disorder caused by individual, or collective human agents, in hierarchically-ordered and complex systems--systems composed of sub-systems that, in turn, have their own subsystems, and so on.
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disorder caused by individual, or collective human agents, in hierarchically-ordered and complex systems--systems composed of sub-systems that, in turn, have their own subsystems, and so on.
 
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“Disorganization Theory and Disorganizational Behavior: Towards an Etiology of Messes," Eric Abrahamson, Research in Organizational Behavior, vol. 24, 2002, pp. 139–80. ” ============================================================ FRIAM Applied Complexity Group listserv Meets Fridays 9a-11:30 at cafe at St. John's College to unsubscribe http://redfish.com/mailman/listinfo/friam_redfish.com |
Re: disorder caused by individual, or collective human agents, in hierarchically-ordered and complex systems--systems composed of sub-systems that, in turn, have their own subsystems, and so on.
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Carl, Great to hear your “voice.” Link did not work for me. I’m probable the only one. n 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 Carl Diegert “Disorganization Theory and Disorganizational Behavior: Towards an Etiology of Messes," Eric Abrahamson, Research in Organizational Behavior, vol. 24, 2002, pp. 139–80. ” ============================================================ FRIAM Applied Complexity Group listserv Meets Fridays 9a-11:30 at cafe at St. John's College to unsubscribe http://redfish.com/mailman/listinfo/friam_redfish.com |
Re: disorder caused by individual, or collective human agents, in hierarchically-ordered and complex systems--systems composed of sub-systems that, in turn, have their own subsystems, and so on.
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Link worked here. -- Owen On Sun, Oct 27, 2013 at 10:20 AM, Nick Thompson <[hidden email]> wrote:
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Re: disorder caused by individual, or collective human agents, in hierarchically-ordered and complex systems--systems composed of sub-systems that, in turn, have their own subsystems, and so on.
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Nick -
Mine wants to open directly in Firefox (property of the link or my settings in Thunderbird, rather than the document?), I am guessing you might be running MS-only indigenous products, you may want to download (Ctrl-Click or R/L Click?) and then open in Adobe Reader? I'm reading the article now (while making potato-leek soup), so will try to comment on the content (esp. relative to our earlier conversations here on Entropy and on Appropriation of Reserved Terms). I look forward to your own insights. - Steve
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Re: disorder caused by individual, or collective human agents, in hierarchically-ordered and complex systems--systems composed of sub-systems that, in turn, have their own subsystems, and so on.
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In reply to this post by Owen Densmore
Carl -
Great link/article... apropos perhaps of our conversations about cognitive loss with aging and it's prevention/mitigation? Nick - I'm reminded of your idea of using Wiki technology (plus some conventions) for what you called "Noodles" or "Noodling" some time back. I saw that concept as your attempt to collaboratively impose or find order in some of the discussions we might hold on various (semi) formal topics. In this case, it felt almost like creating a deliberate mess (or an order not conventionally accepted?) All - If you haven't already filed my e-mail in your "TLDR" (too long, didn't read) file, but are about to, I recommend possibly jumping past Abrahamson's "Conclusion" section to his "Some Final Thoughts in No Particular Order" section. Oh... and did anyone (else) notice that the website this came from was titled in honor of the unfortunate character "Harry Buttle" in Terry Gilliam's movie "Brazil"? Very apropopriate to the topic IMO. ... I was immediately struck with the (mis?)appropriation of A) the common/vernacular term "mess" and B) the information theory and/or complex systems terms "hierarchy", "complex systems", "agent", and even "organization" itself. Given that this is coming from a Business School and Organizational Theorists, it is probably fair to say that their use of some of the terms has it's own history and precedent and may not feel like an "appropriation" to insiders, but I suspect *most* here are not insiders to that group. I was also drawn to the title/topic (as usual) by my own anecdotal experience, in particular my three favorite characters in such: Myself, my lovely and creative Wife, and Generic Persons Not Close To Me. My wife and I are both very "disorderly" people when observed from the outside, but my wife's disorganization/disorderliness is highly functional (for her, if not those of us who try to function within her milieu). My own disorder/disorganization is more problematic (to me as well as others trying to navigate my messes, including these soliloquys on FRIAM. One branch of my own technical work relates closely to this. I've referred to it in the past as "Faceted Ontologies" which has it's own specific use in Web Page and Web Store Access. In my world, we are talking roughly about finding and/or imposing order within relatively disordered collections, or in fact, more to the point, collections which have complex, multi-relations intrinsic to their creation and/or subsequent indexing/collecting/analysis. Colloquially, one might simply say "one person's mess is another's order"... The Paper itself: It feels almost disengenuous on the part of the author (Abrahamson) to use the colloquial term "mess" throughout his description of the research he did for the paper... "The rare article that pertains to a theory of messes is usually lost somewhere in a gigantic mess of articles..." I particularly appreciated the references to Bateson's 1972 Ecology of Mind and his 1948 "Why do Things get in a Muddle?" included therein. The metalog on "Muddles" seem to provide an everyday understanding of Entropy, and in my terminology "relative entropy" which pivots on the relative expectations that various people might have about information (or in this case, organization of things?). Abrahamson's section on Politics seemed potentially quite relevant to today's news, whether it be the Arab Spring (now in it's second Autumn to tweak a non-sequitor?) or the NSA surviellance. His main takeaway seems to be that the agents of Messiness do so, to disrupt or blunt the power of the Hierarchical Establishment... effectively hiding resources from those in power "in plain sight". In his Socio-cultural section, the takeaway seems to be that hierarchy provides an iconic or symbolic reminder of the legitimacy and power of the dominant culture... and messiness (which disrupts the hierarchy?) therefore suggests anti-social tendencies. In Psychology, he suggests that much hierarchical order may be simply perceived by humans since that is (one strong way) that we organize and apprehend complexity mentally. This point (and counterpoints that might be made to it?) reminds me of Bart Kosko's book popularizing Fuzzy Mathematics entitled "Fuzzy Thinking", where he attempted to make a case at least for using non-crisp set theoretic ideas in everyday life... I also have a book from my Grandfather's library entitled "Straight and Crooked Thinking" which approached the question of "messy thinking" from a somewhat more colloquial/practical point of view, focused *mostly* on the deliberate "crooked thinking" of various types of con-men (with a specific focus on politicians). Abrahamson also does a bit of chicken-egg consideration of whether the prevalence of hierarchical systems within the human experience is the cause or the effect of our hierarchical thinking? I would postulate that there IS a reinforcing feedback loop. In his "Types of Messes" section, he categorizes messes by "location within the system", "causation", and "dimension". This section strongly reflects (in his description and analysis) that he is focused primarily (all but exclusively?) on hierarchical order, not surprising for a Business School and an Organizational Theory perspective. By the time I waded into his "Theory of Messes" itself, I didn't have the confidence in his perspective to do more than skim through it. I get that he's really talking about "Messes" in the context of Traditional Organizational Hierarchies, so I forgive him all the things he doesn't take into consideration, but I was in fact disappointed that he wasn't taking a broader view... "oh well". One tidbit from his theory involves an "Efficiency" consideration of what many here would recognize as a "cacheing" strategy. In particular, don't put things away when you are done with them for a particular task because you are likely to need them again "soon". It also gives a nod to the economies of scale involved in "filing"... that refiling a small pile of documents (or reshelving a pile of books, or putting a handful of tools away) all at the same time can be significantly more efficient than going through the same motions one at a time as their immediate need is past. Interestingly, near the end of the paper, he finally gives a nod to creativity. Firstly he acknowledges that some entities will not fit (well) into a given hierarchy and a "Mess" allows for them to remain in spite of this. Also he acknowledges that the accidental juxtapositioning of elements of a "mess" (in his version, specifically during an effort to clean up the mess?) leads to possible alternative organizations and/or other "happy accidents". To his credit, in his conclusion, he does acknowledge that he only addressed Messes in Hierarchical Systems... and in a nod to the topic itself, he postscripts his conclusion with a section titled: "Some Final Thoughts in no Particular Order" - Steve PS. The potato-shallot (not Leeks after all) soup turned out very well after 4 hours steeping on the woodstove (winding up the thermal flywheel of my solar/wood heated house in anticipation of Dec, Jan...
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Re: disorder caused by individual, or collective human agents, in hierarchically-ordered and complex systems--systems composed of sub-systems that, in turn, have their own subsystems, and so on.
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Found this by searching. Unfortunately the wiki directory on the sf_x site is giving me a 403. Tried Gmane after the list archives were not helpful; Mailman is powerful but shows it's age.
Since I do not delete anything, it is more of a "too long, will read later" file. I will take your advice about skipping to the end as a more general suggestion to skim, which I have done.
Unfortunately, still have not seen Brazil (not to be confused with The Boys From Brazil) although I am a fan of Gilliam (and also Pratchett and Jones); I have seen Time Bandits, which is presumably quite different. Anyway, the owner of the website is apparently named Archibald "Harry" Tuttle.
As someone who has been called 'OCPD' often, not unwelcomely so, I have an interest in the formal characterisation of the psychology and utility behind human organisation of physical and semantic objects, or lack thereof - in specific narrow contexts. I think given a good amount of research and thoughtwork, I could provide a point or two of perspective, if for no other reason that although everyone has experience with this sort of thing, it is not something that is often addressed in a technical manner.
Anyway, I have downloaded the PDF and will read it sometime tonight, I think. -Arlo ============================================================ FRIAM Applied Complexity Group listserv Meets Fridays 9a-11:30 at cafe at St. John's College to unsubscribe http://redfish.com/mailman/listinfo/friam_redfish.com |
Re: disorder caused by individual, or collective human agents, in hierarchically-ordered and complex systems--systems composed of sub-systems that, in turn, have their own subsystems, and so on.
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On 10/27/2013 06:59 PM, Arlo Barnes wrote:
> On 10/27/2013 03:12 PM, Steve Smith wrote: > > Colloquially, one might simply say "one person's mess is another's >> order"... > > This is a good example. It seems pretty straightforward and obvious that > this is the case, but I think it has more to do with the schema for > organisation: if the schema is not open, it is hard to discern. Or, perhaps, that schema are illusory ... they don't actually exist and are an epiphenomenon of the constraint sieve that is our (common) anatomy and physiology? If that's the case, then every person's mess is just the variance/uncertainty allowed by the (dynamic) sieve that is their body/mind. Hence, the more sieves you can chain/network together, the more orderly the mess. Some of us, of course, resist being chained together. For example, I usually refrain from sieving someone else's mess, when I can. But because my sieve is ... uh ... coarse-grained and irregular ... when I do sieve a mess, I usually just make a bigger mess. Somehow, the input must be leaky. -- ⇒⇐ glen e. p. ropella And silo shed, on the other side ============================================================ FRIAM Applied Complexity Group listserv Meets Fridays 9a-11:30 at cafe at St. John's College to unsubscribe http://redfish.com/mailman/listinfo/friam_redfish.com |
Re: disorder caused by individual, or collective human agents, in hierarchically-ordered and complex systems--systems composed of sub-systems that, in turn, have their own subsystems, and so on.
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Glen -
> On 10/27/2013 06:59 PM, Arlo Barnes wrote: >> On 10/27/2013 03:12 PM, Steve Smith wrote: >> > Colloquially, one might simply say "one person's mess is another's >>> order"... >> >> This is a good example. It seems pretty straightforward and obvious that >> this is the case, but I think it has more to do with the schema for >> organisation: if the schema is not open, it is hard to discern. > > Or, perhaps, that schema are illusory ... they don't actually exist > and are an epiphenomenon of the constraint sieve that is our (common) > anatomy and physiology? you suggest epiphenomenal. (aside: nod to Carl for possibly coining the longest Subject in FRIAMic history... it's systems all the way down!) In my specific work, what we are roughly trying to do is characterize the constraint sieves that you suggest. In our case, we take for granted that of our "shared anatomy and physiology" and try to capture what is our "shared cultural experience within specific cultures and subcultures"... the subcultures in question are those of various specialists. For example, the specialty POV of a Coast Guard Captain trying to interdict smugglers vs an Al-Quaeda analysts in the CIA trying to understand motive, intent and capability of the group and it's members. This subdivision of specialty can go right down to the individual... For example, trying to recreate the perspective of Edward Snowden or Glen Greenwald... given those examples, the utility of our work suddenly seems to take on a nefarious air, but in fact, I would claim that Snowden and Greenwald are examples of people who, by the nature of the lives they have chosen *want* people to share their perspectives. What we are seeking might be considered an alternative to rhetoric. We are not seeking to establish a strong rhetorical arguement that would lead someone from one point of view (or more likely a fuzzy point of view) to a specific point of view, but more aptly to allow one person to *find* their way from their own point of view to that of another's... In the Intelligence examples our sponsor cared about, naturally the goal was for the Blue Team to understand the Red Team's point of view for many reasons... but there are also many potentially non-adversarial uses for such techniques all roughly in the category of "walk a mile in my shoes" or "if you could just understand my point of view"... > If that's the case, then every person's mess is just the > variance/uncertainty allowed by the (dynamic) sieve that is their > body/mind. Hence, the more sieves you can chain/network together, the > more orderly the mess. Well, this is part of my point... while one can impose more complex order (superpose many modes of order?), the question is how to tease the individual orders back out of that and then to use that understanding of structure to provide contrast and comparison between individual (or collective?) perspectives. > Some of us, of course, resist being chained together. And others seem to seek to be coupled (if not chained) into a larger structure/dynamic. I find this a wonderful tension in humanity, between our lone-wolf and our pack instincts, our bachelor-stallion and our herd-leader modes. > For example, I usually refrain from sieving someone else's mess, when > I can. And I seem inclined to try to sieve other's and re-present it contorted through my own expresser (what is the opposite of a sieve... a pug-mill or a meat-grinder? I think one of the things I do here in this forum that is surely maddening to anyone who tries to follow my missives is precisely what I'm talking about doing automagically... to ingest one point of view and regurgitate it from a slightly different one (with added ingredients from earlier meals, of course, just to push the metaphor hard)... > But because my sieve is ... uh ... coarse-grained and irregular ... > when I do sieve a mess, I usually just make a bigger mess. Somehow, > the input must be leaky. But it is your very re-combobulation of the conversations others have here that I find entertaining/useful/fascinating. I have *enough* of a sense of your background/understanding of the world to appreciate some of the odder things you regurgitate here... and they almost *always* inform me in some useful way. The meta-dialogs between you and Marcus are often even richer in that sense, each of your POVs being similar yet distinct enough to seem to add some coherence. - Steve ============================================================ FRIAM Applied Complexity Group listserv Meets Fridays 9a-11:30 at cafe at St. John's College to unsubscribe http://redfish.com/mailman/listinfo/friam_redfish.com |
Re: disorder caused by individual, or collective human agents, in hierarchically-ordered and complex systems--systems composed of sub-systems that, in turn, have their own subsystems, and so on.
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In reply to this post by glen ropella
Glen -
And just to add a completely different perspective (via a different physical system metaphor) on this topic: As a dabbler in holography, this whole problem of a shared information mess and the idea of constraint sieves reminds me a lot of the process of recording (in a lossy way of course) the interference patterns of a coherent signal (e.g.object beam from a long-coherence length laser) bouncing off of many objects and then at a later time (re)creating the original collective wave-front from that recording. The journalistic record, for example, is created by a host of journalists trained in a specific observational and reporting methodology (with many variations of course, especially if you include the blogosphere as "journalism"). We then read articles about events we did not experience directly and try to reconstruct an understanding of "what happened" and possibly even it's relevance to other events. The body of scientific knowledge, ditto. Sieved through a host of scientists, their methodology(ies) and the peer-review and publication process. For Intelligence Analysts, the same is true, but with a different (but similar) set of methodologies and access to secret (hidden from others, from most) holograms to superpose and try to find a POV to view them from and find specific hidden (obscured by intent or circumstance) information. Thanks for sharing the "constraint sieve" description.... Carry on! - Steve > On 10/27/2013 06:59 PM, Arlo Barnes wrote: >> On 10/27/2013 03:12 PM, Steve Smith wrote: >> > Colloquially, one might simply say "one person's mess is another's >>> order"... >> >> This is a good example. It seems pretty straightforward and obvious that >> this is the case, but I think it has more to do with the schema for >> organisation: if the schema is not open, it is hard to discern. > > Or, perhaps, that schema are illusory ... they don't actually exist > and are an epiphenomenon of the constraint sieve that is our (common) > anatomy and physiology? If that's the case, then every person's mess > is just the variance/uncertainty allowed by the (dynamic) sieve that > is their body/mind. Hence, the more sieves you can chain/network > together, the more orderly the mess. > > Some of us, of course, resist being chained together. For example, I > usually refrain from sieving someone else's mess, when I can. But > because my sieve is ... uh ... coarse-grained and irregular ... when I > do sieve a mess, I usually just make a bigger mess. Somehow, the > input must be leaky. > ============================================================ FRIAM Applied Complexity Group listserv Meets Fridays 9a-11:30 at cafe at St. John's College to unsubscribe http://redfish.com/mailman/listinfo/friam_redfish.com |
Re: disorder caused by individual, or collective human agents, in hierarchically-ordered and complex systems--systems composed of sub-systems that, in turn, have their own subsystems, and so on.
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Glen (and anyone else trying to follow) -
I left out an important point in all of this, I think. The work going into building "ontologies" for various (sub)domains is roughly the act of building a shared, formalized "constraint sieve". My interest is in developing a working environment for ensembles of these. - Steve > Glen - > > And just to add a completely different perspective (via a different > physical system metaphor) on this topic: > > As a dabbler in holography, this whole problem of a shared information > mess and the idea of constraint sieves reminds me a lot of the process > of recording (in a lossy way of course) the interference patterns of a > coherent signal (e.g.object beam from a long-coherence length laser) > bouncing off of many objects and then at a later time (re)creating the > original collective wave-front from that recording. > > The journalistic record, for example, is created by a host of > journalists trained in a specific observational and reporting > methodology (with many variations of course, especially if you include > the blogosphere as "journalism"). We then read articles about events > we did not experience directly and try to reconstruct an understanding > of "what happened" and possibly even it's relevance to other events. > > The body of scientific knowledge, ditto. Sieved through a host of > scientists, their methodology(ies) and the peer-review and publication > process. > > For Intelligence Analysts, the same is true, but with a different (but > similar) set of methodologies and access to secret (hidden from > others, from most) holograms to superpose and try to find a POV to > view them from and find specific hidden (obscured by intent or > circumstance) information. > > Thanks for sharing the "constraint sieve" description.... > > Carry on! > - Steve >> On 10/27/2013 06:59 PM, Arlo Barnes wrote: >>> On 10/27/2013 03:12 PM, Steve Smith wrote: >>> > Colloquially, one might simply say "one person's mess is another's >>>> order"... >>> >>> This is a good example. It seems pretty straightforward and obvious >>> that >>> this is the case, but I think it has more to do with the schema for >>> organisation: if the schema is not open, it is hard to discern. >> >> Or, perhaps, that schema are illusory ... they don't actually exist >> and are an epiphenomenon of the constraint sieve that is our (common) >> anatomy and physiology? If that's the case, then every person's mess >> is just the variance/uncertainty allowed by the (dynamic) sieve that >> is their body/mind. Hence, the more sieves you can chain/network >> together, the more orderly the mess. >> >> Some of us, of course, resist being chained together. For example, I >> usually refrain from sieving someone else's mess, when I can. But >> because my sieve is ... uh ... coarse-grained and irregular ... when >> I do sieve a mess, I usually just make a bigger mess. Somehow, the >> input must be leaky. >> > > > ============================================================ > FRIAM Applied Complexity Group listserv > Meets Fridays 9a-11:30 at cafe at St. John's College > to unsubscribe http://redfish.com/mailman/listinfo/friam_redfish.com ============================================================ FRIAM Applied Complexity Group listserv Meets Fridays 9a-11:30 at cafe at St. John's College to unsubscribe http://redfish.com/mailman/listinfo/friam_redfish.com |
Re: disorder caused by individual, or collective human agents, in hierarchically-ordered and complex systems--systems composed of sub-systems that, in turn, have their own subsystems, and so on.
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In reply to this post by Steve Smith
On 10/30/2013 12:21 PM, Steve Smith wrote:
> And I seem inclined to try to sieve other's and re-present it contorted > through my own expresser (what is the opposite of a sieve... a pug-mill > or a meat-grinder? I think one of the things I do here in this forum > that is surely maddening to anyone who tries to follow my missives is > precisely what I'm talking about doing automagically... to ingest one > point of view and regurgitate it from a slightly different one (with > added ingredients from earlier meals, of course, just to push the > metaphor hard)... You make a great point, here. I danced around the production problem by allowing for a leaky/uncertain input. I.e. I may _intend_ to pay sole attention to one thing (mess, object, phenomenon, whatever). But there's a wiggle or fuzziness to my attention. As a result, what comes out the other end might contain something new, something that doesn't _seem_ to exist in the original thing on which I focused (or said I'd focus). But that probably doesn't account for all of creative/production. There are plenty of others, e.g. your material from earlier foci, or perhaps a multi-tasking ability to be able to simultaneously consider and merge foci. The more important one, I suppose would be if/whether there's something pivotal happening inside the machine (consciousness?), something creative rather than merely transformative. > But it is your very re-combobulation of the conversations others have > here that I find entertaining/useful/fascinating. Same here, of course. On 10/30/2013 12:45 PM, Steve Smith wrote: > I left out an important point in all of this, I think. The work going > into building "ontologies" for various (sub)domains is roughly the act > of building a shared, formalized "constraint sieve". My interest is in > developing a working environment for ensembles of these. One thing that's always bothered me (right down to the etymological nightmare of the words "ontologies" and "methodologies") is the assumption that ontologies are at all stable, much less static, or even real. These languages we have for various things (experiences, domains, identities, expectations) have always seemed so arbitrary to me. Of course, that's what sparks my defense of postmodernism against people who are clearly smarter and more linguistically endowed than me. ;-) But more importantly, as I age, I consistently find my peers are maturing faster than I am. They (for good or bad) fall more naturally into "expertise" or "guru" statuses or fall more naturally into "right wing nutjob" or "cancer patient" or whatever classification system may be most convenient for them. Of course, I can't help but think that if they're doing that, then I must be doing the same, even if i can't accurately observe it about myself. And if I'm maturing like they are, then what can I do to _stop_ it? I've thought seriously about leaping off the cliff and trying some psychedelics. My yard alone tells me there should be some useful fungus around here somewhere. ;-) It seems like those drugs are an established mechanism for "cracking the cosmic egg", as it were. But this is an individual, ontogenic observation, not a population based, transpersonal, or objective one. Perhaps there are stable or even static/true classification systems out there and I'm just too lazy to find them? And, if that's the case, then the Satanists are right. It's not wrong to purposefully go crazy through, say, meditation or psychedelics, but why would you do that if you can be _right_ and _know_ things about the world? Why would you take the risk of abandoning the Truth? -- ⇒⇐ glen e. p. ropella The clouds were hanging low above the path ============================================================ FRIAM Applied Complexity Group listserv Meets Fridays 9a-11:30 at cafe at St. John's College to unsubscribe http://redfish.com/mailman/listinfo/friam_redfish.com |
Re: disorder caused by individual, or collective human agents, in hierarchically-ordered and complex systems--systems composed of sub-systems that, in turn, have their own subsystems, and so on.
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Glen -
What a great cascade here... I'm not sure anyone but you and I are properly enjoying it however <grin>. > But that probably doesn't account for all of creative/production. > There are plenty of others, e.g. your material from earlier foci, or > perhaps a multi-tasking ability to be able to simultaneously consider > and merge foci. The more important one, I suppose would be if/whether > there's something pivotal happening inside the machine > (consciousness?), something creative rather than merely transformative. This deserves it's own entire thread... "what means creativity?". And perhaps, "is creativity just another name for emergent?". > I left out an important point in all of this, I think. The work going >> into building "ontologies" for various (sub)domains is roughly the act >> of building a shared, formalized "constraint sieve". My interest is in >> developing a working environment for ensembles of these. > > One thing that's always bothered me (right down to the etymological > nightmare of the words "ontologies" and "methodologies") is the > assumption that ontologies are at all stable, much less static, or > even real. These languages we have for various things (experiences, > domains, identities, expectations) have always seemed so arbitrary to me. tangential for the domain itself) suggests that it is very young and immature, that it often takes itself too seriously, etc. I'm naturally interested in "ontologies" as low-fidelity, distorted snapshots in time from a specific perspective of something much grander. Unfortunately that line of consideration risks being yet-less mature and yet-more self-aggrandizing-worthy not unlike classical Platonic Idealism. > Of course, that's what sparks my defense of postmodernism against > people who are clearly smarter and more linguistically endowed than > me. ;-) I have always had a very complicated relationship with postmodernism myself. I'm knee-jerk suspicious of any movement whose fundamental nature is deconstructionistic... that is the central power/theme of "criticism". It's easy to tear something down, not so easy to build something (and then defend it from entropy itself and those who would tear it down for tearing-down sake). That said, I'm naturally sympathetic with those who question the existing order which is (by definition?) held in place by authority/intimidation/momentum... > But more importantly, as I age, I consistently find my peers are > maturing faster than I am. They (for good or bad) fall more naturally > into "expertise" or "guru" statuses or fall more naturally into "right > wing nutjob" or "cancer patient" or whatever classification system may > be most convenient for them. I think you are describing the problem of rut-following and creation? One often doesn't recognize the ruts they are running in until they manage to jump them, or more likely get high-centered when they get too deep. Me, I'm dragging a LOT of shit with my undercarriage despite having jumped and/or cut across ruts many times. "don't let the sound of your own wheels drive you crazy" - Eagles > Of course, I can't help but think that if they're doing that, then I > must be doing the same, even if i can't accurately observe it about > myself. And if I'm maturing like they are, then what can I do to > _stop_ it? I've thought seriously about leaping off the cliff and > trying some psychedelics. In the anti-drug mythology, I believe those two events (jumping off a cliff and taking psychadelics) happen in the opposite order. > My yard alone tells me there should be some useful fungus around here > somewhere. ;-) It seems like those drugs are an established mechanism > for "cracking the cosmic egg", as it were. I think their efficacy is intrinsically faith-based... there probably is no objective way to determine whether the subjective experience induced by them (immediate and latent) is "real" or not. > > But this is an individual, ontogenic observation, not a population > based, transpersonal, or objective one. Perhaps there are stable or > even static/true classification systems out there and I'm just too > lazy to find them? In my own case, my own maturing has lead me *away* from a strong or deep belief in any of the specific, accepted classification systems. If anything I've become more interested in a wider variety of them and intuitive as well as formal comparative analysis of them. My professional work in the area is informed by that as well... I'm interested in how this plenitude of related classification systems are related to eachother and whether one can combine or superpose them, interpolate between them, etc. > And, if that's the case, then the Satanists are right. It's not wrong > to purposefully go crazy through, say, meditation or psychedelics, but > why would you do that if you can be _right_ and _know_ things about > the world? Why would you take the risk of abandoning the Truth? This sounds scarily similar to the argument sometimes made for belief in the JudeoChristian god (and probably Allah as well)... We'll have to continue this conversation over beers and fungi from your yard if I ever make it back up to Portland! - Steve ============================================================ FRIAM Applied Complexity Group listserv Meets Fridays 9a-11:30 at cafe at St. John's College to unsubscribe http://redfish.com/mailman/listinfo/friam_redfish.com |
Re: disorder caused by individual, or collective human agents, in hierarchically-ordered and complex systems--systems composed of sub-systems that, in turn, have their own subsystems, and so on.
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On 10/30/2013 04:54 PM, Steve Smith wrote:
> What a great cascade here... I'm not sure anyone but you and I are > properly enjoying it however <grin>. The delete key suffices. And, in the spirit of "hiding in plain sight", we have to populate caches like Arlo's with _something_ to lower the SNR. Personally, I feel successful enough if I can stump ht://Dig <http://www.htdig.org/>. I'm sure Arlo's got a better indexer for his cache, though. > This deserves it's own entire thread... "what means creativity?". And > perhaps, "is creativity just another name for emergent?". Ouch. No way. The concept of emergence is largely vapid, I think. It can be unavoidable at times. But I try hard to avoid it. Creativity is the Twitch, which I think reduces to randomness, a generative wiggle that initiates causal flows. We then perceive novel acts and artifacts through hindsight. > My direct involvement in this work, tangential (direct for me, > tangential for the domain itself) suggests that it is very young and > immature, that it often takes itself too seriously, etc. I'm naturally > interested in "ontologies" as low-fidelity, distorted snapshots in time > from a specific perspective of something much grander. Unfortunately > that line of consideration risks being yet-less mature and yet-more > self-aggrandizing-worthy not unlike classical Platonic Idealism. I don't know. If you could recast what you're saying in terms of the much more ancient sensory-motor complex presented by (mammalian?) anatomy and physiology, then you could tie into something much more mature and much more reality-based than the fluid brain farts that constitute our language. > I have always had a very complicated relationship with postmodernism > myself. I'm knee-jerk suspicious of any movement whose fundamental > nature is deconstructionistic... that is the central power/theme of > "criticism". It's easy to tear something down, not so easy to build > something (and then defend it from entropy itself and those who would > tear it down for tearing-down sake). That said, I'm naturally > sympathetic with those who question the existing order which is (by > definition?) held in place by authority/intimidation/momentum... I don't think of it as deconstructionist at all. I think of it as a more -urgic construction. Modernism is too cerebral. Postmodernism is more arbitrary, attempting to construct new stuff from whatever garbage happens to be laying around at the time. But, that's probably me just stamping it with my own "do what thou wilt" ethic (come to think of it, Crowley could be thought of as a postmodern occultist... hmmm). > I think you are describing the problem of rut-following and creation? > One often doesn't recognize the ruts they are running in until they > manage to jump them, or more likely get high-centered when they get too > deep. Me, I'm dragging a LOT of shit with my undercarriage despite > having jumped and/or cut across ruts many times. I typically think of "ruts" as behavior oriented. Personally, I seriously enjoy doing the same thing day in, day out. I find a kind of Taoist mindfulness to that. What I don't like are canalized patterns of _thought_. I think the real secret to happiness lies in being able to do the exact same thing an infinite number of times, yet thinking something entirely different each time you do it, different yet woven/coherent with the rest of the possible paths in the swath. I can guess this is one reason Deutsch's concept of the multiverse is interesting to me. >> My yard alone tells me there should be some useful fungus around here >> somewhere. ;-) It seems like those drugs are an established mechanism >> for "cracking the cosmic egg", as it were. > > I think their efficacy is intrinsically faith-based... there probably is > no objective way to determine whether the subjective experience induced > by them (immediate and latent) is "real" or not. Hm. You seem to have taken an odd turn, there. Since I put little stock in reality, it should be clear that I put even less stock in the subjective experiences of any one animal. The point of psych drugs, in my opinion, wouldn't be to find a new reality outside the cracked egg. It would simply be to destroy whatever reality you _think_ you've found as a result of your mind-rut. Anyone who has faith in anything should be prescribed high doses of psychedelics as a cure for that debilitating illness. 8^) > In my own case, my own maturing has lead me *away* from a strong or deep > belief in any of the specific, accepted classification systems. If > anything I've become more interested in a wider variety of them and > intuitive as well as formal comparative analysis of them. My > professional work in the area is informed by that as well... I'm > interested in how this plenitude of related classification systems are > related to eachother and whether one can combine or superpose them, > interpolate between them, etc. I'm trying to fight this battle against SBML <http://sbml.org> as we speak. Actually, that's not right. I'm a fan of SBML (especially -multi). But it's a bit like Christianity ... I'm a fan of Jesus, just not his followers. I suspect the ontologies you're talking about are probably less about the automatic description and specification of models. But I tend to think of them as the same, or more similar than do the spooks I've interacted with. Describing a biological system at a fine scale like that treated by SBML shouldn't be that much different from describing at a coarse scale like that treated in social systems. But SBML is very use case fragile, I think, which is where my criticism lies. Luckily, I have some allies who are much more credible than I'll ever be. ============================================================ FRIAM Applied Complexity Group listserv Meets Fridays 9a-11:30 at cafe at St. John's College to unsubscribe http://redfish.com/mailman/listinfo/friam_redfish.com |
Re: disorder caused by individual, or collective human agents, in hierarchically-ordered and complex systems--systems composed of sub-systems that, in turn, have their own subsystems, and so on.
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Glen -
>> What a great cascade here... I'm not sure anyone but you and I are >> properly enjoying it however <grin>. > > The delete key suffices. And, in the spirit of "hiding in plain > sight", we have to populate caches like Arlo's with _something_ to > lower the SNR. Personally, I feel successful enough if I can stump > ht://Dig <http://www.htdig.org/>. I'm sure Arlo's got a better > indexer for his cache, though. I'm not sure how he indexes... I'll ask him when I see him... he's got some wonderfully idiosyncratic ways of doing things that I feel like I can learn from. I think he just lets his FRIAM mail back up when he's busy with other things (like the Summer Complexity And Modeling Camp) and then runs through it post-hoc, giving us a little benefit of hindsight into our own foibles. >> This deserves it's own entire thread... "what means creativity?". And >> perhaps, "is creativity just another name for emergent?". > > Ouch. No way. The concept of emergence is largely vapid, I think. > It can be unavoidable at times. But I try hard to avoid it. I think it is a wonderfully elusive topic which is it's boon and it's bane. It is absolutely overused and misused. > Creativity is the Twitch, which I think reduces to randomness, a > generative wiggle that initiates causal flows. We then perceive novel > acts and artifacts through hindsight. I find "creativity" similarly elusive and over/misused. But then I'm married to an "outsider artist" who clashes gleefully with "insider artists" all the time in my presence. She owns an impressive array of melee weapons for discussing creativity and art. The field is always a mess when she walks off of it. I do suspect that "creativity" and possibly "emergent phenomena" are as much in the eye of the beholder as is "beauty". But even as illusions or consensual hallucination, they fascinate me, possibly all the more for their ephemerality. But none of that makes it any easier to "talk about" fruitfully. >> My direct involvement in this work, tangential (direct for me, >> tangential for the domain itself) suggests that it is very young and >> immature, that it often takes itself too seriously, etc. I'm naturally >> interested in "ontologies" as low-fidelity, distorted snapshots in time >> from a specific perspective of something much grander. Unfortunately >> that line of consideration risks being yet-less mature and yet-more >> self-aggrandizing-worthy not unlike classical Platonic Idealism. > > I don't know. If you could recast what you're saying in terms of the > much more ancient sensory-motor complex presented by (mammalian?) > anatomy and physiology, then you could tie into something much more > mature and much more reality-based than the fluid brain farts that > constitute our language. I *am* very interested in making the connection you describe and Lakoff/Nunez's and other's work in Embodiment of Mind seem to provide a decent "stalagmite" growing up from the grounding of said mammalian sensory-motor (and biochemical stew?) toward my hanging "stalagtites" of abstractions precipitated out of the fog of brain farts you reference... As an aside, my metaphor of stalagite/stalagmite is flawed in at least one obvious way that is relevant to this conversation... in calcium-carbonate cave evolution, there is a "downward causation"... stalagmites form opposite stalagtites from the drips... in my analogy, I don't intend to suggest that our "higher" (in the sense of level of abstraction) conceptual structures in any way cause the development of your "lower" sensory motor structures, although since our development of language and the extreme extensions of our phenotype that may have been leveraged by language (tools, weapons, conveyances, agriculture, architecture, industry, etc.) may in fact have begun to adjust our sensory-motor structures... >> I have always had a very complicated relationship with postmodernism >> myself. I'm knee-jerk suspicious of any movement whose fundamental >> nature is deconstructionistic... that is the central power/theme of >> "criticism". It's easy to tear something down, not so easy to build >> something (and then defend it from entropy itself and those who would >> tear it down for tearing-down sake). That said, I'm naturally >> sympathetic with those who question the existing order which is (by >> definition?) held in place by authority/intimidation/momentum... > > I don't think of it as deconstructionist at all. > I think of it as a more -urgic construction. Modernism is too > cerebral. Postmodernism is more arbitrary, attempting to construct > new stuff from whatever garbage happens to be laying around at the time. I concede that this is a key aspect. Some postmodernism seems to grow out of the presumption that modernism itself has (or is or will) collapsed under it's own loftiness, and the "urgic" part of postmodernism can do it's juxtaposing/folding/collaging thing with the rich detritus created by an (overly) structured fore-bearer. Post-modernism, as the term suggests, requires there to have been a modernism to provide the elements for it's creativity... Possibly as the post-Cambrian stew could not have been brewed without the pre-Cambrian building blocks and starting points. > But, that's probably me just stamping it with my own "do what thou > wilt" ethic (come to think of it, Crowley could be thought of as a > postmodern occultist... hmmm). I first encountered this concept in the context of Quakers... it may have been a tangent or outlier... but I'm always shocked to be reminded that this came from the Occultists (postmodern Crowley I suppose?). >> I think you are describing the problem of rut-following and creation? >> One often doesn't recognize the ruts they are running in until they >> manage to jump them, or more likely get high-centered when they get too >> deep. Me, I'm dragging a LOT of shit with my undercarriage despite >> having jumped and/or cut across ruts many times. > > I typically think of "ruts" as behavior oriented. Personally, I > seriously enjoy doing the same thing day in, day out. I find a kind > of Taoist mindfulness to that. What I don't like are canalized > patterns of _thought_. I think the real secret to happiness lies in > being able to do the exact same thing an infinite number of times, yet > thinking something entirely different each time you do it, different > yet woven/coherent with the rest of the possible paths in the swath. the rut/vehicle metaphor and the canalization/landscape metaphor. I'm a fan (though a lousy practicioner) of chop-wood/carry-water... though I am in the throes this month of bringing in my winter's wood (sorting, stacking, splitting, etc.). I would enjoy it much less if it was required year-round. A month of preparation and a few months of the mindful/mindless feeding of fires, emptying of ashes, polishing and seasoning of cast iron is still a welcome ritual. I depend on the combination of seed crystals of thought/ideas here on FRIAM and the indulgence of all (with or without liberal use of the delete key) for my cogitations out loud to help me change the erosion patterns of my mind, or if you prefer jump my ruts. > I can guess this is one reason Deutsch's concept of the multiverse is > interesting to me. If I appreciate Duetsch's particular type of multiverse, it is the ensemble of configuration states within a single physic, a superposition of the adjacent (and not so adjacent) possibles. Biting on your suggestion here, I have to admit that my own poorly articulated model of how creativity works, if it is anything more than an illusion, is that it is embodied in the particular choices of our consciousness regarding which part of said multiverse one might choose to exist within... those with expanded minds (your reference to psychoactives, to meditation, etc.) and quite possibly our own Rich Murray and others who, in their expanded mind-state are the ultimate lurkers here manage to not restrict themselves to a single, low-dimensional existence within that multiverse... I know I'm mumbling here, but I'm trying to say (I think) that consciousness is an epiphenomenon of this multiverse, riding on an edge between coherence and decoherence. The expanded mind is less coherent (in a good way) than the unexpanded mind? The perfectly linear/rational mind can only be creative in hindsight (observing the path through the evolving ensemble as a series of creative choices) and the perfectly expanded, non-dualistic (Rich's term) mind approaches our idealized conception of godness (all knowing, all-being) embracing/inhabiting/being the entire (infinite?) ensemble? WHEW! That is just a bit too heady and wild, even for me. > >>> My yard alone tells me there should be some useful fungus around here >>> somewhere. ;-) It seems like those drugs are an established mechanism >>> for "cracking the cosmic egg", as it were. >> >> I think their efficacy is intrinsically faith-based... there probably is >> no objective way to determine whether the subjective experience induced >> by them (immediate and latent) is "real" or not. > > Hm. You seem to have taken an odd turn, there. > Since I put little stock in reality, it should be clear that I put > even less stock in the subjective experiences of any one animal. Granted. > The point of psych drugs, in my opinion, wouldn't be to find a new > reality outside the cracked egg. It would simply be to destroy > whatever reality you _think_ you've found as a result of your > mind-rut. Anyone who has faith in anything should be prescribed high > doses of psychedelics as a cure for that debilitating illness. 8^) postmodernism at it's best? No, I agree... in the sense that while we are still full of ourselves, we have no capacity to take in anything new. In the context of my multiverse riff above, I do believe that there are many ways to chemically (and behaviourally and sensorially) force some (temporary) decoherence which may open the way to a more long lasting version. I think that perhaps those damaged by over/misuse of psychadelics (or religion or sensory deprivation or ...) simply cannot return to enough coherence to relate effectively with the rest of us. Sometimes that is benign (for them) as long as they exist in a context that can tolerate them, and sometimes not (neglected or persecuted or "treated" for their "psychosis" in ways that are not compatible with their particular less-than-coherent state). >> In my own case, my own maturing has lead me *away* from a strong or deep >> belief in any of the specific, accepted classification systems. If >> anything I've become more interested in a wider variety of them and >> intuitive as well as formal comparative analysis of them. My >> professional work in the area is informed by that as well... I'm >> interested in how this plenitude of related classification systems are >> related to eachother and whether one can combine or superpose them, >> interpolate between them, etc. > > I'm trying to fight this battle against SBML <http://sbml.org> as we > speak. Actually, that's not right. I'm a fan of SBML (especially > -multi). But it's a bit like Christianity ... I'm a fan of Jesus, > just not his followers. it is where I was first introduced professionally to ontologies. Doing a tiny bit of checking, I find that one tool being used for visualizing ontologies in that world ( http://arena3d.org/ ) looks frightfully familiar ( http://bio-ontologies.man.ac.uk/2006/download/Joslyn2EtAlSpindleviz.pdf ) > I suspect the ontologies you're talking about are probably less about > the automatic description and specification of models. But I tend to > think of them as the same, or more similar than do the spooks I've > interacted with. Well, it is all pretty fuzzy in the sense that the customers (when we have them) are focused on some pretty specific goals with some pretty specific constraints. I haven't worked directly for spooks on this but it is clear that the DTRA sponsors were interested in feeding the spooks with our results. The specific customers *were* using intelligence analysis models, but their overt goals were to understand the strategic issues surrounding WMDs, drawing information from open-source data. > Describing a biological system at a fine scale like that treated by > SBML shouldn't be that much different from describing at a coarse > scale like that treated in social systems. But SBML is very use case > fragile, I think, which is where my criticism lies. Luckily, I have > some allies who are much more credible than I'll ever be. I am woefully out of date on any particular groups doing this kind of work, being afloat in the stew of independent consulting convolved with product development, I don't have the time or focus to keep up well in a larger milieu. When I was at LANL proper, I had a lot more "experts" nearby to walk down the hall and talk to... now I have to schedule weeks in advance and then probably buy them lunch or a beer... and too many of them have wandered off to other pursuits in the meantime (PNNL, ORNL, NREL, private industry, full retirement)! I'd look forward to more specific discussion (probably offline) with you on this topic from a more technical standpoint. I'll read up a bit on SBML and try to articulate some specific questions. - Steve ============================================================ FRIAM Applied Complexity Group listserv Meets Fridays 9a-11:30 at cafe at St. John's College to unsubscribe http://redfish.com/mailman/listinfo/friam_redfish.com |
Re: disorder caused by individual, or collective human agents, in hierarchically-ordered and complex systems--systems composed of sub-systems that, in turn, have their own subsystems, and so on.
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Glen -
Another of my usual postscripts... afterthoughts... from my last missive: The Faceted Ontology work I describe is not unlike my conception of the Duetsch Multiverse, but only a subset or a shadow of it. Rather than the superposition of many states of a finite but huge multiverse, it is the superposition of many states of knowledge of a finite and huge (but not compared to said multiverse) set of perspectives of those who contributed said knowledge. It is, in fact, a lot like a very low fidelity hologram reconstructed in the manner of a tomograph... many 2D slices of a 3D thing composed and interpolated to imply a 3D thing. Since our work includes uncertainty measures (both in the confidence and the veracity of the original source), it at least suggests adjacent possibles ("it was kinda red" said the semi-reliable source)... 'nuff for now, - Steve ============================================================ FRIAM Applied Complexity Group listserv Meets Fridays 9a-11:30 at cafe at St. John's College to unsubscribe http://redfish.com/mailman/listinfo/friam_redfish.com |
Re: disorder caused by individual, or collective human agents, in hierarchically-ordered and complex systems--systems composed of sub-systems that, in turn, have their own subsystems, and so on.
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In reply to this post by glen ropella
Old email: What a great cascade here... I'm not sure anyone but you and I are properly enjoying it however <grin>. The delete key suffices. And, in the spirit of "hiding in plain sight", we have to populate caches like Arlo's with _something_ to lower the SNR. Personally, I feel successful enough if I can stump ht://Dig <http://www.htdig.org/>. I'm sure Arlo's got a better indexer for his cache, though. Not sure how to parse this metaphor (I suspect your conclusions are inaccurate, but I appreciate the vote of confidence).
I had the same reaction. Firstly, emergence is far less about how the world is than how you think it should be. Very mechanistically, the 'emergent' behaviour results from the simple rules, yet it is surprising because we had wrong preconceptions about what simplicity, complexity and (in a meta-defined way) emergence are.
I think the real secret to happiness lies in being able to do the exact same thing an infinite number of times, yet thinking something entirely different each time you do it, different yet woven/coherent with the rest of the possible paths in the swath. I like this, although I am not sure how it could be verified. I tend to despise routine, yet if there is a best way to do a given thing (which I believe) and if you have to do that thing more than once, routine is inevitable.
Anyone who has faith in anything should be prescribed high doses of psychedelics as a cure for that debilitating illness. 8^) [EDIT: More or less as Steve said below] I think that psychedelics themselves do not magically change your worldview, they just provoke your senses in order to pull you out of your every-day narrow framework or context of thought (which is survival- and society-oriented, among other things) so that you may reflect on your existence with a little more perspective. It seems the result of this is that some people get faith in something (peyote mysticism, for instance) and some lose a faith. Not having taken any psychedelics myself, though, this is all a guess-based interpretation of others' accounts.
-Arlo ============================================================ FRIAM Applied Complexity Group listserv Meets Fridays 9a-11:30 at cafe at St. John's College to unsubscribe http://redfish.com/mailman/listinfo/friam_redfish.com |
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