Re: Egging that chip off the old underbelly.

[glen e. p. ropella-2]

Since the "Re:" in the subject means "regarding", I shouldn't have to
remind anyone of what this e-mail is about, eh? ;-)

Nick sent me this privately, in the hopes of respecting the list
members' time and attention, but upon my reply, he suggested I submit it
to the list for your erudite ridicule:

Quoting Nicholas Thompson circa 09-12-19 12:01 PM:

> But I feel some sort of analogy lurking here, and with
> your forebearance, i want to go one more round.
>
> Something like,
>
> (doing mathematics) : (formal proof) :: (doing computer science):
> (programming) :: (doing philosophy) : (symbolic logic)
>
>  One thing is clear about the right hand term in every case (other than the
> fact that i can do none of them):  watching one another do the right-hand
> term is how practicioners of the field tell the difference between
> themselves and the tourists (ahem).  But what can we say about the
> differences and similarities among the left hand terms?  Or should we pass
> over this question in silence?
>
> Nick

I responded thusly:


I realize this isn't (particularly) what you wanted to talk about; but,
it's not at all clear to me that practitioners establish that another
person is in their clique or not by watching them do the right-hand
terms.  I.e. mathematicians do NOT necessarily classify others as "in"
or "out" based on those others' formal proofs.  Computer scientists do
NOT necessarily classify others as "in" or "out" based on those others'
programs or programming skills.  And philosophers do NOT necessarily
classify others as "in" or "out" based on the way those others
manipulate symbols.

In fact, it seems to me that the first two (math and comp.sci.) don't
work that way at all.  Since I know it best, I'll start by saying that
most programmers are NOT computer scientists at all.  And it's not at
all clear that all computer scientists even program, much less all
program in the "same" way or produce similar product.  I don't know math
and mathematicians anywhere near as well as I know comp.sci. and
programming; but I still know it/them pretty well.  And there is at
least one demographic of mathematicians who really don't do much formal
proof, at all.  We could hedge on the definition of "mathematician", if
you'd like.  But the type of person I'm thinking of does quite a bit of
_derivation_, but very little proof.  And in such contexts, it can be
the derivation _or_ the results that qualify that person as a competent
mathematician.  Another demographic of mathematician is a kind of
logician, a meta-mathematician.  And these people engage in the type of
proofs that baffle many other types of mathematician.  So, even if a
mathematician of type I determines "in" vs. "out" by formal proof in
their own sub-domain, they don't determine "in" vs. "out" by formal
proof just slightly outside their sub-domain.

As an aside, along these same lines, the results in the paper "Unskilled
and Unaware of It: How Difficulties in Recognizing One's Own
Incompetence Lead to Inflated Self-Assessments" by Kruger and Dunning
talk quite a bit about how (and how badly) people determine competence
in their own and other disciplines.

> But what can we say about the
> differences and similarities among the left hand terms?

Well, of course, take what I say merely as my opinion... no expertise
implied.  But doing math, doing comp.sci., and doing philosophy all seem
 very much like the exact same activity, to me.  Comp. Sci. is just a
branch of math.  And math is just a branch of philosophy.  True, those
who confine themselves to tiny subsets of activity within, say,
comp.sci. may look like what they're doing is unlike 99.99% of math and
what mathematicians do.  But if you look at those who do NOT confine
themselves... who wander all over the comp.sci. map, they look a LOT
like mathematicians.  Likewise with mathematicians.  True, those that
confine themselves to some tiny subset of math look like what they do is
unlike what 99.99% of philosophers do.  But if you look at
mathematicians whose studies take them far and wide, they end up looking
a lot like philosophers.

So, what I end up with when trying to compare the 3 left-hand sides is
that there's really no difference.  And this tells me that the
classification is meaningless.  I.e. it is meaningless to classify
people in terms of "mathematician" vs. "computer scientist" vs.
"philosopher".  That classification is meaningless.

A more meaningful classification would be "those who confine themselves
very tightly to a sub-domain" vs. "those who range far and wide".  We
could apply such a measure (perhaps even a metric) to the members of
FRIAM.  For example, you apply yourself far and wide, regardless of the
domain.  Others on the list apply themselves in a more confined
way (or, at least, are only willing to talk about a few things that pass
by on this mailing list), though I'd argue that most on this list still
apply themselves much more widely than many.  Then there are some people
who would never even consider participating on the FRIAM mailing list
because it's just all over the place, is full of noise, and nothing ever
seems to be achieved.  Those people are highly confined to their
(myopic) subdomain.

Now, if we adopt this classification, we can then compare, "those who
confine themselves tightly in math" vs. "those who confine themselves
tightly in comp.sci." vs. "those who confine themselves tightly in
philosophy".  Perhaps then we can make some progress on that secondary
classification?

Salubrious Solstice!

--
glen e. p. ropella, 971-222-9095, http://agent-based-modeling.com


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[Miles Parker]

On Dec 21, 2009, at 1:45 PM, glen e. p. ropella wrote:
> Nick sent me this privately, in the hopes of respecting the list
> members' time and attention, but upon my reply, he suggested I submit it
> to the list for your erudite ridicule:

Otherwise we would have missed another fascinating thread..I regret that I spend some much time dealing with OSGi plugin loading policies and PDE builds (don't even ask) that I don't get a chance to take a closer look at these often..anyway..

>
> Quoting Nicholas Thompson circa 09-12-19 12:01 PM:
>> (doing mathematics) : (formal proof) :: (doing computer science):
>> (programming) :: (doing philosophy) : (symbolic logic)

It's interesting, because you could also pair these in terms of rigor v. practicality, and get something like:

formal proof => doing mathematics
doing computer science => programming
symbolic logic => doing philosophy

IOTW, if Nick's analogy is about expertise and mine is about relevance, we can see that they are orthogonal. Of course, we already knew that :) but it's an interesting accidental discovery. (I guess there aren't any other kinds of discoveries..anyway..)

The more I think about it, the less clear it is too me what we mean by formalism altogether, which I guess is what you guys have been -- oh yeah, I see that Glen just said everything I could have hoped to say on this and more..never mind. :)

I do find the symbolic logic => philosophy connection to be the most challenging, in the sense that it sticks in my craw, but I don't know if I can justify why. I guess that we already see the targets of the other two to be inherent idealizations, whereas we pretend at least that philosophy can also embrace the real.
============================================================
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