IS: Does Complexity have a circularity problem WAS: Any non-biological complex systems?

[Steve Smith]

At the risk of another discursion:

I think I just realized what I've been (almost) seeing of value in all this back and forth:

1. I (and Nick) heard Glen's invocation of the Onion as an attempt to explicate a useful difference between levels and layers in the understanding of Complexity Babble (Talk/Science/Math/???).  I think he meant only to try to distinguish the two from one another and explicate their differences irrespective of the near dead horse we were working over at the time.  I think this might be the totality of the misunderstanding.
   
2. I'm always looking for form/function dualities.  In the onion, the form (layers) follows a certain functional/behavioural path (cyclical growth).   I don't even know how to find "levels" in the a *hierarchical* sense or otherwise in an onion... maybe if we look at the cross section (as Glen suggested) and see *strata* (from the source (domain) of geological deposition and erosive or shearing exposure?) and then consider drilling a mine shaft into said strata which is more suggestive of the term "levels"?  
   

Mumble,

 - Steve

On 6/12/17 1:28 PM, glen ☣ wrote:

Sorry.  I didn't mean anything nefarious with the "repeat a lie often enough" thing.

I introduced an onion as an example of a thing, in the real world, that you can look at in terms of levels or layers.  And looking at it in terms of layers produces something different (and presumably more "natural") than looking at it in terms of levels.



On 06/12/2017 12:17 PM, Nick Thompson wrote:

Look, Glen.  I may be old.  I may be stupid.  I may be distracted.  I am certainly out of my depth.  This discussion, which fascinates me, is happening at a very inopportune  time for me, so I am admittedly not able to invest as much attention on it as it deserves and I would like.  And the discussion is going very fast, with answers falling all over other answers.   But I am NOT ill-willed or guileful.   And I am certainly not Goebbels. Good LORD!   Try, whatever evidence to the contrary I may seem to present, to assume that I am basically an honest person, and that we share an interest in getting somewhere.  AND -- the hard part -- I recognize that if we ARE to get anywhere, everybody's thinking -- including my own -- is going to have to change. 

 

OK.  So, with all that in mind.  Say again, would you please, what the onion was doing in the discussion.  Just to recap from my point of view, I think the slice of an onion is a cross section.  The notion of a cross-section plays an important role in Holt's Concept of Consciousness, which describes anybody's consciousness as a cross section cut through the world by that person's behavior.  My consciousness is just those features of the world to which I respond.  When we slice an onion the structure revealed says something about BOTH the onion and about us, the slicer.  The cross section differs not only from onion to onion but because of how it was sliced. 

 

Now NONE of this has anything to do with what I mean by "levels" , which invokes an organizational metaphor.  I mean, hierarchical levels.  I suspect it will be almost impossible to talk about complexity without a language that includes hierarchical levels.  Remember, we got into this because I offered a definition of a complex system as a system made up of other systems.  So, on my account, an onion IS a complex system because it is a system of plants, each wrapped around another.  

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[gepr]

Right.  My only point was to distinguish the two procedures for examining a thing, because one's choice of procedure can bias one's results. (obviously)  With EricS' very detailed throwdown in favor of hierarchical accumulation AND Russ' chosen _target_ of urban systems, I think it's critical that we choose analysis procedures that are as agnostic as possible.

We've now discussed cognitive biases toward _direction_ (up vs. down) and continuity (or population density - laminar flow - AND space vs. graph) ... even if it has taken us days and billions of emails.  Are there other biases we could eliminate?  I like, but reject, Roger's assertion that "[deep neural nets] don't care about no stinking layers".  As with using polar coordinates on an onion (or monotonic "time" in Diffusion Limited Aggregation), deep learning requires at least a sequencing of (distinct) procedures.  So, it does require layers in very much the same sense as a DLA.  On the other hand, I like considering deep learning as a thing to be analyzed, because it does allow cycles of a kind.

And again, I'm not proposing any of these _things_ are analogs/metaphors targeting "complex systems".  I'm only trying to argue for agnostic analysis tools.

TANSTAAFL!


On 06/12/2017 12:45 PM, Steven A Smith wrote:

> At the risk of another discursion:
>
> I think I just realized what I've been (almost) seeing of value in all this back and forth:
>
> 1. I (and Nick) heard Glen's invocation of the Onion as an attempt to
>    explicate a useful difference between levels and layers in the
>    understanding of Complexity Babble (Talk/Science/Math/???).  I think
>    he meant only to try to distinguish the two from one another and
>    explicate their differences irrespective of the near dead horse we
>    were working over at the time.  I think this might be the totality
>    of the misunderstanding.
> 2. I'm always looking for form/function dualities.  In the onion, the
>    form (layers) follows a certain functional/behavioural path
>    (cyclical growth).   I don't even know how to find "levels" in the a
>    *hierarchical* sense or otherwise in an onion... maybe if we look at
>    the cross section (as Glen suggested) and see *strata* (from the
>    source (domain) of geological deposition and erosive or shearing
>    exposure?) and then consider drilling a mine shaft into said strata
>    which is more suggestive of the term "levels"?

--
☣ glen

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[Nick Thompson]

So, Glen,

What you are calling "levels" I am calling "cross sections"?  

And it is the partial arbitrariness of what one sees in a cross section that makes it less valuable than a layer.

Have I got that, so far?

Nick

Nicholas S. Thompson
Emeritus Professor of Psychology and Biology
Clark University
http://home.earthlink.net/~nickthompson/naturaldesigns/


-----Original Message-----
From: Friam [mailto:[hidden email]] On Behalf Of glen ?
Sent: Monday, June 12, 2017 3:28 PM
To: The Friday Morning Applied Complexity Coffee Group <[hidden email]>
Subject: Re: [FRIAM] tools, trollers, and language


Sorry.  I didn't mean anything nefarious with the "repeat a lie often enough" thing.

I introduced an onion as an example of a thing, in the real world, that you can look at in terms of levels or layers.  And looking at it in terms of layers produces something different (and presumably more "natural") than looking at it in terms of levels.



On 06/12/2017 12:17 PM, Nick Thompson wrote:
> Look, Glen.  I may be old.  I may be stupid.  I may be distracted.  I am certainly out of my depth.  This discussion, which fascinates me, is happening at a very inopportune  time for me, so I am admittedly not able to invest as much attention on it as it deserves and I would like.  And the discussion is going very fast, with answers falling all over other answers.   But I am NOT ill-willed or guileful.   And I am certainly not Goebbels. Good LORD!   Try, whatever evidence to the contrary I may seem to present, to assume that I am basically an honest person, and that we share an interest in getting somewhere.  AND -- the hard part -- I recognize that if we ARE to get anywhere, everybody's thinking -- including my own -- is going to have to change.
>
>  
>
> OK.  So, with all that in mind.  Say again, would you please, what the onion was doing in the discussion.  Just to recap from my point of view, I think the slice of an onion is a cross section.  The notion of a cross-section plays an important role in Holt's Concept of Consciousness, which describes anybody's consciousness as a cross section cut through the world by that person's behavior.  My consciousness is just those features of the world to which I respond.  When we slice an onion the structure revealed says something about BOTH the onion and about us, the slicer.  The cross section differs not only from onion to onion but because of how it was sliced.
>
>  
>
> Now NONE of this has anything to do with what I mean by "levels" , which invokes an organizational metaphor.  I mean, hierarchical levels.  I suspect it will be almost impossible to talk about complexity without a language that includes hierarchical levels.  Remember, we got into this because I offered a definition of a complex system as a system made up of other systems.  So, on my account, an onion IS a complex system because it is a system of plants, each wrapped around another.  

--
☣ glen

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[Nick Thompson]

We are NOT splitting hairs.  We are getting clear.  See below.

 

Nicholas S. Thompson

Emeritus Professor of Psychology and Biology

Clark University

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

 

From: Friam [mailto:[hidden email]] On Behalf Of Steven A Smith
Sent: Monday, June 12, 2017 3:35 PM
To: The Friday Morning Applied Complexity Coffee Group <[hidden email]>
Subject: Re: [FRIAM] tools, trollers, and language

 

NST -

[NST==>I like “source” and “target”.  Let’s use these terms here on out.  “Domain” is probably unnecessary, and might lead to hand-waving.  I still hate “conceptual metaphor” as introducing potential for confusion.  Anytime you say “This thing is a That” you are invoking a conception – a “grasping-together”.   <==nst]

I wish I could stop splitting hairs with you, but it seems built into this discussion (another metaphor, really?)!  I understand "domain" to modify "source" and "target" to make it clear that what is being discussed/considered/reasoned/intuited upon may be bigger than a single "thing".  Perhaps the over-used onion needn't be referred to as more than a source (or target) but if I were invoking a garden or landscape  *source* it is important that I'm talking about the whole ensemble of likely/possible gardens or landscapes. 

[NST==>No, I am going to hang tough on this one. The work you are describing is exactly the work necessary to unpack a metaphor and it cannot be done by handwaving to a domain.  Notice below that you did not abstract the Vidalia, you just chose another onion.  The same is true of science as it is in poetry – the best metaphors are specific metaphors.  <==nst]

 With onions, it seems easier to imagine a singular canonical onion (unless your field of study is the inner life of Alliums).   in fact when the humble Onion was first invoked, I immediately abstracted (in my mind) to "bulb" with a nice big fat juicy vidalia onion as the prototype of the moment for my consideration, but including a wide range of bulbs, some more edible than others.   We could certainly use "source" and "target" as shorthand if we accept that the object of each is something more general/abstract than a specific object.[NST==>No way Jose!  I think this domain talk will lead to blather.<==nst]  

If I read your gripe with "conceptual metaphor" correctly, it is that "conception" already suggests ("grasping together") the metaphor?   I use "conceptual metaphor" to specifically imply that the "target" (domain) is in a more conceptual/abstract realm than literal/concrete.   the "source" (domain) may also be relatively abstract but I think for utility is in some sense "closer to literal, or concrete" than the target.   From Lakoff/Nunez, ultimately these layered/stacked metaphors ground out in human perceptions... things we apprehend directly with our senses...  

[NST==> Precisely what I am objecting to.  A metaphor brings one experience to bear upon another.  Abstrctions, whatever they are, are not experiences. <==nst]

"The price of nonsense in America has risen in 2017" - Rising is from the conceptual domain of directionality which has affiliation with the domain of simple geometry, and perhaps is apprehended more directly perceptually by a human by our inner ear and other measures of the gravity gradient.   I don't know if YOU feel an empty spot in your gut when "the bottom of the stock market drops out", or a sense of "elation" when the local housing bubble "elevates the value of your family home" or not, I think many do.

[NST==>In Britain, when they hang you, they put you in a little room, they put a noose around your neck, and then the bottom drops out.  That’s my source for a stock market crash.  <==nst]

In the example at hand,  Glen invoked "an Onion" as the source domain in a metaphor to try to understand the more general and abstract target domain of layer.  Other source domains (deposition layers, skin, geology) were offered as well to offer conceptual parallax on this.

[NST==>See how you suddenly got wobbly when you started using the word “domain”?  “Domain” is another metaphor and would require its own specification.  <==nst]

"Domain" is almost certainly a "borrow word" from another <ahem> domain, that perhaps of political/economic/military control/influence.  But then so seems "source" (as in a spring is the source of a creek) and "target" (keep your eye on the target and your aim steady!).    I think that very little of our language is not metaphorical, even if our awareness of it as such is numbed by common usage.   "numbed", "usage", "awareness" (perceptual v. conceptual?)

I'm not sure if this is a rabbit hole

[NST==>Another metaphor, often used in such discussions (eg Owen’s “Troll” troll. ) to disparage attempts to clarify what a group of people is actually talking about.  <==nst]

Being one of those who is chasing this rabbit, I'm not sure I am intending to disparage anything... more likely give us an out if we realize we are discussing something of lesser interest/relevance and losing sight of the topic we were originally more interested in?   As you can tell I am game for (overly so?) discussing the meaning and implications of the language we use, I'm just wondering if this is the branch of the branching discussion we are most interested in?

we fell down when we began to try to sort levels from layers.  I think the distinction is critical to the discussion (which is now nearly lost in this forest of trees of levels and layers?) but is not the discussion itself.   We digress within our digressions.

Jenny and Dave and I are discussing amongst ourselves a live in-person "salon" of sorts to be held at Jenny's (in Santa Fe) on the the general topic of Models, Metaphors, and Analogy.    Jenny and I have elected Dave to try to lead this, Jenny is providing chairs and shade.   I'm pulsing the locals for interest in participating... I'm only sorry Nick and Roger and Glen are so far away right now.   Got any (other) locals interested in chatting face to face on these topics?   Wimberly?  Guerin?  

[NST==>Oh, Gosh!  That I should miss this.  I would hope that at some point you would have a look my article on the confusions arising from the application of the natural selection metaphor to groups.  It’s a testy, difficult argument, with an unexpected and interesting result.  I wouldn’t expect anybody to load it entirely, but I do think it’s a good example of how tidying up metaphors can lead to a better understanding of issues.

I will give that a go, you have referenced it before and I expect it might be a good test case for some of our other testiness here <grin>.   I'm all for tidying metaphors where it is useful.

[NST==>Thank you.  There is no kindness that can be given to a scholar more than to read his work.  <==nst]

 Given that so many potentially absent people are interested, I would recommend organizing the conversation around a list.  If you haven’t done this by the time I get back in October, I could promise to organize a “seminar” of the “city university of santa Fe” on “scientific metaphors: their uses; their perils”.  We would meet regularly for a couple of hours.  There would be readings.   <==nst]

I think that doing so in October might still be very interesting/useful.   The point, of course, is to move it offline to a more committed and embodied and less asynchronous setting to see how it unfolds differently.

[NST==>Of course.  That too.  We used to meet in coffee houses.  <==nst]

 I'm feeling the same juice as some our impromptu meetups BEFORE FriAM became a formal deal!   We could sure use Mike Agar about now![NST==>Of course Steve and Frank. They might or might not, be interested. As you know, one man’s passion is another man’s bullshit.    Jon Zingale, for sure.  Jenny’s partner would contribute a lot from his understanding of Peirce’s abduction, which is closely but ambiguously related to metaphor making. Jim Gattiker is a great seminar participant … mind like a steel trap … but don’t know whether this would interest him.  Sean Mood is another great seminar participant.   <==nst]

Great suggestions, we'll see if any of them bite!

[NST==>You can only ask!  <==nst]

Metaphorically (and aphorismically) yours,
 - Steve

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[gepr]

On 06/12/2017 02:03 PM, Nick Thompson wrote:
> What you are calling "levels" I am calling "cross sections"?


Yes, a cross section would be 1 level.


> And it is the partial arbitrariness of what one sees in a cross section that makes it less valuable than a layer.


Not quite.  What you see inside a cross section isn't as important as the fact that a cross section is _different_ from a hemispherical peeling.  But the important thing ... the MOST important thing is that a level is just a specific type of layer, whereas there are plenty of layers that are not levels.  I.e. layer is more generically applicable than level.


--
☣ glen

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[Nick Thompson]

Steve,

 

What do you want to call “levels of inclusion”?  What sorts of levels are trophic levels? 

 

What is preventing us from agreeing that complexity is just the inclusion of one system within another?

 

I know it takes a way the magic to be so straightforward, but other than you love of mystery, what is wrong with that definition?

 

Nick

 

Nicholas S. Thompson

Emeritus Professor of Psychology and Biology

Clark University

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

 

From: Friam [mailto:[hidden email]] On Behalf Of Steven A Smith
Sent: Monday, June 12, 2017 3:46 PM
To: The Friday Morning Applied Complexity Coffee Group <[hidden email]>
Subject: Re: [FRIAM] tools, trollers, and language

 

At the risk of another discursion:

I think I just realized what I've been (almost) seeing of value in all this back and forth:

1. I (and Nick) heard Glen's invocation of the Onion as an attempt to explicate a useful difference between levels and layers in the understanding of Complexity Babble (Talk/Science/Math/???).  I think he meant only to try to distinguish the two from one another and explicate their differences irrespective of the near dead horse we were working over at the time.  I think this might be the totality of the misunderstanding.
2. I'm always looking for form/function dualities.  In the onion, the form (layers) follows a certain functional/behavioural path (cyclical growth).   I don't even know how to find "levels" in the a *hierarchical* sense or otherwise in an onion... maybe if we look at the cross section (as Glen suggested) and see *strata* (from the source (domain) of geological deposition and erosive or shearing exposure?) and then consider drilling a mine shaft into said strata which is more suggestive of the term "levels"?  

Mumble,

 - Steve

 

On 6/12/17 1:28 PM, glen ☣ wrote:

Sorry.  I didn't mean anything nefarious with the "repeat a lie often enough" thing.

I introduced an onion as an example of a thing, in the real world, that you can look at in terms of levels or layers.  And looking at it in terms of layers produces something different (and presumably more "natural") than looking at it in terms of levels.

On 06/12/2017 12:17 PM, Nick Thompson wrote:

Look, Glen.  I may be old.  I may be stupid.  I may be distracted.  I am certainly out of my depth.  This discussion, which fascinates me, is happening at a very inopportune  time for me, so I am admittedly not able to invest as much attention on it as it deserves and I would like.  And the discussion is going very fast, with answers falling all over other answers.   But I am NOT ill-willed or guileful.   And I am certainly not Goebbels. Good LORD!   Try, whatever evidence to the contrary I may seem to present, to assume that I am basically an honest person, and that we share an interest in getting somewhere.  AND -- the hard part -- I recognize that if we ARE to get anywhere, everybody's thinking -- including my own -- is going to have to change. 

OK.  So, with all that in mind.  Say again, would you please, what the onion was doing in the discussion.  Just to recap from my point of view, I think the slice of an onion is a cross section.  The notion of a cross-section plays an important role in Holt's Concept of Consciousness, which describes anybody's consciousness as a cross section cut through the world by that person's behavior.  My consciousness is just those features of the world to which I respond.  When we slice an onion the structure revealed says something about BOTH the onion and about us, the slicer.  The cross section differs not only from onion to onion but because of how it was sliced. 

Now NONE of this has anything to do with what I mean by "levels" , which invokes an organizational metaphor.  I mean, hierarchical levels.  I suspect it will be almost impossible to talk about complexity without a language that includes hierarchical levels.  Remember, we got into this because I offered a definition of a complex system as a system made up of other systems.  So, on my account, an onion IS a complex system because it is a system of plants, each wrapped around another.  

 

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[Marcus G. Daniels]

Glen writes:

"It is nice to see another person admit to their premature registration!"

The meaning is clear, but is this a term that is used in particular communities?   The reason I ask is that I deal with people all that time that do this, and I'd like to be able to whack a book over their head, since  they like to do that to others.

Thanks,

Marcus
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[gepr]

On 06/14/2017 01:29 PM, Marcus Daniels wrote:
> The meaning is clear, but is this a term that is used in particular communities?   The reason I ask is that I deal with people all that time that do this, and I'd like to be able to whack a book over their head, since  they like to do that to others.

On 06/12/2017 10:39 AM, glen ☣ wrote:
> Cf Brian Cantwell Smith in: https://global.oup.com/academic/product/philosophy-of-mental-representation-9780198250524?cc=us&lang=en&

It's not clear to me how common the usage is.  In B.C. Smith's "On the Origin of Objects", he calls it "inscription error" instead.  In the book cited above, he states that he prefers "premature registration", mainly because it applies not only to programming/inscribing, but to things like what happened in this discussion (where Nick and Steve prematurely clamped on an onion metaphor I didn't intend).  I still prefer inscription error when I use it in a simulation context because the meaning is more clear.  In logic or rhetorical contexts, the standard "petitio principii" still works.


--
☣ glen

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[Marcus G. Daniels]

One can imagine a neural net with similar inputs and outputs but different depths of hidden layers inhibiting & exciting internal neurons of the network.  These would represent relevant contrastable features tied to previous similar experiences.  Together they'd compete to activate one or several neurons that correspond to one or several registrations.  

A lack of experience with ambiguity in inputs would be one explanation why premature registration would occur.  [Naïve agents]   Another might be no particular pressure to distinguish similar categories -- no cost for bad predictions -- so no reinforcement of connections to other neurons.  [Unengaged agent]  Another might be that training had occurred on similar but distinct data and re-training wasn't believed to be needed -- the learner had been educated in a curriculum-based (programmed) way and believed that the features in the environment were easier to contrast than they really were.  [Smug agent]
Finally, there's the no neurons available possibility... [Disabled agent]

-----Original Message-----
From: Friam [mailto:[hidden email]] On Behalf Of glen ?
Sent: Wednesday, June 14, 2017 2:43 PM
To: The Friday Morning Applied Complexity Coffee Group <[hidden email]>
Subject: Re: [FRIAM] sometimes an onion is just an onion...


On 06/14/2017 01:29 PM, Marcus Daniels wrote:
> The meaning is clear, but is this a term that is used in particular communities?   The reason I ask is that I deal with people all that time that do this, and I'd like to be able to whack a book over their head, since  they like to do that to others.

On 06/12/2017 10:39 AM, glen ☣ wrote:
> Cf Brian Cantwell Smith in:
> https://global.oup.com/academic/product/philosophy-of-mental-represent
> ation-9780198250524?cc=us&lang=en&

It's not clear to me how common the usage is.  In B.C. Smith's "On the Origin of Objects", he calls it "inscription error" instead.  In the book cited above, he states that he prefers "premature registration", mainly because it applies not only to programming/inscribing, but to things like what happened in this discussion (where Nick and Steve prematurely clamped on an onion metaphor I didn't intend).  I still prefer inscription error when I use it in a simulation context because the meaning is more clear.  In logic or rhetorical contexts, the standard "petitio principii" still works.


--
☣ glen

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[gepr]

Beautiful!  Surely we don't need much imagination ...  Surely (!) there exist modal pattern recognizers we could (almost) drop into a simulation to at least implement your 4 agent types.  All we need is the right combination of search keywords to find them.  I wonder if Edelman's "neural darwinism" simulation system, which supposedly allowed an objective function to select amongst various multi-neuron clusters, would work.  Of course, I tried a few years ago to find code for the simulation(s) he claimed to have, and failed.

On 06/14/2017 03:13 PM, Marcus Daniels wrote:

> One can imagine a neural net with similar inputs and outputs but different depths of hidden layers inhibiting & exciting internal neurons of the network.  These would represent relevant contrastable features tied to previous similar experiences.  Together they'd compete to activate one or several neurons that correspond to one or several registrations.  
>
> A lack of experience with ambiguity in inputs would be one explanation why premature registration would occur.  [Naïve agents]   Another might be no particular pressure to distinguish similar categories -- no cost for bad predictions -- so no reinforcement of connections to other neurons.  [Unengaged agent]  Another might be that training had occurred on similar but distinct data and re-training wasn't believed to be needed -- the learner had been educated in a curriculum-based (programmed) way and believed that the features in the environment were easier to contrast than they really were.  [Smug agent]
> Finally, there's the no neurons available possibility... [Disabled agent]
>
> -----Original Message-----
> From: Friam [mailto:[hidden email]] On Behalf Of glen ?
> Sent: Wednesday, June 14, 2017 2:43 PM
> To: The Friday Morning Applied Complexity Coffee Group <[hidden email]>
> Subject: Re: [FRIAM] sometimes an onion is just an onion...
>
>
> On 06/14/2017 01:29 PM, Marcus Daniels wrote:
>> The meaning is clear, but is this a term that is used in particular communities?   The reason I ask is that I deal with people all that time that do this, and I'd like to be able to whack a book over their head, since  they like to do that to others.
>
> On 06/12/2017 10:39 AM, glen ☣ wrote:
>> Cf Brian Cantwell Smith in:
>> https://global.oup.com/academic/product/philosophy-of-mental-represent
>> ation-9780198250524?cc=us&lang=en&
>
> It's not clear to me how common the usage is.  In B.C. Smith's "On the Origin of Objects", he calls it "inscription error" instead.  In the book cited above, he states that he prefers "premature registration", mainly because it applies not only to programming/inscribing, but to things like what happened in this discussion (where Nick and Steve prematurely clamped on an onion metaphor I didn't intend).  I still prefer inscription error when I use it in a simulation context because the meaning is more clear.  In logic or rhetorical contexts, the standard "petitio principii" still works.

--
☣ glen

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[Marcus G. Daniels]

Others behaviors come to mind, like the agent that requires or expects fully contextualized unambiguous linear arguments.   This could be due to long term memory limitations, due to a desire to teach (supervisory learning), or an agent that defaults to priors in absence of systematic communication.   Premature registration could be a sign of a simple hardware failure or inequitable / entitled expectations of the correspondent.   In organizations, some roles might well be encouraged even if they aren't adaptive in general, e.g. the boss vs. the nuanced facilitator.

-----Original Message-----
From: Friam [mailto:[hidden email]] On Behalf Of glen ?
Sent: Wednesday, June 14, 2017 4:32 PM
To: The Friday Morning Applied Complexity Coffee Group <[hidden email]>
Subject: Re: [FRIAM] sometimes an onion is just an onion...


Beautiful!  Surely we don't need much imagination ...  Surely (!) there exist modal pattern recognizers we could (almost) drop into a simulation to at least implement your 4 agent types.  All we need is the right combination of search keywords to find them.  I wonder if Edelman's "neural darwinism" simulation system, which supposedly allowed an objective function to select amongst various multi-neuron clusters, would work.  Of course, I tried a few years ago to find code for the simulation(s) he claimed to have, and failed.

On 06/14/2017 03:13 PM, Marcus Daniels wrote:

> One can imagine a neural net with similar inputs and outputs but different depths of hidden layers inhibiting & exciting internal neurons of the network.  These would represent relevant contrastable features tied to previous similar experiences.  Together they'd compete to activate one or several neurons that correspond to one or several registrations.  
>
> A lack of experience with ambiguity in inputs would be one explanation why premature registration would occur.  [Naïve agents]   Another might be no particular pressure to distinguish similar categories -- no cost for bad predictions -- so no reinforcement of connections to other neurons.  [Unengaged agent]  Another might be that training had occurred on similar but distinct data and re-training wasn't believed to be needed -- the learner had been educated in a curriculum-based (programmed) way and believed that the features in the environment were easier to contrast than they really were.  [Smug agent]
> Finally, there's the no neurons available possibility... [Disabled
> agent]
>
> -----Original Message-----
> From: Friam [mailto:[hidden email]] On Behalf Of glen ?
> Sent: Wednesday, June 14, 2017 2:43 PM
> To: The Friday Morning Applied Complexity Coffee Group
> <[hidden email]>
> Subject: Re: [FRIAM] sometimes an onion is just an onion...
>
>
> On 06/14/2017 01:29 PM, Marcus Daniels wrote:
>> The meaning is clear, but is this a term that is used in particular communities?   The reason I ask is that I deal with people all that time that do this, and I'd like to be able to whack a book over their head, since  they like to do that to others.
>
> On 06/12/2017 10:39 AM, glen ☣ wrote:
>> Cf Brian Cantwell Smith in:
>> https://global.oup.com/academic/product/philosophy-of-mental-represen
>> t
>> ation-9780198250524?cc=us&lang=en&
>
> It's not clear to me how common the usage is.  In B.C. Smith's "On the Origin of Objects", he calls it "inscription error" instead.  In the book cited above, he states that he prefers "premature registration", mainly because it applies not only to programming/inscribing, but to things like what happened in this discussion (where Nick and Steve prematurely clamped on an onion metaphor I didn't intend).  I still prefer inscription error when I use it in a simulation context because the meaning is more clear.  In logic or rhetorical contexts, the standard "petitio principii" still works.

--
☣ glen

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[gepr]

On 06/14/2017 03:46 PM, Marcus Daniels wrote:
> Others behaviors come to mind, like the agent that requires or expects fully contextualized unambiguous linear arguments.   This could be due to long term memory limitations, due to a desire to teach (supervisory learning), or an agent that defaults to priors in absence of systematic communication. Premature registration could be a sign of a simple hardware failure or inequitable / entitled expectations of the correspondent.   In organizations, some roles might well be encouraged even if they aren't adaptive in general, e.g. the boss vs. the nuanced facilitator.


You're suggestion of memory limitations threw me at first. But if we put it in terms of something like a "field of view" or a set of pattern bins, then we could have agents who select behaviors differently based on how many of their bins have something in it, and maybe some higher order properties like uniqueness of the bin contents, whether bin contents fit together in some way, etc.  E.g. An agent has 2 bins and registers object "flower" but does not register object "leaf" or "vase".  Without "leaf" or "vase", it has to fault, assume "gift bouquet", or any other conclusion but "still in ground".  (Or more usefully, an agent registers a sigmoid in one variable and expects/assumes a saturation in another variable, else the sigmoid it did recognize has too little context.)

I'm not sure how that might work for a teacher agent.  Maybe an outcome like "I see you have a flower but no leaves or vase.  Hence you have killed the flower and must now put it in a vase."  ... I guess that's the [Pedant agent].


--
☣ glen

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[Steve Smith]

G/M -

Hairsplitting here (again), but I don't see what Nick or I did as
*premature* registration, maybe *mis*registration?     Or am I being
"premature" again?

BTW, B. Cantwell's "Origin of Objects"!  What a classic, I haven't heard
anyone else reference this one in forever!

Marcus' riff on various archetypes of Agents capable of (having the
propensity for) various types of errors is nearly poetic... and might
even have some value in a nuanced agent-model of social (especially
online, like this) interactions...

Or maybe it was just snark.   Seems like the Snarky Agent is a pretty
complex one... bit more sophisticated than the Critic archetype?

- S


On 6/14/17 2:43 PM, glen ☣ wrote:
> On 06/14/2017 01:29 PM, Marcus Daniels wrote:
>> The meaning is clear, but is this a term that is used in particular communities?   The reason I ask is that I deal with people all that time that do this, and I'd like to be able to whack a book over their head, since  they like to do that to others.
> On 06/12/2017 10:39 AM, glen ☣ wrote:
>> Cf Brian Cantwell Smith in: https://global.oup.com/academic/product/philosophy-of-mental-representation-9780198250524?cc=us&lang=en&
> It's not clear to me how common the usage is.  In B.C. Smith's "On the Origin of Objects", he calls it "inscription error" instead.  In the book cited above, he states that he prefers "premature registration", mainly because it applies not only to programming/inscribing, but to things like what happened in this discussion (where Nick and Steve prematurely clamped on an onion metaphor I didn't intend).  I still prefer inscription error when I use it in a simulation context because the meaning is more clear.  In logic or rhetorical contexts, the standard "petitio principii" still works.
>
>


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[Marcus G. Daniels]

"You're suggestion of memory limitations threw me at first. "

I was thinking of an exposition as a special-purpose program, and a highly-optimized implementation as having a lower memory requirements than a general purpose program.   If one had memory/attention limitations, it would make sense to externalize costs to the speaker and require they craft a set of rules that would be easy to recall and apply.   Academic literature strikes me this way sometimes.   Crafted for consumption for readers that may find narrow technical things are wrong, and won't add any other value.

Your analysis makes sense to me.

Marcus

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[gepr]

On 06/14/2017 05:36 PM, Steven A Smith wrote:
> Hairsplitting here (again), but I don't see what Nick or I did as *premature* registration, maybe *mis*registration?     Or am I being "premature" again?

Well, you could be right.  But I do think it's premature, not merely mis-.  What I think happened was y'all had been pre-adapted to perceive the onion as a source and complex systems as the target.  Because of the conversation we were having, your perception was oriented that way.  All your conceptual categories were ready, waiting to filter/parse any incoming signals according to that structure.  You were a "complex systems perception machine".  So, pretty much _anything_ I said would have been interpreted/filtered according to that pre-adapted conceptual structure.

Hence, when you started reading that email (wherein I tried to distinguish level vs layer with the onion example), your registration machinery was already engaged.  A way to avoid that _premature_ classification of what you saw would have been for you or Nick to read the email and ask whether that was the intention.  If, after asking, you had still decided it was what I intended, despite my saying it wasn't, then maybe it would be more correct to call it (merely) mis-registration.

BC Smith's point is simply that we don't approach reality with a (completely) open mind.  We are structured to impute an organization on the ambient milieu.  And the fact that it was so difficult to break out of that preconceived structure of what we were talking about is evidence that it was premature, not merely mis-.

We all do it.  It's the human/animal condition.

--
␦glen?

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[Nick Thompson]

"All thought is in signs"

C. S. Peirce.

It is a writer's job to control the reference of his signs, in so far as s/he can.  In writing code, you guys wouldn't put out a line of code without making clear what language you were writing in, would you?  

n

Nicholas S. Thompson
Emeritus Professor of Psychology and Biology
Clark University
http://home.earthlink.net/~nickthompson/naturaldesigns/

-----Original Message-----
From: Friam [mailto:[hidden email]] On Behalf Of ?glen?
Sent: Thursday, June 15, 2017 9:31 AM
To: The Friday Morning Applied Complexity Coffee Group <[hidden email]>
Subject: Re: [FRIAM] sometimes an onion is just an onion...

On 06/14/2017 05:36 PM, Steven A Smith wrote:
> Hairsplitting here (again), but I don't see what Nick or I did as *premature* registration, maybe *mis*registration?     Or am I being "premature" again?

Well, you could be right.  But I do think it's premature, not merely mis-.  What I think happened was y'all had been pre-adapted to perceive the onion as a source and complex systems as the target.  Because of the conversation we were having, your perception was oriented that way.  All your conceptual categories were ready, waiting to filter/parse any incoming signals according to that structure.  You were a "complex systems perception machine".  So, pretty much _anything_ I said would have been interpreted/filtered according to that pre-adapted conceptual structure.

Hence, when you started reading that email (wherein I tried to distinguish level vs layer with the onion example), your registration machinery was already engaged.  A way to avoid that _premature_ classification of what you saw would have been for you or Nick to read the email and ask whether that was the intention.  If, after asking, you had still decided it was what I intended, despite my saying it wasn't, then maybe it would be more correct to call it (merely) mis-registration.

BC Smith's point is simply that we don't approach reality with a (completely) open mind.  We are structured to impute an organization on the ambient milieu.  And the fact that it was so difficult to break out of that preconceived structure of what we were talking about is evidence that it was premature, not merely mis-.

We all do it.  It's the human/animal condition.

--
␦glen?

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[Nick Thompson]

Or to put it even more simply, an onion is never an onion.

n

Nicholas S. Thompson
Emeritus Professor of Psychology and Biology
Clark University
http://home.earthlink.net/~nickthompson/naturaldesigns/


-----Original Message-----
From: Friam [mailto:[hidden email]] On Behalf Of ?glen?
Sent: Thursday, June 15, 2017 9:31 AM
To: The Friday Morning Applied Complexity Coffee Group <[hidden email]>
Subject: Re: [FRIAM] sometimes an onion is just an onion...

On 06/14/2017 05:36 PM, Steven A Smith wrote:
> Hairsplitting here (again), but I don't see what Nick or I did as *premature* registration, maybe *mis*registration?     Or am I being "premature" again?

Well, you could be right.  But I do think it's premature, not merely mis-.  What I think happened was y'all had been pre-adapted to perceive the onion as a source and complex systems as the target.  Because of the conversation we were having, your perception was oriented that way.  All your conceptual categories were ready, waiting to filter/parse any incoming signals according to that structure.  You were a "complex systems perception machine".  So, pretty much _anything_ I said would have been interpreted/filtered according to that pre-adapted conceptual structure.

Hence, when you started reading that email (wherein I tried to distinguish level vs layer with the onion example), your registration machinery was already engaged.  A way to avoid that _premature_ classification of what you saw would have been for you or Nick to read the email and ask whether that was the intention.  If, after asking, you had still decided it was what I intended, despite my saying it wasn't, then maybe it would be more correct to call it (merely) mis-registration.

BC Smith's point is simply that we don't approach reality with a (completely) open mind.  We are structured to impute an organization on the ambient milieu.  And the fact that it was so difficult to break out of that preconceived structure of what we were talking about is evidence that it was premature, not merely mis-.

We all do it.  It's the human/animal condition.

--
␦glen?

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[Marcus G. Daniels]

Nick writes:

"It is a writer's job to control the reference of his signs, in so far as s/he can.  In writing code, you guys wouldn't put out a line of code without making clear what language you were writing in, would you?"

Many non-trivial programs invent their own abstractions s and work within that set of primitives rather than just the ones provided by the language.   Many modern languages go to some length to provide facilities for this in the form of programmable code expansion -- code that forms code.  In some sense the "language you are writing in" must be learned per project.   This goes beyond what I would call notation.  As its definition is available in the project source code, at some point it becomes redundant to keep talking about it.

Marcus
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[gepr]

On 06/15/2017 06:38 AM, Nick Thompson wrote:
> It is a writer's job to control the reference of his signs, in so far as s/he can.


I disagree completely with the ultimate consequences of what you're saying.  There is a philosophy in many branches of engineering to do exactly that: to engineer a device so that it optimally fits it's intended user/usage.  And that's all dandy.  However, art (for example) is not engineering.  Poetry is not engineering.  Math is not engineering.  Science is not engineering.  If we _always_ and forever try to clamp down on a creator's creative act in the way you intend, we'd either die an order death or explode into chaos.

It is a writer's job, except when it's not.  My guess is that it's the writer's job to balance and judge the amount of control to attempt.


> In writing code, you guys wouldn't put out a line of code without making clear what language you were writing in, would you?  


Yes, absolutely!  In fact, the ability to program without specifying which language you're using is the holy grail of programming.


--
☣ glen

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[Nick Thompson]

OK:

" It's the writer's job to balance and judge the amount of control ... ."

So I, as a writer, have to be very slow to be aggrieved when I am not understood.  

It's like the salesman blaming the customers for his not making the sale.

Nick

Nicholas S. Thompson
Emeritus Professor of Psychology and Biology
Clark University
http://home.earthlink.net/~nickthompson/naturaldesigns/


-----Original Message-----
From: Friam [mailto:[hidden email]] On Behalf Of glen ?
Sent: Thursday, June 15, 2017 10:54 AM
To: The Friday Morning Applied Complexity Coffee Group <[hidden email]>
Subject: Re: [FRIAM] sometimes an onion is just an onion...

On 06/15/2017 06:38 AM, Nick Thompson wrote:
> It is a writer's job to control the reference of his signs, in so far as s/he can.


I disagree completely with the ultimate consequences of what you're saying.  There is a philosophy in many branches of engineering to do exactly that: to engineer a device so that it optimally fits it's intended user/usage.  And that's all dandy.  However, art (for example) is not engineering.  Poetry is not engineering.  Math is not engineering.  Science is not engineering.  If we _always_ and forever try to clamp down on a creator's creative act in the way you intend, we'd either die an order death or explode into chaos.

It is a writer's job, except when it's not.  My guess is that it's the writer's job to balance and judge the amount of control to attempt.


> In writing code, you guys wouldn't put out a line of code without making clear what language you were writing in, would you?  


Yes, absolutely!  In fact, the ability to program without specifying which language you're using is the holy grail of programming.


--
☣ glen

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