i have my ups and downs but wotthehell wotthehell
yesterday sceptres and crowns fried oysters and velvet gowns and today i herd with bums but wotthehell wotthehell i wake the world from sleep as i caper and sing and leap when i sing my wild free tune wotthehell wotthehell under the blear eyed moon i am pelted with cast off shoon but wotthehell wotthehell On Wed, Jun 17, 2015, at 08:26 PM, Nick Thompson wrote: > Lee Rudolph wrote: > > “wotthehell,wotthehell.” > > I am willing to bet a latte at our next meeting that you and I are the > only two people on this list who know the source of this quote. > > Aren’t there three whotthehell’s? > > Nick > > Nicholas S. Thompson > Emeritus Professor of Psychology and Biology > Clark University > http://home.earthlink.net/~nickthompson/naturaldesigns/ > > *From:* kitchen-boun...@lists.aau.dk [mailto:kitchen- > boun...@lists.aau.dk] *On Behalf Of *Lee Rudolph *Sent:* Wednesday, > June 17, 2015 10:02 PM *To:* Nick Thompson; kitc...@lists.aau.dk > *Subject:* Re: [Kitchen] FW: P. and V. > > Jaan, Nick, Philip, and lurkers, > > I am avoiding learning anything about "abduction" at this time. But I > want to wholeheartedly endorse the following passage by Nick, > particularly the last two sentences (*emboldened* for those who can > see such things; which is me at the moment but not when I'm using my > preferred mail client) of his first paragraph. > ________________________________________ > [...] But it would seem to me that the experience of time is, like the > experience of “me” and the experience of “you”, or the experience of > “real” as opposed to the experience of “dream” or the experience of > “now”, or “then”, or “soon”, something that has to be worked out and > developed during early childhood. It is a cognitive achievement which > children master only slowly, as demonstrated by their behavior on long > car trips. It is easily deranged by fatigue, or drugs, or illness. *It > seems a bit truer to me to say that time is the result of our > experience of processes than to say that our experience of processes > is the result of our understanding of time. That is, time is inferred > from o[u]r experience with events and processes.* > > This is the best I can offer at the moment. > ---------------------------------------------------------------------- > > And very good it is, too! Though I might quibble about the extent to > which we can "experience [...] events and processes" *as* "events" and > "processes" until we have developed "time". The last sentence might > better suit my (pre-existing to Nick's post, even if not yet as > developed as Nick or I might like) own intuitions/beliefs/wool-gatherings/pre- > thoughts about time if it were rephrased along these lines: "That is, > 'time' and 'events' and 'processes' are inferred from our experience > [singular!] before any one of them is 'understood'; it is in our > 'coming to understand them' that our experience becomes our > experiences [plural!]." Not as pithy, and still doesn't get > everything into one statement. Maybe we should just stick with Nick's > version. > > ...Oh, well. Here's another cut-and-paste job, from my first Jaan- > commissioned paper, on time. Let's see if it can be tickled into > giving someone some ideas about induction. (After I paste I'm logging > off for the night; see you all tomorrow.) > > ===begin=== > [mathematical maunderings precede this, in which I propose one > mathematical model of what I call a "full time", which is more or > less like a string of beads: they come in sequence, and to that > extent are "1-dimensional" in both a colloquial sense and a > mathematical sense; but each bead has its own multidimensional > quality, interior to itself] > > One common hypothesis about psychological time has been stated by > Whitrow (1980). "Our awareness of time involves factors which we do > not associate with the abstract concept of time, notably fixation of > attention. … Our conscious awareness of time depends on the fact that > our minds operate by successive acts of attention …" (p. 71-2) He > refers this hypothesis back to numerous authors, including Mach, > Woodrow, Mowbray, James, and Cassirer; we have seen it above (p. 5) > in the passage from van Uexküll (1920/1926). In a later chapter, > Whitrow continues "our intuitive conception of time as one- > dimensional… may be due to the previously mentioned fact that, > strictly speaking, we can consciously attend to only one thing at a > time, and that we cannot do this for long without our attention > wandering. Our idea of time is thus directly linked to our ‘train of > thought’, that is, with the fact that the process of thinking has the > form of a linear sequence. This linear sequence, however, consists of > discrete acts of attention." (p. 115) > > This restatement of the common hypothesis can be read as endorsement > of modeling psychological time by a discrete totally ordered set > (“linear sequence…of discrete acts”). What is missing from the common > hypothesis (as restated by Whitrow) is an account of what, if > anything, interpolates between successive “discrete acts of > attention”, as “our attention” is “wandering” timelessly. > > I suggest that, in the world of psychological phenomena the better > understanding of which all our modeling is in aid of, what > interpolates successive “discrete acts of attention” are *states of > ambivalence*. I further suggest that, in the mathematical models > contrived the better to understand that world of psychological > phenomena, a state of ambivalence among some given number *n* of foci > of attention should be modeled by *a mathematical space of dimension* > *n *– 1. (The selection of this dimension reflects the naïve idea, > surely wrong as stated, that ambivalence is ‘divided attention’. Of > course the division of a thing into n parts depends on *n* – 1, not > *n*, free choices.) As long as—like Whitrow—all ambivalences are > merely two-fold, the choice of a line segment as the interpolating 1- > dimensional space is natural enough, and has the familiar effect of > turning the standard model *Z* of a time series into the standard > model *R* of a time line. > > [a small further mathematical maundering follows, and concludes > the paper] > > ===end=== > > By the way, I doubt that *n* is ever larger than 3. But > wotthehell,wotthehell. > ============================================================ > 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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