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Re: Self-awareness

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Russ Abbott

Re: Self-awareness

I'm sorry, Phil, I'm missing your point. How does your comment relate to my argument that self-awareness is a primary good and a possible way around the difficulty most people have with critical thinking?

-- Russ

On Mon, Oct 6, 2008 at 12:53 PM, Phil Henshaw <[hidden email]> wrote:

Well Russ, what if a group of scientists were to acknowledge that science actually just seems to be descriptive after all..., and looking through the holes one seems able to actually see signs of a physical world after all! Than sort of 'emperor's new clothes' moment might be enough to turn everyone's attention to value of self-critical thinking wouldn't it?! ;-)

Phil

From: [hidden email] [mailto:[hidden email]] On Behalf Of Russ Abbott
Sent: Sunday, October 05, 2008 10:06 PM
To: The Friday Morning Applied Complexity Coffee Group
Subject: Re: [FRIAM] Willfull Ignorance - Satisfies NickCriteria E

On Sun, Oct 5, 2008 at 12:39 PM, glen e. p. ropella <[hidden email]> wrote:

So the first step is for each individual to accept their responsibility
to think/speak critically at every opportunity. The next step is to
package such critical thinking inside an infectious wrapper so that
it spreads across all humanity.

Yes, if it worked it would be wonderful. I'm cynical enough to doubt that it would succeed. (1) I doubt that we can find a wrapper infectious enough and (2) even if we did, I doubt that the population as a whole is capable of the level of critical thinking that we need. (That's elitism, isn't it.)

Demagoguery almost always seems to succeed. Can anything be done about that? More discouraging is that advertising is cleaned up demagoguery. And advertising will always be with us.

Just to be sure I knew what I was talking about (critical thinking?) I just looked up "demagoguery": "impassioned appeals to the prejudices and emotions of the populace."

Prejudice and emotion will always be with us -- even the least prejudiced and least a prisoner of their emotions. Besides, without emotion, we can't even make decisions. (That's clearly another discussion, but it's worth noting.)

So can we really complain about superficial prejudice and emotion when we are all subject to it at some level?

Perhaps the need is for self-awareness -- and even more for having a high regard for self-awareness -- so that one can learn about one's prejudices and emotions and stand back from them when appropriate. Can we teach that? (It helps to have good role models. Obviously we have had exactly the opposite in our current president.)

Actually, though, a high regard for self-awareness might be easier to teach than critical thinking. So perhaps there is hope. But the danger there is to fall prey to melodrama. It's not easy. I'll nominate Glen as a good role model, though. How can we make your persona more widely visible?

-- Russ

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

Phil Henshaw-2

Re: Self-awareness

Russ,

Oh, just that scientists appear to be one of the main violators of your self-awareness principle. Scientists tend to describe the physical world as if they are unaware that science constructs descriptive models of things far too complex to model, that might behave differently from any kind of model we know how to invent. That has us spending a disproportionate amount of time looking into our theories for the behavior of the world around us (under the streetlight for the keys lost in the alley) and letting our skills in watching physical systems atrophy.

Do you see the connection? Is it partly accurate?

Phil Henshaw

From: Russ Abbott [mailto:[hidden email]]
Sent: Monday, October 06, 2008 4:04 PM
To: [hidden email]
Cc: The Friday Morning Applied Complexity Coffee Group
Subject: Re: [FRIAM] Self-awareness

On Mon, Oct 6, 2008 at 12:53 PM, Phil Henshaw <[hidden email]> wrote:

Well Russ, what if a group of scientists were to acknowledge that science actually just seems to be descriptive after all..., and looking through the holes one seems able to actually see signs of a physical world after all! Than sort of 'emperor's new clothes' moment might be enough to turn everyone's attention to value of self-critical thinking wouldn't it?! ;-)

Phil

From: [hidden email] [mailto:[hidden email]] On Behalf Of Russ Abbott
Sent: Sunday, October 05, 2008 10:06 PM
To: The Friday Morning Applied Complexity Coffee Group
Subject: Re: [FRIAM] Willfull Ignorance - Satisfies NickCriteria E

On Sun, Oct 5, 2008 at 12:39 PM, glen e. p. ropella <[hidden email]> wrote:

So the first step is for each individual to accept their responsibility
to think/speak critically at every opportunity. The next step is to
package such critical thinking inside an infectious wrapper so that
it spreads across all humanity.

Yes, if it worked it would be wonderful. I'm cynical enough to doubt that it would succeed. (1) I doubt that we can find a wrapper infectious enough and (2) even if we did, I doubt that the population as a whole is capable of the level of critical thinking that we need. (That's elitism, isn't it.)

Demagoguery almost always seems to succeed. Can anything be done about that? More discouraging is that advertising is cleaned up demagoguery. And advertising will always be with us.

Just to be sure I knew what I was talking about (critical thinking?) I just looked up "demagoguery": "impassioned appeals to the prejudices and emotions of the populace."

Prejudice and emotion will always be with us -- even the least prejudiced and least a prisoner of their emotions. Besides, without emotion, we can't even make decisions. (That's clearly another discussion, but it's worth noting.)

So can we really complain about superficial prejudice and emotion when we are all subject to it at some level?

Perhaps the need is for self-awareness -- and even more for having a high regard for self-awareness -- so that one can learn about one's prejudices and emotions and stand back from them when appropriate. Can we teach that? (It helps to have good role models. Obviously we have had exactly the opposite in our current president.)

Actually, though, a high regard for self-awareness might be easier to teach than critical thinking. So perhaps there is hope. But the danger there is to fall prey to melodrama. It's not easy. I'll nominate Glen as a good role model, though. How can we make your persona more widely visible?

-- Russ

Russ Abbott

Re: Self-awareness

Perhaps so, but for the most part I think of scientists as intellectually honest, as doing as good a job as they know how to do, and as willing to change their minds in the face of contrary evidence.

-- Russ

On Tue, Oct 7, 2008 at 11:35 AM, Phil Henshaw <[hidden email]> wrote:

Russ,

Oh, just that scientists appear to be one of the main violators of your self-awareness principle.     Scientists tend to describe the physical world as if they are unaware that science constructs descriptive models of things far too complex to model, that might behave differently from any kind of model we know how to invent.     That has us spending a disproportionate amount of time looking into our theories for the behavior of the world around us (under the streetlight for the keys lost in the alley) and letting our skills in watching physical systems atrophy.

Do you see the connection?    Is it partly accurate?

Phil Henshaw

From: Russ Abbott [mailto:[hidden email]]
Sent: Monday, October 06, 2008 4:04 PM
To: [hidden email]
Cc: The Friday Morning Applied Complexity Coffee Group
Subject: Re: [FRIAM] Self-awareness

I'm sorry, Phil, I'm missing your point. How does your comment relate to my argument that self-awareness is a primary good and a possible way around the difficulty most people have with critical thinking?

-- Russ

On Mon, Oct 6, 2008 at 12:53 PM, Phil Henshaw <[hidden email]> wrote:

Well Russ, what if a group of scientists were to acknowledge that science actually just seems to be descriptive after all..., and looking through the holes one seems able to actually see signs of a physical world after all!     Than sort of 'emperor's new clothes' moment might be enough to turn everyone's attention to value of self-critical thinking wouldn't it?!   ;-)

Phil

From: [hidden email] [mailto:[hidden email]] On Behalf Of Russ Abbott
Sent: Sunday, October 05, 2008 10:06 PM
To: The Friday Morning Applied Complexity Coffee Group
Subject: Re: [FRIAM] Willfull Ignorance - Satisfies NickCriteria E

On Sun, Oct 5, 2008 at 12:39 PM, glen e. p. ropella <[hidden email]> wrote:

So the first step is for each individual to accept their responsibility
to think/speak critically at every opportunity. The next step is to
package such critical thinking inside an infectious wrapper so that
it spreads across all humanity.

Yes, if it worked it would be wonderful. I'm cynical enough to doubt that it would succeed. (1) I doubt that we can find a wrapper infectious enough and (2) even if we did, I doubt that the population as a whole is capable of the level of critical thinking that we need. (That's elitism, isn't it.)

Demagoguery almost always seems to succeed. Can anything be done about that? More discouraging is that advertising is cleaned up demagoguery. And advertising will always be with us.

Just to be sure I knew what I was talking about (critical thinking?) I just looked up "demagoguery": "impassioned appeals to the prejudices and emotions of the populace."

Prejudice and emotion will always be with us -- even the least prejudiced and least a prisoner of their emotions. Besides, without emotion, we can't even make decisions. (That's clearly another discussion, but it's worth noting.)

So can we really complain about superficial prejudice and emotion when we are all subject to it at some level?

Perhaps the need is for self-awareness -- and even more for having a high regard for self-awareness -- so that one can learn about one's prejudices and emotions and stand back from them when appropriate. Can we teach that? (It helps to have good role models. Obviously we have had exactly the opposite in our current president.)

Actually, though, a high regard for self-awareness might be easier to teach than critical thinking. So perhaps there is hope. But the danger there is to fall prey to melodrama. It's not easy. I'll nominate Glen as a good role model, though. How can we make your persona more widely visible?

-- Russ

Orlando Leibovitz

Re: Self-awareness

Hello Russ,

Is your comment below what you what mean by self awareness? If not could you describe it? Sorry if I missed this definition in an earlier email.

O

Russ Abbott wrote:

Perhaps so, but for the most part I think of scientists as intellectually honest, as doing as good a job as they know how to do, and as willing to change their minds in the face of contrary evidence.

-- Russ

On Tue, Oct 7, 2008 at 11:35 AM, Phil Henshaw <[hidden email]> wrote:

Russ,

Oh, just that scientists appear to be one of the main violators of your self-awareness principle.     Scientists tend to describe the physical world as if they are unaware that science constructs descriptive models of things far too complex to model, that might behave differently from any kind of model we know how to invent.     That has us spending a disproportionate amount of time looking into our theories for the behavior of the world around us (under the streetlight for the keys lost in the alley) and letting our skills in watching physical systems atrophy.

Do you see the connection?    Is it partly accurate?

Phil Henshaw

From: Russ Abbott [mailto:[hidden email]]
Sent: Monday, October 06, 2008 4:04 PM
To: [hidden email]
Cc: The Friday Morning Applied Complexity Coffee Group
Subject: Re: [FRIAM] Self-awareness

I'm sorry, Phil, I'm missing your point. How does your comment relate to my argument that self-awareness is a primary good and a possible way around the difficulty most people have with critical thinking?

-- Russ

On Mon, Oct 6, 2008 at 12:53 PM, Phil Henshaw <[hidden email]> wrote:

Well Russ, what if a group of scientists were to acknowledge that science actually just seems to be descriptive after all..., and looking through the holes one seems able to actually see signs of a physical world after all!     Than sort of 'emperor's new clothes' moment might be enough to turn everyone's attention to value of self-critical thinking wouldn't it?!   ;-)

Phil

From: [hidden email] [mailto:[hidden email]] On Behalf Of Russ Abbott
Sent: Sunday, October 05, 2008 10:06 PM
To: The Friday Morning Applied Complexity Coffee Group
Subject: Re: [FRIAM] Willfull Ignorance - Satisfies NickCriteria E

On Sun, Oct 5, 2008 at 12:39 PM, glen e. p. ropella <[hidden email]> wrote:

So the first step is for each individual to accept their responsibility
to think/speak critically at every opportunity. The next step is to
package such critical thinking inside an infectious wrapper so that
it spreads across all humanity.

Yes, if it worked it would be wonderful. I'm cynical enough to doubt that it would succeed. (1) I doubt that we can find a wrapper infectious enough and (2) even if we did, I doubt that the population as a whole is capable of the level of critical thinking that we need. (That's elitism, isn't it.)

Demagoguery almost always seems to succeed. Can anything be done about that? More discouraging is that advertising is cleaned up demagoguery. And advertising will always be with us.

Just to be sure I knew what I was talking about (critical thinking?) I just looked up "demagoguery": "impassioned appeals to the prejudices and emotions of the populace."

Prejudice and emotion will always be with us -- even the least prejudiced and least a prisoner of their emotions. Besides, without emotion, we can't even make decisions. (That's clearly another discussion, but it's worth noting.)

So can we really complain about superficial prejudice and emotion when we are all subject to it at some level?

Perhaps the need is for self-awareness -- and even more for having a high regard for self-awareness -- so that one can learn about one's prejudices and emotions and stand back from them when appropriate. Can we teach that? (It helps to have good role models. Obviously we have had exactly the opposite in our current president.)

Actually, though, a high regard for self-awareness might be easier to teach than critical thinking. So perhaps there is hope. But the danger there is to fall prey to melodrama. It's not easy. I'll nominate Glen as a good role model, though. How can we make your persona more widely visible?

-- Russ
============================================================
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

Orlando Leibovitz

[hidden email]

www.orlandoleibovitz.com

Studio Telephone: 505-820-6183

Russ Abbott

Re: Self-awareness

Richard Feynman said that "Science is what we have learned about how not to fool ourselves about the way the world is." To the extent that it achieves that goal, science works even without individual self-awareness. That's really quite an accomplishment, to have created a way of being in the world that succeeds reasonably well without having to depend on individual subjective honesty.

For the most part, if we aren't honest with ourselves and with each other, we all suffer negative consequences. Now that I've written that, it seems to me that "honesty with oneself" is not a bad definition of "self-awareness." Another way of putting it is that self-awareness is what keeps us from fooling ourselves about our subjective experience. Contrast this with Feynman's definition.

Science works reasonably well even without individual self-awareness in that it relies on community self-verification. In some ways science is the self-awareness of a community of people about what can be known about the world. Obviously science is not about everything -- in particular inter-personal values. But within its domain I think it does a pretty good job of keeping everyone involved reasonably honest -- and especially keeping the community as a whole reasonably honest. There are failures and detours. But they are usually corrected.

I hadn't intended my original post to be about science. It was about the importance of self-awareness when dealing with political and governance issues. But now that we are talking about science it's an interesting comparison. Perhaps that's why science has been so successful. It's a methodology that isn't ultimately dependent on individual human honesty. Can we say that about anything else?

-- Russ

On Wed, Oct 8, 2008 at 3:59 PM, Orlando Leibovitz <[hidden email]> wrote:

Hello Russ,

Is your comment below what you what mean by self awareness? If not could you describe it? Sorry if I missed this definition in an earlier email.

O

Russ Abbott wrote:
Perhaps so, but for the most part I think of scientists as intellectually honest, as doing as good a job as they know how to do, and as willing to change their minds in the face of contrary evidence.

-- Russ

On Tue, Oct 7, 2008 at 11:35 AM, Phil Henshaw <[hidden email]> wrote:

Russ,

Oh, just that scientists appear to be one of the main violators of your self-awareness principle.     Scientists tend to describe the physical world as if they are unaware that science constructs descriptive models of things far too complex to model, that might behave differently from any kind of model we know how to invent.     That has us spending a disproportionate amount of time looking into our theories for the behavior of the world around us (under the streetlight for the keys lost in the alley) and letting our skills in watching physical systems atrophy.

Do you see the connection?    Is it partly accurate?

Phil Henshaw

From: Russ Abbott [mailto:[hidden email]]
Sent: Monday, October 06, 2008 4:04 PM
To: [hidden email]
Cc: The Friday Morning Applied Complexity Coffee Group
Subject: Re: [FRIAM] Self-awareness

I'm sorry, Phil, I'm missing your point. How does your comment relate to my argument that self-awareness is a primary good and a possible way around the difficulty most people have with critical thinking?

-- Russ

On Mon, Oct 6, 2008 at 12:53 PM, Phil Henshaw <[hidden email]> wrote:

Well Russ, what if a group of scientists were to acknowledge that science actually just seems to be descriptive after all..., and looking through the holes one seems able to actually see signs of a physical world after all!     Than sort of 'emperor's new clothes' moment might be enough to turn everyone's attention to value of self-critical thinking wouldn't it?!   ;-)

Phil

From: [hidden email] [mailto:[hidden email]] On Behalf Of Russ Abbott
Sent: Sunday, October 05, 2008 10:06 PM
To: The Friday Morning Applied Complexity Coffee Group
Subject: Re: [FRIAM] Willfull Ignorance - Satisfies NickCriteria E

On Sun, Oct 5, 2008 at 12:39 PM, glen e. p. ropella <[hidden email]> wrote:

So the first step is for each individual to accept their responsibility
to think/speak critically at every opportunity. The next step is to
package such critical thinking inside an infectious wrapper so that
it spreads across all humanity.

Yes, if it worked it would be wonderful. I'm cynical enough to doubt that it would succeed. (1) I doubt that we can find a wrapper infectious enough and (2) even if we did, I doubt that the population as a whole is capable of the level of critical thinking that we need. (That's elitism, isn't it.)

Demagoguery almost always seems to succeed. Can anything be done about that? More discouraging is that advertising is cleaned up demagoguery. And advertising will always be with us.

Just to be sure I knew what I was talking about (critical thinking?) I just looked up "demagoguery": "impassioned appeals to the prejudices and emotions of the populace."

Prejudice and emotion will always be with us -- even the least prejudiced and least a prisoner of their emotions. Besides, without emotion, we can't even make decisions. (That's clearly another discussion, but it's worth noting.)

So can we really complain about superficial prejudice and emotion when we are all subject to it at some level?

Perhaps the need is for self-awareness -- and even more for having a high regard for self-awareness -- so that one can learn about one's prejudices and emotions and stand back from them when appropriate. Can we teach that? (It helps to have good role models. Obviously we have had exactly the opposite in our current president.)

Actually, though, a high regard for self-awareness might be easier to teach than critical thinking. So perhaps there is hope. But the danger there is to fall prey to melodrama. It's not easy. I'll nominate Glen as a good role model, though. How can we make your persona more widely visible?

-- Russ
============================================================
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
--

Orlando Leibovitz

[hidden email]

www.orlandoleibovitz.com

Studio Telephone: 505-820-6183

Russ Abbott

Re: Self-awareness

The current Discover Magazine solicited "Advice for the next president" from a number of prominent scientists. The longest by far was from Lawrence Krauss. Among his other points he said that

Science generally functions by unambiguously determining what is wrong, not what is right. ... And the process produces a truly open mind. One of the greatest experience scientists, indeed anyone, can have is to have some truly and deeply cherished idea proved wrong by the evidence of reality, for only in this way can we learn to look beyond our a priori prejudices and be willing to judge the world for the way it is, not the way one would like it to be.

The experience of finding out that one has to look beyond one's prejudice is the same sort of benefit one gets from self-awareness. So even though it doesn't have self-awareness as a goal, science offers some of the same benefits to its practitioners.

-- Russ

On Thu, Oct 9, 2008 at 12:09 AM, Russ Abbott <[hidden email]> wrote:

Richard Feynman said that "Science is what we have learned about how not to fool ourselves about the way the world is." To the extent that it achieves that goal, science works even without individual self-awareness. That's really quite an accomplishment, to have created a way of being in the world that succeeds reasonably well without having to depend on individual subjective honesty.

For the most part, if we aren't honest with ourselves and with each other, we all suffer negative consequences. Now that I've written that, it seems to me that "honesty with oneself" is not a bad definition of "self-awareness." Another way of putting it is that self-awareness is what keeps us from fooling ourselves about our subjective experience. Contrast this with Feynman's definition.

Science works reasonably well even without individual self-awareness in that it relies on community self-verification. In some ways science is the self-awareness of a community of people about what can be known about the world. Obviously science is not about everything -- in particular inter-personal values. But within its domain I think it does a pretty good job of keeping everyone involved reasonably honest -- and especially keeping the community as a whole reasonably honest. There are failures and detours. But they are usually corrected.

I hadn't intended my original post to be about science. It was about the importance of self-awareness when dealing with political and governance issues. But now that we are talking about science it's an interesting comparison. Perhaps that's why science has been so successful. It's a methodology that isn't ultimately dependent on individual human honesty. Can we say that about anything else?

-- Russ
On Wed, Oct 8, 2008 at 3:59 PM, Orlando Leibovitz <[hidden email]> wrote:
Hello Russ,

Is your comment below what you what mean by self awareness? If not could you describe it? Sorry if I missed this definition in an earlier email.

O

Russ Abbott wrote:
Perhaps so, but for the most part I think of scientists as intellectually honest, as doing as good a job as they know how to do, and as willing to change their minds in the face of contrary evidence.

-- Russ

On Tue, Oct 7, 2008 at 11:35 AM, Phil Henshaw <[hidden email]> wrote:

Russ,

Oh, just that scientists appear to be one of the main violators of your self-awareness principle.     Scientists tend to describe the physical world as if they are unaware that science constructs descriptive models of things far too complex to model, that might behave differently from any kind of model we know how to invent.     That has us spending a disproportionate amount of time looking into our theories for the behavior of the world around us (under the streetlight for the keys lost in the alley) and letting our skills in watching physical systems atrophy.

Do you see the connection?    Is it partly accurate?

Phil Henshaw

From: Russ Abbott [mailto:[hidden email]]
Sent: Monday, October 06, 2008 4:04 PM
To: [hidden email]
Cc: The Friday Morning Applied Complexity Coffee Group
Subject: Re: [FRIAM] Self-awareness

I'm sorry, Phil, I'm missing your point. How does your comment relate to my argument that self-awareness is a primary good and a possible way around the difficulty most people have with critical thinking?

-- Russ

On Mon, Oct 6, 2008 at 12:53 PM, Phil Henshaw <[hidden email]> wrote:

Well Russ, what if a group of scientists were to acknowledge that science actually just seems to be descriptive after all..., and looking through the holes one seems able to actually see signs of a physical world after all!     Than sort of 'emperor's new clothes' moment might be enough to turn everyone's attention to value of self-critical thinking wouldn't it?!   ;-)

Phil

From: [hidden email] [mailto:[hidden email]] On Behalf Of Russ Abbott
Sent: Sunday, October 05, 2008 10:06 PM
To: The Friday Morning Applied Complexity Coffee Group
Subject: Re: [FRIAM] Willfull Ignorance - Satisfies NickCriteria E

On Sun, Oct 5, 2008 at 12:39 PM, glen e. p. ropella <[hidden email]> wrote:

So the first step is for each individual to accept their responsibility
to think/speak critically at every opportunity. The next step is to
package such critical thinking inside an infectious wrapper so that
it spreads across all humanity.

Yes, if it worked it would be wonderful. I'm cynical enough to doubt that it would succeed. (1) I doubt that we can find a wrapper infectious enough and (2) even if we did, I doubt that the population as a whole is capable of the level of critical thinking that we need. (That's elitism, isn't it.)

Demagoguery almost always seems to succeed. Can anything be done about that? More discouraging is that advertising is cleaned up demagoguery. And advertising will always be with us.

Just to be sure I knew what I was talking about (critical thinking?) I just looked up "demagoguery": "impassioned appeals to the prejudices and emotions of the populace."

Prejudice and emotion will always be with us -- even the least prejudiced and least a prisoner of their emotions. Besides, without emotion, we can't even make decisions. (That's clearly another discussion, but it's worth noting.)

So can we really complain about superficial prejudice and emotion when we are all subject to it at some level?

Perhaps the need is for self-awareness -- and even more for having a high regard for self-awareness -- so that one can learn about one's prejudices and emotions and stand back from them when appropriate. Can we teach that? (It helps to have good role models. Obviously we have had exactly the opposite in our current president.)

Actually, though, a high regard for self-awareness might be easier to teach than critical thinking. So perhaps there is hope. But the danger there is to fall prey to melodrama. It's not easy. I'll nominate Glen as a good role model, though. How can we make your persona more widely visible?

-- Russ
============================================================
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
--

Orlando Leibovitz

[hidden email]

www.orlandoleibovitz.com

Studio Telephone: 505-820-6183

Phil Henshaw-2

Re: Self-awareness

In reply to this post by Russ Abbott

Russ says,

[ph] Gee, how fatefully untrue that seems after this past week. The general failure of science to explain why perpetual explosive growth is an impossible task (and dead end for both our life support systems and the ecologies of the planet) is at the least a demonstration of some confused subjectivity in approaching the problem. Failing to point out the hazard of driving our world to collapse isn’t something that fits the description “succeeds reasonably well” to me.

For the most part, if we aren't honest with ourselves and with each other, we all suffer negative consequences. Now that I've written that, it seems to me that "honesty with oneself" is not a bad definition of "self-awareness." Another way of putting it is that self-awareness is what keeps us from fooling ourselves about our subjective experience. Contrast this with Feynman's definition.

[ph] If that’s not actually possible, though, and it’s more reasonable to assume that your own subjectivity can’t be got rid of, maybe we’d then show interest in how every run of every experiment misbehaves a little, and may actually demonstrate that every theory it’s designed to demonstrate is an over-simplification…

Science works reasonably well even without individual self-awareness in that it relies on community self-verification. In some ways science is the self-awareness of a community of people about what can be known about the world. Obviously science is not about everything -- in particular inter-personal values. But within its domain I think it does a pretty good job of keeping everyone involved reasonably honest -- and especially keeping the community as a whole reasonably honest. There are failures and detours. But they are usually corrected.

[ph] Group thinking is good for some kinds of validation, but is also a major distraction, imposing all kinds of it’s own persistent subjectivities to prevent open inquiry. One thing not so honest in science is that we virtually never discuss the influence of the funding source in determining results, though I hear it whispered as side comments when papers are presented and such. Just the fact that the conclusion is usually defined as ‘solving the problem’ rather than ‘finding the problem’, before the grant is given seems like a real problem. It’s like all the TED talks where people only allowed, persistently instructed from the sound it, to accentuate the ‘positive’. That way or so many others, we’re protected from hearing of the uncertainties or unanswered questions researchers have, which is what the most active threads of thinking would need to connect with but are kept missing for sponsor sensitivities and social pressure it seems.

I hadn't intended my original post to be about science. It was about the importance of self-awareness when dealing with political and governance issues. But now that we are talking about science it's an interesting comparison. Perhaps that's why science has been so successful. It's a methodology that isn't ultimately dependent on individual human honesty. Can we say that about anything else?

[ph] Were it true! This basic problem of science, trying to represent nature as made of the consistent patterns in our information, has been a highly fascinating and useful endeavor in the past. That we approached knowledge that way has also gotten mankind in enormous trouble too, missing things that can’t be represented that way. I don’t think what sustains the illusion that reality is a kind of information is entirely honest.

Perception does definitely get in the way, but also a definite laziness about what we choose to observe and what is more optional. Take everyone’s decided uncertainty about whether increasing things makes them larger or not... etc. If you change the physical thing, but keep the stereotype for it, does it matter? Maybe it’s optional!! Does the unobserved tree fall in the woods in its own time or remain standing forever? Maybe that’s the question. I trust your guess on that is about as good as mine, but we might need to compare notes on some others!

Phil

-- Russ

On Wed, Oct 8, 2008 at 3:59 PM, Orlando Leibovitz <[hidden email]> wrote:

Hello Russ,

Is your comment below what you what mean by self awareness? If not could you describe it? Sorry if I missed this definition in an earlier email.

O

Russ Abbott wrote:

On Tue, Oct 7, 2008 at 11:35 AM, Phil Henshaw <[hidden email]> wrote:

Russ,

Do you see the connection? Is it partly accurate?

Phil Henshaw

On Mon, Oct 6, 2008 at 12:53 PM, Phil Henshaw <[hidden email]> wrote:

Phil

On Sun, Oct 5, 2008 at 12:39 PM, glen e. p. ropella <[hidden email]> wrote:

So the first step is for each individual to accept their responsibility
to think/speak critically at every opportunity. The next step is to
package such critical thinking inside an infectious wrapper so that
it spreads across all humanity.

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

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

Orlando Leibovitz

[hidden email]

www.orlandoleibovitz.com

Studio Telephone: 505-820-6183

Steve Smith

Re: Self-awareness

In reply to this post by Russ Abbott

Well said Russ. Science as a self-organizing system which is relatively
robust and self-healing.

Russ Abbott wrote:

> Richard Feynman said that "Science is what we have learned about how
> not to fool ourselves about the way the world is." To the extent that
> it achieves that goal, science works even without individual
> self-awareness. That's really quite an accomplishment, to have created
> a way of being in the world that succeeds reasonably well without
> having to depend on individual subjective honesty.
>
> For the most part, if we aren't honest with ourselves and with each
> other, we all suffer negative consequences. Now that I've written
> that, it seems to me that "honesty with oneself" is not a bad
> definition of "self-awareness." Another way of putting it is that
> self-awareness is what keeps us from fooling ourselves about our
> subjective experience. Contrast this with Feynman's definition.
>
> Science works reasonably well even without individual self-awareness
> in that it relies on community self-verification. In some ways science
> is the self-awareness of a community of people about what can be known
> about the world. Obviously science is not about everything -- in
> particular inter-personal values. But within its domain I think it
> does a pretty good job of keeping everyone involved reasonably honest
> -- and especially keeping the community as a whole reasonably honest.
> There are failures and detours. But they are usually corrected.
>
> I hadn't intended my original post to be about science. It was about
> the importance of self-awareness when dealing with political and
> governance issues. But now that we are talking about science it's an
> interesting comparison. Perhaps that's why science has been so
> successful. It's a methodology that isn't ultimately dependent on
> individual human honesty. Can we say that about anything else?

Phil Henshaw-2

Re: Self-awareness

Steve,
Well, might you also say science is self-organized to be 'robustly' avoiding
the subject of uncontrolled systems too??

If something doesn't come to your attention because you're only looking for
something else, it could seem to not exist. How do you explain the very
large variety of complex systems that take care of themselves somehow,
sharing environments with very low specific variety corresponding to their
evident highly complex internal designs and internally coordinated
behaviors?

Phil

> -----Original Message-----
> From: [hidden email] [mailto:[hidden email]] On
> Behalf Of Steve Smith
> Sent: Thursday, October 09, 2008 11:48 AM
> To: The Friday Morning Applied Complexity Coffee Group
> Subject: Re: [FRIAM] Self-awareness
>
> Well said Russ. Science as a self-organizing system which is
> relatively
> robust and self-healing.
>
> Russ Abbott wrote:
> > Richard Feynman said that "Science is what we have learned about how
> > not to fool ourselves about the way the world is." To the extent that
> > it achieves that goal, science works even without individual
> > self-awareness. That's really quite an accomplishment, to have
> created
> > a way of being in the world that succeeds reasonably well without
> > having to depend on individual subjective honesty.
> >
> > For the most part, if we aren't honest with ourselves and with each
> > other, we all suffer negative consequences. Now that I've written
> > that, it seems to me that "honesty with oneself" is not a bad
> > definition of "self-awareness." Another way of putting it is that
> > self-awareness is what keeps us from fooling ourselves about our
> > subjective experience. Contrast this with Feynman's definition.
> >
> > Science works reasonably well even without individual self-awareness
> > in that it relies on community self-verification. In some ways
> science
> > is the self-awareness of a community of people about what can be
> known
> > about the world. Obviously science is not about everything -- in
> > particular inter-personal values. But within its domain I think it
> > does a pretty good job of keeping everyone involved reasonably honest
> > -- and especially keeping the community as a whole reasonably honest.
> > There are failures and detours. But they are usually corrected.
> >
> > I hadn't intended my original post to be about science. It was about
> > the importance of self-awareness when dealing with political and
> > governance issues. But now that we are talking about science it's an
> > interesting comparison. Perhaps that's why science has been so
> > successful. It's a methodology that isn't ultimately dependent on
> > individual human honesty. Can we say that about anything else?
>
>
> ============================================================
> 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

Steve Smith

Self-awareness and blind spots Was: Self-awareness

Phil -

Spot on Phil. I'm CC:ing a friend (Aku) with whom I often discuss this point (thus I'm leaving the cruft at the bottom).

Science's biggest failing (perhaps) is it's (natural) blind spots.

When I came to LANL in 1981, the Center for Non-Linear Studies was pretty new and for the most part there was little, if any, study of non-linear systems going on in the world. This was mainly because of a lack of tools to work with nonlinear systems. Once (most) scientists got over their fear of computation, many more complex systems could be studied than before.

Like the man looking for his lost keys under the streetlamp even though he dropped them a block away "because the light is better here".

"... because as we know, there are known knowns; there are things we know we know. We also know there are known unknowns; that is to say we know there are some things we do not know. But there are also unknown unknowns -- the ones we don't know we don't know." - Rummy

Rummy is the new Rumi?

The emerging work in Science studying itself (primarily through studying Citation Networks) offers some hope that we can begin to fill in some of the blind spots. Our own Marko Rodriguez & friends, for example: http://www2007.org/poster860.php

That is not to say (as you seem to here) that we haven't just filled out a huge amount of unexplored territory only to create a similarly huge number of unconsidered regions within that territory.

I'm not completely up on your view on this topic but there also seems to be a theme regarding "far from equilibrium systems"? Is that what you mean by "uncontrolled systems"?

carry on!
- Steve

Steve,
Well, might you also say science is self-organized to be 'robustly' avoiding
the subject of uncontrolled systems too??   

If something doesn't come to your attention because you're only looking for
something else, it could seem to not exist.   How do you explain the very
large variety of complex systems that take care of themselves somehow,
sharing environments with very low specific variety corresponding to their
evident highly complex internal designs and internally coordinated
behaviors?

Phil

-----Original Message-----
From: [hidden email] [[hidden email]] On
Behalf Of Steve Smith
Sent: Thursday, October 09, 2008 11:48 AM
To: The Friday Morning Applied Complexity Coffee Group
Subject: Re: [FRIAM] Self-awareness

Well said Russ.  Science as a self-organizing system which is
relatively
robust and self-healing.

Russ Abbott wrote:

Richard Feynman said that "Science is what we have learned about how
not to fool ourselves about the way the world is." To the extent that
it achieves that goal, science works even without individual
self-awareness. That's really quite an accomplishment, to have

created

a way of being in the world that succeeds reasonably well without
having to depend on individual subjective honesty.

For the most part, if we aren't honest with ourselves and with each
other, we all suffer negative consequences. Now that I've written
that, it seems to me that "honesty with oneself" is not a bad
definition of "self-awareness." Another way of putting it is that
self-awareness is what keeps us from fooling ourselves about our
subjective experience. Contrast this with Feynman's definition.

Science works reasonably well even without individual self-awareness
in that it relies on community self-verification. In some ways

science

is the self-awareness of a community of people about what can be

known

about the world. Obviously science is not about everything -- in
particular inter-personal values. But within its domain I think it
does a pretty good job of keeping everyone involved reasonably honest
-- and especially keeping the community as a whole reasonably honest.
There are failures and detours. But they are usually corrected.

I hadn't intended my original post to be about science. It was about
the importance of self-awareness when dealing with political and
governance issues. But now that we are talking about science it's an
interesting comparison. Perhaps that's why science has been so
successful. It's a methodology that isn't ultimately dependent on
individual human honesty. Can we say that about anything else?

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

Phil Henshaw-2

Re: Self-awareness and blind spots Was: Self-awareness

Steve,

Good, so if we’re “only to create a similarly huge number of unconsidered regions” by acknowledging that some systems are both highly systematic and completely out of control, let’s pick it apart a little. It is indeed sad that we seem to need such dramatic demonstrations as having our whole economic world vaporize to get our attention. The Missouri mule problem I guess, a little something to spark our attention. My take, for many years, is that standard procedure is the problem, systematically transferring earned incomes to unearned incomes, by accumulative %’s. In a physical world that’s the only cause needed. So I think that’s what we’re seeing snap back this week, the elastic links between limitless and limited things, as I and others have said would be the direct consequence of continuing to use that procedure while waiting to see what would happened. After a rubber band has snapped there’s less one can do, of course, but still worth having strategies reflect an understanding of the problem.

I think there are several kinds of “uncontrolled systems”. Some appear uncontrolled but actually represent continuing unaltered regular processes, like random walks, chaotic systems, bifurcation and ABM systems where all the parts follow the same unchanging rules. That sets a kind of odd partition, as these all seem to be “logical systems”. The ones that don’t have rules to follow, and display systematic behaviors that come and go are generally found to be “individual physical systems”. Of course that’s sort of begging the question, since it’s saying that all mathematical control is ‘imaginary’ and has to work through individual physical systems that are uncontrolled, but that’s one of the weird walls (categorical differences) I think you naturally run into.

One of the most interesting groups of uncontrolled phenomena are the temporary divergent processes, maybe looking like a kind of ‘tunneling’ through potential barriers, that may be rather quick but you can often catch a glimpse of. Energy transfer by fluid convection begins like that, as when warm air is under cool air and needs to have a ‘hole’ in the barrier layers above develop to make the energy flow channel. The little “run-aways” that start that process don’t seem to have precedents or to be responding to any influence from what will disrupt them later, but to propagate freely for a short period. That separation between things that will collide but can’t respond to approaching collision till it happens… is a key characteristic. Another more personal example would be your own quick smile in waving to a friend that carries no pretense of the grimace, when in your exuberance, your hand accidentally clips the person you’re sitting with… I did that this week!! Those kinds of systems that are part of “happening” wouldn’t work at all the same way if there wasn’t space and time gaps between them, their beginnings, ends and collisions, etc. Whether predictable or not, individual events often start with events that have no past and then as they develop, shuttle back and forth between being divergent from everything around them and then achieving behavior quite close to some equilibrium. That when they run into things that have no past for them they are disrupted and change form in locally emergent ways puts the same big “?” at the end of the chain too.

It’s not that one couldn’t perhaps develop a ‘God’s eye view’ of local circumstances and devise some equation that could imitate recorded measures, and get a reasonable single circumstance emulation. Modeling artificially controlled conditions has worked extremely well for lots of things. The larger operational definition of ‘uncontrolled’ then is all the stuff which that method and interest in control hasn’t worked for, and then throw in all interests other than control we might have asked about. The trick for exploring the divergent processes in my view is that the parts that are interacting don’t have the option to know the unknown, nor a place to store such a formula, or any ways to follow one. They have to act without knowing what they’re going to run into. That makes the theory of endless compound multiplying economies, guaranteed to never run into anything, seem more ironic than any irony scale could possibly measure. Yet it “made perfect sense” to so very many!

The most useful identifier I found was that the continuity of events requires every systemic change in behavior to begin with a “little bang”, a divergent eruption of behaviors having no direct precedent. Where those “little bangs” are evident or implied the uncontrolled systems they initiate I call “independent”, in that their beginnings have no precedent causes that the later developed system could have had any information about. Too bad about the several hundred trillion we blew this week… but maybe it’ll turn out to be well worth it. It’s a little like getting our first peek over the edge of the teacup we thought was the whole universe, full of strange delights.

I think that category of uncontrolled individual ‘happenings’ of conserved change is a big category, and my methods for investigating them is probably of general use and needing work. There might well be other ways to explore them and other kinds of phenomena that can be turned into windows into nature and either fun or useful ways to explore them. Any ideas for what part of the spectrum you’d find interesting to poke into?

Phil

From: [hidden email] [mailto:[hidden email]] On Behalf Of Steve Smith
Sent: Thursday, October 09, 2008 3:54 PM
To: Aku; The Friday Morning Applied Complexity Coffee Group
Subject: [FRIAM] Self-awareness and blind spots Was: Self-awareness

Steve,

Well, might you also say science is self-organized to be 'robustly' avoiding

the subject of uncontrolled systems too??

If something doesn't come to your attention because you're only looking for

something else, it could seem to not exist.   How do you explain the very

large variety of complex systems that take care of themselves somehow,

sharing environments with very low specific variety corresponding to their

evident highly complex internal designs and internally coordinated

behaviors?

Phil

-----Original Message-----

From: [hidden email] [[hidden email]] On

Behalf Of Steve Smith

Sent: Thursday, October 09, 2008 11:48 AM

To: The Friday Morning Applied Complexity Coffee Group

Subject: Re: [FRIAM] Self-awareness

Well said Russ.  Science as a self-organizing system which is

relatively

robust and self-healing.

Russ Abbott wrote:

Richard Feynman said that "Science is what we have learned about how

not to fool ourselves about the way the world is." To the extent that

it achieves that goal, science works even without individual

self-awareness. That's really quite an accomplishment, to have

created

a way of being in the world that succeeds reasonably well without

having to depend on individual subjective honesty.

For the most part, if we aren't honest with ourselves and with each

other, we all suffer negative consequences. Now that I've written

that, it seems to me that "honesty with oneself" is not a bad

definition of "self-awareness." Another way of putting it is that

self-awareness is what keeps us from fooling ourselves about our

subjective experience. Contrast this with Feynman's definition.

Science works reasonably well even without individual self-awareness

in that it relies on community self-verification. In some ways

science

is the self-awareness of a community of people about what can be

known

about the world. Obviously science is not about everything -- in

particular inter-personal values. But within its domain I think it

does a pretty good job of keeping everyone involved reasonably honest

-- and especially keeping the community as a whole reasonably honest.

There are failures and detours. But they are usually corrected.

I hadn't intended my original post to be about science. It was about

the importance of self-awareness when dealing with political and

governance issues. But now that we are talking about science it's an

interesting comparison. Perhaps that's why science has been so

successful. It's a methodology that isn't ultimately dependent on

individual human honesty. Can we say that about anything else?

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

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