Re: [FRIAM] National Appologies - was "How to avoid shootings"

Nick, et al., I have mixed feelings about the notion of national apologies for long-past events. Who is it that needs to apologize? And who will they apologize to? To stick with your example, what has Obama ever done to Bill Baker (current head of the Cherokee Nation)? I have similar feelings whe

Re: [FRIAM] How to avoid shootings

Russell, et al., In fairness, the Port Arthur shooting was far worse that most such events in the US (I don't want to compare specifically with the current one). Also, Australia's population in 1996 was just not quite 18 million. The population in the US is currently over 314 million. Just looking

Re: [FRIAM] How to avoid shootings

But Jochen... now you are begging the question. Even if it is true, as you argue, that real-life gun training and violent video games cause problems IN TROUBLED TEENS, the obvious conclusion would be to try to produce fewer troubled teens! If you fix that, you don't need to regulate legitimate safe

Re: [FRIAM] The Two Party System

Owen, A math prof here gives good "election year" math club talk and covers Arrow's work. While Arrow is quite correct that: "democracy is mathematically arbitrary." It is also pretty easy to demonstrate that "vote for one person and the plurality wins everything" is the worst option. If you take a

Re: [FRIAM] The Presidential Election

Jochen, I was deep intrigued by the more detailed maps that were produced to go along with the 2008 elections. I suspect Pinker is trying to explain a not real phenomenon (such is often my impression with Pinker, but that's another discussion). Take for example the "purple" graph at the bottom of

Re: [FRIAM] attachment

Your email got through, and Carl had a great comparison with the notion of 'coolness'. Following his suggestion, it seems that you are using 'attachment' and 'detachment' as short hands for caring-about-maintaining-your-attachment and caring-about-dissolving-your-attachment. Both are similar,

Re: [FRIAM] DEBATE about Religion and Atheism - modeling

Well... so much for discussing modeling... Personally, I am not a big fan of the Golden Rule because it implies that everyone should be happy with the same things. It also implies the very arrogant position that what you-in-particular want can be the "should" for everyone else. How about if we tr

Re: [FRIAM] DEBATE about Religion and Atheism - modeling

Steve, This is, of course, the inherent weakness of the socially liberal position*, right? Either you become a hypocrite, or you must agree with your antagonist's right to passionately hate your ideas. The person arguing against you has no such handicap. The cards are thus stacked from the beginnin

Re: [FRIAM] faith/Social Darwinism

Well, of course, the ultimate arrogance of the Social Darwinist/Eugenics movements was the belief that they knew who was "fit", without ever investigating it. So far as I can tell, gang members are, in general, more fit than people in the same immediate environment who are not members of gangs. If

Re: [FRIAM] faith - take 2

The faith discussion seemed to fall apart, but might now be pulling itself back together - hence the slight subject change. One variant of the pragmatic dictum, using James's catchy phrasing, is that "There is no difference that doesn't make a difference." In this particular situation, the there i

Re: [FRIAM] faith

My paper on how the Fed can fix the economy: <http://ssrn.com/abstract=1977688> > Google voice: 747-999-5105 >> Google+: <https://plus.google.com/114865618166480775623/> > >> vita: <http://sites.google.com/site/russabbott/> > >> <http://cs.ca

Re: [FRIAM] faith

But Russ... if you concede Tory's point, then I think you are quite stuck. There are many, many, many people for whom the everyday world contains a divine being... and the everyday world is the everyday world. There are people who train hard to see God surrounding them, and there are people for wh

Re: [FRIAM] faith

le rider. Maybe not the first year, but the longer you maintain "faith" that the other diver will stay in his lane, the more likely it becomes that you won't make it home one night. >> > > > >>I've been riding for 48 years, still alive... >> >

Re: [FRIAM] faith

Since this thread is still going... Curt said: "Faith: that the other drivers will stay on their side of the road. I don't have to track every one exactly." Exactly! It is faith when you stop monitoring the other cars when driving, stop looking at the ground you are about to step on when wa

Re: [FRIAM] Cognition and Calculus, WAS: faith, zombies, and crazy people

Arlo, Yes and no. Yes, that is the general idea: When we start using psychological terms, we are talking about some pattern of action-relative-to-the-world. If that pattern is a function, then any given behavior akin to a point value and/or the derivative at that point depending on how we want to l

Re: [FRIAM] faith, zombies, and crazy people

roblem. That would include math that can adequately deal with discrete and non-discrete aspects, etc., which you point out we would need. Lee, can you give a more skilled plug? On Wed, Sep 19, 2012 06:29 PM, glen wrote: > ERIC P. CHARLES wrote at 09/19/2012 02:54 PM: >> But Glen, w

Re: [FRIAM] faith, zombies, and crazy people

Glen said: In [Sarbajit's example of cult indoctrination], there is still a missing piece between the social comfort brought by the increasing participation in various activities versus some belief ascribed to the cult members. I would posit that a mole/infiltrator could participate in a cult q

Re: [FRIAM] faith, zombies, and crazy people

d have gone straight to the "belief" that drinking would relieve "thirst", but given our current example, it seemed better to get the word "want" involved. On Tue, Sep 18, 2012 11:53 AM, glen wrote: > ERIC P. CHARLES wrote at 09/18/2012 07:46 AM: >> Trying t

Re: [FRIAM] faith, zombies, and crazy people

Trying to be a "sophisticated" Nick: Faith doesn't underlies reality, but it underlies all experience. And by "experience", I mean it underlies all "the way you act and react towards reality". This doesn't give you a "theory of everything", but it might give you a "theory of everything psychologi

Re: [FRIAM] just faith

Sarbajit, Trying to make things succinct, I think the argument Nick is trying to make goes something like this: To act a certain way in a certain situation is to "have a belief." Thus, our lives are full of beliefs, which are variously consistent or inconsistent depending on how you examine our li

Re: [FRIAM] just faith

Nick, I too am interested in Sarbajit's reply, but I can tell you there are developing differences in the U.S. In the current becoming-adults generation there is a growing number of what sociologists have labeled "nones". This is a group that is not religious, but also Atheism is not a particular

Re: [FRIAM] Is my government too big?

bit like thread hijacking to you, but it did not seem so to me at the time. Eric On Sat, Sep 15, 2012 07:32 PM, Roger Critchlow wrote: > > >>On Sat, Sep 15, 2012 at 8:24 AM, ERIC P. CHARLES <<#>> wrote: > >Roger, >Two points: > >2) I don't think >anyo

Re: [FRIAM] faith, zombies, and crazy people

Glen of course the next step in a discussion like this is for someone to ask you what evidence you have that any actual thing has more "actor status" than a thermostat. Answering this questions adequately requires 1) taking into account the complexity of what a thermostat accomplishes and 2

Re: [FRIAM] Is my government too big?

Roger, Two points: 1) Being a third party kind of guy, with no particular loyalty for or against Obama (though keeping a healthy fear of Romney), I share Owen's frustration at Obama's inability/unwillingness to clearly articulate his successes. His overall record includes a surprising number of ma

Re: [FRIAM] PRES12_WTA Prospectus - The University of Iowa

Doug, As an adamant atheist, this is still low on my list of reasons to dislike Romney. No one has really talked about what Bain Capital does - I have nothing against raising money, but he should not be allowed to claim . Also, the idea that h

Re: [FRIAM] PRES12_WTA Prospectus - The University of Iowa

Steve, I would be tempted to agree with you if he (and his party, and his campaign) didn't keep saying other things instead. He is in the process of organizing a several hundred million dollar media blitz. Why not say some simple and straightforward things about what you actually accomplished?

Re: [FRIAM] Celebrating the Higgs - explaning and predicting

Steve, Interesting paper, but I'm not sure if I follow. The basic argument seems to be that we often explain things by imagining (with the help of statistics) hypothetical constructs that cannot be directly measured. As those constructs can't be measured directly, they don't help us predict things.

Re: [FRIAM] atmospherics

As, oddly, no one seems to have mentioned it yet... I'm pretty sure that air does separate. Am I wrong to think that "air" at a high enough altitude is mostly hydrogen? So the question is not what keeps it from separating, but what keeps it from separating more fully... right? Eric On Wed, Jun

Re: [FRIAM] Unsolved Problems in Psychology

I don't think this posted before, apologies if it is a duplicate: I'm pretty sure the cause of this physics tangent was my assertion that psychology is no worse off than any of the hard sciences in the "unsolved problems" department. Hence, if we think physicists and chemists and biologists have s

Re: [FRIAM] Unsolved Problems in Psychology

ely low level. >> >> >-- >Russ > > > > >>On Thu, May 17, 2012 at 6:30 PM, ERIC P. >CHARLES <<#>> >wrote: > > >>Arlo, I agree completely about the process point. > >I was a bit less >certain when you said, "something

Re: [FRIAM] Unsolved Problems in Psychology

Arlo, I agree completely about the process point. I was a bit less certain when you said, "something difficult about psychology is that much of the data has to be collected through someone else - those [people] involved in the study" I assume you would consider a person to be part of the physica

Re: [FRIAM] Unsolved Problems in Psychology

ave that wrong. Truth is >what wouldn’t come undone, but, of course, we never live to be sure that >that’s what we got. > >N > >From: friam-boun...@redfish.com [mailto:friam-boun...@redfish.com] On Behalf Of >Carl Tollander >Sent: Wednesday, May 16, 2012 10:16 PM >To: ERIC P. CHAR

Re: [FRIAM] Unsolved Problems in Psychology

Carl, My guess is that Nick can't play the game to anyone's satisfaction in the order you proposed. He could go down that road, but it will digress endlessly and readers will become sad. The only way to have things stay on topic is for someone to propose things until they find one Nick thinks has b

Re: [FRIAM] Unsolved Problems in Psychology

That sounds like a fun game. Putting my predictor's hat on, I think that you will need three classes of judgment: 1) That problem is solved. 2) That problem is not solved. 3) That question is ill-formed, and hence is not a potentially-solvable problem in its present form. Eric P.S. Since it is

Re: [FRIAM] Unsolved Problems in Psychology

Jochen, As an indirect answer to your question: One reason why physics, chemistry, and biology seem to be largely complete and self-contained fields is through the progressive banishment of the magical explanations for their phenomenon. There are many traditions in psychology which have, to a great

Re: [FRIAM] The disappearing virtual library

Given the rapid advancement in digital publishing opportunities over the past few years, I'm not sure exactly how much more difficult this is for a "lesser known" scientist. The conversion of LaTeX to ebook problem remains, but if you are in a field that does not need carefully-formatted specialize

Re: [FRIAM] Fwd: The disappearing virtual library - Opinion - Al Jazeera English

A sociology colleague and I have been working on a project related to PowerPoint use in the classroom, specifically looking at professor's use of citations in their classroom presentations. Aside from our project getting a good rise out of our colleagues, it is legitimately anticipating an upcoming

[FRIAM] Peirce and belief, etc.

Russ stated: Normal 0 false false false EN-US X-NONE X-NONE

Re: [FRIAM] Faith vs. Induction

nsult symbolic recipes when we want >guidance for what to do next when the decisions is far more complex >than normal naive induction. > >> >> >> > >-- Russ >Abbott >_> Professor, Computer Science > California

Re: [FRIAM] So, *Are* We Alone?

But Russ, come on now. To 'have faith' is nothing other than 'to act as if it was the case'. Thus, if we act as if induction is the case, we have faith in induction. If I see that someone routinely relies on induction when trying to figure things out, and I have seen that he acts with confidence

Re: [FRIAM] online privacy (again)

Bob, I'm not the expert on internet rules and regulations by any means... but... I think this situation is a bit different. In particular, hasn't it always been the case that most everything you do on the web is, in some important sense, public. You have an IP number, you go through shared servers

Re: [FRIAM] So, *Are* We Alone?

Nick says: "what is this thing about INTELLLIGENT life? Isn’t all life intelligent? " Yes. Nick, you are correct, there is a bit of sloppiness going on here, but it is a common sloppiness and I suspect the term is well understood in context. When people talk about finding 'intelligent life' on a

[FRIAM] Clarifying Induction Threads

Owen, As I understand it: Doug announced his ordination. After a bit of banter, Doug made some generalizations about religious and non-religious people based on his past experience but... the ability to draw conclusions from past experience is a bit philosophically mysterious. The seeming contr

Re: [FRIAM] Just as a bye-the-way

Glen, There is good reason to exclude the middle though. I am uncomfortable with the non-right-or-wrong options you have given. To me, it seems that an argument can only be correct if it specifies the circumstances under which it is correct (when the intended circumstances are "always", we often do

[FRIAM] Induction

While we wait for Doug... The problem with induction is that the only good evidence for it is that several times in the past we have used the inductive method and it has worked. If you really gathered all the evidence, you would see such a strong trend that the logical conclusion would seem inevit

Re: [FRIAM] TEDEducation - YouTube

A timely cover story in this week's Chronicle of Higher Education, "A Boom Time for Education Start-Ups". It suggests reasons both why the start-ups are happening, and why people are investing in them: I think it is open access, but

Re: [FRIAM] FW: See this?

I'm trying to wrap my head around this. Perhaps the problem is that Wilson is renouncing the one big thing that made his career. Without sociobiology, Wilson would have been remembered within the field as a competent ant biologist, and would not be known outside the field at all. But with sociobiol

[FRIAM] FW: New "Data-Intensive Research" competition

An intriguing message from my NSF program officer, regarding a grant opportunity probably relevant to many on the FRIAM list: Forwarded Message From: "Tuller, Betty K." Date: Thu, Feb 23, 2012 09:41 AM Subject: New "Data-Intensive Research" competition To: "Tulle

[FRIAM] FW: Re: Friam Digest, Vol 104, Issue 9

Benny, The first quote is the only one I think is from me. To clarify: When you say that the phenomenon is "reading gibberish", then it seems like it might be a skill. However, if you phrase it as a failure to distinguish gibberish from properly written words, or as mistaking gibberish for properl

Re: [FRIAM] YES

Since people are replying about the scrambled-word message I will continue to stress that these "skills", while interesting, are the opposite of impressive. Under virtually any other circumstances, the ability to carefully discriminate things is considered a "higher" ability, a sign of more s

Re: [FRIAM] SOPA URLs

Owen, To shift slightly... Aren't there conflicting metaphors here? How can something be free, and yet be a marketplace? In marketplaces people are orderly, follow the rules, pay for things, etc. The idea of a "free marketplace of ideas" is inherently contradictory. Either it is an anarchy, or it

Re: [FRIAM] Theory, and Why It's Time Psychology Got One

d quickly notice if a lab made a habit of publishing non-replicable data. On Sun, Nov 13, 2011 07:35 PM, Roger Critchlow wrote: > > > >>On Sat, Nov 12, 2011 at >7:29 PM, ERIC P. CHARLES <<#>> wrote: > >> > >Roger, >You are correct that it

Re: [FRIAM] Theory, and Why It's Time Psychology Got One

Heh, :- ) Much of the problems in modern psychology arose, historically, because people studying the "physical sciences" thought they could escape the problems of dualism by foisting them off onto psychology. But use of scientific instruments in no way escapes the "subjective" "objective" problem,

Re: [FRIAM] Theory, and Why It's Time Psychology Got One

itics, then perusing his Metaphors We Live By. >Will the 3 books above provide a basic understanding of Embodied Cognition, even though >they appear to be oriented to Philosophy as opposed to psychology? > >I read Dr Dennett's Consciousness Explained back in 1997 and came to accept th

Re: [FRIAM] Theory, and Why It's Time Psychology Got One

Doug, don't fret. The answer to Jochen's question is "Yes, it is about friggin time we get a good theory", and Andrew and Sabrina's blog is an excellent source of ideas for improving psychology. Recently Andrew's blog has been getting attention from other excellent professionals, including a Scie

Re: [FRIAM] 99%, occupyWallStreet, Santa Fe, etc.

ing scapegoated. > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > >At least Pontius Pilot tried to wash his own hands. > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > >Vladimyr Ivan Burachynsky PhD >

Re: [FRIAM] strong mind test...:Michael Barron: Rich Murray 2011.11.04

Is this a strong-mind test or a weak-mind test? One might assume that a stronger mind would "see the world as it really is" or something like that. One might similarly assume that a weak mind would be "fooled" by something like this. The message claims that it is an impressive human achievement to

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

To deviate a touch, and head a bit back towards a past thread... how many of us are there left who use their different devices for different purposes? I like that my computer at work has totally different bookmarks than my laptop, which has totally different bookmarks than my cell phone... because

[FRIAM] simulating group membership [was 99%, occupyWallStreet]

es, and of course there are multiple groups with competing, occasionally dynamic membership criteria and membership itself is fuzzy. > > On 10/27/11 8:32 PM, ERIC P. CHARLES wrote: > >Gillian, > H trying to put my e

Re: [FRIAM] 99%, occupyWallStreet, Santa Fe, etc.

Gillian, H trying to put my evolutionary psychology hat on, and feeling like I am not doing it quite as well as I should Humans ARE "programed" to do things for the good of their groups. The question then is: How do we get people to feel as if they are part of a group? and How do we ge

Re: [FRIAM] Next Dictator

Two thoughts, 1) This is also part of the magic that happens when companies "match" retirement investments, rather than simply paying you more money. The idea of a proper savings account went out the door, and instead money that should have been saved went into artificially inflating stock prices.

Re: [FRIAM] Capturing Tweets

Nick, Did anyone ever try to answer your question? My guess is that they are trying to do something fairly simple, like comparing the number of people who tweet "Go Obama!" vs. the number who tweet "F*@% Obama!". If that is not what "sentiment analysis" meant, I would be very interested in knowing

Re: [FRIAM] [sfx: Discuss] Lessig & OccupyBoston

But there is a real weirdness about many of the protesters. Captured very well with this image: It's as if these people know what they are fighting, but have no clue how to fight it. Ghandi got people to hand weave clo

Re: [FRIAM] Google Correlate

The comic book documentation is actually pretty good. It was formed out of the original idea that one could predict outbreaks of sickness by tracking things like searches for medicine. This makes sense (and works pretty well). That admitted, given a sufficient number of variables, many, many th

friam@redfish.com

; > > > > > >And what about hero Gibson’s use of the term? Doesn’t he refer to “information pickup” as if the physical relation between two thing constitutes knowledge about the one provided by the other? > > > > > > > > > > > &g

friam@redfish.com

Bruce says: Until the ("sound" or "mechanical") wave in the slinky propagates down to lower parts of the hanging slinky, there is no reason/cause for the lower parts of the slinky to change position, and they don't. And as long as the lower parts of the slinky are stretched, they will continue to s

friam@redfish.com

Below are links to some science videos nifty for two reasons. 1) They ask and answers a pretty cool question: What happens when you hold a slinky out at shoulder height, so it is extended down (the bottom still off the ground) and you let go. Think about it for a second. How does the top part of

Re: [FRIAM] Americans Elect 2012 | The first direct presidential nomination

Russ I agree with you completely, though I'm not sure a president who doesn't do anything is the worst-case scenario. A third party run for president will not be able to do much without a third party assault on congressional incumbents. One of the worst things in American politics right now, in m

Re: [FRIAM] Why Neutrinos are important

Space would replicate itself at each timestep, and time would be linked to the replication rate of the universe. Particles somehow emerge from spacetime in this replication process. I have not read the papers Marcus mentioned, maybe they contain some interesting hints. >> > >>Jochen

Re: [FRIAM] Why Neutrinos are important

Interesting ideas! I'm not sure what would have to be true for the evolution metaphor to make sense, however. Certainly the world is changing, but to say that particles are 'evolving' is a more narrow claim. As I understand the metaphor, at least two things would have to be true that I know next to

Re: [FRIAM] Mind-Body (was: The Psychology Of Yogurt)

ges can/should we make to "heal" such a person? >3) What is the personhood status of a fetus? A comatose patient? A >brain-dead patient? > >These aren't just "little mysteries", as you so belittle them. They >are >instances of the mind-body problem wi

Re: [FRIAM] Mind-Body (was: The Psychology Of Yogurt)

wrote: > >If the mind-body problem is solved, we can say how the mind emerges from the body, i.e. from the interactions of billions of neurons and joghurt cells. Can we? > > >>-J. > >Sent from Android > > > > "ERIC P. CHARLES" wrote: > > >&

[FRIAM] Mind-Body (was: The Psychology Of Yogurt)

Nick, In his last paper, "William James as a Psychologist," Holt tells us that the William James was never one to shun contradictions, and that the one outstanding contradiction in psychology is: The mind seems dependent upon the body, while the mind also seems independent of the body. Traditiona

Re: [FRIAM] Fwd: The Psychology Of Yogurt

Nick, I have been thinking recently about trying to write a short story. It would start with a version of Daniel Dennet's wonderful brain-in-a-vat. It would be a story of a valiant man who volunteered for the procedure; he volunteered for his love of science and the deep impact it would have on the

Re: [FRIAM] Academic papers are hidden from the public. Here’s some direct action. ? Bad Science

Owen, There was a lot of interesting back and forth on one of the history of psychology lists a few weeks ago regarding JSTOR. They have (and they claim they generously have) recently made all papers pre-1923 open access. This is clearly a boon to anyone interested in the history of any academic fi

Re: [FRIAM] Rich Murray added you to Clark University on Academia.edu

Speaking as a young academic, it is no one but the old academics who keep in place the stranglehold of academic journals as the sole means of professional communication. Not the ancient academics, mind you... so Nick, you are off the hook ;- ) At this point, the only barrier to communication among

Re: [FRIAM] vol 98 issue 22

Peggy, Very good points. I realize my answer to Owen might have given the impression that Psychology had nothing that could serve as a solid foundation. Not so. If I believed there was nothing available for a foundation, I would have titled the blog somethings like "Time to abandon psychology". The

Re: [FRIAM] datum vs. data

Glen, I have this problem too, but before your post had not thought about how localized a problem it is. Having thought about this for a few days, I have a hypothesis you might find more satisfying: The reason you often use 'data' as a singular noun is because you are often referring to (or thinki

Re: [FRIAM] The myth of knowledge

Forwarded to list at Owen's request... Owen, I'll meditate on a more thorough answer, but the quick one is: Yes, psychology is "fragmented in the sense of having little or no basis upon which psychologists agree." The original umbrella organization, the American Psychological Association now has 5

Re: [FRIAM] The myth of knowledge

ence, or History of Science, or xx? >> > >>We need at least a trailer .. maybe the first post was it? >> > >>-- Owen > >>On Thu, Aug 18, 2011 at 6:03 PM, ERIC P. CHARLES <<#>> wrote: >Shameless plug: I have started a academically-oriente

Re: [FRIAM] The myth of knowledge

t;bike) and some things expressible knowledge (which we can teach, >like nuclear physics)? Is it a physiological problem between muscle >memory, the spinal cord, and the thing we call the brain? > > > Robert C ><http://www.cirrillian.com> > > >

[FRIAM] The myth of knowledge

Shameless plug: I have started a academically-oriented blog. I suspect my most recent post, on '', is relevant to many of the discussions that I have been part of on this list, and will be of interest to at least a few people here. I now return you to your r

Re: [FRIAM] Europe: 2 questions

Yes, but... economic issues aside... there was a greater risk in the European mission of ultra-multiculturalism than many appreciated. If you want to be a great, open democracy, you take the risk that one day enough religious Muslims will move to your country that they can democratically enact shar

Re: [FRIAM] Europe: 2 questions

Glen, Excellent observation at the end. I don't know much about the human data (is there an anthropologist in the house?), but for every non-human primate species I know of, and most other mammals, either males disperse from their childhood groups, or females disperse. To have members of both sexes

Re: [FRIAM] Europe: 2 questions

Owen, My understanding of European 'Multiculturalism' - gained through many discussions with European colleagues - is that it has all of the vices of the old US 'separate but equal', with none of the virtues. That is, there is no real caveat for 'equal' and no real caveat for 'separate'. The MC ex

Re: [FRIAM] The Theory That Would Not Die -

Russ, Very nice calculations. It would have taken me quite a while to figure it out. Thanks! Tom, Interesting article. At the end though, I think the review's author misses the point of why Bayes theorem was so controversial amongst the 'frequents' (which suggests the book's author might have miss

Re: [FRIAM] Deriving quantum theory from information processing axioms

Russ, That was actually a very good article! I remain amongst those skeptical that one can really test the theory, but it is nice to see the theory explained such a straightforward way, and to know there are people making solid attempts to test it. One major cop-out / overtly-overstated-claim tho

Re: [FRIAM] [sfx: Discuss] iClarified - Apple News - Amazon Launches Textbook Rentals for the Kindle

Bruce, Very nice! For these and several other reasons, electronic formats might just save the textbook. They also offers the possibility to undercut the used book market - which 1) drives the continuous worthless revisions, 2) makes it very difficult for publishers to take a risk on a textbook with

Re: [FRIAM] Uncertainty vs Information - redux and resolution

That is potentially fascinating. However, it is not terribly interesting to state that we can establish a conservation principle merely by giving a name to the absence of something, and then pointing out that if we start with a set amount of that something, and take it away in chunks, then the amou

Re: [FRIAM] What philosophers do

I did not read all of the explosion of posts about philosophy (I was at a conference when it happened), but... This is a very limited view of what it is that Philosophers do. One of the main points to come out of the American Philosophical tradition is the notion that philosophy must continuously

Re: [FRIAM] Experiment and Interpretation

This conversation has been fascinating. I cannot help but think that various poster's instructions to those interested - that those interested need several years of graduate study, etc. - are clearly a cop out. It is possible that I missed some crucial step of the conversation somewhere, but I this

Re: [FRIAM] Experiment and Interpretation

Sarbajit, I believe that for the purposes of some types of learning, Nick would consider that a form of "fiddling." Certainly I would. This is most obvious if you are trying to find out what would happen if you sit under the boddhi tree by yourself for a while. However, it is presumably an appropri

Re: [FRIAM] "thought experiments"

Lee, Not an answer, but more grist to the mill: Interestingly, if we believe in the cartesian theatre, then your points hold better - In a world in which I have perfect knowledge of my own mind, it should be impossible to perform a thought experiment, because I could never get a result that was n

Re: [FRIAM] The Uncertainty Tax

I am not an expert on economics by any means, but there are some economic arguments I think I understand, including the uncertainty argument. What follows will be a somewhat sloppy mix of psychology and economics: When people - individual consumers, investors, business owners, etc. - are uncertai

Re: [FRIAM] The Uncertainty Tax

Russ, The uncertainty arguments definitely have merit. Overly-confident people spend money like crazy and keep very little savings (in more sane times they were called "manic", now they are called "middle class"). Even mildly-worried people spend carefully and have savings (in more sane times they

Re: [FRIAM] Quote of the week

I think Tom is right that the path to solving mysteries like this is often to look outward rather than inward. Part of the point of William James's somewhat mysterious "Stream of Consciousness" expositions was to point out that at the most basic level experience is a unified whole -> i.e. the exper

Re: [FRIAM] On Apps and Browsers

Thoughts on Apps vs. Web Apps / Apple approach vs. Google approach Apple seems definitely on the right track with the iCloud, but I think, as Owen's email points out, that is because they are rapidly adapting to the new hardware ecology. In a world where everyone has one or two computers, full fun

Re: [FRIAM] The stopping rule

ond > >number determines whether the third number will be larger or smaller > >than the first. > > > >Shawn >> >> >> > > >On Thu, Jun 9, 2011 at 9:09 AM, ERIC P. CHARLES <<#>> wrote: > >> Sarbajit, > >> Great p

Re: [FRIAM] The stopping rule

pply to random numbers - which are evenly distributed ie. "flat". > >Sarbajit > > >>On Thu, Jun 9, 2011 at 5:46 PM, ERIC P. CHARLES <<#>> wrote: > >>Ok, I'm a bad person for not reading the cited paper, but I was thinking >about problem late

Re: [FRIAM] The stopping rule

Ok, I'm a bad person for not reading the cited paper, but I was thinking about problem late last night. I keep thinking that we need to make assumptions about the distribution (regarding bounds and shape), but then I can't figure out a combination of assumptions that really seems necessary. This is

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