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Friam Digest, Vol 27, Issue 28

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Nick Thompson

Friam Digest, Vol 27, Issue 28

All-

Thank you!!! That is more like the FRIAM I know and love!!!!!!

"Spandrel" has become a term of art in evolutionary biology since Gould and
Lewontin used it as a model of a structure that is not itself an adaptation
but the irrelevant ("unforeseen??") consequence of other adaptations. The
human nose is often given as an example of a spandrel because it is the
inevitable result of the relative enlargement of the skull and shrinking of
the jaw in human evolution. The armpit is an other example, which is sort
of fun because it is the joining of two arches..... well, you see what I
mean. The most unforgettable example of a spandrel is the pseudo-penis of
the female hyena, which she displays like a male but through which she must
both copulate and .... ugh .... give birth, resulting in extraordinary
mortality in birthing females. Hyena troops are savage matriarchies in
which the well-being of the different lineages in the group are determined
by the dominance of the matriarch females. Apparenty the pseudo penis
(actually a hypertrophied clitoris) is a spandrel arising form the
hormonal consequences of powerful selection on females for aggression at
the kill.

Calling something a spandrel in a biological argument is like calling it a
nothing, an epiphenomenon, if you like.

So, something cannot be a spandrel that could not have been plausibly
thought to have a function (before we decided it didnt). Since hurricanes
are not the sorts of things for which we could imagine functions (unless we
let Steve into this argument), to call a hurricane a spandrel is a stretch.
But if we allowed it, it would be like saying it was a nothing, an
aggregation of little somethings or a seam between big somethings.

I hope you will give the idea of "down-reduction" a good chewing and report
back to me on Friday afternoon.

You lucky sob's

Nick

Nicholas S. Thompson
Professor of Psychology and Ethology
Clark University
nickthompson at earthlink.net
http://home.earthlink.net/~nickthompson/
nthompson at clarku.edu

> [Original Message]
> From: <Friam-request at redfish.com>
> To: <Friam at redfish.com>
> Date: 9/27/2005 3:43:43 PM
> Subject: Friam Digest, Vol 27, Issue 28
>
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> When replying, please edit your Subject line so it is more specific
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>
> Today's Topics:
>
> 1. Re: What are Hurricanes? (Robert Holmes)
> 2. Re: miffed (Giles Bowkett)
> 3. Re: What are Hurricanes? (Douglas Roberts)
> 4. Re: What are Hurricanes? (Jochen Fromm)
> 5. Re: miffed (Bruce Sawhill)
> 6. Re: miffed (Nicholas Thompson)
> 7. Re: miffed (Douglas Roberts)
>
>
> ----------------------------------------------------------------------
>
> Message: 1
> Date: Tue, 27 Sep 2005 09:26:49 -0600
> From: Robert Holmes <rholmes62 at gmail.com>
> Subject: Re: [FRIAM] What are Hurricanes?
> To: The Friday Morning Applied Complexity Coffee Group
> <Friam at redfish.com>
> Message-ID: <8577701505092708263b0f4bd5 at mail.gmail.com>
> Content-Type: text/plain; charset=ISO-8859-1
>
> On 9/27/05, Jochen Fromm <fromm at vs.uni-kassel.de> wrote:
> >
> > ... Nevertheless, I
> > think it is interesting that hurricanes get names, although
> > they are non-permanent, volatile and temporary dynamic phenomena.
> > ....
>
> Just like humans :)
>
>
>
> ------------------------------
>
> Message: 2
> Date: Tue, 27 Sep 2005 10:38:25 -0600
> From: Giles Bowkett <gilesb at gmail.com>
> Subject: Re: [FRIAM] miffed
> To: The Friday Morning Applied Complexity Coffee Group
> <Friam at redfish.com>
> Cc: nickthompson at earthlink.net
> Message-ID: <2d81dedb05092709384f440fe6 at mail.gmail.com>
> Content-Type: text/plain; charset=ISO-8859-1
>
> Because it has feelings.
>
> On 9/27/05, Dede Densmore <dede at backspaces.net> wrote:
> > how come an armpit isn't a thing?
> > Dede
> > On Sep 26, 2005, at 7:34 PM, Nicholas Thompson wrote:
> >
> > > All --
> > >
> > > I am miffed that nobody rose to the bait of my question about when is
> > > a something a something. Now if I had raised that question with
> > > respect to hurricanes and asserted, say, that a hurricane is "just" a
> > > bunch of thunderstorms, you would have all been all over me about
> > > "emergence". A hurricane, you would say, is more than the sum of its
> > > thunderstorm parts. But if I assert that a hurricane is "just" a node
> > > in the structure of pressure systems and air flows in the atmosphere,
> > > no more a thing in itself than is an armpit an anatomical thing, would
> > > you have been all over me about "concretion"? Or even
> > > "precipitation"? Is there a sense in which higher order systems can
> > > precipitate an entity that is analogous to (but the reverse of ) the
> > > way in which lower order systems can generate an emergent???
> > >
> > > Inquiring people want to know.
> > >
> > > Nick
> > >
> > >
> > > Nicholas S. Thompson
> > > Professor of Psychology and Ethology
> > > Clark University
> > > nickthompson at earthlink.net
> > > http://home.earthlink.net/~nickthompson/
> > > nthompson at clarku.edu
> > >
> > >
> > > ============================================================
> > > FRIAM Applied Complexity Group listserv
> > > Meets Fridays 9:30a-11:30 at ad hoc locations
> > > Lecture schedule, archives, unsubscribe, etc.:
> > > http://www.friam.org
> >
> > ============================================================
> > FRIAM Applied Complexity Group listserv
> > Meets Fridays 9:30a-11:30 at ad hoc locations
> > Lecture schedule, archives, unsubscribe, etc.:
> > http://www.friam.org
> >
>
>
> --
> Giles Bowkett = Giles Goat Boy
> http://www.gilesgoatboy.org/
>
>
>
> ------------------------------
>
> Message: 3
> Date: Tue, 27 Sep 2005 11:03:17 -0600
> From: Douglas Roberts <doug at parrot-farm.net>
> Subject: Re: [FRIAM] What are Hurricanes?
> To: robert at holmesacosta.com, The Friday Morning Applied Complexity
> Coffee Group <Friam at redfish.com>
> Message-ID: <f165289205092710035c7fba9 at mail.gmail.com>
> Content-Type: text/plain; charset="iso-8859-1"
>
> Not to mention; full of hot air.
>
> On 9/27/05, Robert Holmes <rholmes62 at gmail.com> wrote:
> >
> > On 9/27/05, Jochen Fromm <fromm at vs.uni-kassel.de> wrote:
> > >
> > > ... Nevertheless, I
> > > think it is interesting that hurricanes get names, although
> > > they are non-permanent, volatile and temporary dynamic phenomena.
> > > ....
> >
> > Just like humans :)
> >
> > ============================================================
> > FRIAM Applied Complexity Group listserv
> > Meets Fridays 9:30a-11:30 at ad hoc locations
> > Lecture schedule, archives, unsubscribe, etc.:
> > http://www.friam.org
> >
>
>
>
> --
> ===============================================================
> "Never pick a fight with someone who buys his ink by the
> barrel."
>
> - Mark Twain
> ===============================================================
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>
> ------------------------------
>
> Message: 4
> Date: Tue, 27 Sep 2005 19:20:36 +0200
> From: "Jochen Fromm" <fromm at vs.uni-kassel.de>
> Subject: Re: [FRIAM] What are Hurricanes?
> To: "'The Friday Morning Applied Complexity Coffee Group'"
> <Friam at redfish.com>
> Message-ID: <200509271720.j8RHKoS5017531 at www.vs.eecs.uni-kassel.de>
> Content-Type: text/plain; charset="iso-8859-1"
>
>
> How right you are.. This reminds me of Blaise Pascal and
> his thoughts about consciousness:
>
> "When I consider the short duration of my life, swallowed up in the
> eternity before and after, the little space which I fill, and even
> can see, engulfed in the infinite immensity of spaces whereof I
> know nothing and which know nothing of me, I am frightened, and am
> astonished at being here rather than there; for there is no reason
> why here rather than there, why now rather than then. Who has put me
> here? By whose order and direction have this place and time been allotted
> to me? The eternal silence of these infinite spaces frightens me."
>
> "What is man in nature? Nothing in relation to the infinite, all in
> relation to nothing, a mean between nothing and everything."
>
> and perhaps of Buddha, who has taught that we can find our true
> self if we extinguish all thinking and finally ourselves completely
> in the Nirvana (if the soul does not exist at all and the mind is
> only an "emergent" dynamic phenomenon of myriads of neurons, then
> he is probably right):
>
> "All things appear and disappear because of the concurrence of causes
> and conditions. Nothing ever exists entirely alone; everything is
> in relation to everything else. "
>
> "Everything is changeable, everything appears and disappears; there is
> no blissful peace until one passes beyond the agony of life and death."
>
> -J.
>
> -----Urspr?ngliche Nachricht-----
> Von: Friam-bounces at redfish.com [mailto:Friam-bounces at redfish.com] Im

Auftrag

> von Robert Holmes
> Gesendet: Dienstag, 27. September 2005 17:27
> An: The Friday Morning Applied Complexity Coffee Group
> Betreff: Re: [FRIAM] What are Hurricanes?
>
> On 9/27/05, Jochen Fromm <fromm at vs.uni-kassel.de> wrote:
> >
> > ... Nevertheless, I
> > think it is interesting that hurricanes get names, although they are
> > non-permanent, volatile and temporary dynamic phenomena.
> > ....
>
> Just like humans :)
>
> ============================================================
> FRIAM Applied Complexity Group listserv
> Meets Fridays 9:30a-11:30 at ad hoc locations Lecture schedule, archives,
> unsubscribe, etc.:
> http://www.friam.org
>
>
>
>
> ------------------------------
>
> Message: 5
> Date: Tue, 27 Sep 2005 10:29:56 -0700
> From: Bruce Sawhill <bksawhill at cnsp.com>
> Subject: Re: [FRIAM] miffed
> To: The Friday Morning Applied Complexity Coffee Group
> <Friam at redfish.com>, Giles Bowkett <gilesb at gmail.com>
> Cc: Bruce Sawhill <bksawhill at cnsp.com>
> Message-ID: <a2604d7943ae70f5161e448a7b402a1c at cnsp.com>
> Content-Type: text/plain; charset=US-ASCII; format=flowed
>
> I think what makes a thing a thing is a profound question. There are
> many ways to see it. One is a kind of functional emergence--when it
> makes interaction and dynamics easier to describe by the people doing
> the describing. A kind of informational compression, a more complex
> analogy of why statistics is useful--mean and variance are handy
> compact descriptors of large amounts of data, but they are not "things"
> in any objective sense, not a Ding an sich as Kant would have it. I'm
> not sure anything is a Ding an sich, but that's a much longer
> conversation.
>
> Cheers,
>
> Bruce
>
> On Sep 27, 2005, at 9:38 AM, Giles Bowkett wrote:
>
> > Because it has feelings.
> >
> > On 9/27/05, Dede Densmore <dede at backspaces.net> wrote:
> >> how come an armpit isn't a thing?
> >> Dede
> >> On Sep 26, 2005, at 7:34 PM, Nicholas Thompson wrote:
> >>
> >>> All --
> >>>
> >>> I am miffed that nobody rose to the bait of my question about when is
> >>> a something a something. Now if I had raised that question with
> >>> respect to hurricanes and asserted, say, that a hurricane is "just" a
> >>> bunch of thunderstorms, you would have all been all over me about
> >>> "emergence". A hurricane, you would say, is more than the sum of its
> >>> thunderstorm parts. But if I assert that a hurricane is "just" a node
> >>> in the structure of pressure systems and air flows in the atmosphere,
> >>> no more a thing in itself than is an armpit an anatomical thing,
> >>> would
> >>> you have been all over me about "concretion"? Or even
> >>> "precipitation"? Is there a sense in which higher order systems can
> >>> precipitate an entity that is analogous to (but the reverse of ) the
> >>> way in which lower order systems can generate an emergent???
> >>>
> >>> Inquiring people want to know.
> >>>
> >>> Nick
> >>>
> >>>
> >>> Nicholas S. Thompson
> >>> Professor of Psychology and Ethology
> >>> Clark University
> >>> nickthompson at earthlink.net
> >>> http://home.earthlink.net/~nickthompson/
> >>> nthompson at clarku.edu
> >>>
> >>>
> >>> ============================================================
> >>> FRIAM Applied Complexity Group listserv
> >>> Meets Fridays 9:30a-11:30 at ad hoc locations
> >>> Lecture schedule, archives, unsubscribe, etc.:
> >>> http://www.friam.org
> >>
> >> ============================================================
> >> FRIAM Applied Complexity Group listserv
> >> Meets Fridays 9:30a-11:30 at ad hoc locations
> >> Lecture schedule, archives, unsubscribe, etc.:
> >> http://www.friam.org
> >>
> >
> >
> > --
> > Giles Bowkett = Giles Goat Boy
> > http://www.gilesgoatboy.org/
> >
> > ============================================================
> > FRIAM Applied Complexity Group listserv
> > Meets Fridays 9:30a-11:30 at ad hoc locations
> > Lecture schedule, archives, unsubscribe, etc.:
> > http://www.friam.org
> >
>
>
>
>
> ------------------------------
>
> Message: 6
> Date: Tue, 27 Sep 2005 14:45:25 -0600
> From: "Nicholas Thompson" <nickthompson at earthlink.net>
> Subject: Re: [FRIAM] miffed
> To: "Dede Densmore" <dede at backspaces.net>
> Cc: Friam <Friam at redfish.com>
> Message-ID: <410-220059227204525374 at earthlink.net>
> Content-Type: text/plain; charset=US-ASCII
>
> Like the spandrels of san Marcos, an armpit is not a thing but a place
> between two things.
>
> Nick
>
> Nicholas S. Thompson
> Professor of Psychology and Ethology
> Clark University
> nickthompson at earthlink.net
> http://home.earthlink.net/~nickthompson/
> nthompson at clarku.edu
>
>
> > [Original Message]
> > From: Dede Densmore <dede at backspaces.net>
> > To: The Friday Morning Applied Complexity Coffee Group
> <Friam at redfish.com>; <nickthompson at earthlink.net>
> > Date: 9/27/2005 9:00:30 AM
> > Subject: Re: [FRIAM] miffed
> >
> > how come an armpit isn't a thing?
> > Dede
> > On Sep 26, 2005, at 7:34 PM, Nicholas Thompson wrote:
> >
> > > All --
> > >
> > > I am miffed that nobody rose to the bait of my question about when is
> > > a something a something. Now if I had raised that question with
> > > respect to hurricanes and asserted, say, that a hurricane is "just" a
> > > bunch of thunderstorms, you would have all been all over me about
> > > "emergence". A hurricane, you would say, is more than the sum of its
> > > thunderstorm parts. But if I assert that a hurricane is "just" a

node
> > > in the structure of pressure systems and air flows in the
atmosphere,
> > > no more a thing in itself than is an armpit an anatomical thing,
would

> > > you have been all over me about "concretion"?   Or even
> > > "precipitation"? Is there a sense in which higher order systems can
> > > precipitate an entity that is analogous to (but the reverse of ) the
> > > way in which lower order systems can generate an emergent???
> > >
> > > Inquiring people want to know.
> > >
> > > Nick
> > >
> > >
> > > Nicholas S. Thompson
> > > Professor of Psychology and Ethology
> > > Clark University
> > > nickthompson at earthlink.net
> > > http://home.earthlink.net/~nickthompson/
> > > nthompson at clarku.edu
> > >
> > >
> > > ============================================================
> > > FRIAM Applied Complexity Group listserv
> > > Meets Fridays 9:30a-11:30 at ad hoc locations
> > > Lecture schedule, archives, unsubscribe, etc.:
> > > http://www.friam.org
>
>
>
>
>
> ------------------------------
>
> Message: 7
> Date: Tue, 27 Sep 2005 15:35:54 -0600
> From: Douglas Roberts <doug at parrot-farm.net>
> Subject: Re: [FRIAM] miffed
> To: nickthompson at earthlink.net, The Friday Morning Applied Complexity
> Coffee Group <Friam at redfish.com>
> Message-ID: <f165289205092714354bcdad74 at mail.gmail.com>
> Content-Type: text/plain; charset="iso-8859-1"
>
> Spandrel: Now that's a nice word.
>
> Spandrel \Span"drel\, n. [From Span.]
> 1. (Arch.) The irregular triangular space between the curve
> of an arch and the inclosing right angle; or the space
> between the outer moldings of two contiguous arches and a
> horizontal line above them, or another arch above and
> inclosing them.
> [1913 Webster]
>
> 2. A narrow mat or passe partout for a picture. [Cant]
> [1913 Webster]
>
>
>
> WordNet (r) 2.0 [wn]
>
>
> spandrel
> n : an approximately triangular surface area between two
> adjacent arches and the horizontal plane above them [syn:
> spandril]
>
>
> On 9/27/05, Nicholas Thompson <nickthompson at earthlink.net> wrote:
> >
> > Like the spandrels of san Marcos, an armpit is not a thing but a place
> > between two things.
> >
> > Nick
> >
> > Nicholas S. Thompson
> > Professor of Psychology and Ethology
> > Clark University
> > nickthompson at earthlink.net
> > http://home.earthlink.net/~nickthompson/
> > nthompson at clarku.edu
> >
> >
> > > [Original Message]
> > > From: Dede Densmore <dede at backspaces.net>
> > > To: The Friday Morning Applied Complexity Coffee Group
> > <Friam at redfish.com>; <nickthompson at earthlink.net>
> > > Date: 9/27/2005 9:00:30 AM
> > > Subject: Re: [FRIAM] miffed
> > >
> > > how come an armpit isn't a thing?
> > > Dede
> > > On Sep 26, 2005, at 7:34 PM, Nicholas Thompson wrote:
> > >
> > > > All --
> > > >
> > > > I am miffed that nobody rose to the bait of my question about when

is
> > > > a something a something. Now if I had raised that question with
> > > > respect to hurricanes and asserted, say, that a hurricane is "just"
a
> > > > bunch of thunderstorms, you would have all been all over me about
> > > > "emergence". A hurricane, you would say, is more than the sum of its
> > > > thunderstorm parts. But if I assert that a hurricane is "just" a
node
> > > > in the structure of pressure systems and air flows in the
atmosphere,
> > > > no more a thing in itself than is an armpit an anatomical thing,
would

> > > > you have been all over me about "concretion"? Or even
> > > > "precipitation"? Is there a sense in which higher order systems can
> > > > precipitate an entity that is analogous to (but the reverse of ) the
> > > > way in which lower order systems can generate an emergent???
> > > >
> > > > Inquiring people want to know.
> > > >
> > > > Nick
> > > >
> > > >
> > > > Nicholas S. Thompson
> > > > Professor of Psychology and Ethology
> > > > Clark University
> > > > nickthompson at earthlink.net
> > > > http://home.earthlink.net/~nickthompson/
> > > > nthompson at clarku.edu
> > > >
> > > >
> > > > ============================================================
> > > > FRIAM Applied Complexity Group listserv
> > > > Meets Fridays 9:30a-11:30 at ad hoc locations
> > > > Lecture schedule, archives, unsubscribe, etc.:
> > > > http://www.friam.org
> >
> >
> >
> >
> >
> > ============================================================
> > FRIAM Applied Complexity Group listserv
> > Meets Fridays 9:30a-11:30 at ad hoc locations
> > Lecture schedule, archives, unsubscribe, etc.:
> > http://www.friam.org
> >
> >
>
>
> --
> ===============================================================
> "Never pick a fight with someone who buys his ink by the
> barrel."
>
> - Mark Twain
> ===============================================================
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>
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>
> End of Friam Digest, Vol 27, Issue 28
> *************************************