Re: [FRIAM] KRACK

[gepr ⛧]

Awesome contribution!

On October 21, 2017 2:26:51 PM PDT, Steven A Smith  wrote:
>I recently heard from a friend who achieved a very transient and 
>unexpected contact with a US Antartica Science team member via a 1W 
>handheld DMR RX/TX device.   Anecdotally, they field about 10 such 
>contacts a week.   This is more than a little misleading since DMR is a
>
>packet-relay system, albeit ad-hoc, but doesn't really say anything 
>about the distance of any single link... just that there were a 
>finite(reasonable) number of hops between my friend in Kansas and the 
>folks on the ground in Antartica.
>
>
>Meanwhile, my own tiny low-power handheld device (iPhone 4) hears (and 
>more importantly, can be heard by) a small handful of cell towers, the 
>closest is known to be 9 miles away and I don't get much if any useful 
>reception BTW.   That would suggest to me that my 2.4Ghz WiFi modem 
>could be "heard" from a similar distance (given the similar frequency
>of 
>1.9Ghz) I"m sure there are some folks here with more SIGINT knowledge 
>than I, I'm just winging it on the back of an envelope.   So that makes
>
>for a pretty big "moat" around my 2.9 acre property.   And if I can't 
>stop gophers from boring under my garden fence buried 18 inches, how
>can 
>I hope to stop Musk and El Chapo?  And the drones and tethered
>balloons? 
>No way!  I can barely see them with my 100x scope on my WWI 30.06 which
>
>has a theoretical ceiling of 10,000 ft anyway, so I doubt I can shoot 
>them down even if I can find them (PS.  I don't own any ammunition for 
>said antique handed down from my grandfather who carried it in Europe 
>100 years ago).
>
>
>I remember scoffing at a colleague 25 years ago who claimed that the 
>holographic strips added to $50/$100 bills was a "gubmint konspiracy"
>to 
>track our cash from satellite... and yup!  He had an MS in CS but lined
>
>his wallet with tinfoil (but not his hat?).    It seems steered phased 
>array antenna can interrogate UHF RFID tags from about 600ft in free
>air 
>today... so while he was a few orders of magnitude off in his paranoia,
>
>it is MORE reasonable than I'd expected.
>
>
>McNealy told us 20 years ago "there is NO privacy, get OVER it".   I'm 
>not sure what "over it" means, but I think we need a whole
>restructuring 
>of social norms and expectations based on this issue.
>
>
>My latest bets are on ideas grown up out of BlockChain tech... it's not
>
>just for Digital Currency anymore?
>
>
>I think we need to transcend both Capitalism (and for sure consumerism)
>
>and Democracy (but not egalitarianism) at this point, so folks like 
>Democracy Earth might either be "a good start" or "a bad seed", I'm not
>
>sure yet.   http://democracy.earth/ .  Any observations?
-- 
⛧glen⛧


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Re: [FRIAM] KRACK

[gepr ⛧]

Ha! That reminds me of the fact that gmane no longer archives this list. (And 
even the mailman archives have been down for awhile.) So now's the time to 
speak freely because your words are less likely to be used against you later. 
8^) 

I can't help but wonder how the notorious lack of security in the Internet of 
Things will impact our (what Mikhail Epstein calls) "textoids", those little 
snippets of our produce, video, music, email, tweets, etc. The openness of the 
universe (as Dave's rant gets right) continues to flummox the GUMmers amongst 
us. At the ALife Evolution of evolvability I workshop, the group was bifurcated 
into 2 camps: those who thought hierarchy decreased degrees of freedom and 
those who thought it increased DoF. I'm still too ignorant to have a coherent 
opinion. But it seems either could be right.


On October 21, 2017 9:59:01 AM PDT, Marcus Daniels  wrote:
>Then there is another option which is to buy a big estate and put a
>moat around it.   That doesn't stop drones, though.   A moat and a
>plexiglass bubble, then.   Oh, and watch out for boring machines too
>from well-equipped people like Elon Musk and El Chapo.
-- 
⛧glen⛧


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Re: [FRIAM] KRACK

[gepr ⛧]

Yeah. They've built with a patch for ddwrt, too. Supposedly here:
http://svn.dd-wrt.com/changeset/33525
But it's still fun to think about.


On October 20, 2017 5:00:38 PM PDT, Roger Critchlow  wrote:
>The OpenWRT/LEDE open source images for compatible routers got updated
>a
>few days ago.  Since the hack attacks the handshake protocol between
>client
>and access point, there are apparently several ways the access point
>can
>subvert the attack.  Whether the update accomplishes that without
>introducing new vulnerabilities remains to be seen.


-- 
⛧glen⛧


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Re: [FRIAM] Truth: “Hunh! What is it good for? Absolutely Nothing!”

[gepr ⛧]

Well, Peirce's work in modal logics demonstrates his methodological pluralism. 
So it seems to me he would agree with Dave to a large extent. Nick seems to 
focus on Peirce's metaphysics, of which I'm largely ignorant. But it seems like 
Peirce's distinction between reality and existence might help clarify any 
disagreements. I think his conception of reality relies on a principle of 
plenitude where his conception of existence does not.  So I think it's a 
mistake to limit the conversation to truth/reality.


On October 14, 2017 11:59:08 PM PDT, Marcus Daniels  
wrote:
>
>You have the antenna, and he has a telescope, and you are blind and he
>is deaf.  Communication may be challenging and so you may each have
>your own `truths'.
>It would be better to combine these measurements by finding some one
>that can see and hear.

-- 
⛧glen⛧


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Re: [FRIAM] Enlightened Self Interest: was Help for texas

[gepr ⛧]

There is no such thing as enlightened self interest. Enlightenment is (well, 
includes anyway) the realization that "self" is an illusion. Moreover, it's a 
willful illusion, one we can consciously manipulate. So, I agree with your 
basic idea that we can manipulate our sense of self. But I think anyone who 
chooses to define their "self" in terms of anything smaller than the entire 
universe CHOOSES to be selfish.

Just to be clear, I don't condemn anyone for choosing to be selfish. But our 
world would be a lot more pleasant if more people chose to be less selfish.


On September 10, 2017 6:27:34 PM PDT, Steven A Smith  wrote:
>Glen/Marcus/all -
>
>So, I gave you both plenty of target to potshot.
>
>Instead, might I ask what YOUR take on the question of "enlightened
>self 
>interest" is and how it might be relevat to the myriad 
>socio/political/economic challenges of the day?
-- 
⛧glen⛧


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Re: [FRIAM] Enlightened Self Interest: was Help for texas

[gepr ⛧]

Just for a little backup:

https://evolution-institute.org/article/richard-dawkins-edward-o-wilson-and-the-consensus-of-the-many/

> What prompted the 137 co-authors to respond to the Nature article was not 
> based on what Nowak et al. said about group selection, but their denial that 
> it could also be framed in terms of inclusive fitness theory or that ideas 
> framed in terms of inclusive fitness theory had ever proven to be useful.


On September 10, 2017 2:42:09 PM PDT, "gepr ⛧" <geprope...@gmail.com> wrote:
>
>
>
>On September 10, 2017 12:28:41 PM PDT, Steven A Smith
><sasm...@swcp.com> wrote:
>>it is built into us as humans/mammals/vertebrates/life-itself to be
>self-centered, to look after our own personal well-being before we look
>to that of others.   Our tribal/clan dunbar-number-scale affinities may
>cause us to be locally altruistic at times and look after
>family/friends/neighbors/tribe before ourselves, but beyond that our
>instincts are xenophobic.
>
>I couldn't disagree more. It's a common kind of social Darwinism to
>think that we are innately wired to be selfish. And as we've seen going
>round and round on this mailing list our understanding of evolution is
>childish at best. So there's no convincing evidence, that we can
>coherently package, that proves your assertion: that it is built into
>us to be self-centered.
>
>To be clear I'm not claiming one way or the other, that we are innately
>wired to be altruistic or that we are innately wired to be
>self-centered. I just think it's reasonable to let biologists continue
>to study the issue(s) and if they come up with the biological
>explanation for altruistic behavior then great. If they don't and we
>demonstrate that we're all ultimately self-centered then great. But I
>think it's a stretch to say that we've settled all of that science at
>this point.

-- 
⛧glen⛧


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Re: [FRIAM] Enlightened Self Interest: was Help for texas

[gepr ⛧]

On September 10, 2017 12:28:41 PM PDT, Steven A Smith  wrote:
>it is built into us as humans/mammals/vertebrates/life-itself to be 
>self-centered, to look after our own personal well-being before we look to 
>that of others.   Our tribal/clan dunbar-number-scale affinities may cause us 
>to be locally altruistic at times and look after 
>family/friends/neighbors/tribe before ourselves, but beyond that our instincts 
>are xenophobic.

I couldn't disagree more. It's a common kind of social Darwinism to think that 
we are innately wired to be selfish. And as we've seen going round and round on 
this mailing list our understanding of evolution is childish at best. So 
there's no convincing evidence, that we can coherently package, that proves 
your assertion: that it is built into us to be self-centered.

To be clear I'm not claiming one way or the other, that we are innately wired 
to be altruistic or that we are innately wired to be self-centered. I just 
think it's reasonable to let biologists continue to study the issue(s) and if 
they come up with the biological explanation for altruistic behavior then 
great. If they don't and we demonstrate that we're all ultimately self-centered 
then great. But I think it's a stretch to say that we've settled all of that 
science at this point.

-- 
⛧glen⛧


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Re: [FRIAM] Help for texas

[gepr ⛧]

Well, I didn't intend them to be analogs so much as 3 examples of short-sighted 
failures to invest in infrastructure. The point being that an investment in 
building codes isn't that much different from an investment in sane zoning or 
watershed management. We (Oregon included) often sacrifice such infrastructure 
in the name of "freedom" (for businesses and individuals). The freedom to eat 
loads of fried chicken is in the same class as the freedom to build a house 
inside the 100 year flood plain. The freedoms of the irresponsible are paid for 
with the obligations of the responsible ... the sick are helped by the healthy 
... and the lucky (should) pay for the bad luck of the unlucky.


On September 5, 2017 3:10:45 PM PDT, Marcus Daniels  
wrote:
>If, like Oklahoma, Oregon was pumping waste water underground, then I
>might see it in an analogous way.  
>Fair enough.
>
>-Original Message-
>From: Friam [mailto:friam-boun...@redfish.com] On Behalf Of g??? ?
>Sent: Tuesday, September 5, 2017 3:47 PM
>To: FriAM 
>Subject: Re: [FRIAM] Help for texas
>
>We lack infrastructure development across the board.  Renee' gave her
>house a "seismic upgrade" recently.  And although we had to get it
>*inspected* and get a permit, there is NO code for seismic upgrades. 
>The inspector just comes out, stares at it while rubbing their chin and
>calls it good.  When the 9.0 hits us, it'll be trivial to say it's our
>own fault for not preparing.
>
>Similarly, Oregon is currently on fire, as is much of Washington and
>California.  The Eagle Creek Fire
>(https://twitter.com/search?f=tweets=default=%23eaglecreekfire=typd)
>was allegedly started by some teenagers tossing fireworks in the
>forest. [sigh]  But, systemically, I'm sure there's much more to be
>said about forest management.
>
>Three cheers for less government!
>
>
>On 09/05/2017 09:00 AM, Marcus Daniels wrote:
>> Note the date on
>this
>article.  And
>this
>article makes me wonder..


-- 
⛧glen⛧


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Re: [FRIAM] random v stochastic v indeterminate

[gepr ⛧]

But none of this seems to indicate that *selection* or survival to mating age 
*creates* the new attribute. Survival to mating age only preserves whatever 
phenotype was constructed by the genes and ontogeny. Whether you call genes and 
ontogeny random or not is irrelevant. We could easily call it 'ignorance'... 
i.e. ignorance constructs the phenotype, then the environment decides its 
fecundity.

On August 22, 2017 5:25:27 PM PDT, Eric Charles 
 wrote:
>Incidentally, the life-increases-entropy hypothesis I first
>stumbled
>upon an excellent statement of that in Comparative Psychology: A
>Handbook
>(1998).
>It was by Rod Swenson, who has some other interesting statements on the
>topic on Research Gate
>,
>including one connecting the idea with perception-action systems.
>
>It is definitely insightful in some ways, and I remember being quite
>impressed. However, as I see it pop up more, I start to remember that
>it's
>been a while since most Western intellectuals expected life to be an
>exception to the laws of physics, so I'm not sure it's too terribly
>interesting to note that life conforms to them.
>
>
>---
>Eric P. Charles, Ph.D.
>Supervisory Survey Statistician
>U.S. Marine Corps
>
>
>On Tue, Aug 22, 2017 at 7:05 PM, Robert Wall 
>wrote:
>
>> Nick,
>>
>> "Natural selection can /preserve/ innovations, but it cannot create
>them."
>>  and  "The idea of evolution groping blindly through morphology space
>is
>> absurd."
>>
>> Not trying to get into a tussle with you,  but Jeremy England
>>  would
>> tend to agree with you, as would I.  According to this analysis
>(*Nautilus
>> *2016) concerning the Hox gene circuit
>>
>,
>> there doesn't seem to be enough time for randomness (i.e., blindly
>groping)
>> to be explanatory. The numbers tend to say this *would *be absurd.
>>
>> Take, for example, the discovery within the field of evolutionary
>>> developmental biology that the different body plans of many complex
>>> organisms, including us, arise not from different genes but from
>different
>>> networks of gene interaction and expression in the same basic
>circuit,
>>> called the Hox gene circuit. To get from a snake to a human, you
>don’t
>>> need a bunch of completely different genes, but just a different
>pattern of
>>> wiring in essentially the same kind of Hox gene circuit. For these
>two
>>> vertebrates there are around 40 genes in the circuit. If you take
>account
>>> of the different ways that these genes might regulate one another
>(for
>>> example, by activation or suppression), you find that the number of
>>> possible circuits is more than 10700. That’s a lot, lot more than
>the
>>> number of fundamental particles in the observable universe. What,
>then, are
>>> the chances of evolution finding its way blindly to the viable
>“snake” or
>>> “human” traits (or phenotypes) for the Hox gene circuit? How on
>earth did
>>> evolution manage to rewire the Hox network of a Cambrian fish to
>create us?
>>
>>
>> ​...​
>>
>> ​
>>
>> You could go from one sequence to another with the same shape (and
>thus
>>> much the same function) via a succession of small changes to the
>sequence,
>>> as if proceeding through a rail network station by station. Such
>changes
>>> are called neutral mutations, because they are neither adaptively
>>> beneficial nor detrimental. (In fact even if mutations are not
>strictly
>>> neutral but slightly decrease fitness, as many do, they can persist
>for a
>>> long time in a population as if they were quasi-neutral.)
>>
>>
>> Here is a new explanation *for the rest of us* -- *Wired*:
>CONTROVERSIAL
>> NEW THEORY SUGGESTS LIFE WASN'T A FLUKE OF BIOLOGY—IT WAS PHYSICS
>>
>
>> [7-30-2017].
>>
>> ... and here -- *Scientific America*: A New Physics Theory of Life
>>
>
>> [2014], where the same science author writes about this when the idea
>was
>> first proposed by England in his 2013 paper
>> .
>>
>>
>> A physicist has proposed the provocative idea that life exists
>because
>> the law of increasing entropy drives matter to acquire life-like
>physical
>> properties
>>
>>
>> Perhaps very much prematurely, England is being touted as the new
>Darwin.
>> His theory, however, does not replace natural selection but provides
>a
>> deeper expanation for "fitness."
>>
>> In an hour-long lecture that I listened to
>>  

Re: [FRIAM] the Skeptical Meme

[gepr ⛧]

On August 13, 2017 11:38:07 PM PDT, Marcus Daniels  wrote:
>
>I suspect neural correlates rapidly calibrate to networks with similar
>behavior & topology across individuals sharing a _grounded_ task,
>whether it is hunting a Buffalo or writing a song.  But crazy ain't
>grounded, so distributing names for those networks to non-crazy people
>doesn't survive a fitness test.   Crazy terms can only be up-voted in a
>crazy community.

I agree that the payload/content is obviously unhinged when viewed by a 
community with methods for regular grounding.  But the crazy of Trumpians and 
the crazy of nazis do have a common ground: fear and doom.  Such expression of 
doom, of the world going to hell, evokes that urgic fear in those around us 
that also have it, even if for other reasons (e.g. nuclear war or Satan's 
beast).

That's what's syncing up, the underlying physiological and neurological 
patterns.


On August 13, 2017 11:02:21 PM PDT, Marcus Daniels  wrote:
>
>Well, the context you provided was struggling with a phobia, or some
>entrenched belief.

Yes. And I claim all thought is like that ... ie tightly coupled with the body, 
regardless of the scope or speed of the signaling mechanism.  Obviously, fast 
signals (juxtacrine, synaptic and axonal) will play a different role from slow 
signals (hormonal).  But both are at play in the construction and evolution of 
thoughts/ideas.


>I don't really see why it is important if innovation is occurring or
>not.  What difference does it make if any one example is discovered on
>the spot, or synthesized from several tactics found in the rolodex? 
>Contrast to a person that is not growing such a rolodex over years or
>decades and is overwhelmed when they confront a different kind of
>situation.

We are all growing new structures constantly in response to the patterns 
impinging on us. Including novelty is important to my alternative to memetics, 
where one might be tempted to suggest (extrapolated from Monod-via-Grant or 
Wagner-via-Jenny) that new ideas come from point mutations on memes, which 
would be ridiculous.  Any one person's rolodex of previously kneaded ideas will 
have a bias that reflects their subculture.

The difference is that one model fits better than the other (memes), which is 
the topic of the larger conversation ... namely the weakness of the analogies 
between models of evolution to referents like thought or biology. 

>I posit that the (supposed) anomie, the opioid abuse, organized racism,
>Trump, etc. are all just indicators of populations that have low mental
>plasticity due to living in a stable, unchallenged, low-opportunity
>environment.

I agree completely. But it's important to see how memes provide a weak 
explanation of this, but reinforcement learning explains it pretty well.


> But their problem is not a spiritual or existential crisis. Their
> desperation and rage just comes from a feeling that they can't
> confront, that they just don't have much to offer.

I disagree with the last part. They feel they have a lot to offer if the elites 
would only listen. This lack of listening they feel is because they don't 
experience the neural-construct-evoking engagement they get when they hook up 
with others who have those same structures.  Somehow, Al Gore's expressions of 
fear just don't evoke their fear and vice versa. But Trump's expressions of 
fear do "resonate" with them, for whatever reason.



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Re: [FRIAM] the Skeptical Meme

[gepr ⛧]

On August 13, 2017 4:39:47 PM PDT, Marcus Daniels  wrote:
>
>Every day I form hypotheses about how I think this or that experiment
>or code modification will go, and often I have to confront contrary
>evidence.   I would say I have a pretty fast turnover of ideas.

I doubt that. My guess is that your ideas that you think are turning over fast 
have a long and deep history within you and you resurrect them sporadically and 
try to apply them to some current context. 

>If I work with other people on these things, they will agree that some
>issues are settled, and other issues remain ambiguous.  The language
>evolves with shared experience, and in such a way that feelings become
>less and less part of it.  I don't think it has anything to do with
>when lunchtime is.   Other people it is all about lunchtime, oxytocin
>and stuff like that.
>
>
>How are social issues any different?

They aren't any different. But I think your sense of fast turnover and munging 
of ideas is illusory. Those ideas you flip through were already there in some 
form and your trying them out against the (social) context. People who spend 
their lives building these ideas have a large rolodex to flip through, some of 
which other rolodex flippers will agree are or are not applicable in this or 
that type of context.

Innovative ideas do emerge. But it's never fast. 


-- 
⛧glen⛧


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Re: [FRIAM] random v stochastic v indeterminate

[gepr ⛧]

Ha! You see? That's not even wrong. 8^) But it's more plausible than asserting 
that my ideas are mutated and crossed over from ... yours ... or Szasz' ... or 
my mom's, for example. 

On August 13, 2017 11:22:21 AM PDT, Frank Wimberly  wrote:
>You are a typical intellectualizing scientist, which isn't a bad thing
>to
>be.
>
>Frank
>
>p.s.  Intellectualization is a defense which is not as debilitating as
>some
>others.
-- 
⛧glen⛧


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Re: [FRIAM] random v stochastic v indeterminate

[gepr ⛧]

Well like I said in response to Frank's suggestion about self psychology, I 
tend towards a Szaszian perspective on talk therapy and psychology. But even 
that constellation of ideas, I think, has more structural truth to it than 
memetics.

Of course my ignorance may be getting in my way here. So I'm relatively open to 
being educated on any of these subjects. But there is a pretty high skeptical 
hurdle that I have to leap over in order for any such education to take root.


On August 13, 2017 9:56:16 AM PDT, Steven A Smith  wrote: 
>Is there an alternate way of thinking/talking about the *apparent* 
>encoding of human/social/cultural artifacts in language units,
>including 
>what appears to be something a lot like "mutation and drift" across
>this 
>space?
>
>Or have I already (re)transgressed?

-- 
⛧glen⛧


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Re: [FRIAM] Future of humans and artificial intelligence

[gepr ⛧]

FWIW, I tend to use stochastic to mean a process with a collection of 
variables, some of which are (pseudo) randomly set and some of which are not. A 
"random process" would imply a process where either all the variables are 
random OR where the randomly set variables are dominant. A process can be 
stochastic even if the randomness has little effect.

My use of indeterminate is ambiguous. In processes where we're ignorant of how 
a variable is set, those variables are indeterminate​. But I also use it to 
mean unset variables. E.g. a semaphore that's being polled for a value or state 
change. But as with stochasticity, a "don't care" variable can be indeterminate 
without making the whole process indeterminate.

On August 8, 2017 11:23:29 PM PDT, Grant Holland  
wrote:
>Nick,
>
>In science, these three terms are generally interchangeable. Their 
>common usage is that they all describe activities, or "events", that
>are 
>"subject to chance". Such activities, events or processes that are 
>described by these terms are governed by the laws of probability. They 
>all describe activities, events, or "happenings" whose repetitions do 
>not always produce the same outcomes even when given the same inputs 
>every time (initial conditions). In other words, uncertainty is
>involved.
>
>However, like most words, these enjoy other usage, meanings, as well. 
>For example "random" is sometimes used to mean "disorganized" or 
>"lacking in specific pattern". This is a very different meaning than 
>"activities that don't always produce the same outcome given the same 
>inputs". Consider what a math formula for each of these tow meanings 
>wold consist of. One of them would be based on probabilities; but the 
>other would involve stationary relationships.
>
>On 8/8/17 5:31 PM, Nick Thompson wrote:
>>
>> Grant,
>>
>> I think I know the answer to this question, but want to make sure:
>>
>> What is the difference beween calling a process “stochastic”, 
>> “indeterminate”, or “random”?
-- 
⛧glen⛧


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Re: [FRIAM] the self

[gepr ⛧]

Ha! We bald people clearly have a stronger sense of self than hairy people.

On August 8, 2017 6:06:12 PM PDT, Marcus Daniels  wrote:
>Gasp.   Loss of _hair_?  _Who_ would say such a thing?

-- 
⛧glen⛧


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Re: [FRIAM] the role of metaphor in scientific thought

[gepr ⛧]

But the difference isn't merely rhetorical. If we take the setup seriously, 
that the unmarried patient really doesn't know the other names by which his 
condition is known, then there are all sorts of different side effects that 
might obtain. E.g. if the doctor tells him he's a bachelor, he might google 
that and discover bachelor parties. But if the doctor tells him he is "single", 
he might discover single's night at the local pub.

My point was not only the evocation of various ideas, but also the side effects 
of various (computational) paths.


On June 22, 2017 7:00:55 PM PDT, Eric Charles  
wrote:
>Glen said: "So, the loop of unmarried <=> bachelor has information in
>it,
>even if the only information is (as in your example), the guy learns
>that
>because the condition has another name, perhaps there are other ways of
>thinking about it ... other _circles_ to use."
>
>This reminds me that, in another context, Nick complained to me quite a
>bit
>about Peirce's asserting that that any concept was simply a collection
>of
>conceived "practical" consequences. He felt that the term "practical"
>was
>unnecessary, and lead to confusions. I think this is a good example of
>why
>Peirce used that term, and felt it necessary.
>
>Perice would point out that the practical consequences of being
>"unmarried"
>are identical to the practical consequences of being "a bachelor."
>Thus,
>though the spellings be different, there is only one idea at play there
>(in
>Peirce-land... if we are thinking clearly). This is the tautology that
>Nick
>is pointing at, and he isn't wrong.
>
>And yet, Glen is still clearly correct that using one term or the other
>may
>more readily invoke certain ideas in a listener. Those aren't practical
>differences in Peirce's sense- they are not differences in practice
>that
>would achieve if one tested the unique implications of one label or the
>other (as there are no contrasting unique implications). The value of
>having the multiple terms is rhetorical, not logical.
>
>What to do with such differences..

-- 
⛧glen⛧


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Re: [FRIAM] the role of metaphor in scientific thought

[gepr ⛧]

On June 20, 2017 8:16:57 PM PDT, Nick Thompson  
wrote:
>
>I dunno.  I never quite know what Glen is on about.  But I tended to
>read his response in terms of his cancer.  He is saying, “I am
>comforted by knowing that I am not the only man with cancer.”  If I
>were dying of cancer, would I be comforted to know that a million other
>people are dying of cancer?


Yes, you would.  But regardless of your nasty remark, the point is that only 
through large N clinical trials is effective therapy developed. So, if you have 
a conscience, you volunteer your life and body to experimentation so that even 
as you die those that follow have a better chance to live.


-- 
⛧glen⛧


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Re: [FRIAM] the role of metaphor in scientific thought

[gepr ⛧]

On June 20, 2017 6:14:49 PM PDT, Nick Thompson  
wrote:
> 
>[NST==>I assume you would agree that “unmarried because unmarried” is
>perniciously circular.  Right?  Just checking. <==nst] 


Vapid, yes. Shallow, yes. Perhaps even vicious. But it's a little too empty, 
too obviously tautological to be pernicious.


>[NST==>I suppose that one could argue that any time one writes a
>sentence of the form, A is a B, one has launched into metaphor. <==nst]


I disagree, obviously. There are plenty of nonmetaphorical is-a relationships. 
E.g. a dog is a mammal. E is a letter in the alphabet. Etc.


-- 
⛧glen⛧


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Re: [FRIAM] now it all makes sense

[gepr ⛧]

Ha! You win that round hands down.

On June 16, 2017 11:56:13 AM PDT, Marcus Daniels  wrote:
>Glen writes:
>
>"The authentically intelligent and well intentioned become tools for
>the gamers/defectors.  In the end, it's that _faith_ in human nature,
>social or evolutionary progress, or whatever that allows them to be
>used that way."
>
>Another possibility is that many gamers are impatient and are not that
>useful for long term efforts like interplanetary colonization.   (I
>think it was Musk doing the gaming.)   It seems to me the trick is to
>figure out what the counterparty is.  If it is a gamer, then game them
>back but don't get invested.   If it is not a gamer, then the
>interaction is more complex, and a pure gamer will have to learn how to
>mimic a non-gamer (learn domain expertise) or else they'll exhaust
>their memory of the transactions.  In reality, people aren't just one
>or the other.  One can have purpose, but also can play a "long con"
>from time to time. 
>
>Marcus  
>
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-- 
⛧glen⛧


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

[gepr ⛧]

I agree with Steve that lamina is biased with the assumption of continuous 
flow. Discrete aggreagation like coral deposition or FACS based cell by cell 
deposition would not be evoked by the term lamina.

As an aside, although (serial) diffusion limited aggregation is often used to 
model coral deposition, (serial) DLA does submit to a partal order in a 
monotonic time parameter. The parallelism theorem from LTS tells us that the 
result of any parallel transition can be perfectly duplicated/simulated with a 
serial transition. But it still seems to me that parallel deposition (like in 
coral growth) might reach points in shape space not reachable by serial 
deposition.


On June 9, 2017 10:26:09 PM PDT, Vladimyr  wrote:
>So now do we agree, in part,  that lamina can penetrate other lamina
>and generate very complex systems.
>
>Is a lamina a real entity then with properties. I can already  make
>these flowers with cold rolled steel for edges.   
>
>The complex system is interacting or intersecting laminae. Every view
>point presents a different structure.
>
>It seems insufficient to treat lamina as inert since they could just as
>easily become transit or vascular systems.
>
>So information can be accommodated… 

-- 
⛧glen⛧


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

[gepr ⛧]

and mollusk shell formation. Though they don't really interact, they are 
deposited kinda like spray paint.  Coral deposition might also work well as a 
canonical example.




On June 9, 2017 9:20:37 PM PDT, Frank Wimberly  wrote:
>"strata in geology have *some* precedent (shears and folds) for that,
>but I
>can't think of a biological example"
>
>Epidermis, dermis, hypodermis?  They interact.
>
>Frank Wimberly
>Phone (505) 670-9918
>
>On Jun 9, 2017 10:12 PM, "Steven A Smith"  wrote:
>
>> Vlad -
>>
>> I find your use/choice/settling-upon "lamina/laminae" seems very
>> motivated, though I can't articulate why.  I suppose because it has
>some
>> connotation related to concepts like "laminar flow" which is
>structurally
>> similar to the vulgar (your implication not mine) "layer" which
>connotes
>> the "laying down of" a series of membranes or strata.  I'm not sure I
>know
>> how to think about ply which seems to be derived from the world of
>> engineered "laminates", suggesting perhaps a small number (under 5?)
>and
>> engineered rather than "grown" or "evolved"?
>>
>> The idea of one lamina penetrating another is fascinating... it seems
>like
>> strata in geology have *some* precedent (shears and folds) for that,
>but I
>> can't think of a biological example, nor can I guess what you were
>trying
>> to achieve by developing methods for said penetration?

-- 
⛧glen⛧


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Re: [FRIAM] Graph/Network discursion.

[gepr ⛧]

Yes, absolutely! The arguments about the ambiguity of terms like complex, 
model, layer, and the capitalization of words in programming languages fall 
squarely in the ontologies domain. And that means they fall under graph and 
network theory, though I think "labelled transition systems" might be better.

The trouble with reduction to a unified ontology is also critical, because I 
think the majority of the problem we're struggling with (writ large) is 
reductionism, or more generally, monism/non-duality.  I think Aaronson makes 
the point nicely here:

  Higher-level causation exists (but I wish it didn’t)
  http://www.scottaaronson.com/blog/?p=3294

In microcosm, Nick's _latch_ onto the onion as metaphor for unorderable 
complexes is a symptom of the underlying problem that we use language (or 
conceptual structures) according to our temporally- and proximally-bound 
_purpose_.  Anyone who claims to work only with some sort of universal, 
Platonic truth is delusional or disingenuous.  A unification of that language 
is not only impossible, but if it were possible, it would be a kind of 
order-death (opposite of heat death).  Perfect and universal normalization to a 
single norm would paralyze us all.

But, obviously given my crybaby tantrum about "level" vs. "layer", I believe 
_some_ resolution/alignment of language is necessary for any sort of 
progress/produce.  To me, a collaboratively produced document about complexity 
that comes from a small subset of this community that intuitively agrees 
already, with no friction in the process, would be a useless "yet another 
jargonal paper about complexity".

So far, the useful friction I see is:

  Russ: information is required
  Stephen: nearly any physical system squeezed in the right way
  Nick: gen-phen map
  Eric: cumulative hierarchy

I don't think pressurizing this plurality into a unified "system of thought" 
will produce anything interesting.  But I _do_ think allowing them to 
flower/flesh out from a bare, common skeleton would be interesting _IF_ the 
fleshing out didn't lose the skeleton amongst the flowers or lose the flowers 
by over-emphasizing the skeleton.


On June 9, 2017 1:49:45 PM PDT, Steven A Smith  wrote:
>... how to explicitely *superpose* multiple
>graphs/networks, and in particular ontologies, rather than try to 
>*compose* and then resolve the contradictions among them.   It is 
>ancient enough work that I don't remember exactly what I was thinking, 
>but it was revisited in the Faceted Ontology work in 2010ish...  but 
>that was MUCH more speculative since we didn't actually HAVE a specific
>
>ontology to work with.   "If we had some rope, we could make a log 
>raft if we had some logs!"
>
>I sense that both you (Glen) and Marcus have your own work (or 
>avocational) experience with ontologies and I'm sure there are others 
>here.  For me it is both about knowledge representation/manipulation
>AND 
>collaborative knowledge building which is what I *think* Nick is going 
>on about, and what is implied in our bandying about of "concept/mind 
>mapping".


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Re: [FRIAM] Graph/Network discursion.

[gepr ⛧]

I'm not entirely sure to be honest. But I know they must contain cycles. So 
DAGs are inadequate, hence my revulsion at the word "level".

On June 9, 2017 12:37:39 PM PDT, Steven A Smith  wrote:
>Glen -
>
>At the risk of boring the rest of the crowd silly, I'd be interested in
>
>hearing more about the kinds of graphs you would like to talk about.  
>I 
>agree that Partially Ordered Sets are a (relatively) special case.
>
>My interest is in the structure/function duality, more in topological 
>than geometric structure.  I've read D'Arcy Thompson (no relation
>Nick?) 
>but not studied him closely, and I defer for my intuition to
>Christopher 
>Alexander (A Pattern Language) for high-dimensional graph-relations in
>a 
>real-world (human-built environments) context I can relate to.
>
>Perhaps I'm more interested in Networks, though I'd like to ask the 
>naive question of how folks here distinguish the two... I tend to think
>
>of Networks as Graphs with flows along edges.   I think in terms of 
>multi-graphs (allowing multiple edges between nodes) or more precisely,
>
>edges with multiple strengths/lengths/flows or more precisely yet I 
>think,  with vector properties on edges...

-- 
⛧glen⛧


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Re: [FRIAM] semiotics, again?

[gepr ⛧]

Excellent ideas! Thanks.

On June 5, 2017 8:01:43 PM PDT, Carl Tollander  wrote:
>Seems like Kanji would qualify as such an exploration.   See
>https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kanji particularly where they talk about
>different "readings".   (also see
>https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chinese_characters for a broader
>situating
>explanation)  Somewhat sideways, one could look also at the Kana (signs
>in
>the domain of phonemes) and how they are pronounced slightly
>differently in
>different combinations by different speakers.
>
>Calligraphy might also qualify.
>
>Carl
>
>
>On Mon, Jun 5, 2017 at 6:26 PM, glen ☣  wrote:
>
>> EricS' categorization of a cumulative hierarchy for reflective
>complexity
>> reminded me of this:
>>
>>   A Linguist Responds to Cormac McCarthy
>>  
>http://nautil.us/issue/48/chaos/a-linguist-responds-to-cormac-mccarthy
>>
>> particularly the difference between a "hard-coded" referent (e.g. a
>> hypothetical neuroanatomical structure tightly coupled to efficient
>> language acquisition and use) versus an ambiguous/multi-valent
>referent.
>> And that launched my typically vague meandering back to the semiotics
>> 3-tuple: .  Freedom can occur in any of the
>> three.  A sign can refer to multiple objects, be interpreted by
>multiple
>> interpretants, multiple objects can be signified by the same sign,
>etc.
>> This leads directly to Sedivy's point about compositionality of signs
>and
>> works its way back to my beef with the idea that subsystems like the
>BZ
>> reaction (or any context-dependnt module) are complex systems.
>>
>> Unfortunately, I'm too ignorant of the fleshing of semiotics to know
>> whether these freedoms (in any/all of the triad) have been explored. 
>So,
>> please hand me some clues if you have them!

-- 
⛧glen⛧


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Re: [FRIAM] Get ready for Blockchain

[gepr ⛧]

Yes, exactly! One person's dystopia is another's utopia.

On June 5, 2017 9:24:38 PM PDT, Steven A Smith  wrote:
>Glen -
>
>And now you sound a little like Kurt Vonnegut's satire: Harrison 
>Bergeron 
>
>/In the year 2081, amendments to the Constitution dictate that all
>Americans are fully equal and not allowed to be smarter,
>better-looking, or more physically able than anyone else. The
>Handicapper General's agents enforce the equality laws, forcing
>   citizens to wear "handicaps": masks for those who are too beautiful,
>radios inside the ears of intelligent people, and heavy weights for
>the strong or athletic./
>
>I know you are 'just poking' and I guess I'm poking too!

-- 
⛧glen⛧


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Re: [FRIAM] Any non-biological complex systems?

[gepr ⛧]

Excellent typology, Eric. 

1) Memory, 2) doorways, 3) autonomous, 4) model, 5) control system, and 6) 
agency.

It seems 1-2 are about the boundary. 3 is the closure. 4-5 are proto-semantic, 
separating what a thing is from what it means. And 6 is the mechanism for 
ambiguity (symbols, switches, where a thing can mean more than one thing).

re: "a natural sense of a system's own delimitation."  I think you describe it 
well enough when talking about reflectivity. Such a natural boundary must be 
natural to a given sense/perspective. A pre-reflective system's boundary is 
determined in part by its context (since you cited Ashby, H_c >= H_s). But it's 
a much stronger statement to suggest that a boundary can be determined from/by 
the perspective of the bounded.


On June 3, 2017 8:53:18 AM PDT, Eric Smith  wrote:
>1. Protected degrees of freedom are a precondition to even the
>possibility of MEMORY.  If you are a mere physical degree of freedom,
>and you are always coupled to your environment, you are nothing
>different than an instant-by-instant reflection of the immediate local
>state of your environment.  All of the later concepts in the list
>require various forms of internal state that have enough insulation to
>be protected from constant harassment.  So where in the physical world
>are suitably decoupled degrees of freedom available to be found?  (Much
>later, to be built, but not yet.)
>
>2. Some kind of dynamical variables need to be capable of being
>couplers that can become DOORWAYS, so that the other DOF are sometimes
>coupled and sometimes not.  A DOF that is always behind a wall (a
>chemical reaction behind such a high energy barrier that it is never
>achieved) can’t remember anything because, although it can certianly
>hold a state, it is never in contact with the environment that would
>imprint anything on that state.  This doesn’t yet talk about how the
>open/close states of the doorway happen, which will determine when and
>what it allows the environment to imprint on the memory variable, and
>for how long that imprint can be held.  Here one can be quite precese
>with examples without invoking biology.  Organic chemistry at low
>energy in water is largely non-active.  Metal centers, particular
>d-block elements, are the major doorways that govern the sectors of
>organic chemistry available to early ocean-rock worlds.  Many enzymes
>still use them in something not too far from a mineral or soluble
>metal-ligand complex state, with a little tuning.  In this case, the
>doorway works just through physical drift.  Molecules free in solution
>are inert; those that bump into a metal can potentially become active;
>when they dissolve and drift on, they become inert again.  This leads
>to a very different set of relations between thermal energy and
>information in reactions, than simple thermally-activated reactions
>among the same species.  Probably one can invoke many other examples.  
>
>3. Some of the internal variables need to be capable of carrying on an
>AUTONOMOUS dynamics or internal process.  I guess a memory variable can
>sit there passively and still, at some level, categorize the way a
>system (set of DOF) responds to an environmental event, but for most of
>the later levels, there needs to be actual internal dynamics.  This in
>itself is not so hard; the world is far from equilibrium in any number
>of dimensions, and for something to be moving in a direction is not
>rare.
>
>4. Internal dynamics can be autonomous, but it isn’t really “about”
>anything unless something about the configuration constitutes a MODEL
>in the sense of Conant and Ashby from old 1950s control theory.  How
>the model is registered, and how reflexive or self-referential the
>internal dynamics needs to be for a meaningful model to be imprinted,
>probably ramify to many differenent questions.  I would of course be
>happy to produce an interesting case of the emergence of any of them.
>
>5. At some stage, a protected internal process of which the state of
>the model is part needs to act back on the doorway, if we are to be
>justified in saying the basic relation of a CONTROL SYSTEM has come
>into existence.  Here again I intend a Conant and Ashby line of
>thought: that “Every good controller “contains? entails?” a model of
>the system controlled.  There has to be some internal state that is
>capable of being in different relations to the state of the world, and
>then the internal dynamics has to take an input from a comparison of
>those two states.  Only if the resulting action feeds back on the
>state, does the system start controlling its own interaction with the
>world (for instance, what gets remembered).
>
>6. The next one is hard for me to say, even at the very low standards
>of the previous five:  I can be a control system with a model of my
>world, even if I have only modest machinery.  A membrane-bound protein
>that lets in some molecules and ignores others, and which is preserved
>in 

Re: [FRIAM] IS: Ruminations from the M.I. S. WAS: Any non-biological complex systems?

[gepr]

I think this is the key. Any project requires a driver of some sort, even if 
they're merely a facilitator. It's banal work to summarize, collate, etc a 
collaborative paper. No secretary implies no artifact.

I used to participate in collaborative fiction chain letters, where each 
receiver continued a story with all previous characters and events. We could 
steal a character's identity and make them do something the original author 
would be offended by, change the physics of the universe, etc. But even that​ 
extent of  distributed authority required a shared motivator.


On May 28, 2017 8:21:55 AM PDT, Nick Thompson  
wrote:
>If anybody has the energy to summarize
>your recent complexity debate, I would be in your debt.  

-- 
⛧glen⛧


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Re: [FRIAM] Any non-biological complex systems?

[gepr]

I've struggled to understand your point here. Are you saying that, eg, a phase 
diagram of a device like a refrigerator, with ice in the freezer part, jello in 
the fridge part, and coolant in the compressor:

1. violates a definition of 'space',
2. cannot exist,
3. reduces to a common, atomic, phase space, or
4. something else?



On May 26, 2017 5:39:40 PM PDT, Stephen Guerin  
wrote:
> 
>We disagree on the use of systems and subsystems in the context of
>phase
>space then. To me, there is one system and that system has a phase
>space -
>There are not multiple subsystems in the phase space. 

-- 
⛧glen⛧


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Re: [FRIAM] Any non-biological complex systems?

[gepr]

Heh, truth in advertising!

On May 26, 2017 5:11:25 PM PDT, Frank Wimberly  wrote:
>My app that reads emails aloud, as they arrive, says "a new email has
>arrived from Glen biohazard".  I finally see why.

-- 
⛧glen⛧


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Re: [FRIAM] Any non-biological complex systems?

[gepr]

Well, that seems to be the question Russ is asking. It would be more difficult 
to answer 'no' if we left off the symbolic part. Then we could argue about the 
closures, if they exist, of things like vortices and such.

On May 25, 2017 5:09:38 PM PDT, Marcus Daniels  wrote:
>ok, but we are confined to the inanimate here?  What natural inanimate
>objects do symbolic manipulation?
-- 
⛧glen⛧


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Re: [FRIAM] Facebook. And this it not a troll

[gepr]

On May 18, 2017 8:13:07 PM PDT, Owen Densmore  wrote:
>
>So here's a group question or two:
>- If you use Facebook, how do you use it and why?

It's useful for discovering and rsvping to events. That's it though. I have no 
use for anything else it does. If more people used sites like eventbrite, i'd 
never sign into facebook again.

>So any interesting observation on The FaceBook Phenomenon?

Facebook smells a lot like an Apple product to me. People seem to like it 
because they want their tools to be transparent, ie to "just work". That type 
of user cares more about their ends and less about their means. Dorks like me 
tend to prefer explicit and present tools. Eg a "lofi" project requires an 
entirely different tool box and an entirely different workflow from a "hifi" 
project.

-- 
⛧glen⛧


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[FRIAM] truth is sillier than fiction

[gepr]

Rejection Letter
http://www.antipope.org/charlie/blog-static/2017/05/rejection-letter.html

> And a mild-mannered British computer security expert who is on his week off 
> gets home from lunch with a friend, checks a work website (implausible! He's 
> on holiday!), sees something odd, and kills the world-threatening zero day 
> exploit dead by registering a domain? And then takes a couple of hours to 
> realize that the evil genius responsible for a global terror attack helpfully 
> left an "off" switch that anyone could flip?
> 
> I'm sorry, this is just silly.



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Re: [FRIAM] the arc of ai (was Re: Whew!)

[gepr]

And as always I'm tremendously grateful for all my friends, who are 
immeasurably smarter than me, for their tolerance of my nonsensical attempts to 
navigate reality.


On May 5, 2017 12:02:15 PM PDT, Marcus Daniels  wrote:
>Glen writes:
>
>< If a listener abstracts their self, they are just as evil as a
>speaker abstracting their self. >
>
>Steve writes:
>
>< Firstly, my own throwdown of "rhetoric" was intended to be very
>specific.  I believe that you both took it to be a bit more broad than
>intended.  I specifically meant rhetoric as "language intended to
>persuade".  I hold this specifically distinct from "language intended
>to inform" and "language used to think or contemplate".  Unfortunately
>I discovered that in fact the formal definition of rhetoric includes
>"to inform" as well as "to persuade" >
>
>In PROLOG, free variables are upper case, meaning that the reader
>should expect some effort in establishing their values.   If Glen were
>forced to write down his arguments and propositions in PROLOG he'd have
>to say "Evil" and not "evil" because the latter would be something
>constrained by a dictionary.  I tend to use single quotes to highlight
>terms where I am encouraging the reader to find a grounding or tolerate
>my loose or arbitrary set of constraints in the definition.
>
>Sure, Glen's crypto-obsfucation is a sort of rhetoric.  He forces you
>to both consume and actively doubt every single one of his words.  
>Advertisements have a similar effect over time.   I can appreciate Flo
>and the Gecko, but then I don't purchase Progressive or Geico insurance
>either.  I become immune to many of their tricks! For many years
>I've believed the purpose of this is to make arguments robust to
>perturbation.   You can reject all the parts of his argument but still
>be forced to accept the conclusion.  :-)

-- 
⛧glen⛧


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Re: [FRIAM] the arc of socioeconomics, personal and public: was VPN server

[gepr]

Although I really like and agree with Nick's answer, his is a little dense. So 
I'll try for something more pedestrian.

Your math concepts are the result of many iterations between the measurement of 
marks on paper and the evolving concepts in your physiology. From your first 
sight of some math markings on paper or a chalkboard, you took measure of those 
markings and the words spoken or written by teachers or in books. You 
eventually made good use of your generic computer and abstracted out the core 
concepts, the patterns of glucose consumption, that allow you to recapitulate 
the markings, even if the language or other parts of the context has changed.

As such, the concepts and the marks on the paper are mutually referent. Without 
the markings, your concepts are ungrounded, meaningless. Without the patterns 
of glucose consumption, the markings are ungrounded, meaningless.


On April 23, 2017 10:32:13 AM PDT, Frank Wimberly  wrote:
>So it's easy to substitute the word 'conceptual' for the word 'mental'
>whenever I talk to you (or Nick).
>
>I'm curious.  My qualifying exam in real analysis consisted of 10
>questions
>(stimuli, inputs?) like "State and prove the Heine-Borel Theorem". The
>successful response was a written version of a valid proof.  I hadn't
>memorized the proofs but I had memorized conceptualizations of them.
>How
>does that fit?  Would the referents​ be the proofs in the text or as
>presented in class?
>
>I passed.
>
>Frank
>
>Frank Wimberly
>Phone (505) 670-9918
>
>On Apr 23, 2017 10:00 AM, "┣glen┫"  wrote:
>
>>
>> I've made this same point 10s of times and I've clearly failed.  I'll
>try
>> one last time and then take my failure with me.
>>
>> When you assert that there's a dividing line between rigorous and
>> whimsical mental models, what are you saying?  It makes no sense to
>me,
>> whatsoever.  Rigor means something like detailed, accurate, complete,
>etc.
>> Even whimsical implies something active, real, behavioral, physical. 
>In
>> other words, neither word belongs next to "mental".  When you string
>> together mutually contradictory words like "rigorous mental model" or
>> "whimsical mental model", your contradiction prevents a predictable
>> inference.
>>
>> At least the word "concept" allows one to talk coherently about the
>> abstraction process (abstraction from the environment in which the
>brain is
>> embedded).  It preserves something about the origins of the things,
>the
>> concepts.  When you talk of "mental models", then you're left talking
>about
>> things like "mental constructs" or whatever functional unit of mind
>you
>> have to carve out, register, as it were.  What in the heck is a
>"mental
>> construct"?  Where did it come from?  What's the difference between a
>> mental construct and, say, a physical construct?  What _is_ a "mental
>> model"?  How does it differ from any other "mental" thing?  Is there
>a
>> difference between a "mental foot" and a "mental book"?  What if my
>"mental
>> books" are peach colored clumps of "mental flesh" with 10 "mental
>toes"?
>> It's ridiculous.  Contrast that with the terms "conceptual foot" or
>> "conceptual book".
>>
>> So, in the end, I simply disagree.  The term "conceptual" does much
>to
>> illuminate.
>>
>>
>> On 04/22/2017 08:35 PM, Vladimyr wrote:
>> > there exists a dividing line between rigorous and whimsical mental
>models
>> >
>> > that the term “conceptual” does little to illuminate.
>>
>> --
>> ␦glen?
>>
>> 
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-- 
⛧glen⛧


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Re: [FRIAM] Fractal discussion Landscape-bird songs

[gepr]

Along those lines but sticking with the fractals, it would be important to 
distinguish the reconstruction of the instrument from that of the melody. I 
assume the self similarity Nick is talking about would still be present even if 
we render the melody in MIDI. It's not clear to me, are the requirements of 
Takens' method met by a discrete time series?


On February 28, 2017 5:45:00 PM PST, Vladimyr Burachynsky  
wrote:
>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.
> [...]
>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.

-- 
⛧glen⛧


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

[gepr]

Well, OK. However, you already know that anything anyone ever says is and can 
only be from their perspective. Anyone who asserts to speak on behalf of all 
the authoritative experts in some field for all time is, then, a narcissist or 
confused. That implies that what you say below supports arguments from 
authority. I.e. we can't treat a lack of salve as an assertion of objectivity 
without implicitly asserting that every statement without such salve is 
fallacious.

Context _always_ matters, even in that most universal of science domains 
cosmology.

Re: writing for the ages, it would be a mistake to think of a mailing list or 
discussion forum as if the posters made serious attempt to curate and "deep 
dive" into their own psyche or professional career arc when they make their 
posts.  As Marcus pointed out awhile back, these low-overhead postings are 
supposed to be more like a discussion and less like a formal submission to a 
journal ... or a well-curated indefinitely defensable statement of one's 
carefully thought out opinion.

But I smell what I think is an intention, on your part, to focus on something 
like "authenticity".  And that relates to our long-running thread on realism.  
To a Socratic post-modernist like myself, knowing only that we know nothing, 
most of my opinions are fleeting and ill thought out.  And I change my mind 
regularly enough.  So, were I to apply the overhead meta-content of "This is 
what I really believe" for every one of the (often) nonsensical brain farts I 
emit, that overhead would quickly swamp any potential content.  Instead, I try 
to form self-coherent _arguments_ about this or that, regardless of whether I 
believe those arguments or not. I also think it's a bit of a mistake to [hyper] 
focus on any kind of "authenticity" for any particular sentence, post, or set 
of concepts.

While I agree that universality (global coherence, anyway) is a worthy 
objective, it is far out of reach.  (And as the Hilbert program saw, perhaps 
even fundamentally flawed.)  But attempts at regions of local coherence have a 
long and glorious history of success.  Hence, it's irrelevant whether you or I 
really believe what we're saying at any given time.  What's more important is 
the extent to which the various sayings hang together (or not).



On February 25, 2017 9:52:22 AM PST, Nick Thompson  
wrote:
>
>This is an old issue for me and I have, and probably still am, on both
>sides of it.  From a Pragmatist’s point of view, social salve has
>nothing to do with it.  We are talking about two quite different
>propositions.  When you put the “salve” in, your claim is that this is
>how the world looks “from here, from now”, but you make no universal
>claim.  When you take the salve out, you are asserting that this is how
>the world will look from all points of view in the very long run.  If,
>without “salve”, you reply to this note saying, “Nick, this is bloody
>non-sense!”, you will be saying that “Our colleagues will agree, in the
>very long run, that what you have written is foolish.”  What is irksome
>about such an unsalved claim is not the personal assertion of
>disagreement – we all can handle that – but the implicit assertion of
>universal judgement of all rational “men” upon what we thought was our
>best possible thought.  As scientists, we usually try to speak for the
>ages, as well as for ourselves, unless we say otherwise.  Writing as
>for the ages is more efficient in the long run: either one qualifies
>one’s short term opinions with “salve”, or one has to gin up one’s
>long-term opinions with such words as, “No, this I really believe;  I
>am not kidding here;  this is the truth!”  So, what you represent as
>“politesse”, I would describe as a kind of precision about the nature
>of one’s claims.  
>
> 
>
>What I have just written I guess, I really believe … as a pragmatist.  
>(};-\)


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

[gepr]

Heh, I shoulda known you wouldn't let that slide. You're right. But any 
introvert that wants to contribute and the only way to contribute is to get 
past the vapid (but very real) barriers must be capable of establishing that 
thin similarity _before_ dialing it back and refining the dissimilarities.

Of course that raises the question of whether the introverts really _can_ care 
about anyone other than themselves. If one's strongest inclinations are 
antisocial, it's reasonable to call them a misanthrope, which given Trump's 
"germophobia" and desire to surround himself with people who say what he wants 
to hear, we might claim he's an introvert too ... only extroverted when "the 
room is empty" of dissent.

On January 27, 2017 12:23:09 PM PST, Marcus Daniels  
wrote:
>
>Most any introvert has had the experience of some patronizing
>know-nothing `help' them out of their shell.   Is there anything more
>pointless than having to politely play along while run their `find some
>common ground' routine?   They may seem persuaded but really they just
>want the room to be empty again.   If a personality is high
>dimensional, then a low-dimensional connection is cannot be a true
>measure of similarity (assuming that was even sought).  
-- 
⛧glen⛧


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

[gepr]

Heh, very nice!  Yes, it used to be the case that the computational task was 
too great, which lead some to throw up their hands and just get high. But as 
Marcus pointed out earlier in the thread, we have new tech that might stand a 
chance. And why shouldn't neoliberals have the chance to evolve into new 
perspectives where they admit that some of these new techs can help us engage 
in intelligent stewardship of a catallaxy?

Here's an article that might help, though I can't really vouch for it:

MacDonald, Trent J., Darcy WE Allen, and Jason Potts. "Blockchains and the 
boundaries of self-organized economies: Predictions for the future of banking." 
Banking Beyond Banks and Money. Springer International Publishing, 2016. 
279-296.




On January 23, 2017 9:24:01 PM PST, Vladimyr Burachynsky  
wrote:

>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...

-- 
⛧glen⛧


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Re: [FRIAM] The root of personality disorders

[gepr]

No worries. The thing is, though, with cancer and pneumonia we do have well 
evidenced, reproducible, mechanistic hypotheses. That makes those hypotheses 
way more robust and trustworthy than personality disorders. So while there may 
be some deeply embedded circular reasoning in any diagnosis, the circular 
reasoning in purely phenomenal diagnoses is much more obvious.

Granted, I'm a big fan of parallax, as I've yapped about here before.  When a 
mechanism is unavailable, we can approach it through circumscribing a small 
region of behavior space with many purely phenomenal models, which is why these 
diagnoses need multiple attributes. But there's still no hiding from the 
circularity.

Also note that I regularly defend circular reasoning ala Robert​ Rosen, 
autopoiesis, non-well-founded sets, etc. But I wouldn't entertain a circular 
justification if there were good reasons to believe a well-founded explanation 
was out there somewhere.


On January 18, 2017 5:35:24 PM PST, Frank Wimberly  wrote:
>I apologize, Glen.  Please replace "cancer" with "pneumonia".
>
>Frank Wimberly
>Phone (505) 670-9918
>
>On Jan 18, 2017 6:16 PM, "Frank Wimberly"  wrote:
>
>> Why is my husband unable to breathe and coughs all the time?  And
>what is
>> this large white area on his chest x-ray?
>>
>> He has lung cancer.
>>
>> How do you know?
>>
>> Because he has difficulty breathing, he coughs constantly, and he has
>a
>> positive chest x-ray.

>> > Wife: Why is my husband so self-important; why does he have such a
>sense
>> of entitlement?
>> > Psychiatrist: Because he has an illness called narcissistic
>personality
>> disorder.
>> > Wife: How do you know he has this illness?
>> > Psychiatrist: Because he is so self-important and has such a sense
>of
>> entitlement.

-- 
⛧glen⛧


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Re: [FRIAM] Political tangents

[gepr]

Naa.  As the essay argues, Thiel's ilk trusts that those people are more like 
cattle. Big families keep the labor pool stocked and keep plenty of fresh blood 
available for the vampires' life-extending transfusions. There's no need for 
universal healthcare because we only need the human commodity while they're 
young (for blood or labor). To people like Thiel, old people who haven't 
established their ongoing worth to society need to be mitigated and dealt with 
as efficiently as possible.



On January 2, 2017 10:47:42 AM PST, Marcus Daniels  wrote:
>If the Affordable Care Act is repealed, then perhaps the demographics
>that tend to have big families will be afraid to have children due to
>Zika as they won't be able to afford the vaccine?   And in turn their
>voting base will collapse?   


-- 
⛧glen⛧


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Re: [FRIAM] Tagged "Get off my lawn!"

[gepr]

Ha! Excellent. All we need is a way to continually measure the neural
correlates to psychopathy and stick the devices to a 2-arm cohort.

--
⛧ glen

On May 11, 2016 6:08 PM, "Marcus Daniels"  wrote:
>
> If an apophany is arises from abnormal overfitting of environmental
information, perhaps a necessary but not sufficient condition to an
epiphany is psychopathy?  A bold motivational driver toward a hypothesis
and experiment.  :-)

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Re: [FRIAM] Here's to the 1%!

[gepr]

This article seems relevant:
http://evonomics.com/how-to-legally-own-another-person/

What he's describing as "employable" seems akin (though antithetic) to the
concept of "taboo". The one element that doesn't mesh is the
responsibility/accountability that accompanies freedom. The risks
associated with an ungrounded freedom, including whatever grounding a
monarch/genius might avoid tying themselves to, are always higher. What
made the tea partiers and "new libertarians" so silly is their
arbitrariness with respect to the authorities they admit and those they
rely upon. When I was a libertarian, most of us admitted the fact we'd
probably end up living in a broken van underneath a bridge. Our freedom was
borne out of our willingness to give everything for the ideal. New
"libertarians" are nothing more than slaves to the benefits they don't want
to pay for.
On Apr 7, 2016 9:15 AM, "glen"  wrote:

> On 04/06/2016 12:50 PM, Merle Lefkoff wrote:
> > For those interested in authoritarianism, my favorite read is a classic
> published in 1993 ("The Guru Papers: Masks of Authoritarian Power"). I'd
> call authors Joel Kramer and Diana Alstad spiritual realists. The book is
> mind-blowing. I thought they were fearless when they later took on
> Buddhism, but I don't think they ever published the essays (I have a copy.)
>
> That's an interesting looking book.  This review makes me want to read
> it:  http://www.johnhorgan.org/the_anti_gurus_15278.htm
>
> On 04/06/2016 02:01 PM, Marcus Daniels wrote:
> > Trade a pope for a supreme court justice for a Nobel Laureate at some
> level it is all the same. Everyone has a price. defining `price’ broadly.
> Sure I’ll pull from the right on that list if push comes to shove. But I’d
> also say authoritarian leaders, or those that like people like them, want
> some agility in their authoritarianism. They want to see the exercise of
> Power; they don’t want to be bogged down in procedure. Get those leaders
> and the led together and sometimes they’ll get behind some strange rituals.
>
> On 04/06/2016 09:19 PM, Carl wrote:
> > Well, constitutions are tools of the current narrative.   Consider
> Article 9.   It's pressed into service depending on the story various
> authorities wants to reify.   One can consider what's on the paper and say
> oh that's pretty cool, but
>
> Right.  Both you and Marcus point out that any system can be gamed. And
> the winners of that game end up being the authority.  And Marcus points out
> that even the authoritarians want the authority to be dynamic in at least
> some sense (each authority and authoritarian may want a different kind of
> dynamism, but that's OK).  But the primary issue is, I think, not that an
> elite set of gamers exists (or will obtain eventually).  The primary issue
> is the _size_ of the elite, either in absolute terms and/or in proportion
> to the rest of the population (including other species and the planet).
>
> David Deutsch made this vague statement about good explanations being
> "hard to vary", in the sense that if you've got it right enough, precise
> enough, etc., then changing any given part of it, probably breaks it.  You
> can't willy nilly change a good theory.  You have to do it intelligently.
> The same would be said about an authority that was derived (as directly as
> possible) from the world, rather than being _imposed_ on the world.
>
> Currently, any constitution is more "derived from the world" than any
> Monarch or Genius because our scientific understanding of the mind is
> paltry.  So, a constitution, being a concrete artifact, allows _anyone_ who
> can make inferences from that artifact to play.  Constitutions allow for a
> large elite class because they're artifacts in the world.  If we could
> continue this process, making our constitutions more and more "of the
> world", then it could allow for larger and larger elite classes until,
> perhaps, the difference between those that can _use_ the law and those that
> are abused by the law is simply one of choice.  If you put in the hours,
> you too can be a law user.
>
>
> --
> --
> ⊥ glen ⊥
>

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Re: [FRIAM] Here's to the 1%!

[gepr]

It seems to me that authoritarianism can be fostered without an organismic
authority (like a king or priest class). Isn't the "rule of law" or a
constitution intended to objectify the authority? If that's the case, then
the psychological manipulation from things like religion or capital
punishment can/could eventually become unnecessary to achieve an
authoritarian state.

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Re: [FRIAM] Physicists and Philosophers Debate the Boundaries of Science | Quanta Magazine

[gepr]

FWIW, I'm very interested in your responses, being an ex-libertarian with
both marxist and observationalist friends.

On Dec 28, 2015 1:35 PM, "Patrick Reilly" 
wrote:
>
> I'm mainly worried that my educational session with Nick is boring
everyone else.

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Re: [FRIAM] Physicists and Philosophers Debate the Boundaries of Science | Quanta Magazine

[gepr]

On Dec 28, 2015 6:51 PM, "Nick Thompson"  wrote:
>
> I guess I think that observationalists wouldn't be able to find their
home from a party after dark, let alone discover anything new or
interesting for the rest of us.  No compasses.  No maps.

Ha! Yeah, as compared to the starry eyed cult members who believe what they
read in PNAS. Right?  >8^)

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Re: [FRIAM] Interesting Link

[gepr]

On Jul 23, 2015 8:03 AM, Steve Smith sasm...@swcp.com wrote:
 And I imagined a portmanteau neologism for the verb describing the action
of co-optition

Those words are way too big for me!

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Re: [FRIAM] a week on just linux...

[gepr]

I recommend Ghostery.

On Jul 17, 2015 12:52 PM, Gillian Densmore gil.densm...@gmail.com wrote:

 Questions:
 I'm not particularly familiar with chromium, and not maried to it as a
browser iether. I didn't see where it might have somethlike addblock. I ask
because websites I might typically go to (google, bing git, wordpress.com
etc) hadd all sorts of inline adds, that I gather addblock on FireFox keeps
out*yee

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Re: [FRIAM] DOH!

[gepr]

On Jul 6, 2015 7:29 PM, Marcus Daniels mar...@snoutfarm.com wrote:

 Usually the best way to develop a motor skill, or a particular kind of
fitness, is to do that thing.

That's not strictly true. While it's true that you can't get good at some
skill without doing it, it's also true that doing only that thing,
overtraining on one activity, will make you worse at it.

 I know how to drive, ...

 So in answer to my question, Why would I want to play a game, instead of
other things I do, the answer is, for me, I would not.

You may have missed the age related aspect of my response. Yes you know how
to drive. So does my 89 year old mother. But she never exercised her skills
outside of driving. Had she done so, her range of competence at driving
would have been larger.

So I answered your question, I think. You would want to play the games that
exercise your faculties so that you get better and retain those faculties.
I'm not claiming any arbitrary video game will do that. (I've heard
Luminosity isn't what they claim. ;-)  But maybe some would help you stay
competent at some things longer than you would otherwise be competent. Or
maybe it's a huge waste of time. Hell, I don't know.

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Re: [FRIAM] A New Society for the Study of Cultural Evolution

[gepr]

On Jun 29, 2015 7:08 PM, Nick Thompson nickthomp...@earthlink.net wrote:

 So, Glen.  Are you fur it or agin it?

I don't see any reason to be against it. Why? Are you against it?


https://evolution-institute.org/project/society-for-the-study-of-cultural-evolution/

  A New Society for the Study of Cultural Evolution

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Re: [FRIAM] [ SPAM ] where is the real threat?

[gepr]

No, not dark. In fact it's liberating!
On Jun 27, 2015 12:36 PM, Nick Thompson nickthomp...@earthlink.net
wrote:

 Glen wrote

 No.  I think the bulk of non-zero sum gains are a result of co-evolution of
 competing scrutiny, the exploitation of niches the players stumbled upon
 together.  I.e. they're really zero-sum games where the externalities
 aren't
 recognized by the players.  And in that sense, if it is trust that prevents
 them from recognizing the externalities, then trust is tantamount to
 ignorance.

 Nick responds:  WOW!  DARK!



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

 -Original Message-
 From: Friam [mailto:friam-boun...@redfish.com] On Behalf Of glen ep
 ropella
 Sent: Saturday, June 27, 2015 12:12 PM
 To: The Friday Morning Applied Complexity Coffee Group
 Subject: Re: [FRIAM] [ SPAM ] where is the real threat?

 On 06/26/2015 04:36 PM, Marcus Daniels wrote:
  CBS or Comcast cover that, but also the evening news.  In various
 situations such conglomerates may find it in their interest to present
 information in ways that benefit their bottom line, even to audiences that
 are above the least common denominator.   Even if their news programs are
 credible and honest most of the time, it's exceptional times where their
 reputation can be monetized.  These situations could plausibly impact
 people
 as much as propaganda.

 Another good point that argues to the same conclusion, because anyone who
 succumbs to flipping the trust bit opens themselves up to that sort of
 creeping exploitation.  That slow, imperceptible programming probably has
 _way_ more impact than the relatively episodic nature of propaganda.

 On 06/27/2015 06:50 AM, Nick Thompson wrote: Glen,
  Don't the bulk of non-zero sum gains arise from trust?
  see MOTH, for instance.

 No.  I think the bulk of non-zero sum gains are a result of co-evolution of
 competing scrutiny, the exploitation of niches the players stumbled upon
 together.  I.e. they're really zero-sum games where the externalities
 aren't
 recognized by the players.  And in that sense, if it is trust that prevents
 them from recognizing the externalities, then trust is tantamount to
 ignorance.

 --
 glen e. p. ropella, 971-255-2847, http://tempusdictum.com

 
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Re: [FRIAM] Syncing between devices...why? [was Android Choice]

[gepr (d2g)]

I think it derives from extended physiology.  There is a spectrum on which we 
all fall between internal - external.  Those of us whose lives are invested 
externally have/make lots of stuff.  Those of us invested internally have/make 
a minimum of stuff.  Interesting orthogonal axes are make vs nomake and act vs 
noact.  I've always been fascinated by those who make stuff then give it away 
or abandon it.  I've tried and regretted it.  I still long for my litte artbot 
I foolishly gave to some random bartender.


Robert Holmes rob...@holmesacosta.com wrote:

Errr yes, that is a *really* good question.

Why *do* you have so many devices? Why do any of us? Do they make us
happier?

-- 
glen e p ropella; 971.222.9095


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