Analytic philosophy - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

[Owen Densmore]

Nick, Glen, Russ, Eric, and many of us who have participated in the  
recent spate of philosophical conversations .. I'd like to ask a  
question:

          Why is it that philosophy does not build on prior work
          in the same way mathematics does?

In trying to answer this, I looked briefly into the philosopher  
recommended by Timothy Gowers in his VSI to Mathematics.  In Gowers'  
wrestling with the abstract (or possibly purely pragmatic) approach to  
mathematics, he was profoundly affected by Wittgenstein.  I'm enjoying  
the VSI to Wittgenstein, and am impressed by his analytic approach.

Frank, in the past, has mentioned that modern philosophy might be  
becoming more formal, turning to a more mathematical approach  
(apparently flourishing at CMU). Some call it Analytic Philosophy,  
which includes Wittgenstein.
   http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Analytic_philosophy

So the question to the philosophic amongst us: what is the answer to  
the above question?  Is there a way in which philosophy can build on  
past work in the same way mathematics does?  Is there an epsilon/delta  
breakthrough just waiting to happen in that domain?  Will there be a  
"Modern Algebra" unification within philosophy, finding the common  
ground amongst widely different concepts like symmetry groups, fields,  
rings, Hilbert spaces and the like?

     -- Owen



============================================================
FRIAM Applied Complexity Group listserv
Meets Fridays 9a-11:30 at cafe at St. John's College
lectures, archives, unsubscribe, maps at http://www.friam.org

[Robert Holmes]

I was going to say something rude, but then I discovered that Marx had beaten me to it:

"Philosophy and the study of the actual world have the same relation to one another as onanism and sexual love" (Karl Marx & Friedrich Engels, The German Ideology, I, III, 1, 6, C, 1845-6)

Like onanism, philosophy passes the time, makes one feel good and shouldn't be done in public. Also, it doesn't actually create anything. Hence nothing to build on. A 20th century onanist looks much like a 4th century BC onanist.

-- Robert

On Thu, Jul 9, 2009 at 8:17 PM, Owen Densmore <[hidden email]> wrote:

Nick, Glen, Russ, Eric, and many of us who have participated in the recent spate of philosophical conversations .. I'd like to ask a question:

        Why is it that philosophy does not build on prior work
        in the same way mathematics does?

In trying to answer this, I looked briefly into the philosopher recommended by Timothy Gowers in his VSI to Mathematics.  In Gowers' wrestling with the abstract (or possibly purely pragmatic) approach to mathematics, he was profoundly affected by Wittgenstein.  I'm enjoying the VSI to Wittgenstein, and am impressed by his analytic approach.

Frank, in the past, has mentioned that modern philosophy might be becoming more formal, turning to a more mathematical approach (apparently flourishing at CMU). Some call it Analytic Philosophy, which includes Wittgenstein.
 http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Analytic_philosophy

So the question to the philosophic amongst us: what is the answer to the above question?  Is there a way in which philosophy can build on past work in the same way mathematics does?  Is there an epsilon/delta breakthrough just waiting to happen in that domain?  Will there be a "Modern Algebra" unification within philosophy, finding the common ground amongst widely different concepts like symmetry groups, fields, rings, Hilbert spaces and the like?

   -- Owen



============================================================
FRIAM Applied Complexity Group listserv
Meets Fridays 9a-11:30 at cafe at St. John's College
lectures, archives, unsubscribe, maps at http://www.friam.org

============================================================
FRIAM Applied Complexity Group listserv
Meets Fridays 9a-11:30 at cafe at St. John's College
lectures, archives, unsubscribe, maps at http://www.friam.org

[glen e. p. ropella-2]

Thus spake Owen Densmore circa 07/09/2009 07:17 PM:
> So the question to the philosophic amongst us: what is the answer to the
> above question?  Is there a way in which philosophy can build on past
> work in the same way mathematics does?  Is there an epsilon/delta
> breakthrough just waiting to happen in that domain?  Will there be a
> "Modern Algebra" unification within philosophy, finding the common
> ground amongst widely different concepts like symmetry groups, fields,
> rings, Hilbert spaces and the like?

Personally, I believe that philosophy (by which I mostly mean analytic)
is the larger system in which mathematics is grounded.  I tend to view
it as if philosophers are trail-blazing mathematicians.  They foray out
into the wild and whittle away at the fuzzy thoughts out there,
preparing them for the more fastidious, civilized, mathematicians who
follow.  (Note that I believe programmers to be a form of
mathematician... less fastidious than their more formal brethren,
applied mathematicians who are still less fastidious than their
brethren, pure mathematicians.)

At each stage, the reliance on the semantic grounding of the formalisms
is whittled away until you have, at the pure math stage, formalisms
grounded solely in identifiable axioms like zero, reciprocal, axiom of
choice, etc.

So, in my (fantasy) world, philosophy will never be as rigorous as math
because philosophy _is_ math and math is philosophy... they're just at
different stages in the process.  Philosophy is "upstream" and math is
"downstream".  This leads to the following direct answers to your questions:

> Why is it that philosophy does not build on prior work
> in the same way mathematics does?

Because philosophy is a frontier, wilderness activity, where prior work
is less important than solving some case specific, imminent, problem.

> Is there a way in which philosophy can build on past
> work in the same way mathematics does?

No, because the domains in which philosophy are useful are aswim in
meaning and syntactically impoverished.  Philosophy is an embedded,
situated, open-ended, activity where everything constantly shifts
around.  Foundations are built on sand, not granite.

> Is there an epsilon/delta
> breakthrough just waiting to happen in that domain?  Will there be a
> "Modern Algebra" unification within philosophy, finding the common
> ground amongst widely different concepts like symmetry groups, fields,
> rings, Hilbert spaces and the like?

Yes!  But there is not just ONE breakthrough/unification coming.  There
are many, just like there have been many.  And once those breakthroughs
come, they congeal into a mathematics that is then adopted by an army
consisting of a different, more fastidious, type of philosopher.  The
trail blazers move on to the next wild frontier while the "settlers"
move in and bring mind-numbing order to the region surrounding the
breakthrough.

--
glen e. p. ropella, 971-222-9095, http://agent-based-modeling.com


============================================================
FRIAM Applied Complexity Group listserv
Meets Fridays 9a-11:30 at cafe at St. John's College
lectures, archives, unsubscribe, maps at http://www.friam.org

[Eric Charles]

Echoing and expanding Glen's thoughts:

Alfred North Whitehead once famously claimed that "All European philosophy is but a footnote to Plato."

One historic problem with philosophy, as a field of inquiry, is that whenever philosophers start to get too systematic, and start building in the way Owen desires, the bloody edifice off and leaves. Any mapping of academic lineages would reveal that at some point in history all current fields broke off from philosophy. For example, "Biology" "Chemistry" and "Physics" are what you get when "Natural Philosophy" starts to get cumulative. All of modern logic, set theory, and combinatorics, derive from Aristotle's Categories, which itself derives from previous work that is obviously philosophy. When that stuff starts to get to cumulative, one suddenly finds that here exists mathematicians and computational scientists. Thus, Glen's notion of "trail blazing" is not only a good representation of the present state of affairs, but also of the historic events that led to the present state.

One awkward relationship for philosophy at the moment is the continued tension over whether or not the youngest child, psychology, has grown up enough to really be out on its own. Psychology should be what you get when epistemological and phenomenological questions start to get answered by an accumulation of empirical knowledge. However, philosophy still tries desperately to keep those areas of inquiry from being seen as empirically investigatable, using many of the same arguments that were used to try to keep biology and physics in their infant state hundreds of years ago. At least some of the recent discussion and controversy with Nick is symptomatic of this awkward relationship between psychology and philosophy.

Eric

On Fri, Jul 10, 2009 10:41 AM, "glen e. p. ropella" <[hidden email]> wrote:

Thus spake Owen Densmore circa 07/09/2009 07:17 PM:
> So the question to the philosophic amongst us: what is the answer to the
> above question?  Is there a way in which philosophy can build on past
> work in the same way mathematics does?  Is there an epsilon/delta
> breakthrough just waiting to happen in that domain?  Will there be a
> "Modern Algebra" unification within philosophy, finding the
common
> ground amongst widely different concepts like symmetry groups, fields,
> rings, Hilbert spaces and the like?

Personally, I believe that philosophy (by which I mostly mean
analytic)
is the larger system in which mathematics is grounded.  I tend to view
it as if philosophers are trail-blazing mathematicians.  They foray out
into the wild and whittle away at the fuzzy thoughts out there,
preparing them for the more fastidious, civilized, mathematicians who
follow.  (Note that I believe programmers to be a form of
mathematician... less fastidious than their more formal brethren,
applied mathematicians who are still less fastidious than their
brethren, pure mathematicians.)

At each stage, the reliance on the semantic grounding of the formalisms
is whittled away until you have, at the pure math stage, formalisms
grounded solely in identifiable axioms like zero, reciprocal, axiom of
choice, etc.

So, in my (fantasy) world, philosophy will never be as rigorous as
math
because philosophy _is_ math and math is philosophy... they're just at
different stages in the process.  Philosophy is "upstream" and math is
"downstream".  This leads to the following direct answers to your
questions:

> Why is it that philosophy does not build on prior work
> in the same way mathematics does? 

Because philosophy is a frontier, wilderness activity, where prior work
is less important than solving some case specific, imminent, problem.

> Is there a way in which philosophy can build on past
> work in the same way mathematics does?

No, because the domains in which philosophy are useful are aswim in
meaning and syntactically impoverished.  Philosophy is an embedded,
situated, open-ended, activity where everything constantly shifts
around.  Foundations are built on sand, not granite.

> Is there an epsilon/delta
> breakthrough just waiting to happen in that domain?  Will there be a
> "Modern Algebra" unification within philosophy, finding the
common
> ground amongst widely different concepts like symmetry groups, fields,
> rings, Hilbert spaces and the like?

Yes!  But there is not just ONE breakthrough/unification coming.  There
are many, just like there have been many.  And once those breakthroughs
come, they congeal into a mathematics that is then adopted by an army
consisting of a different, more fastidious, type of philosopher.  The
trail blazers move on to the next wild frontier while the "settlers"
move in and bring mind-numbing order to the region surrounding the
breakthrough.

-- 
glen e. p. ropella, 971-222-9095, http://agent-based-modeling.com


============================================================
FRIAM Applied Complexity Group listserv
Meets Fridays 9a-11:30 at cafe at St. John's College
lectures, archives, unsubscribe, maps at http://www.friam.org

Eric Charles

Professional Student and
Assistant Professor of Psychology
Penn State University
Altoona, PA 16601

============================================================
FRIAM Applied Complexity Group listserv
Meets Fridays 9a-11:30 at cafe at St. John's College
lectures, archives, unsubscribe, maps at http://www.friam.org

[Owen Densmore]

Fascinating!

Now, using the definition "Philosophy is what Philosophers do" ..  
would a Philosopher agree with you?

     -- Owen


On Jul 10, 2009, at 8:41 AM, glen e. p. ropella wrote:

> Thus spake Owen Densmore circa 07/09/2009 07:17 PM:
>> So the question to the philosophic amongst us: what is the answer  
>> to the
>> above question?  Is there a way in which philosophy can build on past
>> work in the same way mathematics does?  Is there an epsilon/delta
>> breakthrough just waiting to happen in that domain?  Will there be a
>> "Modern Algebra" unification within philosophy, finding the common
>> ground amongst widely different concepts like symmetry groups,  
>> fields,
>> rings, Hilbert spaces and the like?
>
> Personally, I believe that philosophy (by which I mostly mean  
> analytic)
> is the larger system in which mathematics is grounded.  I tend to view
> it as if philosophers are trail-blazing mathematicians.  They foray  
> out
> into the wild and whittle away at the fuzzy thoughts out there,
> preparing them for the more fastidious, civilized, mathematicians who
> follow.  (Note that I believe programmers to be a form of
> mathematician... less fastidious than their more formal brethren,
> applied mathematicians who are still less fastidious than their
> brethren, pure mathematicians.)
>
> At each stage, the reliance on the semantic grounding of the  
> formalisms
> is whittled away until you have, at the pure math stage, formalisms
> grounded solely in identifiable axioms like zero, reciprocal, axiom of
> choice, etc.
>
> So, in my (fantasy) world, philosophy will never be as rigorous as  
> math
> because philosophy _is_ math and math is philosophy... they're just at
> different stages in the process.  Philosophy is "upstream" and math is
> "downstream".  This leads to the following direct answers to your  
> questions:
>
>> Why is it that philosophy does not build on prior work
>> in the same way mathematics does?
>
> Because philosophy is a frontier, wilderness activity, where prior  
> work
> is less important than solving some case specific, imminent, problem.
>
>> Is there a way in which philosophy can build on past
>> work in the same way mathematics does?
>
> No, because the domains in which philosophy are useful are aswim in
> meaning and syntactically impoverished.  Philosophy is an embedded,
> situated, open-ended, activity where everything constantly shifts
> around.  Foundations are built on sand, not granite.
>
>> Is there an epsilon/delta
>> breakthrough just waiting to happen in that domain?  Will there be a
>> "Modern Algebra" unification within philosophy, finding the common
>> ground amongst widely different concepts like symmetry groups,  
>> fields,
>> rings, Hilbert spaces and the like?
>
> Yes!  But there is not just ONE breakthrough/unification coming.  
> There
> are many, just like there have been many.  And once those  
> breakthroughs
> come, they congeal into a mathematics that is then adopted by an army
> consisting of a different, more fastidious, type of philosopher.  The
> trail blazers move on to the next wild frontier while the "settlers"
> move in and bring mind-numbing order to the region surrounding the
> breakthrough.
>
> --
> glen e. p. ropella, 971-222-9095, http://agent-based-modeling.com

============================================================
FRIAM Applied Complexity Group listserv
Meets Fridays 9a-11:30 at cafe at St. John's College
lectures, archives, unsubscribe, maps at http://www.friam.org

[glen e. p. ropella-2]

Thus spake Owen Densmore circa 09-07-10 09:04 AM:
> Now, using the definition "Philosophy is what Philosophers do" .. would
> a Philosopher agree with you?

I think so, because what philosophers do is an embedded, situated,
"online" activity.  They navigate around in the muck within which we
live, regardless of the particular issue they're studying at the time.
Hence, whatever a philosopher may be studying, it is philosophy.

As an aside, I think it's quite funny when people describe philosophers
as "ivory tower" or very abstractly removed from daily life.  I've
always had the opposite reaction.  Philosophers seem to be trying to
tackle the issues most near and dear to every _thinking_ animal.  To me,
it's engineering that is the pinnacle of abstraction, despite the
concrete product.  And it's the engineer's abstraction that facilitates
her success.  The philosopher's product is abstract, but their methods
are very closely grounded to the root of all (our) meaning -- the
animal.  The engineer's product is concrete, but their methods are
slightly unhinged from the nitty gritty animalness of living in the world.

OK.  That last paragraph proves that I should shut up for awhile. [grin]

--
glen e. p. ropella, 971-222-9095, http://agent-based-modeling.com


============================================================
FRIAM Applied Complexity Group listserv
Meets Fridays 9a-11:30 at cafe at St. John's College
lectures, archives, unsubscribe, maps at http://www.friam.org

[Steve Smith]

Owen Densmore wrote:

Nick, Glen, Russ, Eric, and many of us who have participated in the recent spate of philosophical conversations .. I'd like to ask a question:

         Why is it that philosophy does not build on prior work
         in the same way mathematics does?

Nice little riff starting here...

I'll try to combine my thoughts/responses into a single succinct (hah!) mailing here.

    I think Owen's question might be a bit specious.   I believe that philosophy *does* build on prior work.  Eric speaks to this well in a followup post I think.   The point that philosophy might not do it "the same way that mathematics does" is well taken however.  

Personally, I believe that philosophy (by which I mostly mean analytic)
is the larger system in which mathematics is grounded. I tend to view
it as if philosophers are trail-blazing mathematicians.

- Spaketh Glen Ropella

I think the first half of this point is key.   Mathematics is grounded in Philosophy... and essentially the part of philosophy which *can be* cumulative in a way that the rest of philosophy (including the natural sciences) cannot be.   I think the second point is too strong, in the sense perhaps that philosophers are trail-blazing thinkers and that one likely consequence of their work is that mathematical formalisms will be invented or discovered (pick your favorite way of thinking of these things) to make their field of inquiry more rigorous.

One historic problem with philosophy, as a field of inquiry, is that whenever philosophers start to get too systematic, and start building in the way Owen desires, the bloody edifice off and leaves.

- Eric Charles

My interpretation is that when philosophers get too systematic, the field of study becomes a formal field in it's own right.  In a sense Philosophy is the meta-system for thinking about things for which there is no domain specific system or set of formalisms developed to support the discourse.

Like onanism, philosophy passes the time, makes one feel good and shouldn't be done in public.

             - Robert Holmes (paraphrasing Karl Marx?)

It reminds me of the (unattributed) colloquialism that "Opinions are like arseholes, everybody has one but nobody is really very interested in anyone else's."

I want to color this specious as well, though I suspect it was intended to be (by both Robert and Karl).  I believe that Owen's original question and many people's general pissiness (including my own from time to time) about philosophical discussions is grounded in this feeling.   One of the problems is that *everybody* is an amateur philosopher (tar me with that brush) as are many of us amateur mathematicians and scientists (do 30 year old degrees in mathematics and physics make me a professional in those domains if I've only used those skills tangentially in my life's work more as an innovator, technologist, and maybe on a good day - engineer?)

At least some of the recent discussion and controversy with Nick is symptomatic of this awkward relationship between psychology and philosophy.

  - Eric Charles

Well said...  I think this is an important and useful acknowledgement in that particular ongoing freewheeling discussion.

Most of us here are learned people with inquisitive minds and a penchant for rational thinking and an interest in complex systems and technology.   If anything, most of us here are amatuers (in the best sense) at many things including our various and chosen professions... we are here for the love of the pursuit.   Many of us know just enough Philosophy, Mathematics, Physics, Biology, Psychology, Computer Science/Engineering to be dangerous.  Those of us with more formal education and practice in those fields, perhaps more dangerous than those with less.

In a regular crowd  (say a Biker Bar in Tularosa), I could claim significant knowledge/grounding in all of the above (but I wouldn't unless I was in the mood for a good tumble in the parking lot with my new friends).   In this crowd here, I expect to be trumped twice over by a significant segment of the audience on any given topic.  That is half of the fun of this place, the breadth and depth of our comrades here.  Which by the way, is also half the fun of the imagined Biker Bar in Tularosa.

All that said, I agree with the sentiment that Philosophy (as widely practiced) does not have the rigor some of us are used to or at least seek.  As  Glen and Eric pointed out... that is the nature of the beast.

To aggravate the situation, much "popular" philosophy as I've experienced it is often little more than sophistry and rhetoric.  That gives Philosophy a bad rep/rap.  Psychology suffers from similar popular misuse to compound what Eric said above.

- Steve




============================================================
FRIAM Applied Complexity Group listserv
Meets Fridays 9a-11:30 at cafe at St. John's College
lectures, archives, unsubscribe, maps at http://www.friam.org

[Nick Thompson]

Glen,

What you have written below is beautifully said.  I often feel that Owen's
contempt for philosophy arises from bulldozing everything he finds
contemptible into a pile and calling it philosophy.  I know so many
mathematicians who dip back into philosophy from time to time to agree with
the proposition that nothing that not been formalized is worth talking
about.  

But I do think that you and I and others may have contributed to his
contempt by failing to articulate where we have made progress and, in
particular, where the arguments of one of us has improved or corrected the
argument of the other.  Or perhaps, even, to reveal problems that we have
uncovered that we now find insoluble.  It would be interesting to make a
list of points of agreement between us on the subject of emergence.  

Owen is correct that Wittgenstein would not necessarily be our ally in such
a project, since he seems to have come to regard philosophy as nothing more
than a tool for its own destruction.  .  

His aphorism, "That of which we cannot speak [clearly?] we should pass over
in silence" cuts so many ways.

Nick

Nicholas S. Thompson
Emeritus Professor of Psychology and Ethology,
Clark University ([hidden email])
http://home.earthlink.net/~nickthompson/naturaldesigns/




> [Original Message]
> From: glen e. p. ropella <[hidden email]>
> To: The Friday Morning Applied Complexity Coffee Group <[hidden email]>
> Date: 7/10/2009 8:45:21 AM
> Subject: Re: [FRIAM] Analytic philosophy - Wikipedia, the free
encyclopedia

>
> Thus spake Owen Densmore circa 07/09/2009 07:17 PM:
> > So the question to the philosophic amongst us: what is the answer to the
> > above question?  Is there a way in which philosophy can build on past
> > work in the same way mathematics does?  Is there an epsilon/delta
> > breakthrough just waiting to happen in that domain?  Will there be a
> > "Modern Algebra" unification within philosophy, finding the common
> > ground amongst widely different concepts like symmetry groups, fields,
> > rings, Hilbert spaces and the like?
>
> Personally, I believe that philosophy (by which I mostly mean analytic)
> is the larger system in which mathematics is grounded.  I tend to view
> it as if philosophers are trail-blazing mathematicians.  They foray out
> into the wild and whittle away at the fuzzy thoughts out there,
> preparing them for the more fastidious, civilized, mathematicians who
> follow.  (Note that I believe programmers to be a form of
> mathematician... less fastidious than their more formal brethren,
> applied mathematicians who are still less fastidious than their
> brethren, pure mathematicians.)
>
> At each stage, the reliance on the semantic grounding of the formalisms
> is whittled away until you have, at the pure math stage, formalisms
> grounded solely in identifiable axioms like zero, reciprocal, axiom of
> choice, etc.
>
> So, in my (fantasy) world, philosophy will never be as rigorous as math
> because philosophy _is_ math and math is philosophy... they're just at
> different stages in the process.  Philosophy is "upstream" and math is
> "downstream".  This leads to the following direct answers to your

questions:

>
> > Why is it that philosophy does not build on prior work
> > in the same way mathematics does?
>
> Because philosophy is a frontier, wilderness activity, where prior work
> is less important than solving some case specific, imminent, problem.
>
> > Is there a way in which philosophy can build on past
> > work in the same way mathematics does?
>
> No, because the domains in which philosophy are useful are aswim in
> meaning and syntactically impoverished.  Philosophy is an embedded,
> situated, open-ended, activity where everything constantly shifts
> around.  Foundations are built on sand, not granite.
>
> > Is there an epsilon/delta
> > breakthrough just waiting to happen in that domain?  Will there be a
> > "Modern Algebra" unification within philosophy, finding the common
> > ground amongst widely different concepts like symmetry groups, fields,
> > rings, Hilbert spaces and the like?
>
> Yes!  But there is not just ONE breakthrough/unification coming.  There
> are many, just like there have been many.  And once those breakthroughs
> come, they congeal into a mathematics that is then adopted by an army
> consisting of a different, more fastidious, type of philosopher.  The
> trail blazers move on to the next wild frontier while the "settlers"
> move in and bring mind-numbing order to the region surrounding the
> breakthrough.
>
> --
> glen e. p. ropella, 971-222-9095, http://agent-based-modeling.com
>
>
> ============================================================
> FRIAM Applied Complexity Group listserv
> Meets Fridays 9a-11:30 at cafe at St. John's College
> lectures, archives, unsubscribe, maps at http://www.friam.org

============================================================
FRIAM Applied Complexity Group listserv
Meets Fridays 9a-11:30 at cafe at St. John's College
lectures, archives, unsubscribe, maps at http://www.friam.org

[glen e. p. ropella-2]

OK.  I'm going to take a more combative tone, here.  Please don't take
my tone to mean anything other than a desire for the dialectic.  I
_really_ very much appreciate your and everyone elses' posts.... If I
didn't, I wouldn't take the time to be combative. ;-)

Thus spake Nicholas Thompson circa 09-07-10 09:48 AM:
> Owen is correct that Wittgenstein would not necessarily be our ally
> in such a project, since he seems to have come to regard philosophy
> as nothing more than a tool for its own destruction.  .
>
> His aphorism, "That of which we cannot speak [clearly?] we should
> pass over in silence" cuts so many ways.

Well, first off, who gives a &@$&* what Wittgenstein would think?  He's
a dead white guy and no more relevant to the modern world than Marx.
[grin]  Of course, having said that, I completely agree.  The reason I
try not to use the word "emergence" is because it's almost entirely
useless, precisely because people cannot speak about it.  They try (and
try and try and try and try... and try some more) and fail.

Philosophy is for the living.  Let the dead people rest in peace.

> But I do think that you and I and others may have contributed to his
> contempt by failing to articulate where we have made progress and, in
> particular, where the arguments of one of us has improved or
> corrected the argument of the other.  Or perhaps, even, to reveal
> problems that we have uncovered that we now find insoluble.  It would
>  be interesting to make a list of points of agreement between us on
> the subject of emergence.

OK.  I'm game.  But I'm not sure what we agree upon.  I think
"emergence" is a largely useless concept.  You seem to think it's
(largely) useful.

Thus spake Nicholas Thompson circa 09-07-10 12:41 PM:

> And, although you don't point it out, you have caught me in an
> important inconsistency.  In a sense, you have demonstrated yourself
>  to be a more faithful New Realist (cf EBHolt) than I.  I have been
> wanting to argue with you that the kinds of properties we are talking
>  about are "out there", and I have been warding off what I saw as
> your implication that emergence is [merely] in the eye of the
> beholder. Ditto organization.  In thus polarizing the argument, I
> have missed the possibility that something can be BOTH in the eye of
> the beholder (i.e. the result of how one looks at something )AND in
> the thing itself.  This is the New Realist position and you
> articulate it beautifully below.

While I appreciate the praise, it is unwarranted.  I'm not steeped in
any philosophical tradition... even if it is "new". [grin]  My
preference for considering both the object and the subject in any
context is based on my modeling and simulation work.  It's rooted in the
difficulties I've had constructing useful simulations.  Granted, I've
had to beef up my rhetoric in order to traffic with academics; but I
regard that rhetoric as "sugar" that's added to sweeten the medicine I
have to deliver.

That medicine is summed up in the following:  "We don't know sh*t."  And
anyone who claims to know something is either lying or deluded.  The
best we can do is try to be clear about what we've _done_, how we went
about doing it, and what we subsequently speculate.  And part of being
clear is to admit that we don't know anything.  We are awash in
ignorance.  Arrogance abounds.

Good scientists and engineers always seem to (ultimately) agree with me.
 It's best to keep accurate logs; but beyond that, everything is fuzzy
and indeterminate.

> NST===>But don't you agree that confusion could reign in any
> discussion in which the discussants carried two such radically
> different definitions of the term?   <===NST

Yes, I do agree.  But that's not saying much.  Confusion reigns no
matter what is said.  The miracle of communication is the illusion that
it exists.  The best you can achieve is similarity in your actions,
regardless of the wacko stuff that goes on in your mind.  Method, not
words, is the name of the game.

> NST===>Precisely! But  I would warn you away from the
> subjective/objective distinction here because your way of putting it
>  does not correspond to the way most people use this distinction.
> Most people (I would guess) think of subjective as fallible and
> objective as infallible.  On your view, truth about the world is
> conjured up by the interaction of an observer (subject) with the
> world.    <===NST

Thanks!  I take your warning very seriously.  Because I don't tend to
keep track of where I learned something, who said it, why they said it,
where it's successful and where it fails, etc., I'm very fragile to
changes in context.  It's funny.  I'll say almost the exact same thing
in, say, a pub in the evening at a conference as I say in during the
conference proper.  And almost invariably, I get agreement in one
setting and violent disagreement in the other... with no regularity
between which one elicits [dis]agreement.

--
glen e. p. ropella, 971-222-9095, http://agent-based-modeling.com


============================================================
FRIAM Applied Complexity Group listserv
Meets Fridays 9a-11:30 at cafe at St. John's College
lectures, archives, unsubscribe, maps at http://www.friam.org

[Owen Densmore]

Not contempt.  I'm puzzled.  Hence the question:
         Why is it that philosophy does not build on prior work
         in the same way mathematics does?

The answer Glen gave is quite satisfying: they're not expected to,  
they're on the frontier figuring out the right questions to be  
addressing.  Math is the cleanup squad.

This makes philosophy much easier to understand: just wait until they  
tickle your fancy, then apply formalism to make it last.  Philosophy  
is not constructive.  I think I knew that but hadn't put it into words.

     -- Owen


On Jul 10, 2009, at 10:48 AM, Nicholas Thompson wrote:

> Glen,
>
> What you have written below is beautifully said.  I often feel that  
> Owen's
> contempt for philosophy arises from bulldozing everything he finds
> contemptible into a pile and calling it philosophy.  I know so many
> mathematicians who dip back into philosophy from time to time to  
> agree with
> the proposition that nothing that not been formalized is worth talking
> about.
>
> But I do think that you and I and others may have contributed to his
> contempt by failing to articulate where we have made progress and, in
> particular, where the arguments of one of us has improved or  
> corrected the
> argument of the other.  Or perhaps, even, to reveal problems that we  
> have
> uncovered that we now find insoluble.  It would be interesting to  
> make a
> list of points of agreement between us on the subject of emergence.
>
> Owen is correct that Wittgenstein would not necessarily be our ally  
> in such
> a project, since he seems to have come to regard philosophy as  
> nothing more
> than a tool for its own destruction.  .
>
> His aphorism, "That of which we cannot speak [clearly?] we should  
> pass over
> in silence" cuts so many ways.
>
> Nick
>
> Nicholas S. Thompson
> Emeritus Professor of Psychology and Ethology,
> Clark University ([hidden email])
> http://home.earthlink.net/~nickthompson/naturaldesigns/

============================================================
FRIAM Applied Complexity Group listserv
Meets Fridays 9a-11:30 at cafe at St. John's College
lectures, archives, unsubscribe, maps at http://www.friam.org

[Nick Thompson]

Owen, etal.

I really like this resolution.  

Philosophers as Mathematical Scouts.

Nick

Nicholas S. Thompson
Emeritus Professor of Psychology and Ethology,
Clark University ([hidden email])
http://home.earthlink.net/~nickthompson/naturaldesigns/




> [Original Message]
> From: Owen Densmore <[hidden email]>
> To: <[hidden email]>; The Friday Morning Applied Complexity
Coffee Group <[hidden email]>
> Date: 7/10/2009 5:07:29 PM
> Subject: Re: [FRIAM] Analytic philosophy - Wikipedia, the free
encyclopedia

>
> Not contempt.  I'm puzzled.  Hence the question:
>          Why is it that philosophy does not build on prior work
>          in the same way mathematics does?
>
> The answer Glen gave is quite satisfying: they're not expected to,  
> they're on the frontier figuring out the right questions to be  
> addressing.  Math is the cleanup squad.
>
> This makes philosophy much easier to understand: just wait until they  
> tickle your fancy, then apply formalism to make it last.  Philosophy  
> is not constructive.  I think I knew that but hadn't put it into words.
>
>      -- Owen
>
>
> On Jul 10, 2009, at 10:48 AM, Nicholas Thompson wrote:
>
> > Glen,
> >
> > What you have written below is beautifully said.  I often feel that  
> > Owen's
> > contempt for philosophy arises from bulldozing everything he finds
> > contemptible into a pile and calling it philosophy.  I know so many
> > mathematicians who dip back into philosophy from time to time to  
> > agree with
> > the proposition that nothing that not been formalized is worth talking
> > about.
> >
> > But I do think that you and I and others may have contributed to his
> > contempt by failing to articulate where we have made progress and, in
> > particular, where the arguments of one of us has improved or  
> > corrected the
> > argument of the other.  Or perhaps, even, to reveal problems that we  
> > have
> > uncovered that we now find insoluble.  It would be interesting to  
> > make a
> > list of points of agreement between us on the subject of emergence.
> >
> > Owen is correct that Wittgenstein would not necessarily be our ally  
> > in such
> > a project, since he seems to have come to regard philosophy as  
> > nothing more
> > than a tool for its own destruction.  .
> >
> > His aphorism, "That of which we cannot speak [clearly?] we should  
> > pass over
> > in silence" cuts so many ways.
> >
> > Nick
> >
> > Nicholas S. Thompson
> > Emeritus Professor of Psychology and Ethology,
> > Clark University ([hidden email])
> > http://home.earthlink.net/~nickthompson/naturaldesigns/

============================================================
FRIAM Applied Complexity Group listserv
Meets Fridays 9a-11:30 at cafe at St. John's College
lectures, archives, unsubscribe, maps at http://www.friam.org

[Nick Thompson]

Glen,


Glen,

Thanks for all that you wrote below.  

Let's see if we can make some progress on the following:

You wrote:

 I think "emergence" is a largely useless concept.  You seem to think it's
 (largely) useful.

NST===>Well, I am not so committed as you represent me to be.  But I do
think there is SOMETHING here that interests us and it would be good of we
could be clearer about what it is.  Perhaps it is a bunch of unrelated
things, but they do seem to keep coming up in the same conversations.
Perhaps it is a family of related things that differ in  important ways.

I am also eager to talk about cases, as you suggested. How about slime
molds.  For purposes of conversation, let's divide the process of slime
mold reproduction up into four stages.  In stage one the population of
slime molds consists of individual amoebae moving through the litter on the
forest floor.  They divide and perhaps they avoid one another to some
degree.  (I forget and I dont have Bonner with me in the east.)  Stage two
begins when the foot or moisture supply on the forest floor begins to get
lean.  The amoebae begin to stream together and form a blob of goo.  In
stage three, the blob of goo forms a slug like thing that  navigates across
the substrate, and in stage four, the slug rears upand forms a long stem
topped by smaller glob filled with spore cells.  This glob is sticky and
readily adheres to the leg of a passing insect, thus completing the cycle.
Thus, in the fourstages the population has gone from a bunch of things
moving about more or less independently and all capable of reproduction to
a bunch of things that have coalesced  and differentiated.  

Do you agree that this case is interesting?  

If so, what MAKES it interesting?    From what points of view is it
interesting?  From what points of view is it boring?  What terms would we
use to point to the features that make it seem interesting?  

  <===NST


n

Nicholas S. Thompson
Emeritus Professor of Psychology and Ethology,
Clark University ([hidden email])
http://home.earthlink.net/~nickthompson/naturaldesigns/

> [Original Message]
> From: glen e. p. ropella <[hidden email]>
> To: The Friday Morning Applied Complexity Coffee Group <[hidden email]>
> Date: 7/10/2009 3:41:12 PM
> Subject: [FRIAM] Emergent consensus?
>
>
> OK.  I'm going to take a more combative tone, here.  Please don't take
> my tone to mean anything other than a desire for the dialectic.  I
> _really_ very much appreciate your and everyone elses' posts.... If I
> didn't, I wouldn't take the time to be combative. ;-)
>
> Thus spake Nicholas Thompson circa 09-07-10 09:48 AM:
> > Owen is correct that Wittgenstein would not necessarily be our ally
> > in such a project, since he seems to have come to regard philosophy
> > as nothing more than a tool for its own destruction.  .
> >
> > His aphorism, "That of which we cannot speak [clearly?] we should
> > pass over in silence" cuts so many ways.
>
> Well, first off, who gives a &@$&* what Wittgenstein would think?  He's
> a dead white guy and no more relevant to the modern world than Marx.
> [grin]  Of course, having said that, I completely agree.  The reason I
> try not to use the word "emergence" is because it's almost entirely
> useless, precisely because people cannot speak about it.  They try (and
> try and try and try and try... and try some more) and fail.
>
> Philosophy is for the living.  Let the dead people rest in peace.
>
> > But I do think that you and I and others may have contributed to his
> > contempt by failing to articulate where we have made progress and, in
> > particular, where the arguments of one of us has improved or
> > corrected the argument of the other.  Or perhaps, even, to reveal
> > problems that we have uncovered that we now find insoluble.  It would
> >  be interesting to make a list of points of agreement between us on
> > the subject of emergence.
>
> OK.  I'm game.  But I'm not sure what we agree upon.  I think
> "emergence" is a largely useless concept.  You seem to think it's
> (largely) useful.
>
> Thus spake Nicholas Thompson circa 09-07-10 12:41 PM:
> > And, although you don't point it out, you have caught me in an
> > important inconsistency.  In a sense, you have demonstrated yourself
> >  to be a more faithful New Realist (cf EBHolt) than I.  I have been
> > wanting to argue with you that the kinds of properties we are talking
> >  about are "out there", and I have been warding off what I saw as
> > your implication that emergence is [merely] in the eye of the
> > beholder. Ditto organization.  In thus polarizing the argument, I
> > have missed the possibility that something can be BOTH in the eye of
> > the beholder (i.e. the result of how one looks at something )AND in
> > the thing itself.  This is the New Realist position and you
> > articulate it beautifully below.
>
> While I appreciate the praise, it is unwarranted.  I'm not steeped in
> any philosophical tradition... even if it is "new". [grin]  My
> preference for considering both the object and the subject in any
> context is based on my modeling and simulation work.  It's rooted in the
> difficulties I've had constructing useful simulations.  Granted, I've
> had to beef up my rhetoric in order to traffic with academics; but I
> regard that rhetoric as "sugar" that's added to sweeten the medicine I
> have to deliver.
>
> That medicine is summed up in the following:  "We don't know sh*t."  And
> anyone who claims to know something is either lying or deluded.  The
> best we can do is try to be clear about what we've _done_, how we went
> about doing it, and what we subsequently speculate.  And part of being
> clear is to admit that we don't know anything.  We are awash in
> ignorance.  Arrogance abounds.
>
> Good scientists and engineers always seem to (ultimately) agree with me.
>  It's best to keep accurate logs; but beyond that, everything is fuzzy
> and indeterminate.
>
> > NST===>But don't you agree that confusion could reign in any
> > discussion in which the discussants carried two such radically
> > different definitions of the term?   <===NST
>
> Yes, I do agree.  But that's not saying much.  Confusion reigns no
> matter what is said.  The miracle of communication is the illusion that
> it exists.  The best you can achieve is similarity in your actions,
> regardless of the wacko stuff that goes on in your mind.  Method, not
> words, is the name of the game.
>
> > NST===>Precisely! But  I would warn you away from the
> > subjective/objective distinction here because your way of putting it
> >  does not correspond to the way most people use this distinction.
> > Most people (I would guess) think of subjective as fallible and
> > objective as infallible.  On your view, truth about the world is
> > conjured up by the interaction of an observer (subject) with the
> > world.    <===NST
>
> Thanks!  I take your warning very seriously.  Because I don't tend to
> keep track of where I learned something, who said it, why they said it,
> where it's successful and where it fails, etc., I'm very fragile to
> changes in context.  It's funny.  I'll say almost the exact same thing
> in, say, a pub in the evening at a conference as I say in during the
> conference proper.  And almost invariably, I get agreement in one
> setting and violent disagreement in the other... with no regularity
> between which one elicits [dis]agreement.
>
> --
> glen e. p. ropella, 971-222-9095, http://agent-based-modeling.com
>
>
> ============================================================
> FRIAM Applied Complexity Group listserv
> Meets Fridays 9a-11:30 at cafe at St. John's College
> lectures, archives, unsubscribe, maps at http://www.friam.org

============================================================
FRIAM Applied Complexity Group listserv
Meets Fridays 9a-11:30 at cafe at St. John's College
lectures, archives, unsubscribe, maps at http://www.friam.org

[Robert Holmes]

Y'know if Glen's resolution was true I'd expect more of the scientific papers I read to be referencing Quine and Aristotle rather than Landau and Lifschitz. Explicitly acknowledging their debt, if you will.

So perhaps you could give me some concrete examples: which philosopher should mathematicians thank for suggesting that the properties of the Riemann zeta function were worth studying? Which philosopher should physicists thank for suggesting that it's worth hunting for the Higgs boson?

-- Robert

On Fri, Jul 10, 2009 at 5:07 PM, Owen Densmore <[hidden email]> wrote:

Not contempt.  I'm puzzled.  Hence the question:

       Why is it that philosophy does not build on prior work
       in the same way mathematics does?

The answer Glen gave is quite satisfying: they're not expected to, they're on the frontier figuring out the right questions to be addressing.  Math is the cleanup squad.

This makes philosophy much easier to understand: just wait until they tickle your fancy, then apply formalism to make it last.  Philosophy is not constructive.  I think I knew that but hadn't put it into words.

   -- Owen

============================================================
FRIAM Applied Complexity Group listserv
Meets Fridays 9a-11:30 at cafe at St. John's College
lectures, archives, unsubscribe, maps at http://www.friam.org

[Steve Smith]

I'm not clear on why there is such a culture clash on this list around Philosophy, Mathematics, and Science...

I know only of one specific person on the list who has a significantly alternate perspective.

Whether we know of them (formally) or not, there are philosophical traditions which we are products of.  

Most of us here are interested in the topics of mathematics, science, language, etc.  *because* we were exposed to these ideas and modes of thought from an early age and from many angles.  Even if we grew up in a household where there was a modicum of magical thinking and animism around us, the larger world, and most *any* practical-minded western family today is going to be acting and speaking with a lot of rational and empirical modes.

We got that way by being raised in a time and culture where that is how most people (try to) understand the world.   If were were trained in mathematics or the sciences, we were almost surely trained by people who were grounded deeply in this philosophy.


Most of us here are empiricists and rationalists, which roughly implies that we are logical positivists.   These are philosophical traditions. Philosophy (in this case, Western tradition) is a method or system of organizing the human experience.

Epistemology is the branch of (Western) Philosophy concerned with the nature and the limitations of human knowledge.   Metaphysics is the branch concerned with the fundamental nature of being and the world.  Science and Mathematics reside almost exclusively within Metaphysics and Epistimology.  There are aspects of both which touch on (or are informed by) Aesthetics and Ethics, but the meat is in the study of knowledge and the study of the world.

Most criticism I hear (here and otherwise, explicit or implicit) seems to come down to one of two (mis)understandings:

1. Serious sounding talk about anything we don't understand is "Philosophy" and we either therefore hold it in awe or (more often) dismiss it.  For some folks (few on this list), the same treatment is given to "Mathematics" and "Science" for approximately the same reasons.
   
2. The "white males" who show up most notably throughout our history as the shapers of Philosophy (and Mathematics and Science) were products of their social/cultural milieu and their personal failings in the realm of human and social equality, justice, etc.  do not necessarily discredit the work that is associated with them.
   

Why can't we simply accept that most of us have a particular attachment and fondness for the empirical and rational subsets of philosophy and that the *rest* of it is mostly outside of our experience and perhaps interest.   And *within* these subdomains of Philosophy, why can't we admit that our specific methods are derived from the more general ones of metaphysics, epistomology, and sometimes aesthetics and ethics? 

For those who have experience/interest in other systems than Western Philosophy, I think similar things are true, with the most notable exception (in my observation) that empiricism and rationality do not play as central of a role.  It seems *precisely* this which draws many (not so many here, but many in the larger world) to other traditions...

It is outside the scope of this particular posting to go into the merits of Empiricism and Rationality _vs_ other modes of knowledge and experience except to say that this particular Choir (FRIAM members) who for the most part sings *only* in the keys of E and R to be squabbling as if some of us are in a completely different key when in fact, the only problem is that few if any of us have perfect pitch.

- Steve

I think I need to take a long Motorcycle Ride (stopping to clean my plugs, adjust my valves, synchronize my carburators, lubricate my chain, and tear down and rebuild my forks at least once along the way). 

============================================================
FRIAM Applied Complexity Group listserv
Meets Fridays 9a-11:30 at cafe at St. John's College
lectures, archives, unsubscribe, maps at http://www.friam.org

[Owen Densmore]

> I'm not clear on why there is such a culture clash on this list  
> around Philosophy, Mathematics, and Science...

I think the conflict may be nearly trivial: constructing things.

Many of us, especially at the sfComplex, were hoping to create a  
synergistic community, where the whole was greater than its parts.  
Specifically, cross-discipline projects (Stephen's Hollywood model)  
creating fascinating technology with complexity being a foundational  
piece.  The TED conferences in the complex domain.

The philosophical conversations thus far have not contributed to this,  
and indeed have created a second culture: folks who want to talk about  
things.

Talking is great, but for some of us becomes a distraction when not  
helping create a foundation for creating things.

There is a good example of a middle ground.  Nick had the Moth (My way  
or the highway) alternative to the traditional iterated prisoner's  
dilemma.  It was concrete enough to result in a project and a couple  
of papers.

So my hunch is that the "Please God No" reaction is along that line:  
many if not most of us are interested in creating things.

Thus to make the conversations more acceptable, it would be reasonable  
for it to suggest an investigation or project.  The failure to  
summarize is just an example of how non-constructive the philosophic  
conversations have been.

     -- Owen


On Jul 11, 2009, at 3:11 PM, Steve Smith wrote:

> I'm not clear on why there is such a culture clash on this list  
> around Philosophy, Mathematics, and Science...
>
> I know only of one specific person on the list who has a  
> significantly alternate perspective.
>
> Whether we know of them (formally) or not, there are philosophical  
> traditions which we are products of.
>
> Most of us here are interested in the topics of mathematics,  
> science, language, etc.  *because* we were exposed to these ideas  
> and modes of thought from an early age and from many angles.  Even  
> if we grew up in a household where there was a modicum of magical  
> thinking and animism around us, the larger world, and most *any*  
> practical-minded western family today is going to be acting and  
> speaking with a lot of rational and empirical modes.
>
> We got that way by being raised in a time and culture where that is  
> how most people (try to) understand the world.   If were were  
> trained in mathematics or the sciences, we were almost surely  
> trained by people who were grounded deeply in this philosophy.
>
>
> Most of us here are empiricists and rationalists, which roughly  
> implies that we are logical positivists.   These are philosophical  
> traditions. Philosophy (in this case, Western tradition) is a method  
> or system of organizing the human experience.
>
> Epistemology is the branch of (Western) Philosophy concerned with  
> the nature and the limitations of human knowledge.   Metaphysics is  
> the branch concerned with the fundamental nature of being and the  
> world.  Science and Mathematics reside almost exclusively within  
> Metaphysics and Epistimology.  There are aspects of both which touch  
> on (or are informed by) Aesthetics and Ethics, but the meat is in  
> the study of knowledge and the study of the world.
>
> Most criticism I hear (here and otherwise, explicit or implicit)  
> seems to come down to one of two (mis)understandings:
> • Serious sounding talk about anything we don't understand is  
> "Philosophy" and we either therefore hold it in awe or (more often)  
> dismiss it.  For some folks (few on this list), the same treatment  
> is given to "Mathematics" and "Science" for approximately the same  
> reasons.
> • The "white males" who show up most notably throughout our history  
> as the shapers of Philosophy (and Mathematics and Science) were  
> products of their social/cultural milieu and their personal failings  
> in the realm of human and social equality, justice, etc.  do not  
> necessarily discredit the work that is associated with them.
> Why can't we simply accept that most of us have a particular  
> attachment and fondness for the empirical and rational subsets of  
> philosophy and that the *rest* of it is mostly outside of our  
> experience and perhaps interest.   And *within* these subdomains of  
> Philosophy, why can't we admit that our specific methods are derived  
> from the more general ones of metaphysics, epistomology, and  
> sometimes aesthetics and ethics?
>
> For those who have experience/interest in other systems than Western  
> Philosophy, I think similar things are true, with the most notable  
> exception (in my observation) that empiricism and rationality do not  
> play as central of a role.  It seems *precisely* this which draws  
> many (not so many here, but many in the larger world) to other  
> traditions...
>
> It is outside the scope of this particular posting to go into the  
> merits of Empiricism and Rationality _vs_ other modes of knowledge  
> and experience except to say that this particular Choir (FRIAM  
> members) who for the most part sings *only* in the keys of E and R  
> to be squabbling as if some of us are in a completely different key  
> when in fact, the only problem is that few if any of us have perfect  
> pitch.
>
> - Steve
>
> I think I need to take a long Motorcycle Ride (stopping to clean my  
> plugs, adjust my valves, synchronize my carburators, lubricate my  
> chain, and tear down and rebuild my forks at least once along the  
> way).
> ============================================================
> FRIAM Applied Complexity Group listserv
> Meets Fridays 9a-11:30 at cafe at St. John's College
> lectures, archives, unsubscribe, maps at http://www.friam.org

============================================================
FRIAM Applied Complexity Group listserv
Meets Fridays 9a-11:30 at cafe at St. John's College
lectures, archives, unsubscribe, maps at http://www.friam.org

[Douglas Roberts-2]

Let me make sure I understand what you just said, Owen, by paraphrasing what I thought I heard:

Owen: "There are more people on this list who want to talk about doing things then there are people who actually want to do things, or, perhaps, even have relevant experience at doing things."

Or, an even shorter synopsis: Talk is cheap.

If that is in fact what you were suggesting, I wholeheartedly agree.  IMO, the latest chatter about philosophy certainly meets this description.  I openly admit a bias against philosophy, and in particular against philosophical discussions about philosophy because they invariably come across as giant exercises in mental masturbation.

Not, mind you, that I have anything against masturbation, mental or otherwise.  It's just that nothing ever comes of it, so to speak.

If you meant something else, sorry to have misunderstood.  Otherwise, I believe I share your preference to actually engage in interesting work, rather than just talking about the philosophies of how to accomplish work.

--Doug

On Sat, Jul 11, 2009 at 4:32 PM, Owen Densmore <[hidden email]> wrote:

I'm not clear on why there is such a culture clash on this list around Philosophy, Mathematics, and Science...

I think the conflict may be nearly trivial: constructing things.

Many of us, especially at the sfComplex, were hoping to create a synergistic community, where the whole was greater than its parts.  Specifically, cross-discipline projects (Stephen's Hollywood model) creating fascinating technology with complexity being a foundational piece.  The TED conferences in the complex domain.

The philosophical conversations thus far have not contributed to this, and indeed have created a second culture: folks who want to talk about things.

Talking is great, but for some of us becomes a distraction when not helping create a foundation for creating things.

There is a good example of a middle ground.  Nick had the Moth (My way or the highway) alternative to the traditional iterated prisoner's dilemma.  It was concrete enough to result in a project and a couple of papers.

So my hunch is that the "Please God No" reaction is along that line: many if not most of us are interested in creating things.

Thus to make the conversations more acceptable, it would be reasonable for it to suggest an investigation or project.  The failure to summarize is just an example of how non-constructive the philosophic conversations have been.

   -- Owen

On Jul 11, 2009, at 3:11 PM, Steve Smith wrote:

I'm not clear on why there is such a culture clash on this list around Philosophy, Mathematics, and Science...

I know only of one specific person on the list who has a significantly alternate perspective.

Whether we know of them (formally) or not, there are philosophical traditions which we are products of.

Most of us here are interested in the topics of mathematics, science, language, etc.  *because* we were exposed to these ideas and modes of thought from an early age and from many angles.  Even if we grew up in a household where there was a modicum of magical thinking and animism around us, the larger world, and most *any* practical-minded western family today is going to be acting and speaking with a lot of rational and empirical modes.

We got that way by being raised in a time and culture where that is how most people (try to) understand the world.   If were were trained in mathematics or the sciences, we were almost surely trained by people who were grounded deeply in this philosophy.


Most of us here are empiricists and rationalists, which roughly implies that we are logical positivists.   These are philosophical traditions. Philosophy (in this case, Western tradition) is a method or system of organizing the human experience.

Epistemology is the branch of (Western) Philosophy concerned with the nature and the limitations of human knowledge.   Metaphysics is the branch concerned with the fundamental nature of being and the world.  Science and Mathematics reside almost exclusively within Metaphysics and Epistimology.  There are aspects of both which touch on (or are informed by) Aesthetics and Ethics, but the meat is in the study of knowledge and the study of the world.

Most criticism I hear (here and otherwise, explicit or implicit) seems to come down to one of two (mis)understandings:
       • Serious sounding talk about anything we don't understand is "Philosophy" and we either therefore hold it in awe or (more often) dismiss it.  For some folks (few on this list), the same treatment is given to "Mathematics" and "Science" for approximately the same reasons.
       • The "white males" who show up most notably throughout our history as the shapers of Philosophy (and Mathematics and Science) were products of their social/cultural milieu and their personal failings in the realm of human and social equality, justice, etc.  do not necessarily discredit the work that is associated with them.
Why can't we simply accept that most of us have a particular attachment and fondness for the empirical and rational subsets of philosophy and that the *rest* of it is mostly outside of our experience and perhaps interest.   And *within* these subdomains of Philosophy, why can't we admit that our specific methods are derived from the more general ones of metaphysics, epistomology, and sometimes aesthetics and ethics?

For those who have experience/interest in other systems than Western Philosophy, I think similar things are true, with the most notable exception (in my observation) that empiricism and rationality do not play as central of a role.  It seems *precisely* this which draws many (not so many here, but many in the larger world) to other traditions...

It is outside the scope of this particular posting to go into the merits of Empiricism and Rationality _vs_ other modes of knowledge and experience except to say that this particular Choir (FRIAM members) who for the most part sings *only* in the keys of E and R to be squabbling as if some of us are in a completely different key when in fact, the only problem is that few if any of us have perfect pitch.

- Steve

I think I need to take a long Motorcycle Ride (stopping to clean my plugs, adjust my valves, synchronize my carburators, lubricate my chain, and tear down and rebuild my forks at least once along the way).

============================================================
FRIAM Applied Complexity Group listserv
Meets Fridays 9a-11:30 at cafe at St. John's College
lectures, archives, unsubscribe, maps at http://www.friam.org

============================================================
FRIAM Applied Complexity Group listserv
Meets Fridays 9a-11:30 at cafe at St. John's College
lectures, archives, unsubscribe, maps at http://www.friam.org

[Robert Holmes]

Welcome back Doug. We've missed you.

-- Robert

On Sat, Jul 11, 2009 at 4:56 PM, Douglas Roberts <[hidden email]> wrote:

Let me make sure I understand what you just said, Owen, by paraphrasing what I thought I heard:

Owen: "There are more people on this list who want to talk about doing things then there are people who actually want to do things, or, perhaps, even have relevant experience at doing things."

Or, an even shorter synopsis: Talk is cheap.

If that is in fact what you were suggesting, I wholeheartedly agree.  IMO, the latest chatter about philosophy certainly meets this description.  I openly admit a bias against philosophy, and in particular against philosophical discussions about philosophy because they invariably come across as giant exercises in mental masturbation.

Not, mind you, that I have anything against masturbation, mental or otherwise.  It's just that nothing ever comes of it, so to speak.

If you meant something else, sorry to have misunderstood.  Otherwise, I believe I share your preference to actually engage in interesting work, rather than just talking about the philosophies of how to accomplish work.

--Doug

On Sat, Jul 11, 2009 at 4:32 PM, Owen Densmore <[hidden email]> wrote:

I'm not clear on why there is such a culture clash on this list around Philosophy, Mathematics, and Science...

I think the conflict may be nearly trivial: constructing things.

Many of us, especially at the sfComplex, were hoping to create a synergistic community, where the whole was greater than its parts.  Specifically, cross-discipline projects (Stephen's Hollywood model) creating fascinating technology with complexity being a foundational piece.  The TED conferences in the complex domain.

The philosophical conversations thus far have not contributed to this, and indeed have created a second culture: folks who want to talk about things.

Talking is great, but for some of us becomes a distraction when not helping create a foundation for creating things.

There is a good example of a middle ground.  Nick had the Moth (My way or the highway) alternative to the traditional iterated prisoner's dilemma.  It was concrete enough to result in a project and a couple of papers.

So my hunch is that the "Please God No" reaction is along that line: many if not most of us are interested in creating things.

Thus to make the conversations more acceptable, it would be reasonable for it to suggest an investigation or project.  The failure to summarize is just an example of how non-constructive the philosophic conversations have been.

   -- Owen

On Jul 11, 2009, at 3:11 PM, Steve Smith wrote:

I'm not clear on why there is such a culture clash on this list around Philosophy, Mathematics, and Science...

I know only of one specific person on the list who has a significantly alternate perspective.

Whether we know of them (formally) or not, there are philosophical traditions which we are products of.

Most of us here are interested in the topics of mathematics, science, language, etc.  *because* we were exposed to these ideas and modes of thought from an early age and from many angles.  Even if we grew up in a household where there was a modicum of magical thinking and animism around us, the larger world, and most *any* practical-minded western family today is going to be acting and speaking with a lot of rational and empirical modes.

We got that way by being raised in a time and culture where that is how most people (try to) understand the world.   If were were trained in mathematics or the sciences, we were almost surely trained by people who were grounded deeply in this philosophy.


Most of us here are empiricists and rationalists, which roughly implies that we are logical positivists.   These are philosophical traditions. Philosophy (in this case, Western tradition) is a method or system of organizing the human experience.

Epistemology is the branch of (Western) Philosophy concerned with the nature and the limitations of human knowledge.   Metaphysics is the branch concerned with the fundamental nature of being and the world.  Science and Mathematics reside almost exclusively within Metaphysics and Epistimology.  There are aspects of both which touch on (or are informed by) Aesthetics and Ethics, but the meat is in the study of knowledge and the study of the world.

Most criticism I hear (here and otherwise, explicit or implicit) seems to come down to one of two (mis)understandings:
       • Serious sounding talk about anything we don't understand is "Philosophy" and we either therefore hold it in awe or (more often) dismiss it.  For some folks (few on this list), the same treatment is given to "Mathematics" and "Science" for approximately the same reasons.
       • The "white males" who show up most notably throughout our history as the shapers of Philosophy (and Mathematics and Science) were products of their social/cultural milieu and their personal failings in the realm of human and social equality, justice, etc.  do not necessarily discredit the work that is associated with them.
Why can't we simply accept that most of us have a particular attachment and fondness for the empirical and rational subsets of philosophy and that the *rest* of it is mostly outside of our experience and perhaps interest.   And *within* these subdomains of Philosophy, why can't we admit that our specific methods are derived from the more general ones of metaphysics, epistomology, and sometimes aesthetics and ethics?

For those who have experience/interest in other systems than Western Philosophy, I think similar things are true, with the most notable exception (in my observation) that empiricism and rationality do not play as central of a role.  It seems *precisely* this which draws many (not so many here, but many in the larger world) to other traditions...

It is outside the scope of this particular posting to go into the merits of Empiricism and Rationality _vs_ other modes of knowledge and experience except to say that this particular Choir (FRIAM members) who for the most part sings *only* in the keys of E and R to be squabbling as if some of us are in a completely different key when in fact, the only problem is that few if any of us have perfect pitch.

- Steve

I think I need to take a long Motorcycle Ride (stopping to clean my plugs, adjust my valves, synchronize my carburators, lubricate my chain, and tear down and rebuild my forks at least once along the way).

============================================================
FRIAM Applied Complexity Group listserv
Meets Fridays 9a-11:30 at cafe at St. John's College
lectures, archives, unsubscribe, maps at http://www.friam.org

============================================================
FRIAM Applied Complexity Group listserv
Meets Fridays 9a-11:30 at cafe at St. John's College
lectures, archives, unsubscribe, maps at http://www.friam.org

============================================================
FRIAM Applied Complexity Group listserv
Meets Fridays 9a-11:30 at cafe at St. John's College
lectures, archives, unsubscribe, maps at http://www.friam.org

[Douglas Roberts-2]

Just not very much...

;-{

On Sat, Jul 11, 2009 at 5:04 PM, Robert Holmes <[hidden email]> wrote:

Welcome back Doug. We've missed you.

-- Robert

On Sat, Jul 11, 2009 at 4:56 PM, Douglas Roberts <[hidden email]> wrote:

Let me make sure I understand what you just said, Owen, by paraphrasing what I thought I heard:

Owen: "There are more people on this list who want to talk about doing things then there are people who actually want to do things, or, perhaps, even have relevant experience at doing things."

Or, an even shorter synopsis: Talk is cheap.

If that is in fact what you were suggesting, I wholeheartedly agree.  IMO, the latest chatter about philosophy certainly meets this description.  I openly admit a bias against philosophy, and in particular against philosophical discussions about philosophy because they invariably come across as giant exercises in mental masturbation.

Not, mind you, that I have anything against masturbation, mental or otherwise.  It's just that nothing ever comes of it, so to speak.

If you meant something else, sorry to have misunderstood.  Otherwise, I believe I share your preference to actually engage in interesting work, rather than just talking about the philosophies of how to accomplish work.

--Doug

On Sat, Jul 11, 2009 at 4:32 PM, Owen Densmore <[hidden email]> wrote:

I'm not clear on why there is such a culture clash on this list around Philosophy, Mathematics, and Science...

I think the conflict may be nearly trivial: constructing things.

Many of us, especially at the sfComplex, were hoping to create a synergistic community, where the whole was greater than its parts.  Specifically, cross-discipline projects (Stephen's Hollywood model) creating fascinating technology with complexity being a foundational piece.  The TED conferences in the complex domain.

The philosophical conversations thus far have not contributed to this, and indeed have created a second culture: folks who want to talk about things.

Talking is great, but for some of us becomes a distraction when not helping create a foundation for creating things.

There is a good example of a middle ground.  Nick had the Moth (My way or the highway) alternative to the traditional iterated prisoner's dilemma.  It was concrete enough to result in a project and a couple of papers.

So my hunch is that the "Please God No" reaction is along that line: many if not most of us are interested in creating things.

Thus to make the conversations more acceptable, it would be reasonable for it to suggest an investigation or project.  The failure to summarize is just an example of how non-constructive the philosophic conversations have been.

   -- Owen

On Jul 11, 2009, at 3:11 PM, Steve Smith wrote:

I'm not clear on why there is such a culture clash on this list around Philosophy, Mathematics, and Science...

I know only of one specific person on the list who has a significantly alternate perspective.

Whether we know of them (formally) or not, there are philosophical traditions which we are products of.

Most of us here are interested in the topics of mathematics, science, language, etc.  *because* we were exposed to these ideas and modes of thought from an early age and from many angles.  Even if we grew up in a household where there was a modicum of magical thinking and animism around us, the larger world, and most *any* practical-minded western family today is going to be acting and speaking with a lot of rational and empirical modes.

We got that way by being raised in a time and culture where that is how most people (try to) understand the world.   If were were trained in mathematics or the sciences, we were almost surely trained by people who were grounded deeply in this philosophy.


Most of us here are empiricists and rationalists, which roughly implies that we are logical positivists.   These are philosophical traditions. Philosophy (in this case, Western tradition) is a method or system of organizing the human experience.

Epistemology is the branch of (Western) Philosophy concerned with the nature and the limitations of human knowledge.   Metaphysics is the branch concerned with the fundamental nature of being and the world.  Science and Mathematics reside almost exclusively within Metaphysics and Epistimology.  There are aspects of both which touch on (or are informed by) Aesthetics and Ethics, but the meat is in the study of knowledge and the study of the world.

Most criticism I hear (here and otherwise, explicit or implicit) seems to come down to one of two (mis)understandings:
       • Serious sounding talk about anything we don't understand is "Philosophy" and we either therefore hold it in awe or (more often) dismiss it.  For some folks (few on this list), the same treatment is given to "Mathematics" and "Science" for approximately the same reasons.
       • The "white males" who show up most notably throughout our history as the shapers of Philosophy (and Mathematics and Science) were products of their social/cultural milieu and their personal failings in the realm of human and social equality, justice, etc.  do not necessarily discredit the work that is associated with them.
Why can't we simply accept that most of us have a particular attachment and fondness for the empirical and rational subsets of philosophy and that the *rest* of it is mostly outside of our experience and perhaps interest.   And *within* these subdomains of Philosophy, why can't we admit that our specific methods are derived from the more general ones of metaphysics, epistomology, and sometimes aesthetics and ethics?

For those who have experience/interest in other systems than Western Philosophy, I think similar things are true, with the most notable exception (in my observation) that empiricism and rationality do not play as central of a role.  It seems *precisely* this which draws many (not so many here, but many in the larger world) to other traditions...

It is outside the scope of this particular posting to go into the merits of Empiricism and Rationality _vs_ other modes of knowledge and experience except to say that this particular Choir (FRIAM members) who for the most part sings *only* in the keys of E and R to be squabbling as if some of us are in a completely different key when in fact, the only problem is that few if any of us have perfect pitch.

- Steve

I think I need to take a long Motorcycle Ride (stopping to clean my plugs, adjust my valves, synchronize my carburators, lubricate my chain, and tear down and rebuild my forks at least once along the way).

============================================================
FRIAM Applied Complexity Group listserv
Meets Fridays 9a-11:30 at cafe at St. John's College
lectures, archives, unsubscribe, maps at http://www.friam.org

============================================================
FRIAM Applied Complexity Group listserv
Meets Fridays 9a-11:30 at cafe at St. John's College
lectures, archives, unsubscribe, maps at http://www.friam.org

[Owen Densmore]

Bingo!

    -- Owen

On Jul 11, 2009, at 4:56 PM, Douglas Roberts wrote:

Let me make sure I understand what you just said, Owen, by paraphrasing what I thought I heard:

Owen: "There are more people on this list who want to talk about doing things then there are people who actually want to do things, or, perhaps, even have relevant experience at doing things."

Or, an even shorter synopsis: Talk is cheap.

If that is in fact what you were suggesting, I wholeheartedly agree.  IMO, the latest chatter about philosophy certainly meets this description.  I openly admit a bias against philosophy, and in particular against philosophical discussions about philosophy because they invariably come across as giant exercises in mental masturbation.

Not, mind you, that I have anything against masturbation, mental or otherwise.  It's just that nothing ever comes of it, so to speak.

If you meant something else, sorry to have misunderstood.  Otherwise, I believe I share your preference to actually engage in interesting work, rather than just talking about the philosophies of how to accomplish work.

--Doug

============================================================
FRIAM Applied Complexity Group listserv
Meets Fridays 9a-11:30 at cafe at St. John's College
lectures, archives, unsubscribe, maps at http://www.friam.org

[Victoria Hughes]

Big sighs of relief from others of us as well...

Direct action, that's the ticket. Bring it all down out onto the material plane.

The Complex plays around with direct, effective action in areas that have not been represented very well so far. We can do more. 

[ I do realize this is the Friam list and not exactly the Complex list, but we are in a sense an incubator for the ideas that Friam discusses, and obviously there is a symbiotic relationship here. ]

Unknown synergies are possible. 

Doesn't matter the domain (science, art, technology, etc etc) . 

The initial point of contact is that we can do what many others can't by using this hands-on synergy to create.  Like the SimTable does.

Tory

 "Thunder is good, thunder is impressive, but it's lightning that does all the work."

-Mark Twain

On Jul 11, 2009, at 7:24 PM, Owen Densmore wrote:

Bingo!

    -- Owen

On Jul 11, 2009, at 4:56 PM, Douglas Roberts wrote:

Let me make sure I understand what you just said, Owen, by paraphrasing what I thought I heard:

Owen: "There are more people on this list who want to talk about doing things then there are people who actually want to do things, or, perhaps, even have relevant experience at doing things."

Or, an even shorter synopsis: Talk is cheap.

If that is in fact what you were suggesting, I wholeheartedly agree.  IMO, the latest chatter about philosophy certainly meets this description.  I openly admit a bias against philosophy, and in particular against philosophical discussions about philosophy because they invariably come across as giant exercises in mental masturbation.

Not, mind you, that I have anything against masturbation, mental or otherwise.  It's just that nothing ever comes of it, so to speak.

If you meant something else, sorry to have misunderstood.  Otherwise, I believe I share your preference to actually engage in interesting work, rather than just talking about the philosophies of how to accomplish work.

--Doug

============================================================
FRIAM Applied Complexity Group listserv
Meets Fridays 9a-11:30 at cafe at St. John's College
lectures, archives, unsubscribe, maps at http://www.friam.org

============================================================
FRIAM Applied Complexity Group listserv
Meets Fridays 9a-11:30 at cafe at St. John's College
lectures, archives, unsubscribe, maps at http://www.friam.org