11 American Nations

[Steve Smith]

Ray -

While I appreciate your recipe for re-deriving similar results to Woodard's 11 Nations independently, I think Stephen and I were asking for your own critique of the one on the table.  If I understand your title of "Conscilient Heuretician" I can see why you went to answering as you did.

You suggested this model was tainted by Woodard's cultural bias.  I certainly believe that his *presentation* of it reflects a political bias which might be rooted in a cultural bias if we share the same distinction.  I don't doubt that there are aspects of his research that went into building this model that were tainted by Woodard's cultural biases (of which I know little).  I suppose I could read his book to find out if he introspects at all in it on the surprises he found in his research.

I was just curious about others' specific reactions to the general layout (is it compelling?  does it fit your own anecdotal experience?) and to any specifics (how does it align with your own identity/affinities?  Does it reinforce or debunk stereotypes you hold about others?) and lastly is it useful (does it inspire acceptance or understanding of a heretofore dismissed or antagonistic group to you?  can you understand behaviours in others that you previously had to discount or ignore? could it help you form alliances you previously thought impossible?).  I was also hoping that others knew of similar but different alternative (yet rich) models of this nation and it's geopolitical regions.

Or as Doug suggests, perhaps I am just "thinking about thinking" here to no effect.

The SPEME algorithm works for historical analysis by looking at multiple sources (primary, secondary, et cetera) and placing the person within those spectrums.  Once you have the sources placed within those spaces (and they are spaces, not just ranges), one can look at their differences and see if those are observational or cultural (i.e. did one person only see the war events from limited perspective or does he have a cultural bias about the warring parties).  Only then do you have a chance at understanding what was probably the reality - if you can keep your cultural biases out of the process.

As for the "good enough" issue - I think it is possible for ordinary individuals to duplicate the 11 nations work using other methods if they are willing to put in the non-trivial effort.  You could use free or low-cost resources at either Amazon or Microsoft to pull in all of the data one considers relevant from the WWW, run it through MapReduce (preferably using an abstraction language), and generate analyses.  Finding like-minded individuals would distribute the load.  The Internet and WWW make this possible - before them, only an academic with access to a lot of source material could have done it.  Likewise, only like-minded academics would have found each other and distributed the work load.  Now, like-minded ordinary individuals can find each other via the Internet and WWW.  This is part of the major current phenomenon of our time - the gradual shift of what used to require large, communal resources to the possibility of being done by individuals.

LIbrary science is driven by categorization and customers - what doesn't the library have and what will the library patrons demand.  I'm sure there are many librarians who think the works of Will and Ariel Durant are substandard - but their libraries have those books.  BTW, I personally like their work for the breadth and, if one considers the background of the authors, the books can be used with that grain of salt.

Ray Parks

Consilient Heuristician/IDART Program Manager

V: 505-844-4024  M: 505-238-9359  P: 505-951-6084

NIPR: [hidden email]

SIPR: [hidden email] (send NIPR reminder)

JWICS: [hidden email] (send NIPR reminder)

On Nov 11, 2013, at 11:13 AM, Stephen Thompson wrote:

Ray:

Thanks for the resources to investigate.  This will take a bit of time. 

However, at what point do you say "I don't have the time to duplicate or generate my own
research to derive a model similar to 11 Nations"?  We can not all be experts in everything.  At
some point we must depend on others to have done a "reasonably" objective job of creating
their model. 

I don't know of a formal rubric / algorithm / process by which one critiques scholarly works
from outside the field.  I am sure such tools exist.  It looks like you are showing one below. 

I wonder if there is such a process taught in Library Science?  Do such folks need to critique
books as they are published as to the efficacy of adding them to the local collection?

StephT 

On 11/11/2013 11:40 AM, Parks, Raymond wrote:

I would analyze this using the algorithm I learned from my history teacher in high school - Social, Political, Economic, Moral, Emotional - drawing on openly available information from the World-Wide Web.  In some ways, this is a big data exercise, albeit drawing from previous big data sources.

============================================================
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 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

[Arlo Barnes]

I also was happy I spent much of last weekend not on my computer, for once.

Anyway, I can't accept determined attributes as being something worthy
of pride.  Enter the "free will" -- for individuals -- and "stigmergy"
-- for collectives -- debate(s).  What attributes can we really be proud
of and what do we chalk up as hysteretic?

 I do not really know enough about hysteresis to understand this analogy, but I think this might be a conflation of meanings within the English language. This kind of confusion happens pretty often, see my notes on 'expect' below. Pride can either mean a claim to competency ("look at this vase I made, I am proud of it") or general approval associated with identity ("I am proud of the Aerican Empire / Free & Open Source movements / city council although most of the contributions to these efforts were not by me, because they do good things that I am in some small way a part of").

Similarly, what can we _expect_ from those around us without seeming
"spoiled and usurious"?  Even the most John Wayne style individualist
(self sufficient, yet generous, honorable, naively respectful, etc.)
will end up disrespecting her environment (people and things) because
individualism is ... bullsh!t, to put it nicely.

I have only seen a couple of John Wayne movies (sounds like that is representative though, just kidding) but as I recall his characters 1) shoot and punch people 2) sometimes just for fun, and 3) have been injured and relied on help. He does not seem like the epitome of low impact living to me.

So, one not only
should we have expectations, we _must_ in order to fully understand
symbiosis.

 There are many ways that biological symbiosis is different from social symbiosis, but I think in both the usual sense of 'expectation' does not apply ("I expect you'll be leaving on the 12:00 train, then", "You failed to meet expectations, Bob, we will have to let you go", "Welcome welcome welcome, to the land of expectations, to the land of expectations, to the land [...]").

If a clownfish fails to ward off predators and parasites from a sea anemone, the anemone is not going to say "What the heck man, we had a deal" and withdraw it's protection, it is just going to continue what it was doing. Of course, if it dies from parasitism and predation, the clownfish has one less anemone to hide in. This is why not only biological forms can evolve, but also ecosystemic patterns. The point is, symbiosis is not exactly governed by consent, but by mutual opportunism. Each partner takes what it wants/needs (there is really more of a gradient than a strong distinction), and can afford to give a little. It is generalised reciprocity: An individual or species realises that if there are such-and-such defenses and offenses here, and not there in order to save on the cost of specialisation, then on average they tend to do alright.
So I think rather than having social conventions about how much we should trust people (or how much we think people should trust us), trust should be an analytic endeavour: we can use best practices in prediction, such as they are, to try to guess what a more-or-less safe approach to a given interaction would be, based off past patterns of activity, theories about behaviour, and so on.

(That reminds me of the continuing increase in narcissism
scores of college students.  Oddly, as civilization progresses,
entitlement progresses... funny that.)  What should we expect, if not
lives better, richer, more luxurious, more relaxing, than our parents'?

This trend seems unsustainable, as there is no such thing as infinite luxury, wealth, and relaxation. We should instead set some ulterior goal (whatever you want, be it development of a field like technology or art, or observation / replication of the universe) and then remove poverty, discomfort, and stress where they impede completion of this goal to the extent needed. I feel it would be much more beneficial to the species and planet as a whole for someone else to be assured of a source of meals than for me to have access to more technology. If we can do both, great (sometimes these things can leapfrog).

-Arlo James Barnes

============================================================
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

[Parks, Raymond]

Actually, I was noting the East-coast (maybe bi-coastal) biases.  Like the New York Times I mentioned in my algorithm email, there is a tendency to gloss over differences that don't appear to be big from the distance of folks like the author.  Another example, besides the Hispanic lumping, is that he attributes mixed voting patterns in the Midwest to social moderation rather than conflict between economic and moral interests.  Archie Bunker still exists in the Midwest (or at least his descendants) espousing both conservative and liberal views simultaneously.  Conservative because he/she (Archie/Archette?) believes in gun rights, religion, and other socially conservative issues but liberal because he/she knows that unions are economically important to their welfare.  That, by the way, may be another source of data for the analysis - union membership (possibly down to the individual union) in geographic regions.

The lumping of geographic diversity into 11 sub-nations also ignores niche cultures that have a disproportional effect on their surroundings.  Dan Arielly notes in _Predictably_Irrational_ that people tend to make decisions that are more "moral" if they are reminded of the Ten Commandments just before making that decision.  Groups like Mennonites, Amish, and Quakers in the Midwest tend to remind their neighbors of traditional values out of proportion to their numbers.

Native Americans have a disproportional presence in some professions, including the military and construction.  Hispanics in general, but particularly those several generations from immigration or occupation, tend to have a disproportional presence in the military - so much that they make the military's average height slightly shorter and average weight slightly greater.

Another example of bi-coastal bias is the concatenation of much of Texas into Greater Appalachia while separating eastern New Mexico from West Texas.  I would attribute this to a lack of historical and regional knowledge.  In the Tufts magazine article, Woodard states "It was with the Union in the Civil War."  That is clearly erroneous - Texas was part of the CSA, as was Missouri, Arkansas, Tennessee, Virginia, and North Carolina.  Not only that, Nortenos are centered on the Rio Grande Valley - while eastern New Mexico was partitioned between Nueva Mexico and Tejas, neither really had any use for it.  Nowadays, eastern New Mexico is clearly more closely related to west Texas than to the rest of New Mexico.  Woodard's map would indicate that Congressional District 2 should be Democratic but it remains staunchly Republican, like it's Texas neighbors.

All of these considerations are glossed over by an author who assesses the 11 sub-nations by his own culture and politics.  Actually, now that I look at the Tufts article, I realize that Woodard's descriptions have as much bases as a typical astrology breakdown.  The description of Yankeedom is laughable if one knows history.  The extent of Yankeedom is just as silly - Wisconsin, Michigan, Minnesota and North Dakota have little to do, culturally and ethnically, with New England.  Woodard also doesn't know the history of Pennsylvania - William Penn was a Quaker and he welcomed others, but he also welcomed Mennonites and Amish, who eventually outnumbered the Society of Friends.  I highly doubt that the entire South was founded by English slave lords from Barbados.  Some of the excess English population from Barbados moved to Carolina - but I doubt they were "slave lords".  In fact, Carolina's Lord Proprietors included Anthony Ashley Cooper, a patron of John Locke, who was the most involved in early Carolina.  This reflects Woodard's prejudice against the South.  The whole concept is rife with revisionist history intended to support the areas most friendly to the author's political views while denigrating the areas least friendly to his views.

The cultural demography of the US is not that simple - there are contradicting patterns everywhere and cultures are not necessarily adjacent.

Ray Parks

Consilient Heuristician/IDART Program Manager

V: 505-844-4024  M: 505-238-9359  P: 505-951-6084

NIPR: [hidden email]

SIPR: [hidden email] (send NIPR reminder)

JWICS: [hidden email] (send NIPR reminder)

On Nov 10, 2013, at 7:54 PM, Steve Smith wrote:

ST -

Ouch.  Its uncomfortable when you hold up a description of America....by making us look in the mirror.

Ol' Pogo was right. (We have met the enemy and he is ...).  Rant away, my good man.

You are welcome ;^)!

You have thought deeper on this than I have.  My attraction to the 11 Nations Model is its nuances that

I would not have been able to find - even if I could do the research.

Certainly it was the product of someone who spends their life in such pursuits.  Whether any one of us might align with his biases (I think Ray was referring to the clear anti-Tea sentiments he very clearly used the model to support when he said biases).   I *hope* some (Ray, ???) who are more naturally aligned with the Conservatives, more likely to be at least partially understanding of the Tea-party line would weigh in on the model and offer alternatives to some of the perspectives  it offers.  I think it is a good model and that it reflects much of what is good as well as what is questionable about the posture of each region.

============================================================
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

[glen ropella]

On 11/11/2013 10:22 AM, Stephen Thompson wrote:
> I took Steve's comments to refer to the behaviors that help define the
> people in each of the 11 Nations - not necessarily the genetically
> determined
> characteristics.
>
> I took Steve's comments to mean if these groups could focus on the positive
> behavioral characteristics we could collectively interact more positively.

Yeah, you're reading what he _means_, I think.  [grin]  I'm reading what
he wrote.  (That's a literalist's brinkmanship, right there.)  He ties
pride, rather explicitly, I think, to entitlement and a metaphorical usury.

But even if we didn't tie pride to entitlement, it's still unclear that
pride is well correlated with, say "doing good".  With that, let's jump
ahead to Arlo's response:

On 11/11/2013 11:40 AM, Arlo Barnes wrote:
> Pride can either mean a claim to competency ("look at this vase I
> made, I am proud of it") or general approval associated with
> identity.

But, either way, it is, by definition, associated with "good".  Even in
the negative connotation, it is an accusation that the prideful are
mistaken in their own estimation of the good with which they identify.
That judgment, that the attribute is "something to be proud of" implies
that you have a choice in the matter.  And it's the attribution of
choice that I object to.  It seems silly for me to be proud that I'm
bald.  It seems equally silly for me to be ashamed of my baldness.  This
doesn't mean I'm conflating the two meanings of pride.  It simply means
that pride (or shame) isn't meaningful at all in the context of
determined traits, wherein there is no choice.  It's as nonsensical for
me to be proud that I am bald as it would be for me to identify with
baldness.  Similarly, I'm not ashamed nor proud that I was born/reared
in Texas.

If there's no choice in the matter, then there can be no pride.  But
going back to StephT's[*] comment:

On 11/11/2013 10:22 AM, Stephen Thompson wrote:
> I took Steve's comments to mean if these groups could focus on the positive
> behavioral characteristics we could collectively interact more positively.

Yes, I take what he said the same way.  But I object to the assumption
that we can objectively (or even collectively subjectively) determine
what is "good" or "positive".  I would easily agree with the concept of
a target phenomenon (Arlo's "ulterior goal"), be it judged good or ill
by anyone on anywhere in space or time, then design our incentive (and
perhaps motivation) so as to best approach that target.  But it strikes
me as hubris to assume that the optimum is somewhere _other_ than where
we are right here and now.  I admit it doesn't seem that way to me,
either.  But I wouldn't go so far as to condemn the current situation
without sufficient evidence (beyond justificationism).

In other words, whence cometh this Utopian optimism that we _could_ have
been in a better position than we are if we were just a little more
_perfect_ than we already are?

It's that question that raises the concepts of hysteresis and stigmergy.

> I understand your frustration at not being accepted even though you
> have been a resident of a location for a very long time.  I hear that
> New England is the same way .... as well as my own State of
> Minnesota.  Tho to be (funny) fair, if you put on the Fargo Accent
> you will fit in "just swell, don' tcha know.."  (Just mimic the
> speech patterns of Sarah Palin (I don't recommend her politics).  Her
> family and others were settled from Northern Minnesota to a region of
> Alaska in the 1920s for employment.  I understand the entire valley
> in Alaska all speak with the Fargo accent.

Well, don't mis-take my meaning.  I got along famously with the Texans
around me while I was there.  And, to this day, it's relatively easy for
me to change my stripes when I'm visiting (conscious or not).  But what
has always surprised me is the inability to step outside oneself ... to
realize how silly one's seemingly normal behavior can be.  I have the
same problem with Oregon (primed, no doubt, by Marcus' and another
friend of mine's jokes prior to my moving here).  I find myself breaking
into laughter at socially awkward moments because someone's
(authentically) wearing a hipster hat while denigrating (ironic)
hipsters, or sporting a huge ear wafer bitching about those pesky
conformists.  The child-like inability to step outside their selves is
what cracks me up.


[*] Too many Steves!  My name was almost Steve.  My parents adopted an
infant before me and named him Steve, though I don't know whether it was
Stephen or Steven.  Unfortunately (or fortunately - I never know which),
the church insisted on taking him back and they had to reapply, at which
point they got me.

--
⇒⇐ 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

[glen ropella]

On 11/11/2013 11:40 AM, Arlo Barnes wrote:
> I have only seen a couple of John Wayne movies (sounds like that is
> representative though, just kidding) but as I recall his characters 1)
> shoot and punch people 2) sometimes just for fun, and 3) have been
> injured and relied on help. He does not seem like the epitome of low
> impact living to me.

1) Some people need to be shot or punched or shot and punched.  I know
saying that will get me in trouble.  But I do believe it.
Dunning-Kruger comes to mind, here.  _You_ are more competent than many
of your fellows.  And, because you're more competent, you tend to over
estimate their competence.  The good news is that if/when you witness
the incompetence of your fellows, you will revise your estimate
downward. ;-)  The same can't be said of them.  It takes _more_ than
witnessing others' competence to get them to revise their estimates of
their own competence.

2) But the fun was consensual, even if begrudgingly so.

3) I can't disagree, here.  Individualism really is a (convenient) lie.

> There are many ways that biological symbiosis is different from social
> symbiosis, but I think in both the usual sense of 'expectation' does not
> apply ("I expect you'll be leaving on the 12:00 train, then", "You
> failed to meet expectations, Bob, we will have to let you go", "Welcome
> welcome welcome, to the land of expectations, to the land of
> expectations, to the land [...]").
>
> If a clownfish fails to ward off predators and parasites from a sea
> anemone, the anemone is not going to say "What the heck man, we had a
> deal"

I disagree.  I firmly believe that even our most lofty thoughts are a
direct result of sensorimotor interactions with the world.  Hence, when
a human thinks another "failed to meet expectations", it is precisely
the same sense of "expectation" as the failure of a clownfish to ward
off predators from an anemone.

> and withdraw it's protection, it is just going to continue what it
> was doing.

Now, the degree of "directness" could be debated.  An anemone is a
simpler machine than a human.  Hence, the transformation from failed
expectations to reaction will be simpler.  But it's a difference of
degree, not kind.  (Disclosure: I have, in the past, on this mailing
list, defended the idea that circularity provides for a difference in
kind.  So, you could argue that the lack of a centralized nervous system
in an anemone prevents the same navel-gazing circularity we humans have.
 Hence, we humans might engage in a different kind of "expectation" ...
perhaps "anticipation".  But, I would counter that the relatively banal
vernacular use of "expectation" by most people isn't all that reflexive.
 There may be some expectations... those having to do with the big
questions - why are we here, etc. - that engage this different kind of
expectation.  But for the most part, we don't.)

> This trend seems unsustainable, as there is no such thing as infinite
> luxury, wealth, and relaxation.

Nah.  I would argue that the ever increasing narcissism is analogous to
the increasing beat illusion
<http://hebb.mit.edu/courses/9.29/2003/athena/auditory/beat.html>.  The
NPI is flawed.

> We should instead set some ulterior goal
> (whatever you want, be it development of a field like technology or art,
> or observation / replication of the universe) and then remove poverty,
> discomfort, and stress where they impede completion of this goal to the
> extent needed. I feel it would be much more beneficial to the species
> and planet as a whole for someone else to be assured of a source of
> meals than for me to have access to more technology. If we can do both,
> great (sometimes these things can leapfrog).

Well, again, I think I have the same feelings you do.  But I have to
check myself to be sure I have an accurate understanding of how the
universe works before I can make the same assertion.  I'm usually
gobsmacked by how ignorant I actually am, which limits my conviction to
any particular societal objective.

--
⇒⇐ 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

[glen ropella]

On 11/11/2013 11:05 AM, Steve Smith wrote:

> If we truly understand the complex dynamic of the social system we are
> embedded in (and in this case, shaped by) then we might have a chance of
> exercising some of our free will in an enlightened self-interest
> manner.  What I'm espousing is an attempt to understand (be enlightened)
> about our own nature (to the extent it was determined by our origins)
> and to exercise whatever free will we have to A) improve our own lot
> within the context of the system(s) we are embedded in, and B) to groom
> (change our behaviour/trajectory in the system in a way that predictably
> changes the whole system) those systems in a way that we believe suits
> our self-interest.

Right.  I wasn't arguing with any of that. 8^)  I was _agreeing_ with
your statement:

On 11/10/2013 08:44 AM, Steve Smith wrote:> StephT -
> We are not who we are proud of being for the most part, and I find that sad.

I just threw it in a combative curve.  The thing I disagree with is the
idea that any _actionable_ objective toward self-interest will be too
myopic in one form or another.  The accretion of the system happens in
such a way, over various scales in space and time, and over various "we"
comprehensions, that objectives can't be sliced out.  Any
less-than-10-millenia historical account of what _is_ will be flawed,
perhaps fatally so, and any objective that fails to account for enough
side effects and unintended consequences will result in "something to be
ashamed of".

Of course, it can all be summed up as "The road to hell is paved with
good intentions."  In that regard, what achievements can we be proud of?
 My guess is that every answer we might offer to that question has a
dark side to it.  At the end of the day, it's easy to see why whole
swaths of people might fall for "positive psychology".  At some point,
you gotta just quit worrying about what might happen and make some
change just for the sake of change.

And if we do that, how much hand-wringing is enough to argue that the
changer is responsible in their actions?  E.g. is ObamaCare a
responsible piece of legislation?  Or is it a bad compromise that puts
us further in the hole?  Did our for-hire-hand-wringers (aka
Congress-lawyers) do enough worrying?

> Hysteresis itself does not admit free-will, and stigmergy, a bit more
> refined, the feedback system being mediated by "symbols" of sorts is a
> step closer.   While neither model free will, it does seem that
> self-aware agency within a system allows for free will to be part of the
> dynamic.  You might have a better way of saying this (or denying it)?

Well, I've argued my case before.  Free will is a generative random
twitch.  Any apparent purpose, color, or bias that results is purely a
function of the constraints in which that twitch takes place.  This is
why stigmergy and hysteretic are better words than emergence.  We each
spastically flop around, banging against the structures in our
environment (including other spastic floppers).  If you start with too
few constraints, your produce is random.  If you start with too tight a
set of constraints, your produce is nil.

> You found the embedding of Texas too difficult to change or endure so
> you kicked a few of your jets in a way that threw you out of it's orbit
> and into another orbit...  

Well, I didn't leave because of my beef with the people, institutions,
or government.  I left because I got a good job offer ... and I was
piqued by the idea of living at 7k feet.  I did press my employer at the
time to give me a budget to play with (like they had at the New York
office).  My bosses didn't even respond to my request. ;-) So, I left.

But I can say that the people, institutions, and government will help
keep me from moving back to Texas.  Now that my mom's moving to
Colorado, I have even less reason to consider it.  I'm now thinking
Boulder, CO might be a cool place to live for awhile.

> I think you can see the difference between a healthy member of a healthy
> group and a "spoiled and usurious" parasite living on a stew of
> resources taken thoughtlessly from "the commons" by pirates supported by
> whatever it is said "parasites" can offer them (votes, deference, $$?).

Maybe.  It sounds a bit like the definitions for porn and life... can't
define it but know it when you see it?  If that's the case, then I think
it's _begging_ for some reductionist analysis.  I hear a lot of "kids
these days".  And there's plenty of eschatological doomsaying on both
the left and the right (though in the modern conception, we end up with
some fantastic, well-toned, with good skin and straight teeth, zombie
killers).

Although I don't buy into the Singularity, I do wish there were more
people arguing "It's OK, just go with it, be creative, we'll find
solutions as we go along."  You can't be rational without a ratio.

> But in the first world, it is latent (or not) hoarding IMO.

I agree.  The real trick is that those of us who live with the "wolf at
the door", with a lean supply network, are _shamed_ into hoarding.  If
you don't hoard, you are considered immature or irresponsible ... unless
you're lucky enough to die on time. ;-)

--
⇒⇐ 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

[Steve Smith]

Glen -

I sed:
> If we truly understand the complex dynamic of the social system we are
> embedded in (and in this case, shaped by) then we might have a chance of
> exercising some of our free will in an enlightened self-interest
> manner.
... blah blah blah

then you sed:
> Right.  I wasn't arguing with any of that. 8^)  I was _agreeing_ with
> your statement:
But the two of, I think we like to argue, or at least stridently offer
alternative views.
>> We are not who we are proud of being for the most part, and I find that sad.
> I just threw it in a combative curve.
See above:
>    The thing I disagree with is the
> idea that any _actionable_ objective toward self-interest will be too
> myopic in one form or another.
I do have a sympathetic response to this... I don't know what the
epsilon of free-will and actionionable intention is.  I appreciate your
implication that it is (vanishingly?) small, but resist the thought that
it might be nonexistent.
>    The accretion of the system happens in
> such a way, over various scales in space and time, and over various "we"
> comprehensions, that objectives can't be sliced out.
I acknowledge having been raised in a tradition with intentions being
central *and* effective up to poor implementation, bad luck, the
disfavor of the gods.  My half-century plus of hard knocks leads me to
appreciate your sentiment, but I'm still trying to swallow it as an
absolute truism.
>    Any
> less-than-10-millenia historical account of what _is_ will be flawed,
> perhaps fatally so, and any objective that fails to account for enough
> side effects and unintended consequences will result in "something to be
> ashamed of".
I do often wonder how large of a space-time volume one must integrate
over to be able to evaluate this properly.  History is riddled with good
ideas gone wrong if enough time or (social?) distance is taken into account.
> Of course, it can all be summed up as "The road to hell is paved with
> good intentions."
Well, like the balance of matter and antimatter in our known universe, I
think the road to hell is paved with both good and bad intentions, but
somehow a flutter in the statistical variance makes *this* universe one
where Hell is what you get for consistently being an arseh*le, while a
bumbling hero still gets the pearly gates.   Of course, I have no
literal binding of this mythology, but do take it fairly seriously
metaphorically...   another thread in it's own right to drive Doug (and
many others?) right up into the tree.
>    In that regard, what achievements can we be proud of?
>   My guess is that every answer we might offer to that question has a
> dark side to it.
This fits my sense of required subtlety.
>    At the end of the day, it's easy to see why whole
> swaths of people might fall for "positive psychology".
Visualize this!
>    At some point,
> you gotta just quit worrying about what might happen and make some
> change just for the sake of change.
If I take this literally (my own brinksmanship) then I would hold you to
it... the key is that you had to start worrying and keep worrying for a
while *before* you quit worrying and JUMP!   But whether one's "worry"
is simply encoded in culturally adopted heuristics or heuristics trained
in by a childhood of "play" that was really mock work/war/adventure, I
still hold (my cultural bias I suppose) the deeply embedded feeling that
"one must at least try to do the right thing".
> And if we do that, how much hand-wringing is enough to argue that the
> changer is responsible in their actions?
Switching from the Literal to the Figurative, I take your use of "hand
wringing" to be perjorative and suggest that such a colorful display of
worry is "all for show" to relieve the hand wringer from any
responsibility for their actions.   I'd offer "careful consideration" in
place of "hand wringing".

As  a touch of comic relief, I offer you a pivotal scene from Butch
Cassidy and Sundance Kid where the two are cornered by the pursuing
possie at the crest of a cliff overlooking a river.   One says to the
other "but I can't swim!" and the other responds "the fall will probably
kill you anyway" as they both pitch over the edge.   I agree there are
times and situations where action informed by intuition trumps any
amount of thoughtful consideration (or hand wringing) possible.
>> Hysteresis itself does not admit free-will, and stigmergy, a bit more
>> refined, the feedback system being mediated by "symbols" of sorts is a
>> step closer.   While neither model free will, it does seem that
>> self-aware agency within a system allows for free will to be part of the
>> dynamic.  You might have a better way of saying this (or denying it)?
> Well, I've argued my case before.  Free will is a generative random
> twitch.
Then it is NOT free-will... it is a random twitch (unless you've packed
something more into the word "generative" than I can unpack).
>    Any apparent purpose, color, or bias that results is purely a
> function of the constraints in which that twitch takes place.
I don't disagree that this is entirely possible, but am still left with
my own "illusion of free will" and no good answer to the question of
"who is this *I* with the illusion of free-will?"
>    This is
> why stigmergy and hysteretic are better words than emergence.  We each
> spastically flop around, banging against the structures in our
> environment (including other spastic floppers).  If you start with too
> few constraints, your produce is random.  If you start with too tight a
> set of constraints, your produce is nil.
I have spent a bit of time kneeling at the ant-hill watching pretty much
precisely what you describe... placing various obstacles or distractions
in the paths of the ants going about their business. Each one reacts to
my interference-by-surprise with what appears to be a tiny bit of
thoughtful choice, albeit tiny.  This could easily be my projection onto
them, as in any agent model of sufficient complexity, the same level of
apparent "choice or thoughtfulness" can be seen, yet also presumably an
astute modeler or programmer can look at the rule base of the agent and
figure out the mechanism or program involved in generating that apparent
"thoughtful choice". BTW, it turns out to be hard to push Ants into any
kind of futile cycle... and when one does bluntly (put an ant in an
empty jar and watch him try to climb the sides until he's
exhausted/depleted) it feels very much like torture (by any definition,
even Rummies?).
>> You found the embedding of Texas too difficult to change or endure so
>> you kicked a few of your jets in a way that threw you out of it's orbit
>> and into another orbit...
> Well, I didn't leave because of my beef with the people, institutions,
> or government.
> I left because I got a good job offer ... and I was
> piqued by the idea of living at 7k feet.  I did press my employer at the
> time to give me a budget to play with (like they had at the New York
> office).  My bosses didn't even respond to my request. ;-) So, I left.
On the other hand, if you had felt a strong affinity to people,
institutions and government might you have stayed?  Sure, the spirit of
adventure, etc. has it's draw... but using your own model, the
constraints of the system relative to your (innate?) nature helped to
push you out of that nest, right?
>
> But I can say that the people, institutions, and government will help
> keep me from moving back to Texas.  Now that my mom's moving to
> Colorado, I have even less reason to consider it.  I'm now thinking
> Boulder, CO might be a cool place to live for awhile.
Until a few months ago there were a lot of idyllic homes on creekfronts
to choose from too.  I just gave a tent to a young man who had his
possessions washed away in the flooding and chose to recover from his
semi-traumatic experience by packing what little he was able to salvage
into his car and hitting the road, visiting his sister in SFe on the
way.   I thought it was a very healthy response to what could have been
a catastrophe.   I think he's camping somewhere in AZ right now.
>> I think you can see the difference between a healthy member of a healthy
>> group and a "spoiled and usurious" parasite living on a stew of
>> resources taken thoughtlessly from "the commons" by pirates supported by
>> whatever it is said "parasites" can offer them (votes, deference, $$?).
> Maybe.  It sounds a bit like the definitions for porn and life... can't
> define it but know it when you see it?  If that's the case, then I think
> it's _begging_ for some reductionist analysis.
I do appreciate how you can play both directions on this field... you
seem to be adept at dismissing reductionist analysis at times and
invoking it at others.  I don't mean this dismissively, even though
often it loses me like the game of "crack the whip".   I believe there
is continuity, but at my end of the "whip" I fly off the end and tumble.
>    I hear a lot of "kids
> these days".  And there's plenty of eschatological doomsaying on both
> the left and the right (though in the modern conception, we end up with
> some fantastic, well-toned, with good skin and straight teeth, zombie
> killers).
grin.   I know I must sound like "kids these days!" a lot, but my
primary audience/victim is my own cohort which I think you might roughly
fall on the young end of, and our more senior members here on the older
end of.   As my parents generation were "the worlds greatest",  I feel
that the children of the "worlds greatest" took on their own
self-important feeling and proceeded to pave the planet with pavement,
swimming pools, strip mines and soon Wind/Solar farms to make it a
better place (riffing on your "paved with good intentions") while
beating our chests about having brought ethnic and gender equality to
all, not to mention ending war (Vietnam). Yet today,  many of the old
hippies are now yuppies and are paving faster than ever and quite
sanctimonious about how they "earned it".
> Although I don't buy into the Singularity, I do wish there were more
> people arguing "It's OK, just go with it, be creative, we'll find
> solutions as we go along."
besides, "the fall will probably kill you"
> You can't be rational without a ratio.
I like the ring of this... can you unpack it more, or is it just a jingle?
>> But in the first world, it is latent (or not) hoarding IMO.
> I agree.  The real trick is that those of us who live with the "wolf at
> the door", with a lean supply network, are _shamed_ into hoarding.  If
> you don't hoard, you are considered immature or irresponsible ...
<deleted long, self-righteous riff on how "wolf at the door" is a thin
mythology in the first world>

Thanks, as always, for your engaged, thoughtful responses and
alternative views,
  - Steve

============================================================
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

[glen ropella]

On 11/12/2013 10:25 AM, Steve Smith wrote:
> But the two of, I think we like to argue, or at least stridently offer
> alternative views.

Yes!

> On 11/11/2013 05:00 PM, glen wrote:
>> You can't be rational without a ratio.
>
> I like the ring of this... can you unpack it more, or is it just a jingle?

Well, I started thinking seriously about it after an argument at a
cocktail party.  (I would be/know nothing without arguments.)  I have a
long-standing beef with atheists, not all atheists, just the ones who
claim that atheism is the only rational conclusion to consideration of
the big questions.  The argument started because this
atheism-on-my-sleeve yahoo kept yapping about how irrational religious
belief is.  He laid out a challenge to the whole room in the form of "I
sincerely wish someone [wc]ould rationally defend religion."  (I don't
remember if he used "would" or "could".)  I accepted the challenge, of
course. 8^)

After lots of rigmarole where he and another yahoo (who claimed "physics
is _my_ domain!" during the course) took turns spouting every brain fart
they could imagine while I (not so deftly after a few pints) deflected
each attack, the argument ended having established that calling
religious people "irrational" is really an _insult_.  I asked him quite
clearly, a few times just to be sure: "Are you insulting me?". [*]  He
repeated "Yes", and suggested I was free to insult him back.  I went
silent after that, hoping ... in vain ... that he would realize the
fallacy (ad hominem).  He failed.  He subsequently told a friend of mine
that he thinks he offended me. ;-)  It's been almost a year and I've met
him a few times since.  It's absolute torture keeping my mouth shut.  I
don't know how long is appropriate before I re-raise the issue and walk
through the discourse in hind-sight to see if he'll recognize that his
rhetoric is/was based on that fallacy.

Now, with that background, I consider the word "rational" to mean
weighing multiple options and deciding on one based on that
comparison/contrast measurement.  Obviously, there have to be at least
2, but I consider rationality to be directly proportional to the number
of options available.  Atheism being the _only_ option, is just as
irrational as, say, Heaven's Gate being the only option.  If, however,
we compare atheism and Heaven's Gate, then we're infinitely more
rational than those convicted of atheism alone.  After that, each
additional position considered increments the rationality.  (Note that
you can only eliminate options by falsification.  Mere implausibility is
not falsification.)

Of course, whether your comparison/contrast (e.g. cost-benefit analysis)
includes division and multiplication is a bit of nit-picking.  I don't
_require_ you to quantitatively divide one by the other or normalize to
[-1,1] or anything. 8^)  The complications of the comparison/contrast
depend on the domain, how much time you have to think, etc.  So, "ratio"
is a bit of a stretch.  But it's more ... lyrical than other words or
less dense ways of saying the same thing.

> Well, like the balance of matter and antimatter in our known universe, I
> think the road to hell is paved with both good and bad intentions, but
> somehow a flutter in the statistical variance makes *this* universe one
> where Hell is what you get for consistently being an arseh*le, while a
> bumbling hero still gets the pearly gates.   Of course, I have no
> literal binding of this mythology, but do take it fairly seriously
> metaphorically...   another thread in it's own right to drive Doug (and
> many others?) right up into the tree.

Well, I usually have trouble finding bad intentions, by definition of
"intentions".  The only intentions that can be seriously judged "bad"
are those falsified by the most minimal reality check.  E.g. drinking
competitions.  It should take only a second's worth of thought to
realize that competing in how many shots of tequila you can slam in the
shortest amount of time, is a _bad_ intention.  But most intentions seem
good, at the time, from that perspective, by the person who thought it
up, etc.

Hence, your assertion that the road to hell is paved with both,
ass/u/me-s some sort of objective/subjective cut, or at least a
perspectival cut that may not actually be there.

The real issue you highlight with your @ssh0l3 vs. bumbling hero
archetypes is _transparency_.  E.g. is Obama a bumbling hero for
ObamaCare (especially his pants-on-fire assertion that you can keep your
plan if you like it)?  Maybe.  Is he, however, an @ssh0l3 for killing
people with drones, assassinating US citizens, keeping Gitmo open,
colluding with banksters, etc?  Maybe.  I think the answer to those
questions, for me at least, lies in the transparency associated with
each decision he makes.  If it's opaque, then I have no chance to judge
his intentions and all I see is the irreparable damage he's done.  He
relies on my own willingness to do mental gymnastics in order to give
him the benefit of the doubt.

>> And if we do that, how much hand-wringing is enough to argue that the
>> changer is responsible in their actions?
>
> Switching from the Literal to the Figurative, I take your use of "hand
> wringing" to be perjorative and suggest that such a colorful display of
> worry is "all for show" to relieve the hand wringer from any
> responsibility for their actions.   I'd offer "careful consideration" in
> place of "hand wringing".

Well, it's not all for show.  You must purposefully exhibit your careful
consideration, just as Obama must exhibit his hand-wringing about
killing people with drones.  If he doesn't exhibit the hand-wringing,
then his potential victims have no choice but to consider him an
@ssh0l3.  So, transparency isn't "just for show", it serves a useful
purpose, even when that purpose is just to cover your @ss.

>> Well, I've argued my case before.  Free will is a generative random
>> twitch.
> Then it is NOT free-will... it is a random twitch (unless you've packed
> something more into the word "generative" than I can unpack).

You say "potato" ...  I define free will as a type of randomness.

>>    Any apparent purpose, color, or bias that results is purely a
>> function of the constraints in which that twitch takes place.
> I don't disagree that this is entirely possible, but am still left with
> my own "illusion of free will" and no good answer to the question of
> "who is this *I* with the illusion of free-will?"

Hm.  It seems clear what "I" refers to, the [entero&proprio]ceptive
self.  Free will is the same as any other feeling (hate, love, etc.),
it's the abstraction or compression of the patterns exhibited by the
[entero&proprio]ceptive signals.

> BTW, it turns out to be hard to push Ants into any
> kind of futile cycle... and when one does bluntly (put an ant in an
> empty jar and watch him try to climb the sides until he's
> exhausted/depleted) it feels very much like torture (by any definition,
> even Rummies?).

We could honor Rumsfeld by parsing torture, if you want.  I think the
S&M crowd might help us blur the lines between torture and ... "normal
life" just as they do with pain and pleasure.

> On the other hand, if you had felt a strong affinity to people,
> institutions and government might you have stayed?  Sure, the spirit of
> adventure, etc. has it's draw... but using your own model, the
> constraints of the system relative to your (innate?) nature helped to
> push you out of that nest, right?

Yes, I might have stayed if I had been professionally "fulfilled".  I
wouldn't have stayed simply due to family or a tightly knit group of
friends, though.  I'm a firm believer that friends and family (or any
group) is more valuable if the members of the group have access to as
much knowledge/experience as possible.  Hence, I encourage even my
closest "others" to go, now, and keep going until you can no longer go.
 Then find me and tell me about it.  So, to "stay" because you cherish
your group seems contradictory to me.

> I just gave a tent to a young man who had his
> possessions washed away in the flooding and chose to recover from his
> semi-traumatic experience by packing what little he was able to salvage
> into his car and hitting the road, visiting his sister in SFe on the
> way.   I thought it was a very healthy response to what could have been
> a catastrophe.   I think he's camping somewhere in AZ right now.

Yes, I agree that's a very healthy response.

> I do appreciate how you can play both directions on this field... you
> seem to be adept at dismissing reductionist analysis at times and
> invoking it at others.  I don't mean this dismissively, even though
> often it loses me like the game of "crack the whip".   I believe there
> is continuity, but at my end of the "whip" I fly off the end and tumble.

If you agree with yourself too much, too often, then it's time to buy
the farm.  The end of the whip is where the action is!

> <deleted long, self-righteous riff on how "wolf at the door" is a thin
> mythology in the first world>

I'm glad you deleted it.  Otherwise I would have had to trot out some
examples of all the homeless, mentally ill people living here in
Portland.  Or, even worse, the incarcerated, mentally ill people in our
corporate jails, being pepper sprayed in order to get them out of their
cells so they can be injected with their ... [cough] medicine.  The wolf
is closer than you think, even/especially in the 1st world. 8^)

> Thanks, as always, for your engaged, thoughtful responses and
> alternative views,

Right back at you.


[*] Note that I'm not religious at all.  But by the end of the argument,
most people in the room seemed to think I was Christian ... or some sort
of evolutionary theist, though much of my defense relied on deism.

--
⇒⇐ 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

[Steve Smith]

Glen -

But the two of, I think we like to argue, or at least stridently offer
alternative views.

Yes!

I think we are about to bore the shite out of the rest of the crowd, but as you often remind me (them?) the delete key in their mail is nearby...

You can't be rational without a ratio.

I like the ring of this... can you unpack it more, or is it just a jingle?

...
Now, with that background, I consider the word "rational" to mean
weighing multiple options and deciding on one based on that
comparison/contrast measurement.  Obviously, there have to be at least
2, but I consider rationality to be directly proportional to the number
of options available.  Atheism being the _only_ option, is just as
irrational as, say, Heaven's Gate being the only option.  If, however,
we compare atheism and Heaven's Gate, then we're infinitely more
rational than those convicted of atheism alone.  After that, each
additional position considered increments the rationality.  (Note that
you can only eliminate options by falsification.  Mere implausibility is
not falsification.)

Of course, whether your comparison/contrast (e.g. cost-benefit analysis)
includes division and multiplication is a bit of nit-picking.  I don't
_require_ you to quantitatively divide one by the other or normalize to
[-1,1] or anything. 8^)  The complications of the comparison/contrast
depend on the domain, how much time you have to think, etc.  So, "ratio"
is a bit of a stretch.  But it's more ... lyrical than other words or
less dense ways of saying the same thing.

I thought perhaps you might have meant approximately this...  and of all the choices I can think of right now, it seems to carry the most weight, as it were.   However, I myself don't really think so much in terms of decision trees or cascading multiple choice questions, but something more in terms of navigating a landscape where the decisions are multi-resolution.  I *may* choose to step over a given rock rather than around it or onto it, but it is likely I spied it several steps before that choice was required and added it's presence into some kind of weighted heuristic.  *IF* I find myself at the rock having to decide the trinary, over/around/on it is likely that I had already queued up the most likely decision ahead of time when first I noticed it and later as I navigated deliberately toward (or at least not away from) it.   I find thinking about complex problems "rationally" to be something like this navigation I describe.  Of course, making a *rational argument* involves retracing many of the steps I took while thinking my way through the landscape and explaining each one (in painful detail I'm sure) to anyone who is interested in the landscape (and will listen... e.g. isn't prone to TL;DR ).

What I think I value most in any discourse with another is their perspective.  I might lead them through one of my metaphorical landscapes, describing the motivations for my path (and the rationizations I perhaps did at each discrete choice point) but I also hope that if they have traveled the same (or recognizeably similar?) territory that they will offer their own heuristics and even more importantly.  For example, when a fellow traveler might point out to me that a particular hillside can be traversed entirely by hopping from rock to rock, the whole journey changes in my mind.   Especially if I'd only considered rocks as obstacles, not waypoints.

Well, like the balance of matter and antimatter in our known universe, I
think the road to hell is paved with both good and bad intentions, but
somehow a flutter in the statistical variance makes *this* universe one
where Hell is what you get for consistently being an arseh*le, while a
bumbling hero still gets the pearly gates.   Of course, I have no
literal binding of this mythology, but do take it fairly seriously
metaphorically...   another thread in it's own right to drive Doug (and
many others?) right up into the tree.

Well, I usually have trouble finding bad intentions, by definition of
"intentions".  The only intentions that can be seriously judged "bad"
are those falsified by the most minimal reality check.  E.g. drinking
competitions.  It should take only a second's worth of thought to
realize that competing in how many shots of tequila you can slam in the
shortest amount of time, is a _bad_ intention.  But most intentions seem
good, at the time, from that perspective, by the person who thought it
up, etc.

Ok... as often happens, I think you got me there.   I admit that a great deal of the intentions which are ascribed to others as "bad" are not necessarily so not unsurprisingly conversely so.  I've recently reviewed the period from around 1900-1950 in world (particularly European/WW1&2) history and recognize the moral ambiguity of war in particular.   Often war is the consequence of two parties feeling aggrieved and trying to set things right, usually first by economic/social means but eventually this escalates until military means are employed.  

However, in response to "good" and "bad" intentions... we do have various social contracts which help to define aggression from defense for example.  The Nazis in Germany simultaneously (with a distribution over the population who thought of themselves as Nazi) were righteously indignant about the *successful* Jewish population in their midst (bankers and such) who in fact may have been acting in "usurious" (biblical sense) ways, while they were also looking for a scapegoat to focus the wrath of the common man against, possibly as a consequence of the humiliation of their defeat in WWI.    Whether you agree with the specifics of how all that came down, I think you *might* be able to separate into two clusters, the intentions based on an assumed harm done by another which suggests a response, and the recognition than another is not in a good position to defend themselves and has something you want, suggesting some form of violence or threat of violence as a course of action.

In support of your point, in our movies, when we see American or European soldiers (or spies) held prisoner by "the enemy", any attempt to coerce information from them is repugnant and considered "torture".  When the identity of the characters are turned, what we see is a dangerous terrorist/criminal trying to harm us and our loved ones, requiring "enhanced interrogation" methods to be applied to mitigate said harms, real, potential or imagined.

Hence, your assertion that the road to hell is paved with both,
ass/u/me-s some sort of objective/subjective cut, or at least a
perspectival cut that may not actually be there.

I did presume in that point (as does any discussion of heaven and hell?) that there is some objective measure of good and evil...   which I admit gets slipperier and slipperier as one slides off the slope of asking the question of whether that is an illusion or no.  

The real issue you highlight with your @ssh0l3 vs. bumbling hero
archetypes is _transparency_.  E.g. is Obama a bumbling hero for
ObamaCare (especially his pants-on-fire assertion that you can keep your
plan if you like it)?  Maybe.  Is he, however, an @ssh0l3 for killing
people with drones, assassinating US citizens, keeping Gitmo open,
colluding with banksters, etc?  Maybe.

Picking on poor Barry here, mainly because he is so squarely in the spotlight with almost precisely the circumstances we speak of:   I think it is pretty obvious (to those sympathetic with him?) that ObamaCare springs from his good intentions, not a deliberate attempt (as those unsympathetic with him often suggest) to bankrupt/ruin this country.   I think it is also obvious (with the same caveats) that he really did think he could shut down Gitmo and Get out of Afghanistan...  and his failure to do so at worse reflects a lack of cleverness, real clout or both.  Is he colluding with banksters or merely negotiating with them as one would with an extortionist?   I'm not a fan of Drone Strikes in the least (with or without US Citizens in the line of fire, presumed baddies or not) but I think I prefer them for their relative transparency over other forms of CIA wet work.   I'm sure others before him have ordered or at least known about assasinations of US Citizens and the fact of "collateral damage" against civilians.   Many things make me want to give Barry the benefit of the (Intentions) doubt... if he were not "My Guy" as none of the last 45 years of presidents have been, I would tend toward a more cynical view and assume collusion, lack of respect for human life, elitism, etc.  for him.  

This can of worms is an important but IMO difficult one to sort fast enough to ever get done.  It seems to often require (recursive) splitting of hairs and knowing things one generally cannot.   So I have to concede that good/bad intentions is at least very impractical to sort out, if not the outright illusion you seem to suggest?

  I think the answer to those
questions, for me at least, lies in the transparency associated with
each decision he makes.  If it's opaque, then I have no chance to judge
his intentions and all I see is the irreparable damage he's done.  He
relies on my own willingness to do mental gymnastics in order to give
him the benefit of the doubt.

Since I am intrinsically sympathetic with him (not just my alignment with his policies where they align) I do find myself either "doing mental gymnastics" or more often just a simple grunting brushoff of the facts as presented... "whatever..."   Not terribly rational by either of our definitions!  I have not been so sympathetic with a President before in my lifetime, I do wonder at that.   In retrospect, I might have granted the same to Jimmy Carter if he hadn't looked like such a doofus to me at the time (imagine Billy Carter instead to get the image), but I didn't.  I voted for Reagan under the principle, "Yeah he's an @ssh0l3, but at least he's MY @ssh0l3" (see earlier rants on why I believed in MAD for reference).  I never thought George Senior was anything other than that and by that time, I'd learned that I didn't want one of those as my president and I was losing respect for the conservative platform as well...  Billy Clinton was a very intelligent/clever sleazeball who happened to support a platform which I had come to respect...  George Jr... well... I think it has all been said.   Then along came Barry...  he hadn't been married to slick Willy and he wasn't a whackadoodle "Maverick" so there was no contest, and as I listened to him, I began to believe in his (wait for it!) "good intentions".   Maybe I just swallowed his koolaid packet whole and can't get it out of my system.

And if we do that, how much hand-wringing is enough to argue that the
changer is responsible in their actions?

Switching from the Literal to the Figurative, I take your use of "hand
wringing" to be perjorative and suggest that such a colorful display of
worry is "all for show" to relieve the hand wringer from any
responsibility for their actions.   I'd offer "careful consideration" in
place of "hand wringing".

Well, it's not all for show.  You must purposefully exhibit your careful
consideration, just as Obama must exhibit his hand-wringing about
killing people with drones.  If he doesn't exhibit the hand-wringing,
then his potential victims have no choice but to consider him an
@ssh0l3.  So, transparency isn't "just for show", it serves a useful
purpose, even when that purpose is just to cover your @ss.

Ok... so anytime I use the word "Just" I should cringe... it IS "for show" but you do make a good argument (as you often do) that "for show" has it's merits.   I suppose the problem I have with "for show" is that it implies *false transparency* to use your terms...   so, instead of not knowing someone's intentions or deliberations on a decision, instead we have a projected story of them?  

Then it is NOT free-will... it is a random twitch (unless you've packed
something more into the word "generative" than I can unpack).

You say "potato" ...  I define free will as a type of randomness.

We'll revisit this a few more times I think, before I quit exercising my random twitch known as "free will" and trying to make sense of it, and trying to appeal to your ability to use your "free will" to try to help me understand your point of view.  

Po-tah-toe!

   Any apparent purpose, color, or bias that results is purely a
function of the constraints in which that twitch takes place.

I don't disagree that this is entirely possible, but am still left with
my own "illusion of free will" and no good answer to the question of
"who is this *I* with the illusion of free-will?"

Hm.  It seems clear what "I" refers to, the [entero&proprio]ceptive
self.  Free will is the same as any other feeling (hate, love, etc.),
it's the abstraction or compression of the patterns exhibited by the
[entero&proprio]ceptive signals.

I get that, but I can't separate "free will" from a sense of identity.   I guess I've not practiced thinking enough impossible things before breakfast because an "I" without a free will seems...  empty?

BTW, it turns out to be hard to push Ants into any
kind of futile cycle... and when one does bluntly (put an ant in an
empty jar and watch him try to climb the sides until he's
exhausted/depleted) it feels very much like torture (by any definition,
even Rummies?).

We could honor Rumsfeld by parsing torture, if you want.  I think the
S&M crowd might help us blur the lines between torture and ... "normal
life" just as they do with pain and pleasure.

And I think they could also help us dabble and play at the boundaries of "intention"?  I can't say I've donned leathers and put any devices to work on my loved ones (yet) but I do recognize that there is probably a reason people play up against those (seeming?) paradoxes, and I'm not ready to discount it as simple pathological thinking/behaviour, though I *can* imagine how many would.

Yes, I might have stayed if I had been professionally "fulfilled". I wouldn't have stayed simply due to family or a tightly knit group of friends, though. I'm a firm believer that friends and family (or any group) is more valuable if the members of the group have access to as much knowledge/experience as possible. Hence, I encourage even my closest "others" to go, now, and keep going until you can no longer go. Then find me and tell me about it. So, to "stay" because you cherish your group seems contradictory to me.

I myself am fairly rootless by nature, and in my youth especially opted for adventure and exploration.  My parents both left the bosom of their families and culture to move to Montana soon after WWII when it was still a frontier of sorts, so I understand the feeling.   At the same time, I have come to value the embrace *of* culture and family as well.  I strongly encouraged my own daughters to go out and see and be in the world.  They may choose to return to something more familiar or I may choose to follow them to their adopted communities, their mother already has followed one of them to Denver (which might be enough to make me head for Portland instead?).  

I do appreciate how you can play both directions on this field... you
seem to be adept at dismissing reductionist analysis at times and
invoking it at others.  I don't mean this dismissively, even though
often it loses me like the game of "crack the whip".   I believe there
is continuity, but at my end of the "whip" I fly off the end and tumble.

If you agree with yourself too much, too often, then it's time to buy
the farm.  The end of the whip is where the action is!

That is why I choose discourse with others of like enough mind to allow a conversation but a penchant for argument and a distinct enough mind to make it interesting.   While I can be provoked into arguing with myself, it is much less interesting and disturbs the animals in the house.

- Steve

============================================================
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

[glen ropella]

On 11/12/2013 04:09 PM, Steve Smith wrote:
> I think we are about to bore the shite out of the rest of the crowd,

Heh, that ship has sailed, man.  But, I'll try to keep this one short.

> I *may* choose to step over a given rock rather than
> around it or onto it, but it is likely I spied it several steps before
> that choice was required and added it's presence into some kind of
> weighted heuristic.  *IF* I find myself at the rock having to decide the
> trinary, over/around/on it is likely that I had already queued up the
> most likely decision ahead of time when first I noticed it and later as
> I navigated deliberately toward (or at least not away from) it.   I find
> thinking about complex problems "rationally" to be something like this
> navigation I describe.

I would only describe that (specific) type of thinking as rational if
you were able to weigh multiple paths against each other.  So, to be
rational would be less about contrasting multiple instantaneous
decisions inside a path and more about weighing whole paths.  If you can
only see one way in which to navigate the terrain, then I'd say you're
being irrational (or at least non-rational).

>   Of course, making a *rational argument* involves
> retracing many of the steps I took while thinking my way through the
> landscape and explaining each one (in painful detail I'm sure) to anyone
> who is interested in the landscape (and will listen... e.g. isn't prone
> to TL;DR ).

That you separate doing from arguing is interesting.  For me,
everything's an argument.  I argue mostly with simulated opponents,
where I play the role of my adversar[y|ies] ... It's so much that way
that it's often difficult for me to identify with any one role. None of
the participants in my mental arena are really 'me', or the most 'me'.
There's a little bit of me in every one of my simulated opponents.  When
it gets interesting is the ongoing competition _while_ I'm doing
something.  As I'm working on, say, my buell, there's this cacophony
from the virtual peanut gallery in my head, some of them cheering when
something works well, some of them jeering when something goes wrong.

But I'll admit that reconstructing justifications for any sequence of
actions I've taken is different from actually taking them.  And planning
for a sequence (or a network, if I'm planning for a team of people) of
actions is very different from actually executing a plan.  So, if by
"argument", you really mean either planning or reconstructing, then I
agree.  The "rational" qualifier for each (plan, do, reconstruct) has
slightly different semantics.

> Whether you agree with the
> specifics of how all that came down, I think you *might* be able to
> separate into two clusters, the intentions based on an assumed harm done
> by another which suggests a response, and the recognition than another
> is not in a good position to defend themselves and has something you
> want, suggesting some form of violence or threat of violence as a course
> of action.

OK.  I confess that I do have 2 primary measures of "bad": 1) opacity -
as we've discussed and 2) asymmetry.  In any asymmetric relationship,
the one(s) with the advantage has the moral responsibility to
modify/regulate their own actions so that the one(s) with the
disadvantage isn't (unwillingly) exploited or bullied.  I should say
_try_ to modify/regulate... because it's a _very_ difficult thing to do,
for anyone.  And if there are more than 2 parties, even perceiving 3 or
more dimensions is hard, much less measuring the amount of symmetry in
those dimensions.

As long as there's strong evidence that transparency and symmetry are
salient, the action(s) are acceptable.

> Picking on poor Barry here, ...

Sorry.  I don't mean to pick on him.  I actually think he's been an
excellent president, though I didn't vote for his 2nd term.  He's a
useful foil.

> ... and he wasn't a whackadoodle "Maverick" so there was no contest, ...

Ugh.  I sincerely wish She Who Must Not Be Named would disappear.

> I get that, but I can't separate "free will" from a sense of identity. I
> guess I've not practiced thinking enough impossible things before
> breakfast because an "I" without a free will seems... empty?

Perhaps we use different meanings of 'will'?  I tend to think of it in
terms of momentum.  E.g. some people have told me that I have "will
power", in that I control my diet fairly well, exercise regularly, work
consistently (even when my "office" is in a bedroom of the house), etc.
  I tend to think of it in terms of habit, not "will power".  I don't
really know what those people mean by "will power" when they say it.  To
me, I do what I do because I establish a preferred set of behaviors
(through rational comparison/contrast) and then do them.  Usually, part
of my rational comparison involves trying various behaviors out to see
if they're sustainable.  If momentum develops, I maintain them for
awhile, making minor tweaks in response to micro-evolution in the
environment.  Then I start the process over in response to
macro-evolution.  So, the way I take what they mean is the momentum that
develops after/as I find behaviors that sustain.

Free will, on the other hand, is the wiggle, the play, the slop we all
experience while engaged in our will(s).  E.g. sometimes I buy coffee
beans and grind them myself, sometimes I buy it pre-ground.  Why?  I
don't know... because it's random.  That's an overly simplified example,
of course.  There are much more pervasive restrictions and determinants
for which type of coffee I buy.  But the gist is there: the freedom
being discussed in "free will" is the random wiggle inside a byzantine
complex of intertwined constraints of varying rigidity.  At least,
that's my favorite alternative.

--
⇒⇐ glen e. p. ropella
Roll up your expectations, and feed them into my sleep


============================================================
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

[Steve Smith]

Glen -

>
>> I *may* choose to step over a given rock rather than
>> around it or onto it, but it is likely I spied it several steps before
>> that choice was required and added it's presence into some kind of
>> weighted heuristic.  *IF* I find myself at the rock having to decide the
>> trinary, over/around/on it is likely that I had already queued up the
>> most likely decision ahead of time when first I noticed it and later as
>> I navigated deliberately toward (or at least not away from) it.   I find
>> thinking about complex problems "rationally" to be something like this
>> navigation I describe.
>
> I would only describe that (specific) type of thinking as rational if
> you were able to weigh multiple paths against each other.  So, to be
> rational would be less about contrasting multiple instantaneous
> decisions inside a path and more about weighing whole paths.  If you
> can only see one way in which to navigate the terrain, then I'd say
> you're being irrational (or at least non-rational).

The part I was trying to call/out or distinguish between my (intuitive)
use of rational and your defined (as to ?rationate? or measure
alternatives in ratio) is that in my mind, I am working with an evolving
field of possibilities, effectively continuous, rather than discrete.  
That is not to say that discrete decisions don't get made along the way
(around/over/on) but that the bulk of the "rational" thought is based in
a perceptual field rather than as an N-ary fault tree.

>
>>   Of course, making a *rational argument* involves
>> retracing many of the steps I took while thinking my way through the
>> landscape and explaining each one (in painful detail I'm sure) to anyone
>> who is interested in the landscape (and will listen... e.g. isn't prone
>> to TL;DR ).
>
> That you separate doing from arguing is interesting.  For me,
> everything's an argument.  I argue mostly with simulated opponents,
> where I play the role of my adversar[y|ies] ...

I have this mode too, it drives innocent bystanders a bit bonkers if
they have to watch, but I think it says something more specific about me
(and you) than perhaps about the process in general?
> It's so much that way that it's often difficult for me to identify
> with any one role. None of the participants in my mental arena are
> really 'me', or the most 'me'. There's a little bit of me in every one
> of my simulated opponents.  When it gets interesting is the ongoing
> competition _while_ I'm doing something.  As I'm working on, say, my
> buell, there's this cacophony from the virtual peanut gallery in my
> head, some of them cheering when something works well, some of them
> jeering when something goes wrong.
Yes, I've always enjoyed this experience even though it bedevils me.  
Sadly it occasionally puts me into gridlock...  perhaps similar to our
other subthread about hand-wringing.
>
> But I'll admit that reconstructing justifications for any sequence of
> actions I've taken is different from actually taking them.  And
> planning for a sequence (or a network, if I'm planning for a team of
> people) of actions is very different from actually executing a plan.  
> So, if by "argument", you really mean either planning or
> reconstructing, then I agree.  The "rational" qualifier for each
> (plan, do, reconstruct) has slightly different semantics.
Yes, I used argument in a specific, narrow context.... reconstructing in
an adversarial or persuasive context I suppose.

>
>> Whether you agree with the
>> specifics of how all that came down, I think you *might* be able to
>> separate into two clusters, the intentions based on an assumed harm done
>> by another which suggests a response, and the recognition than another
>> is not in a good position to defend themselves and has something you
>> want, suggesting some form of violence or threat of violence as a course
>> of action.
>
> OK.  I confess that I do have 2 primary measures of "bad": 1) opacity
> - as we've discussed and 2) asymmetry.  In any asymmetric
> relationship, the one(s) with the advantage has the moral
> responsibility to modify/regulate their own actions so that the one(s)
> with the disadvantage isn't (unwillingly) exploited or bullied.  I
> should say _try_ to modify/regulate... because it's a _very_ difficult
> thing to do, for anyone.  And if there are more than 2 parties, even
> perceiving 3 or more dimensions is hard, much less measuring the
> amount of symmetry in those dimensions.

Yes... sounds like those good ole values of honesty and fair play to
me.  Huzzah!  We at least share this one heuristic about moral behaviour
it seems?
> As long as there's strong evidence that transparency and symmetry are
> salient, the action(s) are acceptable.
I tend to think of these things in terms of the motivations and
awareness of the actor, not an observer.  While I do try to attribute
"intentions" to others, I know that the final burden of this rests on
the only one who knows.  As a religious person would say "that is
between you and God".
>> Picking on poor Barry here, ...
>
> Sorry.  I don't mean to pick on him.  I actually think he's been an
> excellent president, though I didn't vote for his 2nd term. He's a
> useful foil.
And I'm sorry if I suggested you were, it was intended to be a bit
tongue-in-cheek... I think the least of his worries is what we have to
say about him here in this fringewater of the internet.
>
>> ... and he wasn't a whackadoodle "Maverick" so there was no contest, ...
>
> Ugh.  I sincerely wish She Who Must Not Be Named would disappear.
And a useful foil herself, she was.

>> I get that, but I can't separate "free will" from a sense of identity. I
>> guess I've not practiced thinking enough impossible things before
>> breakfast because an "I" without a free will seems... empty?
>
> Perhaps we use different meanings of 'will'?  I tend to think of it in
> terms of momentum.  E.g. some people have told me that I have "will
> power", in that I control my diet fairly well, exercise regularly,
> work consistently (even when my "office" is in a bedroom of the
> house), etc.  I tend to think of it in terms of habit, not "will
> power".  I don't really know what those people mean by "will power"
> when they say it.  To me, I do what I do because I establish a
> preferred set of behaviors (through rational comparison/contrast) and
> then do them.  Usually, part of my rational comparison involves trying
> various behaviors out to see if they're sustainable.  If momentum
> develops, I maintain them for awhile, making minor tweaks in response
> to micro-evolution in the environment.  Then I start the process over
> in response to macro-evolution.  So, the way I take what they mean is
> the momentum that develops after/as I find behaviors that sustain.

And I use the term will similarly but to be the impetus that establishes
and maintains a momentum vector, especially in the presence of
turbulence, a necessarily varying thrust vector if you will.  I find
that the behaviours/habits that sustain are more like canalizations...  
or ruts if you must... the paths worn by previous passings, reinforced
by subsequent passings until it seems hard to do anything but "stay on
the path".

>
> Free will, on the other hand, is the wiggle, the play, the slop we all
> experience while engaged in our will(s).  E.g. sometimes I buy coffee
> beans and grind them myself, sometimes I buy it pre-ground.  Why?  I
> don't know... because it's random.  That's an overly simplified
> example, of course.  There are much more pervasive restrictions and
> determinants for which type of coffee I buy.  But the gist is there:
> the freedom being discussed in "free will" is the random wiggle inside
> a byzantine complex of intertwined constraints of varying rigidity.  
> At least, that's my favorite alternative.

I do experience myself making unexpected decisions.  In my "field
theory" above, I don't always know if I'll step around, over or on a
given rock until I do, though often that is mostly predetermined by my
approach and my goal and it's obvious (size, etc.) nature.   What I'm
calling free will in my model is the experience of apprehending the
field of possibilities in front of me as I percieve them and *choosing*
a strategy or even general path based on something *other* than the
field itself.  Informed by the field for sure, but not defined strictly
by it.   My "free will" might include choosing an obstinately difficult
path for any of several reasons... perhaps to prove something to myself
or others, perhaps to hone my skills in navigating a particular aspect
of such terrain (rock-hopping, gully following, etc.).  My free will
might also simply involve following my curiosity, wanting to see what is
over that ridge over there, without any particular goal in mind, other
than just wanting to see.   My free will also might allow me to decide
to drop my constant rationalizing (in this case optimizing my path?) and
wander, at most paying only enough attention to avoid obvious pitfalls, etc.

I don't know if we are converging or not, but I think our different
views of these things might reflect our different professions and/or
backgrounds?   I grew up in wide open spaces, wandering hills and
ravines, creating short term goals (climb to the top of that hill over
there) and executing them strictly (charge in a straight line, damn the
challenges) or lazily (la-de-da... just keep an upward gradient and
you'll get there) or creatively (can I get there only by hopping from
rock to log to rock to rock?).  The world was more continuous than
discrete.  When I first lived (for about 6 mos) in a proper "city", I
learned that things could be fairly strictly discretized.  I recognized
(for the first time?) grid patterns and a new kind of self-similarity.  
If you knew an address for example, you could estimate the distance to
it by it's numbers.  You could take many paths to the same location
following the city-block metric, etc.   And it was a distinctly
different experience unless/until you allowed cutting through peoples
yards, etc.

In my work, my highest aspiration is to render discrete data/events into
a continuous field for intuitive exploration, hueristic building and
decision making.   When my clients ask me to build them a black box that
apprehends (their) universe of discourse and emit a yes/no, I balk.  I
don't build systems to help them make decisions, they are already good
at that (finger poised over the FIRE button), I build systems to help
make it harder for them to make decisions (to consider their decisions
more thoroughly).  My goal is to give them more basis for which to let
their finger twitch or not.   While I can build N-ary decision trees for
them, I only do that to help them understand their existing process, not
to relieve them of having to be aware of the many factors they might be
weighing.  I want them to apprehend the whole field of possible
alternatives/paths they might take rather than set up a pachinko game
they can drop their balls in and see where they come out the bottom.   I
suspect that a lot of your work is trying to take complex ideas or
phenomena and reduce them to code.  Most people I know who program for a
living (which I once did and still do in a pinch) have what I would call
an inverted perspective on what we are talking about.   I'm not sure
that my perspective is upright and theirs/yours is upside-down, just
that they are appositional in orientation.  Perhaps it is the dichotomy
of synthesis vs analysis.   I use analysis to aid in achieving
synthesis, programmers perhaps are more like to use synthesis to support
their analysis (breaking a process down into executable steps?).

-Steve


============================================================
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

[glen ep ropella]

On 11/13/2013 09:05 AM, Steve Smith wrote:

> On 11/13/2013 07:00 AM, glen wrote:
>>
>> OK.  I confess that I do have 2 primary measures of "bad": 1) opacity -
>> as we've discussed and 2) asymmetry.  In any asymmetric relationship,
>> the one(s) with the advantage has the moral responsibility to
>> modify/regulate their own actions so that the one(s) with the
>> disadvantage isn't (unwillingly) exploited or bullied.  I should say
>> _try_ to modify/regulate... because it's a _very_ difficult thing to do,
>> for anyone.  And if there are more than 2 parties, even perceiving 3 or
>> more dimensions is hard, much less measuring the amount of symmetry in
>> those dimensions.
>
> Yes... sounds like those good ole values of honesty and fair play to
> me.  Huzzah!  We at least share this one heuristic about moral behaviour
> it seems?

Appropriate to this context, I stumbled on this:

The United States is isolated in the Trans-Pacific Partnership negotiations
http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/monkey-cage/wp/2013/11/18/the-united-states-is-isolated-in-the-trans-pacific-partnership-negotiations/

--
glen ep ropella -- 971-255-2847

============================================================
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

[glen ropella]

On 11/13/2013 09:05 AM, Steve Smith wrote:
> The part I was trying to call/out or distinguish between my (intuitive)
> use of rational and your defined (as to ?rationate? or measure
> alternatives in ratio) is that in my mind, I am working with an evolving
> field of possibilities, effectively continuous, rather than discrete.  
> That is not to say that discrete decisions don't get made along the way
> (around/over/on) but that the bulk of the "rational" thought is based in
> a perceptual field rather than as an N-ary fault tree.

I'd like to pursue this a bit, if the list will tolerate it.  Between
then and now, I came across the term "predatory economic rationalism":

"The people who challenged my atheism most were drug addicts and
prostitutes"
http://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2013/dec/24/atheism-richard-dawkins-challenge-beliefs-homeless

Although both Steve's concept of a continuous field versus my concept of
discrete cut points don't conflict on the same basic point, a difference
does fold in.  Either way of looking at it avoids the overreach
typically implied by the word "rational".  For example, when someone
responds to something with "That sounds rational", they usually mean the
_result_, not the person/process who came to the result, as in the
assumption that the "rational economic agent" only takes the
conclusion(s) that benefit(s) themselves.  To describe such a conclusion
as rational is an abuse of the term.  Rather, it's the process by which
the conclusion was inferred that is (or is not) rational.

Beyond identifying that abuse, though, the very core of the concept of
"continuous" implies some sort of navigability ... you should be able to
"get there from here".  Of course, it's easy to add constraints or
texture to the field to partition into reachable and unreachable
regions, I claim the continuous field concept implies more
"reachability" than the discrete graph walk.  The discrete case doesn't
preclude the existence of an equivalent number of states to that in the
continuous case, only a different topology, with more chances for
blocking paths from one state to another.  I.e. it's a difference in
topology, not space.

Perhaps it relates to the categorization of people into those who sense
lost opportunity acutely versus those who tend to think their options
are more open?  Or, perhaps it has something to do with whether one
believes in free will? ... or perhaps the extent of the freedom in free
will?

--
⇒⇐ 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

[Marcus G. Daniels]

Chris Arnade writes:

"The people who challenged my atheism most were drug addicts and
prostitutes"

Glen writes:

"Between then and now, I came across the term "predatory economic
rationalism"

[..]

"Perhaps it relates to the categorization of people into those who sense
lost opportunity acutely versus those who tend to think their options
are more open? Or, perhaps it has something to do with whether one
believes in free will? ... or perhaps the extent of the freedom in free
will?"

Or the `successful' may just be apex predators, but still just one of
many possible species of person.  They feed on the productivity of these
other species.   Perhaps not wanting to be one of them, the drug addict
(unconsciously) denies the predator that productivity...  As Arnade
observes, everyone makes mistakes, so perhaps we can just enumerate the
wolves and note that's what wolves do but that they get no further honor.

Marcus

============================================================
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

[glen ropella]

On 01/03/2014 03:47 PM, Marcus G. Daniels wrote:
> Or the `successful' may just be apex predators, but still just one of
> many possible species of person.  They feed on the productivity of these
> other species.   Perhaps not wanting to be one of them, the drug addict
> (unconsciously) denies the predator that productivity...  As Arnade
> observes, everyone makes mistakes, so perhaps we can just enumerate the
> wolves and note that's what wolves do but that they get no further honor.

Well, it seems to me that the ascription of honor (or any other
honorific) is a dynamic thing.  Not only is society fickle like that,
but it's also difficult to predict what your arbitrary weirdo might take
_pride_ in. Witness:

   http://www.thesmokinggun.com/buster/man-dies-eating-roaches-587314

or

   http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Armin_Meiwes

So, we can't prescribe what honor the wolves get.  In fact, merely
counting them might encourage more people to want to be them.  I think
the answer lies in creating/facilitating wolf-eating species.

--
⇒⇐ 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

[John Kennison]

I consider myself a rational person because I believe what I observe and I believe in what is observed by any group of people I trust (such as a near consensus of scientists). I further believe in whatever follows logically. I believe I can predict the likely consequences of my actions and this helps make me a reasonably happy person. Belief in God or belief in the inerrancy of the bible do not pass my tests. But there is scientific evidence that religious people are healthier and happier than non-religious people. This seems to be so even though people who would apparently be neither healthy nor happy are almost always religious. So what should I make of this?

________________________________________
From: Friam [[hidden email]] on behalf of glen [[hidden email]]
Sent: Friday, January 03, 2014 7:42 PM
To: The Friday Morning Applied Complexity Coffee Group
Subject: Re: [FRIAM] "rational"

On 01/03/2014 03:47 PM, Marcus G. Daniels wrote:
> Or the `successful' may just be apex predators, but still just one of
> many possible species of person.  They feed on the productivity of these
> other species.   Perhaps not wanting to be one of them, the drug addict
> (unconsciously) denies the predator that productivity...  As Arnade
> observes, everyone makes mistakes, so perhaps we can just enumerate the
> wolves and note that's what wolves do but that they get no further honor.

Well, it seems to me that the ascription of honor (or any other
honorific) is a dynamic thing.  Not only is society fickle like that,
but it's also difficult to predict what your arbitrary weirdo might take
_pride_ in. Witness:

   http://www.thesmokinggun.com/buster/man-dies-eating-roaches-587314

or

   http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Armin_Meiwes

So, we can't prescribe what honor the wolves get.  In fact, merely
counting them might encourage more people to want to be them.  I think
the answer lies in creating/facilitating wolf-eating species.

--
⇒⇐ 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 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

[Merle Lefkoff-2]

John,

If you were attending the Zen Brain workshop at Upaya in Santa Fe (where I teach applied complexity in the Buddhlst Chaplaincy program)--along with some of the most famous neuroscientists in the world and Neil Theise, a remarkable complexity guy--you might find the answer to your question.  The workshop starts the end of January.

Merle

On Sat, Jan 4, 2014 at 6:17 AM, John Kennison <[hidden email]> wrote:

I consider myself a rational person because I believe what I observe and I believe in what is observed by any group of people I trust (such as a near consensus of scientists). I further believe in whatever follows logically. I believe I can predict the likely consequences of my actions and this helps make me a reasonably happy person. Belief in God or belief in the inerrancy of the bible do not pass my tests. But there is scientific evidence that religious people are healthier and happier than non-religious people. This seems to be so even though people who would apparently be neither healthy nor happy are almost always religious. So what should I make of this?

________________________________________
From: Friam [[hidden email]] on behalf of glen [[hidden email]]
Sent: Friday, January 03, 2014 7:42 PM
To: The Friday Morning Applied Complexity Coffee Group
Subject: Re: [FRIAM] "rational"

On 01/03/2014 03:47 PM, Marcus G. Daniels wrote:
> Or the `successful' may just be apex predators, but still just one of
> many possible species of person.  They feed on the productivity of these
> other species.   Perhaps not wanting to be one of them, the drug addict
> (unconsciously) denies the predator that productivity...  As Arnade
> observes, everyone makes mistakes, so perhaps we can just enumerate the
> wolves and note that's what wolves do but that they get no further honor.

Well, it seems to me that the ascription of honor (or any other
honorific) is a dynamic thing.  Not only is society fickle like that,
but it's also difficult to predict what your arbitrary weirdo might take
_pride_ in. Witness:

   http://www.thesmokinggun.com/buster/man-dies-eating-roaches-587314

or

   http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Armin_Meiwes

So, we can't prescribe what honor the wolves get.  In fact, merely
counting them might encourage more people to want to be them.  I think
the answer lies in creating/facilitating wolf-eating species.

--
⇒⇐ 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 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

--
Merle Lefkoff, Ph.D.
President, Center for Emergent Diplomacy
Santa Fe, New Mexico, USA
[hidden email]
mobile:  [phone]
skype:  merlelefkoff

============================================================
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

[John Kennison]

Hi Merle,

Your workshop looks like an excellent place to find answers. I live in Massachusetts and won't be coming to the workshop, but would appreciate any suggested readings.

  I am interested in two things. One is to explore the conundrum that it seems to be rational to sometimes engage in non-rational behavior. How can this be the case? Do humans have a need to be irrational at times?  If so, how what is the nature of this need? How deep is it? How did it arise? I have some theories (hardly original with me) but I first wanted to pose the question in a neutral way.

The other question is related, but more practical. What are reasonable ways for a supposedly rational people to deal with their apparent non-rational needs? Again I have done some personal exploring but didn't want to the question to get mixed up with what I take to be my religious outlook.  In any case, I am always seeking.

Thanks, John

________________________________________
From: Friam [[hidden email]] on behalf of Merle Lefkoff [[hidden email]]
Sent: Saturday, January 04, 2014 10:54 AM
To: The Friday Morning Applied Complexity Coffee Group
Subject: Re: [FRIAM] "rational"

John,

If you were attending the Zen Brain workshop at Upaya in Santa Fe (where I teach applied complexity in the Buddhlst Chaplaincy program)--along with some of the most famous neuroscientists in the world and Neil Theise, a remarkable complexity guy--you might find the answer to your question.  The workshop starts the end of January.

Merle


On Sat, Jan 4, 2014 at 6:17 AM, John Kennison <[hidden email]<mailto:[hidden email]>> wrote:
I consider myself a rational person because I believe what I observe and I believe in what is observed by any group of people I trust (such as a near consensus of scientists). I further believe in whatever follows logically. I believe I can predict the likely consequences of my actions and this helps make me a reasonably happy person. Belief in God or belief in the inerrancy of the bible do not pass my tests. But there is scientific evidence that religious people are healthier and happier than non-religious people. This seems to be so even though people who would apparently be neither healthy nor happy are almost always religious. So what should I make of this?

________________________________________
From: Friam [[hidden email]<mailto:[hidden email]>] on behalf of glen [[hidden email]<mailto:[hidden email]>]
Sent: Friday, January 03, 2014 7:42 PM
To: The Friday Morning Applied Complexity Coffee Group
Subject: Re: [FRIAM] "rational"

On 01/03/2014 03:47 PM, Marcus G. Daniels wrote:
> Or the `successful' may just be apex predators, but still just one of
> many possible species of person.  They feed on the productivity of these
> other species.   Perhaps not wanting to be one of them, the drug addict
> (unconsciously) denies the predator that productivity...  As Arnade
> observes, everyone makes mistakes, so perhaps we can just enumerate the
> wolves and note that's what wolves do but that they get no further honor.

Well, it seems to me that the ascription of honor (or any other
honorific) is a dynamic thing.  Not only is society fickle like that,
but it's also difficult to predict what your arbitrary weirdo might take
_pride_ in. Witness:

   http://www.thesmokinggun.com/buster/man-dies-eating-roaches-587314

or

   http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Armin_Meiwes

So, we can't prescribe what honor the wolves get.  In fact, merely
counting them might encourage more people to want to be them.  I think
the answer lies in creating/facilitating wolf-eating species.

--
⇒⇐ 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 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



--
Merle Lefkoff, Ph.D.
President, Center for Emergent Diplomacy
Santa Fe, New Mexico, USA
[hidden email]<mailto:[hidden email]>
mobile:  [phone]
skype:  merlelefkoff
============================================================
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

[Nick Thompson]

Merle,

 

Please “Shamelessly Promote” your workshop.  I want to know more.  Does it have a website? 

 

Nick

 

Nicholas S. Thompson

Emeritus Professor of Psychology and Biology

Clark University

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

 

From: Friam [mailto:[hidden email]] On Behalf Of Merle Lefkoff
Sent: Saturday, January 04, 2014 8:54 AM
To: The Friday Morning Applied Complexity Coffee Group
Subject: Re: [FRIAM] "rational"

 

John,

 

If you were attending the Zen Brain workshop at Upaya in Santa Fe (where I teach applied complexity in the Buddhlst Chaplaincy program)--along with some of the most famous neuroscientists in the world and Neil Theise, a remarkable complexity guy--you might find the answer to your question.  The workshop starts the end of January.

 

Merle

 

On Sat, Jan 4, 2014 at 6:17 AM, John Kennison <[hidden email]> wrote:

I consider myself a rational person because I believe what I observe and I believe in what is observed by any group of people I trust (such as a near consensus of scientists). I further believe in whatever follows logically. I believe I can predict the likely consequences of my actions and this helps make me a reasonably happy person. Belief in God or belief in the inerrancy of the bible do not pass my tests. But there is scientific evidence that religious people are healthier and happier than non-religious people. This seems to be so even though people who would apparently be neither healthy nor happy are almost always religious. So what should I make of this?

________________________________________
From: Friam [[hidden email]] on behalf of glen [[hidden email]]
Sent: Friday, January 03, 2014 7:42 PM
To: The Friday Morning Applied Complexity Coffee Group
Subject: Re: [FRIAM] "rational"

On 01/03/2014 03:47 PM, Marcus G. Daniels wrote:
> Or the `successful' may just be apex predators, but still just one of
> many possible species of person.  They feed on the productivity of these
> other species.   Perhaps not wanting to be one of them, the drug addict
> (unconsciously) denies the predator that productivity...  As Arnade
> observes, everyone makes mistakes, so perhaps we can just enumerate the
> wolves and note that's what wolves do but that they get no further honor.

Well, it seems to me that the ascription of honor (or any other
honorific) is a dynamic thing.  Not only is society fickle like that,
but it's also difficult to predict what your arbitrary weirdo might take
_pride_ in. Witness:

   http://www.thesmokinggun.com/buster/man-dies-eating-roaches-587314

or

   http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Armin_Meiwes

So, we can't prescribe what honor the wolves get.  In fact, merely
counting them might encourage more people to want to be them.  I think
the answer lies in creating/facilitating wolf-eating species.

--
⇒⇐ 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 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

 

--
Merle Lefkoff, Ph.D.
President, Center for Emergent Diplomacy
Santa Fe, New Mexico, USA
[hidden email]
mobile:  [phone]
skype:  merlelefkoff

============================================================
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

[glen ropella]

On 01/04/2014 10:19 AM, John Kennison wrote:
>   I am interested in two things. One is to explore the conundrum that it seems to be rational to sometimes engage in non-rational behavior. How can this be the case? Do humans have a need to be irrational at times?

What is inadequate about my previous response to this?  The way I see
it, the result, the end-point, final position someone takes is neither
rational nor irrational.  It's the weighing of various positions against
each other that is rational (or irrational).

Hence, people will, almost by definition, arrive at different
conclusions because the metrics by which they weigh their options
against one another will be different.  I.e. what seems like a
reasonable conclusion to one person will seem like nonsense to someone
else who reasons with different assumptions or inferential rules.

That seems, to me, like a good answer to your question.  Even _if_ all
humans use rational decision making procedures, their conclusions can
seem "irrational" to each other.  Only those closest to (within) _your_
clique will seem to arrive at "rational" conclusions because they reason
based on the same assumptions and calculi.

Now, that carries us to how/whether/why humans would use irrational
inference procedures.  But I think we would _need_ some evidence that
people actually use irrational reasoning procedures.  I think even
so-called "irrational" things like _emotions_ are, somewhere deep down,
rational.  Those emotions are an evolutionarily selected decision-making
ability that has its own calculus.

>  If so, how what is the nature of this need? How deep is it? How did it arise? I have some theories (hardly original with me) but I first wanted to pose the question in a neutral way.

Although I don't quite buy Kahneman's "fast" and "slow" circuits, I
think it's a useful fiction.  We have various ways of thinking (various
ways of being rational) that we engage in various circumstances.  The
reasoning procedures I use when, say, solving an engineering problem are
very different from the reasoning procedures I use when arguing with
relatives at dinner, or advising a drug abusing friend.

Of course, some people might have a richer set of different rationality
procedures.  Perhaps more autistic people stick to a few ways of being
rational, whereas flaky artist types, doff and don ways of thinking like
scarves or hats?

--
⇒⇐ glen e. p. ropella
Occam's razor makes the cutting clean


============================================================
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