Physicists and Philosophers Debate the Boundaries of Science | Quanta Magazine

[Nick Thompson]

Thanks, Glen,

That's an argument I hadn't heard of before.

I guess I think that observationalists wouldn't be able to find their home from a party after dark, let alone discover anything new or interesting for the rest of us.  No compasses.  No maps.

Nick



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


-----Original Message-----
From: Friam [mailto:[hidden email]] On Behalf Of glen
Sent: Monday, December 28, 2015 5:23 PM
To: The Friday Morning Applied Complexity Coffee Group <[hidden email]>
Subject: Re: [FRIAM] Physicists and Philosophers Debate the Boundaries of Science | Quanta Magazine

On 12/28/2015 03:56 PM, Nick Thompson wrote:
> “observational-ist”?!!!!  Whazzat?

I tend to think of "Doubting Thomas".  I associate it with a more specific version of empiricism, which can take either of 2 basic forms: 1) that all thought has to be grounded _immediately_ in observation or 2) that all thought has to be grounded _eventually_ in observation.  Observationalists are more DIY scientists ... they expect to be able to perform the tests themselves rather than allowing the knowledge to accrete over time.  They tend to distrust experiments that, for example, require something like the hadron collider to perform ... that is, unless they happen to have their own access to an accelerator... then they can still be relatively observationalist yet trust the results from CERN.

At least that's they way _I_ use the term.  I'm happy to be corrected.

--
⇔ glen

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[gepr]

On Dec 28, 2015 6:51 PM, "Nick Thompson" <[hidden email]> wrote:
>
> I guess I think that observationalists wouldn't be able to find their home from a party after dark, let alone discover anything new or interesting for the rest of us.  No compasses.  No maps.

Ha! Yeah, as compared to the starry eyed cult members who believe what they read in PNAS. Right?  >8^)

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[Grant Holland]

Nick,

Ok, I'll giv'er a whirl.

Don't take this as a lexical definition; but rather as my own peculiar way of choosing to understand art.

I see art as a form of communication that attempts to arouse or evoke information (e.g. imagery) from within the minds of audience members to the forefront of the minds of those members.

Generally, in this form of communication, the "audience" is expected to be human-like (in a sense that I am unprepared to define at present).

This form of communication is as opposed to "information transfer". One way to describe  the difference is that ambiguity is expected, even desired, in the former, but eschewed in the latter.

Another difference is that Shannon's theory applies to the latter but maybe not so well to the former. 

According to this view, science can be, and often is, art.

Anyway, this is the best I can do for now. I hope I have conveyed my meaning.

Grant 

Sent from my iPhone

On Dec 28, 2015, at 4:02 PM, Nick Thompson <[hidden email]> wrote:

Grant,

Aw.  Come on.  Try.  I stipulate that it’s not easy. 

N

 

Nicholas S. Thompson

Emeritus Professor of Psychology and Biology

Clark University

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

 

From: Friam [[hidden email]] On Behalf Of Grant Holland
Sent: Monday, December 28, 2015 1:22 PM
To: The Friday Morning Applied Complexity Coffee Group <[hidden email]>
Subject: Re: [FRIAM] Physicists and Philosophers Debate the Boundaries of Science | Quanta Magazine

 

Nick,

 

Some nebulous one, for sure.

 

Grant

Sent from my iPhone

On Dec 28, 2015, at 1:34 PM, Nick Thompson <[hidden email]> wrote:

Grant,

 

What is the implicit definition of “art” you are running with there?  

 

Nick

 

Nicholas S. Thompson

Emeritus Professor of Psychology and Biology

Clark University

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

 

From: Friam [[hidden email]] On Behalf Of Grant Holland
Sent: Monday, December 28, 2015 1:51 AM
To: The Friday Morning Applied Complexity Coffee Group <[hidden email]>; Owen Densmore <[hidden email]>
Subject: Re: [FRIAM] Physicists and Philosophers Debate the Boundaries of Science | Quanta Magazine

 

Mathematics already went through this "crisis of confidence" in the latter half of the 19th century when Lobachevsky and Riemann came up with alternative, non-Euclidean, geometries. The issue that forced this new look at the soul of mathematics was, I believe, the verifiability - consistency, actually - of Euclid's fifth postulate with respect to his other four. This was followed historically by the works of Dedekind and Cantor who engaged naked logic to expose a number of counter-intuitive "truths" of mathematics. The entire hoopla was addressed by Hilbert's program in an attempt to put the matter to rest for once and for all. However, the work of Russell and Whitehead to further Hilbert's program by developing arithmetic from Hilbertian foundations was eventually stymied by Godel, whose work was generalized by Turing.

The result of all of this, according to my understanding, is that mathematics ceased to see itself as a "seeker after the true nature of the universe" (as do both science (which physics thinks it owns) and philosophy even today); and began to see itself as a "constructor of logically consistent models, regardless of their verifiability". Verifiability was dropped from the program of pure abstract mathematics, and was left to the "impure" pursuits of physicists, philosophers and applied mathematicians.

I'm sure someone on this list can set straight my recollections of mathematical history. But I do hold to the point that mathematics addressed, and "kind of" resolved, its own crisis of confidence over its assumed need for verifiability about a century ago. It's conclusion? Forget verifiability and pursue pure mathematics as art - not science.

Should physics give up its similar insistence on verification (seeking "the truth") - and join the ranks as just another branch of abstract mathematics?

Grant

On 12/26/15 9:44 PM, Owen Densmore wrote:

Abs fab!

 

But amazingly, there are fantastic young grad students doing the impossible in this field .. testing at the Planck limits. Often using the universe itself to test its own theories.

 

One of my favorites is a stream of matter flowing towards a void in space which suggests "gravity on the other side" .. i.e. a multiverse lump hidden from us but not by gravity.

 

Why is there Something, not Nothing gets to be fascinating when the big bang was sparked by less than a tea-spoon of matter, or so it is thought nowadays.

 

   -- Owen

 

On Sat, Dec 26, 2015 at 8:59 PM, Tom Johnson <[hidden email]> wrote:

Something to keep you occupied until New Years Day.

https://www.quantamagazine.org/20151216-physicists-and-philosophers-debate-the-boundaries-of-science/

===================================
Tom Johnson - Inst. for Analytic Journalism
Santa Fe, NM
SPJ Region 9 Director
[hidden email]               <a href="tel:[phone]" target="_blank">505-473-9646
===================================

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[Nick Thompson]

Thanks, Grant,

 

I am still a bit confused, perhaps because I don’t really know how to play the “information” word game very well.

 

In information theory, I thought communication was defined as any change in the response probabilities of the receiver that was due to the content of the message. 

 

So the elicitation of images by a poem, WOULD be the transfer of information. 

 

Am I wrong about that?

 

I guess I am pushing this point because metaphors seem to me to be extremely important operators in science.  Take “natural selection”, for instance. 

 

Nick

 

Nicholas S. Thompson

Emeritus Professor of Psychology and Biology

Clark University

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

 

From: Friam [mailto:[hidden email]] On Behalf Of Grant Holland
Sent: Monday, December 28, 2015 8:01 PM
To: The Friday Morning Applied Complexity Coffee Group <[hidden email]>
Subject: Re: [FRIAM] Physicists and Philosophers Debate the Boundaries of Science | Quanta Magazine

 

Nick,

 

Ok, I'll giv'er a whirl.

 

Don't take this as a lexical definition; but rather as my own peculiar way of choosing to understand art.

 

I see art as a form of communication that attempts to arouse or evoke information (e.g. imagery) from within the minds of audience members to the forefront of the minds of those members.

 

Generally, in this form of communication, the "audience" is expected to be human-like (in a sense that I am unprepared to define at present).

 

This form of communication is as opposed to "information transfer". One way to describe  the difference is that ambiguity is expected, even desired, in the former, but eschewed in the latter.

 

Another difference is that Shannon's theory applies to the latter but maybe not so well to the former. 

 

According to this view, science can be, and often is, art.

 

Anyway, this is the best I can do for now. I hope I have conveyed my meaning.

 

Grant 

Sent from my iPhone

On Dec 28, 2015, at 4:02 PM, Nick Thompson <[hidden email]> wrote:

Grant,

Aw.  Come on.  Try.  I stipulate that it’s not easy. 

N

 

Nicholas S. Thompson

Emeritus Professor of Psychology and Biology

Clark University

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

 

From: Friam [[hidden email]] On Behalf Of Grant Holland
Sent: Monday, December 28, 2015 1:22 PM
To: The Friday Morning Applied Complexity Coffee Group <[hidden email]>
Subject: Re: [FRIAM] Physicists and Philosophers Debate the Boundaries of Science | Quanta Magazine

 

Nick,

 

Some nebulous one, for sure.

 

Grant

Sent from my iPhone

On Dec 28, 2015, at 1:34 PM, Nick Thompson <[hidden email]> wrote:

Grant,

 

What is the implicit definition of “art” you are running with there?  

 

Nick

 

Nicholas S. Thompson

Emeritus Professor of Psychology and Biology

Clark University

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

 

From: Friam [[hidden email]] On Behalf Of Grant Holland
Sent: Monday, December 28, 2015 1:51 AM
To: The Friday Morning Applied Complexity Coffee Group <[hidden email]>; Owen Densmore <[hidden email]>
Subject: Re: [FRIAM] Physicists and Philosophers Debate the Boundaries of Science | Quanta Magazine

 

Mathematics already went through this "crisis of confidence" in the latter half of the 19th century when Lobachevsky and Riemann came up with alternative, non-Euclidean, geometries. The issue that forced this new look at the soul of mathematics was, I believe, the verifiability - consistency, actually - of Euclid's fifth postulate with respect to his other four. This was followed historically by the works of Dedekind and Cantor who engaged naked logic to expose a number of counter-intuitive "truths" of mathematics. The entire hoopla was addressed by Hilbert's program in an attempt to put the matter to rest for once and for all. However, the work of Russell and Whitehead to further Hilbert's program by developing arithmetic from Hilbertian foundations was eventually stymied by Godel, whose work was generalized by Turing.

The result of all of this, according to my understanding, is that mathematics ceased to see itself as a "seeker after the true nature of the universe" (as do both science (which physics thinks it owns) and philosophy even today); and began to see itself as a "constructor of logically consistent models, regardless of their verifiability". Verifiability was dropped from the program of pure abstract mathematics, and was left to the "impure" pursuits of physicists, philosophers and applied mathematicians.

I'm sure someone on this list can set straight my recollections of mathematical history. But I do hold to the point that mathematics addressed, and "kind of" resolved, its own crisis of confidence over its assumed need for verifiability about a century ago. It's conclusion? Forget verifiability and pursue pure mathematics as art - not science.

Should physics give up its similar insistence on verification (seeking "the truth") - and join the ranks as just another branch of abstract mathematics?

Grant

On 12/26/15 9:44 PM, Owen Densmore wrote:

Abs fab!

 

But amazingly, there are fantastic young grad students doing the impossible in this field .. testing at the Planck limits. Often using the universe itself to test its own theories.

 

One of my favorites is a stream of matter flowing towards a void in space which suggests "gravity on the other side" .. i.e. a multiverse lump hidden from us but not by gravity.

 

Why is there Something, not Nothing gets to be fascinating when the big bang was sparked by less than a tea-spoon of matter, or so it is thought nowadays.

 

   -- Owen

 

On Sat, Dec 26, 2015 at 8:59 PM, Tom Johnson <[hidden email]> wrote:

Something to keep you occupied until New Years Day.

https://www.quantamagazine.org/20151216-physicists-and-philosophers-debate-the-boundaries-of-science/

===================================
Tom Johnson - Inst. for Analytic Journalism
Santa Fe, NM
SPJ Region 9 Director
[hidden email]               <a href="tel:[phone]" target="_blank">505-473-9646
===================================

============================================================
FRIAM Applied Complexity Group listserv
Meets Fridays 9a-11:30 at cafe at St. John's College
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[Patrick Reilly]

On thick & thin problems:

Excerpt:

I would call this a classic ‘thick’ problem, one in which an analyst needs to deal with an enormous amount of data of varying quality.  Being smart is necessary but not sufficient: you also need to know lots of  stuff.

Link:

https://westhunt.wordpress.com/2012/06/06/thick-and-thin/

----   Pat

On Tue, Dec 29, 2015 at 12:18 AM, Pamela McCorduck <[hidden email]> wrote:

Thanks, Nick, for the research on “thick” and “thin.”

On Dec 28, 2015, at 4:42 PM, Patrick Reilly <[hidden email]> wrote:

Not my terms.

On Mon, Dec 28, 2015 at 10:32 PM, Pamela McCorduck <[hidden email]> wrote:

I haven’t heard the terms “thin problems” and “thick problems.” Are these yours, Patrick? They’re wonderfully intuitive: if I hadn’t heard the terms before, I still knew what you meant. Thanks.

As for the techno-liberterians of Silicon Valley, it’s useless to remind them that they ride on a grand government investment of half a century ago, that none of them, individually, or collectively, would have made. But on this, I save my breath to cool my soup.

Pamela

On Dec 28, 2015, at 4:13 PM, Patrick Reilly <[hidden email]> wrote:

Well, the main point I have (unless Nick's psychoanalysis of my thinly submitted aggressiveness is the real story) is that I believe that there are thin problems and thick problems, and that solvers of thin problems are overly regarded in Silicon Valley culture.    

Such captains of industry think that, if they could have coded Twitter, then they know all that they need to to address any discoverable problem after a day or two's investigation.  So the referenced article on the dilemma of Physics will be a valuable reference for me in suggesting that some problems are thick problems . . . and require extensive data-gathering.

And yes, I am tired of hearing from techno-Libertarians that all political problems and privacy rights issues are easily solvable by merely limiting or hobbling government action.  Particularly when IMHO there are currently numerous private corporate entities that need to be better restrained and regulated.

---  Pat

On Mon, Dec 28, 2015 at 10:35 PM, gepr <[hidden email]> wrote:

FWIW, I'm very interested in your responses, being an ex-libertarian with both marxist and observationalist friends.

On Dec 28, 2015 1:35 PM, "Patrick Reilly" <[hidden email]> wrote:
>
> I'm mainly worried that my educational session with Nick is boring everyone else.

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[Grant Holland]

Nick,

Good question. Before I answer, lemme introduce some terminology. With respect to this discussion about "art", I admit that what I'm really getting at is my particular take on the "mythos versus logos" issue - with my notion of "art" falling on the "mythos" side.

In my notion of "art", the artist "sends a message" to an "audience" (receiver) - just like in information theory. But the difference lies is the focus of interest in what happens once the message is received by the "audience" of the art. In information theory, the focus is on whether the message is received correctly, and associated probabilities and entropies. However, in my version of "art" (or mythos), I don't start getting interested at the time that the message is recieved. In fact, I don't get interested until this received message evokes or arouses retained information (memories?) that lies within the mind of the audience. Moreover such an evocation must become the focus of the attention of the audience (message receiver) before I am willing to say that "art has happened". (And, any attention on the part of the audience on the initial received message has been dropped at this point.) Usually, that evoked information represents an embellishment by the receiver and is often much richer than the direct content of the received message itself. It is this embellishment that is the focus of interest, and intent, of the artist - even though the artist does not directly control it.

In such a situation, my interest lies more in the multiple ways that these evocations on the part of different "audiences" might be different from each other. And I am less interested in how much they are the same. So, unlike Shannon, I'm not worried that any kind of "chance variation" has occurred across multiple listeners. In fact, as an artist, I am celebrating that degree of chance variation rather than trying to reduce it - as I would be whenever I am engaging in "logos", such as when I am "doing science".

I'm simply saying that I observe such a phenomena taking place right in the middle of "artists doing art" - and it interests me. And that is what I call an "instance of art". I'm not arguing any particular point - only expressing an interest in a phenomenon that I observe.

HTH,
Grant

On 12/28/15 9:08 PM, Nick Thompson wrote:

Thanks, Grant,

 

I am still a bit confused, perhaps because I don’t really know how to play the “information” word game very well.

 

In information theory, I thought communication was defined as any change in the response probabilities of the receiver that was due to the content of the message. 

 

So the elicitation of images by a poem, WOULD be the transfer of information. 

 

Am I wrong about that?

 

I guess I am pushing this point because metaphors seem to me to be extremely important operators in science.  Take “natural selection”, for instance. 

 

Nick

 

Nicholas S. Thompson

Emeritus Professor of Psychology and Biology

Clark University

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

 

From: Friam [[hidden email]] On Behalf Of Grant Holland
Sent: Monday, December 28, 2015 8:01 PM
To: The Friday Morning Applied Complexity Coffee Group [hidden email]
Subject: Re: [FRIAM] Physicists and Philosophers Debate the Boundaries of Science | Quanta Magazine

 

Nick,

 

Ok, I'll giv'er a whirl.

 

Don't take this as a lexical definition; but rather as my own peculiar way of choosing to understand art.

 

I see art as a form of communication that attempts to arouse or evoke information (e.g. imagery) from within the minds of audience members to the forefront of the minds of those members.

 

Generally, in this form of communication, the "audience" is expected to be human-like (in a sense that I am unprepared to define at present).

 

This form of communication is as opposed to "information transfer". One way to describe  the difference is that ambiguity is expected, even desired, in the former, but eschewed in the latter.

 

Another difference is that Shannon's theory applies to the latter but maybe not so well to the former. 

 

According to this view, science can be, and often is, art.

 

Anyway, this is the best I can do for now. I hope I have conveyed my meaning.

 

Grant 

Sent from my iPhone

On Dec 28, 2015, at 4:02 PM, Nick Thompson <[hidden email]> wrote:

Grant,

Aw.  Come on.  Try.  I stipulate that it’s not easy. 

N

 

Nicholas S. Thompson

Emeritus Professor of Psychology and Biology

Clark University

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

 

From: Friam [[hidden email]] On Behalf Of Grant Holland
Sent: Monday, December 28, 2015 1:22 PM
To: The Friday Morning Applied Complexity Coffee Group <[hidden email]>
Subject: Re: [FRIAM] Physicists and Philosophers Debate the Boundaries of Science | Quanta Magazine

 

Nick,

 

Some nebulous one, for sure.

 

Grant

Sent from my iPhone

On Dec 28, 2015, at 1:34 PM, Nick Thompson <[hidden email]> wrote:

Grant,

 

What is the implicit definition of “art” you are running with there?  

 

Nick

 

Nicholas S. Thompson

Emeritus Professor of Psychology and Biology

Clark University

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

 

From: Friam [[hidden email]] On Behalf Of Grant Holland
Sent: Monday, December 28, 2015 1:51 AM
To: The Friday Morning Applied Complexity Coffee Group <[hidden email]>; Owen Densmore <[hidden email]>
Subject: Re: [FRIAM] Physicists and Philosophers Debate the Boundaries of Science | Quanta Magazine

 

Mathematics already went through this "crisis of confidence" in the latter half of the 19th century when Lobachevsky and Riemann came up with alternative, non-Euclidean, geometries. The issue that forced this new look at the soul of mathematics was, I believe, the verifiability - consistency, actually - of Euclid's fifth postulate with respect to his other four. This was followed historically by the works of Dedekind and Cantor who engaged naked logic to expose a number of counter-intuitive "truths" of mathematics. The entire hoopla was addressed by Hilbert's program in an attempt to put the matter to rest for once and for all. However, the work of Russell and Whitehead to further Hilbert's program by developing arithmetic from Hilbertian foundations was eventually stymied by Godel, whose work was generalized by Turing.

The result of all of this, according to my understanding, is that mathematics ceased to see itself as a "seeker after the true nature of the universe" (as do both science (which physics thinks it owns) and philosophy even today); and began to see itself as a "constructor of logically consistent models, regardless of their verifiability". Verifiability was dropped from the program of pure abstract mathematics, and was left to the "impure" pursuits of physicists, philosophers and applied mathematicians.

I'm sure someone on this list can set straight my recollections of mathematical history. But I do hold to the point that mathematics addressed, and "kind of" resolved, its own crisis of confidence over its assumed need for verifiability about a century ago. It's conclusion? Forget verifiability and pursue pure mathematics as art - not science.

Should physics give up its similar insistence on verification (seeking "the truth") - and join the ranks as just another branch of abstract mathematics?

Grant

On 12/26/15 9:44 PM, Owen Densmore wrote:

Abs fab!

 

But amazingly, there are fantastic young grad students doing the impossible in this field .. testing at the Planck limits. Often using the universe itself to test its own theories.

 

One of my favorites is a stream of matter flowing towards a void in space which suggests "gravity on the other side" .. i.e. a multiverse lump hidden from us but not by gravity.

 

Why is there Something, not Nothing gets to be fascinating when the big bang was sparked by less than a tea-spoon of matter, or so it is thought nowadays.

 

   -- Owen

 

On Sat, Dec 26, 2015 at 8:59 PM, Tom Johnson <[hidden email]> wrote:

Something to keep you occupied until New Years Day.

https://www.quantamagazine.org/20151216-physicists-and-philosophers-debate-the-boundaries-of-science/

===================================
Tom Johnson - Inst. for Analytic Journalism
Santa Fe, NM
SPJ Region 9 Director
[hidden email]               <a moz-do-not-send="true" href="tel:[phone]" target="_blank">505-473-9646
===================================

============================================================
FRIAM Applied Complexity Group listserv
Meets Fridays 9a-11:30 at cafe at St. John's College
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[David Eric Smith]

Right.  

I thought the point was that you can have propositions that are "true" in the sense of being consistent within the system, but not provable by constructions defined within the system.

But all this, too relies heavily on what you consider to constitute truth value for propositions (some acceptance criterion more liberal than strict constructivism).

Also, the incompleteness theorems are a particular property of the indexing of the integers, and their maps to proofs.  I believe there are no counterpart problems within the reals, because the cardinality mismatch is not the same.  A book on this that I have liked is Torkel Franzen's relatively short and pleasant survey:

http://www.amazon.com/G%C3%B6dels-Theorem-Incomplete-Guide-Abuse/dp/1568812388

If there are any here who don't like non-constructive notions of truth, there is recent work to find out how much of mathematics can be built only from constructive arguments (I think I have this right).  Perhaps we have discussed it before on this list (getting old and dotty), but a wikipedia summary is here:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Univalent_foundations

and the group's webpage is here

https://www.math.ias.edu/sp/univalent/goals

All best,

Eric

On Dec 28, 2015, at 1:33 PM, Grant Holland wrote:

Oh yes, it need not be neither. It just can't be both!

Grant

Sent from my iPhone

On Dec 28, 2015, at 3:29 PM, Grant Holland <[hidden email]> wrote:

Glen, Eric,

If "reality" is complete, must not then (assuming that it is at least as complex as arithmetic), aka Godel, it be also inconsistent?

Grant

Sent from my iPhone

On Dec 28, 2015, at 11:23 AM, glen <[hidden email]> wrote:

On 12/28/2015 06:30 AM, David Eric Smith wrote:

A language that is not even internally consistent presumably has no hope of having an empirically valid semantics, since evidently the universe "is" something, and there is no semantic notion of ambiguity of its "being/not-being" some definite thing, structurally analogous to an inconsistent language's being able to arrive at a contradiction by taking two paths to answer a single proposition.

It's not clear to me that the presumption is trustworthy.  Isn't it possible that what is (reality) does not obey some of the structure we rely on for asserting consistency (or completeness)?  In other words, perhaps reality is inconsistent.  Hence, the only language that will be valid, will be an inconsistent language.  Of course, that doesn't imply that just any old inconsistency will be tolerated.  Perhaps reality is only inconsistent in very particular ways and any language that we expect to validate must be 1) inconsistent in all those real ways and 2) in only those real ways.

Further of course, inconsistency is a bit like paradox in that, once you identify an inconsistency very precisely, you may be able to define a new language that eliminates it. ... which brings us beyond the (mere) points of higher order logics and iterative constructions, to the core idea of context-sensitive construction.  There is no Grand Unifying Anything except the imperative to approach Grand Unified Things.

And this targets Patrick's argument against the idealists (e.g. libertarians and marxists).  The only reliable ideal is the creation and commitment to ideals.  Each particular ideal is (will be) eventually destroyed.  But for whatever reason, we seem to always create and commit ourselves to ideals.  Old people tend to surrender over time and build huge hairballs of bandaged ideals all glued together with spit and bailing wire.  Any serious conversation with an old person is an attempt to navigate the topology of their iteratively constructed, stigmergic, hairball of broken ideals ... and if that old person is open-minded, such conversations lead to new kinks and tortuous folds ... which is why old people make the best story tellers.

But I can't help wondering why music is dominated by the young. [sigh]

--

--

⊥ glen ⊥

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[Frank Wimberly-2]

Hi Eric,

My undergraduate adviser wrote a book on constructive analysis.  An Amazon review is quoted below.  It seems like it wasn't so short or pleasant:

Foundations of Constructive Analysis

  A Brilliant Book

By Frank Cannonito - July 16, 2013

Amazon Verified Purchase

Errett Bishop was my friend and colleague and we had many discussions about this book and its subject matter. It is a difficult book because the way of thinking about the subject is unfamiliar to classically trained mathematicians, and this was a disappointment for Bishop. But in it Bishop found how to give, for example, a constructive proof of the Riemann Mapping Theorem - something which Goedel told Hilbert would not be possible (despite Ostrowskii's contemporary proof which was constructive except for the last step which was hanging by a hair). There is much more in this remarkable book and we are fortunate that Ishi Press International has reprinted it (with a New Forward by Michael Beeson). Highly recommended but difficult.

Sent from my Verizon Nexus 6 4G LTE Phone
<a href="tel:%28505%29%20670-9918">[phone]

Right.  

I thought the point was that you can have propositions that are "true" in the sense of being consistent within the system, but not provable by constructions defined within the system.

But all this, too relies heavily on what you consider to constitute truth value for propositions (some acceptance criterion more liberal than strict constructivism).

Also, the incompleteness theorems are a particular property of the indexing of the integers, and their maps to proofs.  I believe there are no counterpart problems within the reals, because the cardinality mismatch is not the same.  A book on this that I have liked is Torkel Franzen's relatively short and pleasant survey:

http://www.amazon.com/G%C3%B6dels-Theorem-Incomplete-Guide-Abuse/dp/1568812388

If there are any here who don't like non-constructive notions of truth, there is recent work to find out how much of mathematics can be built only from constructive arguments (I think I have this right).  Perhaps we have discussed it before on this list (getting old and dotty), but a wikipedia summary is here:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Univalent_foundations

and the group's webpage is here

https://www.math.ias.edu/sp/univalent/goals

All best,

Eric

On Dec 28, 2015, at 1:33 PM, Grant Holland wrote:

Oh yes, it need not be neither. It just can't be both!

Grant

Sent from my iPhone

On Dec 28, 2015, at 3:29 PM, Grant Holland <[hidden email]> wrote:

Glen, Eric,

If "reality" is complete, must not then (assuming that it is at least as complex as arithmetic), aka Godel, it be also inconsistent?

Grant

Sent from my iPhone

On Dec 28, 2015, at 11:23 AM, glen <[hidden email]> wrote:

On 12/28/2015 06:30 AM, David Eric Smith wrote:

A language that is not even internally consistent presumably has no hope of having an empirically valid semantics, since evidently the universe "is" something, and there is no semantic notion of ambiguity of its "being/not-being" some definite thing, structurally analogous to an inconsistent language's being able to arrive at a contradiction by taking two paths to answer a single proposition.

It's not clear to me that the presumption is trustworthy.  Isn't it possible that what is (reality) does not obey some of the structure we rely on for asserting consistency (or completeness)?  In other words, perhaps reality is inconsistent.  Hence, the only language that will be valid, will be an inconsistent language.  Of course, that doesn't imply that just any old inconsistency will be tolerated.  Perhaps reality is only inconsistent in very particular ways and any language that we expect to validate must be 1) inconsistent in all those real ways and 2) in only those real ways.

Further of course, inconsistency is a bit like paradox in that, once you identify an inconsistency very precisely, you may be able to define a new language that eliminates it. ... which brings us beyond the (mere) points of higher order logics and iterative constructions, to the core idea of context-sensitive construction.  There is no Grand Unifying Anything except the imperative to approach Grand Unified Things.

And this targets Patrick's argument against the idealists (e.g. libertarians and marxists).  The only reliable ideal is the creation and commitment to ideals.  Each particular ideal is (will be) eventually destroyed.  But for whatever reason, we seem to always create and commit ourselves to ideals.  Old people tend to surrender over time and build huge hairballs of bandaged ideals all glued together with spit and bailing wire.  Any serious conversation with an old person is an attempt to navigate the topology of their iteratively constructed, stigmergic, hairball of broken ideals ... and if that old person is open-minded, such conversations lead to new kinks and tortuous folds ... which is why old people make the best story tellers.

But I can't help wondering why music is dominated by the young. [sigh]

--

--

⊥ glen ⊥

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[David Eric Smith]

Thanks Frank,

Yes, so much of the history of this I have never even been told of.

E

On Dec 29, 2015, at 7:58 AM, Frank Wimberly wrote:

Hi Eric,

My undergraduate adviser wrote a book on constructive analysis.  An Amazon review is quoted below.  It seems like it wasn't so short or pleasant:

Foundations of Constructive Analysis

  A Brilliant Book

By Frank Cannonito - July 16, 2013

Amazon Verified Purchase

Errett Bishop was my friend and colleague and we had many discussions about this book and its subject matter. It is a difficult book because the way of thinking about the subject is unfamiliar to classically trained mathematicians, and this was a disappointment for Bishop. But in it Bishop found how to give, for example, a constructive proof of the Riemann Mapping Theorem - something which Goedel told Hilbert would not be possible (despite Ostrowskii's contemporary proof which was constructive except for the last step which was hanging by a hair). There is much more in this remarkable book and we are fortunate that Ishi Press International has reprinted it (with a New Forward by Michael Beeson). Highly recommended but difficult.

Sent from my Verizon Nexus 6 4G LTE Phone
<a href="tel:%28505%29%20670-9918">[phone]

Right.  

I thought the point was that you can have propositions that are "true" in the sense of being consistent within the system, but not provable by constructions defined within the system.

But all this, too relies heavily on what you consider to constitute truth value for propositions (some acceptance criterion more liberal than strict constructivism).

Also, the incompleteness theorems are a particular property of the indexing of the integers, and their maps to proofs.  I believe there are no counterpart problems within the reals, because the cardinality mismatch is not the same.  A book on this that I have liked is Torkel Franzen's relatively short and pleasant survey:

http://www.amazon.com/G%C3%B6dels-Theorem-Incomplete-Guide-Abuse/dp/1568812388

If there are any here who don't like non-constructive notions of truth, there is recent work to find out how much of mathematics can be built only from constructive arguments (I think I have this right).  Perhaps we have discussed it before on this list (getting old and dotty), but a wikipedia summary is here:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Univalent_foundations

and the group's webpage is here

https://www.math.ias.edu/sp/univalent/goals

All best,

Eric

On Dec 28, 2015, at 1:33 PM, Grant Holland wrote:

Oh yes, it need not be neither. It just can't be both!

Grant

Sent from my iPhone

On Dec 28, 2015, at 3:29 PM, Grant Holland <[hidden email]> wrote:

Glen, Eric,

If "reality" is complete, must not then (assuming that it is at least as complex as arithmetic), aka Godel, it be also inconsistent?

Grant

Sent from my iPhone

On Dec 28, 2015, at 11:23 AM, glen <[hidden email]> wrote:

On 12/28/2015 06:30 AM, David Eric Smith wrote:

A language that is not even internally consistent presumably has no hope of having an empirically valid semantics, since evidently the universe "is" something, and there is no semantic notion of ambiguity of its "being/not-being" some definite thing, structurally analogous to an inconsistent language's being able to arrive at a contradiction by taking two paths to answer a single proposition.

It's not clear to me that the presumption is trustworthy.  Isn't it possible that what is (reality) does not obey some of the structure we rely on for asserting consistency (or completeness)?  In other words, perhaps reality is inconsistent.  Hence, the only language that will be valid, will be an inconsistent language.  Of course, that doesn't imply that just any old inconsistency will be tolerated.  Perhaps reality is only inconsistent in very particular ways and any language that we expect to validate must be 1) inconsistent in all those real ways and 2) in only those real ways.

Further of course, inconsistency is a bit like paradox in that, once you identify an inconsistency very precisely, you may be able to define a new language that eliminates it. ... which brings us beyond the (mere) points of higher order logics and iterative constructions, to the core idea of context-sensitive construction.  There is no Grand Unifying Anything except the imperative to approach Grand Unified Things.

And this targets Patrick's argument against the idealists (e.g. libertarians and marxists).  The only reliable ideal is the creation and commitment to ideals.  Each particular ideal is (will be) eventually destroyed.  But for whatever reason, we seem to always create and commit ourselves to ideals.  Old people tend to surrender over time and build huge hairballs of bandaged ideals all glued together with spit and bailing wire.  Any serious conversation with an old person is an attempt to navigate the topology of their iteratively constructed, stigmergic, hairball of broken ideals ... and if that old person is open-minded, such conversations lead to new kinks and tortuous folds ... which is why old people make the best story tellers.

But I can't help wondering why music is dominated by the young. [sigh]

--

--

⊥ glen ⊥

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Meets Fridays 9a-11:30 at cafe at St. John's College

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[Patrick Reilly]

You are correct.

On Monday, December 28, 2015, Eric Charles <[hidden email]> wrote:

Pat said: I've argued with Marxist's who assert craziness like "under true communism there will be no crime".  They assert such nonsense under  "rationalist" arguments that a "truly fulfilled person", as a communist utopia must exclusively generate, would be a naturally law-abiding citizen. 

This sounds to me like people who don't know much about law (i.e., how arbitrary the definition of a crime is) and who don't know much about those bits of good science that psychology has managed. I suspect the later is at the heart of your connecting the rationalist-empiricist discussions with those prior bad political-debate experiences. Ultimately, one might assert, that whether crime is eliminated in a Marxist utopia, is a simple empirical question, i.e., something to be tested. 

If we treat it that way, the evidence would likely be against the Marxist's assertion. There is no evidence to support the hypothesis that broad economic policies translate into predictable specific behaviors among all members of a population. In fact, we would expect rather dramatic variation unless developmental contexts were specified in MUCH more detail than would be specified by a simple implementation of communism. 

However, no amount of evidence I could marshal, nor any amount of axiomatic assertion the Marxist could lay out, would stop us from viewing the assertion as something we would not be certain about until it was tested. 

Am I understanding the connection you want to make correctly?  

Best,

Eric

-----------
Eric P. Charles, Ph.D.
Lab Manager
Center for Teaching, Research, and Learning
American University, Hurst Hall Room 203A
4400 Massachusetts Avenue, N.W.
Washington, DC 20016
phone: [phone]   fax: [phone]
email: <a href="javascript:_e(%7B%7D,&#39;cvml&#39;,&#39;[e-mail]&#39;);" target="_blank">echarles@...

On Mon, Dec 28, 2015 at 9:53 AM, Patrick Reilly <<a href="javascript:_e(%7B%7D,&#39;cvml&#39;,&#39;[e-mail]&#39;);" target="_blank">patrick.reilly@...> wrote:

Hi Nick:

In further reply,  I've argued with Marxist's who assert craziness like "under true communism there will be no crime".  They assert such nonsense under  "rationalist" arguments that a "truly fulfilled person", as a communist utopia must exclusively generate, would be a naturally law-abiding citizen.

So the empiricist reliance in the physics dialogue is a useful reference to me in my counter argument of "what actually existing society supports the argument of a more ethical society eliminating irrational crime".

I say again that the core strength of using this reference lies in the belief widely held among our intelligentsia  that Physics has the quality of offering the purest of all possible truthiness . . .

---   Pat

On Sun, Dec 27, 2015 at 9:39 PM, Nick Thompson <<a href="javascript:_e(%7B%7D,&#39;cvml&#39;,&#39;[e-mail]&#39;);" target="_blank">nickthompson@...> wrote:

Hi, Patrick,

 

Thanks for getting back to me.  Wow, was that a form of libertarianism!? I would have thought the “users” were property owners who “use” the police to protect them from the anger of the poor.  Anyway. 

 

One of the lessons that FRIAM has taught me over the years is to be much more careful in my deployment of “ist” and “ism” words.  They just don’t seem to have the stability of reference that that I assumed when I learned them and started to use them.  I don’t know quite what to do about that.  It would be nice to be able to identify some clusters of opinion and associate some people with those opinions and be able to refer back to them as points of departure in my thought, but every time I try, I fail.   One really good example is the word, “pragmatist.”  In some hands, “pragmatism” means solving problems as they come along with a view mostly to the immediate tangible future.  Americans are said to given to such pragmatic solutions, as, say, the drone program which eliminates some bad actors in the short run but runs the risk of recruiting others in the long run.  In other hands, the word “pragmatism” refers to an almost precisely opposite philosophy which focuses on where human understanding is “headed”, i.e., where it is likely to fetch up in the very long run.  For a pragmatist, in this sense, there are no “facts of the matter” beyond human understanding, in the broadest sense, because whatever world is “out there” is filtered through our understanding of it. 

 

Now, I think the debate that occurred at the physics conference had a lot to do with this latter sort of pragmatism.  Philosophical pragmatists have tended to be very hard on the “theory-fact” distinction.  To these folks, a fact is nothing  more than a theory that we would be VERY  VERY VERY surprised to see contradicted. 

 

What I am struggling with, here, is how to map all of this (which may be irrelevant from your point of view) onto

 

On another note, the discussion of the  "rationalists" v. "empiricists" crystallized in me how to best argue against Libertarian-hacks and Marxist fops;

 

Now I get that you are pissed off at some folks.  I would probably be pissed off by those same people.   What I can’t yet work out is the relation between these Libertarians and Marxists and the distinction between rationalist and empiricist. 

 

Can you help further?

 

Nick

Nicholas S. Thompson

Emeritus Professor of Psychology and Biology

Clark University

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

 

From: Friam [mailto:<a href="javascript:_e(%7B%7D,&#39;cvml&#39;,&#39;[e-mail]&#39;);" target="_blank">friam-bounces@...] On Behalf Of Patrick Reilly
Sent: Sunday, December 27, 2015 1:22 PM

To: The Friday Morning Applied Complexity Coffee Group <<a href="javascript:_e(%7B%7D,&#39;cvml&#39;,&#39;[e-mail]&#39;);" target="_blank">friam@...>
Subject: Re: [FRIAM] Physicists and Philosophers Debate the Boundaries of Science | Quanta Magazine

 

Hi Nick:

 

Well, I practice IP/Patent Law in Silicon Valley and I am rather frequently exposed to libertarian-drivel about how social problems can be solved by applying the principle of liberty and drowning the government. Not unusually, the proponents of these views are quite bright, contentious and have the life experience of, well, and under-30 programmer.

 

Programmers, especially the really good ones, get used to creatively solving any problem that is thrown at them with applied logic.  And they often fail to realize that the overwhelming majority of their architecture challenges are thin problems, wherein all relevant influences and underlying principles can be assumed or quickly ascertained.  In contrast, most social-legal problems of our technological society exist precisely because these problems are thick problems and can seldom be successfully addressed with empirical analysis of applied alternate solutions.

 

One example of a failed libertarian approach in criminal justice is to attempt to extract payments from the "users" of the criminal justice system to fund the police force, al a Ferguson, where frequent fines were promiscuously issued with the explicit purpose of generating revenue.  In particular, the Ferguson police officers were given increasing ticketing quotas and were conditioned to see citizens as ATM machines, especially the less empowered citizens.

 

So I can now cite the article's noting of rationalist/empiricist approaches in physics (a discipline that nerds generally hold to be sacred and inviolate) as a basis for saying, "so first we may want to find a country where you ideas have been actually applied . . .  like Somalia or Indonesia . . . "

 

 

-----    Pat

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

On Sun, Dec 27, 2015 at 5:51 AM, Nick Thompson <<a href="javascript:_e(%7B%7D,&#39;cvml&#39;,&#39;[e-mail]&#39;);" target="_blank">nickthompson@...> wrote:

Hi Patrick,

 

I didn’t altogether follow you here. 

 

Can you say a bit more?

 

N

 

Nicholas S. Thompson

Emeritus Professor of Psychology and Biology

Clark University

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

 

From: Friam [mailto:<a href="javascript:_e(%7B%7D,&#39;cvml&#39;,&#39;[e-mail]&#39;);" target="_blank">friam-bounces@...] On Behalf Of Patrick Reilly
Sent: Saturday, December 26, 2015 10:13 PM
To: The Friday Morning Applied Complexity Coffee Group <<a href="javascript:_e(%7B%7D,&#39;cvml&#39;,&#39;[e-mail]&#39;);" target="_blank">friam@...>
Subject: Re: [FRIAM] Physicists and Philosophers Debate the Boundaries of Science | Quanta Magazine

 

Hi Tom:

 

Thanks for turning me on to this article. It's valuable to known that we are likely 10 EE15 degrees away from observing the true fundamentals of physics.

 

On another note, the discussion of the  "rationalists" v. "empiricists" crystallized in me how to best argue against Libertarian-hacks and Marxist fops; the imagined "principles" of political and economic dynamics empowers empiricists to promise candy mountains when we are better off observing the actual effect of actually instantiated policies and laws. The US used to be the world leader in social pragmatism . . .

 

Great article!

 

---   Pat

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

On Sun, Dec 27, 2015 at 3:59 AM, Tom Johnson <<a href="javascript:_e(%7B%7D,&#39;cvml&#39;,&#39;[e-mail]&#39;);" target="_blank">tom@...> wrote:

Something to keep you occupied until New Years Day.

https://www.quantamagazine.org/20151216-physicists-and-philosophers-debate-the-boundaries-of-science/

===================================
Tom Johnson - Inst. for Analytic Journalism
Santa Fe, NM
SPJ Region 9 Director
<a href="javascript:_e(%7B%7D,&#39;cvml&#39;,&#39;[e-mail]&#39;);" target="_blank">tom@...               <a href="tel:[phone]" target="_blank">505-473-9646
===================================

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[gepr]

I'm not very satisfied with the granularity of the thick/thin metaphor.  My 2 stints in the valley caused me to describe most of the solutions being generated as "flat", contrasted with the "deeper" solutions I enjoy more. But I gradually stopped using that and went back to using "systemic" to describe the more plaited and layered solutions.  Even that's flawed, but tends to get at the point with less metaphor.

Although it may seem like a dual, talking of the problems rather than the solutions, also changes the conversation.  (Something obliquely broached at the end of that blog entry "... Or, sometimes, once you have developed the answer, there is a ‘thin’ way of confirming your answer ...".

The point being that this "Silicon Valley style" (because it's everywhere, not just there) involves an assumption that there are simple solutions to complex problems.  To me, that's the mistake.  _Sometimes_ perhaps there is.  But more often, the solution is just as, if not more, complex than the problem.  This is why Shannon's Theorem 10 lodged itself in my mind.  While it's true that the "rationalists" (and other idealists) seem to fail in recognizing the complexity of the problem, the "Silicon Valley style" (SVS) doesn't make that mistake very often.  The mistake it makes is assuming there is a 10-fold RoI waiting to be plundered _when_, not if, the simple solution is found to that complex problem.[*]

That's why I balk when libertarianism is associated with SVS.  Big "L" Libertarianism makes 2 errors, whereas SVS (usually) only makes the 1.

Another feature of SVS is the older accusation of adhering to the "Great Man Theory", which is rampant in self-help books, which are an offspring of New Thought and prophet-based religions. (John Galt was a minor, ignorable fable.)  This may seem like a non sequitur, but it's directly related to the "thin confirmation of an answer to a thick problem".  It's the oversimplification and abstraction of the solution from the context.  And it also relates directly to the distinction between types of empiricism in that the idealization of an actual person (e.g. Einstein) distorts the scientific content surrounding that period of history.  It's most obvious in all the garbage produced by cranks who claim, say, that the Michelson-Morley experiment was flawed and Einstein was wrong.  Empiricists who rely on citations (rather than the ability to perform their own tests) have to tolerate the cranks to some extent, and rely on meta-scientific bureaucracy like peer review and credentials (like degr
ees).

Anyway, I think the thick vs. thin metaphor might be just as guilty of oversimplification as the other ideals being discussed in the thread.


[*] I submit that the solutions are almost never simple, but the context (time, place, right group of people, right complement of tech, etc.) is arranged in a configuration so that the solution "clicks" ... like a complicated puzzle with lots of pieces coming together to exhibit a phenomenon "more than the sum of its parts".  The SVS pattern is to cherry-pick some arbitrary part of that configuration and say "There's the simple solution!"  As Pamela pointed out, it's useless to talk about the other parts of the solution being ignored.


On 12/29/2015 12:43 AM, Patrick Reilly wrote:

> On thick & thin problems:
>
> Excerpt:
>
> I would call this a classic ‘thick’ problem, one in which an analyst needs
> to deal with an enormous amount of data of varying quality.  Being smart is
> necessary but not sufficient: you also need to know lots of  stuff.
>
>
>
> Link:
>
> https://westhunt.wordpress.com/2012/06/06/thick-and-thin/

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[Nick Thompson]

Pat et al,

Interesting.  This seems to me like differences in the stage of understanding.

Nick

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


-----Original Message-----
From: Friam [mailto:[hidden email]] On Behalf Of glen
Sent: Tuesday, December 29, 2015 9:21 AM
To: The Friday Morning Applied Complexity Coffee Group <[hidden email]>
Subject: [FRIAM] thick and thin (was Physicists and Philosophers ...)


I'm not very satisfied with the granularity of the thick/thin metaphor.  My 2 stints in the valley caused me to describe most of the solutions being generated as "flat", contrasted with the "deeper" solutions I enjoy more. But I gradually stopped using that and went back to using "systemic" to describe the more plaited and layered solutions.  Even that's flawed, but tends to get at the point with less metaphor.

Although it may seem like a dual, talking of the problems rather than the solutions, also changes the conversation.  (Something obliquely broached at the end of that blog entry "... Or, sometimes, once you have developed the answer, there is a ‘thin’ way of confirming your answer ...".

The point being that this "Silicon Valley style" (because it's everywhere, not just there) involves an assumption that there are simple solutions to complex problems.  To me, that's the mistake.  _Sometimes_ perhaps there is.  But more often, the solution is just as, if not more, complex than the problem.  This is why Shannon's Theorem 10 lodged itself in my mind.  While it's true that the "rationalists" (and other idealists) seem to fail in recognizing the complexity of the problem, the "Silicon Valley style" (SVS) doesn't make that mistake very often.  The mistake it makes is assuming there is a 10-fold RoI waiting to be plundered _when_, not if, the simple solution is found to that complex problem.[*]

That's why I balk when libertarianism is associated with SVS.  Big "L" Libertarianism makes 2 errors, whereas SVS (usually) only makes the 1.

Another feature of SVS is the older accusation of adhering to the "Great Man Theory", which is rampant in self-help books, which are an offspring of New Thought and prophet-based religions. (John Galt was a minor, ignorable fable.)  This may seem like a non sequitur, but it's directly related to the "thin confirmation of an answer to a thick problem".  It's the oversimplification and abstraction of the solution from the context.  And it also relates directly to the distinction between types of empiricism in that the idealization of an actual person (e.g. Einstein) distorts the scientific content surrounding that period of history.  It's most obvious in all the garbage produced by cranks who claim, say, that the Michelson-Morley experiment was flawed and Einstein was wrong.  Empiricists who rely on citations (rather than the ability to perform their own tests) have to tolerate the cranks to some extent, and rely on meta-scientific bureaucracy like peer review and credentials (like degr ees).

Anyway, I think the thick vs. thin metaphor might be just as guilty of oversimplification as the other ideals being discussed in the thread.


[*] I submit that the solutions are almost never simple, but the context (time, place, right group of people, right complement of tech, etc.) is arranged in a configuration so that the solution "clicks" ... like a complicated puzzle with lots of pieces coming together to exhibit a phenomenon "more than the sum of its parts".  The SVS pattern is to cherry-pick some arbitrary part of that configuration and say "There's the simple solution!"  As Pamela pointed out, it's useless to talk about the other parts of the solution being ignored.


On 12/29/2015 12:43 AM, Patrick Reilly wrote:

> On thick & thin problems:
>
> Excerpt:
>
> I would call this a classic ‘thick’ problem, one in which an analyst
> needs to deal with an enormous amount of data of varying quality.  
> Being smart is necessary but not sufficient: you also need to know lots of  stuff.
>
>
>
> Link:
>
> https://westhunt.wordpress.com/2012/06/06/thick-and-thin/

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⊥ glen ⊥

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[Merle Lefkoff-2]

Patrick's link to West Hunter's piece was very interesting.  Thank you.  Demonstrates for me that what is overlooked by the continuing arrogant focus on individual thinkers solving problems, whether thick or thin, is what social scientists do well--facilitating collective intelligence to solve problems in an increasingly "thick" world.

Being smart is necessary but not sufficient:  you also need to recognize that you alone may not know enough stuff.

On Tue, Dec 29, 2015 at 9:05 AM, Nick Thompson <[hidden email]> wrote:

Pat et al,

Interesting.  This seems to me like differences in the stage of understanding.

Nick

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

-----Original Message-----
From: Friam [mailto:[hidden email]] On Behalf Of glen
Sent: Tuesday, December 29, 2015 9:21 AM
To: The Friday Morning Applied Complexity Coffee Group <[hidden email]>
Subject: [FRIAM] thick and thin (was Physicists and Philosophers ...)


I'm not very satisfied with the granularity of the thick/thin metaphor.  My 2 stints in the valley caused me to describe most of the solutions being generated as "flat", contrasted with the "deeper" solutions I enjoy more. But I gradually stopped using that and went back to using "systemic" to describe the more plaited and layered solutions.  Even that's flawed, but tends to get at the point with less metaphor.

Although it may seem like a dual, talking of the problems rather than the solutions, also changes the conversation.  (Something obliquely broached at the end of that blog entry "... Or, sometimes, once you have developed the answer, there is a ‘thin’ way of confirming your answer ...".

The point being that this "Silicon Valley style" (because it's everywhere, not just there) involves an assumption that there are simple solutions to complex problems.  To me, that's the mistake.  _Sometimes_ perhaps there is.  But more often, the solution is just as, if not more, complex than the problem.  This is why Shannon's Theorem 10 lodged itself in my mind.  While it's true that the "rationalists" (and other idealists) seem to fail in recognizing the complexity of the problem, the "Silicon Valley style" (SVS) doesn't make that mistake very often.  The mistake it makes is assuming there is a 10-fold RoI waiting to be plundered _when_, not if, the simple solution is found to that complex problem.[*]

That's why I balk when libertarianism is associated with SVS.  Big "L" Libertarianism makes 2 errors, whereas SVS (usually) only makes the 1.

Another feature of SVS is the older accusation of adhering to the "Great Man Theory", which is rampant in self-help books, which are an offspring of New Thought and prophet-based religions. (John Galt was a minor, ignorable fable.)  This may seem like a non sequitur, but it's directly related to the "thin confirmation of an answer to a thick problem".  It's the oversimplification and abstraction of the solution from the context.  And it also relates directly to the distinction between types of empiricism in that the idealization of an actual person (e.g. Einstein) distorts the scientific content surrounding that period of history.  It's most obvious in all the garbage produced by cranks who claim, say, that the Michelson-Morley experiment was flawed and Einstein was wrong.  Empiricists who rely on citations (rather than the ability to perform their own tests) have to tolerate the cranks to some extent, and rely on meta-scientific bureaucracy like peer review and credentials (like degr ees).

Anyway, I think the thick vs. thin metaphor might be just as guilty of oversimplification as the other ideals being discussed in the thread.


[*] I submit that the solutions are almost never simple, but the context (time, place, right group of people, right complement of tech, etc.) is arranged in a configuration so that the solution "clicks" ... like a complicated puzzle with lots of pieces coming together to exhibit a phenomenon "more than the sum of its parts".  The SVS pattern is to cherry-pick some arbitrary part of that configuration and say "There's the simple solution!"  As Pamela pointed out, it's useless to talk about the other parts of the solution being ignored.


On 12/29/2015 12:43 AM, Patrick Reilly wrote:
> On thick & thin problems:
>
> Excerpt:
>
> I would call this a classic ‘thick’ problem, one in which an analyst
> needs to deal with an enormous amount of data of varying quality.
> Being smart is necessary but not sufficient: you also need to know lots of  stuff.
>
>
>
> Link:
>
> https://westhunt.wordpress.com/2012/06/06/thick-and-thin/

--
--
⊥ glen ⊥

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[Barry MacKichan]

On 29 Dec 2015, at 7:58, Frank Wimberly wrote:

> Hi Eric,
>
> My undergraduate adviser wrote a book on constructive analysis.  An
> Amazon
> review is quoted below.  It seems like it wasn't so short or pleasant:
>

Really? Bishop was your advisor? There was an active constructive
mathematics group at NMSU when I was there. I didn’t really
participate. Proofs are hard enough with no constraints.

I have suspected, based on reading only about ten pages of the Homotopy
Type Theory book, that the Univalent foundations approach is very close
to constructive. In particular, IIRC, the Axiom of Choice is false in
that approach.

—Barry


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[Grant Holland]

Eric, looks 'real' good. Thx for the link. - g

Sent from my iPhone

On Dec 29, 2015, at 9:19 AM, David Eric Smith <[hidden email]> wrote:

Right.  

I thought the point was that you can have propositions that are "true" in the sense of being consistent within the system, but not provable by constructions defined within the system.

But all this, too relies heavily on what you consider to constitute truth value for propositions (some acceptance criterion more liberal than strict constructivism).

Also, the incompleteness theorems are a particular property of the indexing of the integers, and their maps to proofs.  I believe there are no counterpart problems within the reals, because the cardinality mismatch is not the same.  A book on this that I have liked is Torkel Franzen's relatively short and pleasant survey:

http://www.amazon.com/G%C3%B6dels-Theorem-Incomplete-Guide-Abuse/dp/1568812388

If there are any here who don't like non-constructive notions of truth, there is recent work to find out how much of mathematics can be built only from constructive arguments (I think I have this right).  Perhaps we have discussed it before on this list (getting old and dotty), but a wikipedia summary is here:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Univalent_foundations

and the group's webpage is here

https://www.math.ias.edu/sp/univalent/goals

All best,

Eric

On Dec 28, 2015, at 1:33 PM, Grant Holland wrote:

Oh yes, it need not be neither. It just can't be both!

Grant

Sent from my iPhone

On Dec 28, 2015, at 3:29 PM, Grant Holland <[hidden email]> wrote:

Glen, Eric,

If "reality" is complete, must not then (assuming that it is at least as complex as arithmetic), aka Godel, it be also inconsistent?

Grant

Sent from my iPhone

On Dec 28, 2015, at 11:23 AM, glen <[hidden email]> wrote:

On 12/28/2015 06:30 AM, David Eric Smith wrote:

A language that is not even internally consistent presumably has no hope of having an empirically valid semantics, since evidently the universe "is" something, and there is no semantic notion of ambiguity of its "being/not-being" some definite thing, structurally analogous to an inconsistent language's being able to arrive at a contradiction by taking two paths to answer a single proposition.

It's not clear to me that the presumption is trustworthy.  Isn't it possible that what is (reality) does not obey some of the structure we rely on for asserting consistency (or completeness)?  In other words, perhaps reality is inconsistent.  Hence, the only language that will be valid, will be an inconsistent language.  Of course, that doesn't imply that just any old inconsistency will be tolerated.  Perhaps reality is only inconsistent in very particular ways and any language that we expect to validate must be 1) inconsistent in all those real ways and 2) in only those real ways.

Further of course, inconsistency is a bit like paradox in that, once you identify an inconsistency very precisely, you may be able to define a new language that eliminates it. ... which brings us beyond the (mere) points of higher order logics and iterative constructions, to the core idea of context-sensitive construction.  There is no Grand Unifying Anything except the imperative to approach Grand Unified Things.

And this targets Patrick's argument against the idealists (e.g. libertarians and marxists).  The only reliable ideal is the creation and commitment to ideals.  Each particular ideal is (will be) eventually destroyed.  But for whatever reason, we seem to always create and commit ourselves to ideals.  Old people tend to surrender over time and build huge hairballs of bandaged ideals all glued together with spit and bailing wire.  Any serious conversation with an old person is an attempt to navigate the topology of their iteratively constructed, stigmergic, hairball of broken ideals ... and if that old person is open-minded, such conversations lead to new kinks and tortuous folds ... which is why old people make the best story tellers.

But I can't help wondering why music is dominated by the young. [sigh]

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[gepr]

On 12/29/2015 06:19 AM, David Eric Smith wrote:
> A book on this that I have liked is Torkel Franzen's relatively short and pleasant survey:
> http://www.amazon.com/G%C3%B6dels-Theorem-Incomplete-Guide-Abuse/dp/1568812388

Torkel had a great online personality.  (I didn't know him in meat space.)  I was extremely sad to see him go.  He tried to correct the Rosenites (into which he seemed to lump me, unfortunately) back in 2005: http://www.panmere.com/rosen/mhout/author19.html.  We failed to learn much from him.  My favorite piece of his work, though, is this:

http://web.archive.org/web/20070609085706/http://www.sm.luth.se/~torkel/eget/net.html


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