unstated motivation for prediction across "phase transitions"
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I'd mostly recovered from the conversation on Friday morning (primed by the GDoc mentioning trading freedom for safety) by last night. Then this morning, I read the article below, with a thought experiment excerpted.
The "obvious" answer the author provides: "No, of course not" is preposterous to me. Not preposterous because he's wrong. *I* would not want that life. But I try not to extrapolate my own thoughts to predict the thoughts of others. It seems clear to me that many of us *do* want that life. That's why we clamor for the ability to predict across "phase transitions" ... neurosis personified. What percentage of people would opt for the life of a well-kept pet? I have no data. But my hunch, based on pop culture, is *most* of us want that life. I'm sure it's a spectrum. A little risk, like bungee jumping, is fun. Too much risk is harrowing. So the question boils down to infrastructure (a partly-designed landscape) wherein the risk profile of each individual can settle into a risk-profile region of the landscape. But there are 2 purposes in which to think of such a landscape: 1) to make the individuals "happy" (or comfortable, or whatever) versus 2) to make the most USE of that individual. I'm told that evolution speeds up under stress. My guess is that many of us who *want* to live like well-kept pets might, in contrast, *perform* better if they live like wild animals. If that's not a reason to welcome the phase transition, I don't know what is. The trick is that old, privileged, white people like in the Zoom meeting (including me) will be privileged enough to *retain* our lifestyles as well-kept pets, leaving the burden of speedy evolution up to those of us unprivileged enough to be pushed into risk-prone regions of the landscape. The wild dogs will be doing all the evolutionary work while the pets reap all the benefits. Against Dog Ownership https://dormin.org/2020/03/21/against-dog-ownership/ > Imagine that you, a human, were kidnapped by aliens at birth and given an approximation of a dog’s life, and a good dog’s life at that. Ignore the subservience, dependence on a superior life form, and all the other psychological aspects of being owned and just focus on how you would feel about your material conditions. > > You live in a big building that wasn’t designed for your body type nor size, but is comfortable, warm, and decently spacious. You’re given ample healthy food which tastes good, but you eat the same thing almost every day for months straight. Fortunately, you’re occasionally given cookies or brownies or whatever treat you like. Your alien owners give you little massages and talk to you in a friendly way even though you can’t understand them. Most of your time is spent in the big building, but 3-4 times per day you get to walk around outside the big alien world where you see other humans walking around too. Once per day, you go to a nice, open human field where you can play sports with other humans and maybe even make some friends. However, your balls or ovaries were removed when you were a baby, so you will never have sex, nor the desire to do so. > > That is basically your life. You’re never in danger, you’re treated well, you get attention and fun (though not that much), and you’ll probably live into your 90s. Would you want this life? > > No, of course not. ... -- ☣ uǝlƃ ============================================================ 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 archives back to 2003: http://friam.471366.n2.nabble.com/ FRIAM-COMIC http://friam-comic.blogspot.com/ by Dr. Strangelove
uǝʃƃ ⊥ glen
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Re: unstated motivation for prediction across "phase transitions"
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I would say working for the government, a university, or an established corporation is akin to be a well-kept pet. Sure people work to gain entry into those organizations. Dogs can work to get adopted too; they have get their audition just right.
To work for start-ups is more like being a foster child, moving from one home to the next. And to be a consultant is like being a feral dog, going from garbage can to garbage can.
Anyway, it occurs to me this health and financial crisis could have a good outcome. It could jolt the country out of its decadence to address real problems that face us like healthcare and failing infrastructure. If it takes more than 4 trillion dollars
borrowed at 0 percent interest, so what?
Marcus
From: Friam <[hidden email]> on behalf of uǝlƃ ☣ <[hidden email]>
Sent: Monday, March 23, 2020 9:26 AM To: FriAM <[hidden email]> Subject: [FRIAM] unstated motivation for prediction across "phase transitions" I'd mostly recovered from the conversation on Friday morning (primed by the GDoc mentioning trading freedom for safety) by last night. Then this morning, I read the article below, with a thought experiment excerpted.
The "obvious" answer the author provides: "No, of course not" is preposterous to me. Not preposterous because he's wrong. *I* would not want that life. But I try not to extrapolate my own thoughts to predict the thoughts of others. It seems clear to me that many of us *do* want that life. That's why we clamor for the ability to predict across "phase transitions" ... neurosis personified. What percentage of people would opt for the life of a well-kept pet? I have no data. But my hunch, based on pop culture, is *most* of us want that life. I'm sure it's a spectrum. A little risk, like bungee jumping, is fun. Too much risk is harrowing. So the question boils down to infrastructure (a partly-designed landscape) wherein the risk profile of each individual can settle into a risk-profile region of the landscape. But there are 2 purposes in which to think of such a landscape: 1) to make the individuals "happy" (or comfortable, or whatever) versus 2) to make the most USE of that individual. I'm told that evolution speeds up under stress. My guess is that many of us who *want* to live like well-kept pets might, in contrast, *perform* better if they live like wild animals. If that's not a reason to welcome the phase transition, I don't know what is. The trick is that old, privileged, white people like in the Zoom meeting (including me) will be privileged enough to *retain* our lifestyles as well-kept pets, leaving the burden of speedy evolution up to those of us unprivileged enough to be pushed into risk-prone regions of the landscape. The wild dogs will be doing all the evolutionary work while the pets reap all the benefits. Against Dog Ownership https://dormin.org/2020/03/21/against-dog-ownership/ > Imagine that you, a human, were kidnapped by aliens at birth and given an approximation of a dog’s life, and a good dog’s life at that. Ignore the subservience, dependence on a superior life form, and all the other psychological aspects of being owned and just focus on how you would feel about your material conditions. > > You live in a big building that wasn’t designed for your body type nor size, but is comfortable, warm, and decently spacious. You’re given ample healthy food which tastes good, but you eat the same thing almost every day for months straight. Fortunately, you’re occasionally given cookies or brownies or whatever treat you like. Your alien owners give you little massages and talk to you in a friendly way even though you can’t understand them. Most of your time is spent in the big building, but 3-4 times per day you get to walk around outside the big alien world where you see other humans walking around too. Once per day, you go to a nice, open human field where you can play sports with other humans and maybe even make some friends. However, your balls or ovaries were removed when you were a baby, so you will never have sex, nor the desire to do so. > > That is basically your life. You’re never in danger, you’re treated well, you get attention and fun (though not that much), and you’ll probably live into your 90s. Would you want this life? > > No, of course not. ... -- ☣ uǝlƃ ============================================================ 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 archives back to 2003: http://friam.471366.n2.nabble.com/ FRIAM-COMIC http://friam-comic.blogspot.com/ by Dr. Strangelove ============================================================ 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 archives back to 2003: http://friam.471366.n2.nabble.com/ FRIAM-COMIC http://friam-comic.blogspot.com/ by Dr. Strangelove |
Re: unstated motivation for prediction across "phase transitions"
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In reply to this post by gepr
Hi, Glen, As you know, I have a great respect for working metaphors, in the sense of metaphors that work,in the sense of putting a metaphor to work, and in the sense of working out all the implications of a metaphor. So I rose to your metaphor like a hungry trout. Remember that this dog has designed his own kennel. It is this dog that determines the time and route of the walks, where I stop to pee, and how long I get to smell the post. I am living in a world of my own designing. Unless, of course, you want to make "society" the analogue for "owner" in the dog metaphor, in which case, the implication is that the choices I think I am making are only a small proportion of those that are actually being made for me. I think I am deciding which post to pee on but in fact, it's mostly been decided for me. But then who exactly is this "society" dude? As we work this metaphor, which way do we want to go? I want somebody to tackle the paradox inherent in the notion of "planning across a phase transition". We are molecules in the warming pot, rising and falling gently in the gentle heat from below, being knocked by our neighbors below and in turn knocking our neighbors above. Life is good, if a little boring. Then somebody turns on the heat below, and we feel this strange urge to line up and form ranks, some ranks marching upward toward the top of pot, some ranks returning downward. And then somebody turns up the heat again, and our world goes crazy. Our neighborhood is strewn all over the pot and many of us are cast out of the pot altogether. Perhaps, if the heat remains high for very long, all of us are lost to the pot. But perhaps, somebody comes and turns the heat down. Again we start to form in to ranks, marching to the bottom of the pot, then returning downward, left-right, left-right. But now those with whom we march are strangers, all the familiar faces are gone. And when the pot goes cold, there we are, exactly as we were before, only with different neighbors. Isn't this the lesson of a phase transition? Tout ca change; tous ca reste la meme? Nicholas Thompson Emeritus Professor of Ethology and Psychology Clark University https://wordpress.clarku.edu/nthompson/ -----Original Message----- I'd mostly recovered from the conversation on Friday morning (primed by the GDoc mentioning trading freedom for safety) by last night. Then this morning, I read the article below, with a thought experiment excerpted. The "obvious" answer the author provides: "No, of course not" is preposterous to me. Not preposterous because he's wrong. *I* would not want that life. But I try not to extrapolate my own thoughts to predict the thoughts of others. It seems clear to me that many of us *do* want that life. That's why we clamor for the ability to predict across "phase transitions" ... neurosis personified. What percentage of people would opt for the life of a well-kept pet? I have no data. But my hunch, based on pop culture, is *most* of us want that life. I'm sure it's a spectrum. A little risk, like bungee jumping, is fun. Too much risk is harrowing. So the question boils down to infrastructure (a partly-designed landscape) wherein the risk profile of each individual can settle into a risk-profile region of the landscape. But there are 2 purposes in which to think of such a landscape: 1) to make the individuals "happy" (or comfortable, or whatever) versus 2) to make the most USE of that individual. I'm told that evolution speeds up under stress. My guess is that many of us who *want* to live like well-kept pets might, in contrast, *perform* better if they live like wild animals. If that's not a reason to welcome the phase transition, I don't know what is. The trick is that old, privileged, white people like in the Zoom meeting (including me) will be privileged enough to *retain* our lifestyles as well-kept pets, leaving the burden of speedy evolution up to those of us unprivileged enough to be pushed into risk-prone regions of the landscape. The wild dogs will be doing all the evolutionary work while the pets reap all the benefits. Against Dog Ownership https://dormin.org/2020/03/21/against-dog-ownership/ > Imagine that you, a human, were kidnapped by aliens at birth and given an approximation of a dog’s life, and a good dog’s life at that. Ignore the subservience, dependence on a superior life form, and all the other psychological aspects of being owned and just focus on how you would feel about your material conditions. > > You live in a big building that wasn’t designed for your body type nor size, but is comfortable, warm, and decently spacious. You’re given ample healthy food which tastes good, but you eat the same thing almost every day for months straight. Fortunately, you’re occasionally given cookies or brownies or whatever treat you like. Your alien owners give you little massages and talk to you in a friendly way even though you can’t understand them. Most of your time is spent in the big building, but 3-4 times per day you get to walk around outside the big alien world where you see other humans walking around too. Once per day, you go to a nice, open human field where you can play sports with other humans and maybe even make some friends. However, your balls or ovaries were removed when you were a baby, so you will never have sex, nor the desire to do so. > > That is basically your life. You’re never in danger, you’re treated well, you get attention and fun (though not that much), and you’ll probably live into your 90s. Would you want this life? > > No, of course not. ... -- ☣ uǝlƃ ============================================================ 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 archives back to 2003: http://friam.471366.n2.nabble.com/ FRIAM-COMIC http://friam-comic.blogspot.com/ by Dr. Strangelove ============================================================ 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 archives back to 2003: http://friam.471366.n2.nabble.com/ FRIAM-COMIC http://friam-comic.blogspot.com/ by Dr. Strangelove |
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Well, to be clear, I put "phase transition" in scare quotes because I think it's a terrible phrase and a bad analogy to pretty much anything in our psycho-socio-political world. It may even be a bad analogy for collections of organisms, though I'm less confident there. So the answer to your last question "Isn't this the lesson of a phase transition?" is *Mu*, a nonsense answer for a nonsense question.
To answer your first question, though, I would opt for the latter, where the pet-owner is identical to the environment housing the wild populations. Be sure I'm not analogizing between society and the pet owner, but the *environment* and the pet owner. It's the environment that develops canals into which the pets drift. It's the environment that develops "hot spots" that churn. When I mentioned "partly designed" in the last post, I implied that the environment contains society, including all the teleological-with-limited-scope parts built by individuals and groups of individuals. I have no idea how well intention scales, though. Those of us who've been lucky enough to find ourselves inside canals are the pets. Those of us out there in the churn are wild. On 3/23/20 9:21 AM, [hidden email] wrote: > Remember that this dog has designed his own kennel. It is this dog that determines the time and route of the walks, where I stop to pee, and how long I get to smell the post. I am living in a world of my own designing. Unless, of course, you want to make "society" the analogue for "owner" in the dog metaphor, in which case, the implication is that the choices I think I am making are only a small proportion of those that are actually being made for me. I think I am deciding which post to pee on but in fact, it's mostly been decided for me. But then who exactly is this "society" dude? As we work this metaphor, which way do we want to go? > > > > I want somebody to tackle the paradox inherent in the notion of "planning across a phase transition". We are molecules in the warming pot, rising and falling gently in the gentle heat from below, being knocked by our neighbors below and in turn knocking our neighbors above. Life is good, if a little boring. Then somebody turns on the heat below, and we feel this strange urge to line up and form ranks, some ranks marching upward toward the top of pot, some ranks returning downward. And then somebody turns up the heat again, and our world goes crazy. Our neighborhood is strewn all over the pot and many of us are cast out of the pot altogether. Perhaps, if the heat remains high for very long, all of us are lost to the pot. But perhaps, somebody comes and turns the heat down. Again we start to form in to ranks, marching to the bottom of the pot, then returning downward, left-right, left-right. But now those with whom we march are strangers, all the familiar faces are > gone. And when the pot goes cold, there we are, exactly as we were before, only with different neighbors. > > > > Isn't this the lesson of a phase transition? /Tout ca change; tous ca reste la meme/? -- ☣ uǝlƃ ============================================================ 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 archives back to 2003: http://friam.471366.n2.nabble.com/ FRIAM-COMIC http://friam-comic.blogspot.com/ by Dr. Strangelove
uǝʃƃ ⊥ glen
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Re: unstated motivation for prediction across "phase transitions"
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Glen writes:
< Well, to be clear, I put "phase transition" in scare quotes because I think it's a terrible phrase and a bad analogy to pretty much anything in our psycho-socio-political world.
>
It may be a usable analogy. One could model some agents as having many short-range and spatially constrained connections to customers and competitors and others that have a few long-range connections to others that also have long-range connections. So long
as the connections are as simple as repel or attract, there can be a notion of phase transitions. Embedding rich semantics on that kind of network is challengin (say if there is recursion), but certainly logic can be expressed by such a network.
Marcus
From: Friam <[hidden email]> on behalf of uǝlƃ ☣ <[hidden email]>
Sent: Monday, March 23, 2020 10:31 AM To: FriAM <[hidden email]> Subject: Re: [FRIAM] unstated motivation for prediction across "phase transitions" Well, to be clear, I put "phase transition" in scare quotes because I think it's a terrible phrase and a bad analogy to pretty much anything in our psycho-socio-political world. It may even be a bad analogy for collections of organisms,
though I'm less confident there. So the answer to your last question "Isn't this the lesson of a phase transition?" is *Mu*, a nonsense answer for a nonsense question.
To answer your first question, though, I would opt for the latter, where the pet-owner is identical to the environment housing the wild populations. Be sure I'm not analogizing between society and the pet owner, but the *environment* and the pet owner. It's the environment that develops canals into which the pets drift. It's the environment that develops "hot spots" that churn. When I mentioned "partly designed" in the last post, I implied that the environment contains society, including all the teleological-with-limited-scope parts built by individuals and groups of individuals. I have no idea how well intention scales, though. Those of us who've been lucky enough to find ourselves inside canals are the pets. Those of us out there in the churn are wild. On 3/23/20 9:21 AM, [hidden email] wrote: > Remember that this dog has designed his own kennel. It is this dog that determines the time and route of the walks, where I stop to pee, and how long I get to smell the post. I am living in a world of my own designing. Unless, of course, you want to make "society" the analogue for "owner" in the dog metaphor, in which case, the implication is that the choices I think I am making are only a small proportion of those that are actually being made for me. I think I am deciding which post to pee on but in fact, it's mostly been decided for me. But then who exactly is this "society" dude? As we work this metaphor, which way do we want to go? > > > > I want somebody to tackle the paradox inherent in the notion of "planning across a phase transition". We are molecules in the warming pot, rising and falling gently in the gentle heat from below, being knocked by our neighbors below and in turn knocking our neighbors above. Life is good, if a little boring. Then somebody turns on the heat below, and we feel this strange urge to line up and form ranks, some ranks marching upward toward the top of pot, some ranks returning downward. And then somebody turns up the heat again, and our world goes crazy. Our neighborhood is strewn all over the pot and many of us are cast out of the pot altogether. Perhaps, if the heat remains high for very long, all of us are lost to the pot. But perhaps, somebody comes and turns the heat down. Again we start to form in to ranks, marching to the bottom of the pot, then returning downward, left-right, left-right. But now those with whom we march are strangers, all the familiar faces are > gone. And when the pot goes cold, there we are, exactly as we were before, only with different neighbors. > > > > Isn't this the lesson of a phase transition? /Tout ca change; tous ca reste la meme/? -- ☣ uǝlƃ ============================================================ 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 archives back to 2003: http://friam.471366.n2.nabble.com/ FRIAM-COMIC http://friam-comic.blogspot.com/ by Dr. Strangelove ============================================================ 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 archives back to 2003: http://friam.471366.n2.nabble.com/ FRIAM-COMIC http://friam-comic.blogspot.com/ by Dr. Strangelove |
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In reply to this post by Marcus G. Daniels
That's a rare bit of optimism for you. >8^D If there is a good outcome, I doubt it'll be that one, merely because that's only 1 among many. My guess (if there is a positive one) is the generally positive outcome will be that the less privileged of the world will significantly damage the pet cages of the privileged such that poorer people will spill enough blood of the rich people so that the poorer people will be in charge for awhile.
This raises the specter of cycles hyped by stuff like this: http://peterturchin.com/cliodynamica/elite-overproduction-brings-disorder/ The idea being that the population will grow new gamer/exploiter/elites to take the place of the old elites. But despite the suggestion that history repeats, it doesn't. The new environment in which the new elites emerge will be markedly different from the old environment where the old elites emerged. The pet cages will be different, implying that the pets who settle into them will be different. On 3/23/20 8:53 AM, Marcus Daniels wrote: > Anyway, it occurs to me this health and financial crisis could have a good outcome. It could jolt the country out of its decadence to address real problems that face us like healthcare and failing infrastructure. If it takes more than 4 trillion dollars borrowed at 0 percent interest, so what? -- ☣ uǝlƃ ============================================================ 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 archives back to 2003: http://friam.471366.n2.nabble.com/ FRIAM-COMIC http://friam-comic.blogspot.com/ by Dr. Strangelove
uǝʃƃ ⊥ glen
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Re: unstated motivation for prediction across "phase transitions"
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Glen writes:
< My guess (if there is a positive one) is the generally positive outcome will be that the less privileged of the world will significantly damage the pet cages of the privileged such that poorer people will spill
enough blood of the rich people so that the poorer people will be in charge for awhile. >
I was going to say nah, the rich always win, but then I looked at the DJIA.
🙂
Marcus
From: Friam <[hidden email]> on behalf of uǝlƃ ☣ <[hidden email]>
Sent: Monday, March 23, 2020 11:06 AM To: FriAM <[hidden email]> Subject: Re: [FRIAM] unstated motivation for prediction across "phase transitions" That's a rare bit of optimism for you. >8^D If there is a good outcome, I doubt it'll be that one, merely because that's only 1 among many. My guess (if there is a positive one) is the generally positive outcome will be that the less
privileged of the world will significantly damage the pet cages of the privileged such that poorer people will spill enough blood of the rich people so that the poorer people will be in charge for awhile.
This raises the specter of cycles hyped by stuff like this: http://peterturchin.com/cliodynamica/elite-overproduction-brings-disorder/ The idea being that the population will grow new gamer/exploiter/elites to take the place of the old elites. But despite the suggestion that history repeats, it doesn't. The new environment in which the new elites emerge will be markedly different from the old environment where the old elites emerged. The pet cages will be different, implying that the pets who settle into them will be different. On 3/23/20 8:53 AM, Marcus Daniels wrote: > Anyway, it occurs to me this health and financial crisis could have a good outcome. It could jolt the country out of its decadence to address real problems that face us like healthcare and failing infrastructure. If it takes more than 4 trillion dollars borrowed at 0 percent interest, so what? -- ☣ uǝlƃ ============================================================ 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 archives back to 2003: http://friam.471366.n2.nabble.com/ FRIAM-COMIC http://friam-comic.blogspot.com/ by Dr. Strangelove ============================================================ 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 archives back to 2003: http://friam.471366.n2.nabble.com/ FRIAM-COMIC http://friam-comic.blogspot.com/ by Dr. Strangelove |
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