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basin filling

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Nick Thompson

basin filling

Dear wise people,

Recently, I pitched into a friam bicker on the subject of gender inequality using the metaphor of an “attractor”. The idea was that the basin of attraction we call
childcare was broader and deeper for a woman than for a man because of the sequence of physiological events around parturition. Because of this fact, I argued, that if we wanted women to have equal opportunity, we had to work at filling the basin. (I made the same argument with respect to the inheritance of societal power, generally.) As usual, I got my ears boxed on the substance, but everybody gave me a pass on the use of the metaphor, “attractor and basin”. It’s been quite a while since I read any complexity literature and nearly as long since a complexity topic has graced these pages.

So, I am wondering, if any of you would care to advise me on how to use that metaphor properly. If we were dedicated to “filling that basin”, what would that look like? What does this “systems talk” contribute to a discussion, other than a whiff of modernity? Would I have said less or more if I had suggested that we “alter the incentives surrounding childcare for men and women”, or the like.

My best to you all,

Nicholas S. Thompson

Emeritus Professor of Psychology and Biology

Clark University

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

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glen ropella

Re: basin filling

On 04/14/2014 09:38 AM, Nick Thompson wrote:
> If we were dedicated to "filling that basin", what would
> that look like?

It would "look like" an understanding of merit and reward that addressed
as many dimensions of a human and its environment as possible.
Something like the ontologies I posted would be a good start.

--
⇒⇐ glen

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Marcus G. Daniels

Re: basin filling

In reply to this post by Nick Thompson

> Would I have said less or more if I had suggested that we “alter the
> incentives surrounding childcare for men and women”, or the like.

+1 for plain language. If the discussion was precise enough to build a
computational model from, then perhaps the systems stuff would be more
than a vocabulary of weasel words.

Marcus

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Marcus G. Daniels

Re: basin filling

In reply to this post by glen ropella

On Mon, 2014-04-14 at 10:05 -0700, glen wrote:
> On 04/14/2014 09:38 AM, Nick Thompson wrote:
> > If we were dedicated to "filling that basin", what would
> > that look like?
>
> It would "look like" an understanding of merit and reward that addressed
> as many dimensions of a human and its environment as possible.
> Something like the ontologies I posted would be a good start.

I've seen this sort of thing used before for threat evaluation.
In that context they identified the resources that a bad guy could use
to accomplish a set of bad things, with the related workflow for each
one, and the (alternative) dependencies for those workflows. Then one
tries to work through the combinatorics brute force to see what links
are most crucial for maximizing the probability of success for various
bad goals. (And then take some action to ensure that the links can be
cut in the real world.)

Here it is the opposite -- replacing bad things with desired things.
It means being very clear on the relationships between dependencies (or
to represent uncertain mappings somehow), which has yet to occur in this
discussion. And perhaps harder, to admit that the things you cherish
are nothing more than a node on a graph. :-)

Marcus

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glen ropella

Re: basin filling

On 04/14/2014 11:41 AM, Marcus G. Daniels wrote:
> I've seen this sort of thing used before for threat evaluation.
> In that context they identified the resources that a bad guy could use
> to accomplish a set of bad things, with the related workflow for each
> one, and the (alternative) dependencies for those workflows. Then one
> tries to work through the combinatorics brute force to see what links
> are most crucial for maximizing the probability of success for various
> bad goals. (And then take some action to ensure that the links can be
> cut in the real world.)

Yep. I also think that simply defining the problem, way before getting
to enough clarity for brute force, would go a long way to clarifying the
silly arguments we get in today. I think if job reqs and candidate
employees simply familiarized themselves with these ontologies as they
considered hiring or taking a new position, that simple consideration
would go a long way toward more rationality. And I'd be gobsmacked if
any of our legislators thought about this stuff with such ontologies in
front of them.

> Here it is the opposite -- replacing bad things with desired things.
> It means being very clear on the relationships between dependencies (or
> to represent uncertain mappings somehow), which has yet to occur in this
> discussion. And perhaps harder, to admit that the things you cherish
> are nothing more than a node on a graph. :-)

Having worked on an "human resources capital management" application, in
a company that was bought and cannibalized, I had a good opportunity to
experience, first hand, the distance between an idealized "human
resource" and actual humans. Oddly enough, it just convinced me that we
could flesh out the schema and populate such a database (here in the 1st
world, anyway) far enough to accommodate brute force if we only had the
energy/desire/political will.

But then I start feeling like a dirty communist and have to go chop some
firewood or practice takedown/assembly of my 9mm ... with some Ted
Nugent playing at 11. ;-)

--
⇒⇐ glen

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Steve Smith

Re: basin filling

In reply to this post by Nick Thompson

Wise Nick -

As usual, I got my ears boxed on the substance, but everybody gave me a pass on the use of the metaphor, “attractor and basin”. It’s been quite a while since I read any complexity literature and nearly as long since a complexity topic has graced these pages.

So, I am wondering, if any of you would care to advise me on how to use that metaphor properly. If we were dedicated to “filling that basin”, what would that look like? What does this “systems talk” contribute to a discussion, other than a whiff of modernity? Would I have said less or more if I had suggested that we “alter the incentives surrounding childcare for men and women”, or the like.

By all means, let's return to considering the phenomena in question (Openness vs Inequality) using the tools of complexity theory. In particular, of the socio-economic status of individuals within our system when engaged in one or more of the obvious "Open Systems" that are popularly included in western (and especially US culture) and specifically the global communication/information network comprised mainly of the Internet but also Cell Networks, Publishing and other Media Networks, and perhaps even outliers like HAM or CB radio and real-world public events such as meetings, conferences, public protests (e.g. Occupy), Democratic Processes, and the Marketplace.

If we consider each individual over time as occupying a point in this space (a given gender, age, salary, net worth, educational-level, employment status, group-affiliations, etc.), and their being an Evolution function (F(t,_v)) which describes how that individual "moves" in phase space, then perhaps we can recognize and describe various point, line(Orbit), area(basin) and volume (in N-dimensions) attractors.

Following Glen's criticism of the "Landscape Metaphor", I will add that terms such as "orbit" (celestial navigation?) and "basin" are useful for their familiarity, but are very limited.   In particular (no ear-boxing intended) I don't think the idea of "Filling a Basin" is apt...   but ignoring that misleading aspect of the landscape metaphor, I think your point can be used to talk about exploring the adjacent possibles to F(t,_v) (name them Fn(t,_v) which might be alternative rule-sets (social, regulatory, religious, ???) whose attractors are more "equal" across the identified qualites of Gender, Race, and Sexual_Orientation (GRS).

This opens the question of "what means more equal?".   I suppose first we need to identify what we are measuring... perhaps salary is key, maybe accumulated wealth/assets is another measure many follow, maybe social status (within what group? how broad?), maybe access to *other* resources besides $$? Some would include other features such as (likelyhood of being sexually harrassed, murdered, or raped). Once we identify that, then I suppose that we are interested in Fn(t,_v) whose attractors, when projected into the dimensions being valued, show no correlation with GRS?   G, R and S, for our purposes are characterized by small integer sets (G cardinality of 2 or 3 or 4 or 5 or 6 if we differentiate between trans in each direction and hermaphrodite and maybe Neuter?) and (R cardinality of 2, 3, or 18,973 depending on how distinctive we want to be at which point it seems like R has smeared into Ethnicity and even Tribal/Clan/Family distinctions?) and S (roughly the cardinality of GxG?).

I can't tell if modeling these things more formally will help understanding, but perhaps?

I suspect that *equality* is not precisely what we seek.. but maybe there are other properties of the phase space and the attractors which we would like to find?    The term "Class" in popular discussion seems apt.

As is often the case with *any* system, thoughtful, informed, motivated modeling of the domain often helps us understand things which were a puzzle before, and sometimes even solve the implied "problems" that were represented in our puzzlement.   In this case, what resources or experiences do SWMs have access to which non-SWMs do not (as easily?) and/or how can we change F(t,_v), or more to the point, choose from an infinite set of Fn(t,_v) which match the criteria we seek... and EVEN more to the point what does the space of Fn(t,_v) look like, what are the "adjacent possibles" to our current F(t,_v) and can we imagine or prescribe an evolution from Fo(t,_v) TO a desired Fn(t,_v)?

Just to be difficult or oblique, let me close with a highly figurative allusion to a familiar children's allegorical tale: If Jack and Jill go up the hill (Landscape metaphor) to fetch a pail of water (seeking a more equitable Fn(t,_v) for all) then must Jack fall down,and break his crown? And if so, what does that mean? A fall from grace of the SWM? And must Jill also therefore come "tumbling after"?    If figurative speech using metaphor is risky, I suppose turning a simple children's fairytale into an allegory for modern socioeconomic equality is even riskier?

- Wonky Steve

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Nick Thompson

Re: basin filling

Steve, Glen, Marcus,

I am liking these responses. Thankyou for giving the question your all.

I am not sure I am man enough to respond usefully to them, but they are causing me to think. One thing that they make evident is a way in which “basin” is a metaphor that I had not thought of. It offers a picture of a three dimensional structure as a model for goings-on in an N dimensional space. Not at all clear to me that the intuitions drawn from a three dimensional model have any use at all in n-dimensional space.

I have always been persuaded that a model that requires a model to make it intelligible is no model at all. I mean, either a model is sufficient to bring a phenomenon within the range of some set of useful intuitions, or it is of no value.

Well, as I say: thank you. I hope others will pitch in.

Nicholas S. Thompson

Emeritus Professor of Psychology and Biology

Clark University

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

From: Friam [mailto:[hidden email]] On Behalf Of Steve Smith
Sent: Monday, April 14, 2014 2:45 PM
To: The Friday Morning Applied Complexity Coffee Group
Subject: Re: [FRIAM] basin filling

Wise Nick -

As usual, I got my ears boxed on the substance, but everybody gave me a pass on the use of the metaphor, “attractor and basin”. It’s been quite a while since I read any complexity literature and nearly as long since a complexity topic has graced these pages.

So, I am wondering, if any of you would care to advise me on how to use that metaphor properly. If we were dedicated to “filling that basin”, what would that look like? What does this “systems talk” contribute to a discussion, other than a whiff of modernity? Would I have said less or more if I had suggested that we “alter the incentives surrounding childcare for men and women”, or the like.

Steve Smith

Re: basin filling

Nick -

...
It offers a picture of a three dimensional structure as a model for goings-on in an N dimensional space. Not at all clear to me that the intuitions drawn from a three dimensional model have any use at all in n-dimensional space.

Reread Edwin Abbot Abbot's "Flatland: a Romance in Many Dimensions" ? There are qualitatively new properties that appear in higher dimensional space which in fact are hard to think about in lower dimensional spaces. Very specifically, 0-D space has no "room" for distinct objects... go to 1-D and you can now have objects which are located uniquely along the "number line"... go to 2-D space and said objects can now have relations with eachother (connections as in a graph or network) other than those "adjacent" along the number line.... in 3-D you find that you can make those same *connections* arbitrarily without having "edge" crossings (e.g. a road network requires over/underpasses to avoid crossings while in principle the flight paths of aircars do not).

In the case of an N-Dimensional manifold and 2D surfaces embedded in a 3D space... the idea of a "basin of attraction" is intuitive if we use the landscape metaphor to think about it. In a hydrological landscape (watershed) we have the concept of "drainage basins" which are fairly easy for people to apprehend but invoke all kinds of other thoughts which are *not* necessarily relevant to the problem at hand. For example, there is not really a concept of "flow" within the basin, nor is there one of "erosion" *of* the basin, nor is there an idea of "filling" (like a lake) which is apt to the problem.

I have always been persuaded that a model that requires a model to make it intelligible is no model at all. I mean, either a model is sufficient to bring a phenomenon within the range of some set of useful intuitions, or it is of no value.

In the above example, the 2D surface in a 3D model with 2D bounded regions is a valuable *model* of the mathematical abstraction involved.   We *add* the landscape metaphor to it to make it more usefully familiar.   If we see the "surface" as a complex of "watersheds", it is perhaps a quicker if not more accurate way to explain the situation.

As usual, our language can help or hinder our understanding.   In this case, what we mean by "model" and how that relates to "metaphor".   I usually think of *mathematical* models, I suspect you think of *conceptual* models and I'm not sure how you use *metaphor* in this case, perhaps you don't if you are thinking strictly in the sense of a literary metaphor.   I use metaphor specifically to be a complex analogy between one domain (target) and another (source).   Both domains are ultimately "models" in the sense that the map is *never* the territory.    Ideally, the target domain is a very simple abstraction of the territory in question.   In our example above... the "territory" is the socioeconomic status of populations and the "map" is a set of points embedded in the parameter space (age, race, gender, income, education, ....) along with an Evolution Function, or essentially the "local" rules (in time) for how an individual "moves" through that space.   For example, individuals educational level is a monitonically increasing function with time while their income and assets may trend that way but are NOT strictly monotonic (take a cut in pay, spend savings, etc.).

To *then* translate that geometric description into a more familiar one (watershed), adds a level of familiarity to anyone with limited experience with such geometric spaces but at the same time, it adds potentially unwanted/irrelevant/distracting properties to the understanding/discussion.

So... said simply, I think we "layer" models (both mathematical and conceptual) all the time for various reasons, but when we actually shift to *metaphorical* descriptions to make them more intuitively accessible (especially to laypersons) we also risk *mis*understandings.

I too, look forward to other folks weighing in from other perspectives.   I believe that our "common understanding" of such problems as gender/race inequalities tends to be too "simple" which might explain why progress in the domain is both slow and somewhat herky-jerky.

- Steve

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Marcus G. Daniels

Re: basin filling

On Tue, 2014-04-15 at 13:53 -0600, Steve Smith wrote:

> I believe that our "common understanding" of such problems as
> gender/race inequalities tends to be too "simple" which might explain
> why progress in the domain is both slow and somewhat herky-jerky.

A master equation for an economic system will be high dimensional. For
example, every person has assets to track over time. There are
many-to-many economic transactions that explode the state space.
Forget about geometry you can visualize. And a lot of the variables are
not going to be independent. Time spent at work and time spent with
family will be t and (1-t). Income will be correlated with t (paid by
the hour).

To get at gender culture things various stateful things like affinity to
peers and family need to be quantifiable somehow. Are love and hate a
linear scale or logarithmic? Maybe it is more like a step function?
And how do you validate these system evolution models? You might be
able to give someone a million dollars but you can't easily take it
away, or spontaneously make a janitor a medical doctor or get most
people to agree to change their sex. The experiments that would be
illuminating can't be done for practical or ethical reasons.

It's a curse of dimensionality in spades, and only by contrasting
Billions and Billions of different policy systems could one hope to get
good enough statistics to say that a hypothetical master equation was or
was not at work in the real world.

Marcus

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Steve Smith

Re: basin filling

Marcus -

I understand that pre-inventing Psychohistory (ala Asimov) is an out-of-reach task. Predictive models in general are hard, and as you say, this one has deeply compounded problems of dimensionality and testability, etc.

What I'm seeking are notional models with more acknowledgement of the complexities and maybe a qualitative hint toward any first or second order "unintended consequences" they might hint at.

Familiar, brutally simple models are on the order of:

White Males get all the goodies, everyone else gets bupkis.
The rich get richer.

There is plenty of anecdotal evidence that both of these are basically true in many contexts, but I don't think they help us do much except *maybe* continue/restart/accelerate "affirmative action" programs and/or sharpen the blade on the guillotine (for the rich).

A *notional* model helps people think about the problem space, and not just people with a strong technical understanding of the problem space.

The public is trained to look for simple, linear relationships between things and zeroth order effects, I'm just calling for the development of a broader and deeper description of these very relevant problems. Is it possible that we might operate with more hope, more earnestness, maybe even less cynicism if we had models that suggested nonlinear response curves and "tipping points" (as Malcom Gladwell popularized)? We might avoid problems such as are described in Susan Faludi's "Backlash" and "Stiffed" where the most well intentioned reactions to first order symptoms of inequality have lead to various unexpected results that undermined the original intentions of the actions.

Just my $.02
- Steve

On Tue, 2014-04-15 at 13:53 -0600, Steve Smith wrote:

I believe that our "common understanding" of such problems as
gender/race inequalities tends to be too "simple" which might explain
why progress in the domain is both slow and somewhat herky-jerky.

A master equation for an economic system will be high dimensional.  For
example, every person has assets to track over time.  There are
many-to-many economic transactions that explode the state space.  
Forget about geometry you can visualize.  And a lot of the variables are
not going to be independent.  Time spent at work and time spent with
family will be t and (1-t).  Income will be correlated with t (paid by
the hour).  

To get at gender culture things various stateful things like affinity to
peers and family need to be quantifiable somehow. Are love and hate a
linear scale or logarithmic?  Maybe it is more like a step function?
And how do you validate these system evolution models?   You might be
able to give someone a million dollars but you can't easily take it
away, or spontaneously make a janitor a medical doctor or get most
people to agree to change their sex.  The experiments that would be
illuminating can't be done for practical or ethical reasons.

It's a curse of dimensionality in spades, and only by contrasting
Billions and Billions of different policy systems could one hope to get
good enough statistics to say that a hypothetical master equation was or
was not at work in the real world. 

Marcus


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Marcus G. Daniels

Re: basin filling

On Tue, 2014-04-15 at 21:37 -0600, Steve Smith wrote:

> The public is trained to look for simple, linear relationships between
> things and zeroth order effects, I'm just calling for the development
> of a broader and deeper description of these very relevant problems.
> Is it possible that we might operate with more hope, more earnestness,
> maybe even less cynicism if we had models that suggested nonlinear
> response curves and "tipping points" (as Malcom Gladwell
> popularized)?

You expect people to think and you also intend to model them with
particles?

Anyway, depends if you want to illustrate results in social science or
do social science.

Marcus

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glen ropella

Re: basin filling

In reply to this post by Steve Smith

On 04/15/2014 08:37 PM, Steve Smith wrote:
> What I'm seeking are notional models with more acknowledgement of the
> complexities and maybe a qualitative hint toward any first or second
> order "unintended consequences" they might hint at.
>
> Familiar, brutally simple models are on the order of:
>
> 1. White Males get all the goodies, everyone else gets bupkis.
> 2. The rich get richer.

There's no reason why we wouldn't pursue both qualitative and
quantitative models. I find myself arguing for the idea that all quant
models are preceded by qual models anyway. It's a straightforward
extension of the philosophical problem of degree vs. kind (for those of
us who think philosophy is useless).

I think the notion of an attractor survives the dimensionality problem.
It seems clear that patriarchy is a stable attractor. I don't know
why, of course. But we can speculate then try to hone the speculation
into hypotheses that can be tested qual, first, and quant for those that
survive long enough. Qualitatively, we can test your (1) by translation
across geography. Do white males get all the goodies in, say, Peru?
How about the Central African Republic? Etc.

On 04/15/2014 03:52 PM, Marcus G. Daniels wrote:
> A master equation for an economic system will be high dimensional.

I think the concept of a master equation is inscription error. If you
look hard enough for such an equation, you will find one. But it may be
illusory, which means whatever you find will break for inexplicable
reasons, until you find the new one or go with an equation-free approach.

> For
> example, every person has assets to track over time. There are
> many-to-many economic transactions that explode the state space.
> Forget about geometry you can visualize. And a lot of the variables are
> not going to be independent. Time spent at work and time spent with
> family will be t and (1-t). Income will be correlated with t (paid by
> the hour).

It's not clear to me that time spent with family is antithetic to time
spent at work. There's a long tradition of combining the two... just
look at the Koch brothers... or the Bush dynasty. ;-) The curse of high
dimensionality is even worse than you've mentioned so far in that we
have no idea which variables are identical, equivalent, dependent, and
independent. Indeed, anything we _name_ a variable is suspect. But
none of this should stop anyone with the energy and interest. All we
need do is hone speculation down to a falsifiable model, falsify it, log
it in the database, and iterate.

The trick is that the _database_ sucks. We don't keep track of how
well/poorly our models are doing.

E.g. this was in the news recently:

Everything Is Permitted? People Intuitively Judge Immorality as
Representative of Atheists
http://www.plosone.org/article/info%3Adoi%2F10.1371%2Fjournal.pone.0092302

And this was cited as evidence the author (Gervais) is biased:

Mentalizing Deficits Constrain Belief in a Personal God
http://www.plosone.org/article/info%3Adoi%2F10.1371%2Fjournal.pone.0036880

These aren't just qualitative models.... but it's super easy to
criticize the choices they made in quantification. Why? Because the
database sucks.

> To get at gender culture things various stateful things like affinity to
> peers and family need to be quantifiable somehow. Are love and hate a
> linear scale or logarithmic? Maybe it is more like a step function?

You don't need occult qualities like love and hate. There are plenty of
almost-quantified qualities to consider first. Things like the Happy
Planet Index or the Narcissistic Personality Index are in that fuzzy
border and could be used to accrue falsified models. (Things like the
Gini index may help with Steve's model (2).)

> The experiments that would be
> illuminating can't be done for practical or ethical reasons.

It's true that the experiments that would be _ultimately_ illuminating
can't be done. But there are those that could be _somewhat_
illuminating... and I argue that there are lots of psych, social,
ecological, neuro, and biological experiments that are currently being
done that help, even with the gender inequality problem.

But again, why can't we _relate_ these results into some more complex,
systemic models? ... because the database sucks.

--
⇒⇐ glen

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Marcus G. Daniels

Re: basin filling

> I think the notion of an attractor survives the dimensionality problem.
> It seems clear that patriarchy is a stable attractor. I don't know
> why, of course.

Because it is by definition? If people are persuaded or forced to
participate in matriarchy, patriarchy, or kyriarchy then it continues
(obviously). What is the question here? What are the historical
conditions that lead to one or the other forming? How to destabilize
such a social system? An answer to the latter is to vote for
progressive candidates, seems to me, and let (Glen's) `database' grow
from those experiences. Try stuff, and collectively learn from those
experiences..

Marcus

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glen ropella

Re: basin filling

On 04/16/2014 10:48 AM, Marcus G. Daniels wrote:
> What is the question here? What are the historical
> conditions that lead to one or the other forming? How to destabilize
> such a social system? An answer to the latter is to vote for
> progressive candidates, seems to me, and let (Glen's) `database' grow
> from those experiences. Try stuff, and collectively learn from those
> experiences..

Well, for me -- and I think what Steve was arguing for that lead to
Roger's criticism, I'd like to be able to ask the question of whether
any of them [pat|mat|ky|*]riarchy arise "naturally" at all... or even
regardless of equivocation around "natural", whether some of them arise
more frequently than others. But especially, I'd like to ask questions
surrounding their strength.

Haphazardly trying stuff is great and I fully support it. ;-) But it
would be better to know how _hard_ you have to try in order to escape,
say, patriarchy. I'd also like to know their positions relative to one
another (mostly distance between them). If we push too hard against
patriarchy are we more likely to land in a kyriarchy than a matriarchy?
Can we maintain the system between attractors? Or are they too
densely packed so that the slightest perturbation sends us hurtling into
the nearest neighbor? Perhaps we could engineer it to flit between 2 or
more of them with delicately timed tweaks?

But it's also possible that these systems aren't attractors at all...
perhaps the state space is relatively isotropic and being stuck in any
one region really is a matter of a few gamers (lineages of gamers)
keeping it there?

To my mind, we won't make any progress on this sort of thing until we
make a serious effort to define the space, which means building a schema
that credibly captures enough of the salient variables. The spaces
spanned by tiny bases like just "money" (or a similarly small set like
"money" and "family") are just too _ideal_. They aren't rich enough
analogs to give us any insight into the real space to which they refer.

--
⇒⇐ glen

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