Friam

"the arc of ...bends toward ...."

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thompnickson2

"the arc of ...bends toward ...."

Glen Hath Said:

Hah, the arc of technical universe is long, but it bends toward best practices?

Wow, Glen, did this send me down a rat-hole. I thought at first that it was something that Oliver Wendall Holmes might have said about justice, because Holmes was at the table with Peirce and James invented pragmatism, and, I am told, tended to think about Justice in the same way that Peirce thought about truth. The arc of inqury bends toward truth. That led me to search the quotations of OWH, father and son, but, as you know, I never found the quote in either Holmes, Sr or Jr, because it is not there. It is of course from that famous Pragmatist Philosopher, Martin Luther King who cribbed it from a 19^th Century Abolitionist minister, Theodore Parker, who was a notable member of the same community in which the young Peirce ,young James and young Holmes grew up. (https://quoteinvestigator.com/2012/11/15/arc-of-universe/) .

However, I don’t regard the time as lost. An hour rummaging around in the quotations of the Holmes’s was well worth it. I recommend it. My favorite of the moment is

The mode by which the inevitable comes to pass is effort.

Which seems somehow to bear on the paradox of free will.

Glen, the recent efflorescence of reflection on free will, etc., caused me once again to try and distill the correspondence, so I could try to grasp it. This time I tried with nabble. Still no luck . Yeah, I know. Now that I have climbed out thie ‘arc of … justice” rat hole, I may make another try. Does the arc of effort bend toward success?

Nick

Nicholas Thompson

Emeritus Professor of Ethology and Psychology

Clark University

[hidden email]

https://wordpress.clarku.edu/nthompson/

-----Original Message-----
From: Friam <[hidden email]> On Behalf Of glen?C
Sent: Monday, June 15, 2020 11:44 AM
To: [hidden email]
Subject: Re: [FRIAM] alternative response

Well, maybe not. But we all do it. We can't help it because we are truncating machines. Even the most fastidious of us will succumb sporadically and truncate others according to our own limitations. We're all just cookie cutters slicing up the world arbitrarily. But I agree that we should be pressured into making our cookies larger ... and maybe with better designs. There are too many round cookies. Who, in their right mind, tiles a rectangular pan with circles?

On 6/15/20 10:28 AM, Marcus Daniels wrote:

> It is not cool to expect people to structure the world around some random person's laziness. Should they join a lazy club in order to get more political clout, then it is even more contemptible.

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gepr

Re: "the arc of ...bends toward ...."

Marcus said that. >8^D But I'm honored to be confused for Marcus.

http://friam.471366.n2.nabble.com/alternative-response-tp7597063p7597080.html

On 6/15/20 12:10 PM, [hidden email] wrote:

> Glen Hath Said:
>
> Hah, the arc of technical universe is long, but it bends toward best practices?
>
> Wow, Glen, did this send me down a rat-hole. I thought at first that it was something that Oliver Wendall Holmes might have said about justice, because Holmes was at the table with Peirce and James invented pragmatism, and, I am told, tended to think about Justice in the same way that Peirce thought about truth. The arc of inqury bends toward truth. That led me to search the quotations of OWH, father and son, but, as you know, I never found the quote in either Holmes, Sr or Jr, because it is not there. It is of course from that famous Pragmatist Philosopher, Martin Luther King who cribbed it from a 19^th Century Abolitionist minister, Theodore Parker, who was a notable member of the same community in which the young Peirce ,young James and young Holmes grew up. (https://quoteinvestigator.com/2012/11/15/arc-of-universe/) .
>
> However, I don’t regard the time as lost. An hour rummaging around in the quotations of the Holmes’s was well worth it. I recommend it. My favorite of the moment is
>
> The mode by which the inevitable comes to pass is effort.
>
> Which seems somehow to bear on the paradox of free will.
>
> Glen, the recent efflorescence of reflection on free will, etc., caused me once again to try and distill the correspondence, so I could try to grasp it. This time I tried with nabble. Still no luck . Yeah, I know. Now that I have climbed out thie ‘arc of … justice” rat hole, I may make another try. Does the arc of effort bend toward success?
>

uǝʃƃ ⊥ glen

thompnickson2

Re: "the arc of ...bends toward ...."

Sorry, Glen, Sorry Marcus. I knew that! Brain Fart.

I have gotten the text version of the thread into word.txt and have edited
the first 3 exchanges (out of dozens) . It has only taken me a half an
hour. W'ooooHooo! I wonder how long I will go on THIS time before I get
discouraged.

Anyhow, it is the first time I have been around when computer folks tried to
steel man (?) Free Will, and I am determined to try to follow it.

Nick

Nicholas Thompson
Emeritus Professor of Ethology and Psychology
Clark University
[hidden email]
https://wordpress.clarku.edu/nthompson/

-----Original Message-----
From: Friam <[hidden email]> On Behalf Of glen?C
Sent: Monday, June 15, 2020 1:17 PM
To: [hidden email]
Subject: Re: [FRIAM] "the arc of ...bends toward ...."

Marcus said that. >8^D But I'm honored to be confused for Marcus.

http://friam.471366.n2.nabble.com/alternative-response-tp7597063p7597080.htm
l

On 6/15/20 12:10 PM, [hidden email] wrote:
> Glen Hath Said:
>
> Hah, the arc of technical universe is long, but it bends toward best
practices?
>
> Wow, Glen, did this send me down a rat-hole. I thought at first that it
was something that Oliver Wendall Holmes might have said about justice,
because Holmes was at the table with Peirce and James invented pragmatism,
and, I am told, tended to think about Justice in the same way that Peirce
thought about truth. The arc of inqury bends toward truth. That led me to
search the quotations of OWH, father and son, but, as you know, I never
found the quote in either Holmes, Sr or Jr, because it is not there. It is
of course from that famous Pragmatist Philosopher, Martin Luther King who
cribbed it from a 19^th Century Abolitionist minister, Theodore Parker, who
was a notable member of the same community in which the young Peirce ,young
James and young Holmes grew up.
(https://quoteinvestigator.com/2012/11/15/arc-of-universe/) .

>
> However, I dont regard the time as lost. An hour rummaging around in
> the quotations of the Holmess was well worth it. I recommend it. My
> favorite of the moment is
>
> The mode by which the inevitable comes to pass is effort.
>
> Which seems somehow to bear on the paradox of free will.
>
> Glen, the recent efflorescence of reflection on free will, etc., caused me

once again to try and distill the correspondence, so I could try to grasp
it. This time I tried with nabble. Still no luck . Yeah, I know. Now
that I have climbed out thie arc of justice rat hole, I may make another
try. Does the arc of effort bend toward success?
>

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- .... . -..-. . -. -.. -..-. .. ... -..-. .... . .-. .
FRIAM Applied Complexity Group listserv
Zoom Fridays 9:30a-12p Mtn GMT-6 bit.ly/virtualfriam
un/subscribe http://redfish.com/mailman/listinfo/friam_redfish.com
archives: http://friam.471366.n2.nabble.com/
FRIAM-COMIC http://friam-comic.blogspot.com/