Please see larding below.
Nicholas Thompson Emeritus Professor of Ethology and Psychology Clark University thompnicks...@gmail.com https://wordpress.clarku.edu/nthompson/ -----Original Message----- From: Friam <friam-boun...@redfish.com> On Behalf Of u?l? ? Sent: Wednesday, January 22, 2020 11:38 AM To: FriAM <friam@redfish.com> Subject: Re: [FRIAM] Murdoch and Trump Did Epstein ever respond to your (& Derr's) criticism? [NST===>] Not Epstein himself, but another <https://www.google.com/url?client=internal-element-cse&cx=006433492719462442300:_7mu_xxuwwu&q=http://jasss.soc.surrey.ac.uk/12/1/10.html&sa=U&ved=2ahUKEwiTuKne9ZfnAhVXK80KHfufBS8QFjAJegQIBRAC&usg=AOvVaw17l4TL-F4470Z31g-ieHBv> , and yet another <http://jasss.soc.surrey.ac.uk/15/3/1.html> , who took issue with us both. I gather that Epstein is a biggie in your world, but his views on models seemed really odd to my colleague Derr, who is a philosopher of science. To the extent that the response above catches us in the claim that the ONLY value of an explanation is in its predictive power, of course he critique correct, and I regret if we implied that. It’s easy to think of models that make excellent predictions but are totally worthless. Take the Sangre de Cristo Monastery theory of the sunrise: Just to the east of santa fe, up in the mountains, is a ancient monastery whose monks are in charge of raising the sun. Each morning, one of the monks gets up early, consults an astronomic table, and at the precise moment, runs the sun up the flagpole, and that, my friends, is what we experience as “sunrise”. This theory precisely predicts the rising of the sun, but does not cohere with anything else that we know. It’s “unlovely”. I think I want to take the position that if the structure of the a model does not mimic the structure of the phenomenon it models IN SOME IMPORTANT RESPECT, then its predictive value is irrelevant to its explanatory value. I wonder if we could continue this discussion using the Schelling Model <http://ccl.northwestern.edu/netlogo/models/Segregation> as an example. Perhaps we could exemplify the use and impact of the following terms with respect to this familiar, simple, but nonetheless, compelling, model. "Opaque" isn't a perfect substitute for "obtuse", but it's OK. By "obtuse", I really mean "low interpretability", where interpretability is the extent to which one can *read* and *understand* the structure of a model. It's mostly used in the analysis of neural network solutions to various problems. "Opaque" is synonymous with "incomprehensible" ... zero interpretability. "Obtuse" means somewhere in the middle, but probably toward the opaque end of the spectrum. [†] "Expressibility" means "what a model can do", the behaviors it can express. For example a "flying squirrel" can't fly. But it can glide. So, the squirrel cannot express flying. Thus, a flying squirrel is an OK model for some types of airplane like gliders, but not others like jet planes. "Parallax" is the more general concept for "triangulation". In triangulation, 2 perspectives are used to locate a 3rd thing. As far as I know, these two are fairly standard English words. So, all you need to do is look in the dictionary. [†] The terms "black", "white", and "gray" box are sometimes used to indicate this "readability" property. A black box would then be opaque. A gray box would be obtuse. And a white box would be transparent. I don't like that lexicon. But I suppose it's fine for most people. On 1/22/20 10:04 AM, <mailto:thompnicks...@gmail.com> thompnicks...@gmail.com wrote: > I understand what an obtuse model, here, although I understand it because I > substitute the word “opaque” for obtuse, so perhaps I don’t understand it. > In the extreme, it’s a model that we don’t understand any better than the > process it models. It seems to go back to my argument with Epstein < > <http://jasss.soc.surrey.ac.uk/12/1/9.html> > http://jasss.soc.surrey.ac.uk/12/1/9.html> who asserted that models are > unconnected with explanations. No, not THAT Epstein. > [...] > Can somebody explain to me in Defrocked-english-major-language about parallax > and expressibility? Thanks, -- ☣ 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> http://redfish.com/mailman/listinfo/friam_redfish.com archives back to 2003: <http://friam.471366.n2.nabble.com/> http://friam.471366.n2.nabble.com/ FRIAM-COMIC <http://friam-comic.blogspot.com/> 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
