"The WeatherWise Gardener"
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Thanks, Russell,
I think, actually, despite the heat that can be generated between myself on the days that I am a realist and on the days when I am not, It probably doesnt make any difference, as long as one is consistent. So I wont touch THAT issue now. But trying to match your non realism, let me ask, when does it help us with our coherence, likeliness, etc. to think of the components in our models as entitities .... eg billiard balls .... and when does it suit us to think of them as processes ... eg, acceleration. You will probably say, well it depends on such things as the nature of the data we are trying to match, and teh place in the components in the whole, etc. But it is just toward such rules of thumb that I am groping. Crazy as it sounds, I have been thinking of writing a book for many years called "the mind of the storm". What I imagine the book doing is using the arguments against using mind terms in discussing meteorological entiites to undermine mind talk concerning humans. Thanks for your comments, Nick Nicholas S. Thompson Professor of Psychology and Ethology Clark University [hidden email] http://home.earthlink.net/~nickthompson/ [hidden email] > [Original Message] > From: Russell Standish <[hidden email]> > To: Nick Thompson <[hidden email]>; The Friday Morning Applied Complexity Coffee Group <[hidden email]> > Cc: James R. Stalker,PHD [RESPR] <[hidden email]> > Date: 6/24/2005 12:50:05 PM > Subject: Re: [FRIAM] "The WeatherWise Gardener" > > Entities are components of models. They are not "out there" as > objective things, but part and parcel of the models we use for > understanding reality. Models should be good, and if we can find a > better one, we discard a model. Goodness of a model typically involves > a tradeoff between comprehensibility, computability and > predictability. It is a "multiobjective property". > > Tropical cyclones, tornadoes etc are components of our (human being's) > models of the weather system. It is obviously useful to move away from > the location of the cyclone, and also even thouh their motion is > somewhat unpredictable, certain patterns emerge allowing predictions > of when and where they move. > > Numerical simulations of weather systems a discretised PDE's --- there > are no such things as tropical cyclones, tornadoes in the computer > model. Identification of features of the model's output as cyclone etc > must happen post-hoc by a human observer. > > Numerical simulations (given enough computing resources) are capable > of better levels of prediction than human models of storms, but the > latter models are more comprehensible ("cold front causes > precipitation") > > Cheers > > On Thu, Jun 23, 2005 at 01:30:18PM -0400, Nick Thompson wrote: > > > > Is a storm an entity? Are trough's and ridge entities? Is the thunderstorms. Do mountain ranges cause overrunning drylines. Or are all these things "just" irreduceably parts of a process. Sitting here in the complexityschool, and having just left Melanie's lecture, I am more more bemused than ever by the question of just what IS an entity. Is a "particle" on a CA an entity? Carl, if I understand him, keeps pressing me to the view that there are no entities .... or perhaps, more precisely, that I get nowhere thinking of things as entities that cause (any more that I would get anywhere in the study of physiology by studying the pound of frozen hamburger in my freezer.) > > > > -- > *PS: A number of people ask me about the attachment to my email, which > is of type "application/pgp-signature". Don't worry, it is not a > virus. It is an electronic signature, that may be used to verify this > email came from me if you have PGP or GPG installed. Otherwise, you > may safely ignore this attachment. > > > A/Prof Russell Standish Phone 8308 3119 (mobile) > Mathematics 0425 253119 (") > UNSW SYDNEY 2052 [hidden email] > Australia http://parallel.hpc.unsw.edu.au/rks > International prefix +612, Interstate prefix 02 > ---------------------------------------------------------------------------- |
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On Fri, Jun 24, 2005 at 12:07:47AM -0600, Nicholas Thompson wrote:
> Thanks, Russell, > > I think, actually, despite the heat that can be generated between myself on > the days that I am a realist and on the days when I am not, It probably > doesnt make any difference, as long as one is consistent. So I wont touch > THAT issue now. But trying to match your non realism, let me ask, when I'm not sure I was being idealistic in this case. Even a realist would have trouble asserting the realism of emergent entities. Mostly an idealist would say that all entities are emergent, none are priveleged over any other. My brain hurts over all these labels - I'm not so sure they are all that relevant now anyway. > > does it help us with our coherence, likeliness, etc. to think of the > components in our models as entitities .... eg billiard balls .... and when > does it suit us to think of them as processes ... eg, acceleration. Isn't a process an entity? Sure you can have nonprocess entities as well > > You will probably say, well it depends on such things as the nature of the > data we are trying to match, and teh place in the components in the whole, > etc. But it is just toward such rules of thumb that I am groping. > > Crazy as it sounds, I have been thinking of writing a book for many years > called "the mind of the storm". What I imagine the book doing is using the > arguments against using mind terms in discussing meteorological entiites to > undermine mind talk concerning humans. > > Thanks for your comments, > > Nick -- *PS: A number of people ask me about the attachment to my email, which is of type "application/pgp-signature". Don't worry, it is not a virus. It is an electronic signature, that may be used to verify this email came from me if you have PGP or GPG installed. Otherwise, you may safely ignore this attachment. ---------------------------------------------------------------------------- A/Prof Russell Standish Phone 8308 3119 (mobile) Mathematics 0425 253119 (") UNSW SYDNEY 2052 [hidden email] Australia http://parallel.hpc.unsw.edu.au/rks International prefix +612, Interstate prefix 02 ---------------------------------------------------------------------------- -------------- next part -------------- A non-text attachment was scrubbed... Name: not available Type: application/pgp-signature Size: 189 bytes Desc: not available Url : /pipermail/friam_redfish.com/attachments/20050627/b5b1487a/attachment.bin |
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