trolling, 'hidden' to 'touch' and 'contact'

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trolling, 'hidden' to 'touch' and 'contact'

glen ropella
Perhaps coincidentally ... or maybe cause I'm triggered ...:

  Do Atoms Ever Touch?
  https://youtu.be/P0TNJrTlbBQ

They go 'round and 'round about the definitions and *finally* arrive at the conclusion that "the analogy breaks down". So, the answer to "are emotional states hidden" is "no", but not because they are or are not hidden (by whatever definition of "hidden" you may choose), but because the question is NONSENSE! >8^) So, for all you people who think metaphor is so fundamental ... does this confirm or contradict your bias?

--
☣ uǝlƃ

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Re: trolling, 'hidden' to 'touch' and 'contact'

Steve Smith


Perhaps coincidentally ... or maybe cause I'm triggered ...:

  Do Atoms Ever Touch?
  https://youtu.be/P0TNJrTlbBQ

They go 'round and 'round about the definitions and *finally* arrive at the conclusion that "the analogy breaks down". So, the answer to "are emotional states hidden" is "no", but not because they are or are not hidden (by whatever definition of "hidden" you may choose), but because the question is NONSENSE! >8^) So, for all you people who think metaphor is so fundamental ... does this confirm or contradict your bias?

Metaphorist trolling much <grin>?

It confirms *my* bias, but I think your conception of "metaphor as fundamental" might be different than my own.  I also may be guilty of "moving the goalposts".  I've been studying Category Theory for possible formalisms suitable for a sort of universal abstraction of structure mappings between different formal structures (e.g. sets, topological spaces, vector spaces, posets, manifolds) and the kinds of structures found in complex (layered) metaphors.  

Just like "scientific theories" or "models" or "maps",  *metaphors are always wrong*, some alternately more/less useful/wrong than others.   The relation "apt" comes to mind.

I would NOT claim that reality is structured by metaphors/analogies/ontologies/models/theories, but rather that our *language* and formal understanding is structured in that way. 

This maybe ties in to the parallel thread which Nick so aptly dubbed "experience beyond experience".  To the extent that there is no way to structure what we "know", tying it to what we have "sensed", we have "beyond experience"?

It also maybe ties into deep machine learning.  IMO machine learning excels at predictive power while being virtually void of explanatory power.  The holy grail of neural nets/machine learning/learning classifier systems is to analyze the artifact resulting from training well enough to provide explanatory power.  

FWIW, a few of the resources I've found that provide interesting (far from conclusive) insight into all of this are:

  1. Big Picture suggesting how/why CT might inform or relate to MT- https://www.math3ma.com/blog/what-is-category-theory-anyway
  2. Not very deep or even convincing but broadly referential to the topic - http://bohemiantheory.blogspot.com/2014/03/metaphorically-category-theory-is-study.html
  3. Meaning, Metaphors, and Morphisms: Theory of Intermediate Natural Transformations - https://arxiv.org/pdf/1801.10542.pdf

I don't know that anyone else here is motivated to dig into any of these, but some parallax would be helpful.  The last one is the most formal/thorough/promising but does have the added challenge of a (rough) translation from Japanese.

- Steve




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Re: trolling, 'hidden' to 'touch' and 'contact'

Frank Wimberly-2
Re:  machine learning and explanation.
Steve,

If you don't have enough reading to do I recommend "Causation, Prediction, and Search" by Glymour, Spirtes, and Scheines.  Implementation of algorithms based on their work was my last job before moving to New Mexico.  Those machine learning algorithms were focused on inference of causal relationships based on observational data.  It is often said that correlation is not causation but those algorithms used conditional Independence relationships, which are a form of correlation, to infer causal links between variables in fields like medicine, economics, social sciences and so on.  In other words, they learned causal graphs (explanations) in the form of acyclic digraphs given datasets derived from observations of sets of variables over many cases.

Frank
---
Frank C. Wimberly
505 670-9918
Santa Fe, NM

On Thu, Mar 5, 2020, 9:11 PM Steven A Smith <[hidden email]> wrote:


Perhaps coincidentally ... or maybe cause I'm triggered ...:

  Do Atoms Ever Touch?
  https://youtu.be/P0TNJrTlbBQ

They go 'round and 'round about the definitions and *finally* arrive at the conclusion that "the analogy breaks down". So, the answer to "are emotional states hidden" is "no", but not because they are or are not hidden (by whatever definition of "hidden" you may choose), but because the question is NONSENSE! >8^) So, for all you people who think metaphor is so fundamental ... does this confirm or contradict your bias?

Metaphorist trolling much <grin>?

It confirms *my* bias, but I think your conception of "metaphor as fundamental" might be different than my own.  I also may be guilty of "moving the goalposts".  I've been studying Category Theory for possible formalisms suitable for a sort of universal abstraction of structure mappings between different formal structures (e.g. sets, topological spaces, vector spaces, posets, manifolds) and the kinds of structures found in complex (layered) metaphors.  

Just like "scientific theories" or "models" or "maps",  *metaphors are always wrong*, some alternately more/less useful/wrong than others.   The relation "apt" comes to mind.

I would NOT claim that reality is structured by metaphors/analogies/ontologies/models/theories, but rather that our *language* and formal understanding is structured in that way. 

This maybe ties in to the parallel thread which Nick so aptly dubbed "experience beyond experience".  To the extent that there is no way to structure what we "know", tying it to what we have "sensed", we have "beyond experience"?

It also maybe ties into deep machine learning.  IMO machine learning excels at predictive power while being virtually void of explanatory power.  The holy grail of neural nets/machine learning/learning classifier systems is to analyze the artifact resulting from training well enough to provide explanatory power.  

FWIW, a few of the resources I've found that provide interesting (far from conclusive) insight into all of this are:

  1. Big Picture suggesting how/why CT might inform or relate to MT- https://www.math3ma.com/blog/what-is-category-theory-anyway
  2. Not very deep or even convincing but broadly referential to the topic - http://bohemiantheory.blogspot.com/2014/03/metaphorically-category-theory-is-study.html
  3. Meaning, Metaphors, and Morphisms: Theory of Intermediate Natural Transformations - https://arxiv.org/pdf/1801.10542.pdf

I don't know that anyone else here is motivated to dig into any of these, but some parallax would be helpful.  The last one is the most formal/thorough/promising but does have the added challenge of a (rough) translation from Japanese.

- Steve



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Re: trolling, 'hidden' to 'touch' and 'contact'

gepr
In reply to this post by Steve Smith
We trolls need to stick together.

This distinction between reality and our language/understanding is suspect, to me. This was the basis for Rosen's Life Itself argument, what he called "natural law". The idea is that either our reasoning systems are enough like reality to *work*, or they aren't. And if they aren't enough like it, then we should just give up and stay in our fantasy worlds.

So, if you wouldn't claim that reality is deeply structured by metaphor, but our reasoning *is* deeply structured by metaphor, then where do the 2 meet? Or are you, as Nick repeats like a broken record, some kind of ... dualist! [ptouie] ... (What's an onomatopoeic word for spitting?)

On 3/5/20 8:11 PM, Steven A Smith wrote:
> Metaphorist trolling much <grin>?
> [...]
> I would NOT claim that reality is structured by metaphors/analogies/ontologies/models/theories, but rather that our *language* and formal understanding is structured in that way. 

--
☣ uǝlƃ

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Re: trolling, 'hidden' to 'touch' and 'contact'

thompnickson2
"ptouie" is good.  Let's keep "ptouie"


N

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 u?l? ?
Sent: Friday, March 6, 2020 7:12 AM
To: FriAM <[hidden email]>
Subject: Re: [FRIAM] trolling, 'hidden' to 'touch' and 'contact'

We trolls need to stick together.

This distinction between reality and our language/understanding is suspect, to me. This was the basis for Rosen's Life Itself argument, what he called "natural law". The idea is that either our reasoning systems are enough like reality to *work*, or they aren't. And if they aren't enough like it, then we should just give up and stay in our fantasy worlds.

So, if you wouldn't claim that reality is deeply structured by metaphor, but our reasoning *is* deeply structured by metaphor, then where do the 2 meet? Or are you, as Nick repeats like a broken record, some kind of ... dualist! [ptouie] ... (What's an onomatopoeic word for spitting?)

On 3/5/20 8:11 PM, Steven A Smith wrote:
> Metaphorist trolling much <grin>?
> [...]
> I would NOT claim that reality is structured by
> metaphors/analogies/ontologies/models/theories, but rather that our *language* and formal understanding is structured in that way.

--
☣ uǝlƃ

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Re: trolling, 'hidden' to 'touch' and 'contact'

Steve Smith
In reply to this post by gepr
Onomataptouie!  With all the Corona Virus awareness, I understand more
better why spitting was once such a visceral insult (even beyond the
mere sliming by a throatful of phlegm).  Is phlegm one of the substances
that helps trolls stick together? 

I really DO appreciate how your style of argument elicits more expansive
and deep thinking.  It feels a bit like the Socratic on Steroids (or
high octane fuel or psychadelics?).   But I digress with "metaphors all
the way down".

My argument *against* reality being structured by metaphors is the same
as the map/territory duality, models are wrong, scientific theories are
contingent.   All of these are "useful" for prediction.   I would claim
that we DO "just give up and live in our fantasy worlds"... not because
they *don't* work, but because they do.   Or they do well enough. 

Pre-copernican, even flat-earth models worked *well enough* until people
started to experience (or aspire to) things for which they were not
sufficient (sail west to get east).   Keplerian mechanics were more
predictively *accurate* than Copernican, but the fantasy worlds of the
sun traversing the sky or of circular orbits still worked for most
purposes but were not necessarily more explanatory.  "don't bother my
pretty little head with those other models!"    But when Newton added
his insight, something qualitatively different happened.   

It was the style of structuring of substances that the Alchemists did
(and found useful) that lead to the Periodic Table which was very
predictive/useful but only became more explanatory when atomic orbital
theory was added.   Your own argument about structuring our
understanding of atomic structure as if electrons literally orbited a
nuclear body, substituting electromagnetic forces for gravitational, now
takes up the argument on my behalf <ptouie>.  

On your larger argument against poetry and visualization, I agree that
their best features are NOT in direct communication, but rather in the
sharing of nuanced insight. 

Regarding your original point of "the distinction between reality and
our language/understanding", my newest "insight" is how CT allows/helps
mathematicians to draw parallels (analogies, mappings) between different
mathematical domains entirely based on their structural similarities,
and apparently how this has allowed one field's insights to be applied
to another.   This is directly supportive of how I see metaphor to be
useful...  it helps us apply existing understandings in one domain to
another.

- Sneeze

On 3/6/20 7:12 AM, uǝlƃ ☣ wrote:

> We trolls need to stick together.
>
> This distinction between reality and our language/understanding is suspect, to me. This was the basis for Rosen's Life Itself argument, what he called "natural law". The idea is that either our reasoning systems are enough like reality to *work*, or they aren't. And if they aren't enough like it, then we should just give up and stay in our fantasy worlds.
>
> So, if you wouldn't claim that reality is deeply structured by metaphor, but our reasoning *is* deeply structured by metaphor, then where do the 2 meet? Or are you, as Nick repeats like a broken record, some kind of ... dualist! [ptouie] ... (What's an onomatopoeic word for spitting?)
>
> On 3/5/20 8:11 PM, Steven A Smith wrote:
>> Metaphorist trolling much <grin>?
>> [...]
>> I would NOT claim that reality is structured by metaphors/analogies/ontologies/models/theories, but rather that our *language* and formal understanding is structured in that way. 


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Re: trolling, 'hidden' to 'touch' and 'contact'

gepr
On 3/6/20 7:32 AM, Steven A Smith wrote:
> Your own argument about structuring our understanding of atomic structure as if electrons literally orbited a nuclear body, substituting electromagnetic forces for gravitational, now takes up the argument on my behalf <ptouie>.  

*My* argument?!?! Noooooo. I don't believe I ever made that argument. My argument was that atoms don't touch because the word "touch" is nonsense in the context of atoms.

On 3/6/20 7:32 AM, Steven A Smith wrote:
> Regarding your original point of "the distinction between reality and our language/understanding", my newest "insight" is how CT allows/helps mathematicians to draw parallels (analogies, mappings) between different mathematical domains entirely based on their structural similarities, and apparently how this has allowed one field's insights to be applied to another.   This is directly supportive of how I see metaphor to be useful...  it helps us apply existing understandings in one domain to another.

Right. I agree that metaphors (or, specific kinds of metaphor like isomorphism or commuting categories) *work*. But the question is whether they work all the way down.

The "Do atoms touch?" video makes a good argument that (some) particular metaphors have scope, inside which, they're fine, outside which they fail. To argue that metaphors work all the way down, we'd need to show that at least one metaphor works all the way down (and up).

To me, this is perilously close to the simulation hypothesis: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Simulation_hypothesis. You might also be approaching something like Platonic math or Tegmark's mathematical universe ... or physics as information ... or any number of metaphysical claims about reality. You may even be approaching Peirce in his distinction between existence and reality, where real things need not exist. So, some of your metaphors may exist and others may not, but as long as everyone agrees those metaphors work best ... "hang together" best, then they're real (enough).

I don't know. But it seems to me you're working very hard to confirm your bias that metaphors are fundamental. It would be more parsimonious to simply allow that, however useful, they are not fundamental.

--
☣ uǝlƃ

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