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Re: [Kitchen] FW: P. and V.

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Nick Thompson

Re: [Kitchen] FW: P. and V.

Lee Rudolph wrote:

“wotthehell,wotthehell.”

I am willing to bet a latte at our next meeting that you and I are the only two people on this list who know the source of this quote.

Aren’t there three whotthehell’s?

Nick

Nicholas S. Thompson

Emeritus Professor of Psychology and Biology

Clark University

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

From: [hidden email] [mailto:[hidden email]] On Behalf Of Lee Rudolph
Sent: Wednesday, June 17, 2015 10:02 PM
To: Nick Thompson; [hidden email]
Subject: Re: [Kitchen] FW: P. and V.

Jaan, Nick, Philip, and lurkers,

I am avoiding learning anything about "abduction" at this time. But I want to wholeheartedly endorse the following passage by Nick, particularly the last two sentences (emboldened for those who can see such things; which is me at the moment but not when I'm using my preferred mail client) of his first paragraph.
________________________________________
[...]
But it would seem to me that the experience of time is, like the experience of “me” and the experience of “you”, or the experience of “real” as opposed to the experience of “dream” or the experience of “now”, or “then”, or “soon”, something that has to be worked out and developed during early childhood. It is a cognitive achievement which children master only slowly, as demonstrated by their behavior on long car trips. It is easily deranged by fatigue, or drugs, or illness. It seems a bit truer to me to say that time is the result of our experience of processes than to say that our experience of processes is the result of our understanding of time. That is, time is inferred from o[u]r experience with events and processes.

This is the best I can offer at the moment.
----------------------------------------------------------------------

And very good it is, too! Though I might quibble about the extent to which we can "experience [...] events and processes" *as* "events" and "processes" until we have developed "time". The last sentence might better suit my (pre-existing to Nick's post, even if not yet as developed as Nick or I might like) own intuitions/beliefs/wool-gatherings/pre-thoughts about time if it were rephrased along these lines: "That is, 'time' and 'events' and 'processes' are inferred from our experience [singular!] before any one of them is 'understood'; it is in our 'coming to understand them' that our experience becomes our experiences [plural!]." Not as pithy, and still doesn't get everything into one statement. Maybe we should just stick with Nick's version.

...Oh, well. Here's another cut-and-paste job, from my first Jaan-commissioned paper, on time. Let's see if it can be tickled into giving someone some ideas about induction. (After I paste I'm logging off for the night; see you all tomorrow.)

===begin===
[mathematical maunderings precede this, in which I propose one mathematical model of what I call a "full time", which is more or less like a string of beads: they come in sequence, and to that extent are "1-dimensional" in both a colloquial sense and a mathematical sense; but each bead has its own multidimensional quality, interior to itself]

One common hypothesis about psychological time has been stated by Whitrow (1980). "Our awareness of time involves factors which we do not associate with the abstract concept of time, notably fixation of attention. … Our conscious awareness of time depends on the fact that our minds operate by successive acts of attention …" (p. 71-2) He refers this hypothesis back to numerous authors, including Mach,
Woodrow, Mowbray, James, and Cassirer; we have seen it above (p. 5) in the passage from van Uexküll (1920/1926). In a later chapter, Whitrow continues "our intuitive conception of time as one-dimensional… may be due to the previously mentioned fact that, strictly speaking, we can consciously attend to only one thing at a time, and that we cannot do this for long without our attention wandering. Our idea of time is thus directly linked to our ‘train of thought’, that is, with the fact that the process of thinking has the form of a linear sequence. This linear sequence, however, consists of discrete acts of attention." (p. 115)

This restatement of the common hypothesis can be read as endorsement of modeling psychological time by a discrete totally ordered set (“linear sequence…of discrete acts”). What is missing from the common
hypothesis (as restated by Whitrow) is an account of what, if anything, interpolates between successive “discrete acts of attention”, as “our attention” is “wandering” timelessly.

I suggest that, in the world of psychological phenomena the better understanding of which all our modeling is in aid of, what interpolates successive “discrete acts of attention” are states of ambivalence. I further
suggest that, in the mathematical models contrived the better to understand that world of psychological phenomena, a state of ambivalence among some given number n of foci of attention should be modeled by a mathematical space of dimension n – 1. (The selection of this dimension reflects the naïve idea, surely wrong as stated, that ambivalence is ‘divided attention’. Of course the division of a thing into n parts depends on n – 1, not n, free choices.) As long as—like Whitrow—all ambivalences are merely two-fold, the choice of a line segment as the interpolating 1-dimensional space is natural enough, and has the familiar effect of turning the standard model Z of a time series into the standard model R of a time line.

[a small further mathematical maundering follows, and concludes the paper]

===end===

By the way, I doubt that n is ever larger than 3. But wotthehell,wotthehell.

============================================================
FRIAM Applied Complexity Group listserv
Meets Fridays 9a-11:30 at cafe at St. John's College
to unsubscribe http://redfish.com/mailman/listinfo/friam_redfish.com

Prof David West

Re: [Kitchen] FW: P. and V.

i have my ups and downs

but wotthehell wotthehell

yesterday sceptres and crowns

fried oysters and velvet gowns

and today i herd with bums

but wotthehell wotthehell

i wake the world from sleep

as i caper and sing and leap

when i sing my wild free tune

wotthehell wotthehell

under the blear eyed moon

i am pelted with cast off shoon

but wotthehell wotthehell

On Wed, Jun 17, 2015, at 08:26 PM, Nick Thompson wrote:

Lee Rudolph wrote:

“wotthehell,wotthehell.”

I am willing to bet a latte at our next meeting that you and I are the only two people on this list who know the source of this quote.

Aren’t there three whotthehell’s?

Nick

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

From: [hidden email] [mailto:[hidden email]] On Behalf Of Lee Rudolph
Sent: Wednesday, June 17, 2015 10:02 PM
To: Nick Thompson; [hidden email]
Subject: Re: [Kitchen] FW: P. and V.

Jaan, Nick, Philip, and lurkers,

I am avoiding learning anything about "abduction" at this time. But I want to wholeheartedly endorse the following passage by Nick, particularly the last two sentences (emboldened for those who can see such things; which is me at the moment but not when I'm using my preferred mail client) of his first paragraph.
________________________________________
[...]
But it would seem to me that the experience of time is, like the experience of “me” and the experience of “you”, or the experience of “real” as opposed to the experience of “dream” or the experience of “now”, or “then”, or “soon”, something that has to be worked out and developed during early childhood. It is a cognitive achievement which children master only slowly, as demonstrated by their behavior on long car trips. It is easily deranged by fatigue, or drugs, or illness. It seems a bit truer to me to say that time is the result of our experience of processes than to say that our experience of processes is the result of our understanding of time. That is, time is inferred from o[u]r experience with events and processes.

This is the best I can offer at the moment.
----------------------------------------------------------------------

And very good it is, too! Though I might quibble about the extent to which we can "experience [...] events and processes" *as* "events" and "processes" until we have developed "time". The last sentence might better suit my (pre-existing to Nick's post, even if not yet as developed as Nick or I might like) own intuitions/beliefs/wool-gatherings/pre-thoughts about time if it were rephrased along these lines: "That is, 'time' and 'events' and 'processes' are inferred from our experience [singular!] before any one of them is 'understood'; it is in our 'coming to understand them' that our experience becomes our experiences [plural!]." Not as pithy, and still doesn't get everything into one statement. Maybe we should just stick with Nick's version.

...Oh, well. Here's another cut-and-paste job, from my first Jaan-commissioned paper, on time. Let's see if it can be tickled into giving someone some ideas about induction. (After I paste I'm logging off for the night; see you all tomorrow.)

===begin===
[mathematical maunderings precede this, in which I propose one mathematical model of what I call a "full time", which is more or less like a string of beads: they come in sequence, and to that extent are "1-dimensional" in both a colloquial sense and a mathematical sense; but each bead has its own multidimensional quality, interior to itself]

One common hypothesis about psychological time has been stated by Whitrow (1980). "Our awareness of time involves factors which we do not associate with the abstract concept of time, notably fixation of attention. … Our conscious awareness of time depends on the fact that our minds operate by successive acts of attention …" (p. 71-2) He refers this hypothesis back to numerous authors, including Mach,
Woodrow, Mowbray, James, and Cassirer; we have seen it above (p. 5) in the passage from van Uexküll (1920/1926). In a later chapter, Whitrow continues "our intuitive conception of time as one-dimensional… may be due to the previously mentioned fact that, strictly speaking, we can consciously attend to only one thing at a time, and that we cannot do this for long without our attention wandering. Our idea of time is thus directly linked to our ‘train of thought’, that is, with the fact that the process of thinking has the form of a linear sequence. This linear sequence, however, consists of discrete acts of attention." (p. 115)

This restatement of the common hypothesis can be read as endorsement of modeling psychological time by a discrete totally ordered set (“linear sequence…of discrete acts”). What is missing from the common
hypothesis (as restated by Whitrow) is an account of what, if anything, interpolates between successive “discrete acts of attention”, as “our attention” is “wandering” timelessly.

I suggest that, in the world of psychological phenomena the better understanding of which all our modeling is in aid of, what interpolates successive “discrete acts of attention” are states of ambivalence. I further
suggest that, in the mathematical models contrived the better to understand that world of psychological phenomena, a state of ambivalence among some given number n of foci of attention should be modeled by a mathematical space of dimension n – 1. (The selection of this dimension reflects the naïve idea, surely wrong as stated, that ambivalence is ‘divided attention’. Of course the division of a thing into n parts depends on n – 1, not n, free choices.) As long as—like Whitrow—all ambivalences are merely two-fold, the choice of a line segment as the interpolating 1-dimensional space is natural enough, and has the familiar effect of turning the standard model Z of a time series into the standard model R of a time line.

[a small further mathematical maundering follows, and concludes the paper]

===end===

By the way, I doubt that n is ever larger than 3. But wotthehell,wotthehell.

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

FRIAM Applied Complexity Group listserv

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

to unsubscribe http://redfish.com/mailman/listinfo/friam_redfish.com

Stephen Guerin

Re: [Kitchen] FW: P. and V.

“wotthehell,wotthehell.”

>> Nick writes:

I am willing to bet a latte at our next meeting that you and I are the only two people on this list who know the source of this quote.

Nick, is that you center stage left 3 rows back with Lee on your shoulders? Jakarta 2014 that was sooooo killer, right?

see: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3JggVNB89dI

I'll take my latte with a double shot, Sir.

Avril Lavigne Live

What The Hell

You say that I'm messing with your head
Yeah yeah yeah yeah
All cause I was making out with your friend
Yeah yeah yeah yeah
Love hurts whether it's right or wrong
Yeah yeah yeah yeah
I can't stop cause I'm having too much fun
Yeah yeah yeah yeah

You're on your knees
Begging please
Stay with me
But honestly
I just need to be a little crazy

All my life I've been good,
But now whoa, I'm thinking what the hell
All I want is to mess around
And I don't really care about
If you love me
If you hate me
You can't save me
Baby, baby
All my life I've been good
But now
Whoa
What the hell

So what if I go out on a million dates
Yeah yeah yeah yeah
You never call or listen to me anyway
Yeah yeah yeah yeah
I'd rather rage than sit around and wait all day
Yeah yeah yeah yeah
Don't get me wrong
I just need some time to play

You're on your knees
Begging please
Stay with me
But honestly
I just need to be a little crazy

All my life I've been good,
But now
I'm thinking what the hell
All I want is to mess around
And I don't really care about

If you love me
If you hate me
You can't save me
Baby, baby
All my life I've been good
But now
Whoa
What the hell

La la la la la la la la
Whoa whoa
La la la la la la la la
Whoa whoa

You say that I'm messing with your head
Boy, I like messing in your bed
Yeah, I am messing with your head when
I'm messing with you in bed

All my life I've been good,
But now oh
I'm thinking what the hell
All I want is to mess around
And I don't really care about
All my life I've been good,
But now oh
I'm thinking what the hell
All I want is to mess around
And I don't really care about
If you love me
If you hate me
You can't save me
Baby, baby
All my life I've been good
But now
Whoa
What the hell

La la la la la
La la la la la
La la la la la
La la

On Wed, Jun 17, 2015 at 8:52 PM, Prof David West <[hidden email]> wrote:

i have my ups and downs

but wotthehell wotthehell

yesterday sceptres and crowns

fried oysters and velvet gowns

and today i herd with bums

but wotthehell wotthehell

i wake the world from sleep

as i caper and sing and leap

when i sing my wild free tune

wotthehell wotthehell

under the blear eyed moon

i am pelted with cast off shoon

but wotthehell wotthehell

Nick Thompson

Re: [Kitchen] FW: P. and V.

Dear Steve and fellow friammers,

I am mortified. What follows is a LAME explanation. I am the victim of some unexpected cross-posting of a thread from the KITCHEN list – a group of cultural psychologists and fellow travelers that originated at Clark University and is now distributed all over the world – to the FRIAM list. I am also a victim of my own stupidity in failing to notice the cross-posting before I replied to Lee. I NEVER would have been so foolish as to suppose that nobody on the FRIAM list would know Don Marquis. Thanks for checking in, and I apologize for any implied impugning of the LIST.

And here I have been trying to give FRIAM a rest from all my “philosophical” foolishness.

Whothehell, indeed,

Hope you all are summering well,

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 Stephen Guerin
Sent: Wednesday, June 17, 2015 11:45 PM
To: The Friday Morning Applied Complexity Coffee Group
Subject: Re: [FRIAM] [Kitchen] FW: P. and V.

“wotthehell,wotthehell.”

>> Nick writes:

I am willing to bet a latte at our next meeting that you and I are the only two people on this list who know the source of this quote.

Nick, is that you center stage left 3 rows back with Lee on your shoulders? Jakarta 2014 that was sooooo killer, right?

see: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3JggVNB89dI

I'll take my latte with a double shot, Sir.

Avril Lavigne Live

What The Hell

On Wed, Jun 17, 2015 at 8:52 PM, Prof David West <[hidden email]> wrote:

i have my ups and downs
but wotthehell wotthehell
yesterday sceptres and crowns
fried oysters and velvet gowns
and today i herd with bums
but wotthehell wotthehell
i wake the world from sleep
as i caper and sing and leap
when i sing my wild free tune
wotthehell wotthehell
under the blear eyed moon
i am pelted with cast off shoon
but wotthehell wotthehell