"what generally happens here"

[Carl Tollander]

(sorry if this is a repeat)

A robust theory would then be one that is accessible by many
explanations, unifying them by showing how they could make equivalent
paths through an heuristic. It would serve to maintain open questions by
allowing them to be more local. A theory with only one explanation would
be a crappy theory; mistakes would propagate more globally instead of
getting metabolized more locally.

I liked Phil's second question, which I take to lead more towards using
models to make sense of the present, rather than to "predict" ;
> The second question is more about individual complex systems in a
> particular circumstance requiring one to start from the limited
> information that raises the question and to go to the trouble of
> expanding your understanding while exploring possible patterns in the
> environment until you find one that seems to fit.
Another one would be "who's environment?", which I think leads one back
to ontology formation/niche construction. Is it not so much that
prediction is "bad" but rather that it is quaint for the types of
questions we want/need to ask?

Carl


Phil Henshaw wrote:

>
> Why prediction fails does not seem to be just believing your own
> script.. as it were. I’m suggesting that “a theory of some sort” is
> generally the same thing as “a statement of what generally has
> happened”. The real question may be sort of the opposite of “but who
> would believe such a thing?!!!!!” since believing in a theory with
> little or no way of checking how what is actually happening is
> different from it, seems to be nearly everyone’s preference. To do the
> latter you need to maintain the open questions of your induction, and
> not cast them off as soon as you have made something useful with it.
>
> So I don’t think it’s a “fallacy of induction” per se. I think it’s
> more just that any handy tool can be greatly misused if you don’t keep
> asking “how does it apply here”. There is also an all too common
> preference for absolutist rules that contributes to our dodging any
> information about how they might not quite apply too… but I guess
> that’s not just a matter of clumsiness.
>
> So, is that saying “it is so” or “it isn’t so”, I’m confused… ;-)
>
> Phil Henshaw
>
> *From:* Nicholas Thompson [mailto:[hidden email]]
> *Sent:* Tuesday, December 02, 2008 12:32 PM
> *To:* Phil Henshaw; The Friday Morning Applied Complexity Coffee Group
> *Cc:* [hidden email]; [hidden email]
> *Subject:* RE: "what generally happens here"
>
> Ah, Phil. If you are correct that the answer to "what generally
> happens here?" is regarded by some as an "explanation", then the
> source of the confusion underlying this conversation becomes
> immediately evident.
>
> But who would believe such a silly thing?!!!!! "What generally happens
> here" is just a summary statement of past experience One cannot
> rationally pass from such a summary of past events to any statement
> about the future without a theory of some sort that models the world
> as the sort of place where "what generally has happened"" is what
> happens in the future.
>
> Could it be the case that all this talk about the evils of prediction
> has occured because Epstein and a few others woke up yesterday to the
> Fallacy of Induction?!!!! Oh, my. Say it isnt so!
>
> N
>
> Nicholas S. Thompson
>
> Emeritus Professor of Psychology and Ethology,
>
> Clark University ([hidden email] <mailto:[hidden email]>)
>
>     ----- Original Message -----
>
>     *From:* Phil Henshaw <mailto:[hidden email]>
>
>     *To: *[hidden email]
>     <mailto:[hidden email]>;The Friday Morning Applied
>     Complexity Coffee Group <mailto:[hidden email]>
>
>     *Sent:* 12/2/2008 8:28:03 AM
>
>     *Subject:* RE: [FRIAM] Wedtech to Friam: earthquakes
>
>     There’s always the difference between the kind of question you ask
>     and the type of prediction and explanation for it. For example,
>     you might ask either “what generally happens here” or “what is
>     happening here”. The first asks for a simple explanation and a
>     rule of thumb type prediction. It might be helpful for responding
>     to the second question, or not. The second question is more about
>     individual complex systems in a particular circumstance requiring
>     one to start from the limited information that raises the question
>     and to go to the trouble of expanding your understanding while
>     exploring possible patterns in the environment until you find one
>     that seems to fit.
>
>     I think there are lots of differences between any kind of
>     explanatory causation and the instrumental causes. Maybe
>     explanations become useless if they try to include all the
>     complexity of the instrumental processes, but also often loose
>     their value by ignoring the underlying complexity too.
>
>     Re: earth quakes, I went to a lecture at Columbia recently that
>     was just great on the physics of ‘slow slips’ in a shearing crust,
>     large horizontal zones of gradual internal tearing within the
>     crust, having leading vibration events and propagation fronts, etc.
>
>     Phil Henshaw
>
>     *From:* [hidden email]
>     [mailto:[hidden email]] *On Behalf Of *Nicholas Thompson
>     *Sent:* Monday, December 01, 2008 3:04 PM
>     *To:* [hidden email]
>     *Subject:* [FRIAM] Wedtech to Friam: earthquakes
>
>     Dear All,
>
>     We have been having a discussion on a SF Site called Wedtech about
>     the relationship between explanation, simulation, and prediction.
>     If you want to get a sense of the starting point of that
>     discussion, have a look at Josh Epstein's forum entry in the
>     current JASSS, which seems to be just about as wrong headed as a
>     piece of writing can be. In it, he makes a radical separation
>     between prediction and explanation, implying that the quality,
>     accuracy, scope, and precision of predictions that arise from an
>     explanation is no measure of that explanation's value.
>
>     In the course of trying to discover where such a silly idea might
>     have come from, I was led to literatures in economics and
>     geophysics where, indeed, the word "prediction" has taken on a
>     negative tone. These seem to be both fields in which the need for
>     knowledge about the future has overwhelmed people's need to
>     understand the phenomenon, so that predictive activities have way
>     outrun theory.
>
>     However, acknowledging the problem in these literatures is not the
>     same thing as making a principled claim that prediction has
>     nothing to do with explanation.
>
>     In the course of thinking about these matters, I have stumbled on
>     an extraordinary website packed with simulations done by people at
>     the USGS in Menlo Park California. the page is
>     http://quake.usgs.gov/research/deformation/modeling/animations/. I
>     commend to you particularly, the simulations done on teh Anatolian
>     Fault in Turkey (BELOW the stuff on california) and ask you to
>     ponder whether the mix of simulatoin, explanation, and predicition
>     is appropriate here. I suggest you start at the top of the
>     Anatolian series and move from simulation to simulation using the
>     link provided at the bottom right of each simulation. Stress
>     buildup and stress release are represented by red and blue colors
>     respectively and the theory is one of stress propogation. I would
>     love to know where the colors come from i.e., how stress is
>     measured. If there is no independent measure of stress, then, as
>     in psychology, the notion of stress is just covert adhockery.
>
>     Please let me (us) know what you think.
>
>     Nick
>
>     Nicholas S. Thompson
>
>     Emeritus Professor of Psychology and Ethology,
>
>     Clark University ([hidden email] <mailto:[hidden email]>)
>
> ------------------------------------------------------------------------
>
> ============================================================
> FRIAM Applied Complexity Group listserv
> Meets Fridays 9a-11:30 at cafe at St. John's College
> lectures, archives, unsubscribe, maps at http://www.friam.org

============================================================
FRIAM Applied Complexity Group listserv
Meets Fridays 9a-11:30 at cafe at St. John's College
lectures, archives, unsubscribe, maps at http://www.friam.org

[Phil Henshaw-2]

Carl,

I think I agree, but how does a "robust theory" remain "accessible by" many
explanations.  In a sense that's my general idea of having one theory in any
local circumstance for how to search for explanations for the "what's
happening" question.  As I do that it generally involves noting "what's
developing" and identifying the stage of that development in the normal
sequence of things of coming and going (¸¸.·´ ¯ `·.¸¸).   Does that fit your
model of one theory accessible to many explanations?  Do you have examples
of other cases that either fail to or demonstrate the aspect of "robustness"
that you're describing?

Phil

>
> (sorry if this is a repeat)
>
> A robust theory would then be one that is accessible by many
> explanations, unifying them by showing how they could make equivalent
> paths through an heuristic. It would serve to maintain open questions
> by
> allowing them to be more local. A theory with only one explanation
> would
> be a crappy theory; mistakes would propagate more globally instead of
> getting metabolized more locally.
>
> I liked Phil's second question, which I take to lead more towards using
> models to make sense of the present, rather than to "predict" ;
> > The second question is more about individual complex systems in a
> > particular circumstance requiring one to start from the limited
> > information that raises the question and to go to the trouble of
> > expanding your understanding while exploring possible patterns in the
> > environment until you find one that seems to fit.
> Another one would be "who's environment?", which I think leads one back
> to ontology formation/niche construction. Is it not so much that
> prediction is "bad" but rather that it is quaint for the types of
> questions we want/need to ask?
>
> Carl
>
>
> Phil Henshaw wrote:
> >
> > Why prediction fails does not seem to be just believing your own
> > script.. as it were. I’m suggesting that “a theory of some sort” is
> > generally the same thing as “a statement of what generally has
> > happened”. The real question may be sort of the opposite of “but who
> > would believe such a thing?!!!!!” since believing in a theory with
> > little or no way of checking how what is actually happening is
> > different from it, seems to be nearly everyone’s preference. To do
> the
> > latter you need to maintain the open questions of your induction, and
> > not cast them off as soon as you have made something useful with it.
> >
> > So I don’t think it’s a “fallacy of induction” per se. I think it’s
> > more just that any handy tool can be greatly misused if you don’t
> keep
> > asking “how does it apply here”. There is also an all too common
> > preference for absolutist rules that contributes to our dodging any
> > information about how they might not quite apply too… but I guess
> > that’s not just a matter of clumsiness.
> >
> > So, is that saying “it is so” or “it isn’t so”, I’m confused… ;-)
> >
> > Phil Henshaw
> >
> > *From:* Nicholas Thompson [mailto:[hidden email]]
> > *Sent:* Tuesday, December 02, 2008 12:32 PM
> > *To:* Phil Henshaw; The Friday Morning Applied Complexity Coffee
> Group
> > *Cc:* [hidden email]; [hidden email]
> > *Subject:* RE: "what generally happens here"
> >
> > Ah, Phil. If you are correct that the answer to "what generally
> > happens here?" is regarded by some as an "explanation", then the
> > source of the confusion underlying this conversation becomes
> > immediately evident.
> >
> > But who would believe such a silly thing?!!!!! "What generally
> happens
> > here" is just a summary statement of past experience One cannot
> > rationally pass from such a summary of past events to any statement
> > about the future without a theory of some sort that models the world
> > as the sort of place where "what generally has happened"" is what
> > happens in the future.
> >
> > Could it be the case that all this talk about the evils of prediction
> > has occured because Epstein and a few others woke up yesterday to the
> > Fallacy of Induction?!!!! Oh, my. Say it isnt so!
> >
> > N
> >
> > Nicholas S. Thompson
> >
> > Emeritus Professor of Psychology and Ethology,
> >
> > Clark University ([hidden email] <mailto:[hidden email]>)
> >
> >     ----- Original Message -----
> >
> >     *From:* Phil Henshaw <mailto:[hidden email]>
> >
> >     *To: *[hidden email]
> >     <mailto:[hidden email]>;The Friday Morning Applied
> >     Complexity Coffee Group <mailto:[hidden email]>
> >
> >     *Sent:* 12/2/2008 8:28:03 AM
> >
> >     *Subject:* RE: [FRIAM] Wedtech to Friam: earthquakes
> >
> >     There’s always the difference between the kind of question you
> ask
> >     and the type of prediction and explanation for it. For example,
> >     you might ask either “what generally happens here” or “what is
> >     happening here”. The first asks for a simple explanation and a
> >     rule of thumb type prediction. It might be helpful for responding
> >     to the second question, or not. The second question is more about
> >     individual complex systems in a particular circumstance requiring
> >     one to start from the limited information that raises the
> question
> >     and to go to the trouble of expanding your understanding while
> >     exploring possible patterns in the environment until you find one
> >     that seems to fit.
> >
> >     I think there are lots of differences between any kind of
> >     explanatory causation and the instrumental causes. Maybe
> >     explanations become useless if they try to include all the
> >     complexity of the instrumental processes, but also often loose
> >     their value by ignoring the underlying complexity too.
> >
> >     Re: earth quakes, I went to a lecture at Columbia recently that
> >     was just great on the physics of ‘slow slips’ in a shearing
> crust,
> >     large horizontal zones of gradual internal tearing within the
> >     crust, having leading vibration events and propagation fronts,
> etc.
> >
> >     Phil Henshaw
> >
> >     *From:* [hidden email]
> >     [mailto:[hidden email]] *On Behalf Of *Nicholas
> Thompson
> >     *Sent:* Monday, December 01, 2008 3:04 PM
> >     *To:* [hidden email]
> >     *Subject:* [FRIAM] Wedtech to Friam: earthquakes
> >
> >     Dear All,
> >
> >     We have been having a discussion on a SF Site called Wedtech
> about
> >     the relationship between explanation, simulation, and prediction.
> >     If you want to get a sense of the starting point of that
> >     discussion, have a look at Josh Epstein's forum entry in the
> >     current JASSS, which seems to be just about as wrong headed as a
> >     piece of writing can be. In it, he makes a radical separation
> >     between prediction and explanation, implying that the quality,
> >     accuracy, scope, and precision of predictions that arise from an
> >     explanation is no measure of that explanation's value.
> >
> >     In the course of trying to discover where such a silly idea might
> >     have come from, I was led to literatures in economics and
> >     geophysics where, indeed, the word "prediction" has taken on a
> >     negative tone. These seem to be both fields in which the need for
> >     knowledge about the future has overwhelmed people's need to
> >     understand the phenomenon, so that predictive activities have way
> >     outrun theory.
> >
> >     However, acknowledging the problem in these literatures is not
> the
> >     same thing as making a principled claim that prediction has
> >     nothing to do with explanation.
> >
> >     In the course of thinking about these matters, I have stumbled on
> >     an extraordinary website packed with simulations done by people
> at
> >     the USGS in Menlo Park California. the page is
> >     http://quake.usgs.gov/research/deformation/modeling/animations/.
> I
> >     commend to you particularly, the simulations done on teh
> Anatolian
> >     Fault in Turkey (BELOW the stuff on california) and ask you to
> >     ponder whether the mix of simulatoin, explanation, and
> predicition
> >     is appropriate here. I suggest you start at the top of the
> >     Anatolian series and move from simulation to simulation using the
> >     link provided at the bottom right of each simulation. Stress
> >     buildup and stress release are represented by red and blue colors
> >     respectively and the theory is one of stress propogation. I would
> >     love to know where the colors come from i.e., how stress is
> >     measured. If there is no independent measure of stress, then, as
> >     in psychology, the notion of stress is just covert adhockery.
> >
> >     Please let me (us) know what you think.
> >
> >     Nick
> >
> >     Nicholas S. Thompson
> >
> >     Emeritus Professor of Psychology and Ethology,
> >
> >     Clark University ([hidden email]
> <mailto:[hidden email]>)
> >
> > ---------------------------------------------------------------------
> ---
> >
> > ============================================================
> > FRIAM Applied Complexity Group listserv
> > Meets Fridays 9a-11:30 at cafe at St. John's College
> > lectures, archives, unsubscribe, maps at http://www.friam.org
>
> ============================================================
> FRIAM Applied Complexity Group listserv
> Meets Fridays 9a-11:30 at cafe at St. John's College
> lectures, archives, unsubscribe, maps at http://www.friam.org

============================================================
FRIAM Applied Complexity Group listserv
Meets Fridays 9a-11:30 at cafe at St. John's College
lectures, archives, unsubscribe, maps at http://www.friam.org