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Nick Thompson

Wittgenstein

I have put the following material in an email message because is suspect it would fascinate some of you., and given that you are mostly people with real jobs and given that the information comes from the guts of a 700 page book, I suspect that many of you would be unlikely to stumble on it on your own.

I have, as I have said, been reading Monk's biography of W. In it we learn many weird things, for instance, that W. turned up at Russell's door in Cambridge in 1911 or so, an callow Austrian lad, who had graduated from a technical school and got a job making kites in Manchester. Within a year, Russell was ruminating about whether he should turn his entire project in the foundations of mathematics over to W. and do something else himself.

By 1937, W. had developed enormous contempt for the whole foundationalist project. As luck would have it, both he and Turing were giving relevant lectures at Cambridge and Turing came to hear W. talk. W. (never a particularly nice man) took the occasion to beat on Turing about the absurdity of the foundationalist project

Here is a quote from Monk, p. 418.

"Wittgensteins technique was not to reinterpret certain particular proofs, but, rather, to redescribe the whole of mathematics in such a way that mathematical logic would appear as the philosophical aberration he believed it to be, and in a way that dissolved entirely the picture of mathematics as a science which discovers facts about mathematical objects . I shall try again and again, he said, to show that what is called a mathematical discovery had much better be called a mathematical invention. There was, on his view, nothing for the mathematician to discover. A proof in mathematics does not establish the truth of a conclusion; if fixes, rather, the meaning of certain signs. The inexorability of mathematics, therefore, does not consist in certain knowledge of mathematical truths, but in the fact that mathematical propositions are grammatical. To deny, for example, that two plus two equals four is not to disagree with a widely held view about a matter of fact; it is to show ignorance of the meanings of the terms involved. Wittgenstein presumably thought that if he could persuade Turing to see mathematics in this light, he could persuade anybody."

Turing apparently gave up on W. a few lectures later.

I have to admit the distinction that W. is making here does not move me particularly. It seems to me as much of a discovery to find out what is implied by the premises of a logical system as to find out how many electrons there are in an iron atom, and since logic is always at work behind empirical work, I cannot get very excited about the difference. Perhaps because I am dim witted.

No response necessary.

Nick

Nicholas S. Thompson

Emeritus Professor of Psychology and Ethology,

Clark University ([hidden email])

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

or more simply, is there order?

Maybe I could reword that ‘principal principle’ of systems steering as a statement of the basic evidence of order in the universe.

“Conserved change appears to have verifiable but unexplainable complex organization behind it you can usually observe developing and also break by pushing it to over-develop.”

Look, I know this audience is not made of fools, and not deaf and dumb, and probably not disinterested in change, so I have to figure your inability to connect with my approach to constructing a science of change for natural complex systems must be that you find no door between your methods and mine. Please respond. Our world is changing dangerously. Our common terms of explanation still contain lots of old errors, so are leaving us out of control.

Phil

Re: 10/1

--------

Observing how the present diverges from the past should be useful, both for becoming better able to control or capitalize on how nature works, but also for better controlling ourselves to stop repeating past choices that would be in error.

I'm trying to share something of my experience and verifiable knowledge of that, that is of some importance. Some only see a fine line between learning someone's tricks for making your own discoveries, and repeating back the words they use to describe their own discoveries, but there's a world of difference, of course. I don't want to hear my empty words back, I want to hear your full words reflecting your having made some of the same observations. Words are only meaningful if they represent shared experience. I think science can help us compare notes on our independent observations of the divergent processes in nature, and to really learn something by that.

Growing rates and kinds of learning occur within relationship networks as they multiply their organizational scale and complexity. That applies to projects that start small at home or work, to software, building plans or businesses, industries, societies, etc, that get endlessly bigger in scale and incorporate changes in kind ever faster. I observe that when a complex multiplication of relationships like that runs into an unexpected rush of complications, it's often just before serious widespread failures occur. It looks to me to be a signal that marks crossing a line toward unmanageability for the system as a whole, marking an internal 'breaking point'.

Do any of you notice that rush of complications as a signal of self-controls becoming, overextended, unresponsive and systems about to go "out of control", like over driving the slop in your steering system? It's also a little like a juggler being thrown just one too many balls to keep in the air all at once, and not dropping just the one but nearly all of them. I think it's a general property of divergent learning systems. Do you guys recognize any cases where organizational instability arises due to exceeding the learning responses of the parts?

If there were such a property of instability in growth, and if you considered cybernetics to be the science of control, a principle of self-control to avoid pushing learning responses out of control could be called its "principal principle", i.e. don't overshoot. That's what I dubbed it anyway, the prudent choice to not push the learning demands of a system beyond the responsiveness of its parts. Does that make any sense in terms of what you observe?

Phil Henshaw ¸¸¸¸.·´ ¯ `·.¸¸¸¸

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

680 Ft. Washington Ave NY NY 10040

tel: 212-795-4844 e-mail: [hidden email] explorations: www.synapse9.com

"it's not finding what people say interesting, but finding the interest in what they say"

Kenneth Lloyd

Re: Wittgenstein

In reply to this post by Nick Thompson

Nick,

First, 2 + 2 does not equal 4 in base 3. Second, equality only works in equilibrium. What if our mathematics rule stated for every day d that passed, 2 + 2 = n + d? The mathematics would be linearly dynamic.

There are subtle cultural assumptions being imbued upon mathematics that may not hold. Mathematics is designed to communicated the least false concept with the least information content at some maximum entropy. Thus 2 apples + 2 oranges does not equal 4 orapples, but 1 fruit basket, yet generally 2 + 2 = 4 (in equilibrium).

Ken

From: [hidden email] [mailto:[hidden email]] On Behalf Of Nicholas Thompson
Sent: Wednesday, October 01, 2008 11:18 PM
To: [hidden email]
Subject: [FRIAM] Wittgenstein

I have put the following material in an email message because is suspect it would fascinate some of you., and given that you are mostly people with real jobs and given that the information comes from the guts of a 700 page book, I suspect that many of you would be unlikely to stumble on it on your own.

I have, as I have said, been reading Monk's biography of W. In it we learn many weird things, for instance, that W. turned up at Russell's door in Cambridge in 1911 or so, an callow Austrian lad, who had graduated from a technical school and got a job making kites in Manchester. Within a year, Russell was ruminating about whether he should turn his entire project in the foundations of mathematics over to W. and do something else himself.

By 1937, W. had developed enormous contempt for the whole foundationalist project. As luck would have it, both he and Turing were giving relevant lectures at Cambridge and Turing came to hear W. talk. W. (never a particularly nice man) took the occasion to beat on Turing about the absurdity of the foundationalist project

Here is a quote from Monk, p. 418.

"Wittgensteins technique was not to reinterpret certain particular proofs, but, rather, to redescribe the whole of mathematics in such a way that mathematical logic would appear as the philosophical aberration he believed it to be, and in a way that dissolved entirely the picture of mathematics as a science which discovers facts about mathematical objects . I shall try again and again, he said, to show that what is called a mathematical discovery had much better be called a mathematical invention. There was, on his view, nothing for the mathematician to discover. A proof in mathematics does not establish the truth of a conclusion; if fixes, rather, the meaning of certain signs. The inexorability of mathematics, therefore, does not consist in certain knowledge of mathematical truths, but in the fact that mathematical propositions are grammatical. To deny, for example, that two plus two equals four is not to disagree with a widely held view about a matter of fact; it is to show ignorance of the meanings of the terms involved. Wittgenstein presumably thought that if he could persuade Turing to see mathematics in this light, he could persuade anybody."

Turing apparently gave up on W. a few lectures later.

I have to admit the distinction that W. is making here does not move me particularly. It seems to me as much of a discovery to find out what is implied by the premises of a logical system as to find out how many electrons there are in an iron atom, and since logic is always at work behind empirical work, I cannot get very excited about the difference. Perhaps because I am dim witted.

No response necessary.

Nick

Nicholas S. Thompson

Emeritus Professor of Psychology and Ethology,

Clark University ([hidden email])

Phil Henshaw-2

Re: Wittgenstein

Ken,

To make that divergent math work, your 2 + 2 = n + d is just the kind of dilemma with modeling the emerging divergent systems of nature that not studying divergent sequences distracts us from. There’s a solution. Can you guess?

Phil

From: [hidden email] [mailto:[hidden email]] On Behalf Of Kenneth Lloyd
Sent: Thursday, October 02, 2008 10:12 AM
To: [hidden email]; 'The Friday Morning Applied Complexity Coffee Group'
Subject: Re: [FRIAM] Wittgenstein

Nick,

Ken

From: [hidden email] [mailto:[hidden email]] On Behalf Of Nicholas Thompson
Sent: Wednesday, October 01, 2008 11:18 PM
To: [hidden email]
Subject: [FRIAM] Wittgenstein

I have put the following material in an email message because is suspect it would fascinate some of you., and given that you are mostly people with real jobs and given that the information comes from the guts of a 700 page book, I suspect that many of you would be unlikely to stumble on it on your own.

I have, as I have said, been reading Monk's biography of W. In it we learn many weird things, for instance, that W. turned up at Russell's door in Cambridge in 1911 or so, an callow Austrian lad, who had graduated from a technical school and got a job making kites in Manchester. Within a year, Russell was ruminating about whether he should turn his entire project in the foundations of mathematics over to W. and do something else himself.

By 1937, W. had developed enormous contempt for the whole foundationalist project. As luck would have it, both he and Turing were giving relevant lectures at Cambridge and Turing came to hear W. talk. W. (never a particularly nice man) took the occasion to beat on Turing about the absurdity of the foundationalist project

Here is a quote from Monk, p. 418.

"Wittgensteins technique was not to reinterpret certain particular proofs, but, rather, to redescribe the whole of mathematics in such a way that mathematical logic would appear as the philosophical aberration he believed it to be, and in a way that dissolved entirely the picture of mathematics as a science which discovers facts about mathematical objects . I shall try again and again, he said, to show that what is called a mathematical discovery had much better be called a mathematical invention. There was, on his view, nothing for the mathematician to discover. A proof in mathematics does not establish the truth of a conclusion; if fixes, rather, the meaning of certain signs. The inexorability of mathematics, therefore, does not consist in certain knowledge of mathematical truths, but in the fact that mathematical propositions are grammatical. To deny, for example, that two plus two equals four is not to disagree with a widely held view about a matter of fact; it is to show ignorance of the meanings of the terms involved. Wittgenstein presumably thought that if he could persuade Turing to see mathematics in this light, he could persuade anybody."

Turing apparently gave up on W. a few lectures later.

I have to admit the distinction that W. is making here does not move me particularly. It seems to me as much of a discovery to find out what is implied by the premises of a logical system as to find out how many electrons there are in an iron atom, and since logic is always at work behind empirical work, I cannot get very excited about the difference. Perhaps because I am dim witted.

No response necessary.

Nick

Nicholas S. Thompson

Emeritus Professor of Psychology and Ethology,

Clark University ([hidden email])

Kenneth Lloyd

Re: Wittgenstein

Phil,

There are many solutions* to the problem as written. By focusing on A solution, we lose sight of alternative, perhaps equally valid solutions - which was the point of my post. For example, d may be a complex number (say, representing day.ergs), not the assumed integer.

I have just finished writing a book on modeling complex systems. In it I cite Dennett and Kinsbourne's** studies of perception between what they call the Cartesian Theater model and the Multiple Drafts model. When one views a model, or when one views a mathematical relationship, there are resonances caused by consonance and dissonance in the understanding of the symbology. These resonces are the source of emergent concepts from the Multiple Drafts. You speak of divergence. I see this more as a process of entanglement - leading to what Prigogine refers to as a dissipative system, or Large Poincare System. Until the model is realized, the temporal symmetry is not broken and you can have "do-overs" or reversibility. Once the model has been physically realized, having been realized in time, it cannot be totally reversed in configuration space-time - so-called Arrow of Time.

*Possibly infinitely many.

**Time and Observer http://ase.tufts.edu/cogstud/papers/time&obs.htm

Ken

From: [hidden email] [mailto:[hidden email]] On Behalf Of Phil Henshaw
Sent: Thursday, October 02, 2008 8:34 AM
To: 'The Friday Morning Applied Complexity Coffee Group'; [hidden email]
Subject: Re: [FRIAM] Wittgenstein

Ken,

To make that divergent math work, your 2 + 2 = n + d is just the kind of dilemma with modeling the emerging divergent systems of nature that not studying divergent sequences distracts us from. There’s a solution. Can you guess?

Phil

From: [hidden email] [mailto:[hidden email]] On Behalf Of Kenneth Lloyd
Sent: Thursday, October 02, 2008 10:12 AM
To: [hidden email]; 'The Friday Morning Applied Complexity Coffee Group'
Subject: Re: [FRIAM] Wittgenstein

Nick,

First, 2 + 2 does not equal 4 in base 3. Second, equality only works in equilibrium. What if our mathematics rule stated for every day d that passed, 2 + 2 = n + d? The mathematics would be linearly dynamic.

There are subtle cultural assumptions being imbued upon mathematics that may not hold. Mathematics is designed to communicated the least false concept with the least information content at some maximum entropy. Thus 2 apples + 2 oranges does not equal 4 orapples, but 1 fruit basket, yet generally 2 + 2 = 4 (in equilibrium).

Ken

From: [hidden email] [mailto:[hidden email]] On Behalf Of Nicholas Thompson
Sent: Wednesday, October 01, 2008 11:18 PM
To: [hidden email]
Subject: [FRIAM] Wittgenstein

I have put the following material in an email message because is suspect it would fascinate some of you., and given that you are mostly people with real jobs and given that the information comes from the guts of a 700 page book, I suspect that many of you would be unlikely to stumble on it on your own.

I have, as I have said, been reading Monk's biography of W. In it we learn many weird things, for instance, that W. turned up at Russell's door in Cambridge in 1911 or so, an callow Austrian lad, who had graduated from a technical school and got a job making kites in Manchester. Within a year, Russell was ruminating about whether he should turn his entire project in the foundations of mathematics over to W. and do something else himself.

By 1937, W. had developed enormous contempt for the whole foundationalist project. As luck would have it, both he and Turing were giving relevant lectures at Cambridge and Turing came to hear W. talk. W. (never a particularly nice man) took the occasion to beat on Turing about the absurdity of the foundationalist project

Here is a quote from Monk, p. 418.

"Wittgensteins technique was not to reinterpret certain particular proofs, but, rather, to redescribe the whole of mathematics in such a way that mathematical logic would appear as the philosophical aberration he believed it to be, and in a way that dissolved entirely the picture of mathematics as a science which discovers facts about mathematical objects . I shall try again and again, he said, to show that what is called a mathematical discovery had much better be called a mathematical invention. There was, on his view, nothing for the mathematician to discover. A proof in mathematics does not establish the truth of a conclusion; if fixes, rather, the meaning of certain signs. The inexorability of mathematics, therefore, does not consist in certain knowledge of mathematical truths, but in the fact that mathematical propositions are grammatical. To deny, for example, that two plus two equals four is not to disagree with a widely held view about a matter of fact; it is to show ignorance of the meanings of the terms involved. Wittgenstein presumably thought that if he could persuade Turing to see mathematics in this light, he could persuade anybody."

Turing apparently gave up on W. a few lectures later.

I have to admit the distinction that W. is making here does not move me particularly. It seems to me as much of a discovery to find out what is implied by the premises of a logical system as to find out how many electrons there are in an iron atom, and since logic is always at work behind empirical work, I cannot get very excited about the difference. Perhaps because I am dim witted.

No response necessary.

Nick

Nicholas S. Thompson

Emeritus Professor of Psychology and Ethology,

Clark University ([hidden email])

Phil Henshaw-2

Re: Wittgenstein

Yes, many possibilities. Often times one solves an ‘insolvable’ problem by taking an approach that was not contemplated in the initial definition, like change the rules. For example when you have a divergent sequence as a starting point in time there’s not much to go on for what could happen to it. With mathematics it’s quite hard to define an environment such as the divergences one might observe emerging in nature would run into, but it is possible to go back and forth between the two. As a mathematician trying to guess what terms in a divergent sequence might be changed one could look to divergence displayed by ‘in physico’ systems, and see the range of new implied equation terms produced by the conditions in its environment.

That’s the general class of solution approaches I was referring to, switching back and forth between interpreting mathematical system representations and their physical representations to have a better idea how the divergence is changed by things outside its original definition. Of course, mathematics may be much more free to experiment, and do so, but perhaps still learn something from the variety of ‘crash tests’ that divergent processes in physical systems readily display. Does that make any sense?

Phil

From: Kenneth Lloyd [mailto:[hidden email]]
Sent: Thursday, October 02, 2008 11:05 AM
To: [hidden email]; 'The Friday Morning Applied Complexity Coffee Group'
Subject: RE: [FRIAM] Wittgenstein

Phil,

*Possibly infinitely many.

**Time and Observer http://ase.tufts.edu/cogstud/papers/time&obs.htm

Ken

From: [hidden email] [mailto:[hidden email]] On Behalf Of Phil Henshaw
Sent: Thursday, October 02, 2008 8:34 AM
To: 'The Friday Morning Applied Complexity Coffee Group'; [hidden email]
Subject: Re: [FRIAM] Wittgenstein

Ken,

To make that divergent math work, your 2 + 2 = n + d is just the kind of dilemma with modeling the emerging divergent systems of nature that not studying divergent sequences distracts us from. There’s a solution. Can you guess?

Phil

From: [hidden email] [mailto:[hidden email]] On Behalf Of Kenneth Lloyd
Sent: Thursday, October 02, 2008 10:12 AM
To: [hidden email]; 'The Friday Morning Applied Complexity Coffee Group'
Subject: Re: [FRIAM] Wittgenstein

Nick,

First, 2 + 2 does not equal 4 in base 3. Second, equality only works in equilibrium. What if our mathematics rule stated for every day d that passed, 2 + 2 = n + d? The mathematics would be linearly dynamic.

There are subtle cultural assumptions being imbued upon mathematics that may not hold. Mathematics is designed to communicated the least false concept with the least information content at some maximum entropy. Thus 2 apples + 2 oranges does not equal 4 orapples, but 1 fruit basket, yet generally 2 + 2 = 4 (in equilibrium).

Ken

From: [hidden email] [mailto:[hidden email]] On Behalf Of Nicholas Thompson
Sent: Wednesday, October 01, 2008 11:18 PM
To: [hidden email]
Subject: [FRIAM] Wittgenstein

I have put the following material in an email message because is suspect it would fascinate some of you., and given that you are mostly people with real jobs and given that the information comes from the guts of a 700 page book, I suspect that many of you would be unlikely to stumble on it on your own.

I have, as I have said, been reading Monk's biography of W. In it we learn many weird things, for instance, that W. turned up at Russell's door in Cambridge in 1911 or so, an callow Austrian lad, who had graduated from a technical school and got a job making kites in Manchester. Within a year, Russell was ruminating about whether he should turn his entire project in the foundations of mathematics over to W. and do something else himself.

By 1937, W. had developed enormous contempt for the whole foundationalist project. As luck would have it, both he and Turing were giving relevant lectures at Cambridge and Turing came to hear W. talk. W. (never a particularly nice man) took the occasion to beat on Turing about the absurdity of the foundationalist project

Here is a quote from Monk, p. 418.

"Wittgensteins technique was not to reinterpret certain particular proofs, but, rather, to redescribe the whole of mathematics in such a way that mathematical logic would appear as the philosophical aberration he believed it to be, and in a way that dissolved entirely the picture of mathematics as a science which discovers facts about mathematical objects . I shall try again and again, he said, to show that what is called a mathematical discovery had much better be called a mathematical invention. There was, on his view, nothing for the mathematician to discover. A proof in mathematics does not establish the truth of a conclusion; if fixes, rather, the meaning of certain signs. The inexorability of mathematics, therefore, does not consist in certain knowledge of mathematical truths, but in the fact that mathematical propositions are grammatical. To deny, for example, that two plus two equals four is not to disagree with a widely held view about a matter of fact; it is to show ignorance of the meanings of the terms involved. Wittgenstein presumably thought that if he could persuade Turing to see mathematics in this light, he could persuade anybody."

Turing apparently gave up on W. a few lectures later.

I have to admit the distinction that W. is making here does not move me particularly. It seems to me as much of a discovery to find out what is implied by the premises of a logical system as to find out how many electrons there are in an iron atom, and since logic is always at work behind empirical work, I cannot get very excited about the difference. Perhaps because I am dim witted.

No response necessary.

Nick

Nicholas S. Thompson

Emeritus Professor of Psychology and Ethology,

Clark University ([hidden email])

Nick Thompson

Re: or more simply, is there order?

In reply to this post by Phil Henshaw-2

Phil Henshaw Hath Spoken Thus:

==>Look, I know this audience is not made of fools, and not deaf and dumb, and probably not disinterested in change, so I have to figure your inability to connect with my approach to constructing a science of change for natural complex systems must be that you find no door between your methods and mine. <==

Phil,

Nick Thompson hath replied:

I have struggled to understand you over the years and just .... can't. Others have said the same of me.

Perhaps "connection" is too high a standard. Certainly "AUDIENCE" is too high a standard. We are not all here, quietly attentive, waiting for ANYbody's message. There is no "we" here.

The older I get, the rarer communication between actual human beings seems to be. We talk to our gods; we talk to our college mentors; we talk to our long dead parents, we reproduce the values of those who have tortured us in our past. However, talking to EACH OTHER is pretty unusual. And hearing one another is rarer still.

Take care,

nick

Nicholas S. Thompson

Emeritus Professor of Psychology and Ethology,

Clark University ([hidden email])

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

From: [hidden email]

To: [hidden email]
Cc: [hidden email]

Sent: 10/2/2008 5:56:08 AM

Subject: or more simply, is there order?

Paul Paryski

Re: or more simply, is there order?

In reply to this post by Phil Henshaw-2

My daughter, an urban planner in Bruxelles, recommended that I read The Black Swan: The Impact of the Highly Improbable by epistemologist Nassim Nicholas Taleb. I did look it up and found it might be pertinent to this string. Has anybody read it?
Paul

**************
Looking for simple solutions to your real-life financial challenges? Check out WalletPop for the latest news and information, tips and calculators.
(http://www.walletpop.com/?NCID=emlcntuswall00000001)
============================================================
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

glen ep ropella

Re: or more simply, is there order?

Thus spake [hidden email] circa 10/02/2008 04:19 PM:
> My daughter, an urban planner in Bruxelles, recommended that I read The Black
> Swan: The Impact of the Highly Improbable by epistemologist Nassim Nicholas
> Taleb. I did look it up and found it might be pertinent to this string. Has
> anybody read it?

Not yet. But I _highly_ his other one: "Fooled by Randomness". If
"Black Swan" is as good, then it's definitely worth reading.

--
glen e. p. ropella, 971-219-3846, http://tempusdictum.com

============================================================
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: or more simply, is there order?

In reply to this post by Nick Thompson

Yes,… such is the disappointment of life! However… we do, I believe, have words that would be quite meaningless even to ourselves without some sort of experience in common. I too also find I make my best sense when talking to myself… but am still also driven to explore those subjects which I can only really understand by way of the give and take of examining the physical world people seem to experience in common. Since nearly everything in my mind makes complete sense, as I make it so, anything that doesn’t seems to have a good chance of being something not in my mind. That’s sort of a technique.

I also find a consistent predictability to not being able to make very good sense of anything that grows exponentially. I see loops of events that get somewhere that I can’t trace, and have found that very helpful in identifying things that are ‘out of body’ in that sort of actual physical sense, but lead me to think about the distributed networks of things they connect which I can’t make much sense of. However, they still seem to be of the kind of thing not located in my mind, but located in the physical world of common experience, identifiable, but not explainable? Does that work, is that right ?

Phil

From: [hidden email] [mailto:[hidden email]] On Behalf Of Nicholas Thompson
Sent: Thursday, October 02, 2008 5:26 PM
To: The Friday Morning Applied Complexity Coffee Group
Subject: Re: [FRIAM] or more simply, is there order?

Phil Henshaw Hath Spoken Thus:

Phil,

Nick Thompson hath replied:

I have struggled to understand you over the years and just .... can't. Others have said the same of me.

Perhaps "connection" is too high a standard. Certainly "AUDIENCE" is too high a standard. We are not all here, quietly attentive, waiting for ANYbody's message. There is no "we" here.

Take care,

nick

Nicholas S. Thompson

Emeritus Professor of Psychology and Ethology,

Clark University ([hidden email])

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

From: [hidden email]

To: [hidden email]

Cc: [hidden email]

Sent: 10/2/2008 5:56:08 AM

Subject: or more simply, is there order?

Phil Henshaw-2

Re: or more simply, is there order?

In reply to this post by Paul Paryski

‘The Black Swan’ was mentioned this AM on the radio in NY and I ordered a copy. Nassim Taleb seems like a prolific writher and fascinating guy. The other author mentioned on the segment was Dan Ariely, author of "Predictably Irrational: The Hidden Forces that Shape our Decisions” maybe worth looking at too.

Phil

From: [hidden email] [mailto:[hidden email]] On Behalf Of [hidden email]
Sent: Thursday, October 02, 2008 7:19 PM
To: [hidden email]; [hidden email]
Subject: Re: [FRIAM] or more simply, is there order?

Russ Abbott

Re: or more simply, is there order?

It's a good book, a bit rambling, but nice points. The essential arguments are here.

-- Russ Abbott
_____________________________________________
Professor, Computer Science
California State University, Los Angeles
o Check out my blog at http://russabbott.blogspot.com/

On Thu, Oct 2, 2008 at 8:31 PM, Phil Henshaw <[hidden email]> wrote:

'The Black Swan' was mentioned this AM on the radio in NY and I ordered a copy. Nassim Taleb seems like a prolific writher and fascinating guy. The other author mentioned on the segment was Dan Ariely, author of "Predictably Irrational: The Hidden Forces that Shape our Decisions" maybe worth looking at too.

Phil

From: [hidden email] [mailto:[hidden email]] On Behalf Of [hidden email]
Sent: Thursday, October 02, 2008 7:19 PM
To: [hidden email]; [hidden email]
Subject: Re: [FRIAM] or more simply, is there order?

My daughter, an urban planner in Bruxelles, recommended that I read The Black Swan: The Impact of the Highly Improbable by epistemologist Nassim Nicholas Taleb. I did look it up and found it might be pertinent to this string. Has anybody read it?
Paul

**************
Looking for simple solutions to your real-life financial challenges? Check out WalletPop for the latest news and information, tips and calculators.
(http://www.walletpop.com/?NCID=emlcntuswall00000001)

============================================================
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: or more simply, is there order?

In reply to this post by Phil Henshaw-2

PH wrote

" I too also find I make my best sense when talking to myself"

NT replies:

Oh good lord! I cannot allow myself to go along with this statement. First, as a behaviorist, I am not sure what it means to talk to oneself. Second, I have no idea what the validator of such a statement would be.

No, I think that only people who have been understood by [some] others can claim to have made sense. Otherwise, made sense to whom? That is why it is so maddening to speak and not be understood.

Nick

Nicholas S. Thompson

Emeritus Professor of Psychology and Ethology,

Clark University ([hidden email])

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

From: [hidden email]

To: [hidden email];[hidden email]

Sent: 10/2/2008 8:18:37 PM

Subject: RE: [FRIAM] or more simply, is there order?

Yes, such is the disappointment of life!   However we do, I believe, have words that would be quite meaningless even to ourselves without some sort of experience in common.    I too also find I make my best sense when talking to myself but am still also driven to explore those subjects which I can only really understand by way of the give and take of examining the physical world people seem to experience in common.    Since nearly everything in my mind makes complete sense, as I make it so, anything that doesnt seems to have a good chance of being something not in my mind.    Thats sort of a technique.

I also find a consistent predictability to not being able to make very good sense of anything that grows exponentially. I see loops of events that get somewhere that I cant trace, and have found that very helpful in identifying things that are out of body in that sort of actual physical sense, but lead me to think about the distributed networks of things they connect which I cant make much sense of.   However, they still seem to be of the kind of thing not located in my mind, but located in the physical world of common experience, identifiable, but not explainable?    Does that work, is that right ?

Phil

From: [hidden email] [mailto:[hidden email]] On Behalf Of Nicholas Thompson
Sent: Thursday, October 02, 2008 5:26 PM
To: The Friday Morning Applied Complexity Coffee Group
Subject: Re: [FRIAM] or more simply, is there order?

Phil Henshaw Hath Spoken Thus:

==>Look, I know this audience is not made of fools, and not deaf and dumb, and probably not disinterested in change, so I have to figure your inability to connect with my approach to constructing a science of change for natural complex systems must be that you find no door between your methods and mine.  <==

Phil,

Nick Thompson hath replied:

I have struggled to understand you over the years and just .... can't.     Others have said the same of me.

Perhaps "connection" is too high a standard. Certainly "AUDIENCE" is too high a standard. We are not all here, quietly attentive, waiting for ANYbody's message. There is no "we" here.

The older I get, the rarer communication between actual human beings seems to be. We talk to our gods; we talk to our college mentors; we talk to our long dead parents, we reproduce the values of those who have tortured us in our past. However, talking to EACH OTHER is pretty unusual.   And hearing one another is rarer still.

Take care,

nick

Nicholas S. Thompson

Emeritus Professor of Psychology and Ethology,

Clark University ([hidden email])

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

From: [hidden email]

To: [hidden email]

Cc: [hidden email]

Sent: 10/2/2008 5:56:08 AM

Subject: or more simply, is there order?

Carl Tollander

Re: or more simply, is there order?

In reply to this post by Paul Paryski

I've had a copy for a bit. I'll bring it by FRIAM. It's ok.

[hidden email] wrote:

> My daughter, an urban planner in Bruxelles, recommended that I read
> /The Black Swan: The Impact of the Highly Improbable / by
> epistemologist Nassim Nicholas Taleb. I did look it up and found it
> might be pertinent to this string. Has anybody read it?
> Paul
>
>
> **************
> Looking for simple solutions to your real-life financial challenges?
> Check out WalletPop for the latest news and information, tips and
> calculators.
> (http://www.walletpop.com/?NCID=emlcntuswall00000001)
> ------------------------------------------------------------------------
>
> ============================================================
> 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: or more simply, is there order?

In reply to this post by Nick Thompson

Oh surely Nick, I’m sorry. I can’t seem to tell when I should explain, as I’m writing, that a kind of ‘dripping’ irony is intended. If you think of ‘making sense’ making a self-consistent explanation, my question is whether that automatically requires you to misunderstand things that work because of their inconsistencies, like environments. When you only look at information from the past that isn’t going to change, in your own mind where there are no alternate perspectives or differing value judgments to deal with, the illusion of ‘making sense’ of everything often does appear work. Sometimes I catch myself and think of it as a lot of ‘patches’ to hide the inexplicable parts… and even try to look back under them.

It would be nice to aim for think inclusively rather than exclusively, and find what all the points of view have in common rather than only the last one standing after severe criticism. One thing that pushes me in that direction is noting when things can be expected to *become* inconsistent, and diverge on some presently unobservable path, for either general or specific reasons. Perhaps this exchange is an example of ‘talking past each other’… in making the same point. The mental machine does such a deceptively good job of rendering snap judgments the seem to make so much sense to be conclusive, pure satisfying certainty, maybe that itself should be thought of as inexplicable too!

I guess what I’ve been trying to raise as a subject is the kinds of evidence in a system that signal that it is about to become in a way that is inconsistent with itself… and that’s the systems issue that growth induced collapse is a small part of, the prior signs of approaching change, that I find interesting.

Phil

From: Nicholas Thompson [mailto:[hidden email]]
Sent: Friday, October 03, 2008 12:30 AM
To: Phil Henshaw; The Friday Morning Applied Complexity Coffee Group
Subject: RE: [FRIAM] or more simply, is there order?

PH wrote

" I too also find I make my best sense when talking to myself"

NT replies:

No, I think that only people who have been understood by [some] others can claim to have made sense. Otherwise, made sense to whom? That is why it is so maddening to speak and not be understood.

Nick

Nicholas S. Thompson

Emeritus Professor of Psychology and Ethology,

Clark University ([hidden email])

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

From: [hidden email]

To: [hidden email];[hidden email]

Sent: 10/2/2008 8:18:37 PM

Subject: RE: [FRIAM] or more simply, is there order?

Yes,… such is the disappointment of life!   However… we do, I believe, have words that would be quite meaningless even to ourselves without some sort of experience in common.    I too also find I make my best sense when talking to myself… but am still also driven to explore those subjects which I can only really understand by way of the give and take of examining the physical world people seem to experience in common.    Since nearly everything in my mind makes complete sense, as I make it so, anything that doesn’t seems to have a good chance of being something not in my mind.    That’s sort of a technique.

I also find a consistent predictability to not being able to make very good sense of anything that grows exponentially. I see loops of events that get somewhere that I can’t trace, and have found that very helpful in identifying things that are ‘out of body’ in that sort of actual physical sense, but lead me to think about the distributed networks of things they connect which I can’t make much sense of.   However, they still seem to be of the kind of thing not located in my mind, but located in the physical world of common experience, identifiable, but not explainable?    Does that work, is that right ?

Phil

From: [hidden email] [mailto:[hidden email]] On Behalf Of Nicholas Thompson
Sent: Thursday, October 02, 2008 5:26 PM
To: The Friday Morning Applied Complexity Coffee Group
Subject: Re: [FRIAM] or more simply, is there order?

Phil Henshaw Hath Spoken Thus:

==>Look, I know this audience is not made of fools, and not deaf and dumb, and probably not disinterested in change, so I have to figure your inability to connect with my approach to constructing a science of change for natural complex systems must be that you find no door between your methods and mine.  <==

Phil,

Nick Thompson hath replied:

I have struggled to understand you over the years and just .... can't.     Others have said the same of me.

Perhaps "connection" is too high a standard. Certainly "AUDIENCE" is too high a standard. We are not all here, quietly attentive, waiting for ANYbody's message. There is no "we" here.

The older I get, the rarer communication between actual human beings seems to be. We talk to our gods; we talk to our college mentors; we talk to our long dead parents, we reproduce the values of those who have tortured us in our past. However, talking to EACH OTHER is pretty unusual.   And hearing one another is rarer still.

Take care,

nick

Nicholas S. Thompson

Emeritus Professor of Psychology and Ethology,

Clark University ([hidden email])

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

From: [hidden email]

To: [hidden email]

Cc: [hidden email]

Sent: 10/2/2008 5:56:08 AM

Subject: or more simply, is there order?

Phil Henshaw-2

Re: or more simply, is there order?

In reply to this post by Phil Henshaw-2

Maybe it would then be clearer to say "diverging from apparent past
behavior, on the assumed belief that the future would continue to be a
replication of the past" rather than "diverging from assumptions". With
natural phenomena the 'generator' is actually the phenomenon in its
environment itself, so the physical thing is the one and only place where
the design of the process is recorded. So, no, for physical system
emergence I see no reasonable way to make sense of examining "a complex map
between generator and phenomenon" as you would when interpreting a set of
coded instructions and the various runs of the instruction set on a
computer.

So still, the question is what are the physical system signals that would
tell you that you're observing entirely new phenomena or emerging forms of
behavior (and need a new model)? Sometimes I've also interpreted that to
mean evidence of 'permanent' or 'irreversible' system change as a way to
narrow down what 'emergence' means.

I'll be away from keyboard for a bit...fyi

Phil

> -----Original Message-----
> From: glen e. p. ropella [mailto:[hidden email]]
> Sent: Friday, October 03, 2008 9:47 AM
> To: [hidden email]
> Subject: Re: [FRIAM] or more simply, is there order?
>
> Thus spake Phil Henshaw circa 10/02/2008 08:41 PM:
> > [ph] Yes models would likely show signatures of how they are built,
>
> These are not necessarily signatures solely indicating how a model was
> _built_. In fact, since the same model can be built in many different
> ways, measuring the model decidedly does not measure the way it was
> built. The measurements of the models do show signals that
> characterize
> divergence over time.
>
> > but I'm
> > asking about the physical phenomenon displaying signatures of
> diverging from
> > the assumptions that had once been valid and according to which a
> model had
> > been built. How would you tell if there is emergence is what I'm
> after. I
> > use divergence appearing to have all derivatives of the same sign.
>
> You can't get "signatures of diverging from assumptions". Assumptions
> aren't actual things with actual effects. You can only see divergence
> from an actual object. Hence, for _models_, you have to build a
> working
> model in order to measure divergence.
>
> If by "emergence", you mean "a complex map between generator and
> phenomenon", then the way you measure emergence is by parallax with a
> population of models instantiating different mappings from generator to
> phenomenon. The divergence of the various phenomena exhibited by the
> models from that exhibited by the referent is, then, the way to measure
> emergence in the referent.
>
> But if you mean something else by "emergence", then I don't understand
> what you mean.
>
> --
> glen e. p. ropella, http://ropella.name/~gepr

glen ep ropella

Re: or more simply, is there order?

Thus spake Phil Henshaw circa 10/03/2008 07:47 AM:
> Maybe it would then be clearer to say "diverging from apparent past
> behavior, on the assumed belief that the future would continue to be a
> replication of the past" rather than "diverging from assumptions".

Well, there's no need to invent new terms for these things. If what you
mean is periodicity versus quasi-periodicity versus sporadicalness (I
hate that word... can I just use "sporadicity"? ;), then just use those
terms rather than a vague concept of "divergence". We have plenty of
tools to study the periodicity (or lack thereof) of a signal.

> With
> natural phenomena the 'generator' is actually the phenomenon in its
> environment itself,

I have to disagree, here, too. I understand that there's an
"ontological wall" between an observer and a mechanism/generator. But,
the phenomena is _never_ the generator at the same level of discourse.
Yes, a phenomena at one level can be a generator for a higher level.
But the way we use the words "generator" and "phenomenon" mean, by
definition, a (possibly occult) cause (generator) of an apparent effect
(phenomenon).

The way to deal with that is to build multiple measures, some at the
higher levels of the phenomena being studied and some at low levels to
provide a finer grained (admittedly still phenomenal) aspect of the
generators that lead to the higher level phenomena. If the low-level
phenomena is commensurate with the high-level phenomena, then we have a
good model of the map between generator and phenomena for that system
under those conditions.

> so the physical thing is the one and only place where
> the design of the process is recorded. So, no, for physical system
> emergence I see no reasonable way to make sense of examining "a complex map
> between generator and phenomenon" as you would when interpreting a set of
> coded instructions and the various runs of the instruction set on a
> computer.

Again, "emergence" is a vague and abused term. So, _if_ by "emergence",
you mean "a complex map between generators and phenomena", then I
understand you. But if you deny the existence or coherence of such a
phrase when talking about extant physical systems, then I don't
understand what you mean by "emergence".

I'm not necessarily claiming that you're wrong or anything. I just
don't understand what you mean.

> So still, the question is what are the physical system signals that would
> tell you that you're observing entirely new phenomena or emerging forms of
> behavior (and need a new model)? Sometimes I've also interpreted that to
> mean evidence of 'permanent' or 'irreversible' system change as a way to
> narrow down what 'emergence' means.

Let me try to paraphrase what you've asked in this immediately preceding
paragraph.

The question is which measures does one use to detect aperiodic behavior
in a physical system?

The answer to that question will be completely dependent on the physical
system being studied, of course. But it's not a new or rarely asked
question at all. We ask this question every time we study a system...
even if that particular system (e.g. a pendulum) has been studied ad
nauseam. So, that makes me think my paraphrase of what you're asking is
wrong.

--
glen e. p. ropella, 971-219-3846, http://tempusdictum.com

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

Merle Lefkoff

Re: or more simply, is there order?

In reply to this post by Paul Paryski

Hi Paul,

John and I have been using the book in our complexity training course
for some time. It's a terrific read for both specialists and non.

Merle

[hidden email] wrote:

> My daughter, an urban planner in Bruxelles, recommended that I read
> /The Black Swan: The Impact of the Highly Improbable /by
> epistemologist Nassim Nicholas Taleb. I did look it up and found it
> might be pertinent to this string. Has anybody read it?
> Paul
>
>
> **************
> Looking for simple solutions to your real-life financial challenges?
> Check out WalletPop for the latest news and information, tips and
> calculators.
> (http://www.walletpop.com/?NCID=emlcntuswall00000001)
>
> ------------------------------------------------------------------------
>
> ============================================================
> 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: or more simply, is there order?

In reply to this post by Nick Thompson

Nick, it looks like my replies yesterday AM didn't get through... I've been poking at "making sense" as a reduction & mangling of the complex differences between things,.. Losing the many by making it one. Sooo hard to say these unexpected things simply. ;-)

Sent from my Verizon Wireless BlackBerry

From: "Nicholas Thompson" <[hidden email]>
Date: Thu, 2 Oct 2008 22:30:09 -0600
To: Phil Henshaw<[hidden email]>; The Friday Morning Applied Complexity Coffee Group<[hidden email]>
Subject: RE: [FRIAM] or more simply, is there order?

PH wrote

" I too also find I make my best sense when talking to myself"

NT replies:

No, I think that only people who have been understood by [some] others can claim to have made sense. Otherwise, made sense to whom? That is why it is so maddening to speak and not be understood.

Nick

Nicholas S. Thompson

Emeritus Professor of Psychology and Ethology,

Clark University ([hidden email])

----- Original Message -----
From: [hidden email]
To: [hidden email];[hidden email]
Sent: 10/2/2008 8:18:37 PM
Subject: RE: [FRIAM] or more simply, is there order?

Yes,… such is the disappointment of life!   However… we do, I believe, have words that would be quite meaningless even to ourselves without some sort of experience in common.    I too also find I make my best sense when talking to myself… but am still also driven to explore those subjects which I can only really understand by way of the give and take of examining the physical world people seem to experience in common.    Since nearly everything in my mind makes complete sense, as I make it so, anything that doesn’t seems to have a good chance of being something not in my mind.    That’s sort of a technique.

I also find a consistent predictability to not being able to make very good sense of anything that grows exponentially. I see loops of events that get somewhere that I can’t trace, and have found that very helpful in identifying things that are ‘out of body’ in that sort of actual physical sense, but lead me to think about the distributed networks of things they connect which I can’t make much sense of.   However, they still seem to be of the kind of thing not located in my mind, but located in the physical world of common experience, identifiable, but not explainable?    Does that work, is that right ?

Phil

From: [hidden email] [mailto:[hidden email]] On Behalf Of Nicholas Thompson
Sent: Thursday, October 02, 2008 5:26 PM
To: The Friday Morning Applied Complexity Coffee Group
Subject: Re: [FRIAM] or more simply, is there order?

Phil Henshaw Hath Spoken Thus:

==>Look, I know this audience is not made of fools, and not deaf and dumb, and probably not disinterested in change, so I have to figure your inability to connect with my approach to constructing a science of change for natural complex systems must be that you find no door between your methods and mine.  <==

Phil,

Nick Thompson hath replied:

I have struggled to understand you over the years and just .... can't.     Others have said the same of me.

Perhaps "connection" is too high a standard. Certainly "AUDIENCE" is too high a standard. We are not all here, quietly attentive, waiting for ANYbody's message. There is no "we" here.

The older I get, the rarer communication between actual human beings seems to be. We talk to our gods; we talk to our college mentors; we talk to our long dead parents, we reproduce the values of those who have tortured us in our past. However, talking to EACH OTHER is pretty unusual.   And hearing one another is rarer still.

Take care,

nick

Nicholas S. Thompson
Emeritus Professor of Psychology and Ethology,
Clark University ([hidden email])

----- Original Message -----
From: [hidden email]
To: [hidden email]
Cc: [hidden email]
Sent: 10/2/2008 5:56:08 AM
Subject: or more simply, is there order?

Phil Henshaw-2

Re: or more simply, is there order?

In reply to this post by glen ep ropella

Glen,
I guess I'm intending "divergense" to specifically mean behavior "progressively departing from" what it was, both in the mathematical and common English sense. New kinds of behavior often develop as progressive changes from former kinds, right? So a pattern of divergince can signal the approach of an emergent change in kind. Maybe new trends in prices signal the unseen entry of new uses for a scarce resource, and a need to change models.... etc.

Phil
Sent from my Verizon Wireless BlackBerry

-----Original Message-----
From: "glen e. p. ropella" <[hidden email]>

Date: Fri, 03 Oct 2008 09:14:55
To: The Friday Morning Applied Complexity Coffee Group<[hidden email]>
Subject: Re: [FRIAM] or more simply, is there order?

Thus spake Phil Henshaw circa 10/03/2008 07:47 AM:
> Maybe it would then be clearer to say "diverging from apparent past
> behavior, on the assumed belief that the future would continue to be a
> replication of the past" rather than "diverging from assumptions".

Well, there's no need to invent new terms for these things. If what you
mean is periodicity versus quasi-periodicity versus sporadicalness (I
hate that word... can I just use "sporadicity"? ;), then just use those
terms rather than a vague concept of "divergence". We have plenty of
tools to study the periodicity (or lack thereof) of a signal.

> With
> natural phenomena the 'generator' is actually the phenomenon in its
> environment itself,

I have to disagree, here, too. I understand that there's an
"ontological wall" between an observer and a mechanism/generator. But,
the phenomena is _never_ the generator at the same level of discourse.
Yes, a phenomena at one level can be a generator for a higher level.
But the way we use the words "generator" and "phenomenon" mean, by
definition, a (possibly occult) cause (generator) of an apparent effect
(phenomenon).

The way to deal with that is to build multiple measures, some at the
higher levels of the phenomena being studied and some at low levels to
provide a finer grained (admittedly still phenomenal) aspect of the
generators that lead to the higher level phenomena. If the low-level
phenomena is commensurate with the high-level phenomena, then we have a
good model of the map between generator and phenomena for that system
under those conditions.

> so the physical thing is the one and only place where
> the design of the process is recorded. So, no, for physical system
> emergence I see no reasonable way to make sense of examining "a complex map
> between generator and phenomenon" as you would when interpreting a set of
> coded instructions and the various runs of the instruction set on a
> computer.

Again, "emergence" is a vague and abused term. So, _if_ by "emergence",
you mean "a complex map between generators and phenomena", then I
understand you. But if you deny the existence or coherence of such a
phrase when talking about extant physical systems, then I don't
understand what you mean by "emergence".

I'm not necessarily claiming that you're wrong or anything. I just
don't understand what you mean.

> So still, the question is what are the physical system signals that would
> tell you that you're observing entirely new phenomena or emerging forms of
> behavior (and need a new model)? Sometimes I've also interpreted that to
> mean evidence of 'permanent' or 'irreversible' system change as a way to
> narrow down what 'emergence' means.

Let me try to paraphrase what you've asked in this immediately preceding
paragraph.

The question is which measures does one use to detect aperiodic behavior
in a physical system?

The answer to that question will be completely dependent on the physical
system being studied, of course. But it's not a new or rarely asked
question at all. We ask this question every time we study a system...
even if that particular system (e.g. a pendulum) has been studied ad
nauseam. So, that makes me think my paraphrase of what you're asking is
wrong.

--
glen e. p. ropella, 971-219-3846, http://tempusdictum.com

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