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Morphogenisis

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thompnickson2

Morphogenisis

This struck me:

When animals develop, they don’t follow a script. Instead, responding to their environment, the cells negotiate and feel their way toward a final form. A fertilized egg divides, and divides again, creating a hollow ball of cells called a blastula; genes instruct these cells to release chemicals, and other cells, reacting to those chemical concentrations, decide to migrate elsewhere or to develop into specific types of tissue. Other influences—oxygen, nutrients, hormones, sometimes toxins—further shape gestation. https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2021/05/10/persuading-the-body-to-regenerate-its-limbs?utm_source=nl&utm_brand=tny&utm_mailing=TNY_Daily_050821&utm_campaign=aud-dev&utm_medium=email&bxid=5bd678d924c17c104801f684&cndid=40835928&hasha=1dc6f15a30be2d4712fae5f0e5a9a679&hashb=5e4befc88214fadc869224d7cb34d55f51451bc7&hashc=0c6ef6b7bc8221288e1f4a4ca0116d78a21ebdbe47949488640c7c54c93120fb&esrc=AUTO_PRINT&utm_term=TNY_Daily

First, note the reliance on psychological terms. This is the sort of passage that would stimulate my teasing Hywel with, “So you see, Hywel, psychology really IS the mother of all sciences.” And don’t any of you DARE to come back at me with, “It’s just a metaphor.”

Second, which of these two models encapsulates more closely what you wizards mean by computation. Is carrying out an algorithm more like “computation” or is “building a limb”? Is a salamander’s limb “computed”? If so, who computes it, or is that a violation of the language of computation. I know. Fools rush in where wise men fear to tread.

Your loyal fool,

Nic

Nick Thompson

[hidden email]

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

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Gary Schiltz-4

Re: Morphogenisis

First of all, it's just a metaphor (ducking, the shoe barely missing my head) :-)

Second of all, that description of animal development sure sounds to me like "following a script".

On Sat, May 8, 2021 at 2:23 PM <[hidden email]> wrote:

This struck me:

When animals develop, they don’t follow a script. Instead, responding to their environment, the cells negotiate and feel their way toward a final form. A fertilized egg divides, and divides again, creating a hollow ball of cells called a blastula; genes instruct these cells to release chemicals, and other cells, reacting to those chemical concentrations, decide to migrate elsewhere or to develop into specific types of tissue. Other influences—oxygen, nutrients, hormones, sometimes toxins—further shape gestation. https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2021/05/10/persuading-the-body-to-regenerate-its-limbs?utm_source=nl&utm_brand=tny&utm_mailing=TNY_Daily_050821&utm_campaign=aud-dev&utm_medium=email&bxid=5bd678d924c17c104801f684&cndid=40835928&hasha=1dc6f15a30be2d4712fae5f0e5a9a679&hashb=5e4befc88214fadc869224d7cb34d55f51451bc7&hashc=0c6ef6b7bc8221288e1f4a4ca0116d78a21ebdbe47949488640c7c54c93120fb&esrc=AUTO_PRINT&utm_term=TNY_Daily

First, note the reliance on psychological terms. This is the sort of passage that would stimulate my teasing Hywel with, “So you see, Hywel, psychology really IS the mother of all sciences.” And don’t any of you DARE to come back at me with, “It’s just a metaphor.”

Second, which of these two models encapsulates more closely what you wizards mean by computation. Is carrying out an algorithm more like “computation” or is “building a limb”? Is a salamander’s limb “computed”? If so, who computes it, or is that a violation of the language of computation. I know. Fools rush in where wise men fear to tread.

Your loyal fool,

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

- .... . -..-. . -. -.. -..-. .. ... -..-. .... . .-. .
FRIAM Applied Complexity Group listserv
Zoom Fridays 9:30a-12p Mtn GMT-6 bit.ly/virtualfriam
un/subscribe http://redfish.com/mailman/listinfo/friam_redfish.com
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thompnickson2

Re: Morphogenisis

Listen, Fella!

It’s metaphors all the way down!

[shoe thrown]

Nick Thompson

[hidden email]

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

From: Friam <[hidden email]> On Behalf Of Gary Schiltz
Sent: Saturday, May 8, 2021 1:36 PM
To: The Friday Morning Applied Complexity Coffee Group <[hidden email]>
Subject: Re: [FRIAM] Morphogenisis

First of all, it's just a metaphor (ducking, the shoe barely missing my head) :-)

Second of all, that description of animal development sure sounds to me like "following a script".

On Sat, May 8, 2021 at 2:23 PM <[hidden email]> wrote:

This struck me:

When animals develop, they don’t follow a script. Instead, responding to their environment, the cells negotiate and feel their way toward a final form. A fertilized egg divides, and divides again, creating a hollow ball of cells called a blastula; genes instruct these cells to release chemicals, and other cells, reacting to those chemical concentrations, decide to migrate elsewhere or to develop into specific types of tissue. Other influences—oxygen, nutrients, hormones, sometimes toxins—further shape gestation. https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2021/05/10/persuading-the-body-to-regenerate-its-limbs?utm_source=nl&utm_brand=tny&utm_mailing=TNY_Daily_050821&utm_campaign=aud-dev&utm_medium=email&bxid=5bd678d924c17c104801f684&cndid=40835928&hasha=1dc6f15a30be2d4712fae5f0e5a9a679&hashb=5e4befc88214fadc869224d7cb34d55f51451bc7&hashc=0c6ef6b7bc8221288e1f4a4ca0116d78a21ebdbe47949488640c7c54c93120fb&esrc=AUTO_PRINT&utm_term=TNY_Daily

First, note the reliance on psychological terms. This is the sort of passage that would stimulate my teasing Hywel with, “So you see, Hywel, psychology really IS the mother of all sciences.” And don’t any of you DARE to come back at me with, “It’s just a metaphor.”

Second, which of these two models encapsulates more closely what you wizards mean by computation. Is carrying out an algorithm more like “computation” or is “building a limb”? Is a salamander’s limb “computed”? If so, who computes it, or is that a violation of the language of computation. I know. Fools rush in where wise men fear to tread.

Your loyal fool,

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

- .... . -..-. . -. -.. -..-. .. ... -..-. .... . .-. .
FRIAM Applied Complexity Group listserv
Zoom Fridays 9:30a-12p Mtn GMT-6 bit.ly/virtualfriam
un/subscribe http://redfish.com/mailman/listinfo/friam_redfish.com
FRIAM-COMIC http://friam-comic.blogspot.com/
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Frank Wimberly-2

Re: Morphogenisis

"The ball accelerated at approximately 32 feet per second squared at sea level in a vacuum."

doesn't seem to be a metaphor to me.

---
Frank C. Wimberly
140 Calle Ojo Feliz,
Santa Fe, NM 87505

505 670-9918
Santa Fe, NM

On Sat, May 8, 2021, 3:07 PM <[hidden email]> wrote:

Listen, Fella!

It’s metaphors all the way down!

[shoe thrown]

n

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

From: Friam <[hidden email]> On Behalf Of Gary Schiltz
Sent: Saturday, May 8, 2021 1:36 PM
To: The Friday Morning Applied Complexity Coffee Group <[hidden email]>
Subject: Re: [FRIAM] Morphogenisis

First of all, it's just a metaphor (ducking, the shoe barely missing my head) :-)

Second of all, that description of animal development sure sounds to me like "following a script".

On Sat, May 8, 2021 at 2:23 PM <[hidden email]> wrote:
This struck me:

When animals develop, they don’t follow a script. Instead, responding to their environment, the cells negotiate and feel their way toward a final form. A fertilized egg divides, and divides again, creating a hollow ball of cells called a blastula; genes instruct these cells to release chemicals, and other cells, reacting to those chemical concentrations, decide to migrate elsewhere or to develop into specific types of tissue. Other influences—oxygen, nutrients, hormones, sometimes toxins—further shape gestation. https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2021/05/10/persuading-the-body-to-regenerate-its-limbs?utm_source=nl&utm_brand=tny&utm_mailing=TNY_Daily_050821&utm_campaign=aud-dev&utm_medium=email&bxid=5bd678d924c17c104801f684&cndid=40835928&hasha=1dc6f15a30be2d4712fae5f0e5a9a679&hashb=5e4befc88214fadc869224d7cb34d55f51451bc7&hashc=0c6ef6b7bc8221288e1f4a4ca0116d78a21ebdbe47949488640c7c54c93120fb&esrc=AUTO_PRINT&utm_term=TNY_Daily

First, note the reliance on psychological terms. This is the sort of passage that would stimulate my teasing Hywel with, “So you see, Hywel, psychology really IS the mother of all sciences.” And don’t any of you DARE to come back at me with, “It’s just a metaphor.”

Second, which of these two models encapsulates more closely what you wizards mean by computation. Is carrying out an algorithm more like “computation” or is “building a limb”? Is a salamander’s limb “computed”? If so, who computes it, or is that a violation of the language of computation. I know. Fools rush in where wise men fear to tread.

Your loyal fool,

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

- .... . -..-. . -. -.. -..-. .. ... -..-. .... . .-. .
FRIAM Applied Complexity Group listserv
Zoom Fridays 9:30a-12p Mtn GMT-6 bit.ly/virtualfriam
un/subscribe http://redfish.com/mailman/listinfo/friam_redfish.com
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archives: http://friam.471366.n2.nabble.com/
- .... . -..-. . -. -.. -..-. .. ... -..-. .... . .-. .
FRIAM Applied Complexity Group listserv
Zoom Fridays 9:30a-12p Mtn GMT-6 bit.ly/virtualfriam
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Prof David West

Re: Morphogenisis

The ball accelerated is clearly a metaphor as it implies that the ball is doing a specific thing, that the ball has behavior and probably volition. This is clearly not what you literally mean.

davew

On Sat, May 8, 2021, at 4:57 PM, Frank Wimberly wrote:

"The ball accelerated at approximately 32 feet per second squared at sea level in a vacuum."

doesn't seem to be a metaphor to me.

---
Frank C. Wimberly
140 Calle Ojo Feliz,
Santa Fe, NM 87505

505 670-9918
Santa Fe, NM

On Sat, May 8, 2021, 3:07 PM <[hidden email]> wrote:
Listen, Fella!

It’s metaphors all the way down!

[shoe thrown]

n

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

From: Friam <[hidden email]> On Behalf Of Gary Schiltz
Sent: Saturday, May 8, 2021 1:36 PM
To: The Friday Morning Applied Complexity Coffee Group <[hidden email]>
Subject: Re: [FRIAM] Morphogenisis

First of all, it's just a metaphor (ducking, the shoe barely missing my head) :-)

Second of all, that description of animal development sure sounds to me like "following a script".

On Sat, May 8, 2021 at 2:23 PM <[hidden email]> wrote:
This struck me:

When animals develop, they don’t follow a script. Instead, responding to their environment, the cells negotiate and feel their way toward a final form. A fertilized egg divides, and divides again, creating a hollow ball of cells called a blastula; genes instruct these cells to release chemicals, and other cells, reacting to those chemical concentrations, decide to migrate elsewhere or to develop into specific types of tissue. Other influences—oxygen, nutrients, hormones, sometimes toxins—further shape gestation. https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2021/05/10/persuading-the-body-to-regenerate-its-limbs?utm_source=nl&utm_brand=tny&utm_mailing=TNY_Daily_050821&utm_campaign=aud-dev&utm_medium=email&bxid=5bd678d924c17c104801f684&cndid=40835928&hasha=1dc6f15a30be2d4712fae5f0e5a9a679&hashb=5e4befc88214fadc869224d7cb34d55f51451bc7&hashc=0c6ef6b7bc8221288e1f4a4ca0116d78a21ebdbe47949488640c7c54c93120fb&esrc=AUTO_PRINT&utm_term=TNY_Daily

First, note the reliance on psychological terms. This is the sort of passage that would stimulate my teasing Hywel with, “So you see, Hywel, psychology really IS the mother of all sciences.” And don’t any of you DARE to come back at me with, “It’s just a metaphor.”

Second, which of these two models encapsulates more closely what you wizards mean by computation. Is carrying out an algorithm more like “computation” or is “building a limb”? Is a salamander’s limb “computed”? If so, who computes it, or is that a violation of the language of computation. I know. Fools rush in where wise men fear to tread.

Your loyal fool,

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

- .... . -..-. . -. -.. -..-. .. ... -..-. .... . .-. .
FRIAM Applied Complexity Group listserv
Zoom Fridays 9:30a-12p Mtn GMT-6 bit.ly/virtualfriam
un/subscribe http://redfish.com/mailman/listinfo/friam_redfish.com
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archives: http://friam.471366.n2.nabble.com/
- .... . -..-. . -. -.. -..-. .. ... -..-. .... . .-. .
FRIAM Applied Complexity Group listserv
Zoom Fridays 9:30a-12p Mtn GMT-6 bit.ly/virtualfriam
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Steve Smith

Re: Morphogenisis

In reply to this post by thompnickson2

Nick -

Second, which of these two models encapsulates more closely what you wizards mean by computation. Is carrying out an algorithm more like “computation” or is “building a limb”? Is a salamander’s limb “computed”? If so, who computes it, or is that a violation of the language of computation. I know. Fools rush in where wise men fear to tread.

I know that Susan has done a lot of more up to date and relevant work in the area of bio-inspired computing and I haven't followed it all nor do I fully appreciate what she meant when she once told me that "Embryology" was the most inspiring area in that regard that she was working with. I'll find a more up to date material I hope, but *this* 2003 white-paper might be of some interest...

https://www-users.cs.york.ac.uk/susan/bib/ss/nonstd/rsrae03.htm

David Eric Smith

Re: Morphogenisis

In reply to this post by Prof David West

English has two categories of verbs: intransitive and transitive.

If you use an intransitive verb — “yet it moves” — the Metaphor Nazi will catch you coming: claiming you are representing volition.

If you use a transitive verb — “it is moved by gravity” — the Metaphor Nazi will catch you going: claiming an agent/patient relation, where the agent is probably (metaphorically) God (!), or whatever God is a metaphor for.

And we have from Ecclesiastes (the verse in praise of the Metaphor Nazi):

<a href="http://www.shakespeare-online.com/sonnets/59.html#:~:text=If there be nothing new (1): Compare Ecclesiastes 1.9,new thing under the sun."" class="">http://www.shakespeare-online.com/sonnets/59.html#:~:text=If%20there%20be%20nothing%20new%20(1)%3A%20Compare%20Ecclesiastes%201.9,new%20thing%20under%20the%20sun.%22

Ecclesiastes 1.9: "The thing that hath been is that which shall be; and that which hath been done is that which shall be done; and there is no new thing under the sun."

To which the scientist (note small “s”) would like to assert “the language of mechanics is not English; speaking it is a new practice available to people to participate in”.

But let Shakespeare have the last word:

If there be nothing new, but that which is
Hath been before, how are our brains beguil'd,
Which, labouring for invention, bear amiss
The second burthen of a former child!
O, that record could with a backward look,
Even of five hundred courses of the sun,
Show me your image in some antique book,
Since mind at first in character was done!
That I might see what the old world could say
To this composed wonder of your frame;
Whether we are mended, or whe'r better they,
Or whether revolution be the same.
O! sure I am, the wits of former days
To subjects worse have given admiring praise.

Eric

On May 9, 2021, at 11:36 AM, Prof David West <[hidden email]> wrote:

The ball accelerated is clearly a metaphor as it implies that the ball is doing a specific thing, that the ball has behavior and probably volition. This is clearly not what you literally mean.

davew

On Sat, May 8, 2021, at 4:57 PM, Frank Wimberly wrote:
"The ball accelerated at approximately 32 feet per second squared at sea level in a vacuum."

doesn't seem to be a metaphor to me.

---
Frank C. Wimberly
140 Calle Ojo Feliz,
Santa Fe, NM 87505

505 670-9918
Santa Fe, NM

On Sat, May 8, 2021, 3:07 PM <[hidden email]> wrote:
Listen, Fella!

It’s metaphors all the way down!

[shoe thrown]

n

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

From: Friam <[hidden email]> On Behalf Of Gary Schiltz
Sent: Saturday, May 8, 2021 1:36 PM
To: The Friday Morning Applied Complexity Coffee Group <[hidden email]>
Subject: Re: [FRIAM] Morphogenisis

First of all, it's just a metaphor (ducking, the shoe barely missing my head) :-)

Second of all, that description of animal development sure sounds to me like "following a script".

On Sat, May 8, 2021 at 2:23 PM <[hidden email]> wrote:
This struck me:

When animals develop, they don’t follow a script. Instead, responding to their environment, the cells negotiate and feel their way toward a final form. A fertilized egg divides, and divides again, creating a hollow ball of cells called a blastula; genes instruct these cells to release chemicals, and other cells, reacting to those chemical concentrations, decide to migrate elsewhere or to develop into specific types of tissue. Other influences—oxygen, nutrients, hormones, sometimes toxins—further shape gestation. https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2021/05/10/persuading-the-body-to-regenerate-its-limbs?utm_source=nl&utm_brand=tny&utm_mailing=TNY_Daily_050821&utm_campaign=aud-dev&utm_medium=email&bxid=5bd678d924c17c104801f684&cndid=40835928&hasha=1dc6f15a30be2d4712fae5f0e5a9a679&hashb=5e4befc88214fadc869224d7cb34d55f51451bc7&hashc=0c6ef6b7bc8221288e1f4a4ca0116d78a21ebdbe47949488640c7c54c93120fb&esrc=AUTO_PRINT&utm_term=TNY_Daily

First, note the reliance on psychological terms. This is the sort of passage that would stimulate my teasing Hywel with, “So you see, Hywel, psychology really IS the mother of all sciences.” And don’t any of you DARE to come back at me with, “It’s just a metaphor.”

Second, which of these two models encapsulates more closely what you wizards mean by computation. Is carrying out an algorithm more like “computation” or is “building a limb”? Is a salamander’s limb “computed”? If so, who computes it, or is that a violation of the language of computation. I know. Fools rush in where wise men fear to tread.

Your loyal fool,

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

- .... . -..-. . -. -.. -..-. .. ... -..-. .... . .-. .
FRIAM Applied Complexity Group listserv
Zoom Fridays 9:30a-12p Mtn GMT-6  bit.ly/virtualfriam
un/subscribe http://redfish.com/mailman/listinfo/friam_redfish.com
FRIAM-COMIC http://friam-comic.blogspot.com/
archives: http://friam.471366.n2.nabble.com/

- .... . -..-. . -. -.. -..-. .. ... -..-. .... . .-. .
FRIAM Applied Complexity Group listserv
Zoom Fridays 9:30a-12p Mtn GMT-6  bit.ly/virtualfriam
un/subscribe http://redfish.com/mailman/listinfo/friam_redfish.com
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- .... . -..-. . -. -.. -..-. .. ... -..-. .... . .-. .
FRIAM Applied Complexity Group listserv
Zoom Fridays 9:30a-12p Mtn GMT-6  bit.ly/virtualfriam
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Steve Smith

Re: Morphogenisis

Stellar Eric!

Two observations:

I recently learned the term "Teleonomic" which I really like as an alternative to "Telelogical" in many cases.

And what of the difference between "Light follows a shortest-time path through space" and "Light IS the shortest time path through space"?

Both of the latter may be wrong, but they are qualitatively different in an interesting way, no?

- Steve

On 5/8/21 9:13 PM, David Eric Smith wrote:

English has two categories of verbs: intransitive and transitive.

If you use an intransitive verb — “yet it moves” — the Metaphor Nazi will catch you coming: claiming you are representing volition.

If you use a transitive verb — “it is moved by gravity” — the Metaphor Nazi will catch you going: claiming an agent/patient relation, where the agent is probably (metaphorically) God (!), or whatever God is a metaphor for.

And we have from Ecclesiastes (the verse in praise of the Metaphor Nazi):

<a href="http://www.shakespeare-online.com/sonnets/59.html#:~:text=If there be nothing new (1): Compare Ecclesiastes 1.9,new thing under the sun."" class="" moz-do-not-send="true">http://www.shakespeare-online.com/sonnets/59.html#:~:text=If%20there%20be%20nothing%20new%20(1)%3A%20Compare%20Ecclesiastes%201.9,new%20thing%20under%20the%20sun.%22

Ecclesiastes 1.9: "The thing that hath been is that which shall be; and that which hath been done is that which shall be done; and there is no new thing under the sun."

To which the scientist (note small “s”) would like to assert “the language of mechanics is not English; speaking it is a new practice available to people to participate in”.

But let Shakespeare have the last word:

If there be nothing new, but that which is
Hath been before, how are our brains beguil'd,
Which, labouring for invention, bear amiss
The second burthen of a former child!
O, that record could with a backward look,
Even of five hundred courses of the sun,
Show me your image in some antique book,
Since mind at first in character was done!
That I might see what the old world could say
To this composed wonder of your frame;
Whether we are mended, or whe'r better they,
Or whether revolution be the same.
O! sure I am, the wits of former days
To subjects worse have given admiring praise.

Eric

On May 9, 2021, at 11:36 AM, Prof David West <[hidden email]> wrote:

The ball accelerated is clearly a metaphor as it implies that the ball is doing a specific thing, that the ball has behavior and probably volition. This is clearly not what you literally mean.

davew

On Sat, May 8, 2021, at 4:57 PM, Frank Wimberly wrote:

"The ball accelerated at approximately 32 feet per second squared at sea level in a vacuum."

doesn't seem to be a metaphor to me.

---

Frank C. Wimberly

140 Calle Ojo Feliz,

Santa Fe, NM 87505

505 670-9918

Santa Fe, NM

On Sat, May 8, 2021, 3:07 PM <[hidden email]> wrote:

Listen, Fella!

It’s metaphors all the way down!

[shoe thrown]

n

Nick Thompson

[hidden email]

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

From: Friam <[hidden email]> On Behalf Of Gary Schiltz

Sent: Saturday, May 8, 2021 1:36 PM

To: The Friday Morning Applied Complexity Coffee Group <[hidden email]>

Subject: Re: [FRIAM] Morphogenisis

First of all, it's just a metaphor (ducking, the shoe barely missing my head) :-)

Second of all, that description of animal development sure sounds to me like "following a script".

On Sat, May 8, 2021 at 2:23 PM <[hidden email]> wrote:

This struck me:

When animals develop, they don’t follow a script. Instead, responding to their environment, the cells negotiate and feel their way toward a final form. A fertilized egg divides, and divides again, creating a hollow ball of cells called a blastula; genes instruct these cells to release chemicals, and other cells, reacting to those chemical concentrations, decide to migrate elsewhere or to develop into specific types of tissue. Other influences—oxygen, nutrients, hormones, sometimes toxins—further shape gestation. https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2021/05/10/persuading-the-body-to-regenerate-its-limbs?utm_source=nl&utm_brand=tny&utm_mailing=TNY_Daily_050821&utm_campaign=aud-dev&utm_medium=email&bxid=5bd678d924c17c104801f684&cndid=40835928&hasha=1dc6f15a30be2d4712fae5f0e5a9a679&hashb=5e4befc88214fadc869224d7cb34d55f51451bc7&hashc=0c6ef6b7bc8221288e1f4a4ca0116d78a21ebdbe47949488640c7c54c93120fb&esrc=AUTO_PRINT&utm_term=TNY_Daily

First, note the reliance on psychological terms. This is the sort of passage that would stimulate my teasing Hywel with, “So you see, Hywel, psychology really IS the mother of all sciences.” And don’t any of you DARE to come back at me with, “It’s just a metaphor.”

Second, which of these two models encapsulates more closely what you wizards mean by computation. Is carrying out an algorithm more like “computation” or is “building a limb”? Is a salamander’s limb “computed”? If so, who computes it, or is that a violation of the language of computation. I know. Fools rush in where wise men fear to tread.

Your loyal fool,

Nic

Nick Thompson

[hidden email]

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

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thompnickson2

Re: Morphogenisis

In reply to this post by Steve Smith

Steve,

I cannot, I MUST not, at this time, take the time to adequately respond to the paper, however much it interests me, which it does, alot.

However, I have skimmed it and think I might have a brief contribution. There are two terms that are not nailed down, so far as I could see, in my skimming. First, I wonder what the authors mean by a pragmatic understanding. I hope they mean an understanding of the term that will bear weight, over time, as we work with it. If they just mean operational, then I am not on board.

Second, authors are ambiguous in their use of the term emergent. They talk about emergent structures and emergent properties. Best, I think to follow Wimsatt and confine its use to those properties of an aggregate that arise not simply from the properties of the members of an aggregate but from their order of assembly or their arrangement in the aggregate. I would call such a definition pragmatic, or even “practicial”, in the sense that opens the door to further systematic exploration.

Nick

Nick Thompson

[hidden email]

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

From: Friam <[hidden email]> On Behalf Of Steve Smith
Sent: Saturday, May 8, 2021 8:57 PM
To: [hidden email]
Subject: Re: [FRIAM] Morphogenisis

Nick -

Second, which of these two models encapsulates more closely what you wizards mean by computation. Is carrying out an algorithm more like “computation” or is “building a limb”? Is a salamander’s limb “computed”? If so, who computes it, or is that a violation of the language of computation. I know. Fools rush in where wise men fear to tread.

https://www-users.cs.york.ac.uk/susan/bib/ss/nonstd/rsrae03.htm

thompnickson2

Re: Morphogenisis

In reply to this post by David Eric Smith

EricS,

I hope I am not the metaphor Nazi; I certainly don’t want to be him. I certainly don’t want to execute anybody for using metaphors. On the contrary. Rather my point is that they are essential to good thought and that many scientists who voice contempt for metaphors use them regularly all the time in ways that are essential to their work. The Pragmatic value of recognizing that we are using metaphors is that such a recognition leads to a discussion of whether we are using them well. All metaphors, be it good ones or bad ones, import “surplus meaning” into the terms of use, and this surplus meaning can affect scientific thinking for good or ill depending on whether we acknowledge it and systematically explore its implications. Surplus meaning is often the wet edge of discovery but some times the hidden assumption that keeps us from seeing the plain facts before us. The clearest example of this is the metaphor of natural selection in which Darwin imagined that nature is like a giant pigeon coop. This metaphor contain contains an infinity of useful implications and a few that are down right poisonous. It’s important to know which are which. I think Frank’s example of gravity is perhaps another great example. Isn’t it one of Einstein’s greatest insights that the metaphor of attraction implicit in “gravity”, which arose from experiments with primitive magnets in Newton’s time, is not as useful in many instances as the metaphor that massive objects warp the space around them. So, one of Einstein’s great contributions to physics is that he introduced a new metaphor? Do I have that wrong?

Do regard your affection for poetry as a sinful indulgence or do you regard it (as I would) as an essential feature of your scientific imagination.

I don’t know why it is that moving house seems to free me up to think about everything but moving house. One is not allowed parting shots in parliamentary debate, and I probably shouldn’t be taking them here.

Nick

Nick Thompson

[hidden email]

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

From: Friam <[hidden email]> On Behalf Of David Eric Smith
Sent: Saturday, May 8, 2021 9:13 PM
To: The Friday Morning Applied Complexity Coffee Group <[hidden email]>
Subject: Re: [FRIAM] Morphogenisis

English has two categories of verbs: intransitive and transitive.

If you use an intransitive verb — “yet it moves” — the Metaphor Nazi will catch you coming: claiming you are representing volition.

And we have from Ecclesiastes (the verse in praise of the Metaphor Nazi):

<a href="http://www.shakespeare-online.com/sonnets/59.html#:~:text=If there be nothing new (1): Compare Ecclesiastes 1.9,new thing under the sun."">http://www.shakespeare-online.com/sonnets/59.html#:~:text=If%20there%20be%20nothing%20new%20(1)%3A%20Compare%20Ecclesiastes%201.9,new%20thing%20under%20the%20sun.%22

Ecclesiastes 1.9: "The thing that hath been is that which shall be; and that which hath been done is that which shall be done; and there is no new thing under the sun."

To which the scientist (note small “s”) would like to assert “the language of mechanics is not English; speaking it is a new practice available to people to participate in”.

But let Shakespeare have the last word:

Eric

On May 9, 2021, at 11:36 AM, Prof David West <[hidden email]> wrote:

The ball accelerated is clearly a metaphor as it implies that the ball is doing a specific thing, that the ball has behavior and probably volition. This is clearly not what you literally mean.

davew

On Sat, May 8, 2021, at 4:57 PM, Frank Wimberly wrote:
"The ball accelerated at approximately 32 feet per second squared at sea level in a vacuum."

doesn't seem to be a metaphor to me.

---
Frank C. Wimberly
140 Calle Ojo Feliz,
Santa Fe, NM 87505

505 670-9918
Santa Fe, NM

On Sat, May 8, 2021, 3:07 PM <[hidden email]> wrote:
Listen, Fella!

It’s metaphors all the way down!

[shoe thrown]

n

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

From: Friam <[hidden email]> On Behalf Of Gary Schiltz
Sent: Saturday, May 8, 2021 1:36 PM
To: The Friday Morning Applied Complexity Coffee Group <[hidden email]>
Subject: Re: [FRIAM] Morphogenisis

First of all, it's just a metaphor (ducking, the shoe barely missing my head) :-)

Second of all, that description of animal development sure sounds to me like "following a script".

On Sat, May 8, 2021 at 2:23 PM <[hidden email]> wrote:
This struck me:

When animals develop, they don’t follow a script. Instead, responding to their environment, the cells negotiate and feel their way toward a final form. A fertilized egg divides, and divides again, creating a hollow ball of cells called a blastula; genes instruct these cells to release chemicals, and other cells, reacting to those chemical concentrations, decide to migrate elsewhere or to develop into specific types of tissue. Other influences—oxygen, nutrients, hormones, sometimes toxins—further shape gestation. https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2021/05/10/persuading-the-body-to-regenerate-its-limbs?utm_source=nl&utm_brand=tny&utm_mailing=TNY_Daily_050821&utm_campaign=aud-dev&utm_medium=email&bxid=5bd678d924c17c104801f684&cndid=40835928&hasha=1dc6f15a30be2d4712fae5f0e5a9a679&hashb=5e4befc88214fadc869224d7cb34d55f51451bc7&hashc=0c6ef6b7bc8221288e1f4a4ca0116d78a21ebdbe47949488640c7c54c93120fb&esrc=AUTO_PRINT&utm_term=TNY_Daily

First, note the reliance on psychological terms. This is the sort of passage that would stimulate my teasing Hywel with, “So you see, Hywel, psychology really IS the mother of all sciences.” And don’t any of you DARE to come back at me with, “It’s just a metaphor.”

Second, which of these two models encapsulates more closely what you wizards mean by computation. Is carrying out an algorithm more like “computation” or is “building a limb”? Is a salamander’s limb “computed”? If so, who computes it, or is that a violation of the language of computation. I know. Fools rush in where wise men fear to tread.

Your loyal fool,

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

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Frank Wimberly-2

Re: Morphogenisis

One possible answer is this. Gravity is curved space, not a metaphor. The scene i mentioned was a description of an accelerating object in a very limited space and time region. It did not mention gravity.

The acceleration of a falling object near the earth increases as it gets closer. Etc, etc.

---
Frank C. Wimberly
140 Calle Ojo Feliz,
Santa Fe, NM 87505

505 670-9918
Santa Fe, NM

On Sat, May 8, 2021, 10:03 PM <[hidden email]> wrote:

EricS,

I hope I am not the metaphor Nazi; I certainly don’t want to be him.   I certainly don’t want to execute anybody for using metaphors. On the contrary. Rather my point is that they are essential to good thought and that many scientists who voice contempt for metaphors use them regularly all the time in ways that are essential to their work. The Pragmatic value of recognizing that we are using metaphors is that such a recognition leads to a discussion of whether we are using them well. All metaphors, be it good ones or bad ones, import “surplus meaning” into the terms of use, and this surplus meaning can affect scientific thinking for good or ill depending on whether we acknowledge it and systematically explore its implications. Surplus meaning is often the wet edge of discovery but some times the hidden assumption that keeps us from seeing the plain facts before us. The clearest example of this is the metaphor of natural selection in which Darwin imagined that nature is like a giant pigeon coop. This metaphor contain contains an infinity of useful implications and a few that are down right poisonous. It’s important to know which are which. I think Frank’s example of gravity is perhaps another great example. Isn’t it one of Einstein’s greatest insights that the metaphor of attraction implicit in “gravity”, which arose from experiments with primitive magnets in Newton’s time, is not as useful in many instances as the metaphor that massive objects warp the space around them. So, one of Einstein’s great contributions to physics is that he introduced a new metaphor? Do I have that wrong?

Do regard your affection for poetry as a sinful indulgence or do you regard it (as I would) as an essential feature of your scientific imagination.

I don’t know why it is that moving house seems to free me up to think about everything but moving house. One is not allowed parting shots in parliamentary debate, and I probably shouldn’t be taking them here.

Nick

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

From: Friam <[hidden email]> On Behalf Of David Eric Smith
Sent: Saturday, May 8, 2021 9:13 PM
To: The Friday Morning Applied Complexity Coffee Group <[hidden email]>
Subject: Re: [FRIAM] Morphogenisis

English has two categories of verbs: intransitive and transitive.

If you use an intransitive verb — “yet it moves” — the Metaphor Nazi will catch you coming: claiming you are representing volition.

If you use a transitive verb — “it is moved by gravity” — the Metaphor Nazi will catch you going: claiming an agent/patient relation, where the agent is probably (metaphorically) God (!), or whatever God is a metaphor for.

And we have from Ecclesiastes (the verse in praise of the Metaphor Nazi):
http://www.shakespeare-online.com/sonnets/59.html#:~:text=If%20there%20be%20nothing%20new%20(1)%3A%20Compare%20Ecclesiastes%201.9,new%20thing%20under%20the%20sun.%22
Ecclesiastes 1.9: "The thing that hath been is that which shall be; and that which hath been done is that which shall be done; and there is no new thing under the sun."

To which the scientist (note small “s”) would like to assert “the language of mechanics is not English; speaking it is a new practice available to people to participate in”.

But let Shakespeare have the last word:

If there be nothing new, but that which is
Hath been before, how are our brains beguil'd,
Which, labouring for invention, bear amiss
The second burthen of a former child!
O, that record could with a backward look,
Even of five hundred courses of the sun,
Show me your image in some antique book,
Since mind at first in character was done!
That I might see what the old world could say
To this composed wonder of your frame;
Whether we are mended, or whe'r better they,
Or whether revolution be the same.
O! sure I am, the wits of former days
To subjects worse have given admiring praise.

Eric

On May 9, 2021, at 11:36 AM, Prof David West <[hidden email]> wrote:

The ball accelerated is clearly a metaphor as it implies that the ball is doing a specific thing, that the ball has behavior and probably volition. This is clearly not what you literally mean.

davew

On Sat, May 8, 2021, at 4:57 PM, Frank Wimberly wrote:
"The ball accelerated at approximately 32 feet per second squared at sea level in a vacuum."

doesn't seem to be a metaphor to me.

---
Frank C. Wimberly
140 Calle Ojo Feliz,
Santa Fe, NM 87505

505 670-9918
Santa Fe, NM

On Sat, May 8, 2021, 3:07 PM <[hidden email]> wrote:
Listen, Fella!

It’s metaphors all the way down!

[shoe thrown]

n

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

From: Friam <[hidden email]> On Behalf Of Gary Schiltz
Sent: Saturday, May 8, 2021 1:36 PM
To: The Friday Morning Applied Complexity Coffee Group <[hidden email]>
Subject: Re: [FRIAM] Morphogenisis

First of all, it's just a metaphor (ducking, the shoe barely missing my head) :-)

Second of all, that description of animal development sure sounds to me like "following a script".

On Sat, May 8, 2021 at 2:23 PM <[hidden email]> wrote:
This struck me:

When animals develop, they don’t follow a script. Instead, responding to their environment, the cells negotiate and feel their way toward a final form. A fertilized egg divides, and divides again, creating a hollow ball of cells called a blastula; genes instruct these cells to release chemicals, and other cells, reacting to those chemical concentrations, decide to migrate elsewhere or to develop into specific types of tissue. Other influences—oxygen, nutrients, hormones, sometimes toxins—further shape gestation. https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2021/05/10/persuading-the-body-to-regenerate-its-limbs?utm_source=nl&utm_brand=tny&utm_mailing=TNY_Daily_050821&utm_campaign=aud-dev&utm_medium=email&bxid=5bd678d924c17c104801f684&cndid=40835928&hasha=1dc6f15a30be2d4712fae5f0e5a9a679&hashb=5e4befc88214fadc869224d7cb34d55f51451bc7&hashc=0c6ef6b7bc8221288e1f4a4ca0116d78a21ebdbe47949488640c7c54c93120fb&esrc=AUTO_PRINT&utm_term=TNY_Daily

First, note the reliance on psychological terms. This is the sort of passage that would stimulate my teasing Hywel with, “So you see, Hywel, psychology really IS the mother of all sciences.” And don’t any of you DARE to come back at me with, “It’s just a metaphor.”

Second, which of these two models encapsulates more closely what you wizards mean by computation. Is carrying out an algorithm more like “computation” or is “building a limb”? Is a salamander’s limb “computed”? If so, who computes it, or is that a violation of the language of computation. I know. Fools rush in where wise men fear to tread.

Your loyal fool,

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

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David Eric Smith

Re: Morphogenisis

In reply to this post by thompnickson2

All you have below, Nick, is both sound and interesting, and at least to the level of a point of view, a position I share. (I won’t take positions on what was important in this or that bit of history of scientific thourght, including endorsing the versions you give below, where I have not studied.)

My motto is one I have heard Glen espouse, though I have my own formulation:

“Some things in moderation.”

I heard Frank, on this occasion as on indefinitely many before it — FRIAM really is like Nietzche’s eternal recurrence in some ways — pushing back against the assertion “Everything is metaphor, and you don’t get to say otherwise”. So no, you don’t execute people for using metaphors; you forbid them any claim that they are ever doing anything else (or that is how I read many of the emails).

To elevate metaphors to a totalizing (or totalitarian) philosophical system, into which everything has to be crammed by a kind of scholastic debate, is I think only possible if you forbid that anything can ever be its own, new, self. I think that is probably a mistake. I don’t know if you believe you are doing it, or whether you are doing it. I make whatever I can of the words that come across the screen, and accept responsibility for errors.

My impulse — dull and tedious like much I do — is to lampoon metaphors as a philosophical system to try to get at what I object to. So:

English descriptions of mechanics aren’t really a new language; they are English, hence metaphors.

But if so:

English isn’t really “a” language (indefinite article implying distinctness); it’s just a metaphorical use of porto-West Germanic. So is German.

But porto-West Germanic wasn’t really “a” language either; it was a metaphorical use of proto-Indo European;

A metaphorical use of proto-Nostratic

A metaphorical use of porto-Sapiens

Of what….?

The System requires absurdity.

So alongside the question of What is Not New that guides the analysis of (monomania for?) metaphor, I want to put the other question How can something “be” new? And how do new things come into being? When a thing actually is new, I would like to allow myself to recognize that.

For scientific language and practice, I am almost interested enough in this question to try to put a little work into it.

One thing I don’t want to pass over, because it is too important and too good:

Do [you] regard your affection for poetry as a sinful indulgence or do you regard it (as I would) as an essential feature of your scientific imagination.

Neither in the primary role.

It’s appreciating being alive, and realizing that with life and literacy, I have open to me the joy of experiencing insights and creations of beauty from across time, place, circumstance, and identity. Each mode, in its own name, has a place, not a servant of anything else.

Best,

Eric

On May 9, 2021, at 1:02 PM, <[hidden email]> <[hidden email]> wrote:

EricS,

I hope I am not the metaphor Nazi; I certainly don’t want to be him.   I certainly don’t want to execute anybody for using metaphors. On the contrary. Rather my point is that they are essential to good thought and that many scientists who voice contempt for metaphors use them regularly all the time in ways that are essential to their work. The Pragmatic value of recognizing that we are using metaphors is that such a recognition leads to a discussion of whether we are using them well. All metaphors, be it good ones or bad ones, import “surplus meaning” into the terms of use, and this surplus meaning can affect scientific thinking for good or ill depending on whether we acknowledge it and systematically explore its implications. Surplus meaning is often the wet edge of discovery but some times the hidden assumption that keeps us from seeing the plain facts before us. The clearest example of this is the metaphor of natural selection in which Darwin imagined that nature is like a giant pigeon coop. This metaphor contain contains an infinity of useful implications and a few that are down right poisonous. It’s important to know which are which. I think Frank’s example of gravity is perhaps another great example. Isn’t it one of Einstein’s greatest insights that the metaphor of attraction implicit in “gravity”, which arose from experiments with primitive magnets in Newton’s time, is not as useful in many instances as the metaphor that massive objects warp the space around them. So, one of Einstein’s great contributions to physics is that he introduced a new metaphor? Do I have that wrong?

Do regard your affection for poetry as a sinful indulgence or do you regard it (as I would) as an essential feature of your scientific imagination.

I don’t know why it is that moving house seems to free me up to think about everything but moving house. One is not allowed parting shots in parliamentary debate, and I probably shouldn’t be taking them here.

Nick

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

From: Friam <[hidden email]> On Behalf Of David Eric Smith
Sent: Saturday, May 8, 2021 9:13 PM
To: The Friday Morning Applied Complexity Coffee Group <[hidden email]>
Subject: Re: [FRIAM] Morphogenisis

English has two categories of verbs: intransitive and transitive.

If you use an intransitive verb — “yet it moves” — the Metaphor Nazi will catch you coming: claiming you are representing volition.

If you use a transitive verb — “it is moved by gravity” — the Metaphor Nazi will catch you going: claiming an agent/patient relation, where the agent is probably (metaphorically) God (!), or whatever God is a metaphor for.

And we have from Ecclesiastes (the verse in praise of the Metaphor Nazi):
http://www.shakespeare-online.com/sonnets/59.html#:~:text=If%20there%20be%20nothing%20new%20(1)%3A%20Compare%20Ecclesiastes%201.9,new%20thing%20under%20the%20sun.%22
Ecclesiastes 1.9: "The thing that hath been is that which shall be; and that which hath been done is that which shall be done; and there is no new thing under the sun."

To which the scientist (note small “s”) would like to assert “the language of mechanics is not English; speaking it is a new practice available to people to participate in”.

But let Shakespeare have the last word:

If there be nothing new, but that which is
Hath been before, how are our brains beguil'd,
Which, labouring for invention, bear amiss
The second burthen of a former child!
O, that record could with a backward look,
Even of five hundred courses of the sun,
Show me your image in some antique book,
Since mind at first in character was done!
That I might see what the old world could say
To this composed wonder of your frame;
Whether we are mended, or whe'r better they,
Or whether revolution be the same.
O! sure I am, the wits of former days
To subjects worse have given admiring praise.

Eric

On May 9, 2021, at 11:36 AM, Prof David West <[hidden email]> wrote:

The ball accelerated is clearly a metaphor as it implies that the ball is doing a specific thing, that the ball has behavior and probably volition. This is clearly not what you literally mean.

davew

On Sat, May 8, 2021, at 4:57 PM, Frank Wimberly wrote:
"The ball accelerated at approximately 32 feet per second squared at sea level in a vacuum."

doesn't seem to be a metaphor to me.

---
Frank C. Wimberly
140 Calle Ojo Feliz,
Santa Fe, NM 87505

505 670-9918
Santa Fe, NM

On Sat, May 8, 2021, 3:07 PM <[hidden email]> wrote:
Listen, Fella!

It’s metaphors all the way down!

[shoe thrown]

n

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

From: Friam <[hidden email]> On Behalf Of Gary Schiltz
Sent: Saturday, May 8, 2021 1:36 PM
To: The Friday Morning Applied Complexity Coffee Group <[hidden email]>
Subject: Re: [FRIAM] Morphogenisis

First of all, it's just a metaphor (ducking, the shoe barely missing my head) :-)

Second of all, that description of animal development sure sounds to me like "following a script".

On Sat, May 8, 2021 at 2:23 PM <[hidden email]> wrote:
This struck me:

When animals develop, they don’t follow a script. Instead, responding to their environment, the cells negotiate and feel their way toward a final form. A fertilized egg divides, and divides again, creating a hollow ball of cells called a blastula; genes instruct these cells to release chemicals, and other cells, reacting to those chemical concentrations, decide to migrate elsewhere or to develop into specific types of tissue. Other influences—oxygen, nutrients, hormones, sometimes toxins—further shape gestation. https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2021/05/10/persuading-the-body-to-regenerate-its-limbs?utm_source=nl&utm_brand=tny&utm_mailing=TNY_Daily_050821&utm_campaign=aud-dev&utm_medium=email&bxid=5bd678d924c17c104801f684&cndid=40835928&hasha=1dc6f15a30be2d4712fae5f0e5a9a679&hashb=5e4befc88214fadc869224d7cb34d55f51451bc7&hashc=0c6ef6b7bc8221288e1f4a4ca0116d78a21ebdbe47949488640c7c54c93120fb&esrc=AUTO_PRINT&utm_term=TNY_Daily

First, note the reliance on psychological terms. This is the sort of passage that would stimulate my teasing Hywel with, “So you see, Hywel, psychology really IS the mother of all sciences.” And don’t any of you DARE to come back at me with, “It’s just a metaphor.”

Second, which of these two models encapsulates more closely what you wizards mean by computation. Is carrying out an algorithm more like “computation” or is “building a limb”? Is a salamander’s limb “computed”? If so, who computes it, or is that a violation of the language of computation. I know. Fools rush in where wise men fear to tread.

Your loyal fool,

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

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thompnickson2

Re: Morphogenisis

Oh, Gosh. I am once again being dope=slapped by my totalizing language. Please forgive. It is the baby brother clamoring for attention. Better you got to me before Glen did, with his “scalesome, flailsome tail”.

Would I have done better by my thoughts had I written, “Metaphors are more fundamental to scientific discourse than many suppose, and certainly do not deserve the contempt that these many accord them”?

Nick Thompson

[hidden email]

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

From: Friam <[hidden email]> On Behalf Of David Eric Smith
Sent: Saturday, May 8, 2021 10:47 PM
To: The Friday Morning Applied Complexity Coffee Group <[hidden email]>
Subject: Re: [FRIAM] Morphogenisis

My motto is one I have heard Glen espouse, though I have my own formulation:

“Some things in moderation.”

My impulse — dull and tedious like much I do — is to lampoon metaphors as a philosophical system to try to get at what I object to. So:

English descriptions of mechanics aren’t really a new language; they are English, hence metaphors.

But if so:

English isn’t really “a” language (indefinite article implying distinctness); it’s just a metaphorical use of porto-West Germanic. So is German.

But porto-West Germanic wasn’t really “a” language either; it was a metaphorical use of proto-Indo European;

A metaphorical use of proto-Nostratic

A metaphorical use of porto-Sapiens

Of what….?

The System requires absurdity.

For scientific language and practice, I am almost interested enough in this question to try to put a little work into it.

One thing I don’t want to pass over, because it is too important and too good:

Do [you] regard your affection for poetry as a sinful indulgence or do you regard it (as I would) as an essential feature of your scientific imagination.

Neither in the primary role.

Best,

Eric

On May 9, 2021, at 1:02 PM, <[hidden email]> <[hidden email]> wrote:

EricS,

I hope I am not the metaphor Nazi; I certainly don’t want to be him.   I certainly don’t want to execute anybody for using metaphors. On the contrary. Rather my point is that they are essential to good thought and that many scientists who voice contempt for metaphors use them regularly all the time in ways that are essential to their work. The Pragmatic value of recognizing that we are using metaphors is that such a recognition leads to a discussion of whether we are using them well. All metaphors, be it good ones or bad ones, import “surplus meaning” into the terms of use, and this surplus meaning can affect scientific thinking for good or ill depending on whether we acknowledge it and systematically explore its implications. Surplus meaning is often the wet edge of discovery but some times the hidden assumption that keeps us from seeing the plain facts before us. The clearest example of this is the metaphor of natural selection in which Darwin imagined that nature is like a giant pigeon coop. This metaphor contain contains an infinity of useful implications and a few that are down right poisonous. It’s important to know which are which. I think Frank’s example of gravity is perhaps another great example. Isn’t it one of Einstein’s greatest insights that the metaphor of attraction implicit in “gravity”, which arose from experiments with primitive magnets in Newton’s time, is not as useful in many instances as the metaphor that massive objects warp the space around them. So, one of Einstein’s great contributions to physics is that he introduced a new metaphor? Do I have that wrong?

Do regard your affection for poetry as a sinful indulgence or do you regard it (as I would) as an essential feature of your scientific imagination.

I don’t know why it is that moving house seems to free me up to think about everything but moving house. One is not allowed parting shots in parliamentary debate, and I probably shouldn’t be taking them here.

Nick

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

From: Friam <[hidden email]> On Behalf Of David Eric Smith
Sent: Saturday, May 8, 2021 9:13 PM
To: The Friday Morning Applied Complexity Coffee Group <[hidden email]>
Subject: Re: [FRIAM] Morphogenisis

English has two categories of verbs: intransitive and transitive.

If you use an intransitive verb — “yet it moves” — the Metaphor Nazi will catch you coming: claiming you are representing volition.

If you use a transitive verb — “it is moved by gravity” — the Metaphor Nazi will catch you going: claiming an agent/patient relation, where the agent is probably (metaphorically) God (!), or whatever God is a metaphor for.

And we have from Ecclesiastes (the verse in praise of the Metaphor Nazi):
http://www.shakespeare-online.com/sonnets/59.html#:~:text=If%20there%20be%20nothing%20new%20(1)%3A%20Compare%20Ecclesiastes%201.9,new%20thing%20under%20the%20sun.%22
Ecclesiastes 1.9: "The thing that hath been is that which shall be; and that which hath been done is that which shall be done; and there is no new thing under the sun."

To which the scientist (note small “s”) would like to assert “the language of mechanics is not English; speaking it is a new practice available to people to participate in”.

But let Shakespeare have the last word:

If there be nothing new, but that which is
Hath been before, how are our brains beguil'd,
Which, labouring for invention, bear amiss
The second burthen of a former child!
O, that record could with a backward look,
Even of five hundred courses of the sun,
Show me your image in some antique book,
Since mind at first in character was done!
That I might see what the old world could say
To this composed wonder of your frame;
Whether we are mended, or whe'r better they,
Or whether revolution be the same.
O! sure I am, the wits of former days
To subjects worse have given admiring praise.

Eric

On May 9, 2021, at 11:36 AM, Prof David West <[hidden email]> wrote:

The ball accelerated is clearly a metaphor as it implies that the ball is doing a specific thing, that the ball has behavior and probably volition. This is clearly not what you literally mean.

davew

On Sat, May 8, 2021, at 4:57 PM, Frank Wimberly wrote:
"The ball accelerated at approximately 32 feet per second squared at sea level in a vacuum."

doesn't seem to be a metaphor to me.

---
Frank C. Wimberly
140 Calle Ojo Feliz,
Santa Fe, NM 87505

505 670-9918
Santa Fe, NM

On Sat, May 8, 2021, 3:07 PM <[hidden email]> wrote:
Listen, Fella!

It’s metaphors all the way down!

[shoe thrown]

n

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

From: Friam <[hidden email]> On Behalf Of Gary Schiltz
Sent: Saturday, May 8, 2021 1:36 PM
To: The Friday Morning Applied Complexity Coffee Group <[hidden email]>
Subject: Re: [FRIAM] Morphogenisis

First of all, it's just a metaphor (ducking, the shoe barely missing my head) :-)

Second of all, that description of animal development sure sounds to me like "following a script".

On Sat, May 8, 2021 at 2:23 PM <[hidden email]> wrote:
This struck me:

When animals develop, they don’t follow a script. Instead, responding to their environment, the cells negotiate and feel their way toward a final form. A fertilized egg divides, and divides again, creating a hollow ball of cells called a blastula; genes instruct these cells to release chemicals, and other cells, reacting to those chemical concentrations, decide to migrate elsewhere or to develop into specific types of tissue. Other influences—oxygen, nutrients, hormones, sometimes toxins—further shape gestation. https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2021/05/10/persuading-the-body-to-regenerate-its-limbs?utm_source=nl&utm_brand=tny&utm_mailing=TNY_Daily_050821&utm_campaign=aud-dev&utm_medium=email&bxid=5bd678d924c17c104801f684&cndid=40835928&hasha=1dc6f15a30be2d4712fae5f0e5a9a679&hashb=5e4befc88214fadc869224d7cb34d55f51451bc7&hashc=0c6ef6b7bc8221288e1f4a4ca0116d78a21ebdbe47949488640c7c54c93120fb&esrc=AUTO_PRINT&utm_term=TNY_Daily

First, note the reliance on psychological terms. This is the sort of passage that would stimulate my teasing Hywel with, “So you see, Hywel, psychology really IS the mother of all sciences.” And don’t any of you DARE to come back at me with, “It’s just a metaphor.”

Second, which of these two models encapsulates more closely what you wizards mean by computation. Is carrying out an algorithm more like “computation” or is “building a limb”? Is a salamander’s limb “computed”? If so, who computes it, or is that a violation of the language of computation. I know. Fools rush in where wise men fear to tread.

Your loyal fool,

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

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thompnickson2

Re: Morphogenisis

In reply to this post by Steve Smith

Steve,

Please have a look at the “Misappropriation of Teleonomy”. You might find it useful in distinguishing teleonomy from teleology. Or not.

Nick Thompson

[hidden email]

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

From: Friam <[hidden email]> On Behalf Of Steve Smith
Sent: Saturday, May 8, 2021 9:21 PM
To: [hidden email]
Subject: Re: [FRIAM] Morphogenisis

Stellar Eric!

Two observations:

I recently learned the term "Teleonomic" which I really like as an alternative to "Telelogical" in many cases.

And what of the difference between "Light follows a shortest-time path through space" and "Light IS the shortest time path through space"?

Both of the latter may be wrong, but they are qualitatively different in an interesting way, no?

- Steve

On 5/8/21 9:13 PM, David Eric Smith wrote:

English has two categories of verbs: intransitive and transitive.

If you use an intransitive verb — “yet it moves” — the Metaphor Nazi will catch you coming: claiming you are representing volition.

If you use a transitive verb — “it is moved by gravity” — the Metaphor Nazi will catch you going: claiming an agent/patient relation, where the agent is probably (metaphorically) God (!), or whatever God is a metaphor for.

And we have from Ecclesiastes (the verse in praise of the Metaphor Nazi):
<a href="http://www.shakespeare-online.com/sonnets/59.html#:~:text=If there be nothing new (1): Compare Ecclesiastes 1.9,new thing under the sun."">http://www.shakespeare-online.com/sonnets/59.html#:~:text=If%20there%20be%20nothing%20new%20(1)%3A%20Compare%20Ecclesiastes%201.9,new%20thing%20under%20the%20sun.%22
Ecclesiastes 1.9: "The thing that hath been is that which shall be; and that which hath been done is that which shall be done; and there is no new thing under the sun."

To which the scientist (note small “s”) would like to assert “the language of mechanics is not English; speaking it is a new practice available to people to participate in”.

But let Shakespeare have the last word:

If there be nothing new, but that which is
Hath been before, how are our brains beguil'd,
Which, labouring for invention, bear amiss
The second burthen of a former child!
O, that record could with a backward look,
Even of five hundred courses of the sun,
Show me your image in some antique book,
Since mind at first in character was done!
That I might see what the old world could say
To this composed wonder of your frame;
Whether we are mended, or whe'r better they,
Or whether revolution be the same.
O! sure I am, the wits of former days
To subjects worse have given admiring praise.

Eric

On May 9, 2021, at 11:36 AM, Prof David West <[hidden email]> wrote:

The ball accelerated is clearly a metaphor as it implies that the ball is doing a specific thing, that the ball has behavior and probably volition. This is clearly not what you literally mean.

davew

On Sat, May 8, 2021, at 4:57 PM, Frank Wimberly wrote:
"The ball accelerated at approximately 32 feet per second squared at sea level in a vacuum."

doesn't seem to be a metaphor to me.

---
Frank C. Wimberly
140 Calle Ojo Feliz,
Santa Fe, NM 87505

505 670-9918
Santa Fe, NM

On Sat, May 8, 2021, 3:07 PM <[hidden email]> wrote:
Listen, Fella!

It’s metaphors all the way down!

[shoe thrown]

n

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

From: Friam <[hidden email]> On Behalf Of Gary Schiltz
Sent: Saturday, May 8, 2021 1:36 PM
To: The Friday Morning Applied Complexity Coffee Group <[hidden email]>
Subject: Re: [FRIAM] Morphogenisis

First of all, it's just a metaphor (ducking, the shoe barely missing my head) :-)

Second of all, that description of animal development sure sounds to me like "following a script".

On Sat, May 8, 2021 at 2:23 PM <[hidden email]> wrote:
This struck me:

When animals develop, they don’t follow a script. Instead, responding to their environment, the cells negotiate and feel their way toward a final form. A fertilized egg divides, and divides again, creating a hollow ball of cells called a blastula; genes instruct these cells to release chemicals, and other cells, reacting to those chemical concentrations, decide to migrate elsewhere or to develop into specific types of tissue. Other influences—oxygen, nutrients, hormones, sometimes toxins—further shape gestation. https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2021/05/10/persuading-the-body-to-regenerate-its-limbs?utm_source=nl&utm_brand=tny&utm_mailing=TNY_Daily_050821&utm_campaign=aud-dev&utm_medium=email&bxid=5bd678d924c17c104801f684&cndid=40835928&hasha=1dc6f15a30be2d4712fae5f0e5a9a679&hashb=5e4befc88214fadc869224d7cb34d55f51451bc7&hashc=0c6ef6b7bc8221288e1f4a4ca0116d78a21ebdbe47949488640c7c54c93120fb&esrc=AUTO_PRINT&utm_term=TNY_Daily

First, note the reliance on psychological terms. This is the sort of passage that would stimulate my teasing Hywel with, “So you see, Hywel, psychology really IS the mother of all sciences.” And don’t any of you DARE to come back at me with, “It’s just a metaphor.”

Second, which of these two models encapsulates more closely what you wizards mean by computation. Is carrying out an algorithm more like “computation” or is “building a limb”? Is a salamander’s limb “computed”? If so, who computes it, or is that a violation of the language of computation. I know. Fools rush in where wise men fear to tread.

Your loyal fool,

Nic
Nick Thompson
[hidden email]
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David Eric Smith

Re: Morphogenisis

In reply to this post by thompnickson2

That’s a great start. I have no objection at all to your reformed sentence.

I think this will be a 12-step program.

In one of the later stages, you will have to practice writing sentences to Frank about gravitation that don’t contain “metaphor for”.

I realize I am exhausted from the last 3 days of being a pedant, and it is time to stop. So no slight that I will drop this one now. I need to work quietly and see if it is possible to feel clean again.

Eric

On May 9, 2021, at 2:24 PM, <[hidden email]> <[hidden email]> wrote:

Oh, Gosh. I am once again being dope=slapped by my totalizing language. Please forgive. It is the baby brother clamoring for attention. Better you got to me before Glen did, with his “scalesome, flailsome tail”.

Would I have done better by my thoughts had I written, “Metaphors are more fundamental to scientific discourse than many suppose, and certainly do not deserve the contempt that these many accord them”?

n

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

From: Friam <[hidden email]> On Behalf Of David Eric Smith
Sent: Saturday, May 8, 2021 10:47 PM
To: The Friday Morning Applied Complexity Coffee Group <[hidden email]>
Subject: Re: [FRIAM] Morphogenisis

All you have below, Nick, is both sound and interesting, and at least to the level of a point of view, a position I share. (I won’t take positions on what was important in this or that bit of history of scientific thourght, including endorsing the versions you give below, where I have not studied.)

My motto is one I have heard Glen espouse, though I have my own formulation:

“Some things in moderation.”

I heard Frank, on this occasion as on indefinitely many before it — FRIAM really is like Nietzche’s eternal recurrence in some ways — pushing back against the assertion “Everything is metaphor, and you don’t get to say otherwise”. So no, you don’t execute people for using metaphors; you forbid them any claim that they are ever doing anything else (or that is how I read many of the emails).

To elevate metaphors to a totalizing (or totalitarian) philosophical system, into which everything has to be crammed by a kind of scholastic debate, is I think only possible if you forbid that anything can ever be its own, new, self. I think that is probably a mistake. I don’t know if you believe you are doing it, or whether you are doing it. I make whatever I can of the words that come across the screen, and accept responsibility for errors.

My impulse — dull and tedious like much I do — is to lampoon metaphors as a philosophical system to try to get at what I object to. So:

English descriptions of mechanics aren’t really a new language; they are English, hence metaphors.
But if so:
English isn’t really “a” language (indefinite article implying distinctness); it’s just a metaphorical use of porto-West Germanic. So is German.
But porto-West Germanic wasn’t really “a” language either; it was a metaphorical use of proto-Indo European;
A metaphorical use of proto-Nostratic
A metaphorical use of porto-Sapiens
Of what….?

The System requires absurdity.

So alongside the question of What is Not New that guides the analysis of (monomania for?) metaphor, I want to put the other question How can something “be” new? And how do new things come into being? When a thing actually is new, I would like to allow myself to recognize that.

For scientific language and practice, I am almost interested enough in this question to try to put a little work into it.

One thing I don’t want to pass over, because it is too important and too good:

Do [you] regard your affection for poetry as a sinful indulgence or do you regard it (as I would) as an essential feature of your scientific imagination.

Neither in the primary role.

It’s appreciating being alive, and realizing that with life and literacy, I have open to me the joy of experiencing insights and creations of beauty from across time, place, circumstance, and identity. Each mode, in its own name, has a place, not a servant of anything else.

Best,

Eric

On May 9, 2021, at 1:02 PM, <[hidden email]> <[hidden email]> wrote:

EricS,

I hope I am not the metaphor Nazi; I certainly don’t want to be him.   I certainly don’t want to execute anybody for using metaphors. On the contrary. Rather my point is that they are essential to good thought and that many scientists who voice contempt for metaphors use them regularly all the time in ways that are essential to their work. The Pragmatic value of recognizing that we are using metaphors is that such a recognition leads to a discussion of whether we are using them well. All metaphors, be it good ones or bad ones, import “surplus meaning” into the terms of use, and this surplus meaning can affect scientific thinking for good or ill depending on whether we acknowledge it and systematically explore its implications. Surplus meaning is often the wet edge of discovery but some times the hidden assumption that keeps us from seeing the plain facts before us. The clearest example of this is the metaphor of natural selection in which Darwin imagined that nature is like a giant pigeon coop. This metaphor contain contains an infinity of useful implications and a few that are down right poisonous. It’s important to know which are which. I think Frank’s example of gravity is perhaps another great example. Isn’t it one of Einstein’s greatest insights that the metaphor of attraction implicit in “gravity”, which arose from experiments with primitive magnets in Newton’s time, is not as useful in many instances as the metaphor that massive objects warp the space around them. So, one of Einstein’s great contributions to physics is that he introduced a new metaphor? Do I have that wrong?

Do regard your affection for poetry as a sinful indulgence or do you regard it (as I would) as an essential feature of your scientific imagination.

I don’t know why it is that moving house seems to free me up to think about everything but moving house. One is not allowed parting shots in parliamentary debate, and I probably shouldn’t be taking them here.

Nick

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

From: Friam <[hidden email]> On Behalf Of David Eric Smith
Sent: Saturday, May 8, 2021 9:13 PM
To: The Friday Morning Applied Complexity Coffee Group <[hidden email]>
Subject: Re: [FRIAM] Morphogenisis

English has two categories of verbs: intransitive and transitive.

If you use an intransitive verb — “yet it moves” — the Metaphor Nazi will catch you coming: claiming you are representing volition.

If you use a transitive verb — “it is moved by gravity” — the Metaphor Nazi will catch you going: claiming an agent/patient relation, where the agent is probably (metaphorically) God (!), or whatever God is a metaphor for.

And we have from Ecclesiastes (the verse in praise of the Metaphor Nazi):
http://www.shakespeare-online.com/sonnets/59.html#:~:text=If%20there%20be%20nothing%20new%20(1)%3A%20Compare%20Ecclesiastes%201.9,new%20thing%20under%20the%20sun.%22
Ecclesiastes 1.9: "The thing that hath been is that which shall be; and that which hath been done is that which shall be done; and there is no new thing under the sun."

To which the scientist (note small “s”) would like to assert “the language of mechanics is not English; speaking it is a new practice available to people to participate in”.

But let Shakespeare have the last word:

If there be nothing new, but that which is
Hath been before, how are our brains beguil'd,
Which, labouring for invention, bear amiss
The second burthen of a former child!
O, that record could with a backward look,
Even of five hundred courses of the sun,
Show me your image in some antique book,
Since mind at first in character was done!
That I might see what the old world could say
To this composed wonder of your frame;
Whether we are mended, or whe'r better they,
Or whether revolution be the same.
O! sure I am, the wits of former days
To subjects worse have given admiring praise.

Eric

On May 9, 2021, at 11:36 AM, Prof David West <[hidden email]> wrote:

The ball accelerated is clearly a metaphor as it implies that the ball is doing a specific thing, that the ball has behavior and probably volition. This is clearly not what you literally mean.

davew

On Sat, May 8, 2021, at 4:57 PM, Frank Wimberly wrote:
"The ball accelerated at approximately 32 feet per second squared at sea level in a vacuum."

doesn't seem to be a metaphor to me.

---
Frank C. Wimberly
140 Calle Ojo Feliz,
Santa Fe, NM 87505

505 670-9918
Santa Fe, NM

On Sat, May 8, 2021, 3:07 PM <[hidden email]> wrote:
Listen, Fella!

It’s metaphors all the way down!

[shoe thrown]

n

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

From: Friam <[hidden email]> On Behalf Of Gary Schiltz
Sent: Saturday, May 8, 2021 1:36 PM
To: The Friday Morning Applied Complexity Coffee Group <[hidden email]>
Subject: Re: [FRIAM] Morphogenisis

First of all, it's just a metaphor (ducking, the shoe barely missing my head) :-)

Second of all, that description of animal development sure sounds to me like "following a script".

On Sat, May 8, 2021 at 2:23 PM <[hidden email]> wrote:
This struck me:

When animals develop, they don’t follow a script. Instead, responding to their environment, the cells negotiate and feel their way toward a final form. A fertilized egg divides, and divides again, creating a hollow ball of cells called a blastula; genes instruct these cells to release chemicals, and other cells, reacting to those chemical concentrations, decide to migrate elsewhere or to develop into specific types of tissue. Other influences—oxygen, nutrients, hormones, sometimes toxins—further shape gestation. https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2021/05/10/persuading-the-body-to-regenerate-its-limbs?utm_source=nl&utm_brand=tny&utm_mailing=TNY_Daily_050821&utm_campaign=aud-dev&utm_medium=email&bxid=5bd678d924c17c104801f684&cndid=40835928&hasha=1dc6f15a30be2d4712fae5f0e5a9a679&hashb=5e4befc88214fadc869224d7cb34d55f51451bc7&hashc=0c6ef6b7bc8221288e1f4a4ca0116d78a21ebdbe47949488640c7c54c93120fb&esrc=AUTO_PRINT&utm_term=TNY_Daily

First, note the reliance on psychological terms. This is the sort of passage that would stimulate my teasing Hywel with, “So you see, Hywel, psychology really IS the mother of all sciences.” And don’t any of you DARE to come back at me with, “It’s just a metaphor.”

Second, which of these two models encapsulates more closely what you wizards mean by computation. Is carrying out an algorithm more like “computation” or is “building a limb”? Is a salamander’s limb “computed”? If so, who computes it, or is that a violation of the language of computation. I know. Fools rush in where wise men fear to tread.

Your loyal fool,

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

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jon zingale

Re: Morphogenisis

In reply to this post by thompnickson2

"""
Is carrying out an algorithm more like “computation” or is “building a
limb”? Is a salamander’s limb “computed”? If so, who computes it, or is
that a violation of the language of computation.
"""

From the summary of Chemero's "Radical Embodied Cognitive Science":

"""
Radical embodied cognitive science is a direct descendant of the American
naturalist psychology of William James and John Dewey, and follows them in
viewing perception and cognition to be understandable only in terms of
action in the environment. Chemero argues that cognition should be described
in terms of agent-environment dynamics rather than in terms of computation
and representation. After outlining this orientation to cognition, Chemero
proposes a methodology: dynamical systems theory, which would explain things
dynamically and without reference to representation. He also advances a
background theory: Gibsonian ecological psychology, “shored up” and
clarified.
"""

Which I find helpful to juxtapose against Valiant's "Probably Approximately
Correct":

"""
The assertion that the Halting Problem was not computable by any Turing
machine was identified with the claim that it was not computable by any
conceivable mechanical procedure...Extensive efforts at finding models that
have greater power than Turing machines, but still correspond to what one
would instinctively regard as mechanical processes, have all failed.
Therefore there is now overwhelming historical evidence that Turing's notion
of computability is highly robust to variation in definition. This has
placed Turing computability among the most securely established theories
known to science.
"""

Two steps in Turing's process I find worth highlighting are:

1. Abstraction of features of particular machines to the general.

2. Discovery of a limiting set of robust properties of generalized machines
such that these properties could be identified universally in any
sufficiently capable mechanical process.

In part, I mention the question of universality because (here in the still
hours of a sleepless night) I cannot help but feel that metaphors often
attempt to point to universals[1].

While I am never really sure that I get non-computation in the sense of
Chemero, chatting with EricC about Gibson makes me feel like I can almost
see it. Where Valiant emphasizes in computation that which is universal to
anything we can sensibly call mechanics, Chemero and others place the
universality squarely on the side of representation, or in some extreme
cases of nominalism, rejecting the universality altogether.

From another perspective, a difference between these two points of view
relates to the question of agency. In Valiant's description, one doesn't
seem to care *what is doing the computation* as much as that a mechanical
procedure is executed at all. Alternatively, Chemero is concerned with
subjectivity. For him, there are well-defined agents and they have
environments. As far as I can read, each disagrees terminologically on
whether agent-based models compute. While Valiant is comfortable calling
what these agents do in their environment a computation, Chemero is not.

[1] Nick, regarding universals, while I have heard you denounce the
stability of a universal, like beauty, what is your bet on computation?

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Roger Critchlow-2

Re: Morphogenisis

This is sort of fun https://eukaryotewritesblog.com/2021/05/02/theres-no-such-thing-as-a-tree/, just in case you thought the categories of "tree" and "wood" had any coherent biological or evolutionary meaning.

-- rec --

jon zingale

Re: Morphogenisis

Wonderful read, thanks for that. I like the question, "Why do trees keep
happening?" It is almost as if *regions* of our environment keep *learning*
to become trees.

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thompnickson2

Re: Morphogenisis

In reply to this post by David Eric Smith

Ok, but, at some time I want to have a conversation with you about what principle, other than politeness, dictates that a clear and forthright assertion of a belief is better than a vague and qualified one. As you see, for me it is a 4 step program, and I am still at denial. Take care. I leave for MA in ten days and with any luck, you won’t hear from me for a while after that.

Enjoy your rest,

Nick

Nick Thompson

[hidden email]

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

From: Friam <[hidden email]> On Behalf Of David Eric Smith
Sent: Sunday, May 9, 2021 12:30 AM
To: The Friday Morning Applied Complexity Coffee Group <[hidden email]>
Subject: Re: [FRIAM] Morphogenisis

That’s a great start. I have no objection at all to your reformed sentence.

I think this will be a 12-step program.

In one of the later stages, you will have to practice writing sentences to Frank about gravitation that don’t contain “metaphor for”.

Eric

On May 9, 2021, at 2:24 PM, <[hidden email]> <[hidden email]> wrote:

Oh, Gosh. I am once again being dope=slapped by my totalizing language. Please forgive. It is the baby brother clamoring for attention. Better you got to me before Glen did, with his “scalesome, flailsome tail”.

Would I have done better by my thoughts had I written, “Metaphors are more fundamental to scientific discourse than many suppose, and certainly do not deserve the contempt that these many accord them”?

n

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

From: Friam <[hidden email]> On Behalf Of David Eric Smith
Sent: Saturday, May 8, 2021 10:47 PM
To: The Friday Morning Applied Complexity Coffee Group <[hidden email]>
Subject: Re: [FRIAM] Morphogenisis

All you have below, Nick, is both sound and interesting, and at least to the level of a point of view, a position I share. (I won’t take positions on what was important in this or that bit of history of scientific thourght, including endorsing the versions you give below, where I have not studied.)

My motto is one I have heard Glen espouse, though I have my own formulation:

“Some things in moderation.”

I heard Frank, on this occasion as on indefinitely many before it — FRIAM really is like Nietzche’s eternal recurrence in some ways — pushing back against the assertion “Everything is metaphor, and you don’t get to say otherwise”. So no, you don’t execute people for using metaphors; you forbid them any claim that they are ever doing anything else (or that is how I read many of the emails).

To elevate metaphors to a totalizing (or totalitarian) philosophical system, into which everything has to be crammed by a kind of scholastic debate, is I think only possible if you forbid that anything can ever be its own, new, self. I think that is probably a mistake. I don’t know if you believe you are doing it, or whether you are doing it. I make whatever I can of the words that come across the screen, and accept responsibility for errors.

My impulse — dull and tedious like much I do — is to lampoon metaphors as a philosophical system to try to get at what I object to. So:

English descriptions of mechanics aren’t really a new language; they are English, hence metaphors.
But if so:
English isn’t really “a” language (indefinite article implying distinctness); it’s just a metaphorical use of porto-West Germanic. So is German.
But porto-West Germanic wasn’t really “a” language either; it was a metaphorical use of proto-Indo European;
A metaphorical use of proto-Nostratic
A metaphorical use of porto-Sapiens
Of what….?

The System requires absurdity.

So alongside the question of What is Not New that guides the analysis of (monomania for?) metaphor, I want to put the other question How can something “be” new? And how do new things come into being? When a thing actually is new, I would like to allow myself to recognize that.

For scientific language and practice, I am almost interested enough in this question to try to put a little work into it.

One thing I don’t want to pass over, because it is too important and too good:

Do [you] regard your affection for poetry as a sinful indulgence or do you regard it (as I would) as an essential feature of your scientific imagination.

Neither in the primary role.

It’s appreciating being alive, and realizing that with life and literacy, I have open to me the joy of experiencing insights and creations of beauty from across time, place, circumstance, and identity. Each mode, in its own name, has a place, not a servant of anything else.

Best,

Eric

On May 9, 2021, at 1:02 PM, <[hidden email]> <[hidden email]> wrote:

EricS,

I hope I am not the metaphor Nazi; I certainly don’t want to be him.   I certainly don’t want to execute anybody for using metaphors. On the contrary. Rather my point is that they are essential to good thought and that many scientists who voice contempt for metaphors use them regularly all the time in ways that are essential to their work. The Pragmatic value of recognizing that we are using metaphors is that such a recognition leads to a discussion of whether we are using them well. All metaphors, be it good ones or bad ones, import “surplus meaning” into the terms of use, and this surplus meaning can affect scientific thinking for good or ill depending on whether we acknowledge it and systematically explore its implications. Surplus meaning is often the wet edge of discovery but some times the hidden assumption that keeps us from seeing the plain facts before us. The clearest example of this is the metaphor of natural selection in which Darwin imagined that nature is like a giant pigeon coop. This metaphor contain contains an infinity of useful implications and a few that are down right poisonous. It’s important to know which are which. I think Frank’s example of gravity is perhaps another great example. Isn’t it one of Einstein’s greatest insights that the metaphor of attraction implicit in “gravity”, which arose from experiments with primitive magnets in Newton’s time, is not as useful in many instances as the metaphor that massive objects warp the space around them. So, one of Einstein’s great contributions to physics is that he introduced a new metaphor? Do I have that wrong?

Do regard your affection for poetry as a sinful indulgence or do you regard it (as I would) as an essential feature of your scientific imagination.

I don’t know why it is that moving house seems to free me up to think about everything but moving house. One is not allowed parting shots in parliamentary debate, and I probably shouldn’t be taking them here.

Nick

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

From: Friam <[hidden email]> On Behalf Of David Eric Smith
Sent: Saturday, May 8, 2021 9:13 PM
To: The Friday Morning Applied Complexity Coffee Group <[hidden email]>
Subject: Re: [FRIAM] Morphogenisis

English has two categories of verbs: intransitive and transitive.

If you use an intransitive verb — “yet it moves” — the Metaphor Nazi will catch you coming: claiming you are representing volition.

If you use a transitive verb — “it is moved by gravity” — the Metaphor Nazi will catch you going: claiming an agent/patient relation, where the agent is probably (metaphorically) God (!), or whatever God is a metaphor for.

And we have from Ecclesiastes (the verse in praise of the Metaphor Nazi):
http://www.shakespeare-online.com/sonnets/59.html#:~:text=If%20there%20be%20nothing%20new%20(1)%3A%20Compare%20Ecclesiastes%201.9,new%20thing%20under%20the%20sun.%22
Ecclesiastes 1.9: "The thing that hath been is that which shall be; and that which hath been done is that which shall be done; and there is no new thing under the sun."

To which the scientist (note small “s”) would like to assert “the language of mechanics is not English; speaking it is a new practice available to people to participate in”.

But let Shakespeare have the last word:

If there be nothing new, but that which is
Hath been before, how are our brains beguil'd,
Which, labouring for invention, bear amiss
The second burthen of a former child!
O, that record could with a backward look,
Even of five hundred courses of the sun,
Show me your image in some antique book,
Since mind at first in character was done!
That I might see what the old world could say
To this composed wonder of your frame;
Whether we are mended, or whe'r better they,
Or whether revolution be the same.
O! sure I am, the wits of former days
To subjects worse have given admiring praise.

Eric

On May 9, 2021, at 11:36 AM, Prof David West <[hidden email]> wrote:

The ball accelerated is clearly a metaphor as it implies that the ball is doing a specific thing, that the ball has behavior and probably volition. This is clearly not what you literally mean.

davew

On Sat, May 8, 2021, at 4:57 PM, Frank Wimberly wrote:
"The ball accelerated at approximately 32 feet per second squared at sea level in a vacuum."

doesn't seem to be a metaphor to me.

---
Frank C. Wimberly
140 Calle Ojo Feliz,
Santa Fe, NM 87505

505 670-9918
Santa Fe, NM

On Sat, May 8, 2021, 3:07 PM <[hidden email]> wrote:
Listen, Fella!

It’s metaphors all the way down!

[shoe thrown]

n

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

From: Friam <[hidden email]> On Behalf Of Gary Schiltz
Sent: Saturday, May 8, 2021 1:36 PM
To: The Friday Morning Applied Complexity Coffee Group <[hidden email]>
Subject: Re: [FRIAM] Morphogenisis

First of all, it's just a metaphor (ducking, the shoe barely missing my head) :-)

Second of all, that description of animal development sure sounds to me like "following a script".

On Sat, May 8, 2021 at 2:23 PM <[hidden email]> wrote:
This struck me:

When animals develop, they don’t follow a script. Instead, responding to their environment, the cells negotiate and feel their way toward a final form. A fertilized egg divides, and divides again, creating a hollow ball of cells called a blastula; genes instruct these cells to release chemicals, and other cells, reacting to those chemical concentrations, decide to migrate elsewhere or to develop into specific types of tissue. Other influences—oxygen, nutrients, hormones, sometimes toxins—further shape gestation. https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2021/05/10/persuading-the-body-to-regenerate-its-limbs?utm_source=nl&utm_brand=tny&utm_mailing=TNY_Daily_050821&utm_campaign=aud-dev&utm_medium=email&bxid=5bd678d924c17c104801f684&cndid=40835928&hasha=1dc6f15a30be2d4712fae5f0e5a9a679&hashb=5e4befc88214fadc869224d7cb34d55f51451bc7&hashc=0c6ef6b7bc8221288e1f4a4ca0116d78a21ebdbe47949488640c7c54c93120fb&esrc=AUTO_PRINT&utm_term=TNY_Daily

First, note the reliance on psychological terms. This is the sort of passage that would stimulate my teasing Hywel with, “So you see, Hywel, psychology really IS the mother of all sciences.” And don’t any of you DARE to come back at me with, “It’s just a metaphor.”

Second, which of these two models encapsulates more closely what you wizards mean by computation. Is carrying out an algorithm more like “computation” or is “building a limb”? Is a salamander’s limb “computed”? If so, who computes it, or is that a violation of the language of computation. I know. Fools rush in where wise men fear to tread.

Your loyal fool,

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

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thompnickson2

Re: Morphogenisis

In reply to this post by jon zingale

Jon,

Yours is a fascinating note and I hope it gets the attention it deserves. It is because I really have never been able to hold in my head any stable idea of what "computation" is that I keep asking questions about computation. I think of it as something like, "the creation of a sequence of instructions such that, in a certain defined context, a particular predetermined result is guaranteed." I guess I have to admit that RNA-DNA-RNA is such a set of instructions, but I get a bit hazy on who or what is doing the computing. So, the metaphor of computation invites one to invent a computer, just as the metaphor of natural selection, invites one to invent a "selector". The question for formal metaphor analysis then becomes, Can we disclaim that feature of the metaphor, in the way that we disclaim "selector" in the Darwin metaphor; and if we CAN disclaim it, do we choose to?

You inquiry about generality is easier. From a pragmatCIst point of view, generality, truth, realness, are all forms of the same aspiration. We keep referring to that aspiration in every day speech, as when the lost hikers ask one another, "Where will we sleep this night?" There certainly is a place where they will sleep, so one cannot claim that there is nothing to which the question refers. And every step they take narrows the probabilities of where that place might be. Assignment to a general is abduction; the fruit of abduction is all the deductions that the abduction affords if it is true. The "speed of light" is just where all the light-speed measurers will sleep when they have done with their wandering. And as we watch their wandering, and because we believe they are wandering in a Poisson distribution, we can guess where they are going to sleep and that number is what we call the speed of light.

To be "about to move" is for me to have an explosion of thoughts in my head because moving house (or being bereaved or divorced) is of course the only kind of death any of us actually knows, and it's as if I have to get every thought "out" before I move, because I cannot imagine thought beyond the move. In any case, I am starting to get on people's nerves.

I like that scorpion metaphor. My colleagues here are like frogs trying to swim across the river. If all they want is to get to the other side of the river, they shouldn't befriend a scorpion. But perhaps I am obligated not to accept the offer of lift?

By the way, knowing what we know about the habitats of scorpions and frogs, how on earth could a frog ever befriend a scorpion in the first place?

Nick Thompson

[hidden email]

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

-----Original Message-----
From: Friam <[hidden email]> On Behalf Of jon zingale
Sent: Sunday, May 9, 2021 4:03 AM
To: [hidden email]
Subject: Re: [FRIAM] Morphogenisis

"""

Is carrying out an algorithm more like “computation” or is “building a limb”? Is a salamander’s limb “computed”? If so, who computes it, or is that a violation of the language of computation.

"""

From the summary of Chemero's "Radical Embodied Cognitive Science":

"""

Radical embodied cognitive science is a direct descendant of the American naturalist psychology of William James and John Dewey, and follows them in viewing perception and cognition to be understandable only in terms of action in the environment. Chemero argues that cognition should be described in terms of agent-environment dynamics rather than in terms of computation and representation. After outlining this orientation to cognition, Chemero proposes a methodology: dynamical systems theory, which would explain things dynamically and without reference to representation. He also advances a background theory: Gibsonian ecological psychology, “shored up” and clarified.

"""

Which I find helpful to juxtapose against Valiant's "Probably Approximately

Correct":

"""

The assertion that the Halting Problem was not computable by any Turing machine was identified with the claim that it was not computable by any conceivable mechanical procedure...Extensive efforts at finding models that have greater power than Turing machines, but still correspond to what one would instinctively regard as mechanical processes, have all failed.

Therefore there is now overwhelming historical evidence that Turing's notion of computability is highly robust to variation in definition. This has placed Turing computability among the most securely established theories known to science.

"""

Two steps in Turing's process I find worth highlighting are:

1. Abstraction of features of particular machines to the general.

2. Discovery of a limiting set of robust properties of generalized machines such that these properties could be identified universally in any sufficiently capable mechanical process.

In part, I mention the question of universality because (here in the still hours of a sleepless night) I cannot help but feel that metaphors often attempt to point to universals[1].

While I am never really sure that I get non-computation in the sense of Chemero, chatting with EricC about Gibson makes me feel like I can almost see it. Where Valiant emphasizes in computation that which is universal to anything we can sensibly call mechanics, Chemero and others place the universality squarely on the side of representation, or in some extreme cases of nominalism, rejecting the universality altogether.

From another perspective, a difference between these two points of view relates to the question of agency. In Valiant's description, one doesn't seem to care *what is doing the computation* as much as that a mechanical procedure is executed at all. Alternatively, Chemero is concerned with subjectivity. For him, there are well-defined agents and they have environments. As far as I can read, each disagrees terminologically on whether agent-based models compute. While Valiant is comfortable calling what these agents do in their environment a computation, Chemero is not.

[1] Nick, regarding universals, while I have heard you denounce the stability of a universal, like beauty, what is your bet on computation?

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