-- --- .-. . .-.. --- -.-. -.- ... -..-. .- .-. . -..-. - .... . -..-. . ... ... . -. - .. .- .-.. -..-. .-- --- .-. -.- . .-. ...You have a life for which, at the moment, only you hold the key. That’s the furthest I am prepared to go.
N
Nicholas Thompson
Emeritus Professor of Ethology and Psychology
Clark University
https://wordpress.clarku.edu/nthompson/
From: Friam <[hidden email]> On Behalf Of Frank Wimberly
Sent: Monday, May 18, 2020 9:13 PM
To: The Friday Morning Applied Complexity Coffee Group <[hidden email]>
Subject: Re: [FRIAM] hidden
Then quit saying I don't have an inner life. The inner expeeiences are the memories I have in the present and at various times in the past and the wondering about whatever became of her (and others).
---
Frank C. Wimberly
140 Calle Ojo Feliz,
Santa Fe, NM 87505
505 670-9918
Santa Fe, NM
On Mon, May 18, 2020, 8:48 PM <[hidden email]> wrote:
Frank,
There are many things that you have experienced that I have not, and vv, but no value is added by calling these “inner.” I can sort of go along with Glen’s gloss on “inside”, but when you metamorphose it to “inner”, I get antsy.
But I think we have tilled this ground for all it is worth, for the moment.
Nick
Nicholas Thompson
Emeritus Professor of Ethology and Psychology
Clark University
https://wordpress.clarku.edu/nthompson/
From: Friam <[hidden email]> On Behalf Of Frank Wimberly
Sent: Monday, May 18, 2020 8:02 PM
To: The Friday Morning Applied Complexity Coffee Group <[hidden email]>
Subject: Re: [FRIAM] hidden
Forget covariant tensors (again). There was a beautiful, talented girl in my sixth grade class. She could dance ballet, draw striking pictures, etc. I thought of her occasionally over the decades. When Google search became available I discovered that she was married to a celebrity.
When you say that my inner life isn't private, Nick, do you mean you could figure out her name given what I've just written? As I think of her face, can you "see" it well enough to recognize her photo?
I just don't understand what you mean when you question that I have a private inner life.
Frank
---
Frank C. Wimberly
140 Calle Ojo Feliz,
Santa Fe, NM 87505
505 670-9918
Santa Fe, NM
On Mon, May 18, 2020, 7:47 PM Jon Zingale <[hidden email]> wrote:
Frank, Glen, Nick,
Glen writes:
`... in last week's Zoom, I mentioned to Jon (in response
to his query to Frank about RSA-encryption::mind) that I
think homomorphic encryption is a better analogy (to mind).`
Fully homomorphic encryption† was also the metaphor I originally
had in mind. In an effort to not complicate matters, I decided to focus
on the idea of public key encryption more generally. Thank you, Glen
for taking it the rest of the way. Because Glen, Nick and I appear to
differ on Frank's mind only in that we disagree about the way that
Frank's mind is public, I will attempt to switch sides and argue for
why his mind may be private.
Firstly, while we may only need to know some combination of
transformations which will allow us to know his mind, it may
be the case that those transformations are not accessible to
us. As an example and in analogy to computation, it may be the
case that we are not the kind of machines which can recognize
the language produced by a mind. While we as observers are
able to finite automata our way along observations of Frank,
his mind is producing context-free sentences, say. I don't
entirely buy this argument, but it also may be defendable.
As another example/analogy, we may be attempting to solve
a problem analogous to those geometric problems of Greek
antiquity††. It may take a psychological analog to Galois theory
before we understand exactly why we can't know Frank's mind.
Secondly, it may be that the encryption metaphor should
actually be something closer to hashing. A friend of mine
once said that rememberings were morphisms between
forgettings. We are often ok with the idea that memory is
lossy, but why not thoughts themselves? Perhaps, at least
with regard to what we can observer of Frank, every time
Frank thinks of a covariant tensor he is reconstituting
something fundamentally different. The remembering is
always between different forgettings.
Ok, I am not sure I could necessarily defend these thoughts.
Further, I am not sure they are necessarily helpful to our
conversation. It seemed a good idea to try.
On the topic of steganography, I wanted to mention the
book Steganographia. I had originally read about it in some
part of Neal Stephenson's Baroque Cycle, and it has since
found a place in my heart. The book, originally written in
1499, is perhaps the oldest text on the subject of cryptography.
What is amazing about the book is that it is an example of
itself (nod to Nick). The plaintext content of the book is
on the subject of magic, but for a reader clever enough to
find the deciphering key the book is about cryptography.
I had found a copy from the 1700's in the rare books library
at the University of Texas some years ago. The content was
doubly hidden from me as I neither had the deciphering
key nor can I read Latin ;)
Jon
†: If any members of the group would like to form a reading
group around Craig Gentry's thesis on FHE, I would gladly
participate.
†† While it turned out that the Greek's assumptions about
the power of a compass and straightedge were incorrect,
work beginning with Margherita Beloch (and culminating
with the Huzita-Hatori axioms) show that origami would
have been a more powerful choice!
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