15/2017 06:20 PM, Vladimyr Burachynsky wrote:
> I have been mulling over the thread about Representation versus Dynamicism  
> for a bit and the differences that language imposes whenever 
> cross-disciplines attempt to converse. Today I was struggling with some code 
> to create Voronoi Meshes nested within each other based on nested spheres. 
> All look well enough until I introduced a primitive solid, a Cube and tried 
> to make everything spin in space.
> 
> I needed to decide which entity or sets were coupled to which… So thinking of 
> FEM procedures I decided to make the Voronoi Sets occupy the Global 
> Coordinate Position and attach the Cube as a Local Coordinate   System. This 
> is rather arbitrary and can go either way. The problem appears somewhat akin 
> to our thread, but I am aware that these distinctions are contained within 
> the same Simulation and neither reflects a reality except by coincidence. To 
> cope with multiple coordinate systems one requires a pertinent transformation 
> matrix but if one is reckless the results are meaningless. The appearance of 
> coupled systems may be illusionary and mistaken as causative.
> 
> I thought today there was also a mention in Science Daily of fractals in 
> Rorsach tests the more fractals, the more imaginative the observer’s answer.
> 
> https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2017/02/170214162838.htm
> 
> It will take a few days but will try and make a video out of the apparent 
> incongruity of these objects. The Cube is lacking any distinctive edge 
> embellishments and troubles the mind as unreal somehow.
> 
> Language always hampers exchange of ideas.

--
☣ glen

===

Re: [FRIAM] FW: Fractal discussion Landscape-bird songs

[Vladimyr Burachynsky]

Nick or Glen,

 

I have been mulling over the thread about Representation versus Dynamicism  for 
a bit and the differences

that language imposes whenever cross-disciplines attempt to converse. Today I 
was struggling with some code

to create Voronoi Meshes nested within each other based on nested spheres. All 
look well enough until I introduced a 

primitive solid, a Cube and tried to make everything spin in space. 

 

I needed to decide which entity or sets were coupled to which… So thinking of 
FEM procedures I decided to make 

the Voronoi Sets occupy the Global Coordinate Position and attach the Cube as a 
Local Coordinate   System. This is

rather arbitrary and can go either way. The problem appears somewhat akin to 
our thread, but I am aware that these distinctions 

are contained within the same Simulation and neither reflects a reality except 
by coincidence. To cope with multiple coordinate systems one requires 

a pertinent transformation matrix but if one is reckless the results are 
meaningless. The appearance of coupled systems may be illusionary and mistaken

as causative.

 

I thought today there was also a mention in Science Daily of fractals in 
Rorsach tests the more fractals, the more imaginative the observer’s answer.

https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2017/02/170214162838.htm

 

It will take a few days but will try and make a video out of the apparent 
incongruity of these objects. The Cube is lacking any distinctive edge 
embellishments and

troubles the mind as unreal somehow.

Language always hampers exchange of ideas.

vib

 

 

 

From: Friam [mailto:friam-boun...@redfish.com] On Behalf Of Nick Thompson
Sent: February-15-17 4:58 PM
To: Friam; 'Kim Sorvig'
Cc: alberto.ala...@ug.uchile.cl; friam-ow...@redfish.com; David West
Subject: [FRIAM] FW: Fractal discussion Landscape-bird songs

 

Hell, List, 

 

I would like to introduce to you Alberto Alaniz (who describes himself in the 
communication below).  I “met” him on Research Gate when he downloaded a paper 
of mine on the structural organization of bird song.  I noticed that he was 
writing from a Landscape Department, and I thought, “A landscape person who is 
interested in birdsong! He must be interested in fractals!”  And I was right.  
So please welcome him.  Steve please note? 

 

The idea of his that I particularly want to hear you discuss is his notion that 
fractality (is that a word?) in one domain can effect, affect, impose? 
fractality in another.  So is there a relationship between the fractality which 
my research revealed in the organization of bird song and the fractality of the 
landscapes on which bird behavior is deployed.  

 

I particularly wonder what Kim  Sorvig and Jenny Quillen and ProfDave think 
about this, but also wonder if others on the list could put an oar in. 

 

Thanks, 

 

Nick 

 

 

Nicholas S. Thompson

Emeritus Professor of Psychology and Biology

Clark University

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

 

From: Alberto Jose Alaniz [mailto:alberto.ala...@ug.uchile.cl] 
Sent: Wednesday, February 15, 2017 2:21 PM
To: nthomp...@clarku.edu
Subject: Fractal discussion Landscape-bird songs

 

Dear Nick

 

I apreciate so much your invitation, so i really intrested in participate of 
your discussion group. I am a young researcher finishing my MS, and this types 
of oportunities look very good for my, specially if i can interact with other 
scientics. About your question, of course you can share my oppinion, now if you 
want i can writte a compleate opinion in extenso, and i will send to you 
tomorrow in the afternon.

 

My field of study is the ecologial modelling and the conservation biology, the 
last year i published my firsts papers in Biological conservation and 
International Journal of Epidemiology, the first one about ecosystem 
conservation and the secondth is a global model of exposure risk to Zika virus. 
Currently im working in ecosystems and in assessment of habitat loss in forest 
specialist species (with Kathryn Sieving from University of Florida).

 

Alberto  Alaniz Baeza

Lic. en Geografía, Geógrafo & Magíster (c) Áreas Silvestres y Conservación

Becario, Laboratorio de Ecología de Ambientes Fragmentados

Departamento de Ciencias Biológicas Animales, U. de Chile

Investigador, Laboratorio de Ecología de Ecosistemas

Departamento de Recursos Naturales Renovables, U. de Chile

Académico, Centro de Formación Técnica del Medio Ambiente IDMA

+56996097443

https://albertoalaniz.wordpress.com/


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Re: [FRIAM] Why depth/thickness matters

[Vladimyr Burachynsky]

I am an iconoclast as a consequence of trying to use statistical modelling 
during earlier stages of my life. zThese statistical models were generally very 
poor when applied to field work in animal distributions until someone accepted 
that truth and started admitting "clumpiness in distributions".

Then after a time in engineering studying simulations of material behaviour and 
failure I realized that the models we were using were based on unreal 
assumptions again.

In FEM studies we used convenient algorithms to model stress distribution 
across discreet very small elements based on older concepts and only 
approximated reality
to various levels. These approximations were often mistakenly assumed to 
constitute a "reality" by novices. In part because no engineer was prepared for 
Quantum Mechanics. They still used Hooke's laws where ever possible. 

Representation is simply a tool to facilitate exploration of Dynamical systems. 
Representation should always be prepared to adapt when needed. Like sharpening 
a steel blade every so often.
The iconoclast in me loves sharp tools and every Monday morning I instructed my 
team to clear their benches and methodically sharpen tools.
Just because you sharpened a tool on Monday don't expect it to be sharp on 
Thursday unless it was idle.
Eventually all knives wear down and need to be replaced. Representation is only 
an ideal target used only as long as it is functional.
I do not dispute the value of good representational models but accept that they 
may not always be appropriate.

I look to biology and its solutions as having a temporal legacy far back in 
time but even evolution fails occasionally. Death seems the reward for guessing 
wrong.

Biology does seem to be a cheapskate recycling shitty solutions very often and 
does not seem to care about occasional extinctions. 

As long as the advocates of representational models acknowledge their place in 
the real world we can tolerate each other.
vib 

-Original Message-
From: Friam [mailto:friam-boun...@redfish.com] On Behalf Of glen ?
Sent: February-15-17 1:11 PM
To: The Friday Morning Applied Complexity Coffee Group
Subject: Re: [FRIAM] Why depth/thickness matters

On 02/14/2017 09:51 AM, Eric Charles wrote:
> Thanks for the reorientation! If you want to discuss complexity, I think an 
> interesting question regarding perception-action systems is how much of the 
> complexity has to be inside the organism, and how much of it can be 
> encapsulated in the larger organism-environment system. The more the 
> complexit is spread across the system, the more the organism can get by with 
> much less "mental" complexity that it might originally seem. That tension is 
> at the heart of Gibson vs. traditional theories, though, of course, Gibson 
> described the tension in different terms.

Yes, and that's exactly what the Hoffman article is about, too, with their 
exploration of simpler or more complex environments.  Your criticism of their 
(rather common) concept that seeing more takes more energy also exists in the 
"fly ball" and locomotive examples.  And the well-kept or poorly-kept radio 
metaphor simply raises the spectre of "adaptation" and the target of selection 
pressures.

In other words, the boundary between the organism, the environment, and the 
organizational relationship between them is nowhere near as crisp as we assume. 
 It's that assumption that is the target of Hoffman's (anti-realism) project.

And that brings me back to my original point about loopiness.  We not only have 
the problem of distributing the logic beetween organism and environment.  We 
also have the problem of how to grade/categorize the spectrum _between_ the 
two.  E.g. to what extent is, say, a pair of eyeglasses a part of the organism? 
 E.g. to what extent is the eye's cornea part of the environment?

Computations over the organism strike me as one layer.  Computations over an 
objectively extant landscape are another layer, perhaps of similar complexity 
than those over the organism.  Computations over both are another layer.  
Computations over a collection of organisms, with a purely co-constructed 
"environment", is another.  Computations over all 4 (each organism, extant 
environment, organism-extant-env couplings, multiple organisms in extant 
environment) is yet another layer.  Loops within loops.

> However, that doesn't necessarily speak to our ability to jettison 
> "representation" and replace it with dynamic-systems accounts more generally. 
>  
> [...]
> So, to recap: The questions for the list are 1) Where will we look for the 
> complexity in question? In the organism, in the environment, or in the system 
> that includes both? 2) Once we have a decent account of that complexity, is 
> anything added by inserting representation-talk in the middle of it?

It's not clear to me why you focused on a juxtaposition of representation vs. 
dynamical systems.  It sounds a lot like Marcus' argument in the 

Re: [FRIAM] Why depth/thickness matters

[Vladimyr Burachynsky]

This iconoclast appreciates this thread simply because symbols are only 
approximations of reality constrained by  our limited knowledge and language.

 

The Fly Ball imagery is startlingly profound and played a major role in my own 
coding efforts. I never believed that our brains contained a calculus engine of 
any kind.

It seemed extraordinary that evolution would invest so much in this area and so 
little into our knees. But then I have my doubts about evolutionary design 
being in any way driven by idealistic precepts. I tend to think all life is 
driven by the needs of gut bacteria, so yes we are no more than mobile 
fermentation tanks.

 

Self-flattering Representational theories have dominated academic discourse for 
decades and have consequently encouraged distain for the dynamical 
investigations in some ways slowing down innovation.

 

It appears as if we are emerging from Nicean metaphysical debates about 
representational models and hurling accusations like cannon balls  at any fact 
that alarms people. The more that is invested in representational models the 
more effort is funnelled into the denial of reality.

vib

 

Our neurons can only fire at rather slow intervals and only for short periods 
of time so human perception is a kind of peep show at best.

vib

Sewage systems do not require anything more elaborate.

 

From: Friam [mailto:friam-boun...@redfish.com] On Behalf Of Eric Charles
Sent: February-14-17 11:52 AM
To: The Friday Morning Applied Complexity Coffee Group
Subject: Re: [FRIAM] Why depth/thickness matters

 

Glen,

Thanks for the reorientation! If you want to discuss complexity, I think an 
interesting question regarding perception-action systems is how much of the 
complexity has to be inside the organism, and how much of it can be 
encapsulated in the larger organism-environment system. The more the complexit 
is spread across the system, the more the organism can get by with much less 
"mental" complexity that it might originally seem. That tension is at the heart 
of Gibson vs. traditional theories, though, of course, Gibson described the 
tension in different terms. 

 

A classic example is the problem of catching a fly ball. To simplify, let the 
ball be flying in a vertical plane, and let the outfielder be already on that 
plane (there are very similar solutions to how to get onto the relevant plane, 
so being off-plane is just a distraction). One could imagine that the catching 
the ball entailed calculating a parabola-like function, based on the start 
point and the speed with which the ball meets the bat, then moving to the point 
where the calculation requires you to stand. However, a much easier solution is 
available: Look at the ball, if the ball is optically accelerating (i.e., 
moving up the visual field at an increasing speed) step backwards, if the ball 
is optically decelerating step forward, if the ball is moving at an optically 
constant speed, stay where you are and put your hand in front of your head. 
Everything you need to "know" what to do, is "out there" in the ambient light, 
and if you are a well-designed tool, getting to the right point doesn't require 
modeling the trajectory of the ball at all. 

 

A more modern example is in locomotive robotics. Companies like Boston Dynamics 
are showing that you can get basic walking movements with very little "internal 
computation" if you design a system that mechanically (through tension cords, 
springs, and the like) accomplish much of the balancing and coordination. Such 
robots perform much better than robots who try to handle the same types of 
problems in an entirely computational "central control" fashions. 

 

However, that doesn't necessarily speak to our ability to jettison 
"representation" and replace it with dynamic-systems accounts more generally.  

 

For that , we would probably want to go to Tony Chemero's book, which I 
mentioned earlier. In chapter 4 (summarized here 

 ), Tony presents two key examples: The first is the example of the "Watts 
steam governor 

 ", which helped stop steam engines from exploding by releasing steam. It spins 
when steam goes through it, the spinning creates centerfugal force which raises 
some weighted arms, which in turn open the release valve more, keeping the 
internal pressure of the engine relatively constant. The second example 
involved an evolutionary robotics experiment at the university of Sussex, where 
allowed robots to "evolve" solutions to a problem, and then determined how they 
had done so after the fact. In both cases, Tony shows that some aspect of the 
system is a reasonable candidate for the label "representation", but points out 
that such post-hoc labeling adds nothing to the dynamic model.  As Andrew and 
Sabrina summarize in their blog: 

 

Re: [FRIAM] Theorore Spyropoulos's group on "Behavioral Complexity" at UCL

[Vladimyr Burachynsky]

Steve Guerin, Thanks so much,

 

I think this is at least the second time someone from FRIAM sent me in the 
right direction.

I loved this work and I am trying to compile many more examples, my site is 
sort off deranged currently.

 

https://vimeo.com/55938597

https://vimeo.com/165006724

 

This is sort of my obsession lately.

 

Are you in touch with this team?

I waste  a lot of time trying to build Animalia  from code.

I would appreciate it if you keep me in mind. Thanks again.

Someone once earlier sent me on to Networks and wish to thank them as well.

vib

 

From: Friam [mailto:friam-boun...@redfish.com] On Behalf Of Stephen Guerin
Sent: February-12-17 3:28 PM
To: The Friday Morning Applied Complexity Coffee Group
Subject: [FRIAM] Theorore Spyropoulos's group on "Behavioral Complexity" at UCL

 

Nice work at UCL by Theodore Spyropoulos's group on "Behavioral Complexity". 
Check out some of the videos.

 

http://www.creativeapplications.net/processing/aadrl-behavioural-complexity/
The AADRL is a post-professional MArch (Architecture & Urbanism) graduate 
design programme at the Architectural Association School of Architecture, in 
London. Led by Theodore Spyropoulos, it has four research labs that respond to 
an umbrella agenda that the team set for a period of 3-4 years. Most recently 
they have been working on a theme of ‘Behavioral Complexity‘, which explores 
design that is proto-typical, scenario driven and examines behaviours through 
design enquiry. A feature of this research agenda between the four labs is 
examining robotics within architecture. They have two studios that are 
exploring 3D printing at the scale of buildings, one augmenting robotic arms by 
developing custom end effectors and the other exploring drones and swarm 
printing and finally the fourth studio is looking at parametric approaches 
towards kinetic architecture.


___
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CEO, Simtable  http://www.simtable.com  

1600 Lena St #D1, Santa Fe, NM 87505

office: (505)995-0206 mobile: (505)577-5828

twitter: @simtable


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Re: [FRIAM] What does it mean to say that it will probably rain tomorrow?

[Vladimyr Burachynsky]

You guys are Nuts and have too much time,

 

That includes me. Somehow you have managed to braid together lies,
probability and fake news.

Perhaps many humans feel good whenever they influence others. Weather ladies
telling to be happy whenever it

goes above 30c ( I hate  heat) Poker players trying to bluff me into
shitting my pants and fold.

Insurance agents trying to make me feel guilty of matters after I am dead.

Politicians declaring they need money to defend me from American refugees.

(Canada has just counted 22 Africans crossing a snow field between Minnesota
and Manitoba. WTF)

So assign a number within a range and you may get a rush from discovering I
believed you.

 

So do we lie or deceive each other just to feel in control of others. What
else can be said to be positive about fake news. Perhaps,  It made some one
temporarily happy. Jehovah Witnesses still patrol streets fishing for
converts.

 

I have travelled very far without weather reporters just making my own sky
watch assumptions. Just look up.

vib

 

This world has too many idle control freaks trying to find levity by crying
wolf to dumb villagers.

Oh great, when you see Vladimyr wearing a hat you can assume it's raining. 

If you see me walking with a newspaper in the woods what does that mean.

Yep, he is out for a constitutional stroll.

 

 

From: Friam [mailto:friam-boun...@redfish.com] On Behalf Of Nick Thompson
Sent: February-11-17 11:50 AM
To: Friam
Subject: [FRIAM] What does it mean to say that it will probably rain
tomorrow?

 

Dear all, 

 

We had an interesting conversation in the Friday meeting of the local
congregation concerning the question, "What does it actually mean to say
that there is a 50 percent chance of rain in Santa Fe tomorrow?"  Exactly
what operations would you have to go through to discover if that claim was
appropriate or not?  

 

I took the position that whether it actually rained tomorrow had very little
to do with validating the claim. 

 

I am wondering what those of you in the diaspora thought. 

 

Nick 

 

 

Nicholas S. Thompson

Emeritus Professor of Psychology and Biology

Clark University

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

 


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Re: [FRIAM] free will on the ten meter tower

[Vladimyr Burachynsky]

Thank you Roger Critchlow,

 

The video shows people overcoming fear in a social setting. Which is in some 
way confirming the benefits of a society,

But it also hints at the extremes some people are willing to go to escape fear.

Perhaps those with the most fear are the most worrisome.

vib

 

I was a lifeguard and have seen this naked  human fear at much lower heights. 
That was why I was employed I guess.

But I called  it quits at jumping out of airplanes. Rock faces were okay up to 
a certain height then to get higher I resorted to ropes.

Perhaps one of civilization’s purposes is teaching us to overcome our fears not 
to succumb to them.

 

From: Friam [mailto:friam-boun...@redfish.com] On Behalf Of Roger Critchlow
Sent: February-01-17 6:00 PM
To: The Friday Morning Applied Complexity Coffee Group
Subject: [FRIAM] free will on the ten meter tower

 

This documentary 

 

  https://www.nytimes.com/2017/01/30/opinion/ten-meter-tower.html

 

is great viewing.

 

-- rec --

 


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Re: [FRIAM] Globalism in the age of populism? .. & Open Source Software

[Vladimyr Burachynsky]

Pamela.
Thank-you, 

but I rarely ever use the word pain and did not use it in my post.
Some of us can endure more than others. The fear of pain seems to have also 
become more prevalent
in the recent past. Now the fear of inconvenience or waiting in a line.
Our fears have been trivialized or commoditized. Now stained teeth, white hair, 
or body odor. My how we have been held for ransom by wimpy ghosts.
Where are the Three Stooges when we need them. We used to laugh at their comedy 
now we quiver and faint in a  politically correct swoon demanding military 
intervention.

So I do not expect sympathy or empathy or a meeting with a social councillor. 
Nor an appointment with a young med. grad. unless I Have a video camera to 
present to the world abominable stupidity.

I do not wish to be isolated from this congregation of struggling 
reasonableness, simply because you intuit that I might have pain.  Is there 
anyone living free of it.. No then lets resume being civil and keep the 
unpleasant truth under wraps.

Let's talk about mockery and a return to satire to dispel the demons of 
ignorance.
Did Swift or Dickens or Conrad or Tolstoy  strike harder at injustice.  Whose 
pen was the mightiest.
vib

So today I learned that the KKK were handing out flyers in Canada.
I don't believe they can take the cold, so it is probably nonsense. Maybe they 
dress-up as Jehova Witnesses just to cross the border.
How do you tell the difference?


-Original Message-
From: Friam [mailto:friam-boun...@redfish.com] On Behalf Of Pamela McCorduck
Sent: January-31-17 11:35 PM
To: The Friday Morning Applied Complexity Coffee Group
Subject: Re: [FRIAM] Globalism in the age of populism? .. & Open Source Software

You sound much more reasonable than Jacques Lacan ever did, Vladimir. But then 
I’m told you had to be there.

I am sorry for your pain. It shows in your post. It’s righteous pain, 
altogether justified pain, for we have all been deeply wounded in that place 
where justice and righteousness abide.



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Re: [FRIAM] Globalism in the age of populism? .. & Open Source Software

[Vladimyr Burachynsky]

The elites can not be accurately defined as a coherent group since the accusers 
are shooting in so many divergent directions.

No more than a young child’s fear of the closet ghost, which  can ever be used 
in a forensic investigation.

There may not be elites but certainly there are many fearful people unable to 
do any more than hurl accusations. Shit hitting the Fan.

 

As Glen and others tried to do by narrowing down the types of “elites” we all 
must have noticed something amiss.

People are clearly afraid and thus vulnerable; as also are those who have never 
given another human a cause.

The victim becomes the villain.

 

Six upright men were slaughtered in a mosque in Quebec City on Sunday.

Canadians are mourning this slaughter across the country in marches.

Some are blaming Trump some blame the rightwing racists but everyone seems to 
blame someone else.

The news is full of insinuations today.

 

Everyone seems to be unanimous in finding fault that can be ultimately 
attributable to the mysterious elites of the imagination.

The best I can guess is that 40+ years of fear mongering in politics has left 
most of mankind so fearful they have crapped their pants.

So they blame a fast fry cook for using too much chili on their burger. Blame 
rarely makes sense. Nor do accusations which are just another

version of the scapegoat preliminaries.

 

We indulged all kinds of fear mongering in the past Y2K viral plagues 
terrorists anarchists communists, orchid smugglers. Take your pick salt, sugar, 
cornsyrup…

 

A society run almost exclusively on fear, just yesterday my Microsoft update 
tried to instil fear when I tried deleting BING.

 

Certainly some of us might partially fit the description of elites. But only 
when we ignore or deny the many other characteristics we possess. 

Hey I like Boxing, Flying Kites building boats and Shakespeare as well as 
Cycling and writing code. I also have Multiple Sclerosis seizures and  
paralysis along with 4 degrees.

 

I probably have little in common with any of you but what I do share is the 
desire to communicate freely. So the elites are a figment of popular culture 
and flexible enough to justifying murder for any sort of Alpha male wannabe 
like Dylan Rouff in  the US or Bisonette in Quebec or Anders Brevik in Norway… 
The E list of Assholes.

 

I admit that each of them looked to me like people with no visible talent but a 
weird desire to be famous for leaving behind a mountain of stinking shit. I 
once had a male wolfhound that choose pinnacle of fire hydrants for his 
monuments of shit.

 

Reasonable people used to live on this planet and then the fearful arrived 
always calling for some kind of extraordinary protection from closet fantasies. 
It took 40 or 50 years to ferment into this unholy quagmire. I say, Keep your 
genitals in your pants and never share your childish fears and expect 
gratitude. Economics is also a fear based system  rather than being rational 
and fear prompted fast traders to get even faster. Feminism exploited fear, 
they even suggested castration as more merciful than circumcision, for decades. 
Then Climate change/carbon tax proponents exploited fear for about a decade, so 
now the masses are frightened of the living dead, Zombies and they arm 
themselves as Crusaders.  These holy warriors manage to attract enough  
temporary mates to repopulate ravaged nations and  continue their degenerate 
ideology.  When they finally execute Dylan Rouffe look at the crowds that 
attend his prison, I am sure he will get marriage proposals in the mail.

 

I am sorry for my outrage but the only way to stop such atrocities is to 
mock/shame  these vermin that stalk innocents. If they like killing so much 
then get them jobs in a slaughterhouse. God how I have come to despise these 
wannabe Alpha males and their girl friend’s  insidious fears.

 

The terrorists seem less of a threat than these racist rednecks , our prime 
minister conflated these two categories today and that really ramps up fear 
again, but most politicians jump to use fear at any opportunity. I suppose if 
you can’t think then make a scary face. Most dogs will chase anything that 
smells of a bitch in heat.

 

So my take is that Globalism is also a convenient disparaging alias for 
Civilization which threatens every primitive tribal or national social 
structure.

At any point in time any natural accidental idiot could become a member of the 
so-called elite/terrorist category , no credentials, proof of competency, nor 
affiliations are required.

 

I guess what makes this explanation  appear nuts is because it is.

 

Every villain depends on a belief that he has been a victim in fiction/fact to 
justify some atrocity upon innocents because the truly guilty are invisible, 
unknown or fantastically protected. So the death of the innocent becomes a 
symbolic necessity to prove their guilt, since only the living can plead for 
justice, and thus venerate the 

Re: [FRIAM] AI advance

[Vladimyr Burachynsky]

So there are at least three by your count, and that was only a shallow
dredge of the pond.

I obtained an early version of a computer game and frittered away a lot of
hours playing
that maniacal coffee maker.  I found the flaw that the writer relied upon
and wiped out the game every time. That style of playing against a 
stupid piece of code was horrible but only worked against a machine.

The flaw was that it made decisions on perceived values. So it was easy to
lead it into disaster. I  had never seen a human play in that manner
nor may that even be possible. Indeed I was able to annihilate it every
game, wipe it off the board. This is considered very offensive and
humiliating by Oriental Standards. But then I reminded my teachers that
Cossacks were never noted for their Table Manners.

Talk about a group of Intense Nicotine Addicts back then...  

Only a confirmed Go player could breathe that atmosphere. Though I wonder
why Hawking is so afraid of this
machine when it can humble the best of us. Just make the board much larger.
At some point we will smell insulation burning.

vib

-Original Message-
From: Friam [mailto:friam-boun...@redfish.com] On Behalf Of Steven A Smith
Sent: January-30-17 9:54 PM
To: The Friday Morning Applied Complexity Coffee Group
Subject: Re: [FRIAM] AI advance

Vlad -

  I am the weakest of GO players, in spite of having considered the problem
of trying to use Gosper's memoisation as a mode of associative memory
problem solving.  Cody the M00se Dooderson has beat me every time we have
played I think.  Weak, weak, weak!

But I do find it fascinating.

  - Steve


On 1/30/17 8:07 PM, Vladimyr Burachynsky wrote:
> To Joseph Spinden,
>
> The article is old and I wonder if you play the game.
> I ran a Go club at the University of Manitoba and can tell you strange 
> stories about a time before Hassabis.
>
> I swear I never won a game in 5 years but I kept playing anyway.
> I guess I am bloody minded. Eventually I discovered that my handicap 
> was being reduced and suspect I was close to 1 Dan at the time. I was 
> told that was harder than a Ph.D. So I went for the degree and 
> sloughed off the game.
>
> There should be a few players in the congregation, let them speak up.
> vib
>
> -Original Message-
> From: Friam [mailto:friam-boun...@redfish.com] On Behalf Of Joseph 
> Spinden
> Sent: January-28-17 8:32 AM
> To: The Friday Morning Applied Complexity Coffee Group
> Subject: [FRIAM] AI advance
>
> Of interest to some:
>
> https://www.wired.com/2016/01/in-a-huge-breakthrough-googles-ai-beats-
> a-top-
> player-at-the-game-of-go
>
> -JS
>
>
>
>
> 
> 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 
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Re: [FRIAM] AI advance

[Vladimyr Burachynsky]

To Joseph Spinden,

The article is old and I wonder if you play the game.
I ran a Go club at the University of Manitoba and can tell
you strange stories about a time before Hassabis.

I swear I never won a game in 5 years but I kept playing anyway.
I guess I am bloody minded. Eventually I discovered that my handicap was
being reduced and suspect
I was close to 1 Dan at the time. I was told that was harder than a Ph.D. So
I went for the degree and sloughed off the game.

There should be a few players in the congregation, let them speak up.
vib

-Original Message-
From: Friam [mailto:friam-boun...@redfish.com] On Behalf Of Joseph Spinden
Sent: January-28-17 8:32 AM
To: The Friday Morning Applied Complexity Coffee Group
Subject: [FRIAM] AI advance

Of interest to some:

https://www.wired.com/2016/01/in-a-huge-breakthrough-googles-ai-beats-a-top-
player-at-the-game-of-go

-JS





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Re: [FRIAM] Globalism in the age of populism? .. & Open Source Software

[Vladimyr Burachynsky]

Glen,

I was thinking this was my own obsession only. But the mind of the accuser is 
repeatedly presenting itself as more important
then any specific category. It runs through them all like a river.

I recall someone wishing to learn how to build sailboats and that person
thought I was born with such talents.  Somehow I restrained myself at the 
idiocy of such a statement. 

As far as I knew all that I was born with was  appetite and the uncontrollable  
instinct to void myself. Sailboats took 3 decades to master
The leaky guts and pipes only two years.  I started wondering why a man would 
attribute some extraordinary gift of birth  to another and resent me for it.
I have been accused of cheating at cards simply for having a memory of what was 
played and what was not. I have watched people after a big thunderous noise
automatically assert that they did nothing, even before the least effort at 
analysis of what just happened. So  the next action if it can be called that 
was to blame anyone near by and still deaf from the noise. 

These accusers are generally not very quick witted and unreliable. There are 
too many to fight at once so learn to duck. Personally I treat them as being 
defective
and symbolic emotional thinkers. 
Perhaps these categories are misleading and what is going on is much more 
primitive, deeper into a kind of pre-social tribal mind set. Accessible only 
through fear.

vib 
that was a useful exchange on a serious problem.
But what intrigues me is how your letter ended up in my Junk folder. 
Lucky I found it.

-Original Message-
From: Friam [mailto:friam-boun...@redfish.com] On Behalf Of glen ?
Sent: January-30-17 6:01 PM
To: The Friday Morning Applied Complexity Coffee Group
Subject: Re: [FRIAM] Globalism in the age of populism? .. & Open Source Software

On 01/27/2017 08:34 PM, Vladimyr Burachynsky wrote:
> So I cause confusion only because I do not fit into any well 
> established classification system. I bring this up because my experience in 
> life defies most systems which you are attempting to tease apart.

Well, to be clear, I offered the idea that abstract categorizing is easily 
broken by concretizing the categorized.  So, you're simply backing up what I 
was saying.  In essence, the categories are artificial.  Concretizing any 
particular person imputed to be a member of the class, will demonstrate they're 
not a member of the class.  Hence, "elites" actually has measure 0, despite 
what the sloppy thinker thinks prior to trying to measure the class.

> Perhaps I can add two or more defining characteristics, these ephemeral 
> elites also believe they are speaking the truth and demand that the audience 
> also believes. This is what I call 
>   "the evangelical personality."
> Secondly they also believe that they are never responsible for unforeseen 
> outcomes. They invent rationalizations after a calamity to exonerate 
> themselves.
>   "The saintly fool personality"
> Third they accuse someone, very publicly, announcing and justifying their 
> subsequent actions before acting. I guess these observations don't narrow 
> down the field very much for any of us.
>   "The righteously angry personality"
> I guess the fourth factor is that they never admit they screwed up, ever.
>   "The good but stupid soldier"
> I thought Beta's sucked up to Alphas on a regular basis like cheerleaders.
> So now we have 7 characteristics. Not bad for a start. But suspect there are 
> a lot of amateurs in the grouping.

Well, I count 6:

1. indefiniteness,
2. hermeneutics,
3. evangelizing,
4. negligent (saintly fool),
5. disciplinarian (you made me do it), and 6. abdicating.

But what I was getting at with (1) and (2) was, I suppose, what is required 
within the head of the accuser.  What are the characteristics of the way the 
accuser _thinks_ that results in them accusing some class of being "elite".  
Your (3-6) are traits that the accused might exhibit or the accuser might 
perceive.  But they're not properties of the accuser's mind/thoughts.

I set up my attempt to understand the accusers' minds, rather than attributes 
of the _accused_, because I believe the accusations are either TRIVIAL or 
FALSE.  They're trivial because, as I said, we're all "elites" at something ... 
elite tooth brusher, elite seashell gatherer, etc.  They're false because the 
classifications don't survive unless you choose a single well-defined predicate 
(like wealth or athletic achievement).

So, the quesiton is: What type of mind accuses the "elites" of this or that.  
And the answer is: the type of mind that is prone to indefinite (schematic) 
thinking and an expectation of (or frustration with) hermeneutics.  And those 
apply regardless of (3-6) or any other arbitrary descriptors of the alleged 
"elites".

--
☣ glen

==

Re: [FRIAM] Globalism in the age of populism? .. & Open Source Software

[Vladimyr Burachynsky]

Marcus , 

You are quite correct and describe the Hitler type quite well. I never
agreed with some of the Nuremberg trial conclusions that wished to attribute
all the sins of
Nazi Germany on a few maniacs. The truth was that the Germans knew quite
well what was happening.
The arrival of skinheads fascists brown shirts black shirts en masse
presumes something is disturbingly out of whack in the modern world.

Add to this the foolish lout who starts trouble when emboldened by the
hysterical cries of his new girl friend. That is time to clear out before an
irate man hitches his D9 bulldozer to the main structural post of a shabby
drinking hole.

When the German women of Cologne Germany claimed to have been groped in a
New Year's crowd I expected serious violence,  thankfully cooler heads
prevailed.

These type of Alpha males are just  a minor part of the problem and will
never start a revolt, that requires too much effort. When I was much younger
I played around with this very boring but predictable type. I saw that
others also tried to meddle with them for other reasons. but they were well
protected. Hard to remove. They hung on to local power like ticks on a dog.
They feed off of fools that believe. They gain trust only so they may betray
others for a trifle. So today Chevrolet announced a factory in Canada was
being shut down and moved to Mexico. That is not the way to make friends. I
suppose there will be many hot heads emerging  now.
So we can assume NAFTA is now dead and awaiting only a funeral. GM probably
arranged this just to spite Trump and cared nothing about friendship.
Someone in GM  thinks they can excuse this as a misunderstanding . They are
starting a fire.

they. GM.  think they are protected but by who... That's the mystery. I
suspect GM will throw someone under the bus. The mystery group is not going
to expose itself at this point. I would not. It's too early.
vib


-Original Message-
From: Friam [mailto:friam-boun...@redfish.com] On Behalf Of Marcus Daniels
Sent: January-27-17 11:56 PM
To: The Friday Morning Applied Complexity Coffee Group
Subject: Re: [FRIAM] Globalism in the age of populism? .. & Open Source
Software

Vladimyr writes:

< So I cause confusion only because I do not fit into any well established
classification system. I bring this up because my experience in life defies
most systems which you are attempting to tease apart. Trump may well be a
Narcissist and deluded in some traditional manner. That only suggests he
will make a mistake and run into someone he has no idea even exists. >

One might imagine that people in a failing town would leave that town.  Or
that they'd give up on the city councils and school boards and instead focus
on paying their bills and keeping their family together.   But what can
happen as governance disintegrates, is that a new species enters.   I called
that species an alpha, but you are right, it is a vague term.  This person
was *not* an alpha when things were going well, no, they were at the local
tavern grousing about things with their other loser friends.  It's only when
things start to get untenable for the town does this creature decide it is
safe to come out in the light.   The creature seeks souls which can be
captured.   He may start with a desperate woman who has no hope for her life
and takes her as a wife.   Sometimes several creatures will rally together
in order force out people that *are* making the local institutions work.
And you guessed it, the people to force out are the snobs, know-it-alls, and
(now) `elites'.   And it is not unheard of that the creature manages to
mature into the middle class and become a `respected' member of the
community.  They reproduce, and the cycle continues.

Donald Trump and Steve Bannon intuitively understood these angry men and how
to make them come out in the light.   They all rely on fear and derangement
and have no hope of maintaining power without making it proliferate.

Marcus

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Re: [FRIAM] Globalism in the age of populism? .. & Open Source Software

[Vladimyr Burachynsky]

To Glen and Marcus,

Not so fast gentlemen. You managed to pull apart a few strands using tried 
assumptions.
The Alpha is the most conspicuous personality type commonly encountered in 
smallish
sample sizes, <10,000 individuals.

Once when lounging about in the grad students lounge a group of nauseating 
younger students 
barged in and claimed that I was an Alpha male. Then I probably swore and 
claimed they were speaking nonsense.
Then another male grad student entered and he was a star football player. They 
claimed he was also an Alpha.
That is when he finally spoke up and asked which of us they ranked higher. They 
replied the star , of course.
Then he replied that was imbecilic since none of them had ever seen me strike. 
They listened close as he explained,
my entire family were freakishly fast and  lanky and even my baby brother could 
overwhelm him in an arm wrestling contest. He compared us to kicking horses.

I was so drunk that very night it was news to me. He explained that Alphas have 
a need to be recognized but there were other 
personalities far more dangerous and Alphas avoided them. 

He summed up his speech by swearing that he never wanted to ever piss any of us 
off. I thought about this only again after being accused of being a pacifist. 
My brothers and I all rode nasty motorcycles with awesome Barnette Clutches 
before hydraulic assist. Great arm exercise. Besides I had to walk on crutches 
for nearly two years and that only added to my  inherent grumpiness. Our 
varsity boxing team never drew much of an audience during the hippie-era.

So I cause confusion only because I do not fit into any well established 
classification system. I bring this up because my experience in life defies
most systems which you are attempting to tease apart. Trump may well be a 
Narcissist and deluded in some traditional manner. That only suggests he will 
make a mistake and run into someone he has no idea even exists. That would make 
for a great mess and possibly a great  waste of lives.

There may well be someone within his comfort zone right now that could destroy 
him as easily as pushing the send button. Putin is far more than a boogey-man 
and his moral compass is largely indecipherable. Trump does not understand that 
Hunters are waiting high up in the trees. Trump is just bait for now.

However, this discussion is fascinating, already you are in agreement about the 
transitory nature of the Elites and Glen is actually employing a form of shadow 
deduction process to determine what they are and are not. This reminds me of 
Lenin's attempt to define the bourgeoisie classes He used accusations and 
insinuations to expose them and they proclaimed their innocence up to their 
executions. Stalin then invented  'the show trial' to extract forced 
confessions before execution.
In both cases present and past the accused never willingly admitted their 
guilt. Which leads me to ask if they may be possible scape goats serving a 
complex social function. 

Perhaps I can add two or more defining characteristics, these ephemeral elites 
also believe they are speaking the truth and demand that the audience also 
believes. This is what I call 
"the evangelical personality."
Secondly they also believe that they are never responsible for unforeseen 
outcomes. They invent rationalizations after a calamity to exonerate themselves.
"The saintly fool personality"
Third they accuse someone, very publicly, announcing and justifying their 
subsequent actions before acting. I guess these observations don't narrow down 
the field very much for any of us.
"The righteously angry personality"
I guess the fourth factor is that they never admit they screwed up, ever.
"The good but stupid soldier"
I thought Beta's sucked up to Alphas on a regular basis like cheerleaders.
So now we have 7 characteristics. Not bad for a start. But suspect there are a 
lot of amateurs in the grouping.

It reminds me of an old adage,  never tell a Slav you will kill him, even in 
jest. He  will believe you are telling the truth and strike first. They have 
different rules.
America casually throws around too many poorly veiled threats.

Trump is a very noisy bleating bait goat right now and he should hold his 
tongue for now.
Those Turkish NATO allies are acting like whores cozying up to Russia right 
now. The Turks think they can resurrect the Ottoman Empire.  I suspect Putin 
wishes to erode NATO unity and dismember it totally. Obama created an 
uncomfortable noose around Russia. So expect him to shrug it off. Why on earth 
are the Syrian peace talks being held in Kazakhstan, since the Turks think they 
originally came from that area from their own mythology. Are the Russians going 
to sucker Turkey into a provocation so that they reoccupy the Bosphorus again.  
  The Russians are very good at setting up a fall guy. Besides them who else 
can claim to have smashed so many empires.

Glad you guys noticed Frauke 

Re: [FRIAM] Nautilus: Investing Is More Luck Than Talent

[Vladimyr Burachynsky]

"Neoliberalism is simply the idea that any full exploration of the phenotype 
requires parallel processing." 
Well said, and that does not even include the "extended Phenotype"  nor the  
much  hairier and very fearsome," Genotypes".


Since I am not a Neoliberal, but was proudly declared an enemy of the state by 
the previous Conservative Government of Canada, (a bulk application of  petty 
vindictiveness )  I feel it my
duty to translate this into the Vulgar language of my Nation,  aka English, 
mixed with many other locally vulgar and barbaric tongues.

Neoliberalism is just to "act in affected flamboyant charity, while 
simultaneously declaring an inflated tax credit, to the least important but 
sympathetic, while", ..,excuse my confusion German and Old English overlap 
somewhat..." kissing the arse of those with the biggest codpiece."  //Codpiece 
being a metaphor for Wall Street or  the Internal Revenue Service, and in no 
way should be confused with sexism on my part//
I borrowed that phrase from Shakespeare or was it Goethe.

If this is an accurate translation, then could we use it as a taxonomic 
definition.

There was a term used by the Vulgar in the 1960's , "Poser", that sums up both 
definitions in fewer characters. I recall meeting with some at the time  at 
poetry /communist hashish smoking rooms at Rochdale College U of T. 
I did not have time for "full exploration" since the paddy wagon had just 
arrived.

It also appears that the solution time is so great that no amount of 
mental/computational effort will ever yield results so therefore no effort is 
recommended by the authorities.
Any such attempt will be judged as hostile. Any and all contradiction will 
bring down harsh reprisals.
That seems to suggest that no self-declared Neoliberal is required to make any 
effort of any kind except theatrical to earn her/his entitlements. I hope I 
have interpreted this correctly.

Careful scrutiny of such a position then leaves the key distinguishing feature 
between Conservatives and Neoliberals; clearly unresolved.
Since it appears that neither faction is prepared to expend even marginal 
effort.

Really would parallel processing make even the least detectable difference or 
was the term thrown in to just scare the crap out of everyone...
vib

-Original Message-
From: Friam [mailto:friam-boun...@redfish.com] On Behalf Of glen ?
Sent: January-23-17 3:10 PM
To: The Friday Morning Applied Complexity Coffee Group
Subject: Re: [FRIAM] Nautilus: Investing Is More Luck Than Talent

On 01/23/2017 12:44 PM, Marcus Daniels wrote:
> That's the collateral damage of the republicans.   Neoliberals protect the 
> very strong and the very weak, avoid existential threats to the collective, 
> while ignoring those that ought to be able to carry on, even though they feel 
> they should be entitled to special treatment.  

I suppose I can see that.  The Clintons' and Obama's version of it definitely 
lean that way.  I suppose even Bush2, with the "compassionate conservatism" 
falls in there.  But I think it's reasonable to assert that pure neoliberalism 
focuses more on allowing whatever the markets (social and economic) determine.  
Sure, we can kinda clean up after them, preventing the worst consequences (like 
genocide or pandemics).  But too much "caring for the poor" results in too many 
codified plans with too many unforeseeable kinks/singularities that may well be 
more catastrophic than the problems we're trying to solve.

Neoliberalism is simply the idea that any full exploration of the phenotype 
requires parallel processing.  And the term definitely does not deserve the 
vitriol poured on it by some.  I kinda like the idea that neoliberals like me 
will become something like socialist democrats (or democratic socialists).  As 
long as it's likely that large populations of cities can sustain a wide 
diversity of individualist focus, much of which is useless failure but with 
less death and suffering, then the neoliberal has a path to the fundamental 
parallelism of the ideology.  What has died is rural neoliberalism.  You can't 
globalize and reap the benefits by installing Walmarts and Wells Fargo branches.

--
☣ glen


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Re: [FRIAM] Cold War Jitters Resurface as U.S. Marines Arrive in Norway - The New York Times

[Vladimyr Burachynsky]

The New York Times article seems to conflate geography like a party game, 
Twister. It starts in Norway switches to Sweden, Finland, Lithuania Kalingrad 
and keeps returning to fear and Russia.

They should have provided a map to keep track of the game pieces.

 

The Norwegians share an interest in smuggling Atlantic Salmon fillets to 
Muscovites who smoke it.

Russians smuggle bicycles to Norway pedal-powered by Syrian refugees.

The Lithuanians smuggle cigarettes from Russia. The Russians smuggle wild 
Mushrooms (Boletus edulis) and furs  to Europe

The Russians also used to smuggle High Grade Birch Plywood through Finland and 
on to the entire world.

The Russians used to smuggle mammoth Ivory to Alaska. Canada smuggled Grass to 
the USA.

The Polish Merchant Marine Ships used to smuggle Vodka (Spiritus) into Canada.

And all Baltic States  smuggle Amber and Herrings.

The Ukrainians smuggle well heeled Syrians from Russia to Slovakia flying 
Russian Helicopters at tree top heights through the Carpathian Mts.

They used to smuggle diamonds out of and Moldavian Guns into , Africa.

Well if America needs to train soldiers in Arctic conditions what was wrong 
with Alaska or North Dakota.

Perhaps militarism is bad for all smugglers. Seems sanctions only served 
smugglers.

vib.

 

From: Friam [mailto:friam-boun...@redfish.com] On Behalf Of Owen Densmore
Sent: January-17-17 11:15 AM
To: Complexity Coffee Group; Kim Sorvig
Subject: [FRIAM] Cold War Jitters Resurface as U.S. Marines Arrive in Norway - 
The New York Times

 

Does this make any sense? Are Norwegians concerned about a Russian invasion? 
Sounds nuts.

​​

https://www.nytimes.com/2017/01/16/world/europe/norway-us-russia-marines.html

 

​Poland recently​ received US military folks too:

  
https://www.nytimes.com/2017/01/12/world/europe/as-trump-reaches-toward-putin-us-troops-arrive-in-poland.html

 

It seems to be NATO sponsored but why US troops?

 

I'm a bit spooked.

 

​   -- Owen​

 


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Re: [FRIAM] Is the new president mentally ill?

[Vladimyr Burachynsky]

On 01/11/2017 03:34 PM, Jochen Fromm wrote:
> Eric I believe you are wrong if you believe you can have a narcissistic 
> person on your site. A narcissist cares only for himself. The policy of Trump 
> boils down to "I'm great and you're not unless you are like me, myself and I, 
> you loser". There is no way how he can make the country great again. As Paul 
> Krugman said America will turn into some form of authoritarianism, into a 
> Trumpistan nightmare at best. 
> Mr. Trump does not only have a brand, he *is* a brand, a brand that says "I'm 
> great". If you stay in this Trump hotel you are great. If you play on this 
> Trump golf course you are great, too. But it is just a facade. It is based on 
> lies, and there is nothing behind the shiny facade except emptiness. 
> Therefore he seems to hit back immediately if someone damages his image and 
> his brand, because he ceases to exist if his image is destroyed. He and his 
> brand have become undistinguishable.
> Marketing is no way to make America great again, Google has already an OS for 
> ads, and the American corporations excel in marketing, especially the fast 
> food chains. What will he do, build a Trump hotel in every city, a Trump golf 
> course in every national park? This would be a total Trumpistan nightmare. 
> Better than the nuclear apocalypse, but who would want such a future...




VIB I missed the rest of Jochen Fromm’s letter but agree whole heartedly.

 

The universe of a narcissist has a radius close to +1 plus the small consensus 
it controls. The Solipsist has complete mastery of a Universe of radius 
absolute 1 plus the deluded 

cohort of imaginary sycophants. The difference between the two is very small. A 
totally mad narcissist vacillates between the two positions slaughtering all 
contradictions real or imagined.

If a madman truly believes in himself … than he can commit any atrocity with a 
clear conscience. I true believer can completely ignore reality.

 

I was accused of being a pacifist lately when I am anything but that. Sometimes 
Violence is the only response to madmen and in such a case, hesitation is folly.

I was raised by survivors of The Great Slaughter in Eastern Europe, they taught 
me to fight and how to kill because they feared it’s return. Not in my life 
time was I ever called upon…

thank God. 

 

When I wanted to play hockey my father asked what are these Anglish games, you 
should learn to fight and kill. 

That is how you survive…

 

I was raised in a world of two realities, one flippant and the other bitterly 
serious.

 

Jochen sees the same insatiable monster’s path. 

We watch in quiet but we are not passive. The Russians know this beast as well 
as anyone. Finns, Balts, Ukrainians, Poles, Central Europeans we lost an 
uncountable number.

Then the Americans claimed a total victory in 1945, and got the same slow 
social disease.

War continued well into the 1950’s in the East.

 

Trump is no more than a bleating goat tethered to a tent peg in the forest. Now 
that both national parties are discredited more demons are emerging, the 
Media/Bubble and the National Intelligence community.

I admit to being dumbstruck by Trump’s counter reactions. He might make it to 
the end of a term but don’t bet on it. 

 

Trump and Putin are drawing out the poisons in the system.

Putin might survive in some clever way but Trump is clearly blinded by his own 
aura or his deodorant.

Trump is performing his role as Bait, very well.

vib 

 

I ask that no one ever confuses thinking for passivity, nor mistake me for an 
apocalyptic hermit.

So calm down a bit and reduce your heart rate before you touch a trigger.

 

Is that a spoof about Americans coming to Canada, tell them to bring a good 
coat because it is -40 C with windchill.

You are crazy to look for a balmy sanctuary up here. This place is only fit for 
the crazy Siberians now.



 

From: Friam [mailto:friam-boun...@redfish.com] On Behalf Of Grant Holland
Sent: January-12-17 6:40 PM
To: The Friday Morning Applied Complexity Coffee Group
Subject: Re: [FRIAM] Is the new president mentally ill?

 

Eric,

You make a good point about your concerns being orthogonal to mine.

To my point, though... one of the things that Trump is doing to exacerbate my 
concern is to nominate folks (e.g. the senator from Alabama to AG) who have 
vowed to promote further class marginalization, and have demonstrated that such 
is their propensity and commitment - by, for example, supporting the KKK.

Grant

 

On 1/12/17 12:12 PM, Eric Charles wrote:

Grant, et al.,

I fully understand concern for the effect that electing Trump might have on the 
attitudes of the larger population. I have relatives who are, in fact, moving 
from rural areas, where discrimination was already noticeable, to Canada, in 
anticipation of increased discrimination (inspired by what, to them, Trump's 
victory represents). However, I see that as conceptually distinct from concern 
over what 

Re: [FRIAM] Trump, truth, and politics: Why do we still think Trump is acting with respect to the truth?

[Vladimyr Burachynsky]

I think I am responding to Eric Charles,

 

It appears as you suggest  rather trivial… Yet it does contain a rather 
startling component.

Accusation

This need not be based on truth it seems or context. Accusation by itself draws 
to itself Gullible believers

that then they are encouraged to riot , abuse others, or start phony wars. The 
demagogue uses these people

as Vicious Weapons for a time then he loses control and perishes or slinks off 
stage.

Is the Accusation a convenient excuse for brutality , lynching or riots. No one 
much discusses the Accusation’s properties itself. Always leaving a

false binary between truth or falsehood.  The accusation serves a purpose even 
if the truth-state is unclear. 

Just why do people choose to believe an accusation without evidence…

To believe a false accusation or clouded insinuation seems to give license to 
vile actions against arbitrary targets.

Is an Accusation  then a Social Weapon regardless of truth.

Once an Accusation is unleashed does anyone escape unharmed.

vib

 

From: Friam [mailto:friam-boun...@redfish.com] On Behalf Of Eric Charles
Sent: January-04-17 12:15 PM
To: The Friday Morning Applied Complexity Coffee Group
Subject: Re: [FRIAM] Trump, truth, and politics: Why do we still think Trump is 
acting with respect to the truth?

 

Is it a lose if your kid goes to the principal’s office for abusing his 
classmates, or goes to jail for a night for drunken bad behavior?

 

Sure... the situation would be improved, and we would call it a win, if we 
could send Putin to the principles office... Part of my point was exactly that 
it seems unlikely a public accusation by Trump would do anything towards 
getting Putin to "learn there are consequences to things and stop doing those 
things." Does anyone think Obama's sending home a handful of diplomats did 
that? 

 

This is especially true as there is not any suggestion that votes were altered. 
If there were implications of that, it would necessarily throw the election 
into question, and have huge political implications. But that isn't among the 
things Russia is accused of. Instead, they are accused (by some) of an effort 
to selectively search for and release true reproductions of material authored 
by people in the inner circle of the Democratic Party, which is not itself a 
state entity. While there is reason to think the released material had 
implications for how the election played out, the material doesn't even rise to 
the level of a propaganda effort in the traditional sense of the spreading of 
false information or even false implications, and it is not a direct attack on 
the democratic process. In terms of its criminal nature, such an act should be 
viewed similar to hacking the email system at a start-up company, and releasing 
embarrassing (but accurate) materials regarding ongoing operations, shortly 
before an IPO. 

 

That said, I fully agree with your take that this is a sideshow compared to 
many more important issues that could be covered by the news. 

 





---
Eric P. Charles, Ph.D.
Supervisory Survey Statistician

U.S. Marine Corps

 

On Wed, Jan 4, 2017 at 12:21 PM, Marcus Daniels  wrote:

“Even if the intelligence community had iron clad proof, that everyone could 
understand and believe beyond a reasonable doubt (which they don't), it would 
only heighten questions about the legitimacy of Trump's win. At this point, 
that wouldn't be a win for Trump, or the country.”

 

For some narrow, short-sighted, definition of “win for the country”.  Is it a 
lose if your kid goes to the principal’s office for abusing his classmates, or 
goes to jail for a night for drunken bad behavior?   In the long term it is a 
win if we learn there are consequences to things and stop doing those things.   
The supposed Russian hacking thing is a sideshow to the real problem of Trump’s 
conflict of interests in so many countries, esp. his outstanding debts to 
foreign banks.  Who really has their finger on him and how does his intend to 
use his new power in relation to that?  No one wants to dig into the hacking 
thing very deep because at the end of the day it proves nothing.  States do 
nasty things.  Yes, we get that.  Our networks and infrastructure are not 
particularly secure and like our shipping ports there are productivity 
consequences to being more cautious.

 

Marcus



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Re: [FRIAM] Please Help. Was it a dream?

[Vladimyr Burachynsky]

Nick ,

Perhaps a nightmare?

 

The intriguing aspect of what has happened worldwide, is that reaction is
focused on the "Elites"

An Italian Political Scientist suggested that the left and the right joined
forces for the first time to stop Renzi's referendum just as in Britain.

http://www.nature.com/news/italian-scientists-won-t-miss-departing-prime-min
ister-matteo-renzi-1.21139

 

What are we not seeing.

 

The Dutch are laying charges of Hate Speech on Wilders.

But who are they and how can they be distinguished from the real elites.

Are the "Elites" the same as the shadowy "Bank-sters"

Anyone able to clarify, please do.

vib

 

 

From: Friam [mailto:friam-boun...@redfish.com] On Behalf Of Nick Thompson
Sent: December-09-16 10:59 PM
To: Friam
Cc: David West
Subject: [FRIAM] Please Help. Was it a dream?

 

Dear FF's (Fellow Friammers)

 

Since the election, I have bothered you all, individually and collectively,
to consider, given the web's role in the balkanization of our political
discourse, what the web's role might be in knitting us back together again.


 

At some point in the last ten days, one of you sent me a link to a website
that was doing something like that.  I opened it, was amazed, intrigued, but
could not explore it at the time.  AND NOW I CAN NOT FIND IT.  

 

Does any of you remember what I am talking about?  Ah to have a pink brain
again.  

 

Nick 

 

 

 

Nicholas S. Thompson

Emeritus Professor of Psychology and Biology

Clark University

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

 


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Re: [FRIAM] Divided America

[Vladimyr Burachynsky]

I have to thank every one,

 

Truth is that we all will die.

Social Justice is about  allowing people to delay knowledge of the inevitable.

 

 

Reality is hard, Delusion intoxicating.

Sobriety is a grim life style.

 

I started listening to Nigel Kennedy again … 

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7Q7DrtPZw5s

 

How time flies…

Admitting to both only leads to melancholy.

So let’s all get thoroughly pissed, the reality will still be there when we 
wake up.

I Hope someone prepares the coffee. That seems the basis for any social 
structure; bemused sympathy.

vib

Vladimyr

 

Well, Canada now has the same malady. The crowds were chanting Trump slogans in 
Calgary they even had preprinted

placards , maybe in French and English.

 

From: Friam [mailto:friam-boun...@redfish.com] On Behalf Of Nick Thompson
Sent: December-06-16 12:35 AM
To: 'The Friday Morning Applied Complexity Coffee Group'
Subject: Re: [FRIAM] Divided America

 

Vladimyr, 

 

You thank Stephen Guerin [st...@redfish.com] and Owen Densmore 
[o...@redfish.com] who got it started more than 12 years ago, and you thank 
Frank Wimberly (Frank Wimberly [wimber...@gmail.com], who arrives faithfully 
ever Friday at 9am, come rain, shine, snow, or St. John’s Vacations, and sees 
that there is always somebody there to welcome a newcomer. OR a visitor from 
the diaspora.  It is, to my knowledge, the longest running weekly fact-to-face 
discussion group on the planet.  I couldn’t survive without it.  

 

Nick 

 

 

Nicholas S. Thompson

Emeritus Professor of Psychology and Biology

Clark University

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

 

From: Friam [mailto:friam-boun...@redfish.com] On Behalf Of Vladimyr Burachynsky
Sent: Monday, December 05, 2016 8:57 PM
To: 'The Friday Morning Applied Complexity Coffee Group' <friam@redfish.com>
Subject: Re: [FRIAM] Divided America

 

Nick 

Take a deep Breath and slowly listen to your Prophetic words.

 

Your metaphor has enormous potential and may seem  to some overly generous .

Yet it may be what saves us from ourselves. Accepting the far flung into the 
commonality  is exactly how the Greeks

defied more brutal regimes. According to Herodotus, if you could Run with a 
Shield and Spear and recite a few words in Greek so you became Greek. 

The standards were much relaxed if you could bring your wet-nurse.

They accepted even the proverbial Idiots.

 

Now there are so many Greeks outside of Greece that they actually outnumber 
residents.

 

These Diaspora communities seem to thrive in western nations and enliven local 
cuisine at the very least.

But seriously a Diaspora that includes other diasporas ; it sounds a lot like 
our own Humanity.

Perhaps Trump accidentally did something useful.

Even Fools can be blessed with the occasional words of wisdom.

 

Perhaps our little cultural groups are oh, so, pleasant strait jackets or 
prison cells.

 

I have forgotten who to thank for this forum, so anyway they deserve a cheer.

A divided America may lead to a United World is this a contradiction or Paradox

 

Vladimyr

vib

 

 

From: Friam [mailto:friam-boun...@redfish.com] On Behalf Of Nick Thompson
Sent: December-05-16 11:34 AM
To: 'The Friday Morning Applied Complexity Coffee Group'
Subject: Re: [FRIAM] Divided America

 

Sorry, Vladimyr, 

 

My Bad.  “the mother church” and “the diaspora” is a running gag of mine that 
nobody gets and I should stop it. 

 

I mean by “mother church” the group of people who meet here in Santa Fe each 
Friday and by “the diaspora” those of you on the list who are too far away to 
show up.  I mean to imply by the metaphor that all of you have the Right of 
Return.  

 

But since I really don’t know what any of those terms mean, AND I am mixing up 
metaphors, perhaps it’s time for Old Nick to get another joke.  

 

Thanks for your patience. 

 

Nick 

 

Nicholas S. Thompson

Emeritus Professor of Psychology and Biology

Clark University

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

 

From: Friam [mailto:friam-boun...@redfish.com] On Behalf Of Vladimyr Burachynsky
Sent: Monday, December 05, 2016 12:36 AM
To: 'The Friday Morning Applied Complexity Coffee Group' <friam@redfish.com>
Subject: Re: [FRIAM] Divided America

 

Nice to hear from Jochen seems like a long absence.

 

The  political weather seems to have become more turbulent.

The directional Vectors from Italy and Austria  only add to the mess.

 

Fear of the future appears to manifest itself in many oddities.

Canadians are only joking when they suggest we build a Wall to keep out the 
Yanks.

It would perk up the economy but would be easily misunderstood. 

 

Maybe we should use old folk remedies such as Garlic Braids to keep Lucifer at 
bay.

 

The literal/serious dichotomy may also appear when symbols are confused wi

Re: [FRIAM] Divided America

[Vladimyr Burachynsky]

Nick 

Take a deep Breath and slowly listen to your Prophetic words.

 

Your metaphor has enormous potential and may seem  to some overly generous .

Yet it may be what saves us from ourselves. Accepting the far flung into the 
commonality  is exactly how the Greeks

defied more brutal regimes. According to Herodotus, if you could Run with a 
Shield and Spear and recite a few words in Greek so you became Greek. 

The standards were much relaxed if you could bring your wet-nurse.

They accepted even the proverbial Idiots.

 

Now there are so many Greeks outside of Greece that they actually outnumber 
residents.

 

These Diaspora communities seem to thrive in western nations and enliven local 
cuisine at the very least.

But seriously a Diaspora that includes other diasporas ; it sounds a lot like 
our own Humanity.

Perhaps Trump accidentally did something useful.

Even Fools can be blessed with the occasional words of wisdom.

 

Perhaps our little cultural groups are oh, so, pleasant strait jackets or 
prison cells.

 

I have forgotten who to thank for this forum, so anyway they deserve a cheer.

A divided America may lead to a United World is this a contradiction or Paradox

 

Vladimyr

vib

 

 

From: Friam [mailto:friam-boun...@redfish.com] On Behalf Of Nick Thompson
Sent: December-05-16 11:34 AM
To: 'The Friday Morning Applied Complexity Coffee Group'
Subject: Re: [FRIAM] Divided America

 

Sorry, Vladimyr, 

 

My Bad.  “the mother church” and “the diaspora” is a running gag of mine that 
nobody gets and I should stop it. 

 

I mean by “mother church” the group of people who meet here in Santa Fe each 
Friday and by “the diaspora” those of you on the list who are too far away to 
show up.  I mean to imply by the metaphor that all of you have the Right of 
Return.  

 

But since I really don’t know what any of those terms mean, AND I am mixing up 
metaphors, perhaps it’s time for Old Nick to get another joke.  

 

Thanks for your patience. 

 

Nick 

 

Nicholas S. Thompson

Emeritus Professor of Psychology and Biology

Clark University

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

 

From: Friam [mailto:friam-boun...@redfish.com] On Behalf Of Vladimyr Burachynsky
Sent: Monday, December 05, 2016 12:36 AM
To: 'The Friday Morning Applied Complexity Coffee Group' <friam@redfish.com>
Subject: Re: [FRIAM] Divided America

 

Nice to hear from Jochen seems like a long absence.

 

The  political weather seems to have become more turbulent.

The directional Vectors from Italy and Austria  only add to the mess.

 

Fear of the future appears to manifest itself in many oddities.

Canadians are only joking when they suggest we build a Wall to keep out the 
Yanks.

It would perk up the economy but would be easily misunderstood. 

 

Maybe we should use old folk remedies such as Garlic Braids to keep Lucifer at 
bay.

 

The literal/serious dichotomy may also appear when symbols are confused with 
reality.

The “Great America” may be an awkward Symbol used to soothe babies frightened 
by thunder.

A crucifix  always soothes the bereaved at a funeral, the dead remain dead and 
the living have to

repair the damage. Symbols  abound in troubled times.

 

What is a  FRIAM Diaspora Community,  hmmm,,,

My wager is that Trump will be impeached  within 24 months.

Vladimyr

vib

From: Friam [mailto:friam-boun...@redfish.com] On Behalf Of Jochen Fromm
Sent: December-04-16 6:28 AM
To: The Friday Morning Applied Complexity Coffee Group
Subject: [FRIAM] Divided America

 

In Europe people are shocked about the results of the American presidential 
election. What is your opinion in NM, will the new president Trump make America 
great again or will he lead America into some form of cronyism, nepotism, 
fascism or even totalitarianism? American itself seems to be deeply divided 

https://public.tableau.com/views/USvsTHEM/USvs_THEM?:showVizHome=no

 

His supporters take him seriously but not literally, while his opponents take 
him literally bit not seriously. I guess the FRIAM group is divided too between 
those who take Trump seriously and hope he will make their situation better, 
and those who take him literally and hope he will fail. Which side is the 
majority?

http://www.theatlantic.com/politics/archive/2016/09/trump-makes-his-case-in-pittsburgh/501335/

 

-Jochen 

 

Sent from my Tricorder.


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Re: [FRIAM] Divided America

[Vladimyr Burachynsky]

Nice to hear from Jochen seems like a long absence.

 

The  political weather seems to have become more turbulent.

The directional Vectors from Italy and Austria  only add to the mess.

 

Fear of the future appears to manifest itself in many oddities.

Canadians are only joking when they suggest we build a Wall to keep out the 
Yanks.

It would perk up the economy but would be easily misunderstood. 

 

Maybe we should use old folk remedies such as Garlic Braids to keep Lucifer at 
bay.

 

The literal/serious dichotomy may also appear when symbols are confused with 
reality.

The “Great America” may be an awkward Symbol used to soothe babies frightened 
by thunder.

A crucifix  always soothes the bereaved at a funeral, the dead remain dead and 
the living have to

repair the damage. Symbols  abound in troubled times.

 

What is a  FRIAM Diaspora Community,  hmmm,,,

My wager is that Trump will be impeached  within 24 months.

Vladimyr

vib

From: Friam [mailto:friam-boun...@redfish.com] On Behalf Of Jochen Fromm
Sent: December-04-16 6:28 AM
To: The Friday Morning Applied Complexity Coffee Group
Subject: [FRIAM] Divided America

 

In Europe people are shocked about the results of the American presidential 
election. What is your opinion in NM, will the new president Trump make America 
great again or will he lead America into some form of cronyism, nepotism, 
fascism or even totalitarianism? American itself seems to be deeply divided 

https://public.tableau.com/views/USvsTHEM/USvs_THEM?:showVizHome=no

 

His supporters take him seriously but not literally, while his opponents take 
him literally bit not seriously. I guess the FRIAM group is divided too between 
those who take Trump seriously and hope he will make their situation better, 
and those who take him literally and hope he will fail. Which side is the 
majority?

http://www.theatlantic.com/politics/archive/2016/09/trump-makes-his-case-in-pittsburgh/501335/

 

-Jochen 

 

Sent from my Tricorder.


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Re: [FRIAM] Stop Calling People "Low Information Voters" | Quillette

[Vladimyr Burachynsky]

To the Congregation,

Canada has recently thrown out a crony conservative party replaced by a 
supposedly more moderate liberal party.
But very recently we have become alarmed by their behavior, they presume to be 
speaking on the constituents behalf.
We ask where those ideas came from in stunned disbelief, only to here it is the 
overwhelming consensus.
Since when did consensus have so many interpretations?
This has been puzzling, and seems to forecast what Trump's legions are expected 
to do.
How on earth could a  Canadian Liberal Party accidentally have the same 
behavior as 
an American Right Wing Republican party. In both cases they are mistaking their 
own voices for that of the public's voice.

This does not appear to be a political issue any longer but rather a 
coincidence of narcissistic psychopathy. In some sense even the democrats 
may have been entranced by their own voices.  There have now been numerous 
insinuations that people are living in an information bubble
dispensing  appealing nonsense and outright lies. This is not typical for 
either country and I suspect the British are doing the same.

All three countries are moving along parallel vectors. And the pundits have 
different and unique explanations for each country. 
And they never happen to listen to eachother.
I suspect we are entering an era of failed or limping democracies for the want 
of reality checks.
Now the French seem to be cooking up something bitter. Are we all going mad 
after so much optimistic delusionary deceit.
British citizens are also demanding jail time for Tony Blair.

It is much more than one country's peculiar problem or so methinks.
From my point of view it did seem like it would not have made much difference 
whichever candidate had won
in any of our countries.
Perhaps these elites all share an aversion to reality.  Such as stage 
performers who despise theatre critics.
vib

-Original Message-
From: Friam [mailto:friam-boun...@redfish.com] On Behalf Of ?glen?
Sent: December-01-16 1:28 PM
To: The Friday Morning Applied Complexity Coffee Group
Subject: Re: [FRIAM] Stop Calling People "Low Information Voters" | Quillette


Well, sure.  But, speaking for myself, I see plenty of snobbish, aloof, and 
patronizing expression in the speech and action of people like Richard Spencer 
and Mencius Moldbug (Curtis Yarvin) -- and the intellectuals they tend to fawn 
over.  Hell, Ayn Rand has a huge dose of it, too.  To go even further, hang out 
amongst any elite group for awhile, and you'll notice how they treat "noobs".  
While most domains (e.g. martial arts or programming, say) have a nice dose of 
mentors and teachers, who treat novices earnestly, there's _always_ a large 
contingent of the elite in that domain that treat novices the same way you're 
describing.

So what?  Being a novice in any domain is difficult.  But you don't run around 
complaining about how snobbish the elite swimmers are.  You swim!  You improve. 
 Then when you become competitive, you haze the novices just like you were 
hazed.

Conservatives who yap about "liberal elitism" are just expressing their 
_entitlement_.  They want you to take them seriously even though they haven't 
put in any effort.  They want a trophy just for showing up.


On 12/01/2016 11:12 AM, Eric Charles wrote:
> The style matters. Oddly quite a bit. "Liberal elitism" is snobbish, aloof, 
> and patronizing. Note, it is not the way in which they are "elite", but the 
> "elitism" that rankles the most. Trump's financial-elite bull-in-a-china-shop 
> schtick looks and feels very different, and there are many people who would 
> much rather deal with it. Bill Clinton was a friggin' Rhodes scholar, but 
> connected with everyday Americans, and wasn't, until he sought to get so 
> aggressively dynastic, at risk of the "liberal elite" label. I've not heard 
> it leveled at Carter either. On the other hand, Gore and Kerry reeked of it, 
> and that was part of their problem.
> 
> As the article says towards the end:
> " “High information” people ignore evidence if it conflicts with their 
> preferred narrative /all the time./ And while it may be naïve for voters to 
> believe the promises of Trump and the Brexit campaigners — it has also been 
> profoundly naïve for the cosmopolitan classes to believe that years of forced 
> internationalism and forced political correctness were never going to end 
> with a large scale backlash."


--
␦glen?


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Re: [FRIAM] The Sign Game

[Vladimyr Burachynsky]

Nick,

I hope this link is of some value.

https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2016/11/161121165921.htm

Vladimyr

vib

 

From: Friam [mailto:friam-boun...@redfish.com] On Behalf Of Nick Thompson
Sent: November-18-16 3:19 PM
To: 'The Friday Morning Applied Complexity Coffee Group'
Subject: Re: [FRIAM] The Sign Game

 

Thanks, Cody, 

 

I don’t think anybody is very good at this game.  My whole project here is to 
study people’s responses and see if I can develop some rules for it.  

 

Your response is helpful.  The hardest part of the game is identifying the last 
term, the “interpretant”.  I am not sure a person or an organism is a proper 
term to fill into that slot, although many, many people will fill in people 
organisms there.  I think the “proper” term is more like the question that the 
person or organism brings to the situation.  So, in some sense, a territorial 
male robin is constantly asking himself about the objects in his territory, “Is 
this thing another bird; if so, is it a robin; if so, is it a male robin?  So, 
I would say that the “interpretant” is the dimension of inquiry with which the 
territorial male robin approaches the objects in his territory, not the 
territorial male robin himself.  

 

But if I really knew, I wouldn’t be asking the question.  

 

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 cody dooderson
Sent: Friday, November 18, 2016 9:41 AM
To: The Friday Morning Applied Complexity Coffee Group 
Subject: Re: [FRIAM] The Sign Game

 

I am a total newbie to the sign game. What is considered a correct answer? 

I took a stab at the first question. What do you think?

 

When a male robin enters the territorial male robin’s territory, the owner will 
display,

 

sing, and approach the intruder. Experiments show that any tuft of red cotton 
mounted

 

on brown wires will suffice to elicit this response.

I would say the (S)ign is: A red fuzzy thing

(O)bject: A male robin

(I)nterpretant: Male robins are usually red fuzzy things. 




Cody Smith

 

On Fri, Nov 18, 2016 at 12:09 AM, Nick Thompson  
wrote:

Dear Members of the Local Congregation, 

 

There will be a short quiz tomorrow. (};-)] Please see attached. 

 

Nick 



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Re: [FRIAM] The Sign Game

[Vladimyr Burachynsky]

.  
If there are peculiarities in the brain organization of one animal in 
comparison with another, those peculiarities should be entirely expressible in 
terms of the different interpretants that the different animals bring to the 
sign relation, or they are irrelevant.  Similarly “mind talk”. Where things 
truly run off the rails is when we start to mix mind, and brain, and sign talk 
in the same formulation.

 

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 Vladimyr Burachynsky
Sent: Friday, November 18, 2016 4:29 PM
To: 'The Friday Morning Applied Complexity Coffee Group' <friam@redfish.com>
Subject: Re: [FRIAM] The Sign Game

 

Nick and Cody,

 

Cody exposed a chink in the problem. The object is not the beginning of the 
issue it is 

the Robin’s mind that imparts the response in particular the male robin’s brain.

 

When the Brain connects a visual stimulus with a comparison pattern in storage, 
a certain threshold 

initiates an entire array of physical responses. If the stimulus remains fixed 
the male will beat himself to death 

upon meeting his own reflection. The object only acquires a status once 
observed.

 

Cody knows the fuzz is fuzz but the Robin’s knowledge is more immediate and 
perhaps based on a fixed neural algorithm

Knowledge makes a difference.

 

I raised hunting dogs for years and observed that Borzois attack anything that 
is moving quickly. And lose interest when the object 

stops. Then they just walk around looking for something new.

 

The brains are the culprit, they give the object some meaning deservedly or 
not. Larger Brains have the luxury of choosing from a multiple 

of choices.

So the brain’s basic structure initiates responses without cognition, the act 
of choosing

may be a mark of higher intelligence,

 

perhaps the reason we fail is that few people know their own minds. But we are 
aware of our actions.

This is hauntingly like a recursion problem where one part of the brain is 
required to monitor another part while it is working and before the body moves.

Then it must connect a complex brain activity with the reality of an automobile 
accident.

vib

  

 

From: Friam [mailto:friam-boun...@redfish.com] On Behalf Of Nick Thompson
Sent: November-18-16 3:19 PM
To: 'The Friday Morning Applied Complexity Coffee Group'
Subject: Re: [FRIAM] The Sign Game

 

Thanks, Cody, 

 

I don’t think anybody is very good at this game.  My whole project here is to 
study people’s responses and see if I can develop some rules for it.  

 

Your response is helpful.  The hardest part of the game is identifying the last 
term, the “interpretant”.  I am not sure a person or an organism is a proper 
term to fill into that slot, although many, many people will fill in people 
organisms there.  I think the “proper” term is more like the question that the 
person or organism brings to the situation.  So, in some sense, a territorial 
male robin is constantly asking himself about the objects in his territory, “Is 
this thing another bird; if so, is it a robin; if so, is it a male robin?  So, 
I would say that the “interpretant” is the dimension of inquiry with which the 
territorial male robin approaches the objects in his territory, not the 
territorial male robin himself.  

 

But if I really knew, I wouldn’t be asking the question.  

 

Nicholas S. Thompson

Emeritus Professor of Psychology and Biology

Clark University

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

 

From: Friam [mailto:friam-boun...@redfish.com] On Behalf Of cody dooderson
Sent: Friday, November 18, 2016 9:41 AM
To: The Friday Morning Applied Complexity Coffee Group <friam@redfish.com>
Subject: Re: [FRIAM] The Sign Game

 

I am a total newbie to the sign game. What is considered a correct answer? 

I took a stab at the first question. What do you think?

 

When a male robin enters the territorial male robin’s territory, the owner will 
display,

 

sing, and approach the intruder. Experiments show that any tuft of red cotton 
mounted

 

on brown wires will suffice to elicit this response.

I would say the (S)ign is: A red fuzzy thing

(O)bject: A male robin

(I)nterpretant: Male robins are usually red fuzzy things. 




Cody Smith

 

On Fri, Nov 18, 2016 at 12:09 AM, Nick Thompson <nickthomp...@earthlink.net> 
wrote:

Dear Members of the Local Congregation, 

 

There will be a short quiz tomorrow. (};-)] Please see attached. 

 

Nick 



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Re: [FRIAM] Please I need help with a technical term

[Vladimyr Burachynsky]

Nick,

 

I don’t usually ascribe madness to any  writer . There seems to be too much

of that sort of thing lately.

Never attribute to an action, malice, when stupidity serves as well. 

 

I started thinking about the evolutionary origins of Conflation.

And low and behold I wrote some code to experiment on myself.

I work with images mostly and how we infer meaning to what we see.

 

My brain at least will conflate at certain frame rates and not at other slower 
speeds.

Since the images are computer generated they have no intrinsic meaning, so why 
does speed

of presentation  impart some attitude from my brain is quite curious.

 

Then it occurred to me that eyes require a major contribution of neurons to 
make appropriate sense

out of visual chaos. Those neurons supply us automatically with an imperative 
when we see certain patterns.

Brains are not recognized as using extravagant techniques to supply us with 
meaning.

vib

 

How goes the battle, good luck.

 

 

From: Friam [mailto:friam-boun...@redfish.com] On Behalf Of Nick Thompson
Sent: November-17-16 1:09 AM
To: 'The Friday Morning Applied Complexity Coffee Group'
Subject: Re: [FRIAM] Please I need help with a technical term

 

Victor, 

 

Why would you ever expect Lacan to report accurately on his on mental state?   
Or even to know it?  What special privilege does Lacan have to know his own 
mental state?  

 

Nick 

 

Nicholas S. Thompson

Emeritus Professor of Psychology and Biology

Clark University

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

 

From: Friam [mailto:friam-boun...@redfish.com] On Behalf Of Vladimyr Burachynsky
Sent: Wednesday, November 16, 2016 11:32 PM
To: 'The Friday Morning Applied Complexity Coffee Group' <friam@redfish.com>
Subject: Re: [FRIAM] Please I need help with a technical term

 

to Frank 

Curious, a trained psychoanalyst had difficulty determining Lacan’s mental 
state.

One only has to attempt reading his work.

vib

 

At least Zizek has some funny lines about bathroom seating and the focal 
centres, English, German ,and American .

I think he missed the Italian tiled pit and the Bavarian Watering Hole.

 

From: Friam [mailto:friam-boun...@redfish.com] On Behalf Of Frank Wimberly
Sent: November-16-16 8:00 PM
To: The Friday Morning Applied Complexity Coffee Group
Subject: Re: [FRIAM] Please I need help with a technical term

 

Vladimyr,

Two of my closest friends in Pittsburgh were senior psychoanalysts.  One was a 
female and a child training analyst (the pinnacle of the profession).  The 
other was a male and was very involved with philosophers from the University of 
Pittsburgh (one of the best graduate programs in the US).  They were discussing 
Lacan and the female said, "He's crazy, isn't he?". The male said, "What 
difference does that make?"  Irrelevant to your points but an amusing memory.

Frank

Frank Wimberly
Phone (505) 670-9918

 

On Nov 16, 2016 6:44 PM, "Vladimyr Burachynsky" <vbur...@shaw.ca> wrote:

Nick,

 

Eco describes a situation where the object is its own sign and the confusion 
just keeps getting worse when

the Thing described as an object , turns out to be a counterfeit. If you wish 
to  elaborate on what is an object

you may have a problem since every possible object only exists as a symbol in a 
viewer’s mind and some minds are rather 

perverse in what they consider to be real in any sense.

Eco hinted at some 19th century erotic  literature having a more profound 
effect than the real.

E.O. Wilson described a species  of moth where the males attempted to gang rape 
Tinsel lures cast out into a field.

The object gets the distinction of that name only when perceived by a witness.  
If I recall correctly the males entirely ignored the females.

 

A self guided robotic vacuum cleaner never identifies the obstacle as a chair 
or sleeping dog, nor is it even a requirement.

 

I once tried to read Jacques Lacan  but never finished due to all his baffling 
jargon.  I thought him a charlatan.

Then I tried reading Claude-Levy Strauss , Savage Mind,  and started seeing the 
historical line of thinking.

 

Strauss tried to develop a formalism based on some weird type of graphical 
geometry and all his parameters were given metaphorical names but never any 
clarity.

You would be welcome to these if you lived closer. Slavoj  Zizek tried to 
modernize Hegel and Lacan and actually got some  real laughs. He is  very 
prolific and an easier read than Lacan.

 

Umberto Eco is much more methodical and Kant and the Platypus is still a 
difficult work to plough through.

Eco died last year but his body of work should help you and is well referenced.

 

The Lion is an object as well as a symbol. When the symbol of a lion is 
juxtaposed with a symbol of a royal family it becomes another level of 
symbology.

Place the Lion at the foot of a child and we ha

Re: [FRIAM] Please I need help with a technical term

[Vladimyr Burachynsky]

to Frank 

Curious, a trained psychoanalyst had difficulty determining Lacan’s mental 
state.

One only has to attempt reading his work.

vib

 

At least Zizek has some funny lines about bathroom seating and the focal 
centres, English, German ,and American .

I think he missed the Italian tiled pit and the Bavarian Watering Hole.

 

From: Friam [mailto:friam-boun...@redfish.com] On Behalf Of Frank Wimberly
Sent: November-16-16 8:00 PM
To: The Friday Morning Applied Complexity Coffee Group
Subject: Re: [FRIAM] Please I need help with a technical term

 

Vladimyr,

Two of my closest friends in Pittsburgh were senior psychoanalysts.  One was a 
female and a child training analyst (the pinnacle of the profession).  The 
other was a male and was very involved with philosophers from the University of 
Pittsburgh (one of the best graduate programs in the US).  They were discussing 
Lacan and the female said, "He's crazy, isn't he?". The male said, "What 
difference does that make?"  Irrelevant to your points but an amusing memory.

Frank

Frank Wimberly
Phone (505) 670-9918

 

On Nov 16, 2016 6:44 PM, "Vladimyr Burachynsky" <vbur...@shaw.ca> wrote:

Nick,

 

Eco describes a situation where the object is its own sign and the confusion 
just keeps getting worse when

the Thing described as an object , turns out to be a counterfeit. If you wish 
to  elaborate on what is an object

you may have a problem since every possible object only exists as a symbol in a 
viewer’s mind and some minds are rather 

perverse in what they consider to be real in any sense.

Eco hinted at some 19th century erotic  literature having a more profound 
effect than the real.

E.O. Wilson described a species  of moth where the males attempted to gang rape 
Tinsel lures cast out into a field.

The object gets the distinction of that name only when perceived by a witness.  
If I recall correctly the males entirely ignored the females.

 

A self guided robotic vacuum cleaner never identifies the obstacle as a chair 
or sleeping dog, nor is it even a requirement.

 

I once tried to read Jacques Lacan  but never finished due to all his baffling 
jargon.  I thought him a charlatan.

Then I tried reading Claude-Levy Strauss , Savage Mind,  and started seeing the 
historical line of thinking.

 

Strauss tried to develop a formalism based on some weird type of graphical 
geometry and all his parameters were given metaphorical names but never any 
clarity.

You would be welcome to these if you lived closer. Slavoj  Zizek tried to 
modernize Hegel and Lacan and actually got some  real laughs. He is  very 
prolific and an easier read than Lacan.

 

Umberto Eco is much more methodical and Kant and the Platypus is still a 
difficult work to plough through.

Eco died last year but his body of work should help you and is well referenced.

 

The Lion is an object as well as a symbol. When the symbol of a lion is 
juxtaposed with a symbol of a royal family it becomes another level of 
symbology.

Place the Lion at the foot of a child and we have another composite symbol. 
When CS Lewis used the Lion to symbolize

the Ultimate Goodness , Aslan , in Narnia the symbol appears reordered and now 
the child follows this symbol.

Perhaps Objects as distinct from Symbols is a first step. Symbols become ever 
more complex and their level of abstraction becomes difficult to determine.

Back to the basement level then a Real Lion can eat me or foul my carpet. No 
symbol can do so.  But someone holding a symbol can still slay me.

But a hooligan  carrying a swastika  symbol does not actually give the symbol 
agency. If one can see these two as inseparable then we may call it conflation.

Conflation of symbols today is very common and widely acceptable, sometimes 
useful and even  revolutionary.

 

I will hazard a guess and suggest you are exclusively dealing with high level 
symbols such as computer code that can digest other symbols and may or may not 
,make a mess as well.

Let’s assume that is the case and symbolic code can sort and re-catalogue other 
code, information. It is highly ordered and intolerant of meddling. These 
symbols are mechanistic

and can not tolerate disorder. So in a sense they may be symbols but also serve 
as operators.  My Fake Hiroshige wood prints only operated on my own vanity, my 
guests

were unaffected.  I think your symbols have a wider field of operation.

I might suggest that only a thinking entity can tell the difference between an 
object and a symbol.

I used to catch dragonflies by tossing small gravel above my head. The dragons 
were attracted but once caught they could detect the chicanery and released the 
bait.

However they never learned that this was a ruse. So the dragonfly responds to 
an image that fits an optical pattern.

 

It is rather timely that someone adds to this topic from a hard science 
position, bridge the divide so to speak.

If you manage to reconcile 

Re: [FRIAM] Please I need help with a technical term

[Vladimyr Burachynsky]

sort of sign, and we are just trying to come 
up with a general way to attribute sign-dom, so the question of whether this is 
a “symbol” or not, can be postponed. 

 

Before I apply the formula, I need to make a stipulation about how a chick 
works.  I assume that a chick that lacks grit in its gullet but has food is a 
different chick than a chick that has food in its gullet but lacks grit. Let’s 
assume that the chick distinguishes between grit and corn, by a trial peck, and 
that it distinguishes peckable items by how they behave when scratched. With 
these assumptions in place, let’s try to apply the formula to the chick.  

Chick scratches

 

[loose Object] re-presents [dirt] with respect to [object vs substrate] 

 

[Peckable] re-presents [loose objects] with respect to [size]

 

Chick Pecks, now two possibilities, path a and path b

 

1a [Hard, dense] re-presents [peckable, loose object] with respect to [density, 
softness]

1b [Soft, light] re-presents [peckable, loose object ] with respect to 
[density, softness]

 

2a [Grit] re-presents [hard, dense, peckable, loose object] with respect to 
[chick that lacks grit]

2b [Food] re-presents [soft, light, peckable, loose object with respect to 
[chick that lacks food]

 

Chick pecks and swallows.  

 

WHY IS THIS SO HARD!?

 

 

Nicholas S. Thompson

Emeritus Professor of Psychology and Biology

Clark University

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

 

From: Friam [mailto:friam-boun...@redfish.com] On Behalf Of Eric Charles
Sent: Monday, November 14, 2016 8:07 AM
To: The Friday Morning Applied Complexity Coffee Group <friam@redfish.com>
Subject: Re: [FRIAM] Please I need help with a technical term

 

Good points! And this draws attention to the "third party" problem I mentioned. 
Only to a third party, analyzing the events before them, would 
"High_contrast_round_things" be a bird-symbol for "Seeds". To the bird it is 
whatever it is, and is not a symbol of anything. Should the third party 
misidentify the function of the objects in question, for example, by neglecting 
to take into account that birds gain benefit from eating small hard objects of 
almost any kind (because the non-food aids digestion by performing a grinding 
function in the crop), then the third-party is wrong about what is going on.  

 

This is complicated by the ability of homo sapiens to adopt a reflective 
third-party perspective regarding their own behavior. Thus I can speculate 
about what different things symbolize to me, in the same manner I speculate 
about what different things symbolize to the bird. However, contra Descartes, 
and in line with Peirce and Freud, we must remember that our diagnoses of our 
own symbolic actions can suffer from the same deficiency discussed above. A 
claim like, "To me, this flag symbolizes strength and resolve," is a 
hypothesis/assertion regarding our own symbolic interaction with the world, and 
can be mistaken. A third party can challenge our self-symbol claim in all the 
same ways they could challenge our bird-symbol claim. 

 

 

 





---
Eric P. Charles, Ph.D.
Supervisory Survey Statistician

U.S. Marine Corps

 

On Fri, Nov 11, 2016 at 9:49 PM, VLADIMYR BURACHYNSKY <vbur...@shaw.ca> wrote:

Peck_Ground_Now is "Seeds"

 

Birds peck for gravel to aid digestion in the crop. They have to replace the 
grinding stones regularly.

So without grit they starve to death even when supplied with more than adequate 
grain.

 

Your interpretation of this particular symbol requires a modification. I am 
such a supplier of information

and it requires the linkage of two minds connected by a  flexible Script . Your 
Symbol may or may not be amended

that is your decision not mine. However your symbol may ultimately contain 
information  that originates from other minds and

preserves this in your language without full attribution. I also adjust my 
symbols in such a casual manner without intentional

disrespect.

 

Check out Umberto Eco's writings on Semiotics and Good Luck.

 

I myself am struggling with Object Oriented Programming versus Procedural 
Programming

and the versions of language appear to overlap and smear out some distinctions. 
Each discipline attempts to

inform users in its unique idiom of a language while the student arrives with a 
third language set never anticipated

by the lecturers.

 

At first reading I thought myself unable to contribute but the slight error 
seems opportune.

 

 

You,  so it appears, are now trying to reconcile more than one language set for 
the benefit of unknown minds with unknown

language preferences. So it forces you to use a common predecessor language 
structure which I never considered so important before now.

That implies that a general language must be a first step to building 
subsequent precise languages. 

 

This e-mai

Re: [FRIAM] Please I need help with a technical term

[VLADIMYR BURACHYNSKY]

Peck_Ground_Now is "Seeds" 

Birds peck for gravel to aid digestion in the crop. They have to replace the 
grinding stones regularly. 
So without grit they starve to death even when supplied with more than adequate 
g rain. 

Your interpretation of this particular symbol requires a modification. I am 
such a supplier of information 
and it requires the linkage of two minds connected by a  flexible Script . Your 
Symbol may or may not be amended 
that is your decision not mine. However your symbol may ultimately contain 
information  that originates from other minds and 
preserves this in your language without full attribution. I also adjust my 
symbols in such a casual manner without intentional 
disrespect. 

Check out Umberto Eco's writings on Semiotics and Good Luck. 

I myself am struggling with Object Oriented Programming versus Procedural 
Programming 
and the versions of language appear to overlap and smear out s ome 
distinctions. Each discipline attempts to 
inform users in its unique idiom of a language while the student arrives with a 
third language set never anticipated 
by the lecturers. 

At first reading I thought myself unable to contribute but the slight error 
seems opportune. 


You,  so it appears, are now trying to reconcile more than one language set for 
the benefit of unknown minds with unknown 
language preferences. So it forces you to use a common predecessor language 
structure which I never considered so important before now. 
That implies that a general language must be a first step to building 
subsequent precise languages.  

This e-mail is perhaps an example of something , I thought came from 
Wittgenstein ; about the way he   thought language is a type of negotiation 
procedure. 
I have no idea in truth how you think and expect you have no idea how I think 
but this scrap of agreed upon language may 
be of some use to an unknown  reader. 
Serendipity that started a course of thought. 
vib 





- Original Message -

From: "Eric Charles"  
To: "The Friday Morning Applied Complexity Coffee Group"  
Sent: Wednesday, November 9, 2016 8:38:14 AM 
Subject: Re: [FRIAM] Please I need help with a technical term 



Case study: 


We put several (non-toxic) items on the ground around a bird, and find that 
high-contrast mini-Styrofoam balls, high-contrast glitter, and several similar 
items result in pecking. From that we learn 


 


When Object [Bird]  performs Function [Peck_Ground?] with the Cue/Argument 
[High-contrast_round_things_on_ground], the result is that Bird sets variable 
"Peck_Ground_Now" = "True" 


 


That's all fine and good, I think. But, If you want to get to "signs", I 
suspect, we need to go up a level of analysis. We need to add into our system a 
third party capable of taking all of those elements as arguments for something 
akin to a Function [Evaluate_Evolutionary_Utility]. 


That is, we must have outside knowledge (perhaps derived from prior study, 
perhaps from deep study of religious texts), that the "proper" context of 
Peck_Ground_Now is "Seeds". 


Building off of several of the messages above, an Object [Human] could run the 
three-argument-function Evaluate_Evolutionary_Utility(Bird, Peck_Ground, 
High-Contrast_Round_Things) . As a result, the human would set variable 
"Evolutionary_Function" = "Seeds". 


You would then have Human run  another Funciton [Is_Sign?], which takes two 
arguments  1) the third argument in the Evaluate_Evolutionary_Utility 
function, and 2) the result of the Evaluate_Evolutionary_Utility function  
to determine if they match. In this case, because they do not match (i.e., 
"High-contrast_round_things" =/= "Seeds" ), Human sets the variable "Sign" = 
"True". 


If you want to make a more sophisticated (Peircian) function, then in this case 
the Function [Is_Sign?] might lead you to set the variable "Sign" = "Icon" 
(because it is the type of "sign" that physically resembles what it "stands 
for"). 




 





Note that (and this should appeal to Nick), the "arguments" for the Human 
include things that were not "arguments" for the bird, demonstrating that one 
cannot determine whether any particular "thing" is an example of "an argument" 
without knowing it's role in the program/discussion. 


At least, that would be my take. 









--- 
Eric P. Charles, Ph.D. 
Supervisory Survey Statistician 

U.S. Marine Corps 



On Tue, Nov 8, 2016 at 3:40 PM, Russ Abbott < russ.abb...@gmail.com > wrote: 



If you are talking about  “S. is a sign to I.  of O.” I would call that a 
ternary relation: isASignOfTo (S, O, I). (Notice I switched the O and the I.) 
So the triple ("hello", greeting, Nick) is a triple in the isASignOfTo 
relation. I don't know that there are standard terms for the individual 
elements. They might be called field values, tuple elements, components, or 
something similar. I don't like "argument" because I tend to use  

Re: [FRIAM] Trump Is Just A Normal Polling Error Behind Clinton | FiveThirtyEight

[VLADIMYR BURACHYNSKY]

Glen, 

Knowing that power is an illusion seems to make little difference to those 
that believe Power is the Ultimate Goal. 
Often the illusion requires pure cruelty to be regularly applied as 
confirmation of its existence, followed  then by ardent denial. 

Believing in Power is a type of madness that justifies 
annihilation of non-Believers. 

So should we all become two-faced hypocrites just to Survive the Madness? 
My father tried to teach that  strategy to his boys as a consequence of his 
incarceration 
during the war years. 
"Make, nice and live"   

bye the way I do relish reading your pithy notes. I love your subdued  yet 
civilized ferocity. 

I have noted that Control Freaks are generally very loosely attached to ethics. 
That lack of ethics is often considered Ruthlessness and so Clever replaces 
Intelligence. 

So what should Canada do about a possible invasion from our  neighbours to the 
south. 
I expect such refugees are going to be problematic... 

Canada is well aware of the constraints imposed by the Americans and our 
independence has been 
extraordinarily difficult to maintain. 
vib 

- Original Message -

From: "┣glen┫" <geprope...@gmail.com> 
To: "The Friday Morning Applied Complexity Coffee Group" <friam@redfish.com> 
Sent: Friday, November 11, 2016 11:38:56 AM 
Subject: Re: [FRIAM] Trump Is Just A Normal Polling Error Behind Clinton | 
FiveThirtyEight 


But it's useful to remember that collectives are not organisms, regardless how 
attractive that analogy is.  This is one of the reasons I care more about the 
liver rather than, say, the brain.  In collectives, individuals that _seem_ 
entrained in some forcing structure, that for all intents and purposes _act_ as 
if entrained, are free to pop out of the structure at any time.  In some cases, 
that means they soon die off, when they remove their self from the only context 
in which their repertoire leads to survival.  But in some cases, dormant parts 
of their repertoire re-emerge and allow them to survive away from the pack ... 
or, er, film/tissue of which they were part. 

The control sought and seemingly achieved by the control freaks is always 
illusory.  And the illusion is only held as long as the controlled are 
unwilling to take the risks involved in exiting the tissue. 

Hence, it is not, at all, difficult to exist and act as an independent entity.  
We are all doing so right now, even if we've chosen to act as if we were not 
doing that choosing.  What is difficult is to act in opposition to the forcing 
structure(s).  Don't celebrate independence.  Celebrate opposition. 

"Bad men need nothing more to compass their ends, than that good men should 
look on and do nothing." 


On 11/10/2016 09:08 PM, VLADIMYR BURACHYNSKY wrote: 
> There seem to be many diverse combatants demanding that we align our minds to 
> facilitate their agendas or delusions. 
> 
>  Am I ,your enemy if I choose to think for myself. Why must I accept unwanted 
> fear from pundits. 
> 
> It is very difficult to exist as an independent entity. 
> 
> Control freaks on either side expect us to capitulate and surrender our minds 
> when all we want is to enjoy a few days more of a too short life. 

-- 
␦glen? 

 
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Re: [FRIAM] Trump Is Just A Normal Polling Error Behind Clinton | FiveThirtyEight

[VLADIMYR BURACHYNSKY]

Gentlemen and ladies, 

There seem to be many diverse combatants demanding that we align our minds to 
facilitate their agendas or delusions. 
 Am I ,your enemy if I choose to think for myself. Why must I accept unwanted 
fear from pundits. 

It is very difficult to exist as an independent entity.   

Control freaks on either side expect us to capitulate and surrender our minds 
when all we want is to enjoy a few days more 
of a too short life. 
I expect the American nation will go through another  civil war now. 
I hope the cold air keeps your issues contained to the south. 

These Control Freaks are running amok yet we still deny they exist. 
Do control freaks eventually destroy sentience, is it their goal? 

I am saddened by your failure to adapt. The contagion, fear, i s leaking 
through the rickety 
northern border and we also have to  ask , Just who or what  is the real 
enemy?? 

You were humanities Highest  Standard, you led  the  entire world to follow, 
now you fight amongst  yourselves. 
. 
Take a deep breath and gather your wits. Its not the end yet. 
It may have been a hard blow but you have survived much worse. 
If you need help , we are still standing with you. 
  
The Radical Moderate 
vib 



- Original Message -

From: "Steven A Smith"  
To: "The Friday Morning Applied Complexity Coffee Group"  
Sent: Thursday, November 10, 2016 9:34:25 PM 
Subject: Re: [FRIAM] Trump Is Just A Normal Polling Error Behind Clinton | 
FiveThirtyEight 


Until fairly recently I didn't realize that "Populism" carried a negative 
connotation.  I had always heard it as a positive thing... 

The tie between populism and the rise of fascism changed that for me.   I 
suppose *pure* populism is in fact fine, the awareness that the general 
population, the overwhelming majority of the citizenry, when pushed, can stand 
up to the elite (economic or political or both) who tend to find ways to run 
things for their own purposes without regard to the interests of the masses. 
It seems that the current use of the term "populism" implies that the extant 
elite de-facto rulers can have THEIR lunch handed to them by another elite set 
of wanna-bes through the duping of the populace.   Hitler's rise to power was 
apparently on the rising tide of a disaffected populace through the use of 
"demagoguery, scapegoating, and conspiracism" according to Fritzsche.  This 
sounds just a bit (lot) too much like the working style of Herr Donald Drumpf 
this round.   

I don't like being manipulated by "the powers that be", but it isn't a bit more 
fun to have "the powers that wanna be" manipulate me into helping them have 
their wishes.  I *hope* some of Trumps Trumpeteers come to recognize how they 
were duped in what to me seems like a fairly obvious manner.  

And meanwhile I hope that the rest of the world can learn something of this 
movement from us (and the Brexiteers before us). 
 


On 11/10/16 7:40 PM, Sarbajit Roy wrote: 




http://michaelmoore.com/trumpwillwin/ 

It seems that depressed economies imply we are going to have a rash of fascism 
everywhere. Here's to World War III. Cheers. 



On Tue, Nov 8, 2016 at 3:55 PM, Gary Schiltz < g...@naturesvisualarts.com > 
wrote: 


Well put. This is not a game.  



On Tuesday, November 8, 2016, Marcus Daniels < mar...@snoutfarm.com > wrote: 


"The fact that world H and world D are such closely adjacent possibles is what 
I am savoring (in the sense of morbid fascination) for roughly the next 24-36 
hours. " 

To first order, this isn't about the ideological aspirations of one candidate 
vs. the other (or the completely irrelevant others).  It's about choosing 
between a person who can and has managed in relevant circumstances, and a 
man-child that obviously needs to be managed and who obviously draws-from and 
amplifies the worst in people, has many indicators of an authoritarian 
personality, and is a likely target for blackmail and manipulation by foreign 
powers.   The potential upside of this non-contest  is that a thinker and 
policy wonk may sneak through as the winner by default.  Even stranger is that 
it would be historic -- and somehow that is almost a footnote.    The whole 
thing is surreal and even scarier than Brexit. 

Marcus 









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FRIAM Applied Complexity Group listserv
Meets 

Re: [FRIAM] speculative Q

[Vladimyr Burachynsky]

If the truth did matter there is very little evidence of it.
Quite often a viewpoint from the empowered is sufficient.

We seem to have done pretty well thinking the earth the center of the
universe.
Knowing the truth seemed to be reason enough to end up in the market square
to be incinerated.

The Group decides what is true. Consensus Truth on the one hand and
Emotional Truth on the other are the only choices.
The emergence of alternative truths to satisfy the many solipsists is an
industry.

We sell cars to people who need a mobile platform for their cell-phones and
handbags. 
A coffee cup holder may not be enough soon a car will show up with an
espresso machine.

Robot butlers and robotic chauffeurs in the ultimate version. 

Selling or marketing technology  claiming it  will elevate one's status,
while serving as auxiliary memory prosthetic devices.
The cell phone removes the burden of remembering phone numbers and you can
have a photo for faces you forgot.
The new growth industry may well be machines that will speak for us
performing in a selected Stage style.
Shakespearian or perhaps Rabelaisian affectations.

Can we synthesize Basil Rathbone in a Sherlock Holmes-ian style.
Technology has a nasty side effect of making us stupid and proud of it.

Without extremists who risk immolation the human race would still be
cracking nuts with a rock.
The failure of extremists to cohere is no doubt a trait that allows  every
extremist to think 
s/he is the only competent member of a group. Such people are often Control
Freaks who use the talents of others 
to advance socially or monetarily. There are control freaks and there are
gifted people.
Control Freaks are  a bit like a Prima Dona without the talent.

A control freak joins teams simply to garner status and acclaim. Resume
padding. Or in more advanced cases the goal is to acquire the IPR's.
Team projects do not often succeed because of conflicts between aspiring
control freaks.
The way Boeing worked on the 747 development seems a marvel or high note of
co-operation. 
Perhaps Lockheed had it right by developing the Skunk Works system
deliberately excluding
most managers but very extreme.
The ethics are an entirely different issue.

vib





-Original Message-
From: Friam [mailto:friam-boun...@redfish.com] On Behalf Of Marcus Daniels
Sent: July-18-15 9:05 AM
To: The Friday Morning Applied Complexity Coffee Group
Subject: Re: [FRIAM] speculative Q


But the point I was trying to make with those 3 articles still stands: that
people who join communities for community's sake are not necessarily only
drags on, disrupters of the system.  They provide something like a dampening
baffle that traps and eliminates the noise of the extremists, the purposeful
missionaries.  In fact, without _enough_ of that sort of middling or
joiner, a project is more at risk when/if extremists fail to cohere.  And
I think this is true in open source projects as well as proprietary ones.

Right, but from the missionary's point of view, the truth is out there, and
if one project dies another will fill its place..  It is the truth that
matters.

Marcus

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Re: [FRIAM] speculative Q

[Vladimyr Burachynsky]

Sometimes I wonder if our society may in fact be a 
collaboration of the criminal minded. The fact that it 
appears to promote civilization seems a convenient
Cover-Up story.

If money is the only incentive how can we distinguish 
corporation execs from drug lords or war lords. Even the courts 
seem to be nothing more than an appendage of the system
that defines itself as much as politicians define their labours as 
Hard work, deserving of ample rewards.

Well I am somewhat cheered that a machine is delivering pictures from Pluto.
Civilization thrives beyond the planet but apparently not in our neighborhoods.

Let 's assume civilization and society have less in common than a Hot dog 
vendor and a bank robber.
Given a choice the people would always vote for the one that appears 
to represent what common people aspire to be...
Glamourous Rascals.

vib

-Original Message-
From: Friam [mailto:friam-boun...@redfish.com] On Behalf Of glen
Sent: July-14-15 7:06 PM
To: The Friday Morning Applied Complexity Coffee Group
Subject: Re: [FRIAM] speculative Q


I'd (probably wrongly) interpreted Marcus' comment to mean something about 
keeping the corporate drones (who can't imagine doing work for anything other 
than incentive) away from people who have the knowledge to create weapons of 
mass destruction, particularly biological weapons ... hence, the article about 
DIYBio myths.  It was a little bit of agreement with a little bit of 
disagreement combined.


BTW-FWIW, since we're talking about motivation vs. incentive, I just saw this 
in my inbox:

   The Ethics of Whistleblowing with Edward Snowden
   http://www.philosophytalk.org/shows/ethics-whistleblowing-edward-snowden

 John: A lot of people see you as a hero.  But others, intelligent ones too, 
 have called you a narcissistic traitor ... How do you see yourself at this 
 point?

 Snowden: I don't think about myself.  I don't think about how I'm going to be 
 perceived, because it's not about me.  It's about us.

This is the type of thing that makes me think Snowden is, at least, 
disingenuous, if not worse.  He's clearly not afflicted with any of the major 
psych disorders that prevent him from reflective thought.  Hence, he _does_ 
think about himself and how he'll be perceived.  If he'd just answer the damned 
question honestly ... like Hell yeah, I think about myself and how I'm 
perceived!  I think about how my fellow US citizens view me.  I think about 
how/whether they want to know the information I leaked, whether a jury of my 
peers would convict me if presented with the evidence ...  Etc.  If he'd 
answer that way, I might start to trust him.  Instead he answers with this 
pseudo-altrustic nonsense, public-relations/politician-speak.  Ugh.



On 07/14/2015 04:43 PM, Parks, Raymond wrote:
 So, I'm not getting the relevance of the DIYBio movement to Marcus' comment.  
 Are you suggesting that it is an example of community for community's sake?

 On Jul 14, 2015, at 4:15 PM, glen wrote:

 On 07/14/2015 02:58 PM, Marcus Daniels wrote:
 Sometimes I think circles such as yours and the people Glen is talking 
 about just must be kept apart from one another, if they don’t avoid each 
 other naturally.That’s about as close I get to advocating community for 
 community’s sake.

 http://phys.org/news/2013-11-first-ever-survey-do-it-yourself-biology
 -myths.html


--
⇔ glen


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[FRIAM] WERE: DOH!

[Vladimyr Burachynsky]

Glen and others,

We have all  known for a long time that 
this is generally  true about mankind.
We are not supposed to speak about such truths.
So we Keep inventing smart machines to avoid using people who can not be 
trusted.
We may claim to be protecting the Children or symbols or something but we 
rarely admit we are trying to exclude the stupid.

The fact is most people are content with possession of a Smart Slave that they 
assume they can control by virtue of inheritance, money, skin colour ,or 
religion.
Such  people so endowed have no personal need to do anything.
Even if they had the desire they are unable to make any progress on their own.

They control people and if they can't , then they are afraid of the 
uncontrollable and start 
violence having no other option, carry a big stick and beat the brains out of 
the opposition.
 So we try and outwit the Control Freaks. I take it many out there are actually 
able to connect
their own devices without a professional assistant.
Not as hard as it sounds.

So I cheered the Greeks for having the courage to say NO to Brussels.
Let us hope no one tries to cheat and reaches for the stick.

Quite honestly, once they became consumers they decided their fate by 
self-selection and denial.
Our role is to keep up appearances so that they can affect to have control;  
but where is it applied... definitely 
they don't have control over  the Real World. Nothing is so terrible and 
ferocious as the Truth.

A visitor to my digs told me of his strategy to deal with the abundance of 
bears where he lives.
He talks to them in Polish , or English. He remains calm and rides his bicycle 
past 
while searching for the ever elusive Boletus edulis. He has a small cottage in 
North-west Ontario near the American border. The bears control access to the 
local landfill site, they no longer forage as in the old days.
So the bears are now taking the easy road just like civtlized man.

The bear has other quests that don't include mushrooms. He does  not have time 
for a bald man that babbles in several tongues.

The world is large enough for civility between neighbors . Whether they are 
bald or hirsute wearing shorts in mosquito season. 
But not, I fear, for control freaks who demand everything.
Even the bears do not reach that far.
 My Polish friend has realized that knowledge can reduce his fear and left with 
a number of my taxonomy texts on Mushrooms  ,grinning from ear to ear, but I 
cautioned him not advertise the fact that he eats wild mushrooms
to the less enlightened who image him weird and fearful already.
Perhaps he is another Joseph Conrad in waiting. We shall see...
Knowledge calms the fearful heart and strengthens our courage.

vib

-Original Message-
From: Friam [mailto:friam-boun...@redfish.com] On Behalf Of glen
Sent: July-06-15 2:08 PM
To: The Friday Morning Applied Complexity Coffee Group
Subject: Re: [FRIAM] DOH!

On 07/06/2015 11:10 AM, Marcus Daniels wrote:
 At some point won’t these behaviors too be mastered by machine learning?   
 Obviously, I’m not just taking on gaming here, I’m taking on the idea that 
 people ought to master narrow “skill sets” at all.Ok, so a gamer can 
 track 7 objects instead of 3.   Machines could track hundreds or thousands.  
 Better to design the machine, no?

Arbitrary google response:

   Age-related differences in multiple-object tracking.
   http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/15746018

Let's say you wanted to, I don't know, _drive_ or maybe juggle ... or simple 
play flag football with your grandchildren.  It seems like multiple object 
tracking exercise might help.  It's a bit silly to suggest such skills are 
always narrow.

I had an interesting discussion the other day.  A friend suggested she _needed_ 
a personal trainer in order to exercise, that without the trainer, she would 
neither be motivated nor know what/how to do various exercises.  She used this 
disability of hers to argue that she doesn't get much out of yoga (the 1 or 2 
times she tried it, heh).  I can't really sympathize much with her position.  
The point of exercising is to consistently _try_ things ... to poke around and 
see how/if you could do it slightly differently.  Having another person tell 
you what/how to do something is way less rewarding than learning how to do it 
yourself ... even if all we're talking about is twirling a coin between your 
fingers.  (Sure, if you're really really good at something and you want to be 
much better, then you need a trainer to sqeeze out that hidden performance, but 
not at the amateur level.)  For the exact same reason, running on forest trails 
(as opposed to treadmills or in circles on a rubber trac
k) is actually a very broad skill.  And it's a very handy one.

Is it better to build a robot that can run on forest trails?  No.  That would 
be very cool.  But having your robot run around the mountain isn't near as 
rewarding as doing it yourself.  Is it better to build a robot to run in 

Re: [FRIAM] [ SPAM ] RE: clinical diagnosis of [a]theism?

[Vladimyr Burachynsky]

Glen and others,
thank you,

Someone once claimed that as we age we become transparent.
That might frustrate the girl with the mirror fixation.
The link to the date.html works like a charm. GREAT.
I can see Myself and every one else.!

Now is anyone gifted on Graph Theory?.

I have a Circulant Graph that appears very Hamiltonian in 3D and not so in 2D, 
but still interesting?
It appears to cross it's own paths or tracks . (4 way intersections are nodes)
I am just starting to learn this discipline accidentally and reluctantly, 
against my stubborn nature.
I loaded an example onto One Drive
 https://onedrive.live.com/?cid=14A5CDB09AEE4237id=14A5CDB09AEE4237%212315v=3

One connected Graph with two isomorphs , blue and red , with one to one 
correspondence between nodes or vertices.
When I transfer the graphs to Eng. Software I can place 
strut/bridges/connections between two or more copies of the graph and build a 
skeleton out of a set of structures.
It can appear to be moving frame to frame.

I have been working on this for some time, on and off, and am entertaining a 
future public presentation. I had hoped to make a journey to your sunny climes.
Somewhere I have a structure with valence of 10 per node causing me some great 
anxiety.
Maybe by the time I figure it out I will be fully transparent, while the 
presentation has materialized.
vib

-Original Message-
From: Friam [mailto:friam-boun...@redfish.com] On Behalf Of glen
Sent: January-30-15 1:44 PM
To: The Friday Morning Applied Complexity Coffee Group
Subject: Re: [FRIAM] [ SPAM ] RE: clinical diagnosis of [a]theism?

On 01/29/2015 07:56 PM, Vladimyr Burachynsky wrote:
 I have the distinct awkward feeling that, while I write, there is no 
 compelling  evidence of my existence, only my utterings.
 Perhaps my hollow ringing echoes are sufficient to serve as my fake evidence, 
 should I choose to perjure myself in a court. Is there such a beast as the 
 Inverted Solipsist ( everyone else is real but not himself)?

We have diagnostic criteria for everything under the sun.  So, there's bound to 
be one.  I read a fantasy novel a long time ago about a girl who was unsure of 
her existence.  So she surrounded herself with mirrors to remind her.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mordant%27s_Need

I also have heard that many people feel invisible.  And I know that, when I 
regularly eat meals in a pub or restaurant by myself, with the same wait staff 
and other regular customers, almost nobody gives any evidence they remember me. 
 No recognition at all at least it takes lots and lots of visits to get any 
recognition.  But my wife and I can go to a place _once_ and then return a 
month or so later, and seemingly everyone who was there last time recognizes 
us.  Ironically, I'm a stickler for eye contact and my wife doesn't seem to 
care about making eye contact with strangers.

 Does anyone recall washroom graffiti of the 60's and 70's sometimes eloquent 
 sometimes rather vulgar and blunt.
 Without a time line one could imagine a dialogue, at times, with penmanship 
 the only distinguishing feature to support the fantasy.
 At the next gas station, 100 miles further West, the conversation would 
 resume, based only upon the very recognizable penmanship. The trans-Canada 
 highway can be very long. Does the conversation take on a different tone when 
 traveling , in reverse , West to East.
 All completely arbitrary. So it seems are any and all emotional insights.
 At a 4-way intersection without lights the first arrival becomes next to 
 leave. But if none of the drivers can remember their arrival sequence there 
 is calamity ahead.
 Perhaps if a numbering system is used following a thread title, the Real 
 sequence can be re-assembled. That  Implies that each quote also contains the 
 number assignment.

This depends fundamentally on what you think you're doing when you number 
something.  Are you indexing?  Ordering?  Merely tagging?  Are they metadata 
tags?

They type of music I like best tends to contain nearly nonsensical lyrics ... 
not only is it difficult to hear them, but even if you download them from the 
band, assuming they know what they are, they still make very little sense... at 
least to me.  That's why I enjoy[ed] placing them, line by line in my e-mail 
signature database and having it pseudo-randomly select single lines from all 
those lyrics to include in my e-mail signature.  Nick might think of such 
things as postmodern. 
I tend to think of them as cumulative sense-making ... e.g. the only complete 
way to understand a deck of cards is to shuffle them over and over and try to 
make sense of them in various new sequences and subsets.

If random re-ordering the _moments_ of your life/story make that story 
meaningless, then perhaps it's time to re-think the meaning of your story/life?

 Glen quoted Marcus but only gave a date Wed Jan 28... not the thread. I have 
 not received the e-mail from Marcus containing that snippet

Re: [FRIAM] [ SPAM ] RE: clinical diagnosis of [a]theism?

[Vladimyr Burachynsky]

To Glen or so it seems,

I have the distinct awkward feeling that, while I write, there is no compelling 
 evidence of my existence, only my utterings.
Perhaps my hollow ringing echoes are sufficient to serve as my fake evidence, 
should I choose to perjure myself in a court. Is there such a beast as the 
Inverted Solipsist ( everyone else is real but not himself)?

Does anyone recall washroom graffiti of the 60's and 70's sometimes eloquent 
sometimes rather vulgar and blunt.
Without a time line one could imagine a dialogue, at times, with penmanship the 
only distinguishing feature to support the fantasy. 
At the next gas station, 100 miles further West, the conversation would resume, 
based only upon the very recognizable penmanship. The trans-Canada highway can 
be very long. Does the conversation take on a different tone when traveling , 
in reverse , West to East.
All completely arbitrary. So it seems are any and all emotional insights.
At a 4-way intersection without lights the first arrival becomes next to leave. 
But if none of the drivers can remember their arrival sequence there is 
calamity ahead.
Perhaps if a numbering system is used following a thread title, the Real 
sequence can be re-assembled. That  Implies that each quote also contains the 
number assignment. 
Glen quoted Marcus but only gave a date Wed Jan 28... not the thread. I have 
not received the e-mail from Marcus containing that snippet. But I have found 
another Marcus Wed 28 in [Friam][External]Forum hacked... I suppose Marcus was 
stoked up that day and jumped from one thread to another, well done, what a 
nimble fox. I only wish that I could still be so quick on my feet.
I do wonder if this thread is soon to be discarded...
I serves my imagination to believe without evidence at times, at other times I 
do rely on evidence, lingering in my memory, to get through the four way 
intersection without a bump. Without memory what can anyone use to decide which 
case is truer than the other. Is truth an event or is it a sequence of truthful 
events? Self contained.
vib

 

-Original Message-
From: Friam [mailto:friam-boun...@redfish.com] On Behalf Of glen
Sent: January-28-15 4:33 PM
To: The Friday Morning Applied Complexity Coffee Group
Subject: Re: [FRIAM] [ SPAM ] RE: clinical diagnosis of [a]theism?


Heh, this time it seems even gmane failed:

http://news.gmane.org/gmane.org.region.new-mexico.santa-fe.friam

Marcus G. Daniels Wed Jan 28 16:38:36 EST 2015:
 I suppose I could start giving them tags like [so-and-so 
 topic].shard[0,1,etc] in the subject line to cope with the deficiency.

I bet there's at least some demand for a tool that would do that. 
Perhaps a combination of an e-mail client plugin, web page monitor, 
subject/body parser, that would dynamically assemble threads from otherwise 
disorganized content.  Come to think of it, that's kinda what we tried to do 
for a client a few years back, except we were dicing up corporate annual 
reports looking for threads in those.

 But returning to the thread, I don't believe in making up for such 
 deficiencies.  ;-)

Hm, I suppose that makes you a gnostic deficiencist ... I'd be more of an 
agnostic adeficiencist ... can't really _know_ deficiencies exist, but tend to 
disbelieve in them anyway.  I'm a bit of a Taoist... all of what is, is 
sufficient, it's just up to us to find our path in it.

--
⇔ glen


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[FRIAM] [ SPAM ] RE: clinical diagnosis of [a]theism?

[Vladimyr Burachynsky]

To Marcus and Group,

If there are multiple points of view of any event, which one of the many can
be true, or are  all true in some respect?
If every view point is contaminated by default belief/delusion  how can we
decide which is true?
Consensus or democracy seems appealing but it is a very simple matter of
numerical superiority with no better a chance of being right.
The collective opinion is reduced to one and gains nothing by addition.
Parallax is the simplest such example, left eye versus right eye and the
brain merges the disparate 2D images into a 3D mapping.
We could decide to blind one eye in favour of the other but then the value
of the map is compromised.

Control Freaks would prefer their working eye or viewpoint to be the only
one ever considered. So the control freak must annihilate all contradiction
and be elevated in the esteem of the group ( whose opinions have also been
squashed as the admission price) .

Harris may simply be indulging in a manoeuvre to appear as an authority
and enrich himself at the expense of a naïve group. Quite Normal.
But none of that makes him right but only wealthier than some.

There is something so medieval about pitting an atheist against a believer
in an arena each using bludgeons to assert their position.
Well if both are deluded in some manner there will never be truth , who so
ever gets the killing blow in first conflates assassination with the victory
of his argument. ad hominem fallacy

Everyone seems to assume that one is either a Believer or  an Atheist as if
there are only two possibilities. As a judge, neither side can force me to
adopt certain limitations, or petitions. If the judge is outside of any
group affiliation he is free to shrug off fallacious arguments as they
appear.
The litigants have no right to enforce their  contrived rules on the judges,
or do they? anymore than the left eye has tricks to exclude the right eye.
Harris may also be motivated by a need for status as well as funds, the
drive for literary quality may be very small.
vib



-Original Message-
From: Friam [mailto:friam-boun...@redfish.com] On Behalf Of Marcus G.
Daniels
Sent: January-26-15 2:17 PM
To: friam@redfish.com
Subject: Re: [FRIAM] clinical diagnosis of [a]theism?

Glen writes:

but Harris, having authored so many books, should be much better at it than
he seems to be.

It may not be such a bad approach, depending on his goals.  Does he want to
persuade anyone or just a certain type of person?
Wrong approach for a politician, but adequate for tenured faculty or a cult
leader. 

Marcus



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Re: [FRIAM] [ SPAM ] Re: academic fields whose practitioners believe ...

[Vladimyr Burachynsky]

Marcus or to Steve,

Damn Good Call. 

If you would not have uttered such a comment
I would not now have such a headache.
The threads have become confusing with everyone cutting and pasting chunks
with unclear attributions.
( could we get coloured highlights ?)
You have the advantage of seeing each other once in a while, I am blind
metaphorically . I plan on renewing my passport and attempting to travel
again. If it is cold I can Go.

So it is not simply the issue of distinct threads but also the appearance of
different view points.
A viewpoint does not prove a point no matter how much we wish to appear
clever. No matter how many Likes  you get , you are never going to be
assured of truth. 
No matter how often you run an experiment and achieve results either way you
will always be trapped in some inductive bubble.

Look now to the possibility that many view points may break the inductive /
recursion trap that infinite repetition could not.
The viewpoints act to increase the number of dimensions open to  examination
not the precise static resolution adequate for measurement.
Imagine video versus still photography and then just add a dash of
TimeLapse and HyperLapse  or Lemon , into the mixture and you now have such
a complex situation that , I get headaches. I am at a loss for language.

No one ever really wins arguments that may explain why we believe, our own
lies, first, when we speak them out loud.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lNwWOul4i9Ysns=em
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5ky6vgQfU24
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FKppuqN04Kc

These three videos all show the earth from different viewpoints some from
many points. Each appears  to be  a medium for  a specific audience or
messages. Truth appears to span dimensions and it moves about.

Beneath every set of images lies another bigger reality. If we consider this
just for a few moments you would probably demand an explanation from me.

I don't have one yet, I won't pretend. I am also part of other networks and
get hit with strange stuff occasionally.
This net has the advantage of containing some very literate participants.
Very rare today.
vib

I wonder does this material belong to a new Zeitgeist ? 
Man and machine?



-Original Message-
From: Friam [mailto:friam-boun...@redfish.com] On Behalf Of Steve Smith
Sent: January-16-15 3:05 PM
To: The Friday Morning Applied Complexity Coffee Group
Subject: Re: [FRIAM] [ SPAM ] Re: academic fields whose practitioners
believe ...

On 1/16/15 12:59 PM, Marcus G. Daniels wrote:
 It was wonderful the range of personal experience we were able to 
 bring to bear on this subject  and the lack of guardedness with which 
 we were able to explore it given our diverse history.
 Another benefit of in-person meetings is that this list fails to 
 actually deliver all mails!
I know... I only occasionally recognize that fact... I think Nick was the
first to notice a while back and suggested that it was a conspiracy against
him alone... which I also feel sometimes...

On the other hand, I find that in-person, there are usually at least two
parallel threads and while I can survey multiples, I can't really
participate in more than one effectively without seeming entirely ADD.

 Marcus



 
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Re: [FRIAM] Slasdhot linked article RE; god

[Vladimyr Burachynsky]

This is becoming a shark feeding frenzy of Media demanding that I believe 
different versions of the demented beliefs.
Which ever outlet I side with demands I become a believer. I am not Normal to 
begin with, otherwise I MIGHT actually take up arms and shoot at a target they 
suggest. Should I take a Gravol to control the vertigo as they spin me around, 
aiming at phantoms.

Hollande is strutting about like a shrunken , down sized de Gaulle after he 
nearly lost France to a Troop of Disgruntled Foreign Legionnaires
from Algeria.

al Jazeera wants me to believe that there is a war against all Muslims. CBC 
wants me to believe that the Muslims are about to attack the country.
Wait we are in a deep freeze and any Arab set upon conquering Canada must 
contend with unimaginable Arctic Cold and if they want to rob a gas station on 
the way they will probably freeze to death in the dark. Hollande wants us to 
believe he is the reincarnation of de Gaulle or Vercingetorix. Kerry wants me 
to believe he speaks French. Putin probably wants me to believe he is Vladimir 
Monomahk the slayer of Turks.

These  tough-guys are not so crazy as the Media. They have remained silent for 
now. One Canadian media outlet is attacking our National Outlet , CBC, as 
cowards , yes they used the word correctly,
who refused to show the Charlie Hebdo images on air( they were Blacked -Out). 
Maybe Oprah Winfry can get them to confess on prime time T.V.
A Montreal journalist ,  has bared his chest ( but no soul was to be seen) and 
declared that CBC ordered him to self-censor out of fear.
What a show.
Actually the Russian media is being rather discreet, what a shock. No one has 
the wherewithal to post the price of oil or the disposition of ISIL
and the Saudi invasions.
vib

I will snicker from my warm hovel in this cold blast.
I am waiting for the much feared promised global warming to arrive. 
Just where is Al Gore now that I want to believe in his delusions? If I pick 
one belief  will the others stop pestering me?
No I guess it is more like an attack of Blackflies or mosquitoes.
Perhaps Glen is correct  Beliefs don't kill people. People kill people
I might add Believers have the right to  kill non-believers.


-Original Message-
From: Friam [mailto:friam-boun...@redfish.com] On Behalf Of glen
Sent: January-08-15 7:24 PM
To: The Friday Morning Applied Complexity Coffee Group
Subject: Re: [FRIAM] Slasdhot linked article RE; god

On 01/08/2015 03:49 PM, Marcus G. Daniels wrote:
 Or that they are mentally ill and need `retraining'.  But that takes 
 us down the road of recognizing the danger latent in faith, which I 
 don't think the US is close to doing.

Exactly ... though it goes beyond just faith to any sort of psychological 
problem, I think.  E.g. It's fine if you're deluded into believing, say, the 
law of attraction 
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Law_of_attraction_%28New_Thought%29 as long as 
you don't do things like rely on it to heal your children or somesuch.

Beliefs don't kill people.  People kill people. ;-)

--
⇔ glen


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Re: [FRIAM] Slasdhot linked article RE; god

[Vladimyr Burachynsky]

So... Delusions are very common and make up the bulk of frenetic Human
Activity.
Since so few know which Delusions may turn out to be falsifiable, they must
resort to a dirty trick.
 They  defend every delusion with denial: should the truth remain , they
then resort to threat of violence and when overwhelmed by 
the inescapable truth they fight to the death or someone else's.

Paris seems to have become the latest battleground in the war of Delusions.
I place my bets on the French; they  appear to have more discipline and a
greater ability to think ahead.
Maybe some delusions are more mature than others.
Time, trial and error improves the operation of delusions. Eventually they
may improve or evolve to the degree that they become
Science. The French have historically significantly more practise than most.
No one gets it right the first time, that is why memory is so critical.
So the ultimate goal of terrorism is not to kill all of it's critics but to
make as many as possible afraid to act. 
The goal is pacification/passivity. Acquiescence to a delusion, suspension
of disbelief, perhaps?
So mocking a delusion is certainly a dangerous act requiring great bravery
or blind stupidity.
Perhaps there is a metric for Delusion rather than Truth since the former is
entirely Human and the latter is indifferent to our wishes.
vib


-Original Message-
From: Friam [mailto:friam-boun...@redfish.com] On Behalf Of Marcus G.
Daniels
Sent: January-07-15 2:22 PM
To: friam@redfish.com
Subject: Re: [FRIAM] Slasdhot linked article RE; god


 
 And the skeptical response:
 https://medium.com/starts-with-a-bang/can-science-prove-the-existence-
 of-god-b6fefdc52588

Do you want or need your belief in a divine or supernatural origin to the
Universe to be based in something that could be scientifically disproven?

And so believers who avoid this trap must construct an origins story which
cannot be falsifiable.  It must be fantasy.

Marcus





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Re: [FRIAM] Does philosophy have a heuristic value

[Vladimyr Burachynsky]

To Roger and Nick,

 

That idea has been on the backburner of Biology for 5 decades or more.

The greatest problem in the 70’s and later was Statistics which tended to 
dismiss anything outside of a curve.

 

It started after the second war when an unusual coincidence of scientific minds 
started talking.

Soviets and Americans when strange Tick-Borne plagues started emerging in the 
middle east, Russia, Crimea

and parts of Africa.

 

I was just a kid doing my first MSc when I met 

Harry Hoogstraal at an Acarology Workshop at OSU. What did I know, nothing. 
What the hell. He was 

Jimmy Carter’s science advisor, I was told later . And the de facto head of the 
NAMRU facility outside Cairo.

 

Anyway he was checking on students in the lab one night I was the only nightowl 
and we chatted over microscopes.

 

He asked me what I thought happened to all the parasites of the Woolly Rhino 
when it died out, it was a big source of blood in an Arctic Landscape? ( I was 
working on Moose Ticks at the time)

What he was after was an answer to the stream of life question, did they die or 
simply find new real estate?

 

I returned to Canada and only brought it up a few times usually when very 
drunk, spoiling for a fight or  a real argument.

Bits and pieces accumulated over time spared from the statisticians. Then 
totally ignored during all the subsequent eras of utter confusion and money 
grubbing.

 

Mostly entomologists were the first to notice something did not fit the 
consensus narrative. Then microbiologists who were asked to help out  and they  
saw the same principals with better tools. 

 

Evo-Devo made a great set of contributions not mentioned directly in the paper.

 

This is a disturbing topic when examined carefully. Philosophers rarely examine 
parasites on carcasses of the dead,  let alone count them. They see only what 
they expect.

They were always averse to the smell of science. So my answer is No not 
usually. Since it stinks.

 

The bias appears to originate in our simple minds that can not cope with more 
than 3 dimensions . A living system need not be  so limited for that matter 
neither is mathematics (see Snarks  
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Snark_(graph_theory ).

Darwin is now a relic fought over by fools. I count Dawkins among the fools, he 
started out well but soon degenerated into a strange demented warrior against 
Theists.

 

I love the discussions and even though I can not always respond I look forward 
to reading.

vib

 

 

From: Friam [mailto:friam-boun...@redfish.com] On Behalf Of Nick Thompson
Sent: October-25-14 12:21 AM
To: 'The Friday Morning Applied Complexity Coffee Group'
Subject: Re: [FRIAM] Does philosophy have a heuristic value

 

Nice paper, roger.  I posted it to the thread.  Any chance I will see you next 
Friday?  N

 

Nicholas S. Thompson

Emeritus Professor of Psychology and Biology

Clark University

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

 

From: Friam [mailto:friam-boun...@redfish.com] On Behalf Of Roger Critchlow
Sent: Friday, October 24, 2014 11:48 AM
To: The Friday Morning Applied Complexity Coffee Group
Subject: Re: [FRIAM] Does philosophy have a heuristic value

 

http://quod.lib.umich.edu/cgi/t/text/text-idx?c=ptb;view=text;rgn=main;idno=6959004.0001.003

 

Most biologists are philosophically and biologically incoherent on this subject.

 

-- rec --

 

On Fri, Oct 24, 2014 at 9:38 AM, Nick Thompson nickthomp...@earthlink.net 
wrote:

Dear Friammers, 

 

Often in FRIAM I have been called upon to defend philosophy as an important 
part of the scientific enterprise  Recently, on research gate, somebody posed 
the following question: 

 

*   Has the philosophical analysis contributed to solve any biological 
conceptual problems?
Of course the first question would be how many conceptual/empirical problems, 
of philosophy's interest the biology has? How many of those problems has been 
solved?
Just in case of any extremist response, what would you say to a biology 
scientists who thinks that the philosophy cannot solve anything?

The discussion (such as it is) can be found at :

https://www.researchgate.net/post/Has_the_philosophical_analysis_contributed_to_solve_any_biological_conceptual_problems#544a6a0ad685cc4d678b4654

 

It seemed only to confirm the questioner’s fears that philosophers of science 
are neither  the generals who set the battle nor the diplomats that make the 
peace, but are merely the scavengers that bicker over the spoils of war.   .  . 

 

N

 

 

I think we can do better.  

 

See you next week. 

 

Nicholas S. Thompson

Emeritus Professor of Psychology and Biology

Clark University

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

 



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Re: [FRIAM] vol 98, iss.25 psychology cont'd

[Vladimyr Burachynsky]

re: Group Power

 

We have had a year or more watching developments across North Africa and the
Middle East.

Indeed it is a painfully slow drama of conflict between Groups and those
they exclude( though they may be regarded as less than human they are still
lethal).

Each Group as it seeks to restrict power to its favored ones excludes others
in an instinctive manner. The excluded eventually out number the privileged
and magically a revolution ensues. One charming characteristic is that the
nominal heads of the Old Power Groups have no grasp of the precipice that
awaits them. Mubarak seemed to be a lunatic the day before he was
sequestered. Ben Ali and Gaddafi also appeared to be complete lunatics as
well as their family members.

 

Conflict resolution appears to be deeply problematic if the one of the
parties is entrenched in a lunacy. This situation only gets worse when both
parties are deeply embedded in fantasy. Each proclaiming that they will not
negotiate until they get whatever they demand. At such a point the mediators
must admit that resolution is impossible. The only decision available is to
surrender to lunatics or go to war. In that sense war is the inevitable
result of Group Power Politics.

 

Evolution seems to have provided only blood lust to smash Group Behavior or
to enforce Group Power..

An American philosopher has written on the mythological conviction that
Consensus is superior to individual thought.

http://www.crispinsartwell.com/againstconsensus.htm

 

 

 

Vladimyr Ivan Burachynsky PhD

 

 

vbur...@shaw.ca

 

 

120-1053 Beaverhill Blvd.

Winnipeg,Manitoba, R2J3R2

Canada 

 (204) 2548321 Land

 

 

 

 

From: friam-boun...@redfish.com [mailto:friam-boun...@redfish.com] On Behalf
Of Robert J. Cordingley
Sent: April-12-12 2:05 PM
To: The Friday Morning Applied Complexity Coffee Group
Subject: Re: [FRIAM] vol 98, iss.25 psychology cont'd

 

re: Group Power.  Has anyone tried/experienced/been subjected to Star Power
- see http://www.stsintl.com/schools-charities/star_power.html.  Once I was
on an in-house management training course attended by about 25 employees,
when they decided to use it.  It turned nasty but revealing.

Thanks
Robert C

On 4/11/12 10:06 AM, Nicholas Thompson wrote: 

Offline

 

I just stumbled on this message that was never answered.  It was in RED so I
figured I better answer it.  See below.  

 

In fact, many warrior groups kidnap the women AND children from other
groups.  Or even take the men as slaves.  This would seem to be stupid from
in inclusive fitness point of view, but makes sense from a group selection
point of view.  

 

Nick 

 

From: friam-boun...@redfish.com [mailto:friam-boun...@redfish.com] On Behalf
Of Russ Abbott
Sent: Wednesday, August 24, 2011 12:15 PM
To: The Friday Morning Applied Complexity Coffee Group
Subject: Re: [FRIAM] vol 98, iss.25 psychology cont'd

 

Favoring members of one's own group is not incompatible with letting new
people in. Many religions proselytize, for example. (Also, clubs and
political parties recruit; countries add new citizens; etc.) Still members
(new or longstanding) are often favored over non-members.


 

-- Russ 






On Wed, Aug 24, 2011 at 10:45 AM, peggy miller highlandwi...@gmail.com
wrote:

At the risk of being too thorough, I wanted to comment on Russ's point:
For example, group members will often favor other group members over
 outsiders even if the outsider  is the better choice for the individual
 to make  on some objective basis.  This is often an evolved preference .
Groups that are successful in having their members behave in this way
 have a better chance to survive as a group.

I would add the word temporarily at the end of Ross's last quoted
sentence. Over time, groups that do not allow outsiders in, tend to be
inbred and develop major genetic problems and often die out or remain very
very small in number due to losing most of members from either genetically
inherited health problems or members moving due to boredom with group cause
of lack of original thought included into their overall thinking or due to
economically frozen structure. I think it is argued in Emergence theory that
those behaviors that are sort of  beyond the pale, that operate on the
fringe, tend to help the central group develop better as they witness these
more unusual forms of behavior. 
Peggy



-- 

Peggy Miller, owner/OEO 

Highland Winds
wix.com/peggymiller/highlandwinds
Shop is at 1520 S. 7th St. W. (Just off Russell, four blocks from Good Food
Store)

Art, Photography, Herbs and Writings

406-541-7577 (home/office/shop)
Shop Hours: Tues/Wed: 12-4
 Thurs:  3-7 pm
   Fri-Sat: 10 am -2pm




FRIAM Applied Complexity Group listserv
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lectures, archives, unsubscribe, maps at http://www.friam.org

 

Re: [FRIAM] FW: See this?

[Vladimyr Burachynsky]

Gentlemen,

the DNA is not the only constituent of the functional fertilized egg.
The Cell Membrane and it's enormous complexity is derived from maternal
components.
The mitochondrial DNA is entirely maternal. So it appears all the basic
cellular machinery is maternal since the donor Male component is basically a
simple delivery package it's contents are DNA and not much else as far as I
know. 

One can assume the entire cytoplasm is also maternal until the New DNA/RNA
begins to operate.
Additionally each time the cell divides a certain fraction of the cytoplasm
is expelled in order to preserve the valuable cell membrane from being
ruptured.
How much extracellular goop is later absorbed is unknown. Nor whether or not
it was identical with the original expulsion.
Most of these issues seem under investigation by biochemists under the
heading of epigenetics.
The differentiation of cells during embryogenesis is probably governed by
cell membrane stresses and chemical signals leaking from neighbouring cells.

The DNA is sometimes considered as a basic backup pattern used infrequently
or to repair serious damage. Cell membranes are capable of keeping the basic
cytoplasm operating in the total absence of DNA, for quite some time.
DNA by itself as the ruling authority may be a mistake. So reducing
information transmission to amino acids exclusively may be convenient but
overly simplistic.
 
Oddly the possibility of removing DNA from its pre-eminence in the
inheritance hierarchy seems extremely upsetting to certain dogmatic
positions.
If you use Biology as a metaphor for Computer code you should be careful not
to fixate on that aspect exclusively. Computer code may not be a suitable
metaphor for describing Biology.

Vladimyr Ivan Burachynsky PhD


vbur...@shaw.ca 


Sky Drive Site 
https://skydrive.live.com/?sc=photoswa=wsignin1.0sa=590620289#cid=14A5CDB0
9AEE4237id=14A5CDB09AEE4237%21727sc=photos 

120-1053 Beaverhill Blvd.
Winnipeg,Manitoba, R2J3R2
Canada 
 (204) 2548321 Land






-Original Message-
From: friam-boun...@redfish.com [mailto:friam-boun...@redfish.com] On Behalf
Of Nicholas Thompson
Sent: March-17-12 1:24 PM
To: 'The Friday Morning Applied Complexity Coffee Group'
Subject: Re: [FRIAM] FW: See this?

Sarbajit, 

You're talking about the sex, chromosome only, right? 

You're implying that crossing over does not occur between the homologous
portions of the X and Y chromosomes in the male?  

What I guess we do know is that the Y chromosome is shorter and that any X
trait that is lodged in the unopposed portion of the X chromosome is
expressed even if recessive.  

Do we still know that? 

Nick 

-Original Message-
From: friam-boun...@redfish.com [mailto:friam-boun...@redfish.com] On Behalf
Of Sarbajit Roy
Sent: Saturday, March 17, 2012 12:07 PM
To: The Friday Morning Applied Complexity Coffee Group
Subject: Re: [FRIAM] FW: See this?

Of course you are correct.

If the Mother is X1+X2, and the Father is X3+Y, I seem to recall vaguely
that the Mother's X contribution is essentially a string of snippets from
X1 and X2, whereas the Father contributes either a pure
X3 or a pure Y to the Child.

If my recollection is correct, then this leads us to the 4th point Godhood
of Father

Sarbajit

On 3/17/12, Nicholas  Thompson nickthomp...@earthlink.net wrote:
 Thanks, Sarbajit,

 One quibble:

 a child is the genetic sum of its parents

 If we are talking genetic tokens (as opposed to types), a child has 
 half the genes of each of its parents.

 N


 -Original Message-
 From: friam-boun...@redfish.com [mailto:friam-boun...@redfish.com] On 
 Behalf Of Sarbajit Roy
 Sent: Friday, March 16, 2012 9:33 PM
 To: The Friday Morning Applied Complexity Coffee Group
 Subject: Re: [FRIAM] FW: See this?

 John,

 wrt statement #2

 IF our ancestors are contained within us AND live (on) in us, THEN 
 all the information we have is in our ancestors too. {Life as an 
 information / communication problem}

 Of course we can be more than the sum of our parents. The 
 information is already out there in the wild/cloud, we are just 
 downloading it onto our genetic hard drives at an increasingly faster
biological rate.

 To clarify with an example.

 In the early 1980's I coded boot sector computer virii. These code 
 strings would infect by attaching themselves to theend of a copy
 of another executable program (which may have already been infected by 
 code strings by some other hacker - and not only at the end but 
 perhaps also inserted in the middle). The actual application 
 software (say
 pacman.exe) would continue to run until the competing information 
 strings being injected / infected clashed and caused it to die.

 Similarly, a child is the genetic sum of its parents (and through them 
 the
 ancestors)  and information strings (via culture / television / parent 
 et.al
 ) which attach itself to the child's memory (memes).

 Sorry, if I'm somewhat vague/unclear - buts its not easy reconciling 
 

Re: [FRIAM] YES YES YES and Hurrah

[Vladimyr Burachynsky]

Dear Eric P. Charles,

Thank you for the Stomp/Romp. Too mild for a rant you behaved within the 
civilized parameters at all times. Toe on the line but let’s forgive that and 
cheer the sentiment.

 

I have to ask why even an intelligent person can make some kind of sense out of 
Gibberish.

Was it all the years of my marriage that left that stain? Is it an evolutionary 
legacy? 

Something about our brains seems to Beg for Sense when there is none. 

The fact is plain to everyone who attends a Magician’s performance.

We know better but for some reason people prefer their own explanations 
straight out of MAGIC books.

We even elect Morons who we pretend make some Sense. 

 

We prefer magical explanations because they do not require any effort. 

All Physicists are apparently insane because they intentionally look for 
difficult explanations.

We are probably discussing a regressive part of Human nature linked with 
superstition, optical illusions , alien visitations, secret conspiracies, and 
talking spirits.

 

I  applaud the vigor with which you dispatched the Wicked Witch of 
Popular/Group Opinion.

 

Keep up the Good Stomp. Arm yourselves gentlemen or the Viagra adverts will 
swamp reason.

 

Luckily I am reading Umberto Eco’s “Foucault’s Pendulum “ and am in the mood 
for a clever Anti-Populist satire. He has a beautiful description of using a 
word processor to scramble anything so that it appears Cryptic. He even 
includes a small Basic program for deranging letters. Apparently Cryptic equals 
Important for most people. What is wrong with our species to believe in such 
fairy tales? 

 

I curse St Augustine who claimed belief was greater than reason.

Madness in Groups seems very fashionable lately.

 

Vladimyr Ivan Burachynsky PhD

 

 mailto:vbur...@shaw.ca vbur...@shaw.ca

 

 

 

120-1053 Beaverhill Blvd.

Winnipeg,Manitoba, R2J3R2

Canada 

 (204) 2548321 Land

 

 

 

From: friam-boun...@redfish.com [mailto:friam-boun...@redfish.com] On Behalf Of 
ERIC P. CHARLES
Sent: February-11-12 8:08 PM
To: Greg Sonnenfeld
Cc: The Friday Morning Applied Complexity Coffee Group
Subject: Re: [FRIAM] YES

 

Since people are replying about the scrambled-word message

rant
I will continue to stress that these skills, while interesting, are the 
opposite of impressive. Under virtually any other circumstances, the ability to 
carefully discriminate things is considered a higher ability, a sign of more 
sophisticated achievement, and, in the extreme, a mysterious and nigh-magical 
ability to attend details others are not sensitive to. In contrast, in 
virtually any other circumstances, the inability to distinguish things is 
considered a sign of lesser skill. 

For some odd reason though, when people send around these emails, it is 
asserted that our inability to distinguish a well-written word from a scrambled 
word demonstrates the magical and mysterious power of the Human Mind. It does 
not demonstrate mysterious skill, it demonstrates a (perhaps mysterious) lack 
of skill. The real mystery, if there is one, is why a person so well trained in 
reading would be fooled by such a simple manipulation. This might well be worth 
investigating, but for the same reasons that other types of optical illusions 
are worth investigating. 
/rant

Eric




On Sat, Feb 11, 2012 08:06 PM, Greg Sonnenfeld gsonn...@gmail.com wrote:



The fox who lnoegd for grpaes, bdelohs wtih pian 

The tpimetng cutelsrs wree too hgih to gian ;  

Gierved in his haret he fcored a clreseas slmie, 

And cierd , They are srahp and hlrday wotrh my wlhie .

 

;-)

 


Greg Sonnenfeld

“The scientists of today think deeply instead of clearly. One must be sane to 
think clearly, but one can think deeply and be quite insane.” 




On Sat, Feb 11, 2012 at 5:46 PM, Nicholas Thompson nickthomp...@earthlink.net 
wrote:

Why would anybody pass on a hopeless task followed by indecipherable gibberish. 
 List has reached a new low.   

 

N

 

PS (};-])

 

From: friam-boun...@redfish.com [mailto:friam-boun...@redfish.com] On Behalf Of 
Rich Murray
Sent: Thursday, February 09, 2012 1:32 AM
To: kyle paxton; The Friday Morning Applied Complexity Coffee Group; Rich Murray
Subject: [FRIAM] YES

 

-- Forwarded message --
From: kyle paxton k...@hotmail.com
Date: Wed, Feb 8, 2012 at 6:56 PM
Subject: FW: YES
To: richard t murray rmfor...@gmail.com
 

  _  

Date: Wed, 8 Feb 2012 18:16:54 -0800
From: sa1h...@yahoo.com
Subject: Fw: YES
To: k...@hotmail.com; surra...@msn.com; rush_211...@yahoo.com; 
charles_ath...@hotmail.com; askrobarcz...@aol.com; txenergi...@aol.com; 
over...@hotmail.com



Subject: Fw: YES

To: 
Date: Wednesday, February 8, 2012, 11:13 AM

- Forwarded Message -


To: 
Sent: Thursday, February 2, 2012 10:15 PM
Subject: FW: YES

 


 

 

 

yes, I can -- no problem at all!  It is amazing

 

If you can do this, pass it on to friends with the word YES in the subject, but 
only 

Re: [FRIAM] GlowScript 0.7

[Vladimyr Burachynsky]

Thanks Bruce ,
I appreciate the link to the Glowscript and am intrigued. In a way it is not
exactly what I expected but nevertheless it has an obvious strategic value.
The interactivity is clearly important.

I will expect some difficulty for a short period but that was expected .

https://skydrive.live.com/?sc=photoswa=wsignin1.0sa=590620289#cid=14A5CDB0
9AEE4237id=14A5CDB09AEE4237%21726sc=photos

I am working on Growing structures using Maple at this time. When the
prototyping is near completion I will try and set it up to use the
interactive presentation.
Much of my current focus is on Warped Sets of Matrices and how to manipulate
them sequentially. 

The original concept to Model Growth has run into many technical glitches
but that is entirely due to my own inexperience.

I have VTK libraries already downloaded but have been reluctant to start
back into C++ programming after so long away. I admit being spoiled by Maple
when it comes to the Matrices and Math Functions.
Thank you for the consideration. 


Vladimyr Ivan Burachynsky PhD


vbur...@shaw.ca


120-1053 Beaverhill Blvd.
Winnipeg,Manitoba, R2J3R2
Canada 
 (204) 2548321 Land




-Original Message-
From: friam-boun...@redfish.com [mailto:friam-boun...@redfish.com] On Behalf
Of Bruce Sherwood
Sent: January-30-12 7:10 PM
To: The Friday Morning Applied Complexity Coffee Group
Subject: [FRIAM] GlowScript 0.7

Just released: GlowScript 0.7, which adds easy-to-use textures applied to 3D
objects.

GlowScript is an environment in which you can write JavaScript programs in a
browser that produce navigable real-time 3D animations on a web page,
without having to learn the quite significant complexities of WebGL. The
goal is to serve professionals who would benefit from being able to create
dynamic 3D visualizations without having to be expert programmers.

For an overview, see

http://matterandinteractions.wordpress.com/2011/09/23/glowscript-3d-animatio
ns-in-a-browser/

The programming environment is found at

http://glowscript.org

Bruce


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FRIAM Applied Complexity Group listserv
Meets Fridays 9a-11:30 at cafe at St. John's College
lectures, archives, unsubscribe, maps at http://www.friam.org

Re: [FRIAM] Privacy in the workplace

[Vladimyr Burachynsky]

Thank you Joshua,

 

Furthering that article one must also consider Gaze Aversion which allows a
listener to avoid distraction. Which interferes with thinking out complex
thoughts.

Privacy is simply an extreme measure to control Cognitive Overload. 

 People who can Think seem to be able to do so by Avoiding distractions
designed to prevent thinking.

 

Body gestures also can result in Cognitive Overload. 

Perhaps this thread may be titled The Distracted Society

Vladimyr Ivan Burachynsky PhD

 

 

 mailto:vbur...@shaw.ca vbur...@shaw.ca

 

 

S120-1053 Beaverhill Blvd.

Winnipeg,Manitoba, R2J3R2

Canada 

 (204) 2548321 Land

 

 

 

 

 

From: friam-boun...@redfish.com [mailto:friam-boun...@redfish.com] On Behalf
Of Joshua Thorp
Sent: January-17-12 2:28 AM
To: The Friday Morning Applied Complexity Coffee Group
Subject: [FRIAM] Privacy in the workplace

 

Interesting article about the need for privacy in the creative workplace.

 

--joshua

 

http://www.nytimes.com/2012/01/15/opinion/sunday/the-rise-of-the-new-groupth
ink.html

 


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Meets Fridays 9a-11:30 at cafe at St. John's College
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Re: [FRIAM] 99%, occupyWallStreet, Santa Fe, etc.

[Vladimyr Burachynsky]

Hi Steve,

 

I am not sure about Google but many Internet Groups exhibit a bit of the
conventional school yard bully tactics.

In general this Friam Group seems relatively free from that sort of thing.
At least no one is accusing me of thinking I am some Kind of Scientist

 

I suspect that groups without the dirty deceit component are less stable.
Members rotate in and out freely. However in a situation like Penn State
there must have been a culture of entitlement. Entry into the Group was very
selective. That made the difference.

 

Such Groups could be called perverted. The local Gardening Club seems less
vulnerable. The more nasty the hazing ritual and the membership fees the
more likely it will dally with metaphysical rationalizations. ( Belief in
the Un Believable.)

 

Many such Groups apparently have a small cadre of cynics at the core
cleverly disguised in heroic roles. Now these cynics do not really believe
in the Group it is enough to have fools eager to believe for them. It seems
the worst outcome arises when the fools learn or suspect they have been
deceived. Bernie Madoff story.

 

Denial coupled by a willingness to believe in the UnBelievable seems to
create a stable structure.  Eventually the game gets so common that everyone
wants to run his own Group of Believers. This vector seems to explain the
Blogging phenomenon in a small part.  Typically one can test for a perverted
Group Structure by simply asking the uncomfortable question and wait for a
response. Such Groups seem very much used to slinging the dirt, what strikes
me as odd is that ,however divergent such Groups, they use the same
principles to attack and defend. False accusation , convenient accusation,
religious heresy, or pederasty are the favorite tools of character
assassination.

 

Of all the range of evil and deviant acts a human being can perpetrate why
only a handful are ever employed is curious and these seem to originate in
the pre Christian period. I guess no one will get a public hearing for
folding a document or collecting butterflies. But if someone declares the
butterfly to be endangered then maybe some small action would be taken. But
a sexual inpropriety Trumps all accusations. In the case of Penn State
perhaps the collaborators understood how dangerous the evidence was and kept
the secret to themselves, deluding themselves that there was no problem
anymore. Delusion and Group Perversion seem inextricable. I might add
entitlement, that feeling may have arisen simply because the cost of entry
in the Group was so restricted/inflated.

 

The openness of the internet may lead to the exposure of Group Perversion in
the long run and curtail this phenomenon, but in the short term the special
interest groups seem to be attempting to undermine the Net with much
nonsense. Most people are very Gullible ,Some few less so. Education should
have changed proportions but seems accidentally to have enhanced general
Gullibility. For a time I simply assumed most people were pathologically
stupid, I regret this assumption now. The truth seems more astonishing, even
very brilliant people are Gullible in certain aspects. A good scientist
never trusts his own judgment too easily except for microscopes and hotdogs.
His fellows should provide criticism when he goes astray. 

Heroes never consider other options and therefore always end up as a
scapegoat for their former supporters/collaborators.

At Penn State there will be in time many more small voices of criticism
there may already have been many plastered over. But eventually we all must
understand that white lies to protect a colleague are insidious. You are
just as guilty of a crime as he. Collegiality is not an excuse to break the
law, nor is fear.

 

The real mystery is why it is so easy for us to become collaborators. We
actually operate like Mafia Gangs with a lot of Pomp and Ceremony. 

I was asked recently by friends fro North Africa, What should be done with
Collaborators I have no answer, I am against capital punishment, but
understand that collaborators will ultimately pervert the next reincarnation
of government. Massive Jail sentences have been tried, the Chinese cultural
revolution was a failure, Stalin and Lenin tried as well and seemed for a
time to succeed. The problem is that there are so many collaborators even in
one's own family. Every day more are born.

 

Eric P Charles suggested we are selected to live in groups.. But perhaps we
are selected to be Gullible as well. There is a world of difference between
the stupid and the ruthless cunning but gullible. He insinuated that a
Strong mind would refuse to believe nonsense. I agree but as my father
warned me , you could just as easily be rewarded with a bullet between the
eyes. 

 

If one examines political party structures in the West these entities should
always be distinguished from Garden Clubs by a simple test of Group
Perversion.

It seems 99% of North Americans are outside of the Proper Group and 

Re: [FRIAM] 99%, occupyWallStreet, Santa Fe, etc.

[Vladimyr Burachynsky]

How to make people feel they are part of a Group…

 

If they collectively decide to cover up a crime through willful blindness then 
they establish some certainty that they belong.

Groups seem to demand that individuals Believe the unBelievable. It seems that 
some human beings have the capacity to smooth out ethical contradictions by 
simply choosing to live in another reality. When many people choose to live in 
the same delusion they are effectively a Group.

 

There seems to be a belief that Groups can exonerate the individual through 
Magic and Amnesia. The recent news of sexual crimes in Penn State reinforce 
this perspective.

The Group seems able to deny it’s crimes while selecting a scapegoat to carry 
their burdens. Groups seem much stronger when Criminality is involved even 
though each individual denies it’s existence. The Group might be nothing more 
than a psychological construct to absorb Guilt and at a high price.

Groups seem to choose Noble leaders to establish a pretense of heroicism and 
much later dispose of the leader along with the memory of their individual 
crimes 

 

This seems characteristic of much current political drama. Reluctant scapegoats 
fight tooth and nail to avoid the demand to be sacrificed for the good people.

 

The Group has a fantastic attribute of Goodness which disguises the Dark side 
of perversity.  People mostly use this contradiction to satisfy their own 
problems.

I would have thought that as our population increases that corruption would 
prevail, however there do seem to be indications that many are bucking the 
trend.

Groups seem very well devised to exclude individuals that have questionable 
ethics. These Groups have inadvertantly created their own nemesis.

 

The history of confronting corruption is dismal overall. Managers seem 
particularly prone to Group Think and demonstrate that they are absolutely 
convinced that they can ignore all legal responsibility for individual acts. 
Society still is unprepared to prosecute Group Think in all its devilish 
rationalizations.

 

The lack of meaningful leadership globally is perhaps due to so many living I a 
delusional state of mind where someone else will always end up being 
scapegoated.

 

At least Pontius Pilot tried to wash his own hands.

 

Vladimyr Ivan Burachynsky PhD

 

 

vbur...@shaw.ca

 

 

 

120-1053 Beaverhill Blvd.

Winnipeg,Manitoba, R2J3R2

Canada 

 (204) 2548321 Land

(204) 8016064  Cell

 

 

From: friam-boun...@redfish.com [mailto:friam-boun...@redfish.com] On Behalf Of 
ERIC P. CHARLES
Sent: October-27-11 9:32 PM
To: Gillian Densmore
Cc: Anne Rowland; The Friday Morning Applied Complexity Coffee Group
Subject: Re: [FRIAM] 99%, occupyWallStreet, Santa Fe, etc.

 

Gillian,
H trying to put my evolutionary psychology hat on, and feeling like I 
am not doing it quite as well as I should

Humans ARE programed to do things for the good of their groups. The question 
then is: How do we get people to feel as if they are part of a group? and How 
do we get people to expand the size of the group they feel they are part of? 
One subsection of those questions, a small, but not insignificant part, is 
wondering: How do we get advantaged people to include the disadvantaged as part 
of 'their' group?

Ultimately, if we had the right knowledge, this would be a perfect problem to 
tackle with agent based modeling. If we knew what types of experiences people 
needed to feel as if they were part of a group, and we knew what types of 
experiences were needed to expand felt-group size, then we start designing 
various worlds along various principles to see which produce the best outcome. 
The complexity will be too high to solve the problem any other way. 

Alas... what are the factors?

Eric

On Thu, Oct 27, 2011 05:17 PM, Gillian Densmore gil.densm...@gmail.com wrote:



 
Interesting discution going on here. Feeling like one of the 99% on some levels.
Rich Muray's proposed list on some levels makes sense.
Higher min wage for example how are you suposed to actually live on
$9.00 an hour?
even full time that's only 360 a week (before tax). Ouch.
Another one that stuck out was free health care- could work. Depending
on how it's implimented.
The general idea of more stuff taken for baseline for more (or all )
citizens and increasing the quality of life would seem to provide some
net benifits.
I think Nick asked how it gets funded wich might realy be asking: as
humans are we willing to pool together a pot of money to increase the
quality of life for all?
Just as a here in the comunity example:
I'm going to school to (theoreticly) increase my odds of being a
productive citizen by X%. Should one of the applications and varius
forms of asistance pan out I have a net X% extra chance of employment
at the end of the week I'd rather my hard earned money going to a pot
of money that helps raise quality of life for my self and others by
X%. Theoreticly humans are programed to work 

Re: [FRIAM] Fwd: The Psychology Of Yogurt

[Vladimyr Burachynsky]

 it reminds me of getting older where society imposes on us 
a state of delegitimation or disenfranchisement.  Often I watch younger people 
assume that white hair means we are past prime and  no longer what we thought 
we were. I think it worth examining the beliefs of the young grad student who 
thought that a good argument and a nasty gaze could change murder into a virtue 
as if she had a special magical  wand. Is the issue of human rights really so 
trivial that one individual can strip another of protection because of a hidden 
desire?

Good luck.

 

 

Vladimyr Burachynsky.

 

From: friam-boun...@redfish.com [mailto:friam-boun...@redfish.com] On Behalf Of 
Steve Smith
Sent: September-17-11 9:02 PM
To: The Friday Morning Applied Complexity Coffee Group
Subject: Re: [FRIAM] Fwd: The Psychology Of Yogurt

 

This reminds me too much of two disparate concepts:

SF Author (from ABQ no less) book Proxies where orphaned children with severe 
physical disabilities are offered an alternate existence by becoming 
telepresence operators of space equipment (cheaper than actually 
putting/keeping humans in space and a reasonable alternative for otherwise 
hugely physically limited children who can now have expanded sensoria and 
mobility but in an artificial habitat... raised as a family (of orphans), 
etc...   and all that goes with it utopian/dystopian SF Style.

http://www.amazon.com/Proxies-Laura-J-Mixon/dp/0812523873

And the Honey Mummy ( http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mellified_man ) aka, the 
mellified man.   Not unlike a petrified tree but with a human and honey instead 
of tree and minerals.  Great source of all the necessary/appropriate vitamins 
and minerals, and tasty too!

- Steve



Nick,
I have been thinking recently about trying to write a short story. It would 
start with a version of Daniel Dennet's wonderful brain-in-a-vat. It would be a 
story of a valiant man who volunteered for the procedure; he volunteered for 
his love of science and the deep impact it would have on the most fundamental 
of questions, the relation of brain, mind, and body. There would be dual 
devices; the device in the head functioned to replicate effects at the surface 
of the brain and keep the space filled, the vat kept the brain alive, received 
input measures from the in-head device, and read any and all brain outputs. 
There would be details of how the vat perfectly replicates all effects the body 
would have on the brain, and how the artificial implant perfectly replicates 
all effects the brain would have on the body. All effects: Neuronal, hormonal, 
temperature, chemical force, everything - no safety for the body in a boxing 
ring or any other situation. And of course, our protagonist's heroism is 
rewarded. Mr. Brain-in-the-Vat functioned amazingly; he could move around, 
communicate, feel emotions, dream, everything. People came from miles around to 
wonder at him and get autographs ($15 extra for the paper to be signed on the 
vat). He was interviewed on every major TV show, and Larry Flynt even paid him 
a fortune for... being in film. 

But one day another man showed up on Daniel's doorstep. He too had volunteered 
for a brave experiment. Sitting next to him on the veranda was a vat that held 
his kidneys and perfectly replicated all effects the body would have on the 
kidneys, and inside him was a genius device that perfectly replicated all 
effects the kidneys would have on the brain. 

But everyone knew that would work, the kidneys after all are JUST a 
physiological system. And so, no one cared. 

---
Eric



On Sat, Sep 17, 2011 04:09 PM, Nicholas Thompson  
mailto:nickthomp...@earthlink.net nickthomp...@earthlink.net wrote:



I cannot … for the life of me …. Understand what the mind-body “problem” is any 
more than I can understand what the computing-transistor problem is (if, 
indeed, there are still transistors in computers.)  We would never wonder why a 
better transistor would make the computing better; why would we wonder why a 
better stomach would make the mind work better.   To me, the interesting 
psychological question is why people see it is a problem.  What is that they 
want to make of the mind that makes the mind-body problem a problem?

 

Nick 

 

From: friam-boun...@redfish.com [mailto:friam-boun...@redfish.com] On Behalf Of 
Victoria Hughes
Sent: Saturday, September 17, 2011 1:09 PM
To: The Friday Morning Applied Complexity Coffee Group
Subject: [FRIAM] Fwd: The Psychology Of Yogurt

 

Probiotics, reduced anxiety, and thoughts about the weird, wrong perception 
that we exist separately from our bodies, somehow. 

 

 

Date: September 17, 2011 12:18:17 PM MDT

Subject: The Psychology Of Yogurt

Source: Wired Science » Frontal Cortex

Author: Jonah Lehrer

 

My latest WSJ  
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424053111904265504576566820066488938.html
 column uses a new study on probiotics as a launching pad to explore the 
mind-body problem, perhaps the most perplexing mystery

Re: [FRIAM] symmetry breaking video

[Vladimyr Burachynsky]

Nick,

 

Take a look at this video
http://www.dhingana.com/video/rodin-coil-vortex-in-water/related-_-d71vJQ89M
/1

 

You can see the water level rising as it is thrown to the side and nearly
empty toward the centre.

The experiment is also happily modest .

 

Vladimyr

 

From: friam-boun...@redfish.com [mailto:friam-boun...@redfish.com] On Behalf
Of Nicholas Thompson
Sent: July-02-11 10:47 PM
To: 'The Friday Morning Applied Complexity Coffee Group'
Subject: Re: [FRIAM] symmetry breaking

 

Vladimyr, 

 

I love it!  I am going on a trip, so unless my host is particularly
forgiving, fear that I wont be able to try it at his house, but I sure will
when I get back.  Contrary to Lee, I don't think, however, that confined
water has anything to do with it.  Plumbing systems have pressure release
pipes that vent gas upward as water rushes downward from the sink.  But the
straw is a nice test of that proposition.   

 

Nick 

 

From: friam-boun...@redfish.com [mailto:friam-boun...@redfish.com] On Behalf
Of Vladimyr Burachynsky
Sent: Saturday, July 02, 2011 8:54 PM
To: 'The Friday Morning Applied Complexity Coffee Group'
Subject: Re: [FRIAM] symmetry breaking

 

Hello All,

 

Years ago I ran some funky little tests spinning liquid epoxy on a platter
to attempt perfect parabolas. 

The equations required angular velocity and viscosity to get the correct
equation for curvature.

If your sink is analogous then the swirling motion should leave the water
near the drain at the lowest point with the lowest pressure. The surface
near or at the margins should contain more water. The surface area has also
changed. 

 

So now you should get a long soda straw and stick into the drain and see if
there is a relationship to the air in the system trying to escape the drain
.

 

A suggestion, set up a free Sky Drive account and dump some video with notes
and we can all have a look without  the Viagra adverts.

 

Sprinkle some floaters ( rubber duckies) and see how they travel perhaps.

 

Vladimyr Ivan Burachynsky PhD

 

 

vbur...@shaw.ca

 

 

120-1053 Beaverhill Blvd.

Winnipeg,Manitoba, R2J3R2

Canada 

 (204) 2548321 Land

 

 

From: friam-boun...@redfish.com [mailto:friam-boun...@redfish.com] On Behalf
Of Roger Critchlow
Sent: June-30-11 1:32 PM
To: The Friday Morning Applied Complexity Coffee Group
Subject: Re: [FRIAM] symmetry breaking

 

So here's a vortex game for you all.  

 

There is a fleet of sail boats racing from Newport, Rhode Island across the
Atlantic to the mouth of the English Channel.  If you go to
http://www.nyyc.org/transatlantic/ and click on [Tracker] you'll get a map
of the North Atlantic with the positions and tracks of the boats marked.
The red line is the great circle from south of Nantucket to the finish, the
shortest path.  

 

Up on the control bar there's a button which will turn on a wind
direction/intensity overlay so you can see the low pressure SE of Greenland
with an eastern arm that stretches almost to the Azores;  the high pressures
centered west of Brest, SW of Greenland, way south of the Great Banks; and
the head wind that the fleet is beating into.  There's a slider under the
weather button which allows you to step the wind overlay forward in time to
the predicted winds at 3hour intervals in the future.

 

Find the fastest path given where the wind is, how well you can drive the
boat, and where you expect you and the wind will be on the next watch.  The
wind arrows the map shows are from the freely available NOAA GRIB models,
but most of those boats are getting the best weather predictions that money
can buy.

 

Human ingenuity vs fluid dynamics, the state of the art, no doubt getting
very wet at the moment.

 

-- rec --

 

On Thu, Jun 30, 2011 at 11:13 AM, Roger Critchlow r...@elf.org wrote:

There are several papers from Ken Dill and students that deal with these
approaches.  And i don't think you missed them, they turned up after a
discussion on Maximum Entropy Production principles.

 

-- rec --

 

On Thu, Jun 30, 2011 at 11:00 AM, Steve Smith sasm...@swcp.com wrote:

On 6/30/11 8:02 AM, Nicholas Thompson wrote: 

Thanks, Eric, for taking the question seriously.  I will study your answer
with care. 

Ask a simple question, and waddya get? 
Another day older and deeper in (conceptual) debt!



Eric says:

 All these
flow problems that we talk about are not described by equilibrium ensembles;
they are ensembles of processes.  Of course, everybody says that, but
apparently most of the time people don't act as if saying that should then
carry meaning for what they think afterward.  (Like other mantras, its
function appears to be to suppress pre-frontal cortex activity.) 
 

What a great insight!  I wonder how much of our blather here on this list is
in fact crafted or selected for it's ability to suppress pre-frontal cortex
activity? Wow!  While we *think* we are promoting pre-frontal activity, we
may very well be supressing it!  I wonder

Re: [FRIAM] symmetry breaking

[Vladimyr Burachynsky]

Hello All,

 

Years ago I ran some funky little tests spinning liquid epoxy on a platter
to attempt perfect parabolas. 

The equations required angular velocity and viscosity to get the correct
equation for curvature.

If your sink is analogous then the swirling motion should leave the water
near the drain at the lowest point with the lowest pressure. The surface
near or at the margins should contain more water. The surface area has also
changed. 

 

So now you should get a long soda straw and stick into the drain and see if
there is a relationship to the air in the system trying to escape the drain
.

 

A suggestion, set up a free Sky Drive account and dump some video with notes
and we can all have a look without  the Viagra adverts.

 

Sprinkle some floaters ( rubber duckies) and see how they travel perhaps.

 

Vladimyr Ivan Burachynsky PhD

 

 

 mailto:vbur...@shaw.ca vbur...@shaw.ca

 

 

120-1053 Beaverhill Blvd.

Winnipeg,Manitoba, R2J3R2

Canada 

 (204) 2548321 Land

 

 

From: friam-boun...@redfish.com [mailto:friam-boun...@redfish.com] On Behalf
Of Roger Critchlow
Sent: June-30-11 1:32 PM
To: The Friday Morning Applied Complexity Coffee Group
Subject: Re: [FRIAM] symmetry breaking

 

So here's a vortex game for you all.  

 

There is a fleet of sail boats racing from Newport, Rhode Island across the
Atlantic to the mouth of the English Channel.  If you go to
http://www.nyyc.org/transatlantic/ and click on [Tracker] you'll get a map
of the North Atlantic with the positions and tracks of the boats marked.
The red line is the great circle from south of Nantucket to the finish, the
shortest path.  

 

Up on the control bar there's a button which will turn on a wind
direction/intensity overlay so you can see the low pressure SE of Greenland
with an eastern arm that stretches almost to the Azores;  the high pressures
centered west of Brest, SW of Greenland, way south of the Great Banks; and
the head wind that the fleet is beating into.  There's a slider under the
weather button which allows you to step the wind overlay forward in time to
the predicted winds at 3hour intervals in the future.

 

Find the fastest path given where the wind is, how well you can drive the
boat, and where you expect you and the wind will be on the next watch.  The
wind arrows the map shows are from the freely available NOAA GRIB models,
but most of those boats are getting the best weather predictions that money
can buy.

 

Human ingenuity vs fluid dynamics, the state of the art, no doubt getting
very wet at the moment.

 

-- rec --

 

On Thu, Jun 30, 2011 at 11:13 AM, Roger Critchlow r...@elf.org wrote:

There are several papers from Ken Dill and students that deal with these
approaches.  And i don't think you missed them, they turned up after a
discussion on Maximum Entropy Production principles.

 

-- rec --

 

On Thu, Jun 30, 2011 at 11:00 AM, Steve Smith sasm...@swcp.com wrote:

On 6/30/11 8:02 AM, Nicholas Thompson wrote: 

Thanks, Eric, for taking the question seriously.  I will study your answer
with care. 

Ask a simple question, and waddya get? 
Another day older and deeper in (conceptual) debt!



Eric says:

 All these
flow problems that we talk about are not described by equilibrium ensembles;
they are ensembles of processes.  Of course, everybody says that, but
apparently most of the time people don't act as if saying that should then
carry meaning for what they think afterward.  (Like other mantras, its
function appears to be to suppress pre-frontal cortex activity.) 
 

What a great insight!  I wonder how much of our blather here on this list is
in fact crafted or selected for it's ability to suppress pre-frontal cortex
activity? Wow!  While we *think* we are promoting pre-frontal activity, we
may very well be supressing it!  I wonder if there is a simple heuristic for
recognizing mantras in clear text?

Going recursive here, I wonder about the brain-state/chemistry that might be
involved in our (my!) propensity for (near) idle speculation about things I
know just enough about to be dangerous.  There seems to be something very
soothing about this kind of speculation... hmmm?

As for the rest of your (Eric) response!  What a lot to unpack... I mostly
get process vs equilibrium ensembles, spaces of histories and and some of
the entropy talk, but am lost entirely on the topic of competing definitions
of diffusion and it's precise relevance to this conversation... I'll give
it my best shot though... dig a little deeper.

I believe This is the Dill paper
http://www.google.com/url?sa=tsource=webcd=1ved=0CBYQFjAAurl=http%3A%2F
%2Fwww.dillgroup.ucsf.edu%2Fdl_papers%2FJCP2008Stock.pdfrct=jq=ken%20dill%
20caliberei=_KIMTqSdNZT2swOvkLCQDgusg=AFQjCNF1QwcT3WourQaoLPT8EvAX1tfG4ws
ig2=0YsVN6J1NJanyAIYt3rszQcad=rja  you refer to?  I missed it the first
time it was passed around I think. Or with your just-out re-attribution to
RC, rather than NT  And here is a lecture by Dill

Re: [FRIAM] Why Evolve , when you Thriving!

[Vladimyr Burachynsky]

 

To Nick Thompson,

 

Perhaps the attraction is the nature of complex systems, they move a lot of 
resources from one form to another.

The entire ecology of diseases and parasitism is based on leveraging resources 
out of complex systems.

Human beings seem to behave as if a civilization is a complex system which is 
there solely for their own personal exploitation.

That subjective distance from their own societies explains many senseless acts.

 

Evolution is clearly present among the computer scammers, but it is not the 
idealistic form we expected from Darwin or Dawkins.

In fact as Sarbajit points out the corruption is almost mindless. Amoral and 
very unromantic, 

 

You are not alone, Foolishness has been my problem since stepping into science.

Vladimyr Ivan Burachynsky PhD

 

 

 mailto:vbur...@shaw.ca vbur...@shaw.ca

 

 

 

120-1053 Beaverhill Blvd.

Winnipeg,Manitoba, R2J3R2

Canada 

 (204) 2548321 Land

(204) 8016064  Cell

 

 

 

From: friam-boun...@redfish.com [mailto:friam-boun...@redfish.com] On Behalf Of 
Nicholas Thompson
Sent: May-23-11 12:24 PM
To: 'The Friday Morning Applied Complexity Coffee Group'
Subject: Re: [FRIAM] Why Evolve , when you Thriving!

 

Peter, 

 

I don’t know about the rest of you, but I am reborn a fool every day.  

 

What particularly alarmed me about sabarjit’s post was the idea that the mafia 
has a cut and paste response designed especially for smartasses who think they 
can turn the tide on the scammer.  I have never tried to be one of those 
s.a.’s, mostly because I have not had time, but I am the sort of person who 
might. I have been warned. 

 

Nick 

 

From: friam-boun...@redfish.com [mailto:friam-boun...@redfish.com] On Behalf Of 
plissa...@comcast.net
Sent: Monday, May 23, 2011 11:14 AM
To: friam@redfish.com
Subject: [FRIAM] Why Evolve , when you Thriving!

 

No reason for the $ scam types to evolve.  They seem to have lotsa suckers in 
Friam readership.  I was amazed that correspondents even responded seriously.  
Now, about that bridge...

Peter Lissaman, Da Vinci Ventures

Expertise is not knowing everything, but knowing what to look for.

1454 Miracerros Loop South, Santa Fe, New Mexico 87505,USA
tel:(505)983-7728 

- Original Message -
From: friam-requ...@redfish.com
To: friam@redfish.com
Sent: Monday, May 23, 2011 10:00:08 AM
Subject: Friam Digest, Vol 95, Issue 36

Send Friam mailing list submissions to
friam@redfish.com

To subscribe or unsubscribe via the World Wide Web, visit
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When replying, please edit your Subject line so it is more specific
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Today's Topics:

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Re: [FRIAM] What evolves?

[Vladimyr Burachynsky]

Nothing will evolve as long as sex exists to prevent it.

Most mutations simply fail to implant in the uterus. Many are shed soon
after. If the fetus gets to parturition ,the midwives get rid of it. Or the
mother just eats them if they do not smell right.
Typically in mammals there is constant chemical communication back and forth
with the mother's immune system if any of the fetal clues are off even
slightly the immune system disposes of it.Rh factor incompatibility is an
example in humans.
So any successful mutation has to be so small that the mother can not detect
it.(The mother can tell if a small set of proteins are not acceptable) The
mutation may not be lethal but the mother usually is. 
Selection of the fittest should have been phrased as selection of the most
mediocre. That mandate has spawned the Sneaky Male phenomena from Red Deer
to reptile.. That little difference in terms  is attributed in some way to
prejudice and self flattery of scientists mostly male at the time..


Sex is to prevent mutation not encourage it. Absolutely anything out of the
ordinary is rejected during mating selection. Ova are very particular about
which sperm gets to penetrate, it kills most suitors hence all the
expendables .
Perhaps the standards for mediocrity are very stringent often demanding
insanely expensive demonstrations. I suppose any error in ornamentation
signals other defects.

Among humans you simply compare the number of live births with Known
pregnancies. Most miscarriages may not even disrupt the mother enough to
even know she was pregnant.
I reared Rats and Rabbits in the lab and have seen the mothers sneakily
dispose of offspring. If it becomes a pattern the mother gets discarded and
we resume with more docile or  accommodating females. It costs a lot to
house these peculiar specimens. The truth is that no one appears to have a
figure on the  percentage wasted fertilizations.

I reared Xenopus frogs from artificially fertilized eggs. Was fairly
successful until I realized they were cannibalizing their siblings at a
horrifying rate. So there are a lot of factors involved in the missing
offspring. The sacrifice of siblings to cannibals seems very widespread and
even intentional. There used to be a story of shark pups eating each 
other before they were even borne, I have no proof perhaps someone can tell
if it was a fable. 
Some sharks have live births others use eggs Perhaps to reduce sibling
predation, who knows why ; Its anyone's guess.
 Most mutations by necessity must be invisible. So turn the thinking around
180 degrees. 
The introduction of a new term VOID seems to simply be a NICHE. Is it
necessary to use the new term?.
Vladimyr Ivan Burachynsky PhD


vbur...@shaw.ca


120-1053 Beaverhill Blvd.
Winnipeg,Manitoba, R2J3R2
Canada 
 (204) 2548321 Land
(204) 8016064  Cell


-Original Message-
From: friam-boun...@redfish.com [mailto:friam-boun...@redfish.com] On Behalf
Of Nicholas Thompson
Sent: May-12-11 10:34 PM
To: 'The Friday Morning Applied Complexity Coffee Group'
Subject: Re: [FRIAM] What evolves?

Bruce, 

Suddenly can't think what the evidence would be for most mutations are
lethal.  Given the tremendous capacity of the developmental system to
absorb variation and produce a common result,  how would we know.  The best
we could know is that most visible mutations are lethal.  

This is a brain fart, isn't it.  Oh Dear. 

Nick 

-Original Message-
From: friam-boun...@redfish.com [mailto:friam-boun...@redfish.com] On Behalf
Of Bruce Sherwood
Sent: Thursday, May 12, 2011 8:44 PM
To: friam@redfish.com
Subject: [FRIAM] What evolves?

I'll take a stab at Russ's question, What's the analogous force (or other
explanation) for void filling in evolution?

Dawkins presents what seemed to me a helpful way of seeing why mutations are
usually lethal. He invents a multidimensional space in which a point
represents a possible living creature, whose attributes are coordinates on
each of the very large number of axes (e.g. length, mass, number of legs,
etc.) He points out that this space is enormously empty, as most points
represent creatures that are not viable. Moreover, any mutation that
represents a big jump in this multidimensional space takes you to a point in
that space representing a nonviable creature.

Viable creatures are represented by clouds of neighboring points, surrounded
by vast empty spaces. New species (to the extent that species is a
meaningful term) to be viable will be near these clouds. If a cloud is
densely occupied, a new species will most likely be found just outside the
cloud, exploiting an until-now void but with only small changes from the
attributes of existing creatures in this grouping.

In this metaphor it seems to me that void-filling is driven
essentially entropically -- to exploit a larger space. The analogy would
be a gas confined in a small portion of a large empty box.
Remove the barriers, and it looks to the observer as though the gas is
driven to fill 

Re: [FRIAM] Modeling obfuscation (was - Terrorosity and it's Fruits)

[Vladimyr Burachynsky]

To Mohammed,

 

I have similar thoughts but rather than a system of Rules I thought of a
system of interacting  self preoccupied emotions. The agent has a roulette
wheel of options with weights assigned randomly to make some choices more
common than others, no fixed rules a priori. Let us assume the wheel starts
out fair. But emotions add weights without public revelation.

 

For instance if a choice requires effort it is less likely to be
implemented. If a choice requires the sacrifice of resources then again less
likely.

If a choice requires some  one else's effort such as an army it is more
likely to be implemented. The agent explores emotions and options before
making a decision.

 

It seems that the wheel has numbers for public interest  but something
extraordinary must happen to unweight such options before an agent
sacrifices something. Selfishness does appear to follow some rules but it is
unclear how they are arranged.

For instance in a panic situation women with babies are assumed to have a
priority but unaccompanied children and women  get trampled to death. So the
act of sacrifice for children seems suspect. The assumption that women with
children have priority suggests that society has such a preference but the
way it is selectively implemented is curious. The scoundrel must be aware
that others will make sacrifices that he or she is unwilling to make.

Models have been built for simulating panic scenarios perhaps there lies a
starting point.

I see a programming difficulty where the outcome of some event must iterated
through each agent to get a single outcome.

Vladimyr Ivan Burachynsky PhD

 

 

 mailto:vbur...@shaw.ca vbur...@shaw.ca

 

 

 

120-1053 Beaverhill Blvd.

Winnipeg,Manitoba, R2J3R2

Canada 

 (204) 2548321 Land

(204) 8016064  Cell

 

 

 

From: friam-boun...@redfish.com [mailto:friam-boun...@redfish.com] On Behalf
Of Mohammed El-Beltagy
Sent: May-08-11 5:56 AM
To: The Friday Morning Applied Complexity Coffee Group
Subject: Re: [FRIAM] Modeling obfuscation (was - Terrorosity and it's
Fruits)

 

Eric, 

 

Thats an interesting way of looking at it. As complex game of information
hiding. 

 

I was thinking along the line of of having a schema for rule creation.  The
schema here is like a constitution, and players can generate new rules based
on that schema to promote their self interest. For rules to become laws
they have to be the choice on the majority (or subject to some other social
choice mechanism), this system  allows  for group formation and coalition
building to get the new rules passed into laws. The interesting bit is how
the drive for self interest amongst some of those groups and their
coalitions can give rise to rules renders the original schema and/or the
social choice mechanism ineffective. By ineffective, I mean that they
yield results and behavior that run counter to the purpose for which they
were  originally designed. 

 

What do you think?

 

Cheers, 

 

Mohammed 

 

On Sun, May 8, 2011 at 2:44 AM, ERIC P. CHARLES e...@psu.edu wrote:

I can't see that this posted, sorry if it is a duplicate 

 

Mohammed,
Being totally unqualified to help you with this problem... it seems
interesting to me because most models I know of this sort (social systems
models) are about information acquisition and deployment. That is, the
modeled critters try to find out stuff, and then they do actions dependent
upon what they find. If we are modeling active obfuscation, then we would be
doing the opposite - we would be modeling an information-hiding game. Of
course, there is lots of game theory work on information hiding in two
critter encounters (I'm thinking
evolutionary-game-theory-looking-at-deception). I haven't seen anything,
though, looking at distributed information hiding. 

The idea that you could create a system full of autonomous agents in which
information ends up hidden, but no particular individuals have done the
hiding, is kind of cool. Seems like the type of thing encryption guys could
get into (or already are into, or have already moved past).

Eric

On Fri, May 6, 2011 10:05 PM, Mohammed El-Beltagy moham...@computer.org
wrote:

I have a question I would like to pose to the group in that regard:
 
Can we model/simulate how in a democracy that is inherently open (as
stated in the constitution: for the people, by the people etc..) there
emerges decision masking  structures emerge that actively obfuscate
the participatory nature of the democratic decision making for their
ends?
 
 



FRIAM Applied Complexity Group listserv
Meets Fridays 9a-11:30 at cafe at St. John's College
lectures, archives, unsubscribe, maps at http://www.friam.org




-- 
http://perfectionatic.blogspot.com/
http://twitter.com/#!/perfectionatic


FRIAM Applied Complexity Group listserv
Meets Fridays 9a-11:30 at cafe at St. John's College
lectures, 

Re: [FRIAM] Modeling obfuscation (was - Terrorosity and it's Fruits)

[Vladimyr Burachynsky]

Eric and Mohammed,

 

I don’t think anyone can be Off base at this point in sketching out a scenario. 
 But you might be trying to tackle Goliath in the first round!

 

Firstly I assume human beings are not very bright, They seem to use extremely 
simple rules of self satisfaction, though the emotions might be more 
complicated.

It is not widely accepted but dogs can figure things out as quickly as humans 
on occasion and there is no wearisome Narrative. 

I look at it from the point of view that agents are simple  but Stupid . This 
gave me a headache until I realized that many human beings actually do not know 
why they did something in particular, then and only then do they invent the 
Narrative. They are not actually attempting to deceive anyone  but simply wish 
to convince me that they did something for a Good reason. They avoid 
acknowledging the fact that they did not think.They then drop into the socially 
acceptable lexicon to explain everything. Often I have remarked that the act of 
speaking out loud convinces others as well as most importantly  the speaker 
himself.. So the speaker is lying to himself first and then accepts this as his 
story and probably could pass a lie detector test afterwards.

 

The fact that narratives are spun is a red herring. They did not know how they 
made the decision. That frightened the hell out of me in complex engineering 
projects. I had no way to anticipate human error  of this sort. People actually 
can construct insane scenarios to motivate themselves and then totally forget 
them. This form of misperception is internal to the brain. I have watched 
audiences fall for magicians tricks so completely that I have been stunned into 
disbelief. Yet it is so repeatable. I have seen some references to hidden Blind 
spots in reason explored by neurologists. Generally I think Biology was too 
cheap and lazy to give us a completely functional brain. I will be the first to 
admit to having difficulty with my brain at times.

 

To cope we have a pervasive belief that we are intelligent in spite of many 
serious flaws. As a scientist I consider determining the extent of thinking 
important. I am forced by language to say what I Think for lack of an 
alternative. I repeat the phrase for more than half a century but still do not 
understand what it actually means, nor do the philosophers directly address the 
act. Seems they were more preoccupied by passion in contradiction.

 

We say Man  is a learning animal which implies it progresses somewhat. But I 
suspect culturally we have found many insidious means to prevent learning. Why 
? Is it unconscious. Somewhat like the vexed mother fed up answering questions 
about the color of the sky and butterflies and moths. Ignorant people are 
easier to control, suggests history but why?

 

Let’s build something Stupid (Whimsical and arrogant)rather than Intelligent. 
If we have no idea what one is how can we answer what the opposite actually 
entails. An agent should have more than one choice of action and some of those 
should be utterly insane.

 

Your institutional Review boards you describe sound  as nasty as a Byzantine 
Palace Intrigue. So let’s start much simpler. For the present the agent should 
not know what is in his best interest , that is only to be determined by which 
emotion dominates at any moment. He can make up stories afterwards. I often 
consider the role of Historians that of making reasonable explanations out of 
stupid events. The conspiracy theorist will hate this if it bears out.

 

As for the gains  first we waste time looking for reasons where there are none. 
Next we can find some way of warning individuals not to encourage group think. 
With near to 7 Billion on this planet maybe it is time to alert ourselves to 
the flaws in our own brains.; Fear,  Gullibility, Conformity, short sighted 
self interest emotional reasoning. In the early stages I would limit the agents 
to simply responding and not have them try to become operators of other agents, 
but that seems to be the goal. Jochen forwarded an interesting article to the 
group on the ecology of the mind, I have yet to study the material but it looks 
intriguing .

 

It is an old joke , but the more people in the room the dumber it gets.

 

 

Vladimyr Ivan Burachynsky PhD

 

 

 mailto:vbur...@shaw.ca vbur...@shaw.ca

 

 

 

120-1053 Beaverhill Blvd.

Winnipeg,Manitoba, R2J3R2

Canada 

 (204) 2548321 Land

(204) 8016064  Cell

 

 

 

From: friam-boun...@redfish.com [mailto:friam-boun...@redfish.com] On Behalf Of 
ERIC P. CHARLES
Sent: May-08-11 4:00 PM
To: Mohammed El-Beltagy
Cc: The Friday Morning Applied Complexity Coffee Group
Subject: Re: [FRIAM] Modeling obfuscation (was - Terrorosity and it's Fruits)

 

I think I know what you are talking about, but I'm not sure what the best way 
to model it would be, or what we would gain from the modeling exercise. Are you 
talking about something like this?

Institutional review 

Re: [FRIAM] Terrorosity and it's Fruits

[Vladimyr Burachynsky]

I urge the angry to ask why. Too often storming away from a table is exactly
why we never break ground.

As to the topic of Complexity , this is one component you never inquired of,
Why do sensible people become IDIOTS. How does society create idiots out of
men?

That was my reason to join long ago. The fact that IDIOTS are convinced that
they are correct Fascinates me.

How can any of us  trust the words coming out of our mouths, if we were to
discover we have been blindly lead by a Narrative into a cul de sac of
Idiocy.

 

 

The story of binLaden was writen long ago Tolstoy. The short story, Hadji
Murat,  describes much of the same atmosphere.  

The killing was easy , the understanding is difficult.

 

It takes no great skill to kill, any brute can do it, it is a much greater
challenge  to keep something alive.

 

How do we model stupifaction of real people? 

 

Vladimyr Ivan Burachynsky PhD

 

 

 mailto:vbur...@shaw.ca vbur...@shaw.ca

 

 

 

120-1053 Beaverhill Blvd.

Winnipeg,Manitoba, R2J3R2

Canada 

 (204) 2548321 Land

(204) 8016064  Cell

 

 

 

From: friam-boun...@redfish.com [mailto:friam-boun...@redfish.com] On Behalf
Of Douglas Roberts
Sent: May-06-11 7:37 PM
To: The Friday Morning Applied Complexity Coffee Group
Subject: Re: [FRIAM] Terrorosity and it's Fruits

 

Salaam Mohammed,

 

Speaking as an American, I'm afraid that I can assert with a fair degree of
accuracy that percentage-wise, very few Americans are aware of the
historical/current events vis-a-vis US interactions with mid-eastern
political entities that you so accurately denote below.  For reasons that I
fail to comprehend, we have truly become a nation of idiots.  Nearly as
discouraging, if I may suggest, is the clear emergence of multiple nations
of Islamic idiots which seem to comprise the majority of mid eastern
countries these days. Perhaps the real issue here is that we are a planet of
idiots.

 

Several evolutions later the answer to all of this become apparent, I'm
sure, if biological life is still possible on this planet then.

 

Best,

 

--Doug

On Fri, May 6, 2011 at 5:33 PM, Mohammed El-Beltagy moham...@computer.org
wrote:

Thanks Steve and Peggy, you give me more praise than I deserve.

I naturally see terrorism as abhorrent and I regret that Russel read
my few lines as an attempt to be an apologists for those who attack
the US and Israel. I am against any form of violence being exercised
against any human being, and that also happens to includes
Palestinians, Iraqis, and Afghans.

I just wonder how many Americans aware of the following:
1. The US supported and trained Bin Laden and a host of other groups
with unsavory ideologies during the cold war.
2. The US supported and continues to support dictators in the middle
east. They have been propping up Mubark for 30 years.
3. Official civilian deaths in Iraq are now in excess of 100K. Many
Iraqi refuges in Cairo tell me that life was MUCH better under
Saddam!!!
4. The US actively supports Saudi Arabia and does not seem to mind
their proselytizing Wahhabism in the middle east and South East Asia.
That ideology justifies and absolute rule of the Saudi Royal
family hence cheep oil.. but also the side effect of terrorism.

I agree with Peggy that it would be wrong to lay the blame fully on
any one country (I would also add religion,and race). But, to say that
it is down to some group of human beings who are simply evil and
hateful is equally mindless. They US played a significant part in this
monster creation. To my mind, the processes of monster creation is
still active. That worries me. That must stop.

Cheers,

Mohammed


On Fri, May 6, 2011 at 10:28 PM, Steve Smith sasm...@swcp.com wrote:
 Mohammed -

 I want to second Peggy's thanks for your thoughts and would like to add
the
 following to hers:

 I agree with Peggy on most points.  Terrorism is always horrific (it is
 designed to be so) and we should seek to avoid provoking it and prevent
it's
 occurrence and mitigate it's effects as best we can.   The apprehension
(by
 death) of Osama bin Laden was perhaps a neccesary act but as your poem
(and
 Peggy's response) suggests, we should use this moment to reflect on our
own
 part in having created the monster we finally destroyed, and in how we are
 surely continuing to create the conditions that lead to all this in the
 first place.

 Where I might diverge from Peggy's description is in the implication that
we
 are becoming more predatory.  I do believe that in our greed and fear we
 continue to develop more *leverage* for ourselves, economic, military,
even
 popular culture.   And thereby we become more *capable predators* than
 ever.  But I think the fundamental problem is that we have always been
 predatory...

 By *we*, I am not sure if I mean the United States of America, the
West,
 Industrialized Nations, All Nations, all of Humanity even Primates
 or Sentient Creatures or what...   certainly the last US administration
 was more hawkish and 

Re: [FRIAM] Memetic Drift in Threads, was: off topic....., but still

[Vladimyr Burachynsky]

Very sly you are Steve Smith,

The topic with no Name has been an ever present part of the group
discussions. It drifts because we have never nailed it to the wall. There is
a propensity to organize and control discussions. The nameless issues are
like flies in our face.
We try so hard to shoo them away but they leave us all a little silly
looking . The fly keeps showing up right in the middle of our brows.

The nameless issue seems to be Human Nature and it is uncomfortably not what
we generally assumed from idealistic perspectives. Often we drift directly
into this area as a result of some calamitous world wide affair.
All of us are showing surprise at the unpredictable recklessness of our
global society.  Perhaps clutching to the grail of Complexity is a feeble
notion. I admit I am awestruck with the bizarre events of recent months,
seemingly errant events recurring in greater and greater frequency. These
events seem every few days to imply we really have very little understanding
of what is going on around us. In retrospect each event was predictable yet
we are clearly unable to see the real world beyond the reflection of our own
internal fictions.   

Our brains like most people are handicapped in some way by short cuts in
design. We know there is a world or reality beyond ours but rarely take it
into consideration. WE get trapped into deviously designed narratives and
have to wait for the penultimate chapter to find the hidden passage way
behind the fireplace. The last chapter simply reconstructs all the missing
bits which we never noticed. We all end up happier with a clean story line
that appears self consistent. Unfortunately the desire for a clean story
line is the problem with us. Every story demands one topic, one problem, one
hero, one villain. The real world is obviously not structured around our
prejudices yet we persist in making it so. ( I read Herodotus and laugh at
his explanations of the world. He was a charmer I love his style. No one
would dare today write ceaselessly with no plot. But maybe that is what is
what I relish. He did not really care himself for the nonsense explanations
and showed his dismissal ) Perhaps the writer is our God and he will show us
the Truth if we listen closely. The Logos, the Word the hand of God may be
nothing more than explanations externalized for  intrinsic defects in human
brains. The Dogma professed to allay our questions and let us live in peace
but it never worked as well as hoped. Reality kept showing up as a nameless
annoying fly. 

We always assume there must be a category and that there must be a plot and
some obvious truth. Well maybe that is just our addiction to narrative
styles. 

Complexity is part of the future , but by itself at best it can display some
shadows of reality. Most of our difficulties seem to me to be the
peculiarities of human intelligence. I personally do not actually have any
more faith in it now than God, the Soul, Good or Evil or economic reform. I
believe that we are so facile creating illusions we can no longer
distinguish truth from fiction.  I have a bone to pick with the equivalence
of narratives. It plays well with people who have nothing of substance to
offer but more fears and economic opportunities. Besides I am not the only
one to notice each new revolution seems to be a conflict of fictions, or
whether or not the young people are willing to endure the tyranny of an
older narrative. Perhaps the people have a shelf life for narratives, it
used to keep writers busy and paid.
Did the digital era start to disturb the functioning of traditional Human
delusions? Why is every new TV show a remake or mix up of older stories in
new fashions?

Steve there is no need to beat your chest in aguish that you feel you
violated some form of ethical guide line.

 When I used to go fishing I have often had to step  over a few old fence
lines. Being stuck on one side of the fence can be frustrating fishing or
with research. 

The fish seems to be Human Intelligence or the lack of it. The reason for
the lack seems awkward because most of us are a little embarrassed to admit
we ever were so easily duped. Now why is it that old men look backward and
start to feel ashamed at what they once loved so stridently. 

The truth upon reflection was always obvious so why did we choose to ignore
it. The Complexity Theory revelations or truths will also be easily ignored
until a catastrophe strikes. Then we go about the business of burying
bodies at sea for various reasons. Why is the truth so difficult to face.? I
suspect that once our brains are commited to a narrative we do not find it
easy to alter it substantially. Like a filing system we make small
alterations but big changes need a house fire or a computer melt down before
they are implemented.  More than filling in gaps we also seem to wilfully
ignore certain information to preserve the established narrative. This is
difficult to spot. Our brains seem to be wired for short cuts but 

Re: [FRIAM] Stu on NPR.org Even Evolution Evolves: Changing Ideas On The Biosphere

[Vladimyr Burachynsky]

And every time a species goes to extinction the former new but filled niches
vanish. 

Sounds a bit like a Steady state of musical chairs.

 

Unfortunately the word evolution supposes purpose or direction which it
seems steadfast to keep hidden.

 

 

Vladimyr Ivan Burachynsky PhD

 mailto:vbur...@shaw.ca vbur...@shaw.ca

 

 

120-1053 Beaverhill Blvd.

Winnipeg,Manitoba, R2J3R2

Canada 

 (204) 2548321 Land

(204) 8016064  Cell

 

 

 

From: friam-boun...@redfish.com [mailto:friam-boun...@redfish.com] On Behalf
Of Stephen Guerin
Sent: April-26-11 9:48 AM
To: Friam Friam; disc...@sfcomplex.org
Subject: [FRIAM] Stu on NPR.org  Even Evolution Evolves: Changing Ideas On
The Biosphere

 

Stu on NPR.

http://m.npr.org/story/135706946?url=/blogs/13.7/2011/04/25/135706946/even-e
volution-evolves-changing-ideas-on-the-biosphere


FRIAM Applied Complexity Group listserv
Meets Fridays 9a-11:30 at cafe at St. John's College
lectures, archives, unsubscribe, maps at http://www.friam.org

Re: [FRIAM] Stu on NPR.org Even Evolution Evolves: Changing Ideas On The Biosphere

[Vladimyr Burachynsky]

There is an example of what happens with unused energy on a very large
scale,

 

Namely Forest fires after years of suppression  rage with unbelievable
ferocity. In this case a failure on the biological level to recycle fast
enough results in a physical process almost beyond the biological .

In this case the biological system is almost punished or negatively rewarded
. This is interesting when one considers how closely coupled the two systems
become. Perhaps it is better to think in terms of a footrace of sorts.

No goal other than to stay ahead of disaster like surfing.

Vladimyr Ivan Burachynsky PhD

 

 

 mailto:vbur...@shaw.ca vbur...@shaw.ca

 

 

Sky Drive Site 

http://cid-14a5cdb09aee4237.photos.live.com/self.aspx/CSA/Braiding%20Simulat
ions/ExperStruct.wmv

 

120-1053 Beaverhill Blvd.

Winnipeg,Manitoba, R2J3R2

Canada 

 (204) 2548321 Land

(204) 8016064  Cell

 

 

 

From: friam-boun...@redfish.com [mailto:friam-boun...@redfish.com] On Behalf
Of Russ Abbott
Sent: April-26-11 12:51 PM
To: The Friday Morning Applied Complexity Coffee Group
Subject: Re: [FRIAM] Stu on NPR.org  Even Evolution Evolves: Changing Ideas
On The Biosphere

 

More generally, virtually every new persistent mechanism (e.g., species)
will create new potential niches by the fact of its existence. This can be
seen by considering energy flows. Every persistent mechanism requires a way
to exploit energy resources in order to persist. No mechanism is 100%
efficient. So every persistent mechanism leaves in its wake some unused
energy--often in a form that didn't exist previously That unused energy is
then a niche that some other mechanism can exploit. To take Stu's example,
the unused energy is whatever it is that bacteria in fish bladder live on. 


 

-- Russ 





On Tue, Apr 26, 2011 at 9:54 AM, Vladimyr Burachynsky vbur...@shaw.ca
wrote:

And every time a species goes to extinction the former new but filled niches
vanish. 

Sounds a bit like a Steady state of musical chairs.

 

Unfortunately the word evolution supposes purpose or direction which it
seems steadfast to keep hidden.

 

 

Vladimyr Ivan Burachynsky PhD

vbur...@shaw.ca

 

 

120-1053 Beaverhill Blvd.

Winnipeg,Manitoba, R2J3R2

Canada 

 (204) 2548321 tel:%28204%29%202548321  Land

(204) 8016064 tel:%28204%29%208016064   Cell

 

 

 

From: friam-boun...@redfish.com [mailto:friam-boun...@redfish.com] On Behalf
Of Stephen Guerin
Sent: April-26-11 9:48 AM
To: Friam Friam; disc...@sfcomplex.org
Subject: [FRIAM] Stu on NPR.org  Even Evolution Evolves: Changing Ideas On
The Biosphere

 

Stu on NPR.

http://m.npr.org/story/135706946?url=/blogs/13.7/2011/04/25/135706946/even-e
volution-evolves-changing-ideas-on-the-biosphere



FRIAM Applied Complexity Group listserv
Meets Fridays 9a-11:30 at cafe at St. John's College
lectures, archives, unsubscribe, maps at http://www.friam.org

 


FRIAM Applied Complexity Group listserv
Meets Fridays 9a-11:30 at cafe at St. John's College
lectures, archives, unsubscribe, maps at http://www.friam.org

Re: [FRIAM] vol 93, issue 22

[Vladimyr Burachynsky]

It appears that your conclusion was made independent of the facts. Perhaps
your conclusion serves some unidentified agenda, could you explain who WE is
and how the PRICE TAG is adjusted to effect a specific end?

I ecall how the price of cigarettes in Canada was increased to reflect the
supposed increased health care costs 

 

 

 

From: friam-boun...@redfish.com [mailto:friam-boun...@redfish.com] On Behalf
Of peggy miller
Sent: March-24-11 6:12 PM
To: friam@redfish.com
Subject: [FRIAM] vol 93, issue 22

 

Thanks for input from a number of you on the magnet/toxins/windmill issue.
Seems like we need to get wind turbine price tag to include pollution
mitigation at bare minimum. 

-- 

Peggy Miller, owner/OEO 

Highland Winds
wix.com/peggymiller/highlandwinds
Shop is at 1520 S. 7th St. W. (Just west of Russell)

Art, Photography, Herbs and Writings

406-541-7577 (home/office/shop)
Shop Hours: Wed-Thurs 3-7 pm
   Fri-Sat: 8:30-12:30 am

 


FRIAM Applied Complexity Group listserv
Meets Fridays 9a-11:30 at cafe at St. John's College
lectures, archives, unsubscribe, maps at http://www.friam.org

Re: [FRIAM] Work! Fer Gawd and Newton's sake!

[Vladimyr Burachynsky]

Eric ,

Please do not disengage just yet, first. I did not know if the mysterious 
Writer wished to use engineering terms or to simply capitalize on Cache. It 
does not matter either way. The fact is the brain cobbled together all these 
terms long before Newton Leibniz and Descartes. So why why would it do so…

 

It is I believe now that we experience the world exactly as through those 
crappy little words with no dimensions. Everywhere I look the psychological 
expressions people use daily are dimensionless. Why I ask. The answer seems to 
me to be a bit like the abacus or the Go Board . It is some kind of matrix 
slash  image machine. It simply has no need for units as long as it remains 
self referential ; there is no need for zero or even numerals. It seems 
essential to have a memory , clock and pain, Booze and Smokes optional. So for 
now I suggest you have a little patience and we begin to discuss a new 
computational engine model without units or numbers.  I was not prepared for 
this when I responded and we got stuck in the mud so to speak. Accidentally I 
gave you the concept of strain energy, also a form of work . I noticed then 
Force, the Newton, was a strange little beasty while everyone was ragging on 
Work in the classical system. But the Newton of Force is always painful for me 
and I actually despise the beasty, no disrespect for Newton. I thought I knew 
what force was when I felt it and was trained to ignore that with no success. 
So I looked at my past and realized I never measured Newtons in my life!  I do 
not even think there is a Newton meter. We measure stress changes as  
resistance or strain, then we calculate Force only by also measuring something 
different such as Area. In an odd way this was revealing. I am a scientist and 
a shitty engineer, so I always cheated and worked with pounds because as a kid 
I worked in a butcher shop and could eyeball a pound of ground beef within 
grams. 

 

How the heck could I do that without a scale, again I must have used strain in 
a muscle set and a distinctive memory of the sensation at exactly 1 pound. 
Years later I learned engineering and all about units.  Strain is just 
displacement and there are specialized proprioceptors with a uncanny 
resemblance to a standard  foil type microstrain gauge.  To measure two pounds 
I did it twice but could not accomplish it in one go. 

 

As a psychologist I would love to pick through your rubbish heap when I have 
time. But in principle the brain has established these engineering values in an 
alternative manner but self referentially. There in lies the revolution that 
forced us to put words to self referential concepts that did not match a little 
child or a 200lb plus heavy weight. To communicate we needed more fixed 
externalreferences, we needed universals or so it looks. Newton took some time 
in arriving. But we already had some in place. We universally know the sun is 
above and the earth below. The deer flesh is best freshly killed and water and 
hot go together.Without externals we get trapped as Solipsists or 
Existentialists, heaven forbid even romantics.

 

I am trying to suggest that we can in theory translate bodily sensations into 
many of the engineering values not the other way round as initially assumed was 
to be the case. I hope you can support my belief that we use something like 
matrices when thinking or maps. Considering primitive animals have uncanny 
navigational equipment on board I assumed we also had similar  rudimentary 
capabilities. 

Philosophically we are now faced with a multiplicity of self referential 
universes and a universal language under construction and a reality constantly 
causing havoc . Plus we have a lot of crotchety old men who think they 
understand everything and old ladies who are convinced we are all fools. Now 
occasionally the mathematics has produced unimaginable creatures such as the 
Newton,Currie , the Coulomb and when we look closely we notice something 
completely new manifest itself with no conceivable sensory equivalent. Lift for 
example. Somehow we learned to fly and that is very remarkable and worth a 
little patience and a plea for indulgence perhaps even mercy( I always ask for 
more than I  need and settle for a little less)

 

 

 

Thank you gentlemen and Ladies. 

 

 

Vladimyr Ivan Burachynsky PhD

 

 

vbur...@shaw.ca

 

 

Sky Drive Site 

 

120-1053 Beaverhill Blvd.

Winnipeg,Manitoba, R2J3R2

Canada 

 (204) 2548321 Land

(204) 8016064  Cell

 

 

 

From: friam-boun...@redfish.com [mailto:friam-boun...@redfish.com] On Behalf Of 
ERIC P. CHARLES
Sent: March-16-11 7:42 PM
To: plissa...@comcast.net
Cc: friam@redfish.com
Subject: Re: [FRIAM] Work! Fer Gawd and Newton's sake!

 

Agreed! Work, constraint, cause, etc. were all words long before Newton (if we 
are willing to translate them, many centuries before). Newton gave them very 
technical meanings in his system, but the technical meanings were just a 

Re: [FRIAM] Graphics Class at SFX

[Vladimyr Burachynsky]

Hello Edward,

 

I am very interested but live in Canada.

Currently I am working with Maple14 mat software and work on  a problem of
Braiding style fabrication using animations,

I had hoped to learn a little to allow me to use better graphics for the
mathematical procedures I have developed.

 

It was my understanding that open GL would allow me better 3d animations. If
you would allow outsiders to follow I would be pleased.

 

Vladimyr Ivan Burachynsky PhD

 

 

 mailto:vbur...@shaw.ca vbur...@shaw.ca

 

 

Sky Drive Site 

http://cid-14a5cdb09aee4237.photos.live.com/self.aspx/CSA/Braiding%20Simulat
ions/ExperStruct.wmv

 

120-1053 Beaverhill Blvd.

Winnipeg,Manitoba, R2J3R2

Canada 

 (204) 2548321 Land

(204) 8016064  Cell

 

 

 

 

 

From: friam-boun...@redfish.com [mailto:friam-boun...@redfish.com] On Behalf
Of Edward Angel
Sent: February-02-11 11:07 PM
To: The Applied Complexity Coffee Group Friday Morning; Discuss SFx
Subject: [FRIAM] Graphics Class at SFX

 

I edited the doodle poll with possible times including some late in the day.
Please enter your prefered/possible times to meet. We'll probably meet twice
a week, at least to start, with the first meeting early in March.

 

http://www.doodle.com/qw535ewa3ux3zxcw42grre5n/admin

 

I've also put together a list of those who have told me they are interested
in the class.

Please let me know if you haven't responded yet and want to be on that list
so I won't sent future emails to the entire discuss and friam lists.

 

Ed

__

 

Ed Angel

Chair, Board of Directors, Santa Fe Complex
Founding Director, Art, Research, Technology and Science Laboratory (ARTS
Lab)
Professor Emeritus of Computer Science, University of New Mexico

1017 Sierra Pinon

Santa Fe, NM 87501
505-984-0136 (home)   an...@cs.unm.edu

505-453-4944 (cell)
http://www.cs.unm.edu/~angel
 
http://artslab.unm.edu http://artslab.unm.edu/ 

 
http://sfcomplex.org

 

On Jan 31, 2011, at 8:56 PM, Steve Smith wrote:





Go into the admin site (link below) and set up YOUR OK times... and hope
everyone else responds to times that work for you... so far Cody and Tom
have said they are good (any day of the week, and Wednesdays only)

The rest of the crowd should weigh in on the Participant link after you
set the basic proposal times.

- STeve



I've received a lot of positive responses about the class so it looks it's a
go. Some of you have asked about scheduling. I'm pretty open as to times and
I intend to have a lot of material available on line. Steve Smith has set up
a doodle poll so people can put in their preferences. It's at  

 

http://www.doodle.com/qw535ewa3ux3zxcw42grre5n/admin

 

I had suggested we meet next week. I noted though that there is a Wedtech
scheduled for next week but none for this week so I've put us down to have a
roundtable discussion that might include content, possible projects,
scheduling and how to register with UNM of you want credit. So if you can
make it, we'll meet at the Complex Wednesday April 2 at noon.

 

Ed

__

 

Ed Angel

Chair, Board of Directors, Santa Fe Complex
Founding Director, Art, Research, Technology and Science Laboratory (ARTS
Lab)
Professor Emeritus of Computer Science, University of New Mexico

1017 Sierra Pinon

Santa Fe, NM 87501
505-984-0136 (home)   an...@cs.unm.edu

505-453-4944 (cell)   http://www.cs.unm.edu/~angel
http://www.cs.unm.edu/%7Eangel 
  http://artslab.unm.edu http://artslab.unm.edu/ 

http://sfcomplex.org http://sfcomplex.org/ 

 

 

FRIAM Applied Complexity Group listserv
Meets Fridays 9a-11:30 at cafe at St. John's College
lectures, archives, unsubscribe, maps at http://www.friam.org
http://www.friam.org/ 

 

 


FRIAM Applied Complexity Group listserv
Meets Fridays 9a-11:30 at cafe at St. John's College
lectures, archives, unsubscribe, maps at http://www.friam.org

Re: [FRIAM] A question for your Roboteers out there

[Vladimyr Burachynsky]

Jochen , Greetings
 and Ladies and Gentlemen as well,

If I believe that the team has a spirit I seem to act differently. It may
not have any at all but that does not change my belief and my behaviour.
When I act out my delusion and find others that enjoy it as much as I, we
seem to march down the field with lighter hearts. The people in the audience
see this change in our appearance and attribute it to the Geist. We hear the
cheers and we are further emboldened. And soon others join in the march. It
seems so real to all of us that the Geist becomes Teamgeist. It has a name
now perhaps a flag as well. Once it is named we believe it to be more real,
for our grammar never gives names to the non existent or does it? 

Egypt is a study in Mental Constructs and the Symbolic clashing with the
Real.  

\It is as if the birds in the flock are aware of themselves as a group as
never before. They see themselves, they communicate directly with each
other , they see the  group, they have a complete memory  and understand the
fact that some had exploited them in the past because of the former  lack of
coherence. There have always been individuals that felt they were entitled
to be leaders and their role was to control others for their personal gains.
The Tahrir protestors seem to be trying to assert themselves and liberate
themselves from the domination of the entitled to rule class of
psychopaths.

Can the Flock get a TeamGeist strong enough to eliminate it's oppressors?

Bertrand Russell said that it was impossible for the rational to defeat the
irrational, what was required was a new form of irrational  more powerful
than the present. I think he was implying that men must believe in something
greater than their opposition, some kind of Faith of extraordinary strength
was to lead them through the conflicts.

I think Humanity is witnessing a new history unfold before our eyes.

Vladimyr Ivan Burachynsky PhD


vbur...@shaw.ca

120-1053 Beaverhill Blvd.
Winnipeg,Manitoba, R2J3R2
Canada 
 (204) 2548321 Land
(204) 8016064  Cell






-Original Message-
From: friam-boun...@redfish.com [mailto:friam-boun...@redfish.com] On Behalf
Of Jochen Fromm
Sent: February-10-11 3:50 PM
To: The Friday Morning Applied Complexity Coffee Group
Subject: Re: [FRIAM] A question for your Roboteers out there

Interesting observation, yes I think what we call self aware exists in some
form in a society, too. Everything which represents the society can lead to
some form of self-awareness in the society, for example a sports team in a
world cup or an army in a war which shows certain positive or desired
attitudes. A kind of collective consciousness.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Collective_consciousness

A team, whether a sports team, an organization, or an army, can have a team
spirit (in German Teamgeist). If the person which seems to embody this
team spirit acts for the whole group in some form of competition or
election, this can lead to some kind of  self-awareness, if the actions are
discussed or celebrated afterwards. If the people of a country start to
discuss their own president (see Egypt), the society becomes aware of itself
to a certain degree. Don't you think?

Self-awareness is a bit like a controversial election after a revolution:
an elation accompanied by obfuscation, a kind of entrancement which causes
puzzlement. Or is it?

-J.

- Original Message -
From: Vladimyr Burachynsky vbur...@shaw.ca
To: 'The Friday Morning Applied Complexity Coffee Group' 
friam@redfish.com
Sent: Tuesday, February 08, 2011 11:06 PM
Subject: Re: [FRIAM] A question for your Roboteers out there

 [..] It seems that to be what we call self aware it must exist in a 
 society and be able to also distinguish its thoughts from those of others.



FRIAM Applied Complexity Group listserv
Meets Fridays 9a-11:30 at cafe at St. John's College lectures, archives,
unsubscribe, maps at http://www.friam.org



FRIAM Applied Complexity Group listserv
Meets Fridays 9a-11:30 at cafe at St. John's College
lectures, archives, unsubscribe, maps at http://www.friam.org

Re: [FRIAM] A question for your Roboteers out there

[Vladimyr Burachynsky]

...@redfish.com] On Behalf Of 
Nicholas Thompson
Sent: February-08-11 6:42 PM
To: 'The Friday Morning Applied Complexity Coffee Group'
Subject: Re: [FRIAM] A question for your Roboteers out there

 

Eric, You wrote, paraphrasing Gibson, 

 

that there was no easy distinction between exteroception and proprioception).

 

Yes BUT….

 

Some of that information from the world is more useful to predicting what I am 
going to do and other information is more useful for predict what other things 
are going to do.  I agree with JimL’s point that simple navigation at sea can 
be pursued in an egocentric manner, but as the Hutchins book makes clear, 
precious little in navy navigation is actually done that way.  

 

Nick 

 

From: friam-boun...@redfish.com [mailto:friam-boun...@redfish.com] On Behalf Of 
ERIC P. CHARLES
Sent: Tuesday, February 08, 2011 5:32 PM
To: Vladimyr Burachynsky
Cc: 'The Friday Morning Applied Complexity Coffee Group'
Subject: Re: [FRIAM] A question for your Roboteers out there

 

I'm not sure whether it matters to this discussion, but James Gibson (famous 
perceptual researcher) claimed there was no information about the world that 
was not information about the self (or in psych-parlance, that there was no 
easy distinction between exteroception and proprioception). Perception of the 
orientation of a surface, for example, is always perception of where I am, 
similarly perception of me falling is also the perception of the ground 
moving towards my head.

Eric


On Tue, Feb 8, 2011 05:06 PM, Vladimyr Burachynsky vbur...@shaw.ca wrote:

 
Jochen said  information about the system itself and
information about
other things is the point where self-awareness begins 
 
Perhaps this thought is perhaps a little overly compacted. Information about
self does not require language, indeed awareness of the outside world does
not require language. If both are in place language does not arise
automatically.  It does seem that a model of the world mapped out of
perceptions must exist and another symbolic map linking all images of
reality to meanings and to verbal symbols most also be in place. 
 
There is still a lot of wiggle room about when self awareness  emerges.  I
am going to assume no human being is born knowing the language of it's
parents. That requires that an individual interact to begin learning the
things in its environment and the symbolic sounds and meanings. So the most
complex brain on the planet spends some 2 or more decades learning languages
bit by bit. Perhaps self awareness is a continuum not an actual object.
Through language games the individual constantly redefines the state of self
awareness. 
 
That machine Mind we are hypothesizing apparently inherits the complete
library of outside things as well as the libraries of symbols and meanings
and does not require the prolonged tutoring of humans. This is actually a
very radical concept with some very peculiar consequences i.e. An entity
that requires no childhood or social connections yet is fully capable of
communicating with every other member immediately. I suspect that such
entities would not actually be social entities. They may be coldly
indifferent or exploitative of each other. Also these entities would not
have the ability to adapt should the environment change quickly. 
If it is not already defined in all the relevant libraries , It seems to
have no means of extension according to the preliminary model we are playing
with.  
 
\That does not seem to be what any of us had in mind when the discussion
started. It seems that to be what we call self aware it must exist in a
society and be able to also distinguish its thoughts from those of others.
That difference in individuals must also be attached to some kind of
motivation such as curiosity in order for them to exchange information. That
requires the Natural learning method that was assumed no longer useful?
 with a requirement for information exchange and some socialization from
childhood the entities enjoy learning or so it would appear. So why do
humans resist Learning after some period of time.? Was there a failure
introduced by accident?
 
 
VIB
Vladimyr Ivan Burachynsky PhD
 
 
vbur...@shaw.ca
 
120-1053 Beaverhill Blvd.
Winnipeg,Manitoba, R2J3R2
Canada 
 (204) 2548321 Land
(204) 8016064  Cell
 
 
 
 
 
 
-Original Message-
From: friam-boun...@redfish.com [mailto:friam-boun...@redfish.com] On Behalf
Of Jochen Fromm
Sent: February-06-11 3:25 AM
To: The Friday Morning Applied Complexity Coffee Group
Subject: Re: [FRIAM] A question for your Roboteers out there
 
Hi Nick,
 
I would say language is the key, it is useful if the robot understands
language. A robot usually cannot recognize or perceive itself, if it is not
able to understand language.
 
In animals, information about the system itself is so important that it is
usually processed and controlled by an own system, the limbic system and the
autonomic nervous system, or in other words, largely by emotions.
So

Re: [FRIAM] A question for your Roboteers out there

[Vladimyr Burachynsky]

Jochen said  information about the system itself and information about
other things is the point where self-awareness begins 

Perhaps this thought is perhaps a little overly compacted. Information about
self does not require language, indeed awareness of the outside world does
not require language. If both are in place language does not arise
automatically.  It does seem that a model of the world mapped out of
perceptions must exist and another symbolic map linking all images of
reality to meanings and to verbal symbols most also be in place. 

There is still a lot of wiggle room about when self awareness  emerges.  I
am going to assume no human being is born knowing the language of it's
parents. That requires that an individual interact to begin learning the
things in its environment and the symbolic sounds and meanings. So the most
complex brain on the planet spends some 2 or more decades learning languages
bit by bit. Perhaps self awareness is a continuum not an actual object.
Through language games the individual constantly redefines the state of self
awareness. 

That machine Mind we are hypothesizing apparently inherits the complete
library of outside things as well as the libraries of symbols and meanings
and does not require the prolonged tutoring of humans. This is actually a
very radical concept with some very peculiar consequences i.e. An entity
that requires no childhood or social connections yet is fully capable of
communicating with every other member immediately. I suspect that such
entities would not actually be social entities. They may be coldly
indifferent or exploitative of each other. Also these entities would not
have the ability to adapt should the environment change quickly. 
If it is not already defined in all the relevant libraries , It seems to
have no means of extension according to the preliminary model we are playing
with.  

\That does not seem to be what any of us had in mind when the discussion
started. It seems that to be what we call self aware it must exist in a
society and be able to also distinguish its thoughts from those of others.
That difference in individuals must also be attached to some kind of
motivation such as curiosity in order for them to exchange information. That
requires the Natural learning method that was assumed no longer useful?
 with a requirement for information exchange and some socialization from
childhood the entities enjoy learning or so it would appear. So why do
humans resist Learning after some period of time.? Was there a failure
introduced by accident?


VIB
Vladimyr Ivan Burachynsky PhD


vbur...@shaw.ca

120-1053 Beaverhill Blvd.
Winnipeg,Manitoba, R2J3R2
Canada 
 (204) 2548321 Land
(204) 8016064  Cell






-Original Message-
From: friam-boun...@redfish.com [mailto:friam-boun...@redfish.com] On Behalf
Of Jochen Fromm
Sent: February-06-11 3:25 AM
To: The Friday Morning Applied Complexity Coffee Group
Subject: Re: [FRIAM] A question for your Roboteers out there

Hi Nick,

I would say language is the key, it is useful if the robot understands
language. A robot usually cannot recognize or perceive itself, if it is not
able to understand language.

In animals, information about the system itself is so important that it is
usually processed and controlled by an own system, the limbic system and the
autonomic nervous system, or in other words, largely by emotions.
So information about the system itself is processed by the limbic system,
and information about other things by the cerebral cortex.

If robots are able to understand things
through language, then the point where
they start to distinguish information about the system itself and
information about other things is the point where self-awareness begins.
To know the self means to know where the self ends, and where the rest of
the world begins.

-J.

- Original Message -
From: Nicholas Thompson
To: The Friday Morning Applied Complexity Coffee Group
Sent: Saturday, February 05, 2011 8:29 PM
Subject: [FRIAM] A question for your Roboteers out there

At what point in the complexity of a robot (or any other control system)
does it begin to seem useful to parse input into information about the
system itself and information about other things?

Nick



FRIAM Applied Complexity Group listserv
Meets Fridays 9a-11:30 at cafe at St. John's College lectures, archives,
unsubscribe, maps at http://www.friam.org



FRIAM Applied Complexity Group listserv
Meets Fridays 9a-11:30 at cafe at St. John's College
lectures, archives, unsubscribe, maps at http://www.friam.org

Re: [FRIAM] A question for your Roboteers out there

[Vladimyr Burachynsky]

Well Gentlemen,

 

I must pause and read more of the Gombrich /Gibson dispute.  Jochen started all 
this …  I learned long ago to be fearful of little ideas and silly questions.

Curious that the principals all seem to have some experience with aerial 
imaging.  I was also an aerial photo interpreter for a spell and used both 
aerial and later false color satellite images in creating maps. 

Life never progresses in straight lines as we childishly expected.

 

It is not uncommon to learn to do something and be unable to explain how you 
were accomplishing the task.  Perhaps this is rather more common than not. 

Thank you all.

 

Curiosity is still  a problem even after all the investment into disabling it.

 

 

Vladimyr Ivan Burachynsky PhD

 mailto:vbur...@shaw.ca vbur...@shaw.ca

 

120-1053 Beaverhill Blvd.

Winnipeg,Manitoba, R2J3R2

Canada 

 (204) 2548321 Land

(204) 8016064  Cell

 

 

 

 

 

From: friam-boun...@redfish.com [mailto:friam-boun...@redfish.com] On Behalf Of 
Nicholas Thompson
Sent: February-08-11 6:42 PM
To: 'The Friday Morning Applied Complexity Coffee Group'
Subject: Re: [FRIAM] A question for your Roboteers out there

 

Eric, You wrote, paraphrasing Gibson, 

 

that there was no easy distinction between exteroception and proprioception).

 

Yes BUT….

 

Some of that information from the world is more useful to predicting what I am 
going to do and other information is more useful for predict what other things 
are going to do.  I agree with JimL’s point that simple navigation at sea can 
be pursued in an egocentric manner, but as the Hutchins book makes clear, 
precious little in navy navigation is actually done that way.  

 

Nick 

 

From: friam-boun...@redfish.com [mailto:friam-boun...@redfish.com] On Behalf Of 
ERIC P. CHARLES
Sent: Tuesday, February 08, 2011 5:32 PM
To: Vladimyr Burachynsky
Cc: 'The Friday Morning Applied Complexity Coffee Group'
Subject: Re: [FRIAM] A question for your Roboteers out there

 

I'm not sure whether it matters to this discussion, but James Gibson (famous 
perceptual researcher) claimed there was no information about the world that 
was not information about the self (or in psych-parlance, that there was no 
easy distinction between exteroception and proprioception). Perception of the 
orientation of a surface, for example, is always perception of where I am, 
similarly perception of me falling is also the perception of the ground 
moving towards my head.

Eric


On Tue, Feb 8, 2011 05:06 PM, Vladimyr Burachynsky vbur...@shaw.ca wrote:

 
Jochen said  information about the system itself and
information about
other things is the point where self-awareness begins 
 
Perhaps this thought is perhaps a little overly compacted. Information about
self does not require language, indeed awareness of the outside world does
not require language. If both are in place language does not arise
automatically.  It does seem that a model of the world mapped out of
perceptions must exist and another symbolic map linking all images of
reality to meanings and to verbal symbols most also be in place. 
 
There is still a lot of wiggle room about when self awareness  emerges.  I
am going to assume no human being is born knowing the language of it's
parents. That requires that an individual interact to begin learning the
things in its environment and the symbolic sounds and meanings. So the most
complex brain on the planet spends some 2 or more decades learning languages
bit by bit. Perhaps self awareness is a continuum not an actual object.
Through language games the individual constantly redefines the state of self
awareness. 
 
That machine Mind we are hypothesizing apparently inherits the complete
library of outside things as well as the libraries of symbols and meanings
and does not require the prolonged tutoring of humans. This is actually a
very radical concept with some very peculiar consequences i.e. An entity
that requires no childhood or social connections yet is fully capable of
communicating with every other member immediately. I suspect that such
entities would not actually be social entities. They may be coldly
indifferent or exploitative of each other. Also these entities would not
have the ability to adapt should the environment change quickly. 
If it is not already defined in all the relevant libraries , It seems to
have no means of extension according to the preliminary model we are playing
with.  
 
\That does not seem to be what any of us had in mind when the discussion
started. It seems that to be what we call self aware it must exist in a
society and be able to also distinguish its thoughts from those of others.
That difference in individuals must also be attached to some kind of
motivation such as curiosity in order for them to exchange information. That
requires the Natural learning method that was assumed no longer useful?
 with a requirement for information exchange and some socialization from
childhood the entities enjoy

Re: [FRIAM] Daphnia's jeans

[Vladimyr Burachynsky]

Jochen Fromm  What would be needed to reconstruct a mind?

I had to respond, I suspect a kind of Koan content to the question.
Reconstruct  or Construct?? Since the latter does not seem to have occurred
historically I am not sure the former is possible at this time.

Then I bumped into one of Hume's references. The mind is a theatre..
Basically a picture show of unrelated images played out and given a meaning
from some arbitrary emotional reservoir.  If the mind is basically
irrational and built upon a set of compulsions for emotional gratification
then perhaps it is not unlike a flock. Each picture wishes to be the center
of attention providing links to emotional rewards.

Lucien Goldmann, being very clever and linguistically obtuse seems to
suspect that the class consciousness of Heidegger, Lukacs and Marx is not
actually real and some how still depends on the acts and thoughts of
individuals(he does not actually come out and deny group consciousness but
he certainly goes a long way toward dismantling the concept) . If a class
consciousness while apparently real to us is an emergent phenomena defying
easy explanation( or even proof of existing) perhaps our minds are also  an
assembly of individual emotional entities the whole of which is equally
elusive of definition. I am Only thinking out loud.

I have been struggling to understand 20th century European philosophers and
the complex language, is a problem for me . But My intuition suggests that
they were struggling to define a Mind from a perspective that kept shifting.
Flocks are not sentient so they are simple by comparison to Minds but they
may be usefully  analogous.  The thread of the moderns is that two distinct
realities seem to exist for the mind, the one fabricated from the senses and
the other outside and beyond immediate perception. 

So is a mind a machine flipping through random images attempting to
construct a self gratifying Narrative to explain away each and every obvious
contradiction introduced by flawed perception? Perhaps literature gives us a
window into the way we construct individual realities, if each mind finds
difficult contradictions then perhaps literature provides temporary
solutions in favour of simple magical explanations. Is it possible to build
a mind on such simplistic foundations and then perhaps we can reconstruct a
mind that is less dependent on self gratification.  Funny that in some way
the addiction to emotional rewards is every bit as crippling as a drug
addiction which simply intensifies the effects of the original.

It is interesting that philosophers from prior to the French revolution have
been focused on Group and Individual properties and attempting to
rationalize these unknowns. We have often attributed to the Group a mind as
if it were an individual, Hobbe's Leviathan is perhaps the first clear
presentation of the idea.  We seem to suspect that examination of groups
will produce insight into individual minds.

As for the question regarding the number of memes, I will back off not being
certain that even Dawkins knew for certain what he had exposed. If class
consciousness does not exist except in some action then perhaps emergent
behaviour requires some more discussion and clarification. Especially when
dealing with living sentients.

Miraculously I made it through years of education without any exposure to
philosophy or humanities and only in old age do I have the patience to
persevere.  I must admit I once arrogantly mocked such pursuits. I now
regret my past in large part.

So shall we begin by Building a Theatre (akin to Hume's) and supplying it
with images(Props) and then allow the director and stage manager to appear
then a script writer to make sure each performance is consistent(A number of
agents coupled to form a single entity akin to Hobbe's Leviathan)? . It
looks like a number of Auto Agents  forced to cooperate, however we can not
distinguish if it is mindlike until it produces something.  That seems to be
a problem, what would it have to produce before we accept that some Mind
even exists.? That evidence we need would seem in some way a little like
Praxis, an effect upon the world akin to Lucien Goldmann  and Georg Lukacs'
use of the  ideas. Further more the programming of the Agent constituents
would now seem to qualify in some way as equivalent to Dawkin's memes. The
meme does not appear to be an established concept within the recent
philosophical theses. That is not the only oddity I have noticed, the other
is a slow acceptance of feedback loops creating complexity. Marx seems to
venture into such ideas only marginally but considering the time in which he
wrote he must have been seriously handicapped in the available language
tools. ( I am not a Marxist,  just curious)  However with careful reading I
think there has always been passages alluding to complexity before the idea
was given full acknowledgment. Complexity lurks deep in philosophy. There
were references to Lukacs in Goldmann's