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Robert Holmes

Quote of the week

From the BBC's science podcast "The Infinite Monkey Cage":

"Philosophy is to physics as pornography is to sex. It's cheaper, it's easier and some people seem to prefer it."

—R

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Marcos

Re: Quote of the week

On Sun, Jun 5, 2011 at 1:15 PM, Robert Holmes <[hidden email]> wrote:

From the BBC's science podcast "The Infinite Monkey Cage":

"Philosophy is to physics as pornography is to sex. It's cheaper, it's easier and some people seem to prefer it."

Not to be pedantic, but I suspect that s/he has conflated "philosophy" with "new age", as much of science owes itself to philosophy.

marcos

Steve Smith

Re: Quote of the week

"Philosophy is to physics as pornography is to sex. It's cheaper, it's easier and some people seem to prefer it."

Modern Physics is contained in Realism which is contained in Metaphysics which I contained in all of Philosophy.

I'd be tempted to counter:

"Physics is to Philosophy as the Missionary Position is to the Kama Sutra"

Physics also appeals to Phenomenology and Logic (the branch of Philosophy were Mathematics is rooted) and what we can know scientifically is constrained by Epistemology (the nature of knowledge) and phenomenology (the nature of conscious experience).

It might be fair to say that many (including many of us here) who hold Physics up in some exalted position simply dismiss or choose to ignore all the messy questions considered by *the rest of* philosophy. Even if we think we have clear/simple answers to the questions, I do not accept that the questions are not worthy of the asking.

The underlying point of the referenced podcast is, in fact, that Physics, or Science in general might be rather myopic and limited by it's own viewpoint by definition.

"The more we know, the less we understand."

Philosophy is about understanding, physics is about knowledge first and understanding only insomuch as it is a part of natural philosophy.

Or at least this is how my understanding is structured around these matters.

- Steve

On Sun, Jun 5, 2011 at 1:15 PM, Robert Holmes <[hidden email]> wrote:

>From the BBC's science podcast "The Infinite Monkey Cage":

"Philosophy is to physics as pornography is to sex. It's cheaper, it's easier and some people seem to prefer it."

Not to be pedantic, but I suspect that s/he has conflated "philosophy" with "new age", as much of science owes itself to philosophy.

marcos
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FRIAM Applied Complexity Group listserv
Meets Fridays 9a-11:30 at cafe at St. John's College
lectures, archives, unsubscribe, maps at http://www.friam.org

Bruce Sherwood

Re: Quote of the week

Richard Feynman said, "Physics is like sex. It has useful
applications, but that's not why we do it."

An enterprising physics professor at U Texas Austin, who did lots of
innovative things to induce more students to major in physics, made up
lots of T-shirts with this quote. They were very popular.

Bruce Sherwood

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

Re: Quote of the week

In reply to this post by Steve Smith

In fact, one could draw a parallel in my just-posted query between physics on the science side, and fundamentalist Christians on the other side. Both have a tendency, carried to extremes by some proponents, of claiming omniscience. Perhaps that Omni is the clue. Omni - science. Thou shalt hold no knowledge before Me.

But human experience is filled with scintillating, shimmering changes; shifts in perception and conclusion that mitigate against Omni - anything. If we are truthful about our experience.

So maybe it's

"Physics is to Human Experience as Sex is to Philosophy"

[using Steve's " philosophy=understanding" definition:

which as the language referee here I will reiterate does mean 'the love of wisdom']

I'm off to Make Art (according to me) a topic I do not insert here, but worthy of its own thread and part of the equation above, in equal measure. And yes, Art is like Sex.

Tory

"Philosophy is to physics as pornography is to sex. It's cheaper, it's easier and some people seem to prefer it."

Modern Physics is contained in Realism which is contained in Metaphysics which I contained in all of Philosophy.

I'd be tempted to counter:

"Physics is to Philosophy as the Missionary Position is to the Kama Sutra"

Physics also appeals to Phenomenology and Logic (the branch of Philosophy were Mathematics is rooted) and what we can know scientifically is constrained by Epistemology (the nature of knowledge) and phenomenology (the nature of conscious experience).

It might be fair to say that many (including many of us here) who hold Physics up in some exalted position simply dismiss or choose to ignore all the messy questions considered by *the rest of* philosophy. Even if we think we have clear/simple answers to the questions, I do not accept that the questions are not worthy of the asking.

The underlying point of the referenced podcast is, in fact, that Physics, or Science in general might be rather myopic and limited by it's own viewpoint by definition.

"The more we know, the less we understand."

Philosophy is about understanding, physics is about knowledge first and understanding only insomuch as it is a part of natural philosophy.

Or at least this is how my understanding is structured around these matters.

- Steve
On Sun, Jun 5, 2011 at 1:15 PM, Robert Holmes <[hidden email]> wrote:

>From the BBC's science podcast "The Infinite Monkey Cage":

"Philosophy is to physics as pornography is to sex. It's cheaper, it's easier and some people seem to prefer it."

Not to be pedantic, but I suspect that s/he has conflated "philosophy" with "new age", as much of science owes itself to philosophy.

marcos
============================================================
FRIAM Applied Complexity Group listserv
Meets Fridays 9a-11:30 at cafe at St. John's College
lectures, archives, unsubscribe, maps at http://www.friam.org
============================================================
FRIAM Applied Complexity Group listserv
Meets Fridays 9a-11:30 at cafe at St. John's College
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Eric Charles

Re: Quote of the week

In reply to this post by Steve Smith

One things many philosophers might point out in response to such an assertion, is that we don't have a very good handle on the notion of "determined'. In fact, there are quite a few big-named dead white guys, who would say that physical causality and mental causality are equally illusory (and by that, I mean, completely illusory). Thus, one of the BIG challenges for a realist philosophy is articulating a theory of causality. It is not nearly as simple as basic physics, with its naive realism, might make you think.

In the last real chapter of my up-coming book on Holt (Nick circulated his chapter a little bit ago), Alan Costall argues (among other things) that naive realism leads to physics, and that physics undercuts naive realism, leaving the whole thing a big mess.

Eric

On Sun, Jun 5, 2011 04:30 PM, Marcos <[hidden email]> wrote:

Not to mention, the white elephant in the room (which I brought up to Murray Gell-Mann to no avail), the relationship of consciousness to matter, and by implication: physics. To say consciousness is only a emergent property of matter, is to say that we're all deterministic robots, however transient within the view of cosmological history.

That position, for me, is no longer tenable.

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

Professional Student and
Assistant Professor of Psychology
Penn State University
Altoona, PA 16601

Steve Smith

Re: Quote of the week

Alan Costall, by way of Eric Charles Sez:

naive realism leads to physics, and that physics undercuts naive realism, leaving the whole thing a big mess

It's a bit wordy for a Zen Koan but I think he's on the right track!

One things many philosophers might point out in response to such an assertion, is that we don't have a very good handle on the notion of "determined'. In fact, there are quite a few big-named dead white guys, who would say that physical causality and mental causality are equally illusory (and by that, I mean, completely illusory). Thus, one of the BIG challenges for a realist philosophy is articulating a theory of causality. It is not nearly as simple as basic physics, with its naive realism, might make you think.

In the last real chapter of my up-coming book on Holt (Nick circulated his chapter a little bit ago), Alan Costall argues (among other things) that naive realism leads to physics, and that physics undercuts naive realism, leaving the whole thing a big mess.

Eric

On Sun, Jun 5, 2011 04:30 PM, Marcos [hidden email] wrote:
Not to mention, the white elephant in the room (which I brought up to Murray Gell-Mann to no avail), the relationship of consciousness to matter, and by implication: physics. To say consciousness is only a emergent property of matter, is to say that we're all deterministic robots, however transient within the view of cosmological history.

That position, for me, is no longer tenable.

mark
============================================================
FRIAM Applied Complexity Group listserv
Meets Fridays 9a-11:30 at cafe at St. John's College
lectures, archives, unsubscribe, maps at http://www.friam.org
Eric Charles

Professional Student and
Assistant Professor of Psychology
Penn State University
Altoona, PA 16601
============================================================
FRIAM Applied Complexity Group listserv
Meets Fridays 9a-11:30 at cafe at St. John's College
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Grant Holland

Re: Quote of the week

In reply to this post by Steve Smith

Interesting note on "information" and "uncertainty"...

Information is Uncertainty. The two words are synonyms.

Shannon called it "uncertainty", contemporary Information theory calls it "information".

It is often thought that the more information there is, the less uncertainty. The opposite is the case.

In Information Theory (aka the mathematical theory of communications) , the degree of information I(E) - or uncertainty U(E) - of an event is measurable as an inverse function of its probability, as follows:

U(E) = I(E) = log( 1/Pr(E) ) = log(1) - log( Pr(E) ) = -log( Pr(E) ).

Considering I(E) as a random variable, Shannon's entropy is, in fact, the first moment (or expectation) of I(E). Shannon entropy = exp( I(E) ).

Grant

On 6/5/2011 2:20 PM, Steve Smith wrote:

"Philosophy is to physics as pornography is to sex. It's cheaper, it's easier and some people seem to prefer it."

Modern Physics is contained in Realism which is contained in Metaphysics which I contained in all of Philosophy.

I'd be tempted to counter:

"Physics is to Philosophy as the Missionary Position is to the Kama Sutra"

Physics also appeals to Phenomenology and Logic (the branch of Philosophy were Mathematics is rooted) and what we can know scientifically is constrained by Epistemology (the nature of knowledge) and phenomenology (the nature of conscious experience).

It might be fair to say that many (including many of us here) who hold Physics up in some exalted position simply dismiss or choose to ignore all the messy questions considered by *the rest of* philosophy. Even if we think we have clear/simple answers to the questions, I do not accept that the questions are not worthy of the asking.

The underlying point of the referenced podcast is, in fact, that Physics, or Science in general might be rather myopic and limited by it's own viewpoint by definition.

"The more we know, the less we understand."

Philosophy is about understanding, physics is about knowledge first and understanding only insomuch as it is a part of natural philosophy.

Or at least this is how my understanding is structured around these matters.

- Steve
On Sun, Jun 5, 2011 at 1:15 PM, Robert Holmes <[hidden email]> wrote:

>From the BBC's science podcast "The Infinite Monkey Cage":

"Philosophy is to physics as pornography is to sex. It's cheaper, it's easier and some people seem to prefer it."

Not to be pedantic, but I suspect that s/he has conflated "philosophy" with "new age", as much of science owes itself to philosophy.

marcos
============================================================
FRIAM Applied Complexity Group listserv
Meets Fridays 9a-11:30 at cafe at St. John's College
lectures, archives, unsubscribe, maps at http://www.friam.org
============================================================
FRIAM Applied Complexity Group listserv
Meets Fridays 9a-11:30 at cafe at St. John's College
lectures, archives, unsubscribe, maps at http://www.friam.org

Tom Carter

Re: Quote of the week

Hmmm . . .

I would say this just slightly differently -- the amount of information an observer gains from observing an event is equal to the decrease in uncertainty the observer has from observing the event (e.g., if I am almost certain an event will occur, I gain almost no information from observing the event; on the other hand, if I observe an event I was very unsure would happen, I gain a lot of information). Decrease in uncertainty and gain in information are just two ways of talking about the same quantity.

I'll also make the observation that, for me, information is not a property of an event, but rather of a combined system of event and observer. In particular, two different observers can gain different amounts of information from observing the same event (think about two students attending my lecture on information theory -- if one of them has been through my lecture several times before, they know what to expect, and hence have comparatively little uncertainty about what they will hear, and hence gain little information when they hear it . . .). This is part of why it is valuable to think of the quantity as being uncertainty decrease, rather than information gain -- it keeps some more emphasis on the observer, whose uncertainty is being decreased . . .

Thanks . . .

tom

On Jun 5, 2011, at 8:06 PM, Grant Holland wrote:

Interesting note on "information" and "uncertainty"...

Information is Uncertainty. The two words are synonyms.

Shannon called it "uncertainty", contemporary Information theory calls it "information".

It is often thought that the more information there is, the less uncertainty. The opposite is the case.

In Information Theory (aka the mathematical theory of communications) , the degree of information I(E) - or uncertainty U(E) - of an event is measurable as an inverse function of its probability, as follows:

U(E) = I(E) = log( 1/Pr(E) ) = log(1) - log( Pr(E) ) = -log( Pr(E) ).

Considering I(E) as a random variable, Shannon's entropy is, in fact, the first moment (or expectation) of I(E). Shannon entropy = exp( I(E) ).

Grant

On 6/5/2011 2:20 PM, Steve Smith wrote:
"Philosophy is to physics as pornography is to sex. It's cheaper, it's easier and some people seem to prefer it."

Modern Physics is contained in Realism which is contained in Metaphysics which I contained in all of Philosophy.

I'd be tempted to counter:

"Physics is to Philosophy as the Missionary Position is to the Kama Sutra"

Physics also appeals to Phenomenology and Logic (the branch of Philosophy were Mathematics is rooted) and what we can know scientifically is constrained by Epistemology (the nature of knowledge) and phenomenology (the nature of conscious experience).

It might be fair to say that many (including many of us here) who hold Physics up in some exalted position simply dismiss or choose to ignore all the messy questions considered by *the rest of* philosophy. Even if we think we have clear/simple answers to the questions, I do not accept that the questions are not worthy of the asking.

The underlying point of the referenced podcast is, in fact, that Physics, or Science in general might be rather myopic and limited by it's own viewpoint by definition.

"The more we know, the less we understand."

Philosophy is about understanding, physics is about knowledge first and understanding only insomuch as it is a part of natural philosophy.

Or at least this is how my understanding is structured around these matters.

- Steve
On Sun, Jun 5, 2011 at 1:15 PM, Robert Holmes <[hidden email]> wrote:

>From the BBC's science podcast "The Infinite Monkey Cage":

"Philosophy is to physics as pornography is to sex. It's cheaper, it's easier and some people seem to prefer it."

Not to be pedantic, but I suspect that s/he has conflated "philosophy" with "new age", as much of science owes itself to philosophy.

marcos
============================================================
FRIAM Applied Complexity Group listserv
Meets Fridays 9a-11:30 at cafe at St. John's College
lectures, archives, unsubscribe, maps at http://www.friam.org
============================================================
FRIAM Applied Complexity Group listserv
Meets Fridays 9a-11:30 at cafe at St. John's College
lectures, archives, unsubscribe, maps at http://www.friam.org
============================================================
FRIAM Applied Complexity Group listserv
Meets Fridays 9a-11:30 at cafe at St. John's College
lectures, archives, unsubscribe, maps at http://www.friam.org

Nick Thompson

Re: Quote of the week

In reply to this post by Grant Holland

Grant,

This seems backwards to me, but I got properly thrashed for my last few postings so I am putting my hat over the wall very carefully here.

I thought……i thought …. the information in a message was the number of bits by which the arrival of the message decreased the uncertainty of the receiver. So, let’s say you are sitting awaiting the result of a coin toss, and I am on the other end of the line flipping the coin. Before I say “heads” you have 1 bit of uncertainty; afterwards, you have none.

The reason I am particularly nervous about saying this is that it, of course, holds out the possibility of negative information. Some forms of communication, appeasement gestures in animals, for instance, have the effect of increasing the range of behaviors likely to occur in the receiver. This would seem to correspond to a negative value for the information calculation.

Nick

From: [hidden email] [mailto:[hidden email]] On Behalf Of Grant Holland
Sent: Sunday, June 05, 2011 11:07 PM
To: The Friday Morning Applied Complexity Coffee Group; Steve Smith
Subject: Re: [FRIAM] Quote of the week

"Philosophy is to physics as pornography is to sex. It's cheaper, it's easier and some people seem to prefer it."

Modern Physics is contained in Realism which is contained in Metaphysics which I contained in all of Philosophy.

I'd be tempted to counter:

"Physics is to Philosophy as the Missionary Position is to the Kama Sutra"

"The more we know, the less we understand."

On Sun, Jun 5, 2011 at 1:15 PM, Robert Holmes <[hidden email]> wrote:

>From the BBC's science podcast "The Infinite Monkey Cage":

"Philosophy is to physics as pornography is to sex. It's cheaper, it's easier and some people seem to prefer it."

Not to be pedantic, but I suspect that s/he has conflated "philosophy" with "new age", as much of science owes itself to philosophy.

marcos

============================================================

FRIAM Applied Complexity Group listserv

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

lectures, archives, unsubscribe, maps at http://www.friam.org

============================================================

FRIAM Applied Complexity Group listserv

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

lectures, archives, unsubscribe, maps at http://www.friam.org

Owen Densmore

Re: Quote of the week

Administrator

Nick: Next you are in town, lets read the original Shannon paper together. Alas, it is a bit long, but I'm told its a Good Thing To Do.

-- Owen

On Jun 6, 2011, at 7:44 AM, Nicholas Thompson wrote:

> Grant,
>
> This seems backwards to me, but I got properly thrashed for my last few postings so I am putting my hat over the wall very carefully here.
>
> I thought……i thought …. the information in a message was the number of bits by which the arrival of the message decreased the uncertainty of the receiver. So, let’s say you are sitting awaiting the result of a coin toss, and I am on the other end of the line flipping the coin. Before I say “heads” you have 1 bit of uncertainty; afterwards, you have none.
>
> The reason I am particularly nervous about saying this is that it, of course, holds out the possibility of negative information. Some forms of communication, appeasement gestures in animals, for instance, have the effect of increasing the range of behaviors likely to occur in the receiver. This would seem to correspond to a negative value for the information calculation.
>
> Nick
> From: [hidden email] [mailto:[hidden email]] On Behalf Of Grant Holland
> Sent: Sunday, June 05, 2011 11:07 PM
> To: The Friday Morning Applied Complexity Coffee Group; Steve Smith
> Subject: Re: [FRIAM] Quote of the week
>
> Interesting note on "information" and "uncertainty"...
>
> Information is Uncertainty. The two words are synonyms.
>
> Shannon called it "uncertainty", contemporary Information theory calls it "information".
>
> It is often thought that the more information there is, the less uncertainty. The opposite is the case.
>
> In Information Theory (aka the mathematical theory of communications) , the degree of information I(E) - or uncertainty U(E) - of an event is measurable as an inverse function of its probability, as follows:
>
> U(E) = I(E) = log( 1/Pr(E) ) = log(1) - log( Pr(E) ) = -log( Pr(E) ).
>
> Considering I(E) as a random variable, Shannon's entropy is, in fact, the first moment (or expectation) of I(E). Shannon entropy = exp( I(E) ).
>
> Grant
>
> On 6/5/2011 2:20 PM, Steve Smith wrote:
>
>
> "Philosophy is to physics as pornography is to sex. It's cheaper, it's easier and some people seem to prefer it."
>
> Modern Physics is contained in Realism which is contained in Metaphysics which I contained in all of Philosophy.
>
> I'd be tempted to counter:
> "Physics is to Philosophy as the Missionary Position is to the Kama Sutra"
>
> Physics also appeals to Phenomenology and Logic (the branch of Philosophy were Mathematics is rooted) and what we can know scientifically is constrained by Epistemology (the nature of knowledge) and phenomenology (the nature of conscious experience).
>
> It might be fair to say that many (including many of us here) who hold Physics up in some exalted position simply dismiss or choose to ignore all the messy questions considered by *the rest of* philosophy. Even if we think we have clear/simple answers to the questions, I do not accept that the questions are not worthy of the asking.
>
> The underlying point of the referenced podcast is, in fact, that Physics, or Science in general might be rather myopic and limited by it's own viewpoint by definition.
>
> "The more we know, the less we understand."
>
> Philosophy is about understanding, physics is about knowledge first and understanding only insomuch as it is a part of natural philosophy.
>
> Or at least this is how my understanding is structured around these matters.
>
> - Steve
>
> On Sun, Jun 5, 2011 at 1:15 PM, Robert Holmes <[hidden email]> wrote:
> >From the BBC's science podcast "The Infinite Monkey Cage":
>
> "Philosophy is to physics as pornography is to sex. It's cheaper, it's easier and some people seem to prefer it."
>
> Not to be pedantic, but I suspect that s/he has conflated "philosophy" with "new age", as much of science owes itself to philosophy.
>
> marcos
>
> ============================================================
> FRIAM Applied Complexity Group listserv
> Meets Fridays 9a-11:30 at cafe at St. John's College
> lectures, archives, unsubscribe, maps at http://www.friam.org
>
>
>
>
> ============================================================
> FRIAM Applied Complexity Group listserv
> Meets Fridays 9a-11:30 at cafe at St. John's College
> lectures, archives, unsubscribe, maps at http://www.friam.org
> ============================================================
> FRIAM Applied Complexity Group listserv
> Meets Fridays 9a-11:30 at cafe at St. John's College
> lectures, archives, unsubscribe, maps at http://www.friam.org

Grant Holland

Re: Quote of the week

It seems backwards to almost everybody. Me too. So much so that this little conundrum pushed me to take a deeper look into information theory.

The key for me was realizing that I.T. is addressing how much information THERE IS in a "situation" (probability distribution) - rather than how much information YOU HAVE (one has) about that situation.

I think Owen is right: taking a look at Shannon's "The Mathematical Theory of Communication" is good. Try to get the edition with the Warren Weaver essay in the front - an essay about Shannon's paper. Weaver talks about the measure in section 2.2 (p. 9 in my copy). He talks in terms of logs of "the number of available choices" rather than inverses of probabilities. Weaver refers to what is being measured as "information".

Most telling, on page 50, Shannon uses the terms "information", "choice" and "uncertainty" in the same breath as being measured by his entropy formula.

Another very good popular-level book is "Decoding Reality: The Universe as Quantum Information [2010]" by Information Theorist Vlatko Vedral. He begins the book with this conversation.

Grant

On 6/6/11 8:17 AM, Owen Densmore wrote:

Nick: Next you are in town, lets read the original Shannon paper together.  Alas, it is a bit long, but I'm told its a Good Thing To Do.

	-- Owen

On Jun 6, 2011, at 7:44 AM, Nicholas Thompson wrote:

Grant,
 
This seems backwards to me, but I got properly thrashed for my last few postings so I am putting my hat over the wall very carefully here.
 
I thought……i thought …. the information in a message was the number of bits by which the arrival of the message decreased the uncertainty of the receiver.  So, let’s say you are sitting awaiting the result of a coin toss, and I am on the other end of the line flipping the coin.  Before I say “heads” you have 1 bit of uncertainty; afterwards, you have none. 
 
The reason I am particularly nervous about saying this is that it, of course, holds out the possibility of negative information.   Some forms of communication, appeasement gestures in animals, for instance, have the effect of increasing the range of behaviors likely to occur in the receiver.  This would seem to correspond to a negative value for the information calculation. 
 
Nick
From: [hidden email] [[hidden email]] On Behalf Of Grant Holland
Sent: Sunday, June 05, 2011 11:07 PM
To: The Friday Morning Applied Complexity Coffee Group; Steve Smith
Subject: Re: [FRIAM] Quote of the week
 
Interesting note on "information" and "uncertainty"...

Information is Uncertainty. The two words are synonyms.

Shannon called it "uncertainty", contemporary Information theory calls it "information".

It is often thought that the more information there is, the less uncertainty. The opposite is the case.

In Information Theory (aka the mathematical theory of communications) , the degree of information I(E) - or uncertainty U(E) - of an event is measurable as an inverse function of its probability, as follows:

U(E) = I(E) = log( 1/Pr(E) ) = log(1) - log( Pr(E) ) = -log( Pr(E) ).

Considering I(E) as a random variable, Shannon's entropy is, in fact, the first moment (or expectation) of I(E). Shannon entropy = exp( I(E) ).

Grant

On 6/5/2011 2:20 PM, Steve Smith wrote:
 

"Philosophy is to physics as pornography is to sex. It's cheaper, it's easier and some people seem to prefer it."

Modern Physics is  contained in Realism which is contained in Metaphysics which I contained in all of Philosophy.

I'd be tempted to counter:
"Physics is to Philosophy as the Missionary Position is to the Kama Sutra"

Physics also appeals to Phenomenology and Logic (the branch of Philosophy were Mathematics is rooted) and what we can know scientifically is constrained by Epistemology (the nature of knowledge) and phenomenology (the nature of conscious experience).

It might be fair to say that many (including many of us here) who hold Physics up in some exalted position simply dismiss or choose to ignore all the messy questions considered by  *the rest of* philosophy.   Even if we think we have clear/simple answers to the questions, I do not accept that the questions are not worthy of the asking.

The underlying point of the referenced podcast is, in fact, that Physics, or Science in general might be rather myopic and limited by it's own viewpoint by definition. 

 "The more we know, the less we understand."

Philosophy is about understanding, physics is about knowledge first and understanding only insomuch as it is a part of natural philosophy.  

Or at least this is how my understanding is structured around these matters.

- Steve

On Sun, Jun 5, 2011 at 1:15 PM, Robert Holmes [hidden email] wrote:
>From the BBC's science podcast "The Infinite Monkey Cage":

"Philosophy is to physics as pornography is to sex. It's cheaper, it's easier and some people seem to prefer it."
 
Not to be pedantic, but I suspect that s/he has conflated "philosophy" with "new age", as much of science owes itself to philosophy.
 
marcos
 
============================================================
FRIAM Applied Complexity Group listserv
Meets Fridays 9a-11:30 at cafe at St. John's College
lectures, archives, unsubscribe, maps at http://www.friam.org


 
 
============================================================
FRIAM Applied Complexity Group listserv
Meets Fridays 9a-11:30 at cafe at St. John's College
lectures, archives, unsubscribe, maps at http://www.friam.org
============================================================
FRIAM Applied Complexity Group listserv
Meets Fridays 9a-11:30 at cafe at St. John's College
lectures, archives, unsubscribe, maps at http://www.friam.org


============================================================
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Douglas Roberts-2

Re: Quote of the week

In reply to this post by Robert Holmes

Is anybody else tickled at how this Quote Of The Week elicited a flood of philosophical observations?

--Doug

On Sun, Jun 5, 2011 at 1:15 PM, Robert Holmes <[hidden email]> wrote:

From the BBC's science podcast "The Infinite Monkey Cage":

"Philosophy is to physics as pornography is to sex. It's cheaper, it's easier and some people seem to prefer it."

—R

============================================================
FRIAM Applied Complexity Group listserv
Meets Fridays 9a-11:30 at cafe at St. John's College
lectures, archives, unsubscribe, maps at http://www.friam.org

Eric Charles

Re: Quote of the week

In reply to this post by Nick Thompson

Nick,
The notion of information that Shannon proposes takes a very idealized understanding of "communication." I think it is a good model for machine "communication" and things like that (i.e., metaphorical communication), but it will not make you very happy, what with your feet-on-the-ground study of actual communication between organisms. For example, as I understand Shannon's information theory, there must be countless things transmitted from one organism to another that do not count as information, but which nevertheless are 'sent' by one organism and alter the behavior of the other. Also, we cannot have a conversation over whether or not it is in the interests of the organism to base their behavior on the information they receive form other organisms, because 'information' has been defined as that on which it is good to base behavior. Also, also, we also cannot talk about the transmission of information already known by the receiver, because if it is already known, then the message is not information. That is, if 1) we are flipping a coin, 2) I see the coin land heads, 3) you say 'heads', then your message contained no information.

Eric

P.S. Oddly, for the last point, I probably need to say that your message contained no information 'about the coin.' In information theory land they don't want to count it as information that your saying 'heads' tells me that you also have seen the coin as landing a heads (i.e., they don't want to count the information it gives me about you). If they counted that, then all messages would contain information.

On Mon, Jun 6, 2011 09:44 AM, "Nicholas Thompson" <[hidden email]> wrote:

Grant,

This seems backwards to me, but I got properly thrashed for my last few postings so I am putting my hat over the wall very carefully here.

I thought……i thought …. the information in a message was the number of bits by which the arrival of the message decreased the uncertainty of the receiver. So, let’s say you are sitting awaiting the result of a coin toss, and I am on the other end of the line flipping the coin. Before I say “heads” you have 1 bit of uncertainty; afterwards, you have none.

The reason I am particularly nervous about saying this is that it, of course, holds out the possibility of negative information. Some forms of communication, appeasement gestures in animals, for instance, have the effect of increasing the range of behaviors likely to occur in the receiver. This would seem to correspond to a negative value for the information calculation.

Nick

From: [hidden email] [mailto:[hidden email]] On Behalf Of Grant Holland
Sent: Sunday, June 05, 2011 11:07 PM
To: The Friday Morning Applied Complexity Coffee Group; Steve Smith
Subject: Re: [FRIAM] Quote of the week

Interesting note on "information" and "uncertainty"...

Information is Uncertainty. The two words are synonyms.

Shannon called it "uncertainty", contemporary Information theory calls it "information".

It is often thought that the more information there is, the less uncertainty. The opposite is the case.

In Information Theory (aka the mathematical theory of communications) , the degree of information I(E) - or uncertainty U(E) - of an event is measurable as an inverse function of its probability, as follows:

U(E) = I(E) = log( 1/Pr(E) ) = log(1) - log( Pr(E) ) = -log( Pr(E) ).

Considering I(E) as a random variable, Shannon's entropy is, in fact, the first moment (or expectation) of I(E). Shannon entropy = exp( I(E) ).

Grant

On 6/5/2011 2:20 PM, Steve Smith wrote:

"Philosophy is to physics as pornography is to sex. It's cheaper, it's easier and some people seem to prefer it."

Modern Physics is contained in Realism which is contained in Metaphysics which I contained in all of Philosophy.

I'd be tempted to counter:

"Physics is to Philosophy as the Missionary Position is to the Kama Sutra"

Physics also appeals to Phenomenology and Logic (the branch of Philosophy were Mathematics is rooted) and what we can know scientifically is constrained by Epistemology (the nature of knowledge) and phenomenology (the nature of conscious experience).

It might be fair to say that many (including many of us here) who hold Physics up in some exalted position simply dismiss or choose to ignore all the messy questions considered by *the rest of* philosophy. Even if we think we have clear/simple answers to the questions, I do not accept that the questions are not worthy of the asking.

The underlying point of the referenced podcast is, in fact, that Physics, or Science in general might be rather myopic and limited by it's own viewpoint by definition.

"The more we know, the less we understand."

Philosophy is about understanding, physics is about knowledge first and understanding only insomuch as it is a part of natural philosophy.

Or at least this is how my understanding is structured around these matters.

- Steve

On Sun, Jun 5, 2011 at 1:15 PM, Robert Holmes <robert@...> wrote:

>From the BBC's science podcast "<a href="http://www.bbc.co.uk/podcasts/series/timc" target="" onclick="window.open('http://www.bbc.co.uk/podcasts/series/timc');return false;">The Infinite Monkey Cage":

"Philosophy is to physics as pornography is to sex. It's cheaper, it's easier and some people seem to prefer it."

Not to be pedantic, but I suspect that s/he has conflated "philosophy" with "new age", as much of science owes itself to philosophy.

marcos

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Eric Charles

Professional Student and
Assistant Professor of Psychology
Penn State University
Altoona, PA 16601

Russ Abbott

Re: Quote of the week

If you're interested, I've written a wiki page that describes entropy. The goal was to make the concept both rigorous and intuitive. If you look at it, let me know where it fails.

-- Russ

On Mon, Jun 6, 2011 at 9:08 AM, ERIC P. CHARLES <[hidden email]> wrote:

Nick,
The notion of information that Shannon proposes takes a very idealized understanding of "communication." I think it is a good model for machine "communication" and things like that (i.e., metaphorical communication), but it will not make you very happy, what with your feet-on-the-ground study of actual communication between organisms. For example, as I understand Shannon's information theory, there must be countless things transmitted from one organism to another that do not count as information, but which nevertheless are 'sent' by one organism and alter the behavior of the other. Also, we cannot have a conversation over whether or not it is in the interests of the organism to base their behavior on the information they receive form other organisms, because 'information' has been defined as that on which it is good to base behavior. Also, also, we also cannot talk about the transmission of information already known by the receiver, because if it is already known, then the message is not information. That is, if 1) we are flipping a coin, 2) I see the coin land heads, 3) you say 'heads', then your message contained no information.

Eric

P.S. Oddly, for the last point, I probably need to say that your message contained no information 'about the coin.' In information theory land they don't want to count it as information that your saying 'heads' tells me that you also have seen the coin as landing a heads (i.e., they don't want to count the information it gives me about you). If they counted that, then all messages would contain information.
On Mon, Jun 6, 2011 09:44 AM, "Nicholas Thompson" <[hidden email]> wrote:
Grant,

This seems backwards to me, but I got properly thrashed for my last few postings so I am putting my hat over the wall very carefully here.

I thought……i thought …. the information in a message was the number of bits by which the arrival of the message decreased the uncertainty of the receiver. So, let’s say you are sitting awaiting the result of a coin toss, and I am on the other end of the line flipping the coin. Before I say “heads” you have 1 bit of uncertainty; afterwards, you have none.

The reason I am particularly nervous about saying this is that it, of course, holds out the possibility of negative information. Some forms of communication, appeasement gestures in animals, for instance, have the effect of increasing the range of behaviors likely to occur in the receiver. This would seem to correspond to a negative value for the information calculation.

Nick

From: [hidden email] [mailto:[hidden email]] On Behalf Of Grant Holland
Sent: Sunday, June 05, 2011 11:07 PM
To: The Friday Morning Applied Complexity Coffee Group; Steve Smith
Subject: Re: [FRIAM] Quote of the week

Interesting note on "information" and "uncertainty"...

Information is Uncertainty. The two words are synonyms.

Shannon called it "uncertainty", contemporary Information theory calls it "information".

It is often thought that the more information there is, the less uncertainty. The opposite is the case.

In Information Theory (aka the mathematical theory of communications) , the degree of information I(E) - or uncertainty U(E) - of an event is measurable as an inverse function of its probability, as follows:

U(E) = I(E) = log( 1/Pr(E) ) = log(1) - log( Pr(E) ) = -log( Pr(E) ).

Considering I(E) as a random variable, Shannon's entropy is, in fact, the first moment (or expectation) of I(E). Shannon entropy = exp( I(E) ).

Grant

On 6/5/2011 2:20 PM, Steve Smith wrote:

"Philosophy is to physics as pornography is to sex. It's cheaper, it's easier and some people seem to prefer it."

Modern Physics is contained in Realism which is contained in Metaphysics which I contained in all of Philosophy.

I'd be tempted to counter:

"Physics is to Philosophy as the Missionary Position is to the Kama Sutra"

Physics also appeals to Phenomenology and Logic (the branch of Philosophy were Mathematics is rooted) and what we can know scientifically is constrained by Epistemology (the nature of knowledge) and phenomenology (the nature of conscious experience).

It might be fair to say that many (including many of us here) who hold Physics up in some exalted position simply dismiss or choose to ignore all the messy questions considered by *the rest of* philosophy. Even if we think we have clear/simple answers to the questions, I do not accept that the questions are not worthy of the asking.

The underlying point of the referenced podcast is, in fact, that Physics, or Science in general might be rather myopic and limited by it's own viewpoint by definition.

"The more we know, the less we understand."

Philosophy is about understanding, physics is about knowledge first and understanding only insomuch as it is a part of natural philosophy.

Or at least this is how my understanding is structured around these matters.

- Steve

On Sun, Jun 5, 2011 at 1:15 PM, Robert Holmes <robert@...> wrote:

>From the BBC's science podcast "The Infinite Monkey Cage":

"Philosophy is to physics as pornography is to sex. It's cheaper, it's easier and some people seem to prefer it."

Not to be pedantic, but I suspect that s/he has conflated "philosophy" with "new age", as much of science owes itself to philosophy.

marcos

============================================================

FRIAM Applied Complexity Group listserv

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

lectures, archives, unsubscribe, maps at http://www.friam.org

============================================================

FRIAM Applied Complexity Group listserv

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

lectures, archives, unsubscribe, maps at http://www.friam.org
============================================================
FRIAM Applied Complexity Group listserv
Meets Fridays 9a-11:30 at cafe at St. John's College
lectures, archives, unsubscribe, maps at http://www.friam.org
Eric Charles

Professional Student and
Assistant Professor of Psychology
Penn State University
Altoona, PA 16601
============================================================
FRIAM Applied Complexity Group listserv
Meets Fridays 9a-11:30 at cafe at St. John's College
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Steve Smith

Re: Quote of the week

In reply to this post by Douglas Roberts-2

Doug -

Is anybody else tickled at how this Quote Of The Week elicited a flood of philosophical observations?

--Doug

Utterly pink! PINK I tell you! And you are making it worse with your own tickling! STOPPPP!

I just deleted one of my typical "DNRTL" (did not read, too long) missives and offer up instead a few simple relevant thoughts with links for the interested reader:

Russel Akoff's hierarchy of Data->Information->Knowledge->Wisdom .
Predictability as a dual of Banality
Laplace's Daemon and Determinism vs Predictability
Information theory in Cryptology: by expanding (or contracting) "the system" by as small of an amount as a decryption key, the (relative?) Entropy of a system goes from small to huge or vice-versa.

Carry on!
- Steve

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David Eric Smith

Re: Quote of the week

Steve, I promised myself I wouldn't do this, speaking of too long and
don't read and all.

But do you know how powerful you are, just by being superhumanly
articulate?

With one line, emphasizing knowing versus understanding, you directed
the whole stream into a conversation about information theory.

It seemed to me that the original quote had to do with the difference
between thinking about doing something, or talking about doing
something, and actually _doing something_.

We work hard to make good language, with care for lexical items,
syntactic rules, and whatever we can do to formalize rules for
semantic composition. And I have great respect for people who then
try to use that language carefully, recognizing that scientists often
don't, as much as perhaps they could.

But in the end, we have enough cases behind us that we should now
understand that our best attempts to construct good language are
always limited reflections of what we happen to have experienced up to
that time. (French experience, _experiment_, ...) We could have
discoursed, and argued, and reasoned, forever, about the meaning and
use of the word "time" pre-relativity. But if we hadn't had to
confront Maxwell's equations and various other experiences of the
world, we probably could never have merely-talked ourselves into
realizing that the word did not have an unqualified, reliable meaning
in the way we were using it (who knows, in a different reality, maybe
it could have, so logic alone could never have told us which reality
we inhabit; I don't know). We had to be thrown back to a stage where
the most desperate among us could say "Will you stop talking about
'time' and start talking about clocks that tick, and people whose
hearts beat and who get old _where they are_ even as they move about."
And from that, we could learn for the first time how to build
spacetime diagrams, and so forth, and at some level, once we knew how
to be careful using the diagrams reliably, we were free to again use
the word time, and perhaps even use it carelessly in cases (when its
purpose was not to replace the diagrams, but merely to share attention
to them), and still be able to carry out and anticipate acts in the
world that we never could have before, with all the linguistic care in
the world.

I know this is the most shop-worn example, but I still think that it
and several others like it carry a relevant piece of meaning.
Renormalization and the theory of phase transitions did the same thing
for the notion of "object", and (simply passing by any rhetoric that
doesn't produce distinguishable results for calculations or
experiments), quantum theory taught us that "state" and "observable"
were not even in principle the same kinds of concepts. Someday, a
sensible theory of ecology, development, and evolution will hopefully
lead to a similar sensible thinking about individuality. Each of
these has been a wrenching experience, because we really have had to
throw away a piece of what had been fundamental to our ability to
speak and to reason, and to simply leave a void until we could build a
new foundation out of different pieces. It was a very
extra-conversational exchange with our world of experiences, even if
it was supported all along the way by intense and labored
conversation, trying to figure out how to get oriented.

It seems that a combination of a willingness to mistrust language
while still trying to use it well, but also, to continually try to be
rebuilding it from experience, is the pragmatic thing that
distinguishes science. Philosophers are good at recognizing the
unreliability of language, so no corner on that market. And I think
everybody, science and philosophy both, wants to both know and
understand. But there is a sense in which scientists can be content
if the language of science is something like the calls at a barn dance
-- they keep us doing things together, they rely on shared experience,
and they have to change as the community changes the dance -- and
still do something productive, that seems to capture a major defining
characteristic of the enterprise.

Along with all the other stuff on information theory that is already
in this thread, all of which I also like.

Eric

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

Re: Quote of the week

Eric -

But do you know how powerful you are, just by being superhumanly
articulate?

Coming from you, of all people, this itself is a supreme compliment!

One of the reasons I am on this list (and actually read most of it's traffic!) is that there are a number of incredibly articulate people, most of whom I envy for their relative brevity, but also (as in your case) their significant focus and depth! Some (including yourself) also challenge me nicely with superior detailed thoroughness (e.g. Vladymir).

With one line, emphasizing knowing versus understanding, you directed
the whole stream into a conversation about information theory.

I wish it had been that intentional! If so, I could be Maxwell's Daemon of FRIAM! But yes, it did (d)evolve rapidly into something more interesting/actionable perhaps than the age old mud-slinging between disciplines.

It seemed to me that the original quote had to do with the difference
between thinking about doing something, or talking about doing
something, and actually _doing something_.

Ah yes... my many personalities are at war on this battlefield all the time. When I write my massive missives here, it is often evidence that one who prefers talking about (?doing?)something has prevailed temporarily, usually because the ones who prefer thinking or doing are exhausted from too much of their preferred activities to fight it out with the former! I wonder if Sun-Tsu wrote a sequel to Art of War known as Art of Thinking Too Much! I doubt I am alone in this crowd, on this topic.

We work hard to make good language, with care for lexical items,
syntactic rules, and whatever we can do to formalize rules for
semantic composition.  And I have great respect for people who then
try to use that language carefully, recognizing that scientists often
don't, as much as perhaps they could.

Many scientists aspire to being technicians with things rather than words, some scientists are therefore also very good engineers. Words and things are not mutually exclusive: I love doing things with things... I do things all the time with things... stacking them, shaping them, joining them, fastening them, heating them, beating them into shapes that suit my needs (or whimsy), up to and including thinking about them. With words.

At some point in my life words became things for me and for better or worse, I began to operate on them in ways similar to how I operate on physical things in the world. When I discovered "tooling" and "jigs" in my exploration of manipulating "things" I discovered self-modifying code, modern language is by definition self-modifying, seeing it in practice with physical objects made me think differently about thinking about thinking.

Your own explorations into historical linguistics might be of relevance here... some of the (possible) phase transitions in human language? In the spirit of phylogeny recapitulating ontogeny, I notice that many of my own personal "evolutions" seem to parallel those of human historical ones... and I only come to appreciate the historical significance of phase transitions in human understanding when I myself have made those same transitions. Perhaps it is why most of us do not come to appreciate the history of various disciplines until later in life.

But in the end, we have enough cases behind us that we should now
understand that our best attempts to construct good language are
always limited reflections of what we happen to have experienced up to
that time.  (French experience, _experiment_, ...)  We could have
discoursed, and argued, and reasoned, forever, about the meaning and
use of the word "time" pre-relativity.  But if we hadn't had to
confront Maxwell's equations and various other experiences of the
world, we probably could never have merely-talked ourselves into
realizing that the word did not have an unqualified, reliable meaning
in the way we were using it (who knows, in a different reality, maybe
it could have, so logic alone could never have told us which reality
we inhabit; I don't know).  We had to be thrown back to a stage where
the most desperate among us could say "Will you stop talking about
'time' and start talking about clocks that tick, and people whose
hearts beat and who get old _where they are_ even as they move about."
And from that, we could learn for the first time how to build
spacetime diagrams, and so forth, and at some level, once we knew how
to be careful using the diagrams reliably, we were free to again use
the word time, and perhaps even use it carelessly in cases (when its
purpose was not to replace the diagrams, but merely to share attention
to them), and still be able to carry out and anticipate acts in the
world that we never could have before, with all the linguistic care in
the world.

Well said, well chosen example.

I know this is the most shop-worn example, but I still think that it
and several others like it carry a relevant piece of meaning.
Renormalization and the theory of phase transitions did the same thing
for the notion of "object", and (simply passing by any rhetoric that
doesn't produce distinguishable results for calculations or
experiments), quantum theory taught us that "state" and "observable"
were not even in principle the same kinds of concepts.  Someday, a
sensible theory of ecology, development, and evolution will hopefully
lead to a similar sensible thinking about individuality.  Each of
these has been a wrenching experience, because we really have had to
throw away a piece of what had been fundamental to our ability to
speak and to reason, and to simply leave a void until we could build a
new foundation out of different pieces.  It was a very
extra-conversational exchange with our world of experiences, even if
it was supported all along the way by intense and labored
conversation, trying to figure out how to get oriented.

Nan-in's Cup of Tea would seem to be responsive to your examples and to the general mood inspiring the original quote:

NAN-IN AND THE CUP OF TEA
Nan-in, a Japanese master during the Meiji era (1868-1912), received a university professor who came to inquire about Zen.
Nan-in served tea. He poured his visitor's cup full, and then kept on pouring.
The professor watched the overflow until he no longer could restrain himself. "It is overfull. No more will go in!"
"Like this cup," Nan-in said, "you are full of your own opinions and speculations. How can I show you Zen unless you first empty your cup?"

It seems that a combination of a willingness to mistrust language
while still trying to use it well, but also, to continually try to be
rebuilding it from experience, is the pragmatic thing that
distinguishes science.

Well said. If it is not obvious, I do hold science as a practice in high esteem, it is only Science as a Religion that leaves me pondering.

Philosophers are good at recognizing the
unreliability of language, so no corner on that market.  And I think
everybody, science and philosophy both, wants to both know and
understand.  But there is a sense in which scientists can be content
if the language of science is something like the calls at a barn dance
-- they keep us doing things together, they rely on shared experience,
and they have to change as the community changes the dance -- and
still do something productive, that seems to capture a major defining
characteristic of the enterprise.

And yes, this tension is also part of the productivity.... without it we might continue to make statements as those attributed to Lord Kelvin around the beginning of the 20th century :

"There is nothing new to be discovered in physics now. All that remains is more and more precise measurement".

Or perhaps in your terms here, there are no new barn dances worth dancing, just increasing our precision with the old ones as Michael Flatley (Lord of the Dance) has perhaps become!

The polymath scientist/inventor (Lord Kelvin, not Lord Dance) might have been a content lurker or avid poster on this list 100+ years earlier. Sounds like a good premise for a Steampunk Novel! How to entertwine far from equilibrium systems with Kelvin's work in thermodynamics and this skeptical perspective?

Along with all the other stuff on information theory that is already
in this thread, all of which I also like.

Is a good thread. Some of our best thread defy good thread hygiene and insist on fraying and becoming many other (interesting) threads. Has anyone studied discussion threads as autocatalytic networks?

Thanks for the kind words and for weighing in here... your work is amazing.

- Steve (the powerful and articulate ;)

============================================================
FRIAM Applied Complexity Group listserv
Meets Fridays 9a-11:30 at cafe at St. John's College
lectures, archives, unsubscribe, maps at http://www.friam.org

Nick Thompson

Re: Quote of the week

In reply to this post by Owen Densmore

Owen,

We could do a Wedtech in September on it. Do you have a cc you could
circulate to get us all on the same page?

N

-----Original Message-----
From: [hidden email] [mailto:[hidden email]] On Behalf
Of Owen Densmore
Sent: Monday, June 06, 2011 10:17 AM
To: The Friday Morning Applied Complexity Coffee Group
Subject: Re: [FRIAM] Quote of the week

Nick: Next you are in town, lets read the original Shannon paper together.
Alas, it is a bit long, but I'm told its a Good Thing To Do.

-- Owen

On Jun 6, 2011, at 7:44 AM, Nicholas Thompson wrote:

> Grant,
>
> This seems backwards to me, but I got properly thrashed for my last few
postings so I am putting my hat over the wall very carefully here.
>
> I thought..i thought .. the information in a message was the number of
bits by which the arrival of the message decreased the uncertainty of the
receiver. So, let's say you are sitting awaiting the result of a coin toss,
and I am on the other end of the line flipping the coin. Before I say
"heads" you have 1 bit of uncertainty; afterwards, you have none.
>
> The reason I am particularly nervous about saying this is that it, of
course, holds out the possibility of negative information. Some forms of
communication, appeasement gestures in animals, for instance, have the
effect of increasing the range of behaviors likely to occur in the receiver.
This would seem to correspond to a negative value for the information
calculation.

>
> Nick
> From: [hidden email] [mailto:[hidden email]] On
> Behalf Of Grant Holland
> Sent: Sunday, June 05, 2011 11:07 PM
> To: The Friday Morning Applied Complexity Coffee Group; Steve Smith
> Subject: Re: [FRIAM] Quote of the week
>
> Interesting note on "information" and "uncertainty"...
>
> Information is Uncertainty. The two words are synonyms.
>
> Shannon called it "uncertainty", contemporary Information theory calls it

"information".
>
> It is often thought that the more information there is, the less
uncertainty. The opposite is the case.
>
> In Information Theory (aka the mathematical theory of communications) ,
the degree of information I(E) - or uncertainty U(E) - of an event is
measurable as an inverse function of its probability, as follows:
>
> U(E) = I(E) = log( 1/Pr(E) ) = log(1) - log( Pr(E) ) = -log( Pr(E) ).
>
> Considering I(E) as a random variable, Shannon's entropy is, in fact, the
first moment (or expectation) of I(E). Shannon entropy = exp( I(E) ).
>
> Grant
>
> On 6/5/2011 2:20 PM, Steve Smith wrote:
>
>
> "Philosophy is to physics as pornography is to sex. It's cheaper, it's
easier and some people seem to prefer it."
>
> Modern Physics is contained in Realism which is contained in Metaphysics
which I contained in all of Philosophy.
>
> I'd be tempted to counter:
> "Physics is to Philosophy as the Missionary Position is to the Kama Sutra"
>
> Physics also appeals to Phenomenology and Logic (the branch of Philosophy
were Mathematics is rooted) and what we can know scientifically is
constrained by Epistemology (the nature of knowledge) and phenomenology (the
nature of conscious experience).
>
> It might be fair to say that many (including many of us here) who hold
Physics up in some exalted position simply dismiss or choose to ignore all
the messy questions considered by *the rest of* philosophy. Even if we
think we have clear/simple answers to the questions, I do not accept that
the questions are not worthy of the asking.
>
> The underlying point of the referenced podcast is, in fact, that Physics,
or Science in general might be rather myopic and limited by it's own
viewpoint by definition.
>
> "The more we know, the less we understand."
>
> Philosophy is about understanding, physics is about knowledge first and
understanding only insomuch as it is a part of natural philosophy.
>
> Or at least this is how my understanding is structured around these
matters.
>
> - Steve
>
> On Sun, Jun 5, 2011 at 1:15 PM, Robert Holmes <[hidden email]>
wrote:
> >From the BBC's science podcast "The Infinite Monkey Cage":
>
> "Philosophy is to physics as pornography is to sex. It's cheaper, it's
easier and some people seem to prefer it."
>
> Not to be pedantic, but I suspect that s/he has conflated "philosophy"
with "new age", as much of science owes itself to philosophy.

>
> marcos
>
> ============================================================
> FRIAM Applied Complexity Group listserv Meets Fridays 9a-11:30 at cafe
> at St. John's College lectures, archives, unsubscribe, maps at
> http://www.friam.org
>
>
>
>
> ============================================================
> FRIAM Applied Complexity Group listserv Meets Fridays 9a-11:30 at cafe
> at St. John's College lectures, archives, unsubscribe, maps at
> http://www.friam.org
> ============================================================
> FRIAM Applied Complexity Group listserv Meets Fridays 9a-11:30 at cafe
> at St. John's College lectures, archives, unsubscribe, maps at
> http://www.friam.org

============================================================
FRIAM Applied Complexity Group listserv
Meets Fridays 9a-11:30 at cafe at St. John's College lectures, archives,
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Tom Johnson

Re: Quote of the week

I certainly would be interested. I have issues with Claude's work and what I think is its misconstrued application and definition, at least beyond physics.

-tj

On Fri, Jun 10, 2011 at 10:35 PM, Nicholas Thompson <[hidden email]> wrote:

Owen,

We could do a Wedtech in September on it. Do you have a cc you could
circulate to get us all on the same page?

N

-----Original Message-----
From: [hidden email] [mailto:[hidden email]] On Behalf
Of Owen Densmore
Sent: Monday, June 06, 2011 10:17 AM
To: The Friday Morning Applied Complexity Coffee Group
Subject: Re: [FRIAM] Quote of the week

Nick: Next you are in town, lets read the original Shannon paper together.
Alas, it is a bit long, but I'm told its a Good Thing To Do.

-- Owen

On Jun 6, 2011, at 7:44 AM, Nicholas Thompson wrote:

> Grant,
>
> This seems backwards to me, but I got properly thrashed for my last few
postings so I am putting my hat over the wall very carefully here.
>
> I thought..i thought .. the information in a message was the number of
bits by which the arrival of the message decreased the uncertainty of the
receiver. So, let's say you are sitting awaiting the result of a coin toss,
and I am on the other end of the line flipping the coin. Before I say
"heads" you have 1 bit of uncertainty; afterwards, you have none.
>
> The reason I am particularly nervous about saying this is that it, of
course, holds out the possibility of negative information. Some forms of
communication, appeasement gestures in animals, for instance, have the
effect of increasing the range of behaviors likely to occur in the receiver.
This would seem to correspond to a negative value for the information
calculation.
>
> Nick
> From: [hidden email] [mailto:[hidden email]] On
> Behalf Of Grant Holland
> Sent: Sunday, June 05, 2011 11:07 PM
> To: The Friday Morning Applied Complexity Coffee Group; Steve Smith
> Subject: Re: [FRIAM] Quote of the week
>
> Interesting note on "information" and "uncertainty"...
>
> Information is Uncertainty. The two words are synonyms.
>
> Shannon called it "uncertainty", contemporary Information theory calls it
"information".
>
> It is often thought that the more information there is, the less
uncertainty. The opposite is the case.
>
> In Information Theory (aka the mathematical theory of communications) ,
the degree of information I(E) - or uncertainty U(E) - of an event is
measurable as an inverse function of its probability, as follows:
>
> U(E) = I(E) = log( 1/Pr(E) ) = log(1) - log( Pr(E) ) = -log( Pr(E) ).
>
> Considering I(E) as a random variable, Shannon's entropy is, in fact, the
first moment (or expectation) of I(E). Shannon entropy = exp( I(E) ).
>
> Grant
>
> On 6/5/2011 2:20 PM, Steve Smith wrote:
>
>
> "Philosophy is to physics as pornography is to sex. It's cheaper, it's
easier and some people seem to prefer it."
>
> Modern Physics is contained in Realism which is contained in Metaphysics
which I contained in all of Philosophy.
>
> I'd be tempted to counter:
> "Physics is to Philosophy as the Missionary Position is to the Kama Sutra"
>
> Physics also appeals to Phenomenology and Logic (the branch of Philosophy
were Mathematics is rooted) and what we can know scientifically is
constrained by Epistemology (the nature of knowledge) and phenomenology (the
nature of conscious experience).
>
> It might be fair to say that many (including many of us here) who hold
Physics up in some exalted position simply dismiss or choose to ignore all
the messy questions considered by *the rest of* philosophy. Even if we
think we have clear/simple answers to the questions, I do not accept that
the questions are not worthy of the asking.
>
> The underlying point of the referenced podcast is, in fact, that Physics,
or Science in general might be rather myopic and limited by it's own
viewpoint by definition.
>
> "The more we know, the less we understand."
>
> Philosophy is about understanding, physics is about knowledge first and
understanding only insomuch as it is a part of natural philosophy.
>
> Or at least this is how my understanding is structured around these
matters.
>
> - Steve
>
> On Sun, Jun 5, 2011 at 1:15 PM, Robert Holmes <[hidden email]>
wrote:
> >From the BBC's science podcast "The Infinite Monkey Cage":
>
> "Philosophy is to physics as pornography is to sex. It's cheaper, it's
easier and some people seem to prefer it."
>
> Not to be pedantic, but I suspect that s/he has conflated "philosophy"
with "new age", as much of science owes itself to philosophy.
>
> marcos
>
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FRIAM Applied Complexity Group listserv
Meets Fridays 9a-11:30 at cafe at St. John's College lectures, archives,
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FRIAM Applied Complexity Group listserv
Meets Fridays 9a-11:30 at cafe at St. John's College
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--
==========================================
J. T. Johnson
Institute for Analytic Journalism -- Santa Fe, NM USA
www.analyticjournalism.com
505.577.6482(c) 505.473.9646(h)
http://www.jtjohnson.com [hidden email]
==========================================

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