Both Eric and Nick use the phrase "I was trained". I would like to know more about the intention here. Normally one talks about training an animal, e.g., to sit or roll over, etc. One also talks about training people to do relatively formalizable jobs or to obey fairly well understood rules, e.g., train someone to run a piece of machinery or to be a police officer. It strikes me as strange to say that someone was trained to be a scientist. Would you be willing to elaborate on that.
-- Russ Abbott ______________________________________ Professor, Computer Science California State University, Los Angeles cell: 310-621-3805 blog: http://russabbott.blogspot.com/ vita: http://sites.google.com/site/russabbott/ ______________________________________ On Tue, Mar 23, 2010 at 10:05 AM, Nicholas Thompson < nickthomp...@earthlink.net> wrote: > Eric, Steve, > > I am trying to reconcile my agreement with the spirit of your > correspondence with my largely failed attempts to work toward a common > language in our conversations about complexity on this list and on Friday > mornings. I, too, was trained in many traditions.... comparative > psychology, ethology, zoology, some physical anthropology, quite a lot of > english literature, and even a little meteorology. And some of my best > friends are mathematicians. But perhaps unlike Eric (?) (who was my last > [postdoctoral] student, by the way, and my great intellectual benefactor) I > am convinced that the effort to communicate amongst perspectives is > valuable. And I cannot see how communication is possible without some > attention to and adjustments of the use of specialized languages. It > bothers me still, for instance, that two members of our community can use > words like "system" or "information" in entirely contradictory ways and yet > fancy that they are communicating with one another. > > I think this is where an analogy to the paradox of mathematics that Byers > highlights might be useful. The struggle over language is worthwhile but > only because it fails. No man struggles in order to fail, but still, > failure is the wet edge of science. > > What do you think? > > Nick > > PS, to Eric: *"The wonderful feature of the New Realism’s metaphor is > that it honors our separate points of view without giving up on finding a > point of view that integrates them. Two blind New Realists groping an > elephant: “OK, I’ll follow the snake toward the sound of your voice and you > follow the tree toward the sound of my voice and we’ll see what we feel > along the way.” PAUSE. Together; * > * “My God, it’s an ELEPHANT!”" ** * > > Nicholas S. Thompson > Emeritus Professor of Psychology and Ethology, > Clark University (nthomp...@clarku.edu) > http://home.earthlink.net/~nickthompson/naturaldesigns/<http://home.earthlink.net/%7Enickthompson/naturaldesigns/> > http://www.cusf.org [City University of Santa Fe] > > > > > > ----- Original Message ----- > *From:* ERIC P. CHARLES <e...@psu.edu> > *To: *Steve Smith <sasm...@swcp.com> > *Cc: *The Friday Morning Applied Complexity Coffee Group<friam@redfish.com> > *Sent:* 3/23/2010 6:20:41 AM > *Subject:* Re: [FRIAM] multiple tool kits [was (advice needed!)] > > Steve, > As a partial endorsement of your argument, I was trained as a comparative > psychologist (comparing between species) and an ethologist (the European > branch of animal behavior that showed we could treat behaviors as evolved > phenomenon in the same way we treat anatomy). I was specifically trained in > these as two separate, but related traditions. When I arrived at at U.C. > Davis, which has (or at least had) the premier graduate training program in > Animal Behavior in the country, and as I started attending more of the > Animal Behavior Society national conferences, I noticed a disturbing trend: > > There was a conscious attempt to create a generic study of animal behavior > in which everyone did basically the same thing from the same perspective > (though with variation in species studied and behavior focused on). I kept > trying to explain to people, most forcibly to the grad students, as I > thought I had a chance with them, that this was bad. They were trading in > several hard-won and highly-specialized tool kits (those of comparative > psych, ethology, behavioral ecology, biological anthropology, etc.) for a > 101 piece toolkit from Walmart. > > If they were trying to encourage collaboration, I would have been all for > it, but instead they were trying to create a shared language by destroying > the uniqueness of the distinct approaches. Yuck! > > Anyway, just an endorsement of your project from a very different context, > > Eric > > On Mon, Mar 22, 2010 08:26 PM, *Steve Smith <sasm...@swcp.com>* wrote: > > siddharth wrote: > > > > you're right about the language issue - even a basic word in the > > complexity debate- eg. 'modeling'- is interpreted/understood slightly > > differently in architecture..its easier when they mean things totally > > different, like your example- its really tricky when they mean things > > almost the same, yet not - these micro-shifts in meaning make things, > > well, complex-er! > > thanks! > > For what it is worth, I've been working with Dr. Deana Pennington of UNM > on this very topic... a joint UNM/Santa Fe Complex proposal to the NSF > was just declined, but had it been funded, we would have been extending > work done on a related NSF grant just ending this month on the topic of > "the Science of Collaboration". Central to this work is the notion > that each discipline (and subdiscipline and individual) has a > distinct > but complementary set of concept and terms that they use to understand > and share their work. One of the tools to be developed is a > collaborative tool for eliciting and resolving the terms and concepts > across cross-disciplinary teams and projects. > > We are still seeking funding and opportunities to continue this work and > it is an obvious project to carry forth at the Santa Fe Complex (in > collaboration with UNM, etc.) if possible. > > We (Santa Fe Complex) just hosted a workshop for this team on Agent > Based and Cellular Automata Modeling. It did not address the problem > of language directly but indirectly did by providing a variety of > practitioners with a common working vocabulary (to whit, NetLogo) for > expressing and exploring simulations. Of course, within the context > of this course, we immediately encountered terminology conflicts (when > is a "patch" a "cell"? etc.) > > Seconding the spirit of Nick's point, it is this very ambiguity that > provides the expressiveness and the leverage. If you constrained > everyone to a controlled vocabulary, you would have nothing more useful > than an efficient bureaucracy within a fascist government. Things > would generally be unambiguous, but rarely useful! > > - Steve > > > ============================================================ > 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 > > Eric Charles > > Professional Student and > Assistant Professor of Psychology > Penn State University > Altoona, PA 16601 > > > > ============================================================ > 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 >
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