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

[┣glen┫]

8^) While I appreciate the troll, I don't see how either of those articles 
contradict my claim.  I'd be happy if you'd explain that to me. And I also have 
to point out that you've modified your phrase from "mental model" to "mental 
map", which is progress!  If you can find it in you to drop the word "mental", 
we'll finally be in agreement.

I think Eric said it nicely: reconfiguring oneself.  That parts of your body 
interact and change each other doesn't contradict my claim that such 
reconfiguring is driven and constrained by sensorimotor experience of the 
outside world.  Were you to take Eric's line of reasoning and suggest that fast 
bodily processes were distinguishable from slow bodily processes, then we might 
have a basis for _defining_ the word "mental" in modern terms.  And once we 
define it, even if only to that vague extent, then we'd be forced to 
distinguish between "mental" and, say, "neural" as terms.  For people who can 
so blithely link to sciencedaily.com press releases, it should be simple to 
abandon ham-handed terminology like "mental".

Regardless of what we do with the undefined word "mental", I will maintain the 
part of my rhetoric that claims such fast bodily changes are driven and 
constrained by both the slow bodily processes and the outside world.  And, most 
importantly, that measure precedes model.


On 04/25/2017 05:38 PM, Vladimyr wrote:
> Back to Bird Songs
> https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2017/04/170404104719.htm
> 
> and Star-Nosed Moles
> https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2017/04/170424084028.htm
> If now we can see "Mental Maps" Glen's position seems archaic and like
> scholastic rhetoric.

-- 
␦glen?


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

[Marcus Daniels]

"So when the student part of the brain is learning how to sing a song, the 
tutor part has to tell it whether the song it produced was good or bad and give 
instructions on how to improve."

Like the remarkable generative adversarial networks..

http://papers.nips.cc/paper/5423-generative-adversarial-nets.pdf



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

[Vladimyr]

Marcus,
Good point and that took a moment to grasp.
What you point out is a very complex issue, much more than a
simple transform of a matrix. Which also may be regarded as leaving no
footprints.

Or so I thought, but we all seem to use "mental maps"

-Original Message-
From: Friam [mailto:friam-boun...@redfish.com] On Behalf Of Marcus Daniels
Sent: April-24-17 5:27 PM
To: The Friday Morning Applied Complexity Coffee Group
Subject: Re: [FRIAM] the arc of socioeconomics, personal and public: was VPN
server

Vladimyr writes:

"If the referents are robustly entrenched in formalism then likely so are
the artifacts."

I work on source-to-source compilers.   There's no real-world referent.
Just transformations between representations.  

Back to Bird Songs
https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2017/04/170404104719.htm

and Star-Nosed Moles
https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2017/04/170424084028.htm
If now we can see "Mental Maps" Glen's position seems archaic and like
scholastic rhetoric.
vib
So bird's have a neural tutor within their brain assuring rigor based on
High Quality Referent Sound Waves.




Marcus


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

[Marcus Daniels]

Vladimyr writes:

"If the referents are robustly entrenched in formalism then likely so are the 
artifacts."

I work on source-to-source compilers.   There's no real-world referent.  Just 
transformations between representations.  

Marcus


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

[Vladimyr]

>Marcus wrote " Others are just involved in collective performance art in
the hopes of pushing their citation count higher."

They profit since so many are seduced by crappy graphics. My last academic
supervisor was one of these characters. But knowing that I finally completed
my sentence in academic prison.

Gentlemen don't retreat. Most children go through a stage when they
experiment with watercolor paints.
Parents dote on these kids. With little success.

Once I condemned an artist for choosing a small easel, low expectations.
But many artists choose self constraining media that they can easily master.
They impose self restrictions on themselves yet seem to desire a great
reputation.

Glen's referents are salient and possibly very useful. These referents enter
the neural landscape
and transform the very connections of neurons. London Cabbies are famous
world-wide for their
mental skills and neuro-anatomy. Their rigorous mental models are
astonishing.

The artwork of most humans rarely progresses beyond flat 2D scribbles, and
yet teaching them anything
about the matter is almost useless.

Some brains can create artifacts of surprising elegance and other brains
make caca.
And then there are the Economists that prefer the later.

If the referents are robustly entrenched in formalism then likely so are the
artifacts.
vib



-Original Message-
From: Friam [mailto:friam-boun...@redfish.com] On Behalf Of Marcus Daniels
Sent: April-23-17 11:14 AM
To: The Friday Morning Applied Complexity Coffee Group
Subject: Re: [FRIAM] the arc of socioeconomics, personal and public: was VPN
server

Heh, it amuses and frustrates me the pressure to publish when one could
instead do something useful like develop and share code.   Those "mental
models" scribbled down on paper obviously have less value than tools to
solve the general problem (i.e. working through all the boring but necessary
cases to make it all computable), both as formalisms and from a utilitarian
point of view.   Nonetheless, I hear all the time from theory types that
they "have it in their head and just have to write it down".Some of them
I believe.  Others are just involved in collective performance art in the
hopes of pushing their citation count higher.  Hmm, I seem to be down on
academics today.

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

[Eric Charles]

Hm. while I don't disagree with Nick, I also don't think he
answered the question. It might well be that when we ask what a thinking
man is doing in any particular instance, we are missing the point. And yet,
as the man sits for longer and longer in his thoughts, that argument seems
itself to have become more remote with regards to our concerns. Further, it
seems empirically true that the man who gets up from thinking is sometimes
different than the man who sat down to begin his pondering. What is THAT
about?

There is not a good answer to this question. I wrote a chapter with British
experimental psychologists Andrew Wilson and Sabrina Golonka about the
problem recently, in a collected volume on American Philosophy and the
Brain. We lamented the lack of a good language with which to talk about
what the brain does, arguing that cognitive-psychology speak is inadequate
and was holding back the field. (Nothing too novel in that.) We also made
some solid suggestions about what the new language would need to look like
- drawing from ecological psychology, dynamic systems theory, and the like
- even though we couldn't commit on its final form. Much of the text can be
found here, and I'll get the full text if anyone is interested:
https://books.google.com/books?hl=en==TvgqAwAAQBAJ=fnd=PA127=charles+andrew+sabrina+neuropragmatism=F-EM6R_Zq1=xa9EbE82QAxAXQVrtad64a-w6Ds#v=onepage=charles%20andrew%20sabrina%20neuropragmatism=false


The answer has to be something of the form: He is reconfiguring himself.

To the extent that he is "consciously thinking": He is responding to the
fact that he is reconfiguring himself. He is like a man "psyching" himself
up to lift a heavy weight, in that he has a "sense" of whether his body
(brain included) is ready for the task ahead or not.

To elaborate: Humans show a remarkable capacity to rapidly reconfigure into
different types of "task-specific devices" (TSDs). That is, we are well
tuned to (relatively) skillfully do one thing at one moment, and a
different thing at a different moment. After contemplation, our thinking
man is a different dynamic system than he was before, and he now connects
to the larger dynamic system of himself-in-his-environment differently than
he did before - he is sensitive to different variables, and responds to
variables differently than before. While physiological psychology covers a
wide range of systems, including hormonal systems, gut physiology, and
lymphatic response, such processes are generally slow, operating on the
scope of minutes to days. More rapid reconfiguration suggests
that alteration of neuronal mechanisms is the best explanation for the
changes observed during a typical bout of "thinking."

These changes in neuronal mechanisms are a key component in a change in the
habits (relatively predictable responses) one is prepared to display based
on surrounding events.

The question of self-awareness, then, is a question of how one re-cognizes
what one is predisposed to do. This relates to the issue of apparent
"higher-order" self-regulation by which one keeps one's self reconfiguring
until one is ready to act, or until some additional factor pressures
action. The principles that apply on that "higher" level, ought to be
expressible in the same terms as those which operate on the "lower" levels.
The skill of knowing when one is ready to answer a math problem, or give
the public speech, or drive to work, etc., should be viewed as equivalent
to the skill of knowing when one is ready to lift a given weight. Some
weights are light enough that one is essentially always ready, some are
close enough to the limits of one's ability that being (as much as is
possible) the right type of task-specific device is crucial, and still
other weights are so heavy that no amount of effort towards
rapid reconfiguration will suffice. So it is with solving math problems,
nailing a speech, or navigating dangerous roads in a vehicle.  I fully
acknowledge that lifting the near-limit weight will also rely on several of
those minute-scaled bodily changes (blood oxygen, adrenaline, etc.).
However, the key point is that whatever language we come to agree upon most
allow us to highlight the similarities between that situation and the more
typical examples of "thinking", rather than making it seem as if there is a
an uncrossable gulf between the two activities.







---
Eric P. Charles, Ph.D.
Supervisory Survey Statistician
U.S. Marine Corps


On Sun, Apr 23, 2017 at 5:19 PM, Nick Thompson 
wrote:

> Hi, Frank,
>
>
>
> Heluva Question, there!
>
>
>
> Allow me to skip to what seems to be the core question you are asking:
>
>
>
> *“Nick: What is it that you Peirceian’s think I am doing when I think I am
> modeling stuff in my head*.”
>
>
>
>
>
> Gilbert Ryle put this in an even more succinct manner.
>
>
>
> *What is **Le Penseur doing?*
>
>
>
> Now, you of all people, Frank, know how troubling this question 

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?
>>
>> 
>> 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

-- 
⛧glen⛧


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

[Nick Thompson]

Hi, Frank, 

 

Heluva Question, there! 

 

Allow me to skip to what seems to be the core question you are asking:

 

“Nick: What is it that you Peirceian’s think I am doing when I think I am 
modeling stuff in my head.” 

 

 

Gilbert Ryle put this in an even more succinct manner. 

 

What is Le Penseur doing? 

 

Now, you of all people, Frank, know how troubling this question is to a 
behaviorist, particularly one who denies to himself the notion of 
“unobservable” behavior.  It is the kind of question which has sent me to 
Peirce, who initially dissappointed me by writing: 

 

The truth, however, appears to be that all deductive reasoning…involves an 
element of observation; namely, deduction consists in contructing an icon or 
diagram the relations of whose parts shall present a complete analogy with 
those of the parts of the obect of reasoning, of experimenting upon this image 
in the imagination, and of observing the result so as to discover unnoticed and 
hidden relations among the parts.  

 

Now this is dissappointing to me because at first blush, it appears to be a 
stalwart defense of the notion of “Mental Models”, which so captivated the 
field of Cognitive Psychology and which, as you know, I deplore.  In fact, so 
far as I know, it may be the first INVENTION of that notion, in which case, 
Peirce, not Tolman, would have to be acknowledged as the Father of Cognitive 
Psychology.  

 

So, either I have to abandon Peirce, or understand him in another way.  The 
problem is that I take Peirce to be a neutral monist.  To be a monist is to 
believe that there is only one kind of stuff in the world.  Now, Idealists and 
Materialists are both monists of a type, bur I think they are kidding 
themselves; neither position survives without the implication of the other.  
Indeed, for a any monist to name his “stuff” is really inconsistent because in 
naming it, he implies the possibility of its absense, and that is to step on 
the slippery slope of dualism.  But to go through the next 100 words using the 
word stuff, two or three times in a sentence, abhors me, so I am going to give 
this stuff an name: “experience” stuff.  This experience stuff is not 
experience of anything else but of other experience.  We begin, thus, by saying 
that there is a stream of experience in time and that all experience is of 
other experiences.  In short, we begin in the middle and we regard as silly, a 
question like, “What was was the FIRST experience of?”  

 

So we start by assuming that experience is random.  In such a case, no patterns 
will appear in it, or, at the very list no such patterns will endure.  If 
patterns do emerge, however,  it would make a lot of sense to mark them and 
behave in accordance with them.  We note that some things stick with us when we 
leave a room and they become “self”; others come and go even when we are 
stationary, and these become “other”. Some are accompanied by immediate 
suceeding experiences, and these we call objective; others lead to expectations 
that are not confirmed, and these we call “dreams.”  Etc.  Some objective 
experiences are immediately confirmed by all of our senses, and these we call 
“direct”; other experiences are confirmed only by longer chains of experiences, 
and these we call indirect or abstract.  The blow of a hammer upon a thumb is 
of the first sort, the collision of two electrons is of the second. 

 

All behavior, from a monist perspective, consists in experiences of relations 
between an experience of “seeing” and an experience of “doing”.  When those two 
experiences are close together in time we experrience a reflex; when they are 
more distant in time, we experience a response; and when they occur at a still 
greater distance in time, we experience a deliberate action.  So the difference 
between your hitting your thumb with a hammer and yelling “Ouch”  and you 
hitting your thumb for the ninth time and reaching for a pair of pliers to hold 
the next nail, is a difference in degree, not a difference in kind.  

 

In short, the mystery of the mind, about which we often talk, is really a 
confusion that arises because we so unreasonably priviledge things that happen 
half a second apart of being related to one another.  So, looking at Le Penseur 
and asking, what is he doing?, is like looking at a very highspeed photograph 
of a moving train and demanding to know how fast it is moving on the basis a 
single instantaneous image.  The only proper answer is, “We don’t know yet! “

 

Thanks for the question, 

 

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 Frank Wimberly
Sent: Sunday, April 23, 2017 11:32 AM
To: The Friday Morning Applied Complexity Coffee Group 
Subject: Re: [FRIAM] 

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

[Frank Wimberly]

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

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

[Marcus Daniels]

Heh, it amuses and frustrates me the pressure to publish when one could instead 
do something useful like develop and share code.   Those "mental models" 
scribbled down on paper obviously have less value than tools to solve the 
general problem (i.e. working through all the boring but necessary cases to 
make it all computable), both as formalisms and from a utilitarian point of 
view.   Nonetheless, I hear all the time from theory types that they "have it 
in their head and just have to write it down".Some of them I believe.  
Others are just involved in collective performance art in the hopes of pushing 
their citation count higher.  Hmm, I seem to be down on academics today.

FRIAM Applied Complexity Group listserv
Meets Fridays 9a-11:30 at cafe at St. John's College
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Re: [FRIAM] the arc of socioeconomics, personal and public: was VPN server

[┣glen┫]

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?


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

[┣glen┫]

On 04/22/2017 04:41 PM, Frank Wimberly wrote:
> I have a "mental map" of the streets of Santa Fe.  I can plan a route to the 
> dump, or even alternative routes, which I can then successfully follow.  
> Model or figment?

If you believe that "mental map" is _purely_ mental, then it's a figment.  
Perhaps you are capable of defining "mental" in such a way that it's a useful 
word.  But my guess is that you can't. ... because nobody can.  The word 
"mental" is useless.  It may have been useful in the past, of course.  So, 
perhaps if we were talking about, eg, what a 19th century philosopher or 
historian meant by the term, then it would be useful.  But today, with all we 
know about the brain, the words "mental" and "mind" raise more questions than 
they answer.

Now, if you said you have a conceptual map, where the various concepts inside 
your body relate to each other in an equivalent way to how actual streets in 
Santa Fe relate to each other, then yes it's a model.  But calling it a "mental 
model" destroys your point, defeats your purpose.  It forces me to ask "What do 
you really, specifically, mean by 'mental'?"

-- 
␦glen?


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

[Vladimyr]

Glen,

 

My “imaginary brain farts” became tangible through effort. I have no doubt 
about their validity but some were clearly stupid.

 

However loosely I used the term model without prefixes these imaginary 
procedures are not without dependencies, or referents. 

But this can only arise in a mind that notices some functionality of materials 
and procedures. 

 

I once constructed an  Aramid/ Graphite operating table to be positioned within 
an MRI device.

Apparently at the time no such artifact existed on the planet. But it was 
needed.

If referents can be regarded as Real yet have no substance where does that 
leave us.

 

The table transported children in and out of the MRI as neurosurgeons 
considered their next cut

into the open skull of unconscious children to manipulate the source of “Brain 
Farts”. There is no need to use

provocative language, unless one cherishes verbal one-up-man- ship.

 

These “referents” can be as elusive and wispy as dreams. However when coupled 
to a brain with a will and talent, things will  go Bang.

I acknowledge that I did such things by fortune of having had a generous 
education and some  few talents.

 

My neighbor,  a perfectly Normal Forensic Accountant, could not, but he liked 
to watch things happen.

Your arguments take me aback, so watch what the economists call modelling

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=05S1tAPoRzY

 

You will no doubt consider this a case in point… but there exists a dividing 
line between rigorous and whimsical mental models

that the term “conceptual” does little to illuminate.

The spectacle of early flying machines usually makes us wonder what was he 
thinking…

 

Even once these mad men constructed the contraptions it became obvious that not 
all ideas are equal.

vib

what makes some better and others worse? Utility…Profit…Pride…

 

 

 

From: Friam [mailto:friam-boun...@redfish.com] On Behalf Of Frank Wimberly
Sent: April-22-17 6:42 PM
To: The Friday Morning Applied Complexity Coffee Group
Subject: Re: [FRIAM] the arc of socioeconomics, personal and public: was VPN 
server

 

I have a "mental map" of the streets of Santa Fe.  I can plan a route to the 
dump, or even alternative routes, which I can then successfully follow.  Model 
or figment?

 

I'm sure you've heard many times that all models are wrong; some are useful.

 

Frank

 

Frank Wimberly
Phone (505) 670-9918

 

On Apr 22, 2017 5:01 PM, "glen ☣"  wrote:

On 04/22/2017 11:44 AM, Frank Wimberly wrote:
> "I argue that this mental model is a figment of your imagination..."
>
> In other words, a mental model.

Heh, no.  Despite being a huge term that covers almost everything under the 
sun, "model" _does_ at least require a referent.  A purely imaginary construct 
has no referent.  It is purely imaginary.  So not just any old brain fart can 
be called a "mental model".  And whatever you and Vladimyr mean by "mental 
models" are pure imaginary brain farts with no referent.  I.e. they don't 
exist.  Anyone who uses the phrase "mental model" has zero idea what they're 
talking about, because they're talking nonsense. >8^D

I do grudgingly tolerate "conceptual model", FWIW, only because I believe we 
can/might eventually find neural correlates of concepts, like when, say, one's 
pupils dilate in response to an attractive person.  A conceptual model would 
then be a system of physiological activity that _maps_ to some phenomena in the 
outside world.  But, it's important that if there's no _map_ to the outside 
world, then it can't be a model.  I.e. no measure, no model.

--
☣ glen


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

[Frank Wimberly]

I have a "mental map" of the streets of Santa Fe.  I can plan a route to
the dump, or even alternative routes, which I can then successfully
follow.  Model or figment?

I'm sure you've heard many times that all models are wrong; some are useful.

Frank


Frank Wimberly
Phone (505) 670-9918

On Apr 22, 2017 5:01 PM, "glen ☣"  wrote:

> On 04/22/2017 11:44 AM, Frank Wimberly wrote:
> > "I argue that this mental model is a figment of your imagination..."
> >
> > In other words, a mental model.
>
> Heh, no.  Despite being a huge term that covers almost everything under
> the sun, "model" _does_ at least require a referent.  A purely imaginary
> construct has no referent.  It is purely imaginary.  So not just any old
> brain fart can be called a "mental model".  And whatever you and Vladimyr
> mean by "mental models" are pure imaginary brain farts with no referent.
> I.e. they don't exist.  Anyone who uses the phrase "mental model" has zero
> idea what they're talking about, because they're talking nonsense. >8^D
>
> I do grudgingly tolerate "conceptual model", FWIW, only because I believe
> we can/might eventually find neural correlates of concepts, like when, say,
> one's pupils dilate in response to an attractive person.  A conceptual
> model would then be a system of physiological activity that _maps_ to some
> phenomena in the outside world.  But, it's important that if there's no
> _map_ to the outside world, then it can't be a model.  I.e. no measure, no
> model.
>
> --
> ☣ glen
>
> 
> FRIAM Applied Complexity Group listserv
> Meets Fridays 9a-11:30 at cafe at St. John's College
> to unsubscribe http://redfish.com/mailman/listinfo/friam_redfish.com
> FRIAM-COMIC http://friam-comic.blogspot.com/ by Dr. Strangelove

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

[glen ☣]

On 04/22/2017 11:44 AM, Frank Wimberly wrote:
> "I argue that this mental model is a figment of your imagination..."
> 
> In other words, a mental model.

Heh, no.  Despite being a huge term that covers almost everything under the 
sun, "model" _does_ at least require a referent.  A purely imaginary construct 
has no referent.  It is purely imaginary.  So not just any old brain fart can 
be called a "mental model".  And whatever you and Vladimyr mean by "mental 
models" are pure imaginary brain farts with no referent.  I.e. they don't 
exist.  Anyone who uses the phrase "mental model" has zero idea what they're 
talking about, because they're talking nonsense. >8^D

I do grudgingly tolerate "conceptual model", FWIW, only because I believe we 
can/might eventually find neural correlates of concepts, like when, say, one's 
pupils dilate in response to an attractive person.  A conceptual model would 
then be a system of physiological activity that _maps_ to some phenomena in the 
outside world.  But, it's important that if there's no _map_ to the outside 
world, then it can't be a model.  I.e. no measure, no model.

-- 
☣ glen


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

[Frank Wimberly]

"I argue that this mental model is a figment of your imagination..."

In other words, a mental model.

Frank

Frank Wimberly
Phone (505) 670-9918

On Apr 22, 2017 9:48 AM, "┣glen┫"  wrote:

> Excellent! Thanks for providing some concrete context.  I now realize you
> are focusing on a describable subset of the amorphous cloud of the word
> "model".  Progress in the argument is impossible without that.  And I'll
> try to avoid the endless caveats, qualifiers, and prefixes for the
> ambiguous term by using what i've argued elsewhere (in the papers I've
> helped publish) are standard English words, namely "analog" and "measure".
>
> When you talk about the analogs you made out of basswood, these are
> fundamentally different from whatever cluster of concepts we might
> arbitrarily carve out of your nervous system and call a "mental model".  I
> argue that this "mental model" is a figment of your imagination.  What is
> real is the analog (starting with a block of wood) and your sensorimotor
> manifold driven by your nervous system.  That entire collection, system,
> including the block of wood, the knives, sandpaper, etc. includes little,
> tiny measures.  These are quite distinguishable from your "Lufkin tape
> measure", which is, itself much more than a measure (or not really a
> measure at all).  That "Lufkin tape measure" is an analog.  The way you
> measure things with it is by analogy.  You take the analog and set it
> alongside another (non-mental, concrete) object.  That analogical reasoning
> process is what we call "taking a measurement".
>
> You do the exact same thing when you pick the block of wood up into your
> hand.  You "get a feeling for" the block of wood by analogy with your hand
> (and the distance between your eyeballs, etc).  That act: picking up,
> holding, turning over, the block of wood _is_ measuring.  You're "taking
> measure" of the block (and the rest of the context, including the tools you
> will choose).  And the measures involved are analogical
> reasoning/comparisons between parts of your body and the thing being
> measured.
>
> We call both measures and analogs "models" in our sloppy language.  But it
> should be clear that measures are much more primitive and fundamental than
> the overwhelming majority of other things we call "model".  Similarly,
> analogs are often called "concrete models", like your basswood boat or
> Redfish's sand table.  Sure, we _could_ call these "concrete models".  But
> why would we unless we were trapped in a word salad tossing argument with a
> bunch of philosophers?  We have other words that are more specific and
> useful like "analog".  And when we compare and contrast our analogs with
> their referents, then we are _measuring_ the less familiar via the more
> familiar.
>
>
> On 04/21/2017 06:40 PM, Vladimyr wrote:
> > Glen, making you nauseous was not my intention.
> > So some models use Rigid Metrics
> > others seem to bePattern Comparisons
> > and then there are   Neural Models
> >
> > I have  been labouring for some time on another which was once thought
> by myself to be
> > a machine motion algorithm but when graphically displayed looked
> extraordinarily like a sea creature.
> > So some appeared to have petal structures so I applied some desperate
> measures and named them in my mind
> > as belonging to a class of creatures having a integer number of
> petals.0.. 48 before the computer balked in protest.
> > These were in every case peculiar rectangular matrices, having some
> properties of networks. So applying colors only
> > to edges produced some spectacular transformations not imagined in 2D
> spreadsheets.
> > I constructed a hallucination and named it a Mental Model. By Jacking it
> up to 4D since now it grows, these phantoms
> > plague my sleep and friendships. I am converting them to 3D .obj files
> and intend to print one when it is not writhing before my eyes.
> >
> > The printer imposes dimensions for the first time due to the containment
> box, design envelope. This is a trivial Scaling Problem, so it seems.
> >
> > Once many years ago I designed boats and started with Half Models in
> basswood. Then lifted (lofted) the lines to paper so it would
> > fit in my shop and out the doors. So those models existed in my mind
> before any sawdust fell to the floor.
> > I tried to teach this approach with mixed success. Students thought I
> had plans secreted away, I did read many but rarely used them.
> >
> > I think the act of carving the little half models was a procedure
> familiar to sculptors Where the artist's intentions shape the medium and
> > he is guided by heuristics back checking reality with mental imagery
> until satisfied. Much later does the Lufkin tape Measure show up.
> > In my case a  Digital Caliper. Indeed I cheated often, first surface
> mirrors and black glue lines that served as grid lines and more.
> >
> > But measurement was not as important as students imagined. It was my
> 

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

[┣glen┫]

Excellent! Thanks for providing some concrete context.  I now realize you are 
focusing on a describable subset of the amorphous cloud of the word "model".  
Progress in the argument is impossible without that.  And I'll try to avoid the 
endless caveats, qualifiers, and prefixes for the ambiguous term by using what 
i've argued elsewhere (in the papers I've helped publish) are standard English 
words, namely "analog" and "measure".

When you talk about the analogs you made out of basswood, these are 
fundamentally different from whatever cluster of concepts we might arbitrarily 
carve out of your nervous system and call a "mental model".  I argue that this 
"mental model" is a figment of your imagination.  What is real is the analog 
(starting with a block of wood) and your sensorimotor manifold driven by your 
nervous system.  That entire collection, system, including the block of wood, 
the knives, sandpaper, etc. includes little, tiny measures.  These are quite 
distinguishable from your "Lufkin tape measure", which is, itself much more 
than a measure (or not really a measure at all).  That "Lufkin tape measure" is 
an analog.  The way you measure things with it is by analogy.  You take the 
analog and set it alongside another (non-mental, concrete) object.  That 
analogical reasoning process is what we call "taking a measurement".

You do the exact same thing when you pick the block of wood up into your hand.  
You "get a feeling for" the block of wood by analogy with your hand (and the 
distance between your eyeballs, etc).  That act: picking up, holding, turning 
over, the block of wood _is_ measuring.  You're "taking measure" of the block 
(and the rest of the context, including the tools you will choose).  And the 
measures involved are analogical reasoning/comparisons between parts of your 
body and the thing being measured.

We call both measures and analogs "models" in our sloppy language.  But it 
should be clear that measures are much more primitive and fundamental than the 
overwhelming majority of other things we call "model".  Similarly, analogs are 
often called "concrete models", like your basswood boat or Redfish's sand 
table.  Sure, we _could_ call these "concrete models".  But why would we unless 
we were trapped in a word salad tossing argument with a bunch of philosophers?  
We have other words that are more specific and useful like "analog".  And when 
we compare and contrast our analogs with their referents, then we are 
_measuring_ the less familiar via the more familiar.


On 04/21/2017 06:40 PM, Vladimyr wrote:
> Glen, making you nauseous was not my intention.
> So some models use Rigid Metrics
> others seem to bePattern Comparisons
> and then there are   Neural Models
> 
> I have  been labouring for some time on another which was once thought by 
> myself to be
> a machine motion algorithm but when graphically displayed looked 
> extraordinarily like a sea creature.
> So some appeared to have petal structures so I applied some desperate 
> measures and named them in my mind
> as belonging to a class of creatures having a integer number of petals.0.. 48 
> before the computer balked in protest.
> These were in every case peculiar rectangular matrices, having some 
> properties of networks. So applying colors only
> to edges produced some spectacular transformations not imagined in 2D 
> spreadsheets.
> I constructed a hallucination and named it a Mental Model. By Jacking it up 
> to 4D since now it grows, these phantoms
> plague my sleep and friendships. I am converting them to 3D .obj files and 
> intend to print one when it is not writhing before my eyes.
> 
> The printer imposes dimensions for the first time due to the containment box, 
> design envelope. This is a trivial Scaling Problem, so it seems.
> 
> Once many years ago I designed boats and started with Half Models in 
> basswood. Then lifted (lofted) the lines to paper so it would
> fit in my shop and out the doors. So those models existed in my mind before 
> any sawdust fell to the floor.
> I tried to teach this approach with mixed success. Students thought I had 
> plans secreted away, I did read many but rarely used them.
> 
> I think the act of carving the little half models was a procedure familiar to 
> sculptors Where the artist's intentions shape the medium and 
> he is guided by heuristics back checking reality with mental imagery until 
> satisfied. Much later does the Lufkin tape Measure show up.   
> In my case a  Digital Caliper. Indeed I cheated often, first surface mirrors 
> and black glue lines that served as grid lines and more.
> 
> But measurement was not as important as students imagined. It was my 
> assumption it would fall into place of its own accord.
> Scale and proportion might be aesthetics but seem very powerful early on.
> 
> My daughter hated writing because she obsessed over page margins and font 
> sizes and type.
> I suggested blank paper and a pencil and was accused of being 

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

[Vladimyr]

Glen, making you nauseous was not my intention.
So some models use Rigid Metrics
others seem to bePattern Comparisons
and then there are   Neural Models

I have  been labouring for some time on another which was once thought by 
myself to be
a machine motion algorithm but when graphically displayed looked 
extraordinarily like a sea creature.
So some appeared to have petal structures so I applied some desperate measures 
and named them in my mind
as belonging to a class of creatures having a integer number of petals.0.. 48 
before the computer balked in protest.
These were in every case peculiar rectangular matrices, having some properties 
of networks. So applying colors only
to edges produced some spectacular transformations not imagined in 2D 
spreadsheets.
I constructed a hallucination and named it a Mental Model. By Jacking it up to 
4D since now it grows, these phantoms
plague my sleep and friendships. I am converting them to 3D .obj files and 
intend to print one when it is not writhing before my eyes.

The printer imposes dimensions for the first time due to the containment box, 
design envelope. This is a trivial Scaling Problem, so it seems.

Once many years ago I designed boats and started with Half Models in basswood. 
Then lifted (lofted) the lines to paper so it would
fit in my shop and out the doors. So those models existed in my mind before any 
sawdust fell to the floor.
I tried to teach this approach with mixed success. Students thought I had plans 
secreted away, I did read many but rarely used them.

I think the act of carving the little half models was a procedure familiar to 
sculptors Where the artist's intentions shape the medium and 
he is guided by heuristics back checking reality with mental imagery until 
satisfied. Much later does the Lufkin tape Measure show up.   
In my case a  Digital Caliper. Indeed I cheated often, first surface mirrors 
and black glue lines that served as grid lines and more.

But measurement was not as important as students imagined. It was my assumption 
it would fall into place of its own accord.
Scale and proportion might be aesthetics but seem very powerful early on.

My daughter hated writing because she obsessed over page margins and font sizes 
and type.
I suggested blank paper and a pencil and was accused of being insensitive.
My own son always wanted to build things but I always demanded a sketch first, 
he never complied so he now sells things made by others.

By the time I finished a little wooden half model of a boat the bulk of design 
work was over and only then did my crew go to work.
So where was the Model that drove all this effort,,,

I gather you are suggesting that we get used to specifying the type of Model 
with a prefix, not a bad idea, just imagine the chaos if we only
used the term Ball to describe all sports.
vib 


-Original Message-
From: Friam [mailto:friam-boun...@redfish.com] On Behalf Of glen ?
Sent: April-21-17 1:00 PM
To: The Friday Morning Applied Complexity Coffee Group
Subject: Re: [FRIAM] the arc of socioeconomics, personal and public: was VPN 
server

On 04/20/2017 09:45 PM, Vladimyr wrote:
> "If you don't know how to measure it, then you don't know how to model it."
> 
> That statement has the feel of circularity about it.
> It may be quite correct in some cases but it completely fails when a 
> simple predator models the terrain in its brain without a Lufkin tape measure.

Yes, that's very astute.  It does feel circular, doesn't it?  But as we've 
discussed ad nauseum, that doesn't mean it's wrong.  And it does _not_ fail in 
the context of a predator "modeling" terrain.  What fails is the reliance on 
the ambiguity of the much abused word, "model".

--
☣ glen


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

[glen ☣]

On 04/20/2017 09:45 PM, Vladimyr wrote:
> "If you don't know how to measure it, then you don't know how to model it."
> 
> That statement has the feel of circularity about it.
> It may be quite correct in some cases but it completely fails when a simple 
> predator
> models the terrain in its brain without a Lufkin tape measure.

Yes, that's very astute.  It does feel circular, doesn't it?  But as we've 
discussed ad nauseum, that doesn't mean it's wrong.  And it does _not_ fail in 
the context of a predator "modeling" terrain.  What fails is the reliance on 
the ambiguity of the much abused word, "model".

-- 
☣ glen


FRIAM Applied Complexity Group listserv
Meets Fridays 9a-11:30 at cafe at St. John's College
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Re: [FRIAM] the arc of socioeconomics, personal and public: was VPN server

[Vladimyr]

"If you don't know how to measure it, then you don't know how to model it."

That statement has the feel of circularity about it.
It may be quite correct in some cases but it completely fails when a simple 
predator
models the terrain in its brain without a Lufkin tape measure.

Mental models seem to overcome this shortcoming using memory and position 
location 
with no self-awareness of the procedures.

https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2017/04/170420141753.htm
methylation and memory

You may be arguing yourself into a corner.
But then I might be arguing myself through a door-way. 
Pattern comparisons...

vib

-Original Message-
From: Friam [mailto:friam-boun...@redfish.com] On Behalf Of glen ?
Sent: April-19-17 6:38 PM
To: The Friday Morning Applied Complexity Coffee Group
Subject: Re: [FRIAM] the arc of socioeconomics, personal and public: was VPN 
server

On 04/19/2017 04:10 PM, Vladimyr wrote:
> I don't know of any measuring device that operates in these realms.

Exactly.  If you don't know how to measure it, then you don't know how to model 
it.

> You might be able to help with one of my issues,... How to make one object 
> talk to another digitally. I get the collision problem from engineering but 
> not the long range sensing...

No, my robotics skills are extremely limited.  Sorry.

--
☣ glen


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

[glen ☣]

On 04/19/2017 04:10 PM, Vladimyr wrote:
> I don't know of any measuring device that operates in these realms.

Exactly.  If you don't know how to measure it, then you don't know how to model 
it.

> You might be able to help with one of my issues,... How to make one object 
> talk to another digitally. I get the collision problem from engineering but 
> not the long range sensing...

No, my robotics skills are extremely limited.  Sorry.

-- 
☣ glen


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

[Vladimyr]

Glen and the gang,

"measure-dependent concepts like honesty, morality, gullibility, etc. is to 
over-emphasize one small set of measures to the detriment of all the other 
measures and their scopes."

I don't know of any measuring device that operates in these realms. But in 
general a domestic animal may have the same genetic code as the parent stock 
but negative influence can shut off
large chunks of code without actually deleting it through methylation or 
something more subtle. This may appear as a dramatic alteration as in the case 
of Foxes and Dogs.

Resurrecting extinct animals from DNA is problematic knowing some genes that 
are present may have been switched off. In general most vertebrates are 
functionally conservative.
Knowing that we still find great variety.

You will find unexpected results even if you reduce your effort. After that you 
could investigate more elaborate constructs even including entirely new 
abilities never imagined.
So you may be able to solve the measurement problem. Most vertebrates are very 
sensitive to anything looking like eyes in the vision field.

Lower animals already contain the necessary equipment and oxytocin seems to be 
one moderator hormone.

Entirely new genetic material regularly comes from viruses but often kills 
before being accepted. If accepted it is usually hobbled or deactivated, or 
domesticated.

"I don't see my creatures (cells and organs, these days) as very different from 
what you're describing.  While it's true that I tend to use discrete mappings, 
they are almost always hybrids (discretized continuous and discrete event) over 
mixed state spaces (anything from analytical to enumerative types).  Dealing 
with those mixed state spaces means that complications appear early on, I 
suspect much earlier than complications that come with what I call "flat" or 
"thin" models, where all the state spaces _reduce_ to a common, well-defined 
state space (like ℝ⁴).  Because those complications arise early in the 
workflow, that means my "creatures" and the models they compose will almost 
always be simpler than those used in, say, physics-based models.  In fact, it's 
this over-simplification that allows us to model with these ill-defined 
creatures and systems at all."

I  have yet to introduce complete engineering functionality. The spring and 
ball models never struck me as particularly sophisticated. Though they did 
require large hard drives and fast cpu's, but now they are readily available. 

You might be able to help with one of my issues,... How to make one object talk 
to another digitally. I get the collision problem from engineering but not the 
long range sensing...

vib

-Original Message-
From: Friam [mailto:friam-boun...@redfish.com] On Behalf Of glen ?
Sent: April-19-17 4:22 PM
To: The Friday Morning Applied Complexity Coffee Group
Subject: Re: [FRIAM] the arc of socioeconomics, personal and public: was VPN 
server

On 04/18/2017 06:54 PM, Vladimyr wrote:
> Evolution is operating like a skinflint or miser rarely inventing something 
> totally new. At least since cyanobacteria figured out oxygen usefulness.

Ahh, but whether that's true or false hinges on the inherent ambiguity in the 
word "new".  So, I posit you are neither right nor wrong.

> The honest resident of the commons is a defective rogue hampered by social 
> morality or gullibility. A lesser creature , a domestic entity. However he 
> does have one advantage , he can learn how to protect himself if he elects to 
> make an effort. Extract simple parameters from to rogue and amplify only 
> those while muting others and you may find they act in a different manner as 
> another species. Yet they both contain the same code managed slightly 
> differently. I recently wrote some code using Growth Factors that produced 
> dramatically different Object appearance and behavior.

Hm.  Before, you stated that a single bimodal agent (one that only behaves 
honestly when they think they're being observed) could cause chaos in an honest 
collective.  That implies a fairly straightforward toy model+experiment, 
wherein we can look for complex maps from simple mechanisms to complicated 
phenomena.

But now, you're suggesting something much closer to my (conceptual) model of 
organisms: that we're _all_ hypocrites, we're all both hampered by morality or 
gullibility _and_ free to commit any crime then lie about it, to varying 
degrees and over various periods.  In such a model, the most important factors 
are the _measures_, not necessarily any mechanisms or any putative (objective) 
phenomena that might be measured.

The collection of measures, is itself complex and multiscale.  Each component 
(from the tiniest "atom" to the largest sub-collection) has its own set of 
measures.  E.g. cells, organs, individuals, groups, states, nations, 
corporations all sense and respond to their environment.  To focus, as you have 
on the single-scale, measure-dependent concepts like honesty, 

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

[glen ☣]

On 04/18/2017 06:54 PM, Vladimyr wrote:
> Evolution is operating like a skinflint or miser rarely inventing something 
> totally new. At least since cyanobacteria figured out oxygen usefulness.

Ahh, but whether that's true or false hinges on the inherent ambiguity in the 
word "new".  So, I posit you are neither right nor wrong.

> The honest resident of the commons is a defective rogue hampered by social 
> morality or gullibility. A lesser creature , a domestic entity. However he 
> does have one advantage , he can learn how to protect himself if he elects to 
> make an effort. Extract simple parameters from to rogue and amplify only 
> those while muting others and you may find they act in a different manner as 
> another species. Yet they both contain the same code managed slightly 
> differently. I recently wrote some code using Growth Factors that produced 
> dramatically different Object appearance and behavior.

Hm.  Before, you stated that a single bimodal agent (one that only behaves 
honestly when they think they're being observed) could cause chaos in an honest 
collective.  That implies a fairly straightforward toy model+experiment, 
wherein we can look for complex maps from simple mechanisms to complicated 
phenomena.

But now, you're suggesting something much closer to my (conceptual) model of 
organisms: that we're _all_ hypocrites, we're all both hampered by morality or 
gullibility _and_ free to commit any crime then lie about it, to varying 
degrees and over various periods.  In such a model, the most important factors 
are the _measures_, not necessarily any mechanisms or any putative (objective) 
phenomena that might be measured.

The collection of measures, is itself complex and multiscale.  Each component 
(from the tiniest "atom" to the largest sub-collection) has its own set of 
measures.  E.g. cells, organs, individuals, groups, states, nations, 
corporations all sense and respond to their environment.  To focus, as you have 
on the single-scale, measure-dependent concepts like honesty, morality, 
gullibility, etc. is to over-emphasize one small set of measures to the 
detriment of all the other measures and their scopes.

Regardless, though, it's from this measure-dominant understanding of the world 
that I poked Steve about determining the _purpose_ of modeling evolution 
through politics-space prior to entertaining any models at all.  It's a direct 
result of a V approach to modeling.  First determine the purpose.  
Next determine the measures.  Then, and only then consider the amorphous milieu 
of possible mechanisms behind the ontological wall.  This results-driven method 
seemed very strange to the laity prior to the development of test-driven 
software development.  But it's been a mainstay in engineering for maybe 70 
years, now.

> But then they are unlike your creatures.  I use simple functions currently 
> linear and trig since I wish to examine them minutely. By keeping them simple 
> they emulate genetic regulators. 

I don't see my creatures (cells and organs, these days) as very different from 
what you're describing.  While it's true that I tend to use discrete mappings, 
they are almost always hybrids (discretized continuous and discrete event) over 
mixed state spaces (anything from analytical to enumerative types).  Dealing 
with those mixed state spaces means that complications appear early on, I 
suspect much earlier than complications that come with what I call "flat" or 
"thin" models, where all the state spaces _reduce_ to a common, well-defined 
state space (like ℝ⁴).  Because those complications arise early in the 
workflow, that means my "creatures" and the models they compose will almost 
always be simpler than those used in, say, physics-based models.  In fact, it's 
this over-simplification that allows us to model with these ill-defined 
creatures and systems at all.

So, my creatures are probably simpler than yours.  And I would posit they are 
very similar to yours.  Of course, the systems they compose are axiomatic, 
where, because you can rely on a huge body of well-developed (if not 
well-founded!) analytical math, it's probable your _methods_, your workflows, 
are very unlike mine.

-- 
☣ glen


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

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

[Vladimyr]

Glen,

impute? or impune

I had a reputation once... for building complex structures. No matter what the 
object it started with 
much simpler components and complex emerged from many iterations. In my mind 
iterations only baffle
the audience.

Evolution is operating like a skinflint or miser rarely inventing something 
totally new. At least since cyanobacteria figured
out oxygen usefulness.

the rogue actor may be the primitive type, the opportunist. The honest resident 
of the commons is a defective rogue hampered by
social morality or gullibility. A lesser creature , a domestic entity. However 
he does have one advantage , he can learn how to protect himself if he elects 
to make an effort. Extract simple parameters from to rogue and amplify only 
those while muting others
and you may find they act in a different manner as another species. Yet they 
both contain the same code managed slightly differently. I recently wrote some 
code using Growth Factors that produced dramatically different Object 
appearance and behavior.

But then they are unlike your creatures. 

I use simple functions currently linear and trig since I wish to examine them 
minutely. By keeping them simple they emulate genetic regulators. 

From what Owen and you seem to be doing , I find it very intriguing and should 
like to follow.

When you think you are stuck have a drink and revisit your assumptions.

My hunch is that human society has evolved in a haphazard manner till now and 
things will
get better or worse again. Oh well my stay, is expected to be short.
vib



-Original Message-
From: Friam [mailto:friam-boun...@redfish.com] On Behalf Of glen ?
Sent: April-18-17 10:58 AM
To: The Friday Morning Applied Complexity Coffee Group
Subject: Re: [FRIAM] the arc of socioeconomics, personal and public: was VPN 
server


OK.  Sorry.  I mistook your message as suggesting an additional mechanism, 
rather than a plea for simpler models.  In general, I agree that simpler models 
should be falsified before adding mechanisms like the modal one you suggested.  
But, as is obvious with the special sciences like biology, parsimony can be as 
much a bane as a boon.  To unjustifiably impute simplicity can defeat the 
search for solutions.


On 04/17/2017 04:41 PM, Vladimyr wrote:
> Your models are so sophisticated that I barely grasp their intricacies.
> I only offered a suggestion that could possibly reduce your work load.
> In my opinion you ascribe overly complex behavior to very dumb characters.
> 
> At the most primitive level living organisms are predominantly selfish 
> and have little time for the needs of others. Such brutally simplistic 
> organism should be easier to model than the tax-collector on the road to 
> Damascus.
> 
> The Bull_frog is a simple enough creature that never considers consequences. 
> As a child I ate fried frog legs exploring the local forests as well as nuts 
> and berries. The compulsion to attack was easily manipulated to my benefit. 
> 
> Many other creatures also exhibit this type of simple forcing function. I 
> suppose sex is also a simple drive as well. Some creatures are more advanced 
> and will look about before accepting apparently unguarded sustenance. Trap 
> wary animals. Some creatures become trap happy over time.
> 
> The majority of man kind seems appears little more advanced than 
> beasts. Even someone as notorious as Bernie Madoff can be 
> characterized as a simple creature taking advantage of an opportunity.  
> The type of crime is determined by environment of the occupant. So 
> transfer Madoff to a gulag and the crime might change but not the 
> offender's basic motives (which were ever self interest)
> 
> Now take the Bull Frog and increase the population density and what 
> happens... They eat eachother. They will never develop a society. The 
> experiment will always fail. 
> 
> However if the experiment used a Madoff you will get a different 
> result Madoffs care what observers see and will not dine in the open.  In a 
> manner like tiger beetle larvae that lurk in loose sand and wait for 
> footsteps overhead before striking and dining. Considering how predatory they 
> are they live in high densities but never form societies.
> Evolution must find a method to mitigate the savagery of predators before 
> experimenting with socialization. My hunch is neonatany and gullibility. The 
> longer infant dependency , the longer the effects of gullibility. The greater 
> the opportunity for the Madaff's to harvest the herds. So Madoff's start like 
> everyone else but then they revert to something older . They apparently can 
> catalyze the same transformation in their living victims.
> 
> So my impression is that all human beings can revert to lower states 
> throughout life. They just need the correct motivation.
> 
> I used to play a few video games a while back and detected code flaws that 
> emulated the behavior of Bull-Frogs and they already exist to ease your 
> efforts. 

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

[glen ☣]

OK.  Sorry.  I mistook your message as suggesting an additional mechanism, 
rather than a plea for simpler models.  In general, I agree that simpler models 
should be falsified before adding mechanisms like the modal one you suggested.  
But, as is obvious with the special sciences like biology, parsimony can be as 
much a bane as a boon.  To unjustifiably impute simplicity can defeat the 
search for solutions.


On 04/17/2017 04:41 PM, Vladimyr wrote:
> Your models are so sophisticated that I barely grasp their intricacies.
> I only offered a suggestion that could possibly reduce your work load.
> In my opinion you ascribe overly complex behavior to very dumb characters.
> 
> At the most primitive level living organisms are predominantly selfish and 
> have little time for
> the needs of others. Such brutally simplistic organism should be easier to 
> model than the tax-collector on the road to Damascus.
> 
> The Bull_frog is a simple enough creature that never considers consequences. 
> As a child I ate fried frog legs exploring the local forests as well as nuts 
> and berries. The compulsion to attack was easily manipulated to my benefit. 
> 
> Many other creatures also exhibit this type of simple forcing function. I 
> suppose sex is also a simple drive as well. Some creatures are more advanced 
> and will look about before accepting apparently unguarded sustenance. Trap 
> wary animals. Some creatures become trap happy over time.
> 
> The majority of man kind seems appears little more advanced than beasts. Even 
> someone as notorious as Bernie Madoff can be characterized as a simple 
> creature taking advantage of an opportunity.  The type of crime is determined 
> by environment of the occupant. So transfer Madoff to a gulag and the crime 
> might change but not the offender's basic motives (which were ever self 
> interest)
> 
> Now take the Bull Frog and increase the population density and what 
> happens... They eat eachother. They will never develop a society. The 
> experiment will always fail. 
> 
> However if the experiment used a Madoff you will get a different result 
> Madoffs care what observers see and will not dine in the open.  In a manner 
> like tiger beetle larvae that lurk in loose 
> sand and wait for footsteps overhead before striking and dining. Considering 
> how predatory they are they live in high densities but never form societies.
> Evolution must find a method to mitigate the savagery of predators before 
> experimenting with socialization. My hunch is neonatany and gullibility. The 
> longer infant dependency , the longer the effects of gullibility. The greater 
> the opportunity for the Madaff's to harvest the herds. So Madoff's start like 
> everyone else but then they revert to something older . They apparently can 
> catalyze the same transformation in their living victims.
> 
> So my impression is that all human beings can revert to lower states 
> throughout life. They just need the correct motivation.
> 
> I used to play a few video games a while back and detected code flaws that 
> emulated the behavior of Bull-Frogs and they already exist to ease your 
> efforts. A gullible human being has little chance of survival without 
> parents. But if the parents are themselves gullible then the kid will have a 
> tough time. So perhaps parenthood triggers extreme caution specifically to 
> protect their gullible  infants.
> 
> I prefer to think in small steps before building large structures.
> 
> Parenthood may be the first step toward building a simple commons or society, 
> the nest area.

-- 
☣ glen


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

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

[Vladimyr]

Glen,

Your models are so sophisticated that I barely grasp their intricacies.
I only offered a suggestion that could possibly reduce your work load.
In my opinion you ascribe overly complex behavior to very dumb characters.

At the most primitive level living organisms are predominantly selfish and have 
little time for
the needs of others. Such brutally simplistic organism should be easier to 
model than the tax-collector on the road to Damascus.

The Bull_frog is a simple enough creature that never considers consequences. As 
a child I ate fried frog legs exploring the local forests as well as nuts and 
berries. The compulsion to attack was easily manipulated to my benefit. 

Many other creatures also exhibit this type of simple forcing function. I 
suppose sex is also a simple drive as well. Some creatures are more advanced 
and will look about before accepting apparently unguarded sustenance. Trap wary 
animals. Some creatures become trap happy over time.

The majority of man kind seems appears little more advanced than beasts. Even 
someone as notorious as Bernie Madoff can be characterized as a simple creature 
taking advantage of an opportunity.  The type of crime is determined by 
environment of the occupant. So transfer Madoff to a gulag and the crime might 
change but not the offender's basic motives (which were ever self interest)

Now take the Bull Frog and increase the population density and what happens... 
They eat eachother. They will never develop a society. The experiment will 
always fail. 

However if the experiment used a Madoff you will get a different result Madoffs 
care what observers see and will not dine in the open.  In a manner like tiger 
beetle larvae that lurk in loose 
sand and wait for footsteps overhead before striking and dining. Considering 
how predatory they are they live in high densities but never form societies.
Evolution must find a method to mitigate the savagery of predators before 
experimenting with socialization. My hunch is neonatany and gullibility. The 
longer infant dependency , the longer the effects of gullibility. The greater 
the opportunity for the Madaff's to harvest the herds. So Madoff's start like 
everyone else but then they revert to something older . They apparently can 
catalyze the same transformation in their living victims.

So my impression is that all human beings can revert to lower states throughout 
life. They just need the correct motivation.

I used to play a few video games a while back and detected code flaws that 
emulated the behavior of Bull-Frogs and they already exist to ease your 
efforts. A gullible human being has little chance of survival without parents. 
But if the parents are themselves gullible then the kid will have a tough time. 
So perhaps parenthood triggers extreme caution specifically to protect their 
gullible  infants.

I prefer to think in small steps before building large structures.

Parenthood may be the first step toward building a simple commons or society, 
the nest area.
vib



-Original Message-
From: Friam [mailto:friam-boun...@redfish.com] On Behalf Of glen ?
Sent: April-17-17 1:11 PM
To: The Friday Morning Applied Complexity Coffee Group
Subject: Re: [FRIAM] the arc of socioeconomics, personal and public: was VPN 
server


Interesting.  So, just to repeat back, to see if I understand.  Steve wondered 
if there were (a good) model of the evolution of individuals in political state 
space.  I responded that there are lots of (bad) models.  But the more 
important point is _why_ model that evolution (including models of the 
individuals)?  Steve responded that such models might help first comprehend, 
then manipulate.  Then I responded that to make such comprehension and 
manpulation ethical, the models and manipulations must be transparent.

With this post, you're suggesting a specific mechanism of one such model, I 
presume because you think this mechanism will make the model better ... more 
comprehensive.  And that mechanism is:

• 2 behavior modes, the choice of which depends on whether an agent senses its 
being watched • part of the "while they're watching" mode is to construct and 
express a complicated mapping between the two modes • that mapping must hide 
the modality of the behaviors, perhaps only to a 1st order analysis • that 
mapping relies on a set of symbols that are ambiguous (multiple meanings)

Then you go a couple of steps further and suggest that, given some objective 
towards which the collective works, such mappings make reaching the objective 
more difficult, inefficient, or completely impossible.  Without the mappings, 
the objective is more easily reached.

Is my repitition adequate?  Or did I miss an important part of your suggestion?


On 04/14/2017 04:36 PM, Vladimyr wrote:
> Create Agents that only behave honestly when they think they are under 
> observation.
> When they think they have been detected they will weave a 
> rationalization out of standard 

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

[glen ☣]

Interesting.  So, just to repeat back, to see if I understand.  Steve wondered 
if there were (a good) model of the evolution of individuals in political state 
space.  I responded that there are lots of (bad) models.  But the more 
important point is _why_ model that evolution (including models of the 
individuals)?  Steve responded that such models might help first comprehend, 
then manipulate.  Then I responded that to make such comprehension and 
manpulation ethical, the models and manipulations must be transparent.

With this post, you're suggesting a specific mechanism of one such model, I 
presume because you think this mechanism will make the model better ... more 
comprehensive.  And that mechanism is:

• 2 behavior modes, the choice of which depends on whether an agent senses its 
being watched
• part of the "while they're watching" mode is to construct and express a 
complicated mapping between the two modes
• that mapping must hide the modality of the behaviors, perhaps only to a 1st 
order analysis
• that mapping relies on a set of symbols that are ambiguous (multiple meanings)

Then you go a couple of steps further and suggest that, given some objective 
towards which the collective works, such mappings make reaching the objective 
more difficult, inefficient, or completely impossible.  Without the mappings, 
the objective is more easily reached.

Is my repitition adequate?  Or did I miss an important part of your suggestion?


On 04/14/2017 04:36 PM, Vladimyr wrote:
> Create Agents that only behave honestly when they think they are under 
> observation.
> When they think they have been detected they will weave a rationalization out 
> of standard clichés, that appears as if they were honest but mistaken due to 
> ambiguity 
> of language. This prevents honest agents from figuring out what happened.
> Such an agent should cause untold chaos when slipped into any honest 
> collective.
> 
> Over time the collective should disintegrate or be perverted...
> If you can create chaos with only the one kind of pervert imagine if half the 
> population were perverted away from honesty.
> 
> No real need to immerse yourself in a transparent cloak, just sit back and 
> watch.
> 
> vib
> Good luck.
> Then add violent reprisals and you are back to classic game theory... tit for 
> tat.
> 
> These perverts might actually be attempting to evolve into true social 
> parasites. Like Staphylinid beetles in an ant colony.


-- 
☣ glen


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

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

[Vladimyr]

Glen,

Try something else...

Create Agents that only behave honestly when they think they are under 
observation.
When they think they have been detected they will weave a rationalization out 
of standard clichés, that appears as if they were honest but mistaken due to 
ambiguity 
of language. This prevents honest agents from figuring out what happened.
Such an agent should cause untold chaos when slipped into any honest collective.

Over time the collective should disintegrate or be perverted...
If you can create chaos with only the one kind of pervert imagine if half the 
population were perverted away from honesty.

No real need to immerse yourself in a transparent cloak, just sit back and 
watch.

vib
Good luck.
Then add violent reprisals and you are back to classic game theory... tit for 
tat.

These perverts might actually be attempting to evolve into true social 
parasites. Like Staphylinid beetles in an ant colony.

-Original Message-
From: Friam [mailto:friam-boun...@redfish.com] On Behalf Of glen ?
Sent: April-13-17 5:43 PM
To: The Friday Morning Applied Complexity Coffee Group
Subject: Re: [FRIAM] the arc of socioeconomics, personal and public: was VPN 
server

On 04/13/2017 03:06 PM, Steven A Smith wrote:
> 
> Not just because I want to predict their behaviour, I might want to adopt 
> that part of their memome into my own?

Ugh!  Thanks for reminding me why I hate the idea of memes.  The problem me and 
Robert argued about extensively awhile ago is important, here.  Memes are 
unlike genes in a critical way.  Memes are phenomenological.  Genes are 
mechanistic.  So, if we shot a new gene into your genome, it would (maybe) 
generate a trait difference.  But there is no meme gun.  A memome is a 
flat/shallow thing, there's no gen-phen map.  The analogy is so flawed I can't 
think straight.

> The point of me seeking such understandings would be to divert whatever 
> resources I might be using to *blunt* what I *fear* is their efforts to 
> undermine the development and maintenance of a healthy "commons" to increase 
> my own contributions to said commons?

OK.  On my good days, I mostly agree.  But on my evil days, I can't help but 
think that the ethical way to do that would be to build a _transparent_ model 
and be similarly transparent about any attempts to manipulate the trajectory.  
Such transparency is exceedingly difficult and expensive.  And even if you 
could achieve it, you'd be weakened because the red team, not bound by a 
transparency requirement, would probably win.  Indeed, any innovation you 
transparently incorporated in your model and manipulations would immediately be 
co-optable by the red team.  So you'd effectively become the red team's 
unwitting tool.  Your efforts would become evil in your well-intentioned 
attempt to do good.

Is it ethical to be a tool?

> I misread your statement:
> 
> teetering on the edge of social democrat (despite knowing 
> democratic socialism is more coherent)
> 
> to suggest that you held democratic socialism higher (more coherent?) than 
> social democracy and were perhaps aspiring to move on through from the latter 
> to the former?

No, not higher.  Yes, more coherent.  Self-consistency is laudable when 
validation data is lacking, but only then.  Just because democratic socialism 
hangs together in a more rational way does not mean it's a better (more 
real/realistic) political approach.  Social democracy, like neoliberalism, 
allows us to leave some parts of the system alone, especially when we're too 
ignorant to implement a regulatory infrastructure.  The difference is that one 
allows for a kind of ontological pluralism, whereas the other doesn't.

> Very packed paragraph here.   I think you just said you are preferring a 
> democracy which (happens to/naturally) chooses to have a strong social 
> infrastructure?   In the second part, it isn't clear that the Electoral 
> College mitigates us against buffoons "like Trump" since all indications are 
> that the Electoral College actually *preferred* the buffoon over the  .

I said _like_ the Electoral College.  I think we have to change that 
check/balance because it's broken.  But I think it's silly to simply eradicate 
it without thinking about it's purpose and what role it was intended to play.

> I can't help but pull out my soapbox and suggest that "ranked voting" is much 
> more likely to achieve the results than the mere "chunking" of the electoral 
> college which seems very subject to Gerrymandering.

I agree, though it's not clear to me what the implications of it would be.  I'm 
too ignorant.

> I think you are correct, though I think the latter is a great deal more 
> sincere in those sentiments than the latter who might have lost touch with 
> reality on most social issues along the way (albeit nowhere near the level of 
> the extant Buffoon in Chief).

Yes.  Perhaps Clinton ha[sd] lost touch in a way that Sanders had not.  But I 
also think Bernie had 

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

[glen ☣]

On 04/13/2017 03:06 PM, Steven A Smith wrote:
> 
> Not just because I want to predict their behaviour, I might want to adopt 
> that part of their memome into my own?

Ugh!  Thanks for reminding me why I hate the idea of memes.  The problem me and 
Robert argued about extensively awhile ago is important, here.  Memes are 
unlike genes in a critical way.  Memes are phenomenological.  Genes are 
mechanistic.  So, if we shot a new gene into your genome, it would (maybe) 
generate a trait difference.  But there is no meme gun.  A memome is a 
flat/shallow thing, there's no gen-phen map.  The analogy is so flawed I can't 
think straight.

> The point of me seeking such understandings would be to divert whatever 
> resources I might be using to *blunt* what I *fear* is their efforts to 
> undermine the development and maintenance of a healthy "commons" to increase 
> my own contributions to said commons?

OK.  On my good days, I mostly agree.  But on my evil days, I can't help but 
think that the ethical way to do that would be to build a _transparent_ model 
and be similarly transparent about any attempts to manipulate the trajectory.  
Such transparency is exceedingly difficult and expensive.  And even if you 
could achieve it, you'd be weakened because the red team, not bound by a 
transparency requirement, would probably win.  Indeed, any innovation you 
transparently incorporated in your model and manipulations would immediately be 
co-optable by the red team.  So you'd effectively become the red team's 
unwitting tool.  Your efforts would become evil in your well-intentioned 
attempt to do good.

Is it ethical to be a tool?

> I misread your statement:
> 
> teetering on the edge of social democrat (despite knowing democratic 
> socialism is more coherent)
> 
> to suggest that you held democratic socialism higher (more coherent?) than 
> social democracy and were perhaps aspiring to move on through from the latter 
> to the former?

No, not higher.  Yes, more coherent.  Self-consistency is laudable when 
validation data is lacking, but only then.  Just because democratic socialism 
hangs together in a more rational way does not mean it's a better (more 
real/realistic) political approach.  Social democracy, like neoliberalism, 
allows us to leave some parts of the system alone, especially when we're too 
ignorant to implement a regulatory infrastructure.  The difference is that one 
allows for a kind of ontological pluralism, whereas the other doesn't.

> Very packed paragraph here.   I think you just said you are preferring a 
> democracy which (happens to/naturally) chooses to have a strong social 
> infrastructure?   In the second part, it isn't clear that the Electoral 
> College mitigates us against buffoons "like Trump" since all indications are 
> that the Electoral College actually *preferred* the buffoon over the  .

I said _like_ the Electoral College.  I think we have to change that 
check/balance because it's broken.  But I think it's silly to simply eradicate 
it without thinking about it's purpose and what role it was intended to play.

> I can't help but pull out my soapbox and suggest that "ranked voting" is much 
> more likely to achieve the results than the mere "chunking" of the electoral 
> college which seems very subject to Gerrymandering.

I agree, though it's not clear to me what the implications of it would be.  I'm 
too ignorant.

> I think you are correct, though I think the latter is a great deal more 
> sincere in those sentiments than the latter who might have lost touch with 
> reality on most social issues along the way (albeit nowhere near the level of 
> the extant Buffoon in Chief).

Yes.  Perhaps Clinton ha[sd] lost touch in a way that Sanders had not.  But I 
also think Bernie had either lost touch or never had touch of many of the 
things Clinton has mastered, particularly Machiavellian things that may well be 
necessary evils with a bureaucracy this size.  But we've been over all that.

-- 
☣ glen


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

[glen ☣]

On 04/13/2017 12:36 PM, Steven A Smith wrote:
> *I* DO care why someone voted for Trump.  If that someone is someone I know, 
> I am interested in how that factoid (voting for Trump) effects my other 
> dealings with them.   Many anti-Trump folks will virtually excommunicate a 
> friend or colleague for the act of Trump-voting.   I find that in perhaps 20% 
> of my Trump-voting acquaintances that their specific *reasons* make it 
> somewhere between tolerable and honorable for me.   It isn't always arrogance 
> or ignorance or fear-of-crooked-hillary that made them vote for Trump... 

Right, that's what I said.  If you're familiar with a person, you probably do 
care.  I agree.  Actually, I'd go even further.  If I've met a person in meat 
space, then I care.  Those I've only met electronically, then what I know about 
them is so out of context, it would be difficult to even define "care".  (I was 
once called an "online autistic" by a good friend ... perhaps others are not 
like me in this way.)

> I'm not clear what you mean "do I really care why?".  I suppose if the "I" in 
> this sentence is a marketing profiler, then it may not matter, though if you 
> realize they voted for Trump because they think he's a white supremicist  or 
> homophobe or mysogynist, you can then further target them for products, 
> services or memes aligned with those ideals?

Well, sure.  But the point is not the essentialist attribute (homophobic or 
intellectual or whatever).  The point, the purpose, is to predict behavior.  I, 
personally, don't care so much about predicting the behavior of my friends or 
family.  But I do care about their essence.  But if my purpose were behavior 
prediction, then I don't care at all about someone's essence, only whatever 
good enough models allow me the prediction.  A completely wrong model would be 
fine as long as predictions from it work.

> In the arms-race (a biological metaphor would be better, but I think most of 
> those are couched in the military metaphor anyway) of cyber-privacy it seems 
> that "something a bit deeper" will be necessary *soon* if not already.   I 
> hate that we have to go there, but it is part of the larger pattern that 
> requires it I think.

I agree that I _want_ something deeper.  I don't agree that it's necessary 
because we'd have to ask "necessary for what?"  I admit that I'm dying and will 
be dead soon.  If the people younger than me are willing to give up their 
privacy in exchage for whatever it is we're getting, then why would deeper 
privacy methods be necessary?

> I wonder if there is a model of the evolution of individuals in political 
> state-space.

I suspect there are lots of (bad) models out there.  Being a professional 
simulant myself, my question would be: To what ends would such models be put?  
And are those ends ethical?

> I wonder how your self avowed move toward democratic socialism

Whoa, hold the horses, there!  I'm moving toward social democracy, not 
democratic socialism ... different beasts, I think. >8^D

> fits with the implied value of self-governance and autotelism?

I now (not 5 years ago and probably not 5 years hence) believe socialism 
reduces degrees of freedom.  I haven't thought deeply enough to know whether 
anarchism (which kinda implies socialism) escapes that ... i.e. perhaps only 
statist socialism reduces degrees of freedom.  As such, I'm not moving toward 
socialism.  I am moving toward democracy, though.  To whatever extent we must, 
it's reasonable to qualify democracy with socialist infrastructure.  I think 
that's necessary to mitigate against buffoons like Trump _and_ the tyranny of 
the majority that we'd get without something like the electoral college.  So, 
given those extra words, wiggling between neoliberalism and social democracy 
should make sense.  Clinton and Sanders are both social democrats, I think, 
just to differing extents.

> I find that the social media which I only oblique engage in does seem to 
> support a migration of the distribution toward distality.   It is so much 
> easier to keep track of friends distant in time, geography or sociopolitical 
> views than ever, and impersonality of facebookery and twitting seem to 
> *distance* close friends.  "Why did I have to learn on FaceBook that you were 
> pregnant!?" or "You never call, you never write, I have to keep up with you 
> by reading your FaceBewk Posts!  WTF, I thouhgt we were friends!?".

I'm not so sure.  My conception of my meat space friends is colored/augmented 
by cyber space signals.  But the latter don't cause me to spend less time in 
meat space with them.  But, again, maybe most people aren't like me.  How would 
I know?

> yes to all of the above...  My ex sensitized me nicely to noticing any 
> sentence with "Just" in it.   I think you are much more than a 
> hypersensitive, delicate snowflake, which is your charm in my estimation... 
> the foreground AND the background of that statement!

I like to think of