Friday Fodder

[thompnickson2]

Dave,

 

I am going to lead my larding by resending what I sent before, because nobody seems to have read it.

 

Wow, Dave!  I will “lard” this by Friday!  Watch this space.  For the moment, let me say only the following.  The hyena story, pushing 50 years by now, does have the feel of a well worn tale.  I have not been back to visit that literature since forever, so you are right to be  suspicious.  But remember, the tale is told only to argue for what a spandrel might be, if ever there was a spandrel.  So we have two separate issues.  One is the definition of a spandrel; the other is the question of whether any spandrels exist.  Please keep that separation in mind as we discuss this further.  I further confess my fondness for Kipling (See attached).  I am probably in the last generation of grandparents to read Kipling’s Just So Stories to his grand children;  they are, occasionally, so casually racist that I have to edit as I read.  And yes you do point to a terrible weakness in all evolutionary explanation.  They are historical explanations based on the comparative method, with all the perils that that sort of explanation entails.  (John Dodson take note.) But, after all, so is cosmology, and plate tectonics,  so let’s not panic yet. 

 

This  passage was meant to concede much about Darwinian Explanation and the text to illustrate how any reasonably alert human being (like a child, for instance) can expose its weaknesses.  I don’t think there was anything bendy about it. 

 

For the promised larding, please look down.

 

Nick Thompson

[hidden email]

https://wordpress.clarku.edu/nthompson/

 

From: Friam <[hidden email]> On Behalf Of Prof David West
Sent: Tuesday, March 23, 2021 9:12 AM
To: [hidden email]
Subject: [FRIAM] Friday Fodder

 

Because I left before it ended, I have no idea how the spandrel discussion ended. Nick requested an explanation/elaboration/justification for my continued skepticism/resistance (other than being willfully obstinate for no reason) to the notion of spandrel. Hence the following — elaborated beyond the specific question of spandrel  as fodder for continuing discussion next Friday.

 

I am convinced that evolutionary biologists are secretly required to read Rudyard Kipling as prerequisite to the granting of a Ph.D.. Because, every story about the evolution of a specific feature — Friday it was the pseudo-penis of female hyenas — sounds like, and is as convincing as, one of Kipling's Just So stories. [Yes, trolling.] [NSTè This is why  it so important to understand the limitations of any historical explanation and particularly any explanation that purports to be of a one-off event.  In order to be explained, the explained event has to be seen as a member of some sort of class of events, which have, hitherto, behaved in some sort of rule full way.  What I tried to do in the vignette was offer a proper darwinian explanation in a Kiplingesque style.  The child’s last question are supposed to expose the perils of adhockery ç nst]

1.  

 

 

2- Pseudo-penis as spandrel:

   a- Testosterone flooded female hyenas are selected because aggressive females have survival value in matriarchal hyena society. This really seems, to me, to pose a chicken-egg problem: matriarchy or female bullies first? [NSTè Should I be afraid of chicken egg problems?  It just seems like positive feed back to me. ç nst]

 

   b- Testosterone flooding creates a space — a spandrel — a space that is then "decorated." One example of 'decoration' is the pseudo-penis.

[NST===>I think your evocation of a space was insightful and it sparked a conversation amongst after you left of what we came to call reductive evolution.  The flooding produced a bunch of consequences, some positive, some negative.  You would expect, now, that natural select would prune the effects by knocking out androgen receptors in all the processes that respond with deleterioius effects.  What makes the hyena case so striking is that such selection has not [yet?] occurred.  Ok, so we need to have a way of distinguishing between spandrels and their elaborations.  I would suggest that anything we get along the line of penis development by taking a female dog pup and lacing it with testosterone is a decent model;  anything we don’t get, is presumably an elaboration in the hyena.  So, for instance, I don’t think you would get the colorations or the pseudoscrotum, so I would think of these as secondary elaborations or “exaptations.” <===nst]

   c- by what mechanism does the decoration come about? Nick said it was a direct result of testosterone flooding, that "all" such results would appear, that none of them was independently 'selected for." This is a specific area where I fail to understand what Nick is saying and need correction. If I heard correctly that all effects of testosterone flooding would appear — Nick emphatically said "all" and "will" in his explanation — then:

    -- we should not only see a clitoris run amok, but also beards, rock hard pecs instead of pillow-breasts,  20-inch biceps, denser bones, and overall greater muscle mass.[NST===>Well, I don’t think hyenas grow beards, but the other stuff does “come along” in female hyenas. <===nst]  

    -- the "purpose" of the pseudo-penis is aggression display and reproductive-act dominance.

[NSTè I wouldn’t quite put it that way.  I would say that the purpose of the coloration is all of those things.  In the first place, the pseudo-penis is “just” a consequence of these other effects.   ç nst]

But, of all the results of testosterone flooding that "will" result, a big penis seems the least useful for that purpose. Muscles and size would seem more than sufficient.

[NSTè Well, this explanation is too strong, because it predicts that display structures would never evolve.  Aggressive animals, even hyper-aggresssive ones, are presumably (note weasel word) selection for avoiding conflict where they can.  ç nst]

Consider Arnold in the role of Terminator. He managed to convey a lot of menace and dominance simply from size and overall shape; never once brandishing his penis to intimidate anyone. (And if we assume he was as liberal a user of steroids in his body-building career as many of his colleagues, his penis would not have scared a squirrel.)[NST===>Frankly, I don’t know how far one can go toward masculinizing a human female by flooding embryo and then baby with testosterone, but I think its farer than you might think. <===nst]   

    -- Why so baroque a decoration?[NST===>Not clear what’s baroque about a penus<===nst]  

    -- Why did testosterone cause the clitoris to merge with the urethra and the vagina? Did these not exist as separate organs in predecessor species to the hyena? How is that even possible? [NST===>Well, all the instructions for making a penis exist in both male and female sexes.  Which sex characteristics develop depends heavily on the presence of testosterone. Also, development has to have tremendous capacity to buffer environmental vicissitudes, and those capacities can be captured for buffering against genetic change, as well.  <===nst] is the pseudo-penis not a clitoris-urethra-vagina at all but some kind of evolution of an avian cloaca?[NST===>I have no idea which is more primitive, the penis or the cloaca.  I am betting on the penis.  They are widely distributed in insects. <===nst]  

    -- This specific decoration seems to have anti-survival consequences (most firstborn hyenas are also stillborn) and yet this decoration seems immune to selection. Or maybe not, we have yet to see what might succeed hyenas a few million years from now.

[NST===>Remember.  According to the theory, the penis itself is not a decoration.  It’s an “unintended consequence”.  The coloration is the decoration (and the pseudoscrotum?) and these don’t appear to cost the hyena anything at all.  <===nst]

 

3- More general issue: whole-part evolution. Jon seemed to understand what I was trying to say last Friday on this matter.[NST===>I feel like I completely understand your problem, but cannot solve it.  You point to, what is for me, the most  bemusing problem in evolutionary theory, the evolution of natural selection.  Given the developmental entanglement of traits, how do they become modules for the purpose of selection.  The tension between developmental biologists and Dawkins-like biologists is around this poing.  Nobody disagrees that there is a lot of entanglement and nobody disagrees that some traits get selected.  I agree that the burden of proof lies on the side of selection theorist to explain how selection itself is possible!  This what I find so tempting about Stephen’s energy flow ideas.   Is there a “least action” explanation for modularity?  <===nst]  

1. Consider the peregrine falcon. Some of the traits/features that make it a formidable predator: very lightweight bones coupled with overdeveloped muscles which contribute to its ability to withstand G forces and make 200 mile per hour dives (and withstand the shock of kinetic energy when it hits its prey); razor sharp talons; notched beak to sever spinal columns; full-color binocular vision with resolution that allows seeing a pigeon at distances greater than a mile; nictating membrane to protect from wind force during dives; and ability to see into the ultra-violet spectrum.

   b- If I understand Darwin (a huge if): each of these features is the result of a sequence of selected/preserved minute changes in single molecules: e.g. keratin, opsins, crystallins. Each of these molecules are expressed as a sequence of amino acid 'letters', 20 in number. If the string of letters were 100 characters in length (crystallins and opsins are much longer) then the odds of any given string are 20 to the 100 power. By comparison, the number of hydrogen atoms in the universe is estimated to be 10 to the 90th power.

   c- If evolution proceeded with one amino acid letter pairing with a second, getting selected, then pairing with a third, etc., each addition being one of 20 equally probable options; then, coming up with the string that expresses, precisely, as the falcon's beak is fantastically improbable (winning the lottery every year since the Big Bang).

   d- This brings in the question of time. Has there been sufficient time for a process of random change / selection to allow the formation of such a string. This was a huge issue for Darwin because the prevailing scientific estimate of the age of the Earth was twenty-million years. [Lord Kelvin using the equations of thermodynamics.] This was not nearly enough time for Darwin's evolution and he was "greatly troubled by it." Rutherford, using radioactive decay equations, "saved" Darwin by extending the age of the Earth to 4.5 billion years.

   e- Kind-of. If evolution literally proceeds one amino acid letter at a time to assemble a specific string that has a probability of existing of 1 / 20 to the hundredth power (or more) — there is insufficient time since the Big Bang for that string to emerge via chance.

   f- it seems as if some kind of short-cut is essential. Suppose you have parallel/simultaneous evolution of 'sub-strings' and then 'main-line' evolution proceeds upon combinations (wholes) of these strings, Then, it is quite likely that 4.5 billion years provides sufficient time. This, it seems to me, suggests that evolution deals with an aggregate, a whole; not individual amino acids one-by-one, or even sub-strings one-by-one.

   g- Which circles back to the falcon. If each of the mentioned traits/features evolved independently and sequentially then we run out of time again. If each of the traits/features evolved independently then there seems to be a macro-problem of how they 'just happened' to occur simultaneously and apparently 'in concert'.

 

So my conclusion, apparently wrong because it disagrees with the experts in the group, is that evolution must proceed whole-organism to whole-organism and not, feature-trait by feature-trait the way that it is presented.

 

This also means, that individual feature-traits — as marvelous as the the falcon's eye or as silly as the pseudo-penis — cannot, and should not be "explained" independently. To do so is to focus on the 'noise' and not the 'signal'. Such efforts are the product of 19th century thinking and unworthy of complexity scientists like yourselves.

 

davew

 

 

 

Nick Thompson

[hidden email]

https://wordpress.clarku.edu/nthompson/

 

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[jon zingale]

"""
I feel like I completely understand your problem, but cannot solve it.  You
point to, what is for me, the most  bemusing problem in evolutionary theory,
the evolution of natural selection.  Given the developmental entanglement of
traits, how do they become modules for the purpose of selection.  The
tension between developmental biologists and Dawkins-like biologists is
around this poing.  Nobody disagrees that there is a lot of entanglement and
nobody disagrees that some traits get selected.  I agree that the burden of
proof lies on the side of selection theorist to explain how selection itself
is possible!  This what I find so tempting about Stephen’s energy flow
ideas.   Is there a “least action” explanation for modularity?
"""

Similarly, is this a place where SteveG-style descriptions will meet
Gibson-style explanations?



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[thompnickson2]

Jon,

Say more! I don't yet see the connection.  

For me, Gibson hopelessly misunderstands his monist roots.  Direct perception is either a tautology or nonsense.  If one is dualist, and separates the world from our perception of it, then it is nonsense.  If one is a monist, then all experience is direct and calling it "direct" is wasted breath.   There, EricC, I have finally said it!

Still pondering your last contribution to the writing thread.

N
Nick Thompson
[hidden email]
https://wordpress.clarku.edu/nthompson/

-----Original Message-----
From: Friam <[hidden email]> On Behalf Of jon zingale
Sent: Wednesday, March 24, 2021 4:02 PM
To: [hidden email]
Subject: Re: [FRIAM] Friday Fodder

"""
I feel like I completely understand your problem, but cannot solve it.  You point to, what is for me, the most  bemusing problem in evolutionary theory, the evolution of natural selection.  Given the developmental entanglement of traits, how do they become modules for the purpose of selection.  The tension between developmental biologists and Dawkins-like biologists is around this poing.  Nobody disagrees that there is a lot of entanglement and nobody disagrees that some traits get selected.  I agree that the burden of proof lies on the side of selection theorist to explain how selection itself is possible!  This what I find so tempting about Stephen’s energy flow
ideas.   Is there a “least action” explanation for modularity?
"""

Similarly, is this a place where SteveG-style descriptions will meet Gibson-style explanations?



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[jon zingale]

The idea isn't all that clear to me. I am still trying to understand the
various concepts and perspectives in play. What follows is a first-order
attempt. I can sympathize with the need for Gibsonians to disambiguate
experience. There is a need to state direct experience because the
discussion is happening in a room with others that argue for mediated
experience. EricC, et al. write in "The Most Important Thing
Neuropragmatism Can Do":

"""
An essential and vastly underappreciated aspect of the world is the flux
of energy in the ‘empty space’ around us, the light and pressure waves
crisscrossing, chemical gradients, magnetic fields, etc. Gibson labeled
the structural elements of this ambient energy that can support behavior
‘information.’

This information flow is surprisingly stable, as is our access to it
(following the requisite learning). We are not adrift in a ‘blooming,
buzzing confusion’ (to use the oft-misunderstood William James quote).
As with other stable aspects of our ecological niche, we can (and
evidence shows that we do) rely on this information to do a lot of work
for us. We exist in and move through a flow of information and our
behavior emerges as we interact with that flow. There is no need to
construct a model of our environment; as Rodney Brooks famously claims,
we can let the world be its own model.
"""

For Gibsonians, the world exists in an aether of relatively stable and
structured energy, and what we come to do in the world is ultimately
afforded to us via embodiment. That this aether is structured suggests
that there is a difference to exploit, as agents, our aimless wanderings
are channeled, we are coaxed and seduced. That this aether is stable
suggests that we can rely on the value of our habits to a fairly fine-
scale, differences in niche-exploiting paths amplify in time. From what
little I understand, Gibsonians are attempting an explanatory theory of
behavior, why we do and are able to do what we do, via an unmediated
experiencial account. One seemingly crucial detail for such a theory is
that it does not presuppose objects, but rather, when they arise at all,
are a name we can give to sufficiently differentiated experience, that
is, the theory does not (as a mathematical theory might) begin with a
notion of equivalence.

Meanwhile the Noetherians, historically, are interested in a descriptive
and objectifying account of nature. They too, begin with a theory of
differences, namely the differential calculus or the calculus of
variations. Unlike the Gibsonians, however, the Noetherians take as
primitive the notion of equivalence. While this choice confers great
benefits with regards a tremendous conceptual economy, symmetry most
saliently, it seems to have little (predictive nor anticipatory) to say
about the production of new kinds. In other words, accepting equivalence
as a primitive comes at a price. Proving that there exists stable
manifolds, limit cycles, or strange attractors takes work, and much of
the recent history of modern dynamics has found itself in the study of
classifying and modeling the production of bifurcations and other
catastrophes that arise from changing the structural variables of a
given phase space. What such a theory gains from a strong condition like
equivalence it loses in its ability to predict what different ought to
be near.

I should probably say more about connecting the two perspectives, but
again, I am still very much feeling around in the dark. Thinking about
SteveG's ants, it is worth mentioning that given a space of sufficiently
high genus, there is no reason to assume that a given solution is
anywhere near-optimal, nor that once a solution is found that there
would be an impetus to find a better one. The Noetherian solution will
likely be a family of solutions given by the underlying cohomology of
the space. In some, hand-wavy way, this seems to me to correspond to an
aspect of the Gibsonian structured aether. I fantasize that, and in
analogy with the work being done by embodied cognitive scientists to
build a bridge with ecological psychology[1], that the Noetherians and
the Gibsonians will build such a bridge. The former building descriptions
for the latters' explanations.

[1] Radical Embodied Cognitive Science, pg 28, 30



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[thompnickson2]

JZ wrote or quoted

 

An essential and vastly underappreciated aspect of the world is the flux of energy in the ‘empty space’ around us, the light and pressure waves crisscrossing, chemical gradients, magnetic fields, etc. Gibson labeled the structural elements of this ambient energy that can support behavior ‘information.’

Nick responds.

 

. Let experience be as random as it could possibly be; indeed, Peirce thinks that experience is approximately that random. Considering all the events that are going on at any one moment -- the ticking of the clock, the whuffing of the wind in the eaves, the drip of the faucet, the ringing of the telephone, the call from the seven-year-old upstairs who cannot find his shoes, the clunking in the heating pipes as the heat comes on, the distant sound of the fire engine passing the end of the street, the entry of the cat through the pet door, the skitter of mouse-feet behind the wainscoting -- most will be likely unrelated to the fact that the egg timer just went off. Perhaps not all, however. Perhaps the cat anticipates cleaning up the egg dishes. Perhaps the same stove that is boiling the egg water has lit a fire in the chimney. But whatever relations we might discover amongst all these events, we can find an infinite number of other temporally contiguous events that are not related to them. Thus, as Peirce says, events are just about as random as anybody could care them to be.  But – and here is the main point – to the extent that events are related, these relations would be useful. They would, for instance allow the cat to predict that there would be food in a few moments, the mouse to predict that the cat has entered the house, and you to predict, among other things, that your eggs are ready. For this reason, on Peirce’s account, organisms are designed to ferret out these few regularities and take action based on them.

In short, if perception is direct, it comes only to the prepared mind and there are an infinity of fluxes that must go unnoticed. 

 

Nick

 

Nick Thompson

[hidden email]

https://wordpress.clarku.edu/nthompson/

 

-----Original Message-----
From: Friam <[hidden email]> On Behalf Of jon zingale
Sent: Wednesday, March 24, 2021 9:41 PM
To: [hidden email]
Subject: Re: [FRIAM] Friday Fodder

 

The idea isn't all that clear to me. I am still trying to understand the various concepts and perspectives in play. What follows is a first-order attempt. I can sympathize with the need for Gibsonians to disambiguate experience. There is a need to state direct experience because the discussion is happening in a room with others that argue for mediated experience. EricC, et al. write in "The Most Important Thing Neuropragmatism Can Do":

 

"""

An essential and vastly underappreciated aspect of the world is the flux of energy in the ‘empty space’ around us, the light and pressure waves crisscrossing, chemical gradients, magnetic fields, etc. Gibson labeled the structural elements of this ambient energy that can support behavior ‘information.’

 

This information flow is surprisingly stable, as is our access to it (following the requisite learning). We are not adrift in a ‘blooming, buzzing confusion’ (to use the oft-misunderstood William James quote).

As with other stable aspects of our ecological niche, we can (and evidence shows that we do) rely on this information to do a lot of work for us. We exist in and move through a flow of information and our behavior emerges as we interact with that flow. There is no need to construct a model of our environment; as Rodney Brooks famously claims, we can let the world be its own model.

"""

 

For Gibsonians, the world exists in an aether of relatively stable and structured energy, and what we come to do in the world is ultimately afforded to us via embodiment. That this aether is structured suggests that there is a difference to exploit, as agents, our aimless wanderings are channeled, we are coaxed and seduced. That this aether is stable suggests that we can rely on the value of our habits to a fairly fine- scale, differences in niche-exploiting paths amplify in time. From what little I understand, Gibsonians are attempting an explanatory theory of behavior, why we do and are able to do what we do, via an unmediated experiencial account. One seemingly crucial detail for such a theory is that it does not presuppose objects, but rather, when they arise at all, are a name we can give to sufficiently differentiated experience, that is, the theory does not (as a mathematical theory might) begin with a notion of equivalence.

 

Meanwhile the Noetherians, historically, are interested in a descriptive and objectifying account of nature. They too, begin with a theory of differences, namely the differential calculus or the calculus of variations. Unlike the Gibsonians, however, the Noetherians take as primitive the notion of equivalence. While this choice confers great benefits with regards a tremendous conceptual economy, symmetry most saliently, it seems to have little (predictive nor anticipatory) to say about the production of new kinds. In other words, accepting equivalence as a primitive comes at a price. Proving that there exists stable manifolds, limit cycles, or strange attractors takes work, and much of the recent history of modern dynamics has found itself in the study of classifying and modeling the production of bifurcations and other catastrophes that arise from changing the structural variables of a given phase space. What such a theory gains from a strong condition like equivalence it loses in its ability to predict what different ought to be near.

 

I should probably say more about connecting the two perspectives, but again, I am still very much feeling around in the dark. Thinking about SteveG's ants, it is worth mentioning that given a space of sufficiently high genus, there is no reason to assume that a given solution is anywhere near-optimal, nor that once a solution is found that there would be an impetus to find a better one. The Noetherian solution will likely be a family of solutions given by the underlying cohomology of the space. In some, hand-wavy way, this seems to me to correspond to an aspect of the Gibsonian structured aether. I fantasize that, and in analogy with the work being done by embodied cognitive scientists to build a bridge with ecological psychology[1], that the Noetherians and the Gibsonians will build such a bridge. The former building descriptions for the latters' explanations.

 

[1] Radical Embodied Cognitive Science, pg 28, 30

 

 

 

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[jon zingale]

FWIW, I interpret such flux as fascial. My skin is not made of an infinity of
points, it is a sheet that confers aggregate information. The prepared mind,
the situated body, whatever. There is some limited subject, limited in its
ability to know what there is to know, but embodied in the world
none-the-less. Are we disagreeing about the extent to which the Gibsonians
and the Peirceans find the world to be random? Where do you believe, if
anywhere, that the Gibsonians or the Peirceans will find connections with
the Noetherians?



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[Prof David West]

From Nick

    "In short, if perception is direct, it comes only to the prepared mind and there are an infinity of fluxes that must go unnoticed." (emphasis mine)

    My contention, since circa 1987, is that they are not unnoticed. Each and every one of the individual photons (and the energy fluxes and chemical gradients) encountered by the organism are perceived; and all of them contribute to / constitute a whole that "you" are aware of and able to respond to.

    Hence things like the "cocktail party effect."

    True, organisms (at least those where we can observe) do have a tendency, for survival purposes, to create "attention bubbles" that filter out much of what is perceived. But these attention bubbles are pure fiction, not only a subset of our perception but habitual interpretations of that subset and projections upon that reality.

     We can 'play' with those "attention bubbles." LSD allows us to pay attention to a different, usually much expanded, subset and allows alternative interpretations of that subset.

     I am planning a non-drug / non-meditation, three day, "play" experiment in May. Won't share details, TMI, but mention it only to point out that there are lots of ways to 'deconstruct reality' and gain insights thereby.

davew

On Wed, Mar 24, 2021, at 9:58 PM, [hidden email] wrote:

JZ wrote or quoted

 

An essential and vastly underappreciated aspect of the world is the flux of energy in the ‘empty space’ around us, the light and pressure waves crisscrossing, chemical gradients, magnetic fields, etc. Gibson labeled the structural elements of this ambient energy that can support behavior ‘information.’

Nick responds.

 

. Let experience be as random as it could possibly be; indeed, Peirce thinks that experience is approximately that random. Considering all the events that are going on at any one moment -- the ticking of the clock, the whuffing of the wind in the eaves, the drip of the faucet, the ringing of the telephone, the call from the seven-year-old upstairs who cannot find his shoes, the clunking in the heating pipes as the heat comes on, the distant sound of the fire engine passing the end of the street, the entry of the cat through the pet door, the skitter of mouse-feet behind the wainscoting -- most will be likely unrelated to the fact that the egg timer just went off. Perhaps not all, however. Perhaps the cat anticipates cleaning up the egg dishes. Perhaps the same stove that is boiling the egg water has lit a fire in the chimney. But whatever relations we might discover amongst all these events, we can find an infinite number of other temporally contiguous events that are not related to them. Thus, as Peirce says, events are just about as random as anybody could care them to be.  But – and here is the main point – to the extent that events are related, these relations would be useful. They would, for instance allow the cat to predict that there would be food in a few moments, the mouse to predict that the cat has entered the house, and you to predict, among other things, that your eggs are ready. For this reason, on Peirce’s account, organisms are designed to ferret out these few regularities and take action based on them.

In short, if perception is direct, it comes only to the prepared mind and there are an infinity of fluxes that must go unnoticed. 

 

Nick

 

Nick Thompson

[hidden email]

https://wordpress.clarku.edu/nthompson/

 

-----Original Message-----

From: Friam <[hidden email]> On Behalf Of jon zingale

Sent: Wednesday, March 24, 2021 9:41 PM

To: [hidden email]

Subject: Re: [FRIAM] Friday Fodder

 

The idea isn't all that clear to me. I am still trying to understand the various concepts and perspectives in play. What follows is a first-order attempt. I can sympathize with the need for Gibsonians to disambiguate experience. There is a need to state direct experience because the discussion is happening in a room with others that argue for mediated experience. EricC, et al. write in "The Most Important Thing Neuropragmatism Can Do":

 

"""

An essential and vastly underappreciated aspect of the world is the flux of energy in the ‘empty space’ around us, the light and pressure waves crisscrossing, chemical gradients, magnetic fields, etc. Gibson labeled the structural elements of this ambient energy that can support behavior ‘information.’

 

This information flow is surprisingly stable, as is our access to it (following the requisite learning). We are not adrift in a ‘blooming, buzzing confusion’ (to use the oft-misunderstood William James quote).

As with other stable aspects of our ecological niche, we can (and evidence shows that we do) rely on this information to do a lot of work for us. We exist in and move through a flow of information and our behavior emerges as we interact with that flow. There is no need to construct a model of our environment; as Rodney Brooks famously claims, we can let the world be its own model.

"""

 

For Gibsonians, the world exists in an aether of relatively stable and structured energy, and what we come to do in the world is ultimately afforded to us via embodiment. That this aether is structured suggests that there is a difference to exploit, as agents, our aimless wanderings are channeled, we are coaxed and seduced. That this aether is stable suggests that we can rely on the value of our habits to a fairly fine- scale, differences in niche-exploiting paths amplify in time. From what little I understand, Gibsonians are attempting an explanatory theory of behavior, why we do and are able to do what we do, via an unmediated experiencial account. One seemingly crucial detail for such a theory is that it does not presuppose objects, but rather, when they arise at all, are a name we can give to sufficiently differentiated experience, that is, the theory does not (as a mathematical theory might) begin with a notion of equivalence.

 

Meanwhile the Noetherians, historically, are interested in a descriptive and objectifying account of nature. They too, begin with a theory of differences, namely the differential calculus or the calculus of variations. Unlike the Gibsonians, however, the Noetherians take as primitive the notion of equivalence. While this choice confers great benefits with regards a tremendous conceptual economy, symmetry most saliently, it seems to have little (predictive nor anticipatory) to say about the production of new kinds. In other words, accepting equivalence as a primitive comes at a price. Proving that there exists stable manifolds, limit cycles, or strange attractors takes work, and much of the recent history of modern dynamics has found itself in the study of classifying and modeling the production of bifurcations and other catastrophes that arise from changing the structural variables of a given phase space. What such a theory gains from a strong condition like equivalence it loses in its ability to predict what different ought to be near.

 

I should probably say more about connecting the two perspectives, but again, I am still very much feeling around in the dark. Thinking about SteveG's ants, it is worth mentioning that given a space of sufficiently high genus, there is no reason to assume that a given solution is anywhere near-optimal, nor that once a solution is found that there would be an impetus to find a better one. The Noetherian solution will likely be a family of solutions given by the underlying cohomology of the space. In some, hand-wavy way, this seems to me to correspond to an aspect of the Gibsonian structured aether. I fantasize that, and in analogy with the work being done by embodied cognitive scientists to build a bridge with ecological psychology[1], that the Noetherians and the Gibsonians will build such a bridge. The former building descriptions for the latters' explanations.

 

[1] Radical Embodied Cognitive Science, pg 28, 30

 

 

 

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[Eric Charles-2]

In Friday's meeting I apologized to Jon that I hadn't given him a proper reply to his interesting prods, but that Nick's comments had somehow mentally blocked me from doing so. Nick said: "For me, Gibson hopelessly misunderstands his monist roots.  Direct perception is either a tautology or nonsense." 

I promise Jon a good reply later this weekend, as I get past that blockage with the following:

Look, prick, there are some very different discussions to be had here, and pretending they are all the same discussion doesn't help anyone. The philosophical monist doesn't get to pretend there is no mechanism involved in perception any more than they get to pretend there is no mechanism involved in a bridge bearing weight. 

Indirect-perception happens all the time. Looking at my wall right now, I see a picture of Christi at our wedding. To me that picture re-presents her, and that event, and if there is any sense in which I "perceive" her while looking at the picture, that perception is not-direct, it is mediated by the six-inch tall, flat, still, image. Separately, when I turn my head about 15 degrees to the right, I see a walk-through-able doorway, my open-able fridge door, a coffee-cup-put-onable counter-top, a navigable hallway leading to my family room, etc. Need I tell the same type of story about all of those things that I told about seeing Christi in our wedding picture? Are all my perceptions mediated in that same sort of way? Or is there some sense in which I perceive most objects and events around me more directly than that? 

To answer those question, Gibson innovated an impressive array of conceptual elements, including the idea of the ambient energy arrays as ecological elements, invariants structures in those array, specificity as a property of a subset of those invariants, and an analysis of the evolutionary and developmental ways in which organisms can attune to those specifying-invariants, and how all that comes together to allow organisms to behave accurately with respect to the objects and events around them. And all of that stands as a huge contribution to the literature, regardless of anyone's thoughts about the particular term "direct perception" and it's history; especially if one is somehow trying to approach that term absent recognition of its multi-century history. Gibson's description of the perceptual mechanism shows how we can explain organism's perception of the functional implications of objects and events, without (in the course of that explanation) punching the tar-baby of picture perception and getting stuck with a dualistic cartesian theatre. 

That explanation connects strongly with the literatures on dynamics system, perceptual control theory, agent based modeling, and others. And in a world where most people in the field are still arguing that all perception is indirect, it makes sense to label what Gibson is doing a theory of direct perception. Your suggestion that it is a moral betrayal of values to call it anything other than "perception" with no modifier, is dumb. 

Why not just call your system "The Design Perspective"?!? Or to just pick one of those words? The answer is simple: Because "Natural Design" distinguishes your approach from those you are trying to chastise, and by-sheer-virtue-of-label connects your approach with the literature on "Natural Selection". Other people get to do things like that too. Gibson's work fits within the long tradition of trying to defend the possibility of direct perception, and there's nothing wrong with him and his supporters making that clear. 

AND even though I started out by saying there are different conversations to be had, they are not completely unconnected. You don't get to do the bullshit Kantian move (that Peirce and so many other philosophers seems to follow) of simply declaring the issues unrelated - that there is a scientific psychology and a metaphysical psychology and never the twain shall meet. No matter how much it seems like those should be two separate things, either the scientific psychology can (ultimately) handle the content of the metaphysical psychology or both sides are just blowing wind. So, if you want to argue for a monist world, you can't go around taking a giant dump on the work of anyone trying to figure out how we can have mechanisms in such a world. Whatever it is that people are -- physical people, in a physical world -- those hunks of meat have to be able, through some process of dynamic interaction with their surroundings, to do whatever it is your philosophy says they are doing. 

On Wed, Mar 24, 2021 at 6:40 PM <[hidden email]> wrote:

Jon,

Say more! I don't yet see the connection. 

For me, Gibson hopelessly misunderstands his monist roots.  Direct perception is either a tautology or nonsense.  If one is dualist, and separates the world from our perception of it, then it is nonsense.  If one is a monist, then all experience is direct and calling it "direct" is wasted breath.   There, EricC, I have finally said it!

Still pondering your last contribution to the writing thread.

N
Nick Thompson
[hidden email]
https://wordpress.clarku.edu/nthompson/

-----Original Message-----
From: Friam <[hidden email]> On Behalf Of jon zingale
Sent: Wednesday, March 24, 2021 4:02 PM
To: [hidden email]
Subject: Re: [FRIAM] Friday Fodder

"""
I feel like I completely understand your problem, but cannot solve it.  You point to, what is for me, the most  bemusing problem in evolutionary theory, the evolution of natural selection.  Given the developmental entanglement of traits, how do they become modules for the purpose of selection.  The tension between developmental biologists and Dawkins-like biologists is around this poing.  Nobody disagrees that there is a lot of entanglement and nobody disagrees that some traits get selected.  I agree that the burden of proof lies on the side of selection theorist to explain how selection itself is possible!  This what I find so tempting about Stephen’s energy flow
ideas.   Is there a “least action” explanation for modularity?
"""

Similarly, is this a place where SteveG-style descriptions will meet Gibson-style explanations?



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[thompnickson2]

Dear Eric,

 

Use your words!  Tell me how you FEEL!  (};-)]

 

N

 

Nick Thompson

[hidden email]

https://wordpress.clarku.edu/nthompson/

 

From: Friam <[hidden email]> On Behalf Of Eric Charles
Sent: Saturday, March 27, 2021 7:43 AM
To: The Friday Morning Applied Complexity Coffee Group <[hidden email]>
Subject: Re: [FRIAM] Friday Fodder

 

In Friday's meeting I apologized to Jon that I hadn't given him a proper reply to his interesting prods, but that Nick's comments had somehow mentally blocked me from doing so. Nick said: "For me, Gibson hopelessly misunderstands his monist roots.  Direct perception is either a tautology or nonsense." 

 

I promise Jon a good reply later this weekend, as I get past that blockage with the following:

 

Look, prick, there are some very different discussions to be had here, and pretending they are all the same discussion doesn't help anyone. The philosophical monist doesn't get to pretend there is no mechanism involved in perception any more than they get to pretend there is no mechanism involved in a bridge bearing weight. 

 

Indirect-perception happens all the time. Looking at my wall right now, I see a picture of Christi at our wedding. To me that picture re-presents her, and that event, and if there is any sense in which I "perceive" her while looking at the picture, that perception is not-direct, it is mediated by the six-inch tall, flat, still, image. Separately, when I turn my head about 15 degrees to the right, I see a walk-through-able doorway, my open-able fridge door, a coffee-cup-put-onable counter-top, a navigable hallway leading to my family room, etc. Need I tell the same type of story about all of those things that I told about seeing Christi in our wedding picture? Are all my perceptions mediated in that same sort of way? Or is there some sense in which I perceive most objects and events around me more directly than that? 

 

To answer those question, Gibson innovated an impressive array of conceptual elements, including the idea of the ambient energy arrays as ecological elements, invariants structures in those array, specificity as a property of a subset of those invariants, and an analysis of the evolutionary and developmental ways in which organisms can attune to those specifying-invariants, and how all that comes together to allow organisms to behave accurately with respect to the objects and events around them. And all of that stands as a huge contribution to the literature, regardless of anyone's thoughts about the particular term "direct perception" and it's history; especially if one is somehow trying to approach that term absent recognition of its multi-century history. Gibson's description of the perceptual mechanism shows how we can explain organism's perception of the functional implications of objects and events, without (in the course of that explanation) punching the tar-baby of picture perception and getting stuck with a dualistic cartesian theatre. 

 

That explanation connects strongly with the literatures on dynamics system, perceptual control theory, agent based modeling, and others. And in a world where most people in the field are still arguing that all perception is indirect, it makes sense to label what Gibson is doing a theory of direct perception. Your suggestion that it is a moral betrayal of values to call it anything other than "perception" with no modifier, is dumb. 

 

Why not just call your system "The Design Perspective"?!? Or to just pick one of those words? The answer is simple: Because "Natural Design" distinguishes your approach from those you are trying to chastise, and by-sheer-virtue-of-label connects your approach with the literature on "Natural Selection". Other people get to do things like that too. Gibson's work fits within the long tradition of trying to defend the possibility of direct perception, and there's nothing wrong with him and his supporters making that clear. 

 

AND even though I started out by saying there are different conversations to be had, they are not completely unconnected. You don't get to do the bullshit Kantian move (that Peirce and so many other philosophers seems to follow) of simply declaring the issues unrelated - that there is a scientific psychology and a metaphysical psychology and never the twain shall meet. No matter how much it seems like those should be two separate things, either the scientific psychology can (ultimately) handle the content of the metaphysical psychology or both sides are just blowing wind. So, if you want to argue for a monist world, you can't go around taking a giant dump on the work of anyone trying to figure out how we can have mechanisms in such a world. Whatever it is that people are -- physical people, in a physical world -- those hunks of meat have to be able, through some process of dynamic interaction with their surroundings, to do whatever it is your philosophy says they are doing. 

 

 

 

On Wed, Mar 24, 2021 at 6:40 PM <[hidden email]> wrote:

Jon,

Say more! I don't yet see the connection. 

For me, Gibson hopelessly misunderstands his monist roots.  Direct perception is either a tautology or nonsense.  If one is dualist, and separates the world from our perception of it, then it is nonsense.  If one is a monist, then all experience is direct and calling it "direct" is wasted breath.   There, EricC, I have finally said it!

Still pondering your last contribution to the writing thread.

N
Nick Thompson
[hidden email]
https://wordpress.clarku.edu/nthompson/

-----Original Message-----
From: Friam <[hidden email]> On Behalf Of jon zingale
Sent: Wednesday, March 24, 2021 4:02 PM
To: [hidden email]
Subject: Re: [FRIAM] Friday Fodder

"""
I feel like I completely understand your problem, but cannot solve it.  You point to, what is for me, the most  bemusing problem in evolutionary theory, the evolution of natural selection.  Given the developmental entanglement of traits, how do they become modules for the purpose of selection.  The tension between developmental biologists and Dawkins-like biologists is around this poing.  Nobody disagrees that there is a lot of entanglement and nobody disagrees that some traits get selected.  I agree that the burden of proof lies on the side of selection theorist to explain how selection itself is possible!  This what I find so tempting about Stephen’s energy flow
ideas.   Is there a “least action” explanation for modularity?
"""

Similarly, is this a place where SteveG-style descriptions will meet Gibson-style explanations?



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[Gary Schiltz-4]

I don’t know Eric, but I had hoped that his fingers had just inadvertently slipped when he was trying to type “Nick”. Otherwise, he should be ashamed. 

On Sat, Mar 27, 2021 at 12:10 PM <[hidden email]> wrote:

Dear Eric,

 

Use your words!  Tell me how you FEEL!  (};-)]

 

N

 

Nick Thompson

[hidden email]

https://wordpress.clarku.edu/nthompson/

 

From: Friam <[hidden email]> On Behalf Of Eric Charles
Sent: Saturday, March 27, 2021 7:43 AM
To: The Friday Morning Applied Complexity Coffee Group <[hidden email]>
Subject: Re: [FRIAM] Friday Fodder

 

In Friday's meeting I apologized to Jon that I hadn't given him a proper reply to his interesting prods, but that Nick's comments had somehow mentally blocked me from doing so. Nick said: "For me, Gibson hopelessly misunderstands his monist roots.  Direct perception is either a tautology or nonsense." 

 

I promise Jon a good reply later this weekend, as I get past that blockage with the following:

 

Look, prick, there are some very different discussions to be had here, and pretending they are all the same discussion doesn't help anyone. The philosophical monist doesn't get to pretend there is no mechanism involved in perception any more than they get to pretend there is no mechanism involved in a bridge bearing weight. 

 

Indirect-perception happens all the time. Looking at my wall right now, I see a picture of Christi at our wedding. To me that picture re-presents her, and that event, and if there is any sense in which I "perceive" her while looking at the picture, that perception is not-direct, it is mediated by the six-inch tall, flat, still, image. Separately, when I turn my head about 15 degrees to the right, I see a walk-through-able doorway, my open-able fridge door, a coffee-cup-put-onable counter-top, a navigable hallway leading to my family room, etc. Need I tell the same type of story about all of those things that I told about seeing Christi in our wedding picture? Are all my perceptions mediated in that same sort of way? Or is there some sense in which I perceive most objects and events around me more directly than that? 

 

To answer those question, Gibson innovated an impressive array of conceptual elements, including the idea of the ambient energy arrays as ecological elements, invariants structures in those array, specificity as a property of a subset of those invariants, and an analysis of the evolutionary and developmental ways in which organisms can attune to those specifying-invariants, and how all that comes together to allow organisms to behave accurately with respect to the objects and events around them. And all of that stands as a huge contribution to the literature, regardless of anyone's thoughts about the particular term "direct perception" and it's history; especially if one is somehow trying to approach that term absent recognition of its multi-century history. Gibson's description of the perceptual mechanism shows how we can explain organism's perception of the functional implications of objects and events, without (in the course of that explanation) punching the tar-baby of picture perception and getting stuck with a dualistic cartesian theatre. 

 

That explanation connects strongly with the literatures on dynamics system, perceptual control theory, agent based modeling, and others. And in a world where most people in the field are still arguing that all perception is indirect, it makes sense to label what Gibson is doing a theory of direct perception. Your suggestion that it is a moral betrayal of values to call it anything other than "perception" with no modifier, is dumb. 

 

Why not just call your system "The Design Perspective"?!? Or to just pick one of those words? The answer is simple: Because "Natural Design" distinguishes your approach from those you are trying to chastise, and by-sheer-virtue-of-label connects your approach with the literature on "Natural Selection". Other people get to do things like that too. Gibson's work fits within the long tradition of trying to defend the possibility of direct perception, and there's nothing wrong with him and his supporters making that clear. 

 

AND even though I started out by saying there are different conversations to be had, they are not completely unconnected. You don't get to do the bullshit Kantian move (that Peirce and so many other philosophers seems to follow) of simply declaring the issues unrelated - that there is a scientific psychology and a metaphysical psychology and never the twain shall meet. No matter how much it seems like those should be two separate things, either the scientific psychology can (ultimately) handle the content of the metaphysical psychology or both sides are just blowing wind. So, if you want to argue for a monist world, you can't go around taking a giant dump on the work of anyone trying to figure out how we can have mechanisms in such a world. Whatever it is that people are -- physical people, in a physical world -- those hunks of meat have to be able, through some process of dynamic interaction with their surroundings, to do whatever it is your philosophy says they are doing. 

 

 

 

On Wed, Mar 24, 2021 at 6:40 PM <[hidden email]> wrote:

Jon,

Say more! I don't yet see the connection. 

For me, Gibson hopelessly misunderstands his monist roots.  Direct perception is either a tautology or nonsense.  If one is dualist, and separates the world from our perception of it, then it is nonsense.  If one is a monist, then all experience is direct and calling it "direct" is wasted breath.   There, EricC, I have finally said it!

Still pondering your last contribution to the writing thread.

N
Nick Thompson
[hidden email]
https://wordpress.clarku.edu/nthompson/

-----Original Message-----
From: Friam <[hidden email]> On Behalf Of jon zingale
Sent: Wednesday, March 24, 2021 4:02 PM
To: [hidden email]
Subject: Re: [FRIAM] Friday Fodder

"""
I feel like I completely understand your problem, but cannot solve it.  You point to, what is for me, the most  bemusing problem in evolutionary theory, the evolution of natural selection.  Given the developmental entanglement of traits, how do they become modules for the purpose of selection.  The tension between developmental biologists and Dawkins-like biologists is around this poing.  Nobody disagrees that there is a lot of entanglement and nobody disagrees that some traits get selected.  I agree that the burden of proof lies on the side of selection theorist to explain how selection itself is possible!  This what I find so tempting about Stephen’s energy flow
ideas.   Is there a “least action” explanation for modularity?
"""

Similarly, is this a place where SteveG-style descriptions will meet Gibson-style explanations?



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[thompnickson2]

Not to worry, Gary.  Just a little collaborators’ tiff.  Eric has done more to support my staying alive in old age than any other individual human being.  He can call me anything he wants.  The other big sustaining force has, of course, been FRIAM itself.   I feel I owe my life to you guys.  Otherwise, I would be sitting in my rocking chair watching the birds at my feeder.

 

I just wish, wish, WISH we had an expert in epigenetics – evo- devo in our midst.  Somebody who could talk in detail about the kinds of mechanisms that Marcus mentioned.  My sole knowledge in this area is from Sean Carroll’s two books, Endless Forms Most Beautiful, and The Making of the Fittest, which are long in the tooth, but which I still  much recommend. However, a lot must have happened , and I don’t know any of it.

 

Always great to hear from you,

 

Nick

 

 

 

Nick Thompson

[hidden email]

https://wordpress.clarku.edu/nthompson/

 

From: Friam <[hidden email]> On Behalf Of Gary Schiltz
Sent: Saturday, March 27, 2021 11:50 AM
To: The Friday Morning Applied Complexity Coffee Group <[hidden email]>
Subject: Re: [FRIAM] Friday Fodder

 

I don’t know Eric, but I had hoped that his fingers had just inadvertently slipped when he was trying to type “Nick”. Otherwise, he should be ashamed. 

 

On Sat, Mar 27, 2021 at 12:10 PM <[hidden email]> wrote:

Dear Eric,

 

Use your words!  Tell me how you FEEL!  (};-)]

 

N

 

Nick Thompson

[hidden email]

https://wordpress.clarku.edu/nthompson/

 

From: Friam <[hidden email]> On Behalf Of Eric Charles
Sent: Saturday, March 27, 2021 7:43 AM
To: The Friday Morning Applied Complexity Coffee Group <[hidden email]>
Subject: Re: [FRIAM] Friday Fodder

 

In Friday's meeting I apologized to Jon that I hadn't given him a proper reply to his interesting prods, but that Nick's comments had somehow mentally blocked me from doing so. Nick said: "For me, Gibson hopelessly misunderstands his monist roots.  Direct perception is either a tautology or nonsense." 

 

I promise Jon a good reply later this weekend, as I get past that blockage with the following:

 

Look, prick, there are some very different discussions to be had here, and pretending they are all the same discussion doesn't help anyone. The philosophical monist doesn't get to pretend there is no mechanism involved in perception any more than they get to pretend there is no mechanism involved in a bridge bearing weight. 

 

Indirect-perception happens all the time. Looking at my wall right now, I see a picture of Christi at our wedding. To me that picture re-presents her, and that event, and if there is any sense in which I "perceive" her while looking at the picture, that perception is not-direct, it is mediated by the six-inch tall, flat, still, image. Separately, when I turn my head about 15 degrees to the right, I see a walk-through-able doorway, my open-able fridge door, a coffee-cup-put-onable counter-top, a navigable hallway leading to my family room, etc. Need I tell the same type of story about all of those things that I told about seeing Christi in our wedding picture? Are all my perceptions mediated in that same sort of way? Or is there some sense in which I perceive most objects and events around me more directly than that? 

 

To answer those question, Gibson innovated an impressive array of conceptual elements, including the idea of the ambient energy arrays as ecological elements, invariants structures in those array, specificity as a property of a subset of those invariants, and an analysis of the evolutionary and developmental ways in which organisms can attune to those specifying-invariants, and how all that comes together to allow organisms to behave accurately with respect to the objects and events around them. And all of that stands as a huge contribution to the literature, regardless of anyone's thoughts about the particular term "direct perception" and it's history; especially if one is somehow trying to approach that term absent recognition of its multi-century history. Gibson's description of the perceptual mechanism shows how we can explain organism's perception of the functional implications of objects and events, without (in the course of that explanation) punching the tar-baby of picture perception and getting stuck with a dualistic cartesian theatre. 

 

That explanation connects strongly with the literatures on dynamics system, perceptual control theory, agent based modeling, and others. And in a world where most people in the field are still arguing that all perception is indirect, it makes sense to label what Gibson is doing a theory of direct perception. Your suggestion that it is a moral betrayal of values to call it anything other than "perception" with no modifier, is dumb. 

 

Why not just call your system "The Design Perspective"?!? Or to just pick one of those words? The answer is simple: Because "Natural Design" distinguishes your approach from those you are trying to chastise, and by-sheer-virtue-of-label connects your approach with the literature on "Natural Selection". Other people get to do things like that too. Gibson's work fits within the long tradition of trying to defend the possibility of direct perception, and there's nothing wrong with him and his supporters making that clear. 

 

AND even though I started out by saying there are different conversations to be had, they are not completely unconnected. You don't get to do the bullshit Kantian move (that Peirce and so many other philosophers seems to follow) of simply declaring the issues unrelated - that there is a scientific psychology and a metaphysical psychology and never the twain shall meet. No matter how much it seems like those should be two separate things, either the scientific psychology can (ultimately) handle the content of the metaphysical psychology or both sides are just blowing wind. So, if you want to argue for a monist world, you can't go around taking a giant dump on the work of anyone trying to figure out how we can have mechanisms in such a world. Whatever it is that people are -- physical people, in a physical world -- those hunks of meat have to be able, through some process of dynamic interaction with their surroundings, to do whatever it is your philosophy says they are doing. 

 

 

 

On Wed, Mar 24, 2021 at 6:40 PM <[hidden email]> wrote:

Jon,

Say more! I don't yet see the connection. 

For me, Gibson hopelessly misunderstands his monist roots.  Direct perception is either a tautology or nonsense.  If one is dualist, and separates the world from our perception of it, then it is nonsense.  If one is a monist, then all experience is direct and calling it "direct" is wasted breath.   There, EricC, I have finally said it!

Still pondering your last contribution to the writing thread.

N
Nick Thompson
[hidden email]
https://wordpress.clarku.edu/nthompson/

-----Original Message-----
From: Friam <[hidden email]> On Behalf Of jon zingale
Sent: Wednesday, March 24, 2021 4:02 PM
To: [hidden email]
Subject: Re: [FRIAM] Friday Fodder

"""
I feel like I completely understand your problem, but cannot solve it.  You point to, what is for me, the most  bemusing problem in evolutionary theory, the evolution of natural selection.  Given the developmental entanglement of traits, how do they become modules for the purpose of selection.  The tension between developmental biologists and Dawkins-like biologists is around this poing.  Nobody disagrees that there is a lot of entanglement and nobody disagrees that some traits get selected.  I agree that the burden of proof lies on the side of selection theorist to explain how selection itself is possible!  This what I find so tempting about Stephen’s energy flow
ideas.   Is there a “least action” explanation for modularity?
"""

Similarly, is this a place where SteveG-style descriptions will meet Gibson-style explanations?



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[Marcus G. Daniels]

Often it seems like you are more interested in compendiums or holding (virtual) lecture series than you are in just jumping in to the literature.  These experts are developing in real time.

 

From: Friam <[hidden email]> On Behalf Of [hidden email]
Sent: Saturday, March 27, 2021 12:16 PM
To: 'The Friday Morning Applied Complexity Coffee Group' <[hidden email]>
Subject: Re: [FRIAM] Friday Fodder

 

Not to worry, Gary.  Just a little collaborators’ tiff.  Eric has done more to support my staying alive in old age than any other individual human being.  He can call me anything he wants.  The other big sustaining force has, of course, been FRIAM itself.   I feel I owe my life to you guys.  Otherwise, I would be sitting in my rocking chair watching the birds at my feeder.

 

I just wish, wish, WISH we had an expert in epigenetics – evo- devo in our midst.  Somebody who could talk in detail about the kinds of mechanisms that Marcus mentioned.  My sole knowledge in this area is from Sean Carroll’s two books, Endless Forms Most Beautiful, and The Making of the Fittest, which are long in the tooth, but which I still  much recommend. However, a lot must have happened , and I don’t know any of it.

 

Always great to hear from you,

 

Nick

 

 

 

Nick Thompson

[hidden email]

https://wordpress.clarku.edu/nthompson/

 

From: Friam <[hidden email]> On Behalf Of Gary Schiltz
Sent: Saturday, March 27, 2021 11:50 AM
To: The Friday Morning Applied Complexity Coffee Group <[hidden email]>
Subject: Re: [FRIAM] Friday Fodder

 

I don’t know Eric, but I had hoped that his fingers had just inadvertently slipped when he was trying to type “Nick”. Otherwise, he should be ashamed. 

 

On Sat, Mar 27, 2021 at 12:10 PM <[hidden email]> wrote:

Dear Eric,

 

Use your words!  Tell me how you FEEL!  (};-)]

 

N

 

Nick Thompson

[hidden email]

https://wordpress.clarku.edu/nthompson/

 

From: Friam <[hidden email]> On Behalf Of Eric Charles
Sent: Saturday, March 27, 2021 7:43 AM
To: The Friday Morning Applied Complexity Coffee Group <[hidden email]>
Subject: Re: [FRIAM] Friday Fodder

 

In Friday's meeting I apologized to Jon that I hadn't given him a proper reply to his interesting prods, but that Nick's comments had somehow mentally blocked me from doing so. Nick said: "For me, Gibson hopelessly misunderstands his monist roots.  Direct perception is either a tautology or nonsense." 

 

I promise Jon a good reply later this weekend, as I get past that blockage with the following:

 

Look, prick, there are some very different discussions to be had here, and pretending they are all the same discussion doesn't help anyone. The philosophical monist doesn't get to pretend there is no mechanism involved in perception any more than they get to pretend there is no mechanism involved in a bridge bearing weight. 

 

Indirect-perception happens all the time. Looking at my wall right now, I see a picture of Christi at our wedding. To me that picture re-presents her, and that event, and if there is any sense in which I "perceive" her while looking at the picture, that perception is not-direct, it is mediated by the six-inch tall, flat, still, image. Separately, when I turn my head about 15 degrees to the right, I see a walk-through-able doorway, my open-able fridge door, a coffee-cup-put-onable counter-top, a navigable hallway leading to my family room, etc. Need I tell the same type of story about all of those things that I told about seeing Christi in our wedding picture? Are all my perceptions mediated in that same sort of way? Or is there some sense in which I perceive most objects and events around me more directly than that? 

 

To answer those question, Gibson innovated an impressive array of conceptual elements, including the idea of the ambient energy arrays as ecological elements, invariants structures in those array, specificity as a property of a subset of those invariants, and an analysis of the evolutionary and developmental ways in which organisms can attune to those specifying-invariants, and how all that comes together to allow organisms to behave accurately with respect to the objects and events around them. And all of that stands as a huge contribution to the literature, regardless of anyone's thoughts about the particular term "direct perception" and it's history; especially if one is somehow trying to approach that term absent recognition of its multi-century history. Gibson's description of the perceptual mechanism shows how we can explain organism's perception of the functional implications of objects and events, without (in the course of that explanation) punching the tar-baby of picture perception and getting stuck with a dualistic cartesian theatre. 

 

That explanation connects strongly with the literatures on dynamics system, perceptual control theory, agent based modeling, and others. And in a world where most people in the field are still arguing that all perception is indirect, it makes sense to label what Gibson is doing a theory of direct perception. Your suggestion that it is a moral betrayal of values to call it anything other than "perception" with no modifier, is dumb. 

 

Why not just call your system "The Design Perspective"?!? Or to just pick one of those words? The answer is simple: Because "Natural Design" distinguishes your approach from those you are trying to chastise, and by-sheer-virtue-of-label connects your approach with the literature on "Natural Selection". Other people get to do things like that too. Gibson's work fits within the long tradition of trying to defend the possibility of direct perception, and there's nothing wrong with him and his supporters making that clear. 

 

AND even though I started out by saying there are different conversations to be had, they are not completely unconnected. You don't get to do the bullshit Kantian move (that Peirce and so many other philosophers seems to follow) of simply declaring the issues unrelated - that there is a scientific psychology and a metaphysical psychology and never the twain shall meet. No matter how much it seems like those should be two separate things, either the scientific psychology can (ultimately) handle the content of the metaphysical psychology or both sides are just blowing wind. So, if you want to argue for a monist world, you can't go around taking a giant dump on the work of anyone trying to figure out how we can have mechanisms in such a world. Whatever it is that people are -- physical people, in a physical world -- those hunks of meat have to be able, through some process of dynamic interaction with their surroundings, to do whatever it is your philosophy says they are doing. 

 

 

 

On Wed, Mar 24, 2021 at 6:40 PM <[hidden email]> wrote:

Jon,

Say more! I don't yet see the connection. 

For me, Gibson hopelessly misunderstands his monist roots.  Direct perception is either a tautology or nonsense.  If one is dualist, and separates the world from our perception of it, then it is nonsense.  If one is a monist, then all experience is direct and calling it "direct" is wasted breath.   There, EricC, I have finally said it!

Still pondering your last contribution to the writing thread.

N
Nick Thompson
[hidden email]
https://wordpress.clarku.edu/nthompson/

-----Original Message-----
From: Friam <[hidden email]> On Behalf Of jon zingale
Sent: Wednesday, March 24, 2021 4:02 PM
To: [hidden email]
Subject: Re: [FRIAM] Friday Fodder

"""
I feel like I completely understand your problem, but cannot solve it.  You point to, what is for me, the most  bemusing problem in evolutionary theory, the evolution of natural selection.  Given the developmental entanglement of traits, how do they become modules for the purpose of selection.  The tension between developmental biologists and Dawkins-like biologists is around this poing.  Nobody disagrees that there is a lot of entanglement and nobody disagrees that some traits get selected.  I agree that the burden of proof lies on the side of selection theorist to explain how selection itself is possible!  This what I find so tempting about Stephen’s energy flow
ideas.   Is there a “least action” explanation for modularity?
"""

Similarly, is this a place where SteveG-style descriptions will meet Gibson-style explanations?



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[thompnickson2]

Marcus  You are correct.  I read a lot of tertiary literature.  n

 

Nick Thompson

[hidden email]

https://wordpress.clarku.edu/nthompson/

 

From: Friam <[hidden email]> On Behalf Of Marcus Daniels
Sent: Saturday, March 27, 2021 1:31 PM
To: The Friday Morning Applied Complexity Coffee Group <[hidden email]>
Subject: Re: [FRIAM] Friday Fodder

 

Often it seems like you are more interested in compendiums or holding (virtual) lecture series than you are in just jumping in to the literature.  These experts are developing in real time.

 

From: Friam <[hidden email]> On Behalf Of [hidden email]
Sent: Saturday, March 27, 2021 12:16 PM
To: 'The Friday Morning Applied Complexity Coffee Group' <[hidden email]>
Subject: Re: [FRIAM] Friday Fodder

 

Not to worry, Gary.  Just a little collaborators’ tiff.  Eric has done more to support my staying alive in old age than any other individual human being.  He can call me anything he wants.  The other big sustaining force has, of course, been FRIAM itself.   I feel I owe my life to you guys.  Otherwise, I would be sitting in my rocking chair watching the birds at my feeder.

 

I just wish, wish, WISH we had an expert in epigenetics – evo- devo in our midst.  Somebody who could talk in detail about the kinds of mechanisms that Marcus mentioned.  My sole knowledge in this area is from Sean Carroll’s two books, Endless Forms Most Beautiful, and The Making of the Fittest, which are long in the tooth, but which I still  much recommend. However, a lot must have happened , and I don’t know any of it.

 

Always great to hear from you,

 

Nick

 

 

 

Nick Thompson

[hidden email]

https://wordpress.clarku.edu/nthompson/

 

From: Friam <[hidden email]> On Behalf Of Gary Schiltz
Sent: Saturday, March 27, 2021 11:50 AM
To: The Friday Morning Applied Complexity Coffee Group <[hidden email]>
Subject: Re: [FRIAM] Friday Fodder

 

I don’t know Eric, but I had hoped that his fingers had just inadvertently slipped when he was trying to type “Nick”. Otherwise, he should be ashamed. 

 

On Sat, Mar 27, 2021 at 12:10 PM <[hidden email]> wrote:

Dear Eric,

 

Use your words!  Tell me how you FEEL!  (};-)]

 

N

 

Nick Thompson

[hidden email]

https://wordpress.clarku.edu/nthompson/

 

From: Friam <[hidden email]> On Behalf Of Eric Charles
Sent: Saturday, March 27, 2021 7:43 AM
To: The Friday Morning Applied Complexity Coffee Group <[hidden email]>
Subject: Re: [FRIAM] Friday Fodder

 

In Friday's meeting I apologized to Jon that I hadn't given him a proper reply to his interesting prods, but that Nick's comments had somehow mentally blocked me from doing so. Nick said: "For me, Gibson hopelessly misunderstands his monist roots.  Direct perception is either a tautology or nonsense." 

 

I promise Jon a good reply later this weekend, as I get past that blockage with the following:

 

Look, prick, there are some very different discussions to be had here, and pretending they are all the same discussion doesn't help anyone. The philosophical monist doesn't get to pretend there is no mechanism involved in perception any more than they get to pretend there is no mechanism involved in a bridge bearing weight. 

 

Indirect-perception happens all the time. Looking at my wall right now, I see a picture of Christi at our wedding. To me that picture re-presents her, and that event, and if there is any sense in which I "perceive" her while looking at the picture, that perception is not-direct, it is mediated by the six-inch tall, flat, still, image. Separately, when I turn my head about 15 degrees to the right, I see a walk-through-able doorway, my open-able fridge door, a coffee-cup-put-onable counter-top, a navigable hallway leading to my family room, etc. Need I tell the same type of story about all of those things that I told about seeing Christi in our wedding picture? Are all my perceptions mediated in that same sort of way? Or is there some sense in which I perceive most objects and events around me more directly than that? 

 

To answer those question, Gibson innovated an impressive array of conceptual elements, including the idea of the ambient energy arrays as ecological elements, invariants structures in those array, specificity as a property of a subset of those invariants, and an analysis of the evolutionary and developmental ways in which organisms can attune to those specifying-invariants, and how all that comes together to allow organisms to behave accurately with respect to the objects and events around them. And all of that stands as a huge contribution to the literature, regardless of anyone's thoughts about the particular term "direct perception" and it's history; especially if one is somehow trying to approach that term absent recognition of its multi-century history. Gibson's description of the perceptual mechanism shows how we can explain organism's perception of the functional implications of objects and events, without (in the course of that explanation) punching the tar-baby of picture perception and getting stuck with a dualistic cartesian theatre. 

 

That explanation connects strongly with the literatures on dynamics system, perceptual control theory, agent based modeling, and others. And in a world where most people in the field are still arguing that all perception is indirect, it makes sense to label what Gibson is doing a theory of direct perception. Your suggestion that it is a moral betrayal of values to call it anything other than "perception" with no modifier, is dumb. 

 

Why not just call your system "The Design Perspective"?!? Or to just pick one of those words? The answer is simple: Because "Natural Design" distinguishes your approach from those you are trying to chastise, and by-sheer-virtue-of-label connects your approach with the literature on "Natural Selection". Other people get to do things like that too. Gibson's work fits within the long tradition of trying to defend the possibility of direct perception, and there's nothing wrong with him and his supporters making that clear. 

 

AND even though I started out by saying there are different conversations to be had, they are not completely unconnected. You don't get to do the bullshit Kantian move (that Peirce and so many other philosophers seems to follow) of simply declaring the issues unrelated - that there is a scientific psychology and a metaphysical psychology and never the twain shall meet. No matter how much it seems like those should be two separate things, either the scientific psychology can (ultimately) handle the content of the metaphysical psychology or both sides are just blowing wind. So, if you want to argue for a monist world, you can't go around taking a giant dump on the work of anyone trying to figure out how we can have mechanisms in such a world. Whatever it is that people are -- physical people, in a physical world -- those hunks of meat have to be able, through some process of dynamic interaction with their surroundings, to do whatever it is your philosophy says they are doing. 

 

 

 

On Wed, Mar 24, 2021 at 6:40 PM <[hidden email]> wrote:

Jon,

Say more! I don't yet see the connection. 

For me, Gibson hopelessly misunderstands his monist roots.  Direct perception is either a tautology or nonsense.  If one is dualist, and separates the world from our perception of it, then it is nonsense.  If one is a monist, then all experience is direct and calling it "direct" is wasted breath.   There, EricC, I have finally said it!

Still pondering your last contribution to the writing thread.

N
Nick Thompson
[hidden email]
https://wordpress.clarku.edu/nthompson/

-----Original Message-----
From: Friam <[hidden email]> On Behalf Of jon zingale
Sent: Wednesday, March 24, 2021 4:02 PM
To: [hidden email]
Subject: Re: [FRIAM] Friday Fodder

"""
I feel like I completely understand your problem, but cannot solve it.  You point to, what is for me, the most  bemusing problem in evolutionary theory, the evolution of natural selection.  Given the developmental entanglement of traits, how do they become modules for the purpose of selection.  The tension between developmental biologists and Dawkins-like biologists is around this poing.  Nobody disagrees that there is a lot of entanglement and nobody disagrees that some traits get selected.  I agree that the burden of proof lies on the side of selection theorist to explain how selection itself is possible!  This what I find so tempting about Stephen’s energy flow
ideas.   Is there a “least action” explanation for modularity?
"""

Similarly, is this a place where SteveG-style descriptions will meet Gibson-style explanations?



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