Thanks Joyce! I did receive the message you forwarded to me. I think I’m set.
Jim On Dec 6, 2013, at 1:50 PM, Eric Smith <desm...@santafe.edu> wrote: > Hi Nick (who started the thread, regarding induction, but teasing with > current events), and Arlo who has kept it alive, > > For days I have been trying not to respond, but … > > This is about the nuclear option, not about induction. > > Malcolm Gladwell had a piece in the New Yorker about David and Goliath a few > years ago: > http://www.newyorker.com/reporting/2009/05/11/090511fa_fact_gladwell > A team of under-skilled basketball players makes it to the semifinals by > pushing the full court press on every play, every game. > > One story gets most of the time here, and it is Gladwell's message. Pure > determination and the self-discipline to be more fit and stronger than your > opponents can overcome large differentials in gifts. Maybe gifts aren't so > much earned as bestowed by luck of the draw, whereas conditioning is earned > with suffering, and so is more noble, etc. Okay. > > Let me acknowledge that there is a lot in this half of the story that I > admire and agree with, and Gladwell tells good stories. > > There is another part of the story that does get mentioned, but not in more > than a sentence or two. Many of the girls in the other teams, who were > hoping to win by skill, were not only frustrated but somewhat embittered at > being beaten through sheer unrelenting obstruction. Gladwell does not demean > this, but he doesn't give it a lot of space either, as it is different from > the story he is here to tell. > > A different take on the same story, however, might be that the purpose of > sport isn't (or shouldn't be) principally to provide a chance to declare > winners; it should be to use competition to bring out a certain form of > excellence, or skill, or beauty, or momentarily attaining a state of grace, > or whatever you want to call it. David Rudisha's 800 or McKayla Maroney's > Amanar. Not everybody who feels entitled to win and gets beaten by a more > determined opponent is mourning the loss of these things, but some do, and if > enough didn't, what would be left of anything, except a kind of uniform grey > siege? > > I can't stand the republican obstructionism, because if there is any good > faith behind any of it, in any rare individual, it is so far buried beneath > the pure meanness that all I can see left is doing a dance around the > "bonfire" as Rome burns. We have much to lose, and I can't see any > difference of moral worth between people who are gleeful at its loss, and the > most degraded Taliban mentality, in which nothing is left but the saboteur. > > But it's just the full court press, on every play, in every game. > > So why doesn't -- why shouldn't (unless you believe it should) -- everything > degenerate to a simple siege? What had ever maintained anything of enough > worth that there could be a "nuclear option" to threaten to take it away? I > think I mean this as a science question. > > I guess, said another way, by the time you are down to being limited by the > rules, most hope is lost. The role of rules must be, it seems, to function > as catalysts within a system that is much more complicated than the rules > themselves, and what they catalyze is the preservation of honor (or other > value) by the system. The preservation of things that can only be preserved > by more complicated systems than rules. But without well-designed rules as > catalysts, the larger system could not be counted on to maintain these things > on its own. What is the larger system? What is its natural language? How > do we worry about it in the right way (meaning, a productive way) when we > should worry? > > There is a kind of meanness or cynicism that likes to see hope dashed and > beauty destroyed, and this meanness answers me by saying that if it isn't in > the rules enforced with a gun, it isn't real, and only patsies fail to know > that. > > I think that is an error, but it would be nice to have satisfying ways to get > at the thought, at some level closer to the precision we can bring to bear > when thinking about rules. > > For a group of girls to win a season of basketball through a lot of guts and > planning is okay, and basketball will survive. To lose a norm of honor in > the senate (already as wondrous as a snowball in hell) is not okay. > > Eric > > > > > > > > On Dec 6, 2013, at 2:50 PM, Arlo Barnes wrote: > >> You are bit by bit dragging me out on thin ice here (statistics and >> probability) which is fine, so long as you are prepared to rescue me. >> >> I think, as a matter of practice, that the strength of an inference is >> determined a priori when you define your population and select your sample >> size. >> >> Does that sound right? >> >> The ice is as thin for me as for you but I would think that the probable >> maximum strength of an inference is determined by the nature of the sample >> (that can be measured within just the sample). So we can only make very weak >> inferences concerning life on other planets, because we have a sample size >> of one. But if the first exoplanet we find with life on it has only >> hominids, then an inference that 'dominant' lifeforms can only be hominids >> would appear to double in strength but might not actually be stronger than >> before at all if it turns out just to be luck. >> I may revise this opinion upon further rumination, though, as I feel like my >> analytical skills are not at their strongest currently. >> -Arlo >> ============================================================ >> 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 > > ============================================================ > 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
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