A New Society for the Study of Cultural Evolution

[Marcus G. Daniels]

"There's only 1 reason to interfere/intervene in the milieu around you, that is to participate. "

Is a search engine a participant in people's web browsing?   One can define it that way, but that's not the usual business model.    The usual model is to watch and learn, and sell their observations in some way to a third party.  Most science is about teasing apart causation in as much detail as possible in a controlled setting.  And engineering is about putting it back together in useful ways.  Not everything can be understood or controlled that way, but the parts and pieces often can be.   That's a fine thing to do, just not the only thing to do.

I have no problem with activism.   If there's no knowledge about how the parts and pieces of a social system work, nor experience with similar system dynamics behave, then, by all means dive in to the blood and muck, if that sort of thing is fun for you.  But if I'm going to spend time debating, say, potential legislation, with people that don't share my particular preferences, then it is a good if we negotiate a protocol for identifying good and bad arguments, so we don't just talk about our preferences all day.    The failure to find and maintain such a protocol means the activity becomes political, and is no longer a good faith discussion, but a rivalry.    The fewer mutually accepted rules -- the nastier or more pointless the discussion may become.   And the faster it gets nasty, the sooner we can found out who the big dog is, because that's all that is at stake.

And it is not about objective reality, it's about precision of terminology.  What is nailed down sufficiently-well for an analysis about the logical consequences of the nailed-down thing or system of things.    It's not clear what this group of people is willing to nail down, even temporarily.    Just like it isn't clear what climate change deniers are willing to nail down.   It is bad faith, not skepticism, when people put their monetary or ideological goals ahead of the evidence, and then claim they are interested in the evidence.  That's what I mean by corruption.  

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

[Bob Ballance]

Given the personalization algorithms deployed by the major search engines, its hard *not* to see the search engine as a participant in browsing.

. . . bob

> On Jun 30, 2015, at 12:34 PM, Marcus Daniels <[hidden email]> wrote:
>
> "There's only 1 reason to interfere/intervene in the milieu around you, that is to participate. "
>
> Is a search engine a participant in people's web browsing?   One can define it that way, but that's not the usual business model.    The usual model is to watch and learn, and sell their observations in some way to a third party.  Most science is about teasing apart causation in as much detail as possible in a controlled setting.  And engineering is about putting it back together in useful ways.  Not everything can be understood or controlled that way, but the parts and pieces often can be.   That's a fine thing to do, just not the only thing to do.
>
> I have no problem with activism.   If there's no knowledge about how the parts and pieces of a social system work, nor experience with similar system dynamics behave, then, by all means dive in to the blood and muck, if that sort of thing is fun for you.  But if I'm going to spend time debating, say, potential legislation, with people that don't share my particular preferences, then it is a good if we negotiate a protocol for identifying good and bad arguments, so we don't just talk about our preferences all day.    The failure to find and maintain such a protocol means the activity becomes political, and is no longer a good faith discussion, but a rivalry.    The fewer mutually accepted rules -- the nastier or more pointless the discussion may become.   And the faster it gets nasty, the sooner we can found out who the big dog is, because that's all that is at stake.
>
> And it is not about objective reality, it's about precision of terminology.  What is nailed down sufficiently-well for an analysis about the logical consequences of the nailed-down thing or system of things.    It's not clear what this group of people is willing to nail down, even temporarily.    Just like it isn't clear what climate change deniers are willing to nail down.   It is bad faith, not skepticism, when people put their monetary or ideological goals ahead of the evidence, and then claim they are interested in the evidence.  That's what I mean by corruption.  
>
> 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

============================================================
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]

"Given the personalization algorithms deployed by the major search engines, its hard *not* to see the search engine as a participant in browsing."

If the search engine could pass a Turing test, then ok.  

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 ep ropella]

On 06/30/2015 11:34 AM, Marcus Daniels wrote:
> Is a search engine a participant in people's web browsing?

No.  But the people who wrote the artifact (and maintain the servers, and tweak the algorithms, and use it for advertising) are participants in my web browsing.

> And it is not about objective reality, it's about precision of terminology.

Bah.  What can "precise terminology" mean without any stable referent?  Precision _is_ about objective reality at least to some extent.  At the very least, there has to be some way to measure the difference between 2 different terms or usages of a single term.  So, even if the terms themselves don't map to reality, the metric used to contrast them does.

So, your dependence on precise terminology implies a dependence on objective reality.

> What is nailed down sufficiently-well for an analysis about the logical consequences of the nailed-down thing or system of things.    It's not clear what this group of people is willing to nail down, even temporarily.

I agree that it's not clear for this new society.

> Just like it isn't clear what climate change deniers are willing to nail down.

But it is NOT "just like ... climate change deniers".  Are you seriously making that equivalence?

> It is bad faith, not skepticism, when people put their monetary or ideological goals ahead of the evidence, and then claim they are interested in the evidence.  That's what I mean by corruption.

OK.  I disagree, _if_ those people are up front that they put their monetary or ideological goals first.  It's not bad faith or corruption, then.  And you have to admit that by openly stating that activism is one of this new group's objectives, then it's a bit of a leap to accuse them of bad faith or corruption right off the bat.  If it were bad faith, their true objectives would not be as obvious as they've made them.

--
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

[Marcus G. Daniels]

"What can "precise terminology" mean without any stable referent?  Precision _is_ about objective reality at least to some extent."

The referent could be different sorts of things, like waves or particles.    The true nature of things forever remains unknown, but self-consistent precise descriptions are essential so that experiments can be conducted by different observers.
 
> Just like it isn't clear what climate change deniers are willing to nail down.

"But it is NOT "just like ... climate change deniers".  Are you seriously making that equivalence?"

People on the left move the goal posts around to serve their argument just like people on the right.
Sometimes people remove several words and replace them with "...", gosh, I don't know why!

> It is bad faith, not skepticism, when people put their monetary or ideological goals ahead of the evidence, and then claim they are interested in the evidence.  That's what I mean by corruption.

"OK.  I disagree, _if_ those people are up front that they put their monetary or ideological goals first.  It's not bad faith or corruption, then.  And you have to admit that by openly stating that activism is one of this new group's objectives, then it's a bit of a leap to accuse them of bad faith or corruption right off the bat.  If it were bad faith, their true objectives would not be as obvious as they've made them."

Collect some like-minded folks, create a distinguished board of directors and start arguing  from authority.  The premise that there are any particular "positive" goals has not been demonstrated.   It's just some randomwish-it-were-so thing they are throwing around -- it's not a hypothesis it is an assertion.    At some point in their "inquiry" there exists the possibility that their goals can be falsified.   So lose the goals and follow the evidence.    The voting booth is good place for this kind of activity.
       
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

[gepr]

CONTENTS DELETED

The author has deleted this message.

[Marcus G. Daniels]

"So, your claim that it's not about objective reality is simply false.  Take away your assumption of objective reality and your precise terminology argument falls apart."

The point is it doesn't matter if the scientific method reveals a model that is precisely what nature is.   The "illusion" of objective reality is fine if it works.  

>> Just like it isn't clear what climate change deniers are willing to nail down.
>
> "But it is NOT "just like ... climate change deniers".  Are you seriously making that equivalence?"
>
> People on the left move the goal posts around to serve their argument just like people on the right.
> Sometimes people remove several words and replace them with "...", gosh, I don't know why!

Why?  Because removing the distracting text clarifies your analogy.  You're claiming that the methods of the SSCE are just like the methods of climate change deniers.  They're not just alike.  Yes, they probably both "move goal posts around", because everyone does that, especially as they grow and evolve, learn from what does and does not work, change membership, etc.  Not nailing down exactly what you'll do from now till the year 3015 doesn't imply that you're not nailing things down just like climate change deniers aren't nailing things down.  Your "just like" analogy is so vague it's mind-bending.

> Collect some like-minded folks, create a distinguished board of directors and start arguing  from authority.  The premise that there are any particular "positive" goals has not been demonstrated.   It's just some randomwish-it-were-so thing they are throwing around -- it's not a hypothesis it is an assertion.    At some point in their "inquiry" there exists the possibility that their goals can be falsified.   So lose the goals and follow the evidence.    The voting booth is good place for this kind of activity.

OK.  What you're doing is _predicting_ what the SSCE will do.  That's fine.  But it's bad faith of you not to be clear that this is merely your prediction.  Or perhaps its (even weaker) your expectation.  To some extent, I expect the same.  But I'm usually wrong, which means I'm interested in seeing if it happens.

--
⇔ 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

[Marcus G. Daniels]

Bah.  Was looking at a build problem.  Didn't mean to send that, meant to iconify that!

My objection was to your claim that nothing is for sure so might as well equivalence activism+science vs. science.   I see this group of people as lowering the bar for scientific inquiry in their field, and at once diluting the efforts of social workers and other kinds of advocates.   In my book that's a far worse offense than whatever benefit they think they'll get from coupling their inquiry to their advocacy.   I guess if that's what they want, they can have it.    As for the rest, whatever, I was just killing time until my tests came back.  

-----Original Message-----
From: Friam [mailto:[hidden email]] On Behalf Of Marcus Daniels
Sent: Tuesday, June 30, 2015 4:15 PM
To: The Friday Morning Applied Complexity Coffee Group
Subject: Re: [FRIAM] A New Society for the Study of Cultural Evolution

"So, your claim that it's not about objective reality is simply false.  Take away your assumption of objective reality and your precise terminology argument falls apart."

The point is it doesn't matter if the scientific method reveals a model that is precisely what nature is.   The "illusion" of objective reality is fine if it works.  

>> Just like it isn't clear what climate change deniers are willing to nail down.
>
> "But it is NOT "just like ... climate change deniers".  Are you seriously making that equivalence?"
>
> People on the left move the goal posts around to serve their argument just like people on the right.
> Sometimes people remove several words and replace them with "...", gosh, I don't know why!

Why?  Because removing the distracting text clarifies your analogy.  You're claiming that the methods of the SSCE are just like the methods of climate change deniers.  They're not just alike.  Yes, they probably both "move goal posts around", because everyone does that, especially as they grow and evolve, learn from what does and does not work, change membership, etc.  Not nailing down exactly what you'll do from now till the year 3015 doesn't imply that you're not nailing things down just like climate change deniers aren't nailing things down.  Your "just like" analogy is so vague it's mind-bending.

> Collect some like-minded folks, create a distinguished board of directors and start arguing  from authority.  The premise that there are any particular "positive" goals has not been demonstrated.   It's just some randomwish-it-were-so thing they are throwing around -- it's not a hypothesis it is an assertion.    At some point in their "inquiry" there exists the possibility that their goals can be falsified.   So lose the goals and follow the evidence.    The voting booth is good place for this kind of activity.

OK.  What you're doing is _predicting_ what the SSCE will do.  That's fine.  But it's bad faith of you not to be clear that this is merely your prediction.  Or perhaps its (even weaker) your expectation.  To some extent, I expect the same.  But I'm usually wrong, which means I'm interested in seeing if it happens.

--
⇔ 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
============================================================
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]

OK.  Well, I liken it to evidence-based medicine.  I don't really consider that sort of thing dilution or lowering the bar.  It seems to me they're simply trying to ground policy in science.  It's certainly extension of the science into non-scientific domains.  And anytime you do that, you run the risk of backflow from the non-science into the science.  So, having the same people do both activities is risky.  You can't win if you don't play, though.


On 06/30/2015 03:23 PM, Marcus Daniels wrote:
> My objection was to your claim that nothing is for sure so might as well equivalence activism+science vs. science.   I see this group of people as lowering the bar for scientific inquiry in their field, and at once diluting the efforts of social workers and other kinds of advocates.   In my book that's a far worse offense than whatever benefit they think they'll get from coupling their inquiry to their advocacy.   I guess if that's what they want, they can have it.    As for the rest, whatever, I was just killing time until my tests came back.


--
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