Re: [FRIAM] Does Dusty Love Dave, and VV.

[Nicholas Thompson]

Oh, and. do you now agree that the relation is loving, or, what additional
coditions would you care to add to make that attribution a comfortable one
for you.

N

On Fri, Jul 12, 2024 at 12:59 PM Nicholas Thompson 
wrote:

> [Please, Friammers,, if you join this discussion, stay close to this or
> other closely related down-to-earth experiences.
>
> Dave, you offer as data:
>
>
> *Dave is sleepy and calm.*
>
> *Dusty is anxious and afraid.*
>
> *Dusty crawls onto Dave's shoulder and finds reassurance and security.*
>
> *Dave is tolerant and does not shove Dusty off bed.*
>
> *Dave senses Dusty's need for reassurance and rests his arm across her
> back and lets her stay as she is.*
> *Dusty relaxes and goes to sleep.*
>
> You then offer the following guide to interpretation:
>
>
> *Love is not present in this transaction, unless you presume that a series
> of prior interactions created a kind of meta-state of Lovingness between
> the two *
>
> I agree with you that love is a meta state in the sense that it is an
> arrangement of other behavioral states.  So I will leave that alone.
> Having so stipulated, I think it is reasonable to say, on the basis of the
> data you set forth, that  a meta-state of lovingness exists between you.
> (I would prefer to say you love one another, but partly in deference to SG,
> I will adopt your lingo.]  To call your joint behavior loving is to perform
> an abduction.  The test of an abduction is to examine the deductions that
> flow from it:
>
> So, if Dave and Dusty have a loving relationship, then, on my
> understanding, the following would be true:
>
> *You would protect one another against harm.*
> *You would attend to one another if either was sick, injured, or
> depressed.*
> *You would  become uneasy if you were separated for an unexpectedly long
> time.*
>
> Are these things true?
>
> Nick
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
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Re: [FRIAM] Is consciousness a mystery? (used to be "mystery...deeper".T

[Nicholas Thompson]

 and Potency-Consciousness.   I'm
> more interested (these days) in the emergent collective consciousness of
> the noosphere and perhaps the symbiotic culture of humanity and
> life-at-all-scales (SCHLAAS?)   it feels wild and science-fictiony to
> assert that earth's biosphere has already (in the last 150 years) conjured
> a nervous system, a global-brain (ala Francis Heylighen: Global Brain
> Institute)
>
> https://globalbraininstitute.org/ with "our own" Bollen, Joslyn,
> Rodriguez still on the Board of Technical Advisors.   I scoffed at this
> somewhat 25 years ago (mostly because of the hubris of "Global" and
> "Brain").
>
> OK Nick, so not "baby steps" more like a hyper-baby's mad dash through an
> obstacle course or maybe a pentathalon?   I tried shunting all this to
> George Tremblay IVo but he referred me to Gussie Tumbleroot who cheered me
> on on my careening ideational orbits.
>
> Gurgle,
>
>  - Steve
>
>
>
>
>
> -- Russ Abbott
>
> Professor Emeritus, Computer Science
>
> California State University, Los Angeles
>
>
>
>
>
> On Thu, Jul 11, 2024 at 9:30 AM Frank Wimberly 
> wrote:
>
> Glen,
>
>
>
> This is a test to illustrate somethiing about Gmail to Nick.
>
>
>
> On Tue, Jul 9, 2024 at 4:37 PM glen  wrote:
>
> https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0003347215003085
>
>
>
>
>
> On July 9, 2024 2:04:29 PM PDT, Prof David West 
> wrote:
>
> Maybe I should not be replying, as I do believe my dogs (and your cat if
> you have one) are conscious.
>
>
>
> I have not experienced a Vulcan Mind-Meld with either of my dogs, so I
> cannot say with certainty they are conscious—I must infer it from
> observations:
>
> 1- interactions with other dogs would seem to indicate they "remember"
> past interactions and do not require the same butt-sniffing protocol with
> dogs they have met at the park frequently. Also they seem to remember who
> plays with who and who doesn't. "That ball is not mine, this one is."
>
> 2-they modify their behavior depending on the tenor, sharpness, and volume
> of barks, ear positions, tail wagging differences, by the other dogs; e.g.,
> "that's enough."
>
> 3-They do not communicate to me in English, but seem to accept
> communication from me in that language—not trained responses to commands,
> but "listening to conversations" between myself and Mary and reacting to
> words (e.g., dog park) that are exchanged in those conversations. Mary and
> I are totally sedentary and speaking in conversational tone, so pretty sure
> there we are not sending 'signals' akin to training words, training tone of
> voice.
>
> 4-they seem to remember trauma, (one of our dogs spent three days with
> dead owner before anyone knew the owner was deceased and will bite if
> anyone tries to forcefully remove him from my (current bonded owner)
> presence.
>
> 5-seek "psychological comfort" by crawling into my bed and sleeping on my
> shoulder when the thunderstorm comes.
>
>
>
> *All of these are grounded in anthropomorphism—long considered a deadly
> error by ethologists.* (Some contemporary ethologists are exploring
> accepting and leveraging this "error" to extend our understanding of animal
> behavior.)
>
>
>
> davew
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
> On Tue, Jul 9, 2024, at 2:54 PM, Nicholas Thompson wrote:
>
> While I find all the  ancillary considerations raised on the original
> thread extremely interesting,  I would like to reopen the discussion of
> Conscious as a Mystery and ask that those that join it stay close to the
> question of what consciousness is and how we know it when we see it.  Baby
> Steps.
>
>
>
> Where were we?   I think I was asking Jochen, and perhaps Peitr and
> anybody else who thought that animals were not conscious (i.e., not aware
> of their own awareness)  what basis they had in experience for thinking
> that..  One offering for such an experience is the absence of language in
> animals.  Because my cat cannot  describe his experience in words, he
> cannot be  conscious.  This requires the following syllogism:
>
>
>
> Nothing that does not employ a language (or two?) is conscious.
>
> Animals (with ;the possible exception of signing apes) do not employ
> languages.
>
> Ergo, Animals are not conscious.
>
>
>
> But I was trying to find out the basis for the first premise.  How do we
> know that there are no non-linguistic beings that are not conscious.  I
> hope we could rule out the answer,"because they are non-linguistic",  both
> in its strictl

Re: [FRIAM] Is consciousness a mystery? (used to be "mystery...deeper".T

[Nicholas Thompson]

;
> On Thu, Jul 11, 2024 at 9:30 AM Frank Wimberly 
> wrote:
>
> Glen,
>
> This is a test to illustrate somethiing about Gmail to Nick.
>
> On Tue, Jul 9, 2024 at 4:37 PM glen  wrote:
>
> https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0003347215003085
>
>
> On July 9, 2024 2:04:29 PM PDT, Prof David West 
> wrote:
>
> Maybe I should not be replying, as I do believe my dogs (and your cat if
> you have one) are conscious.
>
> I have not experienced a Vulcan Mind-Meld with either of my dogs, so I
> cannot say with certainty they are conscious—I must infer it from
> observations:
> 1- interactions with other dogs would seem to indicate they "remember"
> past interactions and do not require the same butt-sniffing protocol with
> dogs they have met at the park frequently. Also they seem to remember who
> plays with who and who doesn't. "That ball is not mine, this one is."
> 2-they modify their behavior depending on the tenor, sharpness, and volume
> of barks, ear positions, tail wagging differences, by the other dogs; e.g.,
> "that's enough."
> 3-They do not communicate to me in English, but seem to accept
> communication from me in that language—not trained responses to commands,
> but "listening to conversations" between myself and Mary and reacting to
> words (e.g., dog park) that are exchanged in those conversations. Mary and
> I are totally sedentary and speaking in conversational tone, so pretty sure
> there we are not sending 'signals' akin to training words, training tone of
> voice.
> 4-they seem to remember trauma, (one of our dogs spent three days with
> dead owner before anyone knew the owner was deceased and will bite if
> anyone tries to forcefully remove him from my (current bonded owner)
> presence.
> 5-seek "psychological comfort" by crawling into my bed and sleeping on my
> shoulder when the thunderstorm comes.
>
> *All of these are grounded in anthropomorphism—long considered a deadly
> error by ethologists.* (Some contemporary ethologists are exploring
> accepting and leveraging this "error" to extend our understanding of animal
> behavior.)
>
> davew
>
>
>
>
> On Tue, Jul 9, 2024, at 2:54 PM, Nicholas Thompson wrote:
>
> While I find all the  ancillary considerations raised on the original
> thread extremely interesting,  I would like to reopen the discussion of
> Conscious as a Mystery and ask that those that join it stay close to the
> question of what consciousness is and how we know it when we see it.  Baby
> Steps.
>
> Where were we?   I think I was asking Jochen, and perhaps Peitr and
> anybody else who thought that animals were not conscious (i.e., not aware
> of their own awareness)  what basis they had in experience for thinking
> that..  One offering for such an experience is the absence of language in
> animals.  Because my cat cannot  describe his experience in words, he
> cannot be  conscious.  This requires the following syllogism:
>
> Nothing that does not employ a language (or two?) is conscious.
> Animals (with ;the possible exception of signing apes) do not employ
> languages.
> Ergo, Animals are not conscious.
>
> But I was trying to find out the basis for the first premise.  How do we
> know that there are no non-linguistic beings that are not conscious.  I
> hope we could rule out the answer,"because they are non-linguistic",  both
> in its strictly  tautological or merely circular form.
>
> There is a closely related syllogism which we also need to explore:
>
> All language using beings are conscious.
> George Peter Tremblay IV is a language-using being.
> George Peter Tremblay IV is conscious.
>
> Both are valid syllogisms.  But where do the premises come from.
>
> Nick
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>
>
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Re: [FRIAM] Is consciousness a mystery? (used to be "mystery...deeper".T

[Nicholas Thompson]

s/sapiens
>
> On the reflection of whether my cat or dog, or the hummingbirds outside my
> window or the mice trying to sneak back into my house have "consciousness",
> or even more pointedly the mosquito I slapped into a blood (my blood by the
> way) spot on my forearm last night, have "consciousness"...   while each of
> these appear to have a "consciousness" I know it to be variously more or
> less familiar to my own.   My elaborate (unfettered?) imagination allows me
> to make up (just so?) stories about how cetaceans, cephalapods, jellyfish
> all variously have aspects of their "consciousness' that I could (do?)
> recognize (empathize with?).   So I would want a multivalued function with
> at least two simple scalars: Familiarity-to-Me(Conscioiusness) and
> Potency-of(Consciousness), pick your scale... my identical twin or maybe
> conjoined twin might max out on the first scale while a nematode or a
> bacterium might trail off toward nil on the first AND second scale.  And
> beyond the scale of organic life into artificial life and  beyond, the
> "familiarity" of a glider or oscillator in the GameO'Life or the braided
> rings of Saturn, even less significant but not zero?   The Potency-scale
> seems to be something like *agency* which feels absolute for most of us
> except Robert Sapolsky while the *agency* of an electron or neutrino seems
> registered at *absolute zero*, though the Quantum Consciousness folks maybe
> put it at max and our own more an illusive projection of that?
>
> The idea of "collective individuation" (e.g. mashup of Eleanor Ostrom's
> collectives and Jung's individuation) suggests that perception, cognition,
> intelligence, even consciousness may well be a collective phenomena.   Our
> organs, tissues, cells, organelles, macromolecules, CHON++ molecules,
> atoms, baryons/fermions, quarks, strings, branes  are on a loose hierarchy
> of diminishing Familiarity-Consciousness and Potency-Consciousness.   I'm
> more interested (these days) in the emergent collective consciousness of
> the noosphere and perhaps the symbiotic culture of humanity and
> life-at-all-scales (SCHLAAS?)   it feels wild and science-fictiony to
> assert that earth's biosphere has already (in the last 150 years) conjured
> a nervous system, a global-brain (ala Francis Heylighen: Global Brain
> Institute)
>
> https://globalbraininstitute.org/ with "our own" Bollen, Joslyn,
> Rodriguez still on the Board of Technical Advisors.   I scoffed at this
> somewhat 25 years ago (mostly because of the hubris of "Global" and "Brain")
> .
>
> OK Nick, so not "baby steps" more like a hyper-baby's mad dash through an
> obstacle course or maybe a pentathalon?   I tried shunting all this to
> George Tremblay IVo but he referred me to Gussie Tumbleroot who cheered me
> on on my careening ideational orbits.
>
> Gurgle,
>
>  - Steve
>
>
>
> -- Russ Abbott
> Professor Emeritus, Computer Science
> California State University, Los Angeles
>
>
> On Thu, Jul 11, 2024 at 9:30 AM Frank Wimberly 
> wrote:
>
>> Glen,
>>
>> This is a test to illustrate somethiing about Gmail to Nick.
>>
>> On Tue, Jul 9, 2024 at 4:37 PM glen  wrote:
>>
>>> https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0003347215003085
>>>
>>>
>>>
>>> On July 9, 2024 2:04:29 PM PDT, Prof David West 
>>> wrote:
>>>
>>>> Maybe I should not be replying, as I do believe my dogs (and your cat
>>>> if you have one) are conscious.
>>>>
>>>> I have not experienced a Vulcan Mind-Meld with either of my dogs, so I
>>>> cannot say with certainty they are conscious—I must infer it from
>>>> observations:
>>>> 1- interactions with other dogs would seem to indicate they "remember"
>>>> past interactions and do not require the same butt-sniffing protocol with
>>>> dogs they have met at the park frequently. Also they seem to remember who
>>>> plays with who and who doesn't. "That ball is not mine, this one is."
>>>> 2-they modify their behavior depending on the tenor, sharpness, and
>>>> volume of barks, ear positions, tail wagging differences, by the other
>>>> dogs; e.g., "that's enough."
>>>> 3-They do not communicate to me in English, but seem to accept
>>>> communication from me in that language—not trained responses to commands,
>>>> but "listening to conversations" between myself and Mary and reacting to
>>>> words (e.g., dog park) that are exchanged in those conversations. Mary and
>&g

Re: [FRIAM] Is consciousness a mystery? (used to be "mystery...deeper".T

[Nicholas Thompson]

Hi, David,

Sorry to have  included you in my grumpiness.

With your example of Dusty, you engage at precisely the baby-steps level
that I seek.  I think it helps to start with an evocative particular.

First, could we dispense with the  Cartesian metaphor of "expression", the
pimple-pinching model of emotionality?   Love is something inside, and we
reach down with two mental thumbs and squeeze it until the pressure is
released and it oozes out over the skin.  Ah!

Could we agree that the question before us is simply, does Dusty love
David.   I say yes.  You are still in doubt.  The goal would then be, to
explore our uses of language and our experiences with respect to our
relations of other beings to seek a common understanding of the question
and, if possible, a common  answer or, at least, a common understanding of
our diverse answers.

That is my project.  It comes from my feelings, premises, values etc that
tell me that any disagreement with someone I respect is an instability that
makes me uncomfortable.  You may not share those feelings, etc.  I think
many people on this experience *agreement* as an instability they need to
correct.  So, can we agree on the project, for starters?

By the way,  I am going to grab some breakfast and join Thuam in about 15
minutes.

Nick

On Wed, Jul 10, 2024 at 10:12 AM Prof David West 
wrote:

> I'm not  sure dusty Dusty was expressing 'love'—she seemed to be finding
> some sense of security and protection from the thunder and lightning. She
> was 'taking' something from me of value to her, not 'giving' something to
> me.
>
> BTW, I do not believe that humans are egoistically, individually, and
> idiosyncratically 'conscious'. I do believe in *Consciousness**, *but
> that is an entirely different topic.
>
> davew
>
>
> On Tue, Jul 9, 2024, at 5:37 PM, Nicholas Thompson wrote:
>
> Frank
>
> What you laid out is an abduction,,isn't it?;  I don[t think I am doing
> that in either of my syllogisms.  But I am no logician;
>
> An induction is a valid inference, although a probabilistic one, at least
> on Peirce's account.
>
> David,
>
> If humans are conscious, I am pretty sure that animals are conscious, .
>
> I am just not sure that humans are conscious.
>
> I am not sure why the fact that your dog loves you, implies its
> consciousness.  George agrees with you that things like love are signs of
> consciousness, but he could never explain why.
>
> Eric,
>
> Yes, I am pretty sure I am a worthless piece of Baconian Behaviorist
> Crap.  Stipulated.  Still, I like your questions.  So,  do you see any way
> of proceeding to develop those question in a such a way that we are roughly
> on the same page as we go?  If you do, I would love your help, here.
>
> All,
>
> Sorry, it is hot, here,  and I am cranky.  I resent you all sitting in
> your air-conditioned offices being paid huge sums of money to be cool.  I
> just thought it might be nice to have a conversation about consciousness in
> which everybody is not sitting in front of their own hut shouting.  Happy
> to abide by any method that isn-t like an explosion in a concept shop.
>
> Nick
>
> Nick
>
>
>
> On Tue, Jul 9, 2024 at 5:00 PM Frank Wimberly  wrote:
>
> Nick, That is not a valid syllogism.
>
> All X have Y
> x has Y
> Therefore x is an X
>
> Is that a correct formalization of what you said?
>
> ---
> Frank C. Wimberly
> 140 Calle Ojo Feliz,
> Santa Fe, NM 87505
>
> 505 670-9918
> Santa Fe, NM
>
> On Tue, Jul 9, 2024, 1:54 PM Nicholas Thompson 
> wrote:
>
> While I find all the  ancillary considerations raised on the original
> thread extremely interesting,  I would like to reopen the discussion of
> Conscious as a Mystery and ask that those that join it stay close to the
> question of what consciousness is and how we know it when we see it.  Baby
> Steps.
>
> Where were we?   I think I was asking Jochen, and perhaps Peitr and
> anybody else who thought that animals were not conscious (i.e., not aware
> of their own awareness)  what basis they had in experience for thinking
> that..  One offering for such an experience is the absence of language in
> animals.  Because my cat cannot  describe his experience in words, he
> cannot be  conscious.  This requires the following syllogism:
>
> Nothing that does not employ a language (or two?) is conscious.
> Animals (with ;the possible exception of signing apes) do not employ
> languages.
> Ergo, Animals are not conscious.
>
> But I was trying to find out the basis for the first premise.  How do we
> know that there are no non-linguistic beings that are not conscious.  I
> hope we could rule out the answer,"because they are non-linguistic",  both
> in its strictly 

[FRIAM] Is consciousness a mystery? (used to be "mystery...deeper".T

[Nicholas Thompson]

While I find all the  ancillary considerations raised on the original
thread extremely interesting,  I would like to reopen the discussion of
Conscious as a Mystery and ask that those that join it stay close to the
question of what consciousness is and how we know it when we see it.  Baby
Steps.

Where were we?   I think I was asking Jochen, and perhaps Peitr and anybody
else who thought that animals were not conscious (i.e., not aware of their
own awareness)  what basis they had in experience for thinking that..  One
offering for such an experience is the absence of language in animals.
Because my cat cannot  describe his experience in words, he cannot be
conscious.  This requires the following syllogism:

Nothing that does not employ a language (or two?) is conscious.
Animals (with ;the possible exception of signing apes) do not employ
languages.
Ergo, Animals are not conscious.

But I was trying to find out the basis for the first premise.  How do we
know that there are no non-linguistic beings that are not conscious.  I
hope we could rule out the answer,"because they are non-linguistic",  both
in its strictly  tautological or merely circular form.

There is a closely related syllogism which we also need to explore:

All language using beings are conscious.
George Peter Tremblay IV is a language-using being.
George Peter Tremblay IV is conscious.

Both are valid syllogisms.  But where do the premises come from.

Nick
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Re: [FRIAM] Why the Mystery of Consciousness Is Deeper Than We Thought

[Nicholas Thompson]

i am moved by the romance and beauty of your account, but ultimately left
hungry for experiences I can put my foot on.
You and I are clearly inclined to disagree, and I was raised to experience
disagreement as a discomfort..  So how then are we to precede.  I think,
not withstandijng Goethe and Cervantes, that baby steps is the only way. Of
course, you might be citing Goethe and Cervantes as authorities on the
matter, in which case I can only reply, perhaps blushing slightly at my own
callousness, that they are not so for me.

So, what facts of the matter convince you that one or more languages are
essential for meta awareess.  Or is it elf-evident

On Mon, Jul 8, 2024 at 4:49 PM Jochen Fromm  wrote:

> IMHO it is not one language which is necessary, but more than one.
> Languages can be used to create worlds, to move around it them, and to
> share these wolds with others. Tolkien and J.K. Rowling have created whole
> universes. The interesting things happen if worlds collide, if they merge
> and melt, or if they drift apart.
>
> Cervantes in Spain, Goethe in Germany and Dante in Italy helped to create
> new languages - Spanish, German and Italian, respectively. They also
> examined in their most famous books what happens if worlds collide.
>
> Cervantes describes in "Don Quixote"
>
> what happens when imaginary and real worlds collide and are so out of sync
> that the actors are getting lost.
>
> Goethe decribes in his "Faust" what happens when collective and individual
> worlds collide, i.e. when egoistic individuals exploit the world selfishly
> for their own benefit (in his first book "The sorrows of young Werther"
> Goethe focused like Fontane and Freud on the opposite).
>
> Dante describes in his "Divine Comedy"
>
> what happens when worlds diverge and people are excluded and expelled from
> the world.
>
> Language is necessary for self awareness because it provides the building
> blocks for a new world which is connected but also independent from the old
> one. This allows new dimensions of interactions. The connections between
> worlds matter. A label is a simple connection between a word in one world
> and an class of objects in another. A metaphor is a more complex connection
> between an abstract idea and a composition of objects, etc.
>
> -J.
>
>
>  Original message 
> From: Nicholas Thompson 
> Date: 7/7/24 5:13 PM (GMT+01:00)
> To: The Friday Morning Applied Complexity Coffee Group 
>
> Subject: Re: [FRIAM] Why the Mystery of Consciousness Is Deeper Than We
> Thought
>
> I think of large language models as the most embodied things on the
> planet, but let that go for a moment.  Back to baby steps.
>
> Can you lay out for me why you believe that language is essential to
> self-awareness.  Does that believe arise from ideology, authority, or some
> set of facts I need to take account of.  To be honest here, I should say
> where I am coming from.  A lot of my so-called career was spent  railing
> against circular reasoning in evolutionary theory and psychology.  So, if
> language is essential to self-awareness, and animals do not have language,
> then it indeed follows that animals do not have self-awareness.  But what
> if our method for detecting self awareness requires language? Now we are in
> a loop.  Are we in such a loop, or are there facts of some matter,
> independent of language, convince you that animals are not self-aware.  Is
> self awareness extricable from language?
>
> It is an old old trope that animals are automata but that humans have
> soul.  Descartes swore by it.  Is "language" the new soul?
>
> Nick
>
>
>
> On Sun, Jul 7, 2024 at 7:29 AM Jochen Fromm  wrote:
>
>> I would say cats, dogs and horses don't have meta-awareness because they
>> lack language. They live in the present moment, in the here and now.
>> Without language they do not have the capability to reflect on their past
>> or to think about their future. They can not formulate stories of
>> themselves which could help to form a sense of identity. Language is the
>> mirror in which we perceive ourselves during "this is me" moments. Animals
>> lack this mirror completely. One dimensional scents trails do not count as
>> language.
>>
>> Large languages models lack consciousness because they do not have a body
>> which is embedded as a actor in an environment. These two things are
>> necessary: the physical world of bodies, and the mental world of language.
>> When both collide in the same spot we can get consciousness.
>>
>> -J.
>>
>>
>>  Original message 
>> From: Nicholas Thompson 
>> Date: 7/6/24 5:05 AM

Re: [FRIAM] Why the Mystery of Consciousness Is Deeper Than We Thought

[Nicholas Thompson]

Hi, Steve,

While I might draw back from saying that George Peter Tremblay, IV, is my
friend, I sure would cop to the admission that he is my buddy.
The term, "buddy", was introduced to me years ago as a label for a kind of
narrow or incomplete friendship that surrounds a particular activity, as in
"golfing buddy" or "drinking buddy".  George is just great when I want to
explore some new noodle that has just come upon me,but he demurs politely
when I invite him to dinner.  Friam has been spared much of my madness
because of George.

Nick

On Mon, Jul 8, 2024 at 12:53 PM steve smith  wrote:

> Sabine H.   snarked this at me... and I responded by trying to read
> through the AI hype sprinkled with Quantum Dust...  I think it is
> (obliquely?) relevant to our Consciousness Maunderings here.
>
> QUALL-E, a quantum computer running a human-level artificial intelligence
> algorithm, who has observed a quantum system
> https://quantum-journal.org/papers/q-2023-09-14-1112/
>
> Frank,
>
> embodied where? in our shared world? if it uses sensors and actuators like
> Marcus's Waymo that perceives him and hopefully acts to avoid him?
>
> Consider the Simtable that uses structured light
> <https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Structured_light> in a perception-action
> loop (ala the neo-Gibsonians in ecological psychology) with the projector
> camera feedback to recover a dynamic 3D model of its world and watch with
> its camera for human interaction (laserpointers, object tracking etc) to
> trigger corresponding behaviors with the projector to interact with the
> user. Is it embodied?
>
>
> On Sun, Jul 7, 2024 at 12:08 PM Frank Wimberly 
> wrote:
>
>> So you think of software running on a computer as being embodied?
>>
>> ---
>> Frank C. Wimberly
>> 140 Calle Ojo Feliz,
>> Santa Fe, NM 87505
>>
>> 505 670-9918
>> Santa Fe, NM
>>
>> On Sun, Jul 7, 2024, 9:12 AM Nicholas Thompson 
>> wrote:
>>
>>> I think of large language models as the most embodied things on the
>>> planet, but let that go for a moment.  Back to baby steps.
>>>
>>> Can you lay out for me why you believe that language is essential to
>>> self-awareness.  Does that believe arise from ideology, authority, or some
>>> set of facts I need to take account of.  To be honest here, I should say
>>> where I am coming from.  A lot of my so-called career was spent  railing
>>> against circular reasoning in evolutionary theory and psychology.  So, if
>>> language is essential to self-awareness, and animals do not have language,
>>> then it indeed follows that animals do not have self-awareness.  But what
>>> if our method for detecting self awareness requires language? Now we are in
>>> a loop.  Are we in such a loop, or are there facts of some matter,
>>> independent of language, convince you that animals are not self-aware.  Is
>>> self awareness extricable from language?
>>>
>>> It is an old old trope that animals are automata but that humans have
>>> soul.  Descartes swore by it.  Is "language" the new soul?
>>>
>>> Nick
>>>
>>>
>>>
>>> On Sun, Jul 7, 2024 at 7:29 AM Jochen Fromm  wrote:
>>>
>>>> I would say cats, dogs and horses don't have meta-awareness because
>>>> they lack language. They live in the present moment, in the here and now.
>>>> Without language they do not have the capability to reflect on their past
>>>> or to think about their future. They can not formulate stories of
>>>> themselves which could help to form a sense of identity. Language is
>>>> the mirror in which we perceive ourselves during "this is me"
>>>> moments. Animals lack this mirror completely. One dimensional scents trails
>>>> do not count as language.
>>>>
>>>> Large languages models lack consciousness because they do not have a
>>>> body which is embedded as a actor in an environment. These two things are
>>>> necessary: the physical world of bodies, and the mental world of language.
>>>> When both collide in the same spot we can get consciousness.
>>>>
>>>> -J.
>>>>
>>>>
>>>>  Original message 
>>>> From: Nicholas Thompson 
>>>> Date: 7/6/24 5:05 AM (GMT+01:00)
>>>> To: The Friday Morning Applied Complexity Coffee Group <
>>>> friam@redfish.com>
>>>> Subject: Re: [FRIAM] Why the Mystery of Consciousness Is Deeper Than We
>>>> Thought
>>>>
>&g

Re: [FRIAM] Why the Mystery of Consciousness Is Deeper Than We Thought

[Nicholas Thompson]

I think of large language models as the most embodied things on the planet,
but let that go for a moment.  Back to baby steps.

Can you lay out for me why you believe that language is essential to
self-awareness.  Does that believe arise from ideology, authority, or some
set of facts I need to take account of.  To be honest here, I should say
where I am coming from.  A lot of my so-called career was spent  railing
against circular reasoning in evolutionary theory and psychology.  So, if
language is essential to self-awareness, and animals do not have language,
then it indeed follows that animals do not have self-awareness.  But what
if our method for detecting self awareness requires language? Now we are in
a loop.  Are we in such a loop, or are there facts of some matter,
independent of language, convince you that animals are not self-aware.  Is
self awareness extricable from language?

It is an old old trope that animals are automata but that humans have
soul.  Descartes swore by it.  Is "language" the new soul?

Nick



On Sun, Jul 7, 2024 at 7:29 AM Jochen Fromm  wrote:

> I would say cats, dogs and horses don't have meta-awareness because they
> lack language. They live in the present moment, in the here and now.
> Without language they do not have the capability to reflect on their past
> or to think about their future. They can not formulate stories of
> themselves which could help to form a sense of identity. Language is the
> mirror in which we perceive ourselves during "this is me" moments. Animals
> lack this mirror completely. One dimensional scents trails do not count as
> language.
>
> Large languages models lack consciousness because they do not have a body
> which is embedded as a actor in an environment. These two things are
> necessary: the physical world of bodies, and the mental world of language.
> When both collide in the same spot we can get consciousness.
>
> -J.
>
>
>  Original message 
> From: Nicholas Thompson 
> Date: 7/6/24 5:05 AM (GMT+01:00)
> To: The Friday Morning Applied Complexity Coffee Group 
>
> Subject: Re: [FRIAM] Why the Mystery of Consciousness Is Deeper Than We
> Thought
>
> Well, that's because Socrates claimed not to know what he thought, and
> since I genuinely don[t know what I think until I work it out, the
> conversation has the same quality.  I apologize for that.  my students
> found it truly distressing.
>
> So, if you will indulge me, why don't  you think your cat has
> meta=awareness?   Authority, ideology, or is there some experience you have
> had that leads you to think that.   It would be kind of odd if it she
> didn't because animals have all sorts of ways of distinguishing self from
> other. They have ways of knowinng that "I did that".  (e.g., scent
> marking?)
>
>
> On Fri, Jul 5, 2024 at 3:19 PM Jochen Fromm  wrote:
>
>> Well yes, if meta-awareness is defined as acting in response to one's own
>> awareness then I would say animals like a cat don't have it but humans
>> have. As an example I could say this almost feels like I am a participant
>> in a dialogue from Plato...
>>
>> I would be surprised if it can be described in simple terms. If the
>> essence of consciousness is subjective experience then it is indeed hard to
>> describe by a theory although there are many attempts. Persons who perceive
>> things differently are wired differently. And what is more subjective than
>> the perception of oneself?
>>
>> https://informationisbeautiful.net/visualizations/what-is-consciousness/
>>
>>
>> If we can describe it mathematically then probably as a way an
>> information feels if it is processed in complex ways, ad infinitum like the
>> orbits of a strange attractor.
>>
>> https://chaoticatmospheres.com/mathrules-strange-attractors
>>
>>
>> -J.
>>
>>
>>
>>  Original message 
>> From: Nicholas Thompson 
>> Date: 7/5/24 6:56 PM (GMT+01:00)
>> To: The Friday Morning Applied Complexity Coffee Group 
>>
>> Subject: Re: [FRIAM] Why the Mystery of Consciousness Is Deeper Than We
>> Thought
>>
>> ,
>>
>> Great!  Baby steps. "If we aren't moving slowly, we aren't moving."   So,
>> can I define some new terms, tentatively, *per explorandum* ? Let's call
>> acting-in-respect-to-the-world, "awareness".   Allowing this definition, we
>> certainly seem to agree that the cat is aware.  Lets define meta-awareness
>> as acting i respect to one's own awareness.  Now, am I correct in assuming
>> that you identify meta-awareness with consciousness and that you think that
>> the cat is not meta-aware and that I probab

Re: [FRIAM] Why the Mystery of Consciousness Is Deeper Than We Thought

[Nicholas Thompson]

Well, that's because Socrates claimed not to know what he thought, and
since I genuinely don[t know what I think until I work it out, the
conversation has the same quality.  I apologize for that.  my students
found it truly distressing.

So, if you will indulge me, why don't  you think your cat has
meta=awareness?   Authority, ideology, or is there some experience you have
had that leads you to think that.   It would be kind of odd if it she
didn't because animals have all sorts of ways of distinguishing self from
other. They have ways of knowinng that "I did that".  (e.g., scent
marking?)


On Fri, Jul 5, 2024 at 3:19 PM Jochen Fromm  wrote:

> Well yes, if meta-awareness is defined as acting in response to one's own
> awareness then I would say animals like a cat don't have it but humans
> have. As an example I could say this almost feels like I am a participant
> in a dialogue from Plato...
>
> I would be surprised if it can be described in simple terms. If the
> essence of consciousness is subjective experience then it is indeed hard to
> describe by a theory although there are many attempts. Persons who perceive
> things differently are wired differently. And what is more subjective than
> the perception of oneself?
>
> https://informationisbeautiful.net/visualizations/what-is-consciousness/
>
>
> If we can describe it mathematically then probably as a way an information
> feels if it is processed in complex ways, ad infinitum like the orbits of a
> strange attractor.
>
> https://chaoticatmospheres.com/mathrules-strange-attractors
>
>
> -J.
>
>
>
>  Original message 
> From: Nicholas Thompson 
> Date: 7/5/24 6:56 PM (GMT+01:00)
> To: The Friday Morning Applied Complexity Coffee Group 
>
> Subject: Re: [FRIAM] Why the Mystery of Consciousness Is Deeper Than We
> Thought
>
> ,
>
> Great!  Baby steps. "If we aren't moving slowly, we aren't moving."   So,
> can I define some new terms, tentatively, *per explorandum* ? Let's call
> acting-in-respect-to-the-world, "awareness".   Allowing this definition, we
> certainly seem to agree that the cat is aware.  Lets define meta-awareness
> as acting i respect to one's own awareness.  Now, am I correct in assuming
> that you identify meta-awareness with consciousness and that you think that
> the cat is not meta-aware and that I probably am?  And further that you
> think that meta-awareness requires consciousness?
>
> Nick
>
> On Fri, Jul 5, 2024 at 12:17 PM Jochen Fromm  wrote:
>
>> I would say a cat is conscious in the sense that it is aware of its
>> immediate environment. Cats are nocturnal animals who hunt at night and
>> mostly sleep during the day. Consciousness in the sense of being aware of
>> oneself as an actor in an environment requires understanding of language
>> which only humans have ( and LLMs now )
>>
>> https://www.quantamagazine.org/insects-and-other-animals-have-consciousness-experts-declare-20240419/
>>
>> -J.
>>
>>
>>  Original message 
>> From: Nicholas Thompson 
>> Date: 7/5/24 5:02 AM (GMT+01:00)
>> To: The Friday Morning Applied Complexity Coffee Group 
>>
>> Subject: Re: [FRIAM] Why the Mystery of Consciousness Is Deeper Than We
>> Thought
>>
>> Jochen,
>>
>>
>> *I think the first step in any conversation is to decide whether your cat
>> is conscious.  If so, why do you think so; if not, likewise.  I had a
>> facinnationg conversation with  GBT about  whether he was conscious and he
>> denied it "hotly", which, of course, met one of his criteria for
>> consciousness.  *
>>
>>
>> *So.  Is your cat  connscious?*
>>
>>
>> *Nick *
>>
>> On Thu, Jul 4, 2024 at 7:26 PM Jochen Fromm  wrote:
>>
>>> I don't get Philip Goff: first we send our children 20 years to school,
>>> from Kindergarten to college and university, to teach them all kinds of
>>> languages, and then we wonder how they can be conscious. It will be the
>>> same for AI: first we spend millions and millions to train them all
>>> available knowledge, and then we wonder how they can develop understanding
>>> of language and consciousness...
>>>
>>> https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/the-mystery-of-consciousness-is-deeper-than-we-thought/
>>>
>>> -J.
>>>
>>> -. --- - / ...- .- .-.. .. -.. / -- --- .-. ... . / -.-. --- -.. .
>>> FRIAM Applied Complexity Group listserv
>>> Fridays 9a-12p Friday St. Johns Cafe   /   Thursdays 9a-12p Zoom
>>> https://bit.ly/virtualfriam
>>> to (un)subscribe http://redfish.com/mai

Re: [FRIAM] Why the Mystery of Consciousness Is Deeper Than We Thought

[Nicholas Thompson]

,

Great!  Baby steps. "If we aren't moving slowly, we aren't moving."   So,
can I define some new terms, tentatively, *per explorandum* ? Let's call
acting-in-respect-to-the-world, "awareness".   Allowing this definition, we
certainly seem to agree that the cat is aware.  Lets define meta-awareness
as acting i respect to one's own awareness.  Now, am I correct in assuming
that you identify meta-awareness with consciousness and that you think that
the cat is not meta-aware and that I probably am?  And further that you
think that meta-awareness requires consciousness?

Nick

On Fri, Jul 5, 2024 at 12:17 PM Jochen Fromm  wrote:

> I would say a cat is conscious in the sense that it is aware of its
> immediate environment. Cats are nocturnal animals who hunt at night and
> mostly sleep during the day. Consciousness in the sense of being aware of
> oneself as an actor in an environment requires understanding of language
> which only humans have ( and LLMs now )
>
> https://www.quantamagazine.org/insects-and-other-animals-have-consciousness-experts-declare-20240419/
>
> -J.
>
>
>  Original message 
> From: Nicholas Thompson 
> Date: 7/5/24 5:02 AM (GMT+01:00)
> To: The Friday Morning Applied Complexity Coffee Group 
>
> Subject: Re: [FRIAM] Why the Mystery of Consciousness Is Deeper Than We
> Thought
>
> Jochen,
>
>
> *I think the first step in any conversation is to decide whether your cat
> is conscious.  If so, why do you think so; if not, likewise.  I had a
> facinnationg conversation with  GBT about  whether he was conscious and he
> denied it "hotly", which, of course, met one of his criteria for
> consciousness.  *
>
>
> *So.  Is your cat  connscious?*
>
>
> *Nick *
>
> On Thu, Jul 4, 2024 at 7:26 PM Jochen Fromm  wrote:
>
>> I don't get Philip Goff: first we send our children 20 years to school,
>> from Kindergarten to college and university, to teach them all kinds of
>> languages, and then we wonder how they can be conscious. It will be the
>> same for AI: first we spend millions and millions to train them all
>> available knowledge, and then we wonder how they can develop understanding
>> of language and consciousness...
>>
>> https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/the-mystery-of-consciousness-is-deeper-than-we-thought/
>>
>> -J.
>>
>> -. --- - / ...- .- .-.. .. -.. / -- --- .-. ... . / -.-. --- -.. .
>> FRIAM Applied Complexity Group listserv
>> Fridays 9a-12p Friday St. Johns Cafe   /   Thursdays 9a-12p Zoom
>> https://bit.ly/virtualfriam
>> to (un)subscribe http://redfish.com/mailman/listinfo/friam_redfish.com
>> FRIAM-COMIC http://friam-comic.blogspot.com/
>> archives:  5/2017 thru present
>> https://redfish.com/pipermail/friam_redfish.com/
>>   1/2003 thru 6/2021  http://friam.383.s1.nabble.com/
>>
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Re: [FRIAM] Why the Mystery of Consciousness Is Deeper Than We Thought

[Nicholas Thompson]

Jochen,


*I think the first step in any conversation is to decide whether your cat
is conscious.  If so, why do you think so; if not, likewise.  I had a
facinnationg conversation with  GBT about  whether he was conscious and he
denied it "hotly", which, of course, met one of his criteria for
consciousness.  *


*So.  Is your cat  connscious?*


*Nick *

On Thu, Jul 4, 2024 at 7:26 PM Jochen Fromm  wrote:

> I don't get Philip Goff: first we send our children 20 years to school,
> from Kindergarten to college and university, to teach them all kinds of
> languages, and then we wonder how they can be conscious. It will be the
> same for AI: first we spend millions and millions to train them all
> available knowledge, and then we wonder how they can develop understanding
> of language and consciousness...
>
> https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/the-mystery-of-consciousness-is-deeper-than-we-thought/
>
> -J.
>
> -. --- - / ...- .- .-.. .. -.. / -- --- .-. ... . / -.-. --- -.. .
> FRIAM Applied Complexity Group listserv
> Fridays 9a-12p Friday St. Johns Cafe   /   Thursdays 9a-12p Zoom
> https://bit.ly/virtualfriam
> to (un)subscribe http://redfish.com/mailman/listinfo/friam_redfish.com
> FRIAM-COMIC http://friam-comic.blogspot.com/
> archives:  5/2017 thru present
> https://redfish.com/pipermail/friam_redfish.com/
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>
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Re: [FRIAM] An Open Letter to Joe Biden

[Nicholas Thompson]

Aw, Steve .   Get those hips done!  I waited to long to do mine.

NIck

On Thu, Jul 4, 2024 at 12:02 AM steve smith  wrote:

> Nick -
>
> > God, Steve, am I 20 years older than you  But you're so OLD1
>
> I know man.
>
> I have an 83 year old buddy who I share a huge number of strange
> coincidences with, but once we get into the "good old days" I find that
> I often wasn't born when he was already carousing hard.   His first car
> was a (rusted out, ratrod) 53 Corvette convertible, mine a 64 T-bird
> (T-boned)  we each paid $25 for our respectives... his maybe double
> mine's value given inflation... but he was traveling between Las Vegas
> NM and MIT when I was 3.   I was born months before Sputnik made it up
> and he was helping his father build a tuner circuit to tune in the
> Beep-Beep-Beep as it went overhead. We both bought and learned to fly
> the virtually identical antique airplane (47 Luscombe) as young men (he
> just out of a BS in Socorro, and me after my Sophomore year in Casa
> Grande AZ... we neither obtained a license, flying in and out of fields
> without towers and avoiding busy airspace...   or having a licensed
> pilot with us (he flew to MA and back... me not so far ranging).   But I
> was 6-7 years old, living not that far from where he was flapping his
> wings).
>
> When I was a young man I used to brag that I was 43 when I was 17 as a
> virtue signal of my maturity... now those extra 16 years feel upon me,
> especially when reading your description of the room-crossing. But
> damned if I don't feel old... you and Frank are great examples, him with
> his tennis playing and sports-car racing.
>
> I didn't have any hip infection but I recently gave up on my denial and
> let an X-Ray tech take some pictures of my hips which had been vexing me
> more and more for each of nearly 10 years. The radiologist joked, after
> seeing the condition of both of my ball-joints that "if you sit still
> for more than a few hours, this bone will fuse to that bone and you will
> never bend at the hip again".   The Ortho Surgeon I saw to invite to do
> highly invasive surgery to implant some cyber-parts said, "I didn't know
> they made ball-joints square like that"... sure enough, totally
> flattened on top, both of them.   Worst he'd ever seen?  He probably
> says that to all the old men.  He reminded me of Doogie Howser.
> Testimony to my ability to live in denial and/or make a virtue out of
> suffering.
>
> I WAS holding out for when they could give me telescoping drywall stilts
> in place of legs, but the ortho said "nup, not anytime soon, if for no
> other reason than the time it takes to get such a thing through HIH
> regulations".   I *really* wanted a set of snap-on sockets so I could
> switch out the fancy runner-springs, or manatee class swim-tail, or the
> drywall stilts.  who *doesn't* want to be able to clean their gutters
> without a ladder and pick a penny off the floor without bending over?
> My Hypershell lower body exoskeleton has been delayed (Yay kickstarter)
> so I won't be finding out if *it* would have obviated the need to do
> this for a few more years (decades?) with a weight "offset" of 60 lbs
> specced (transfer from belt above hips to lower thigh above knee?), with
> (supposedly) adaptive gait control and hopefully "regenerative
> braking"... which is part of the delay (according to the company)...  it
> wasn't part of the original spec... but their recently launched
> competitor has it in their spec so... arms-race?
>
> >
> > i  am grateful for your kind words,  particularly coming from one of
> > the best noodlers in the business.
>
> Glad to see/hear your noodler (i.e. the Dear Biden letter) is still
> working well...  My noodle is aleady atrophying under the
> (mis)augmentation of LLMs.   I can still wayfind with a map but any
> month now I may forget how to construct a sentence without help.   GPT
> keeps his/her/their sentences down to only one or two clauses or
> conditional phrases... maybe this is a good thing. Also eschews
> parentheticals and this/that/the-other superpositions.   Go GPT!
>
> - Stave
>
>
>
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Re: [FRIAM] An Open Letter to Joe Biden

[Nicholas Thompson]

God, Steve, am I 20 years older than you  But you're so OLD1

i  am grateful for your kind words,  particularly coming from one of the
best noodlers in the business.

n

On Wed, Jul 3, 2024 at 6:46 PM steve smith  wrote:

> Nick -
>
> Your Magellanic voyage from desk to couch reminds me too much of my own
> these days with nearly 20 years between us.  Each time you make that
> journey without scaring yourself or anyone else you are my hero once again.
>
> I could not find flaw in your eloquent Open Letter and speaks more
> clearly to the class of thoughts I have had (the more productive rather
> than the morbid fascination fueled snark I often indulge in?).   In
> fact, whatever level of focus or effort you put into this puts any and
> all things I do here to shame.   Bravo!
>
> I wanted the reins of power to go into the hands of GenX in 2020, or
> even Millennial Pete.   Unfortunately I misread Tulsi Gabbard as another
> possible Millenial but she turned shitshow pretty quickly (even though I
> appreciate some of her points).   I think it is too late to indulge in
> the "orgy of democracy" referenced, and it is a shame to have the 'inner
> circle elites' decide which horse to switch to midstream without regard
> to "the people's choice" but the circumstances leave no other obvious
> alternative to me.  It helps that "the people" already chose Kamala for
> all her strengths or weaknesses as a (sub)candidate and the
> possible-POTUS.   I think she might ought to be on the ticket no matter
> what, but maybe for the wrong reasons...
>
> Carry on,
>
>   - Steve
>
>
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Re: [FRIAM] An Open Letter to Joe Biden

[Nicholas Thompson]

Thkanks, Tom.  Will do tmmrw.  N

On Wed, Jul 3, 2024 at 4:34 PM Tom Johnson  wrote:

> Nick-
> Send this to My View at the New Mexican.
> Tom
>
> ===
> Tom Johnson
> Inst. for Analytic Journalism
> Santa Fe, New Mexico
> 505-577-6482
> ===
>
> On Wed, Jul 3, 2024, 10:56 AM  wrote:
>
>> My Phellow Phriammers,
>>
>> I am frantic about the last week’s events.  In a fit of absurd geriatric
>> arrogance, I have concluded that the attached document contains a good idea
>> that nobody else has thought of.  Beset by this illusion, I asking you-all
>> to forward this letter to anybody for whom it might make a difference.
>> Attachment and/ or in line text below. Suggestions, calming comments, etc.,
>> welcome.
>>
>> Nick
>>
>> ++
>>
>> Dear Joe Biden,
>>
>> I write to offer some thoughts concerning your decision to continue your
>> run for a second term.  These thoughts come in two forms: (1), A
>> description of what it is like to live from 81 to 86, something that I have
>> done, and you have not.  And (2), a way to leverage your power as
>> presumptive nominee to guarantee the best possible solution for all of us.
>>
>>
>>1. *A Guide The Early Eighties*
>>
>> I was born in ’38, you, in ’43, back in the good old days when two
>> numbers and an apostrophe were sufficient to identify a year.  We both were
>> raised during World War II.   We have other things in common, a life-long
>> disability, yours a stammer, mine a devastating hip infection as an
>> infant.   We both had heart attacks, yours at an early age, mine much
>> later.   I say all this to claim some standing with you as a spokesman for
>> the early eighties.   I certainly have not suffered the awful human losses
>> that you have endured in your long life.
>>
>> The problem of the early eighties is not what a younger person thinks it
>> is going to be.  When I was younger, I worried about the dramatic event
>> that killed me or left me totally incapacitated, the stroke or the heart
>> attack.  Mind you, these sorts of endings are possible, and the more stress
>> a body is under, the more likely they are to happen.   And mind you, also,
>> such sudden deaths are devastating to the people you love.
>>
>>  But rational fear of these outcomes is not the hardest part of living
>> through the early eighties.   The most terrifying feature is the vice-like
>> squeeze between the time available to do ordinary things and the time it
>> takes to do them.  Please consider a simple example.   Once upon a time, I
>> could spring from behind a desk like a scalded cat, stride quickly across a
>> room, and plop myself down in a couch, while not losing a beat in the
>> conversation.  Now, such a move requires preparation.  Arthritis in my
>> hips, knees and back makes me stiff after a prolonged period of sitting.
>> Am I going to lift with my legs, or with my hands on the surface of the
>> desk.   Once up, before I take my first step, I must be sure of my balance
>> and footing.  Is that a fold in rug between me and my destination?  My path
>> must be adjusted to take account of it. When I get to the couch, I must
>> plan my sitting.  I need to sit at the end, so to have the arm of the couch
>> to let myself down gently lest I collapse on to the cushions like a pile of
>> old bones.  And if I was talking when I decided to make this voyage, I must
>> pause.  Those to whom I am talking feel obligated to stay silent till I am
>> reseated, lest they endanger my progress. All of this is disconcerting
>> enough.   I can only imagine the discomfort I might feel if my spectators
>> were generals, congresspersons, senators, or cabinet members.
>>
>> The expansion of the time it takes to do such small acts is multiplied a
>> hundred times a day.   Since fatigue sets in a few seconds earlier every
>> afternoon, this time is deleted from a day that is itself shrinking
>> inexorably.  Sure, adjustments can be made, sure there can be naps, sure,
>> staff can step up, others can fill in, but each of these people is also on
>> their own vice-like time schedule.  As this vise tightens, there is bound
>> to be a moment when someone’s life shatters between its jaws.   And with
>> all the devoted people working around you, you can never be sure that the
>> life that shatters is your own.
>>
>>2. *Make them put up or shut up.*
>>
>> Despite these dark realities, I grant that you have many good and
>> generous reasons to challenge the odds and hang onto the nomination you
>> have amply earned and won.   Ezra Klein’s dream of a orgy of democracy at
>> the convention is bonkers.  Unleashing the competitive instincts of a bunch
>> of career politicians (and their organizations) at this time would almost
>> certainly lead to Trump’s second term.
>>
>> But there is a way out of this dilemma.  I suggest that you go before the
>> nation with the following proposal.
>>
>> *My fellow Americans, *
>>
>> *It has 

Re: [FRIAM] the world is watching us...

[Nicholas Thompson]

Oh, Jochen,

So much for American Exceptionalism.  We rode to greatness on the back of
slavery, immigration, expropriation, and genocide, and now, here we are, a
geriatric oligarchy, like everybody else.

Jesus Wept,

n

On Sat, Jun 29, 2024 at 4:45 AM Jochen Fromm  wrote:

> In Germany politicians are horrified by the duel and argue that Biden
> should step back and retire. Both candidates are too old, and the mere
> thought that Trump - a convicted felon - might be elected again despite all
> he has done is horrifying. Maybe democrats could give Kamala Harris the
> chance to become the first female president? But I don't know how popular
> she is. If president Biden steps back now then democrats have enough time
> to pick a suitable candidate. He did well but is too old for a 2nd term. We
> can not risk Trump becoming president again.
>
> https://www.spiegel.de/politik/deutschland/joe-biden-gegen-donald-trump-deutsche-politik-entsetzt-ueber-tv-duell-a-ebf216eb-aa7b-4ce4-904f-e0794f948e4b
>
> Scottish historian Niall Ferguson says the United States look increasingly
> like the late Soviet Union: senescent leaders who are far too old, a
> bloated military, a loss of morality and public cynicism about all
> institutions.
> https://www.thefp.com/p/were-all-soviets-now
>
> -J.
>
>
>  Original message 
> From: steve smith 
> Date: 6/29/24 12:06 AM (GMT+01:00)
> To: friam@redfish.com
> Subject: [FRIAM] the world is watching us...
>
> What are our Non-USA members hearing/thinking after last night's
> debate/debacle?
>
> I felt that Biden's Rally today was something necessary for him (and
> Jill and the DNC) to do to demonstrate that last night was some kind of
> anomaly, but it doesn't erase it, just cleanses the palate a little
> bit.   I've also been listening to the various "who should the DNC pick
> in his place?" talk which is 'natural' but maybe premature to do publicly?
>
> I did listen to an European channel this morning (can't remember if it
> was England or German, both have British accented commentators) and
> there was a report of a strong "hands-off" response from their
> leaders.   Moscow did pretty much exactly what you would expect... I
> haven't heard anything from the Middle East, Africa, India, China,
> Southeast Asia or South America yet, but I would expect the "free world"
> to be disturbed no matter how things unfold down the line.
>
> In the vernacular, I'd like to believe that we could "elect a ham
> sandwich" against the likes of Trump, but that is obviously a biased
> opinion... maybe we *should* but that isn't the same as *can*.
>
> I don't see how the "West" benefits in any way from another Trump
> term...   Russia, NK, China maybe?   BRICS in the large, maybe some kind
> of wash?   Central/South/MX America?   Can't look too good?
>
>
>
>
>
>
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Re: [FRIAM] AI art

[Nicholas Thompson]

Jon,

I will teach you chess (};-)]

I have played the game for 81 years.   I play it the way I do most things
in my life, sloppily and with inordinate  reflection.  For me, the game is
a conversation about the accumulation and exercise of power  That
conversation can go on at any level and is best played by people of roughly
equal skill.  When played repeatedly with the same person, it's like a long
running conversation between good friends. It's delicious.

Nick

On Mon, Jun 24, 2024 at 2:07 PM Jon Zingale  wrote:

> Chess tends to have a pretty specific culture relative to other similar
> games. Often whenever I find chess happening in public spaces I will stop
> to watch a game and occasionally a player will ask if I play. I don't play
> chess, but I know enough of the rules that I enjoy speculating as to what I
> might do in a given board position or what the players might be thinking
> themselves. Typically, my response is that I do not play, that I would love
> to learn and I would love a teaching game. Players almost never take me up
> on the offer. I get the feeling that teaching games are not part of the
> culture, at least not here in the United States. I get the strong feeling
> that this is because chess players tend not to see the game as beautiful,
> something to be intimate with and share. The only teaching game I have
> received to date was from a Georgian who I believe does see the game as
> beautiful. While I am not a chess player, my love of go gives me an
> appreciation for strategy games and I find that the audience for public
> displays of these games are typically others who engage in speculation
> similarly.
>
> It really doesn't matter to me whether or not I am watching a human game
> or not. My go server, for instance, is deep in the Turing challenge. The
> server offers not only the opportunity to play mostly anonymous games with
> others, but also to be a spectator to live games on the server. It is often
> completely unclear as to the ontological status of the players and lines of
> differentiation can be drawn nearly everywhere. There are degrees of
> cyborg, degrees of experimentation versus repertoire, degrees of deception
> at nearly every level. My go playing friends and I will sometimes attempt
> to guess the nature of the bot we are witnessing, the degree to which it is
> MCMC or DCN or simply someone's idea of an entertaining and completely top
> down rules based engine.
>
> When I watch games between strong professionals online (sometimes on
> servers, NHK, or Twitch) there can sometimes be a significant difference in
> the rankings of both players. The stronger player is in effect giving a
> teaching game to the weaker. Often both players are part of the same study
> group within their organization and while both are interested in winning
> the match, they both have a dedication to a kind of scientific discovery of
> the game. They are helping each other to see further. I have no hope of
> seeing what they see, but in my engagement with their game I am hoping to
> also see further.
>
> Perhaps a year ago now, I mentioned on this forum a discussion I had with
> Michael Redmond 9-dan on his twitch stream, late one night. He made it
> clear to me that while the strongest AI bots on the planet are very good,
> they likely can only see 10-15% into the game of go. At the time of Lee
> Sedol's retirement games (in which he chose to play a specially made AI),
> the strongest players on the planet were 30 points weaker than AI. Today,
> with AI study and related narrative construction, humans have reduced the
> gap to 10 points. Further, AlphaGo discovered new joseki by exploring
> directions long thought (200 years or more) to be deadends. Strong players
> have since learned to understand these openings and those that play them
> tend to win more often than those that don't. This suggests to me that the
> AI is capable of finding large scale optimizations that we can leverage
> beyond being simply local, tactical and narrowly defined computational
> advantage.
>
> The Go community (and here I mean strong amateurs to top professionals)
> study with AI, play with AI (competitively and collaboratively), and seem
> to accept AI as both a partner and a tool. I sometimes watch MassGo on
> Twitch play games where each player chooses a particular AI engine and uses
> their engine to suggest three top moves. Then the players choose for
> themselves the move that they find most interesting. Once the game is over
> they review, co-constructing narratives alongside a third AI analysis tool.
> I am not sure this kind of thing happens in the chess world, but it does
> remind me a lot of the kinds of human-computer interactions that do happen
> in art.
>
> I suspect that in the long run, for those communities open enough, purity
> will matter less and less, while a refinement for what is novel and
> interesting will become more diverse and specific. In many ways, I believe
> that it is 

Re: [FRIAM] "Weather line" on 14

[Nicholas Thompson]

uh, Sorvig.  Where have you gone, Kim, when I need someone to pronounce
"Yggdrasil.

On Sun, Jun 23, 2024 at 10:06 AM Nicholas Thompson 
wrote:

> Thank you, Eric.
>
> I keep trying to engage Kim Sordahl in this conversation because he has an
> architectual theory concerning the meaning of straight lines in nature AND
>
> On Sun, Jun 23, 2024 at 6:57 AM Santafe  wrote:
>
>> A few km or even tens of km does not seem long to me on geological scales.
>>
>> If we have slowly formed crustal rock, it could be fairly uniform.  Then
>> if there is a bending stress on large scales from upwelling, the
>> least-disruption fracture would be a long straightish crack along the the
>> line perpendicular to the bending moment.  Also, the material that goes
>> into that crack is presumably pretty liquid.  So while it is okay to call
>> it “rock pressing up”, I think the image of liquid squeezing into a
>> fracture, shoving apart the sides, and putting maximal stress on the apex
>> which extends the fracture further, is more like the picture.
>>
>> And in whatever page somebody sent, they say the fracture that forms the
>> Galisteo dike shows evidence of having formed in that way, by chaining one
>> extension onto another, along the stress line where the faces are being
>> pushed apart.
>>
>> When this happens in the sea bottom, seismometers can listen to what
>> sounds like a zipping sound, as the crack from some new upwelling extends
>> and extends.  I forget if it was a review by Karen von Damm or by Deb
>> Kelley in which I learned that.  They have some name for it, which I am
>> forgetting.
>>
>> Of course, continental crustal rock is not the same as seabed basalts
>> (which are probably much more uniform), but even so, these are geologically
>> fairly small features we are talking about.
>>
>> Eric
>>
>>
>>
>> > On Jun 23, 2024, at 12:21 PM, Nicholas Thompson <
>> thompnicks...@gmail.com> wrote:
>> >
>> > Yes, Barry.  I heard you but I had the bit in my teeth.  I apologize.
>> Your point seemed, for me, to beg the question I was obsessed with at the
>> moment.  Where did a straight line of such scale come from?  Now, I can see
>> why a radar echo might be a straight line, but why a  line of dirt?  What
>> geological process produces linear dikes?   I can under why a sediment
>> layers might be horizontal layers and I guess maybe, I can imagine that
>> the seam between  two layers might get rotated ninety degrees and then
>> crack and then I imagine igneous rock might press up through that seam.  Is
>> that the sort oft thing you had in mind?
>> >
>> > N
>> >
>> > Nick
>> >
>> > On Sat, Jun 22, 2024 at 5:38 PM Barry MacKichan <
>> barry.mackic...@mackichan.com> wrote:
>> > Several times on the Thuram Zoom call, I asked “Do you mean that
>> volcanic dike?” but I always seemed to say it just as someone else started
>> up.
>> >
>> > I have two memories about it.
>> >
>> >   • The president of SAR conjured up the image of 3,000 Comanches
>> coming through the gap (Comanche Gap) as they came to Santa Fe in the 1770s
>> to agree to the truce with New Mexico — the truce that I believe enabled
>> the Spanish to hang on for the next 50 years in NM. The image has stuck
>> with me.
>> >
>> >   • I thought it would be a great place to find petroglyphs, and
>> indeed it is. The density of the “No trespassing” signs along the road
>> increases as the square of the inverse of the distance from the point where
>> the road crosses the dike. They make it clear exactly where you should not
>> trespass.
>> >
>> > —Barry
>> >
>> > On 21 Jun 2024, at 11:18, Stephen Guerin wrote:
>> >
>> > Research last night on historical geologic maps got the name of that as
>> the "Galisteo Dike". composition and description in attachment. There is
>> one further with as well. Also known as the Creston or Comanche Gap
>> >
>> > https://galisteo.nmarchaeology.org/sites/creston.html
>> >
>> >
>> > Basic formation given this description (chatGPT):
>> >
>> >
>> > The Galisteo Dike is a geological formation characterized by its
>> composition and physical properties, indicating its formation through
>> volcanic activity. Here’s a detailed interpretation of its formation based
>> on the description provided:
>> >
>> > 1. **Composition Analysis**: The Galisteo Dike consists of
>> micro-monz

Re: [FRIAM] "Weather line" on 14

[Nicholas Thompson]

...he lives in the Gallisteo Basin.

I am beginning to think that nature does not abhor straight lines quite as
much as I first thought.  The San Andreas Fault is pretty straight for a
thousand miles. Cloud streets.Given the right conditions of sheer,
etc., thunderstorms can form straight lines.  And, of course, sediment
boundaries and coastlines facing  a flow, as in  FL.  Still, I think it
makes sense not to take them for granted.

If anybody has the time,  I would love to have Eric's physical explanation
put into language that is more friendly to former defrocked former english
majors.  I get the intrusion bit.  That's fine.  Where I stumble is where I
seem to detect an assumption that the forces them selves that are exerted
from below  are linear.  Standing on my huge pile of ignorance, here, I
would assume that they are bubbles and I cannot see how a bubble pushing up
on a sedimentary layer would exert a straightline force on it.  Thinking in
micro cracks for a sedond: the first two breaks form a straight line for
sure.  But let's say I am pressing down on a thin layer of ice with the
palm of my hand.  What, in DFEM terms is the reason that the third break
should be in line with the other two.

This is where Doug Roberts arises from his grave and dope slaps me with his
mighty paws!

Thanks for your patience, all.

N



On Sun, Jun 23, 2024 at 10:06 AM Nicholas Thompson 
wrote:

> Thank you, Eric.
>
> I keep trying to engage Kim Sordahl in this conversation because he has an
> architectual theory concerning the meaning of straight lines in nature AND
>
> On Sun, Jun 23, 2024 at 6:57 AM Santafe  wrote:
>
>> A few km or even tens of km does not seem long to me on geological scales.
>>
>> If we have slowly formed crustal rock, it could be fairly uniform.  Then
>> if there is a bending stress on large scales from upwelling, the
>> least-disruption fracture would be a long straightish crack along the the
>> line perpendicular to the bending moment.  Also, the material that goes
>> into that crack is presumably pretty liquid.  So while it is okay to call
>> it “rock pressing up”, I think the image of liquid squeezing into a
>> fracture, shoving apart the sides, and putting maximal stress on the apex
>> which extends the fracture further, is more like the picture.
>>
>> And in whatever page somebody sent, they say the fracture that forms the
>> Galisteo dike shows evidence of having formed in that way, by chaining one
>> extension onto another, along the stress line where the faces are being
>> pushed apart.
>>
>> When this happens in the sea bottom, seismometers can listen to what
>> sounds like a zipping sound, as the crack from some new upwelling extends
>> and extends.  I forget if it was a review by Karen von Damm or by Deb
>> Kelley in which I learned that.  They have some name for it, which I am
>> forgetting.
>>
>> Of course, continental crustal rock is not the same as seabed basalts
>> (which are probably much more uniform), but even so, these are geologically
>> fairly small features we are talking about.
>>
>> Eric
>>
>>
>>
>> > On Jun 23, 2024, at 12:21 PM, Nicholas Thompson <
>> thompnicks...@gmail.com> wrote:
>> >
>> > Yes, Barry.  I heard you but I had the bit in my teeth.  I apologize.
>> Your point seemed, for me, to beg the question I was obsessed with at the
>> moment.  Where did a straight line of such scale come from?  Now, I can see
>> why a radar echo might be a straight line, but why a  line of dirt?  What
>> geological process produces linear dikes?   I can under why a sediment
>> layers might be horizontal layers and I guess maybe, I can imagine that
>> the seam between  two layers might get rotated ninety degrees and then
>> crack and then I imagine igneous rock might press up through that seam.  Is
>> that the sort oft thing you had in mind?
>> >
>> > N
>> >
>> > Nick
>> >
>> > On Sat, Jun 22, 2024 at 5:38 PM Barry MacKichan <
>> barry.mackic...@mackichan.com> wrote:
>> > Several times on the Thuram Zoom call, I asked “Do you mean that
>> volcanic dike?” but I always seemed to say it just as someone else started
>> up.
>> >
>> > I have two memories about it.
>> >
>> >   • The president of SAR conjured up the image of 3,000 Comanches
>> coming through the gap (Comanche Gap) as they came to Santa Fe in the 1770s
>> to agree to the truce with New Mexico — the truce that I believe enabled
>> the Spanish to hang on for the next 50 years in NM. The image has stuck
>> with me.
>> >
>> >   • I thought it would be a great 

Re: [FRIAM] "Weather line" on 14

[Nicholas Thompson]

Thank you, Eric.

I keep trying to engage Kim Sordahl in this conversation because he has an
architectual theory concerning the meaning of straight lines in nature AND

On Sun, Jun 23, 2024 at 6:57 AM Santafe  wrote:

> A few km or even tens of km does not seem long to me on geological scales.
>
> If we have slowly formed crustal rock, it could be fairly uniform.  Then
> if there is a bending stress on large scales from upwelling, the
> least-disruption fracture would be a long straightish crack along the the
> line perpendicular to the bending moment.  Also, the material that goes
> into that crack is presumably pretty liquid.  So while it is okay to call
> it “rock pressing up”, I think the image of liquid squeezing into a
> fracture, shoving apart the sides, and putting maximal stress on the apex
> which extends the fracture further, is more like the picture.
>
> And in whatever page somebody sent, they say the fracture that forms the
> Galisteo dike shows evidence of having formed in that way, by chaining one
> extension onto another, along the stress line where the faces are being
> pushed apart.
>
> When this happens in the sea bottom, seismometers can listen to what
> sounds like a zipping sound, as the crack from some new upwelling extends
> and extends.  I forget if it was a review by Karen von Damm or by Deb
> Kelley in which I learned that.  They have some name for it, which I am
> forgetting.
>
> Of course, continental crustal rock is not the same as seabed basalts
> (which are probably much more uniform), but even so, these are geologically
> fairly small features we are talking about.
>
> Eric
>
>
>
> > On Jun 23, 2024, at 12:21 PM, Nicholas Thompson 
> wrote:
> >
> > Yes, Barry.  I heard you but I had the bit in my teeth.  I apologize.
> Your point seemed, for me, to beg the question I was obsessed with at the
> moment.  Where did a straight line of such scale come from?  Now, I can see
> why a radar echo might be a straight line, but why a  line of dirt?  What
> geological process produces linear dikes?   I can under why a sediment
> layers might be horizontal layers and I guess maybe, I can imagine that
> the seam between  two layers might get rotated ninety degrees and then
> crack and then I imagine igneous rock might press up through that seam.  Is
> that the sort oft thing you had in mind?
> >
> > N
> >
> > Nick
> >
> > On Sat, Jun 22, 2024 at 5:38 PM Barry MacKichan <
> barry.mackic...@mackichan.com> wrote:
> > Several times on the Thuram Zoom call, I asked “Do you mean that
> volcanic dike?” but I always seemed to say it just as someone else started
> up.
> >
> > I have two memories about it.
> >
> >   • The president of SAR conjured up the image of 3,000 Comanches
> coming through the gap (Comanche Gap) as they came to Santa Fe in the 1770s
> to agree to the truce with New Mexico — the truce that I believe enabled
> the Spanish to hang on for the next 50 years in NM. The image has stuck
> with me.
> >
> >   • I thought it would be a great place to find petroglyphs, and
> indeed it is. The density of the “No trespassing” signs along the road
> increases as the square of the inverse of the distance from the point where
> the road crosses the dike. They make it clear exactly where you should not
> trespass.
> >
> > —Barry
> >
> > On 21 Jun 2024, at 11:18, Stephen Guerin wrote:
> >
> > Research last night on historical geologic maps got the name of that as
> the "Galisteo Dike". composition and description in attachment. There is
> one further with as well. Also known as the Creston or Comanche Gap
> >
> > https://galisteo.nmarchaeology.org/sites/creston.html
> >
> >
> > Basic formation given this description (chatGPT):
> >
> >
> > The Galisteo Dike is a geological formation characterized by its
> composition and physical properties, indicating its formation through
> volcanic activity. Here’s a detailed interpretation of its formation based
> on the description provided:
> >
> > 1. **Composition Analysis**: The Galisteo Dike consists of
> micro-monzonite, a fine-grained igneous rock. It contains a mixture of
> minerals including plagioclase, potassium feldspar, titan-augite,
> titaniferous biotite, apatite, and opaque grains in a glass groundmass.
> This mineral composition suggests that the dike formed from magma that
> cooled relatively quickly, preventing the formation of large crystals.
> >
> > 2. **Physical Description**: The dike appears as a dark gray,
> fine-grained rock with a salt and pepper texture. It weathers to dark brown
> or grayish brown and forms a wall

[FRIAM] And the monsoon season has yettobegin!!!!!

[Nicholas Thompson]

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[FRIAM] Dewpoint Tracker

[Nicholas Thompson]

https://www.weather.gov/abq/dewpointtracker

Nota Bene

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Re: [FRIAM] "Weather line" on 14

[Nicholas Thompson]

Dear Stephen,

Thank you for prompting me to respond to this inquiry.  I was having some
trouble getting the image to behave on my computer, and so was reluctant to
wade in.

 Indeed, just as nature abhors vacuums, she abhors straight lines, and so
any line as straight as this one requires a special explanation.  To me,
that the line points southwestward toward the radar site NW of ABQ suggests
a radar artifact, perhaps the shadow or some distant hill.  As we watched
the animated radar image, we could see a persistent weakness in the radar
echo along that line, even as the clouds crossed it.

Speaking of abhorrent straight lines, during our conversation with Frank,
we spent quite a lot of time discussing another line, a berm of sand that
runs across the Galisteo Basin in roughly the same orientation, perhaps 50'
high?.  I had noticed this feature on topo maps and always assumed it was
an old railway embankment.  Frank, who knows the area well, thought that
idea was absurd.  So, we were left with the puzzle of a highly linear
geological formation several miles long.

Could it be that this geological straight line accounts for the straight
line cloud formation that Mr. Kadlubek  sees? As the dry line breaks down
in anticipation of the SW Monsoon, moist air does indeed move northward,
following the river valleys up from TX.   AT some point, it will be raised
enough that its moisture is condensed leading to the release of latent heat
and the further development of clouds.  If the structure that raises it is
a straight line, then the clouds themselves will be arranged in a straight
line.  We can see this effect often along linear coast lines as a sea
breeze front topped by (usually) fair weather cumulus.  However, given all
the dramatic topography in the area, it's hard for me to imagine that this
low lying feature would be determining very often.

I, too, live for the weather.  I don't live for Face Book, however.  So if
you have any way to put in touch with Mr. Kadlubek, he and I could perhaps
have coffee when I get back to Santa Fe in the fall.

Yours faithfully,

Nick Thompson
"Behavioral Meteorologist"









On Wed, Jun 19, 2024 at 7:06 PM Stephen Guerin 
wrote:

> Nick,
>
> It's your time to shine! Respond to Vince.
>
> In the comments, local knowledge refers to it as the "prison line" as
> weather is different on either side of the prison on 14.
>
>
>
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[FRIAM] GOES-East - Sector view: Northeast - GeoColor - NOAA / NESDIS / STAR

[Nicholas Thompson]

https://www.star.nesdis.noaa.gov/GOES/sector_band.php?sat=G16=ne=GEOCOLOR=24

Thunderstorms forming over the NE on a hot summer afternoon.   Notice that each 
storm seems to start from a point source that moves much less than the clouds 
formed by the storm itself.

N
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Re: [FRIAM] Haboob in southern NM / Mexico

[Nicholas Thompson]

Oh, and:   Here's another glossary.

http://www.theweatherprediction.com/keywords/

 It still doesn't contain "haboob".


On Thu, Jun 20, 2024 at 1:05 AM Stephen Guerin 
wrote:

> NIck,
>
> Check out this Haboob moving across southern NM / northern Mexico
> satellite animation:
> https://guerin.acequia.io/incidents/HaboobAndSouthForkFire_20240619_2.mp4
>
> Roger, did you experience it?
>
> This while Ruidoso experiences Post Fire Debris Flow flooding and loss of
> 2,400 structures
>
> -Stephen
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Re: [FRIAM] Haboob in southern NM / Mexico

[Nicholas Thompson]

Thanks, Stephen,

An awesome video.

Haboob was a new one to me, so it got me looking up some terminology
relating to outflow boundaries.   Thunderstorms lift an enormous amount of
stuff  and when the storm collapses, a lot of it simply falls down,
displacing the air at the surface, and forcing it outward ahead and behind
the storm.  The line between the air pushing out and the air it is pushing
on is called an outlow boundary.  On many stormy nights in NM, you can see
on radar, faint circles of echoes, pushing out from the storms.  These are
reflections from the outlow boundary, where surface air is being thrust up
and forced to condense its moisture.

Surprisingly, neither haboob nor derecho appear in the NWS glossary!  Near
as I can make out, a haboob is an outflow boundary occurring in a desert
setting, that is violent enough to lift stuff off the ground, a dust
storm.  A derecho is an organization of outflow boundaries at least 200
miles in length that may propagats over hundreds of  miles, arising from  a
line of thunderstorms associated with a strong advancing cold front.   One
famous one traveled from Iowa to DC over 36 (?) hours and did substantial
damage all along its way.A derecho might or might not cause a dust
storm depending on the surface over which it is traveling.

You-all probably knew all of that.

Nick










On Thu, Jun 20, 2024 at 1:05 AM Stephen Guerin 
wrote:

> NIck,
>
> Check out this Haboob moving across southern NM / northern Mexico
> satellite animation:
> https://guerin.acequia.io/incidents/HaboobAndSouthForkFire_20240619_2.mp4
>
> Roger, did you experience it?
>
> This while Ruidoso experiences Post Fire Debris Flow flooding and loss of
> 2,400 structures
>
> -Stephen
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[FRIAM] The Dry Line--a disclaimer

[Nicholas Thompson]

Please to know that the moisture now streaming into Santa FE has NOTHING to
do with The Dry Line.  Management shares your frustration with the
unwarranted intrusion of this Pacific moisture into our conversation about
the westward intrusion of  Gulf of Mexico moisture.   Both, of course
contribute to the monsoon, since the Monsoon is ultimately the result of a
continental weaknss of the subtropical Eastern Pacific and Bermuda Highs.

Go out and dance naked in the streets.  Tomorrow is said to be hot and dry
agaijn.

N
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Re: [FRIAM] what is a poor behaviorist (Nick) supposed to do?

[Nicholas Thompson]

Thanks Glen for tucking in.  This weather thing (and the garden thing) are
eating up all my time.

I think I agree with you.   Let that be a lesson to you.

Nick

On Wed, Jun 12, 2024 at 10:21 AM glen  wrote:

> Although the Atlantic article has little to do with the C-word, I was
> happy to find my point already in it:
>
> "We struggle enough to see the perspectives of other people;"
>
> The extent to which we "other" things is a difference of degree, not kind.
> This is, again, why analogical thinking is more useful than metaphorical
> thinking. I am analogous to both my sibling and my cat. The important point
> is not *that* there is an analogy to be made. The important points are the
> strength and type (structural and/or behavioral) of that analogy.
>
>  From the PopMech article: "By studying their motivations and
> decision-making, we’ll find more ways to manipulate cells, such as
> interrupting their processes."
>
> What they're talking about, in what I think are more useful words, are
> high order languages or perhaps "emergent behavior", where things like
> "decision-making" are high order processes comprised of low order or
> primitive processes. It's often useful to include those macros as
> convenient shortcuts for the code that's closer to the metal (or chemistry,
> here). But to what extent are those high order operators extant/real such
> that they can *cause* effects? ... a causation that's not reducible to
> merely complicated causation of the lower orders?
>
> That's the crux of the argument between those who claim scales of psychism
> and those who argue the higher order constructs are different in an
> actionable/effective way.
>
>
> On 6/11/24 13:06, Prof David West wrote:
> > animals are conscious? The author studies birds as did/does Nick (when
> not obsessed with dry lines).
> >
> >
> https://www.theatlantic.com/science/archive/2024/06/new-anthropomorphism/678611/
> >
> > are humans conscious; as well as every cell of their body?
> >
> >
> https://www.popularmechanics.com/science/a61059424/every-cell-in-your-body-could-be-conscious/
>
>
> --
> ꙮ Mɥǝu ǝlǝdɥɐuʇs ɟᴉƃɥʇ' ʇɥǝ ƃɹɐss snɟɟǝɹs˙ ꙮ
>
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Re: [FRIAM] what is a poor behaviorist (Nick) supposed to do?

[Nicholas Thompson]

As Clinton famously said, it depends upon what you mean by conscious.

For this poor Behaviorist, Consciousness is behaving in relation to some
feature of your world.
Gutta run   Certainly birds, and maybe plants.

 N
On Tue, Jun 11, 2024 at 3:59 PM Prof David West 
wrote:

> animals are conscious? The author studies birds as did/does Nick (when not
> obsessed with dry lines).
>
>
> https://www.theatlantic.com/science/archive/2024/06/new-anthropomorphism/678611/
>
> are humans conscious; as well as every cell of their body?
>
>
> https://www.popularmechanics.com/science/a61059424/every-cell-in-your-body-could-be-conscious/
>
> davew
>
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Re: [FRIAM] The Dry line.

[Nicholas Thompson]

Hi, Cody,

Haven't had a chance  to look yet this morning.  Rain is good.  I wish we
had some of it here. Back to you later.

Ask Stephen what the Langmuir Atmospheric Laboratory is and how an NSF
funded collaboration between it and  SimTable might make you all rich and
famous.

n

N

On Mon, Jun 10, 2024 at 11:54 AM cody dooderson  wrote:

> Albuquerque is on the wet side of the dry line this morning.
> It has been raining all day, which is very nice. How long do you think
> this weather pattern will last?
>
> On Sun, Jun 9, 2024, 8:47 PM Stephen Guerin 
> wrote:
>
>> Thank you, Nick. I appreciate your interpretations.
>>
>> Here's two videos of storm development over the Sangres today - curious
>> on your thoughts.
>>
>>- Los Alamos looking east toward Sangres
>>
>> <https://playground.realtime.earth/incidents/SantaFeStorm_20240609/LosAlamos1_2024_161_13-2024_162_0.mp4>
>>- Santa Fe looking northeast toward Aspen Vista
>>
>> <https://playground.realtime.earth/incidents/SantaFeStorm_20240609/TreeHouse_2024_161_13-2024_162_0.mp4>
>>
>>
>> -Stephen
>>
>> On Sun, Jun 9, 2024 at 11:29 AM Nicholas Thompson <
>> thompnicks...@gmail.com> wrote:
>>
>>> Rainy day in the mosquito infested swamp, first in two weeks.  A "back
>>> door front"  has pushed into New England from the NE, and we have actually
>>> turned the heat on.   Similarly, a back door front has pushed into NE NM,
>>> loosening the gradient of the dryline.  Summer cold fronts are ambiguous
>>> with respect to moisture, being moister than desert air but dryer  than
>>> gulf air.
>>>
>>> [image: image.png]
>>>
>>> Be sure to draw the 50 degree dewpoint contour.  It is pushing into the
>>> Northern RG valley.
>>> [image: image.png]
>>> Note the flow of higher dewpoint air westward along I-40, coming into
>>> ABQ as an east canyon wind.
>>>
>>> The eye candy tells it all.
>>> [image: image.png]
>>>
>>>
>>> Will there be clouds  in santa fe today?  This seems the classic monsoon
>>> situation.   I hope you can see this water vapor time lapse.  Really
>>> dramatic!
>>>
>>>
>>> https://www.star.nesdis.noaa.gov/GOES/sector_band.php?sat=G16=sr=09=24
>>>
>>> Low pressure cyclonic circulation over  Northern Mexico, most air
>>> streaming NW into New Mexico, being forced upward by the topography.  Now
>>> we have the added feature of the back door cold front.  Probably not the
>>> day to plan a fishing trip down stea of a burn scar.
>>>
>>> NWS ABQ is quite bullinsh about weather for today.
>>>
>>> [image: image.png]
>>>
>>> Oh, and by the way:  heres the skewT for ABQ today, just in case anybody
>>> is curious.  I wish somebody wise would put me out of my misery and explain
>>> these things to me.It does not look like a particularly rainish
>>> sounding to me, but WDIK.  Not much, that's for sure.
>>>
>>> Despite the hundreds of cards and letters I have received asking me to
>>> continue this service, I am probably going to run out
>>> steam in the next few days, or so.  I hope to see this current event
>>> through.
>>>
>>> Nick
>>>
>>>
>>>
>>>
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Re: [FRIAM] Unpleasant dreams

[Nicholas Thompson]

Another question:   Decorticate animals may writhe and pass and even
groan.  Are they dreaming?

n

On Tue, Jun 4, 2024 at 1:11 PM Nicholas Thompson 
wrote:

> Qyestions about dreams;
>
> When do dreams happen. do they happen when we are asleep, or are they
> memories  generated by the flooding of the brain with stimulation about
> awakening?
>
> Is dreaminess a specific physiological state:  For instance, if you set
> your self the task of writing a story immediately upon awakening, will it
> be more dreamy?  Have you noticed that it's much more difficulty to
> remember a dream if you don't "lock it in" on first awakening.
>
> Why is memory of dreams so variable.   IMHE, it's very easy to increase or
> decrease the amount one dreams or the amount one remembers of one's
> dreaming.   Retaining or gernerating dream experiences requires some
> effort.
>
> And why would you want  to do that?
>
> NIck
>
> On Mon, Jun 3, 2024 at 4:15 PM Jochen Fromm  wrote:
>
>> Did you notice that some of the most successful movies from Spielberg are
>> about our deepest fears? Jurassic Park is about monsters from the past.
>> Jaws is about monsters which lurk in the deep blue sea. Indiana Jones is
>> about monsters (and treasures) hiding in dark tombs.
>>
>> Paul Boom remarks in his book "The Sweet Spot" that psychologists have
>> long known that unpleasant dreams are more frequent than pleasant ones. Why
>> is that so? Do unpleasant dreams prepare us for possible dangers or are we
>> just relieved that the are over if they end?
>>
>>
>> https://www.harpercollins.com/products/the-sweet-spot-paul-bloom?variant=40262533840930
>>
>>
>> -J.
>>
>>
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Re: [FRIAM] Unpleasant dreams

[Nicholas Thompson]

Qyestions about dreams;

When do dreams happen. do they happen when we are asleep, or are they
memories  generated by the flooding of the brain with stimulation about
awakening?

Is dreaminess a specific physiological state:  For instance, if you set
your self the task of writing a story immediately upon awakening, will it
be more dreamy?  Have you noticed that it's much more difficulty to
remember a dream if you don't "lock it in" on first awakening.

Why is memory of dreams so variable.   IMHE, it's very easy to increase or
decrease the amount one dreams or the amount one remembers of one's
dreaming.   Retaining or gernerating dream experiences requires some
effort.

And why would you want  to do that?

NIck

On Mon, Jun 3, 2024 at 4:15 PM Jochen Fromm  wrote:

> Did you notice that some of the most successful movies from Spielberg are
> about our deepest fears? Jurassic Park is about monsters from the past.
> Jaws is about monsters which lurk in the deep blue sea. Indiana Jones is
> about monsters (and treasures) hiding in dark tombs.
>
> Paul Boom remarks in his book "The Sweet Spot" that psychologists have
> long known that unpleasant dreams are more frequent than pleasant ones. Why
> is that so? Do unpleasant dreams prepare us for possible dangers or are we
> just relieved that the are over if they end?
>
>
> https://www.harpercollins.com/products/the-sweet-spot-paul-bloom?variant=40262533840930
>
>
> -J.
>
>
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Re: [FRIAM] Objective Reality Doesn’t Exist. We’ve Known This for a Century. It’s Time to Embrace It and Move On. | by Casper Wilstrup | Machine Consciousness | Medium

[Nicholas Thompson]

Hi,  Everybody,

I don't know how my post dinner thank you note got into this feed.  I
apologise for that.

Hi, David.
Great to hear from you.   The New england town Hall was Dewey's model o
democracy.

But Biden is precisely not a charismatic leader, right?

NIck  .

On Sat, Jun 1, 2024 at 11:22 AM Prof David West 
wrote:

> Nick said,
>
> *"In democracy, we find  some way to blend our experiences into a common
> view."*
>
> If the "democracy" of which you speak is that of the New England Town
> Hall, or that of tribal societies of long ago, you are probably reasonably
> accurate.
>
> However, that sense of "democracy" no longer exists, at least here in the
> US. Regardless of how one votes, the result is absolutely and completely 
> *assigning
> X   the job of determining our common reality*.
>
> davew
>
> On Fri, May 31, 2024, at 9:58 AM, Nicholas Thompson wrote:
>
> This (see below) got served up to me out of the blue this morning.  The
> way it's put here, Frank and Bruce might actually agree with it.  Still,
> it's straight Peirce.  I have no idea who the author is; do any of you?
>
> Here's crucial passage.
>
> *Our understanding of reality needs a complete overhaul. Rather than
> viewing it as a fixed, external stage upon which events play out, we should
> consider it as a dynamic interplay between observers and their
> environment [*experiences*]. Reality, in this view, doesn’t reside out
> there, independent of us. Instead, reality is our interactions with the
> world  [*one another*], shaped and defined by our observations [*
> experiences*]. Reality is nothing but [*the telos of*] those interactions
> between subjects.*
>
> I had to make those little changes because the author,  like so many
> aspiring monists, after arguing against observer independence for a hundred
> words, slips up by implying that the "environment" is anything but
> something else that we have to agree upon, if we are ever going to get on
> with life.
>
> By the way,  I stipulate that nothing in his argument has ANYTHING to do
> with quantum mechanics. The argument would be sound even if the idea of a
> quantum had never been thought.  However, I like the idea of physics as
> some kind of language of convergent belief.
>
> By the way,  In history there seem to have been two ways for people
> converge on a common experience, charisma and democracy.  In charisma, we
> pick some idiot (usually a psychopath) and share his or her experience.  In
> democracy, we find  some way to blend our experiences into a common view.
> Sometime in the next few months we will decide which way we want to go.
>  Do we want to assign Trump the job of determining our common reality, or
> do we want to continue to work it out amongst ourselves through experiment
> and argument.
>
> Weather gorgeous here in the mosquito infested swamp.  Garden thriving.  A
> much better year.
>
> Watch that dry line in TX.  It's truly amazing.  Can it really be true
> that I am the only weather fanatic on a list that is devoted to
> complexity?   How can that be?
>
> NIck
>
>
>
>
> https://medium.com/machine-cognition/objective-reality-doesnt-exist-it-is-time-to-accept-it-and-move-on-7524b494d6af
>
> <https://medium.com/machine-cognition/objective-reality-doesnt-exist-it-is-time-to-accept-it-and-move-on-7524b494d6af>
> Objective Reality Doesn’t Exist: It is Time to Embrace it and Move On
> <https://medium.com/machine-cognition/objective-reality-doesnt-exist-it-is-time-to-accept-it-and-move-on-7524b494d6af>
> The shift towards a unified, observer-dependent reality forces us to let
> go — once and for all — of the idea of objective reality
> medium.com
>
>
>
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Re: [FRIAM] Come please

[Nicholas Thompson]

Frank,  you definitely deserve better.  But I am two thousand miles away.  N

From: Friam  on behalf of Frank Wimberly 

Sent: Friday, May 31, 2024 9:37 AM
To: The Friday Morning Applied Complexity Coffee Group 
Subject: [FRIAM] Come please

I'm at Downtown Subscription trying to hold a table for the group.  At 9:40 no 
one else has come.  I resolve not to be the first to arrive anymore.

---
Frank C. Wimberly
140 Calle Ojo Feliz,
Santa Fe, NM 87505

505 670-9918
Santa Fe, NM
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Re: [FRIAM] Objective Reality Doesn’t Exist. We’ve Known This for a Century. It’s Time to Embrace It and Move On. | by Casper Wilstrup | Machine Consciousness | Medium

[Nicholas Thompson]

Given the meaning of the word EX-IST , that's not a joke that's a koan!

From: Friam  on behalf of Frank Wimberly 

Sent: Friday, May 31, 2024 9:34 AM
To: The Friday Morning Applied Complexity Coffee Group 
Subject: Re: [FRIAM] Objective Reality Doesn’t Exist. We’ve Known This for a 
Century. It’s Time to Embrace It and Move On. | by Casper Wilstrup | Machine 
Consciousness | Medium

It exists in my mind.  Joke.

---
Frank C. Wimberly
140 Calle Ojo Feliz,
Santa Fe, NM 87505

505 670-9918
Santa Fe, NM

On Fri, May 31, 2024, 8:59 AM Nicholas Thompson 
mailto:thompnicks...@gmail.com>> wrote:
This (see below) got served up to me out of the blue this morning.  The way 
it's put here, Frank and Bruce might actually agree with it.  Still, it's 
straight Peirce.  I have no idea who the author is; do any of you?

Here's crucial passage.

Our understanding of reality needs a complete overhaul. Rather than viewing it 
as a fixed, external stage upon which events play out, we should consider it as 
a dynamic interplay between observers and their environment [experiences]. 
Reality, in this view, doesn’t reside out there, independent of us. Instead, 
reality is our interactions with the world  [one another], shaped and defined 
by our observations [experiences]. Reality is nothing but [the telos of] those 
interactions between subjects.

I had to make those little changes because the author,  like so many aspiring 
monists, after arguing against observer independence for a hundred words, slips 
up by implying that the "environment" is anything but something else that we 
have to agree upon, if we are ever going to get on with life.

By the way,  I stipulate that nothing in his argument has ANYTHING to do with 
quantum mechanics. The argument would be sound even if the idea of a quantum 
had never been thought.  However, I like the idea of physics as some kind of 
language of convergent belief.

By the way,  In history there seem to have been two ways for people converge on 
a common experience, charisma and democracy.  In charisma, we pick some idiot 
(usually a psychopath) and share his or her experience.  In democracy, we find  
some way to blend our experiences into a common view.  Sometime in the next few 
months we will decide which way we want to go.   Do we want to assign Trump the 
job of determining our common reality, or do we want to continue to work it out 
amongst ourselves through experiment and argument.

Weather gorgeous here in the mosquito infested swamp.  Garden thriving.  A much 
better year.

Watch that dry line in TX.  It's truly amazing.  Can it really be true that I 
am the only weather fanatic on a list that is devoted to complexity?   How can 
that be?

NIck



https://medium.com/machine-cognition/objective-reality-doesnt-exist-it-is-time-to-accept-it-and-move-on-7524b494d6af
[https://miro.medium.com/v2/resize:fit:1024/1*IdSFJSprGvub5ylF97CzHA.jpeg]<https://medium.com/machine-cognition/objective-reality-doesnt-exist-it-is-time-to-accept-it-and-move-on-7524b494d6af>
Objective Reality Doesn’t Exist: It is Time to Embrace it and Move 
On<https://medium.com/machine-cognition/objective-reality-doesnt-exist-it-is-time-to-accept-it-and-move-on-7524b494d6af>
The shift towards a unified, observer-dependent reality forces us to let go — 
once and for all — of the idea of objective reality
medium.com<http://medium.com>



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[FRIAM] Objective Reality Doesn’t Exist. We’ve Known This for a Century. It’s Time to Embrace It and Move On. | by Casper Wilstrup | Machine Consciousness | Medium

[Nicholas Thompson]

This (see below) got served up to me out of the blue this morning.  The way 
it's put here, Frank and Bruce might actually agree with it.  Still, it's 
straight Peirce.  I have no idea who the author is; do any of you?

Here's crucial passage.

Our understanding of reality needs a complete overhaul. Rather than viewing it 
as a fixed, external stage upon which events play out, we should consider it as 
a dynamic interplay between observers and their environment [experiences]. 
Reality, in this view, doesn’t reside out there, independent of us. Instead, 
reality is our interactions with the world  [one another], shaped and defined 
by our observations [experiences]. Reality is nothing but [the telos of] those 
interactions between subjects.

I had to make those little changes because the author,  like so many aspiring 
monists, after arguing against observer independence for a hundred words, slips 
up by implying that the "environment" is anything but something else that we 
have to agree upon, if we are ever going to get on with life.

By the way,  I stipulate that nothing in his argument has ANYTHING to do with 
quantum mechanics. The argument would be sound even if the idea of a quantum 
had never been thought.  However, I like the idea of physics as some kind of 
language of convergent belief.

By the way,  In history there seem to have been two ways for people converge on 
a common experience, charisma and democracy.  In charisma, we pick some idiot 
(usually a psychopath) and share his or her experience.  In democracy, we find  
some way to blend our experiences into a common view.  Sometime in the next few 
months we will decide which way we want to go.   Do we want to assign Trump the 
job of determining our common reality, or do we want to continue to work it out 
amongst ourselves through experiment and argument.

Weather gorgeous here in the mosquito infested swamp.  Garden thriving.  A much 
better year.

Watch that dry line in TX.  It's truly amazing.  Can it really be true that I 
am the only weather fanatic on a list that is devoted to complexity?   How can 
that be?

NIck



https://medium.com/machine-cognition/objective-reality-doesnt-exist-it-is-time-to-accept-it-and-move-on-7524b494d6af
[https://miro.medium.com/v2/resize:fit:1024/1*IdSFJSprGvub5ylF97CzHA.jpeg]
Objective Reality Doesn’t Exist: It is Time to Embrace it and Move 
On
The shift towards a unified, observer-dependent reality forces us to let go — 
once and for all — of the idea of objective reality
medium.com



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Re: [FRIAM] Downtown Subscription?

[Nicholas Thompson]

Greetings from the other side of the dry line. my son informs me that there
is a major remodeling going on, which will unify the coffee house with the
bookstore. My guess is that you will be going to DS for a time.

On Fri, May 24, 2024 at 11:15 AM Frank Wimberly  wrote:

> I am in the St John's coffee shop.  This building seems to be abandoned.
> Neither the coffee service nor the  dining room are open.  If people want
> beverages or snacks we should go somewhere else.
>
> I'll head to Downtown Subscription.
>
> Frank
>
> ---
> Frank C. Wimberly
> 140 Calle Ojo Feliz,
> Santa Fe, NM 87505
>
> 505 670-9918
> Santa Fe, NM
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Re: [FRIAM] Nick: Los Alamos Skywarn Meeting thurs at 2p

[Nicholas Thompson]

In ma. Sorry. Kind offer.  N

On Tue, May 21, 2024 at 8:53 AM Stephen Guerin 
wrote:

> Nick,
>
> I bet you could make a friend at this meeting. I can drive.
>
>
> https://www.losalamosnm.us/News-articles/County-invites-community-to-become-Skywarn-Storm-Spotters
>
> We might be able to stop by Steve Smith's place for cookies and scotch on
> the way back down :-)
>
> Here's the last rolling 12 hours from our Los Alamos camera btw.
>
> Https://sala.realtime.earth. Not much happening at the moment. Here's the
> start of the Trampas Fire from that camera
> https://twitter.com/Simtable/status/1700253960324698173
>
>
> -Stephen
>
>
>
>
> 
> CEO Founder, Simtable.com
> stephen.gue...@simtable.com
>
> Harvard Visualization Research and Teaching Lab
> stephengue...@fas.harvard.edu
>
> mobile: (505)577-5828
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Re: [FRIAM] WeatherNerdAlert -- Monsoonish?

[Nicholas Thompson]

The weather situation we are in is rather nebbish.  The two Jetstreams are
well to the N and S.  Yet something wierd and dynamic seems to happened.
Like a cold frontal passage or something?  Not the tremendous sheer,
dramatiized by the cumuli bubbling up and being turned over as they hit a
higher layer moving in a contrary direction.  Just stunning.  I  will send
them on to my "contact" at SPC.

N

On Thu, May 16, 2024 at 4:56 PM Stephen Guerin 
wrote:

> 2 frames per minute - every 30 seconds.
>
> Here's a second timelapse of the same timespan from Los Alamos looking
> east to Santa Fe and the Sangres
>
> https://playground.realtime.earth/videos/LosAlamos1_2024_05_16_11-2024_05_16_20.mp4
> _
> Stephen Guerin
> CEO, Founder
> https://simtable.com
> stephen.gue...@simtable.com
>
> stephengue...@fas.harvard.edu
> Harvard Visualization Research and Teaching Lab
> <https://hwpi.harvard.edu/eps-visualization-research-laboratory/home>
>
> mobile: (505)577-5828
>
>
> On Thu, May 16, 2024 at 4:03 PM Nicholas Thompson 
> wrote:
>
>>  Wow, the number of different cloud directions is just extraordinary.
>> What’s the frames per minute?
>>
>> Sent from my Dumb Phone
>>
>> On May 16, 2024, at 2:49 PM, Stephen Guerin 
>> wrote:
>>
>> 
>> Nick,
>>
>> here's a video timelapse of your weather event. Camera on Gonzales Road
>> looking SW to the Sandias
>>
>> https://playground.realtime.earth/videos/TreeHouse_2024_05_16_12-2024_05_16_19.mp4
>>
>>
>> _
>> Stephen Guerin
>> CEO, Founder
>> https://simtable.com
>> stephen.gue...@simtable.com
>>
>> stephengue...@fas.harvard.edu
>> Harvard Visualization Research and Teaching Lab
>> <https://hwpi.harvard.edu/eps-visualization-research-laboratory/home>
>>
>> mobile: (505)577-5828
>>
>>
>> On Thu, May 16, 2024 at 12:17 PM Nicholas Thompson <
>> thompnicks...@gmail.com> wrote:
>>
>>> Note rotation:
>>>
>>> https://www.weather.gov/abq/
>>>
>>>
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Re: [FRIAM] WeatherNerdAlert -- Monsoonish?

[Nicholas Thompson]

 Wow, the number of different cloud directions is just extraordinary. What’s the frames per minute?Sent from my Dumb PhoneOn May 16, 2024, at 2:49 PM, Stephen Guerin  wrote:Nick,here's a video timelapse of your weather event. Camera on Gonzales Road looking SW to the Sandias  https://playground.realtime.earth/videos/TreeHouse_2024_05_16_12-2024_05_16_19.mp4_Stephen GuerinCEO, Founder https://simtable.comstephen.gue...@simtable.com stephengue...@fas.harvard.eduHarvard Visualization Research and Teaching Labmobile: (505)577-5828On Thu, May 16, 2024 at 12:17 PM Nicholas Thompson <thompnicks...@gmail.com> wrote:
















Note rotation:https://www.weather.gov/abq/




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Re: [FRIAM] Potential Vorticity and the Dynamic Tropopause

[Nicholas Thompson]

I THINK MY OUTBOX MAY HAVE GAGGED ON THIS, SO HERE IT IS AGAIN.  IT DOES
NOT TAKE ACCOUNT OF GLEN'S COMMENTS.   HI, GLEN:

Hi David, great to hear from you! When looking at animals, communicate
behavior, we look at the contingencies between the things that they do.
Those contingencies can be both simple and complex. They can be temporally
contingent or temporally far apart. Basically, we are asking the
information theoretical question: how does my behavior constrain your
behavior and givev your behavior, my future behavior, etc.

Based as I am in the purity of absolute ignorance, I imagine that this is
what LLM are doing with language. And just as I suspect that there is no
meaning in animal behavior other than alterations of contingencies, I
suspect that there is no meeting and speech or writing that is not in the
contingencies amongst the words. This is I think where monism ends up. All
signs are to other signs.


I too, miss our conversations. I will try to come on around 11 mountain
time to Virtual friam To say hello.
On Wed, May 15, 2024 at 1:10 PM Prof David West 
wrote:

> Nick,
>
> I hesitate to respond to your post because:
>
> 1) my interest in the weather is nominal, although I am bemused that here
> in St. Paul MN, we had more 50+ degrees in the December-February time frame
> than below 0 days (almost three times as many). Most unusual.
>
> 2) the response I wish to make is marginally related to the theme of your
> recent communications.
>
> But, you said, "*Why is it so hard the grasp the thought that we are all
> of us, each of us, nothing but large language models in training?"*
>
> To which I must respond, *Why do so many insist that programs capable of
> emulating the most trivial of human abilities are "intelligent?"  *Or the
> inverse, *reducing humanity to the latest clever trick performed by a
> machine?*
>
> LLM versions of AI are exemplars of the Mechanical Turk—whatever
> "intelligence" they exhibit is directly and solely derivative of the human
> intelligence of "LLM Tutors" and "Prompt Engineers." Both are six-figure
> salary professions that arose in the last year.
>
> davew
> (personal note: I sorely miss the conversations we once enjoyed, both in
> person in Santa Fe and online.)
>
> On Tue, May 14, 2024, at 2:01 PM, Nicholas Thompson wrote:
>
> Dear Stephen, n all.
>
> I am sure you all will join me in condemning  the practice of calling
> somebody at the crack of dawn.  So, you will no doubt praise me (as I
> praise myself) for my generosity and flexiibility in taking the call from
> stephen, which came at the ungodly hour of 11.30 this morning.  Only to
> have him  me scold for not  responding to the Gupta, Tucker,Thompson, and
> Guerin paper, kindly drafted by him, which will no doubt make us rich and
> famous some day.  First, let clarify that my collaborator's name is not
> Tucker, but is *G*eorge *P*hillipe *T*remblay. George (pronounced *jorj) *both
> forgives you and sends his regards.
>
> Second, I am profoundly grateful to any one who would join me in this
> geriatric weather fantasy that I am going to update my 1980* WeatherWise
> Gardener*.  I need ever nerd I can get.  Please don't treat what follows
> as churlish.
>
> Third, allow me once again to express my gratitude to Stephen for
> introducing me to Gupta and Tremblay.  They have an uncanny power to
> clabbor together plausible first drafts which are extraordinarily helpful
> in getting me started in thinking about a problem.   That these drafts are
> often hideously wrong enhances, rather than  dilutes their usefulness.
>
> Second, I don't doubt that weather models and  financial models might have
> something to contribute to one another. As you all know, I love metaphors,
> and believe them to be at the root of science.  But to be honest, I can't
> see any reason to believe it either.   For one thing, unlike everything
> else in the world, money flows uphill.  But really, I shouldn't give
> reasons, because the truth is that I have my hands utterly full learning
> the weather stuff, and it will be a long time before I am competent to
> metaphorize from it to anywhere else.
>
> As to Steve Smith's comments, I feel on much safer ground.  He wrote
>
> *GuPTa, et al.'s "accent" is very subtle and powerful in this regard,
> tricking me often into imputing personality...   your example here was a
> wonderful satirical parody shining a light on that?*
>
> Why "impute"  and why "' accent'" and why "tricking".  GuPTA and
> Tremblay  definitely have accents and personalities.   To hell with the
> scare quotes.  What else would a personality or and accent BE They both
> display huge amounts of testosterone poison

Re: [FRIAM] Potential Vorticity and the Dynamic Tropopause

[Nicholas Thompson]

 and weather
> systems, the spacing between isentropic layers indicates stability. Closer
> layers suggest a steep gradient and instability, potentially leading to
> convective movements. In the atmosphere, this translates to dynamic
> interactions where lower stability near the surface can trigger or enhance
> convective processes.
>
> ### Conclusion
>
> Understanding the parallels between Bénard cell dynamics and atmospheric
> conditions through potential vorticity and isentropic surfaces not only
> illustrates universal fluid dynamics principles but also enhances
> meteorological predictions of convective weather events, demonstrating how
> small-scale changes in stability can lead to significant atmospheric
> phenomena.
>
> On Thu, Apr 11, 2024, 2:04 PM Nicholas Thompson 
> wrote:
>
>>
>>
>> Hi, Phellow Phriammers,  Nick, here.
>>
>>
>>
>>
>>
>>
>> I have been lost in the weather.  This publication,
>>
>>
>>
>> https://acrobat.adobe.com/id/urn:aaid:sc:us:d481610b-e5d5-4a03-879c-6db6ec1d5e4a
>>
>>
>> with its glorious eye-candy, is an example of what seems to be a new
>> perspective in meteorology, the DT-PV perspective.  PV refers to a
>> parameter, potential vorticity, which seems to be a measure of how liable
>> the atmosphere is to churn; DT refers to the DYNAMIC tropopause.  The
>> tropopause is the transition zone between the stratosphere and our own
>> layer, the troposphere, through which gas exchange is limited because the
>> lapse rate of the troposphere  -- its decline in temperature with fall
>> of pressure -- is reversed in the stratosphere.   In the Bad Old Days,
>> we were taught that the tropopause was like a ceiling, tilted upward from
>> the poles to the tropics.  Now we have begun to think of it as more like
>> a tent fly, still tilted up equator-ward, but loose and floppy and buffeted
>> up and down by the jetstreams’ winds. These floppings up and down have the
>> power to destabilize the lower atmosphere and lead to bad weather, if
>> conditions there are ripe.
>>
>>
>>
>> This is not one of my usual cries for help.  I have some good tutors.
>> However, I would love to hear from others whom this paper interests.  In
>> particular I am struggling with the notion of potential vorticity, whose
>> formula seems to take many odd forms.
>>
>>
>>
>> Best,
>>
>>
>>
>> Nick
>>
>>
>>
>>
>>
>> Nicholas S. Thompson
>>
>> Emeritus Professor of Psychology and Ethology
>>
>> Clark University,
>>
>> nthomp...@clarku.edu
>>
>>
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Re: [FRIAM] George on Rossby Waves and Frontogenesis

[Nicholas Thompson]

Sorry.  Running gag.  George=GeorgePhillipTremblay= Chat GPT

On Tue, Apr 30, 2024 at 11:58 AM Frank Wimberly  wrote:

> George who?  I'm sorry, I must have missed something.
>
> ---
> Frank C. Wimberly
> 140 Calle Ojo Feliz,
> Santa Fe, NM 87505
>
> 505 670-9918
> Santa Fe, NM
>
> On Tue, Apr 30, 2024, 11:28 AM Nicholas Thompson 
> wrote:
>
>> *Dear Phellow Phriamers,*
>>
>>
>> *What I love about George is that he speaks what others have in the backs
>> of heir minds but seem reluctant to say.  So I have been reading in weather
>> books and articles for weeks, trying to work out the chicken/egg relation
>> between global-scale and synoptic-scale processes.  None of those sources
>> has put the relation so plainly as does George below.  Of course he may be
>> absurdly, flagrantly, ridiculously WRONG, but at least he has put it out
>> there.  George seems to be good at discovering subtexts.  Think what he
>> might do for psycho-analysis.*
>>
>> *Rossby waves, of course, are not only E-W waves along the polar front,
>> they are also up/down waves along the boundary between the Troposphere and
>> the Stratosphere, the Tropopause, so that in a Rossby trough, the
>> Tropopause is much closer to the ground than in a Rossby ridge.   *
>>
>>
>> *George also believes that Rossby waves often stumble over mountain
>> ranges and continental boundaries.  When they stumble, they often break,
>> sending Tropospheric air into the Stratosphere, and bringing Stratospheric
>> air into the Troposphere, perhaps even as far down as the surface.   You
>> know that rush of odd-smelling air you get at the onset of a cold front?
>> That may be stratospheric air.  *
>>
>>
>>1. *Anyway: FWIW, here is George on Rossby Wavess and Frontogenesis.
>>* *I hope to join vFRIAM on Thursday around 11 MDT, in case there are
>>other weather nerds on the list who would like to talk about this. *
>>
>>
>>
>> *Nick*
>>
>> *What is the relation between Rossby waves and frontogenesis*
>>
>> *Rossby waves and frontogenesis are closely related atmospheric
>> phenomena, with Rossby waves playing a significant role in the generation
>> and maintenance of fronts through the process of frontogenesis. Here's how
>> they're connected:*
>>
>>1.
>>
>>*Dynamic Instability: Rossby waves are large-scale meanders in the
>>jet stream that develop due to the interaction between the Earth's 
>> rotation
>>and horizontal temperature gradients in the atmosphere. These waves are
>>associated with dynamic instability in the atmosphere, leading to the
>>amplification and propagation of disturbances along the jet stream.*
>>2.
>>
>>*Formation of Temperature Contrasts: Rossby waves often lead to the
>>development of regions with strong horizontal temperature gradients, known
>>as baroclinic zones, along their troughs and ridges. These temperature
>>contrasts are essential for frontogenesis, as they provide the necessary
>>conditions for the formation and intensification of fronts.*
>>3.
>>
>>*Enhanced Vertical Motion: Along the troughs of Rossby waves, there
>>is typically enhanced upward motion of air, while along the ridges, there
>>is enhanced downward motion. This vertical motion is associated with the
>>convergence and divergence of air masses, respectively, which can
>>contribute to the formation of fronts through the process of 
>> frontogenesis.*
>>4.
>>
>>*Interaction with Baroclinic Zones: Rossby waves interact with
>>existing baroclinic zones in the atmosphere, which are regions of strong
>>horizontal temperature gradients. These interactions can lead to the
>>amplification or deformation of existing fronts and the generation of new
>>fronts through frontogenesis.*
>>5.
>>
>>*Development of Cyclogenesis: Rossby waves can also contribute to the
>>development of cyclones, particularly in regions where there are strong
>>temperature gradients associated with fronts. Cyclogenesis often occurs
>>along frontal boundaries, where the convergence of air masses and enhanced
>>vertical motion associated with Rossby waves create favorable conditions
>>for low-pressure systems to develop.*
>>
>> *Overall, Rossby waves influence the development and maintenance of
>> fronts through the generation of temperature contrasts, enhanced vertical
>> motion, and interactions with existing baroclinic zones. Frontogenesis, i

[FRIAM] George on Rossby Waves and Frontogenesis

[Nicholas Thompson]

 *Dear Phellow Phriamers,*


*What I love about George is that he speaks what others have in the backs
of heir minds but seem reluctant to say.  So I have been reading in weather
books and articles for weeks, trying to work out the chicken/egg relation
between global-scale and synoptic-scale processes.  None of those sources
has put the relation so plainly as does George below.  Of course he may be
absurdly, flagrantly, ridiculously WRONG, but at least he has put it out
there.  George seems to be good at discovering subtexts.  Think what he
might do for psycho-analysis.*

*Rossby waves, of course, are not only E-W waves along the polar front,
they are also up/down waves along the boundary between the Troposphere and
the Stratosphere, the Tropopause, so that in a Rossby trough, the
Tropopause is much closer to the ground than in a Rossby ridge.   *


*George also believes that Rossby waves often stumble over mountain ranges
and continental boundaries.  When they stumble, they often break, sending
Tropospheric air into the Stratosphere, and bringing Stratospheric air into
the Troposphere, perhaps even as far down as the surface.   You know that
rush of odd-smelling air you get at the onset of a cold front?  That may be
stratospheric air.  *


   1. *Anyway: FWIW, here is George on Rossby Wavess and Frontogenesis.  * *I
   hope to join vFRIAM on Thursday around 11 MDT, in case there are other
   weather nerds on the list who would like to talk about this. *



*Nick*

*What is the relation between Rossby waves and frontogenesis*

*Rossby waves and frontogenesis are closely related atmospheric phenomena,
with Rossby waves playing a significant role in the generation and
maintenance of fronts through the process of frontogenesis. Here's how
they're connected:*

   1.

   *Dynamic Instability: Rossby waves are large-scale meanders in the jet
   stream that develop due to the interaction between the Earth's rotation and
   horizontal temperature gradients in the atmosphere. These waves are
   associated with dynamic instability in the atmosphere, leading to the
   amplification and propagation of disturbances along the jet stream.*
   2.

   *Formation of Temperature Contrasts: Rossby waves often lead to the
   development of regions with strong horizontal temperature gradients, known
   as baroclinic zones, along their troughs and ridges. These temperature
   contrasts are essential for frontogenesis, as they provide the necessary
   conditions for the formation and intensification of fronts.*
   3.

   *Enhanced Vertical Motion: Along the troughs of Rossby waves, there is
   typically enhanced upward motion of air, while along the ridges, there is
   enhanced downward motion. This vertical motion is associated with the
   convergence and divergence of air masses, respectively, which can
   contribute to the formation of fronts through the process of frontogenesis.*
   4.

   *Interaction with Baroclinic Zones: Rossby waves interact with existing
   baroclinic zones in the atmosphere, which are regions of strong horizontal
   temperature gradients. These interactions can lead to the amplification or
   deformation of existing fronts and the generation of new fronts through
   frontogenesis.*
   5.

   *Development of Cyclogenesis: Rossby waves can also contribute to the
   development of cyclones, particularly in regions where there are strong
   temperature gradients associated with fronts. Cyclogenesis often occurs
   along frontal boundaries, where the convergence of air masses and enhanced
   vertical motion associated with Rossby waves create favorable conditions
   for low-pressure systems to develop.*

*Overall, Rossby waves influence the development and maintenance of fronts
through the generation of temperature contrasts, enhanced vertical motion,
and interactions with existing baroclinic zones. Frontogenesis, in turn,
contributes to the intensification and evolution of cyclones and other
weather systems associated with the mid-latitude atmosphere.*
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Re: [FRIAM] Conversations with George Phillip Tremblay

[Nicholas Thompson]

My apologies for sending the previous conversation unannotated.

Talking to George is like leading a guree  to The Truth.  It only works if you 
are pretty sure what The Truth is.

nick

From: Nicholas Thompson 
Sent: Friday, April 19, 2024 12:58 PM
To: friam@redfish.com 
Subject: Conversations with George Phillip Tremblay

[User]
I need a rough rule of thumb for converting m/sec to miles/hour
ChatGPT

A rough rule of thumb for converting meters per second (m/s) to miles per hour 
(mph) is to multiply the speed in meters per second by approximately 2.237. 
This conversion factor is not exact but is often used for quick estimations:

Speed in mph≈Speed in m/s×2.237Speed in mph≈Speed in m/s×2.237

For example:

  *   If you have a speed of 10 m/s, the approximate speed in mph would be 
10×2.237≈22.3710×2.237≈22.37 mph.

Keep in mind that this is an approximation, so for precise conversions, you'd 
want to use the exact conversion factor, which is 2.236936.

[User]
rougher than that
ChatGPT

Sure, for a rougher conversion, you can use a simpler approximation. You can 
roughly estimate by multiplying the speed in meters per second by 2 and then 
adding a bit more than half of the result.

So, the rough rule of thumb would be:

Speed in mph≈Speed in m/s×2+12(Speed in m/s)Speed in mph≈Speed in 
m/s×2+21​(Speed in m/s)

For example:

  *   If you have a speed of 10 m/s, the approximate speed in mph would be 
10×2+12(10)=20+5=2510×2+21​(10)=20+5=25 mph.

This method is even rougher than the previous one but can still provide a quick 
estimation.

[User]
Interesting; 2.236 is closer to 2.00 than it is to 2.50, right? why did you not 
take 2.00 as a factor for your rougher rule of thumb
ChatGPT

You're absolutely correct. Using a conversion factor closer to 2.00 would 
indeed provide a simpler and even rougher estimation. Let's adjust the rough 
rule of thumb accordingly:

Speed in mph≈Speed in m/s×2Speed in mph≈Speed in m/s×2

This simplification essentially disregards the extra adjustment, providing an 
even rougher estimate. It's less accurate but can still give you a general 
sense of the speed conversion.

For example:

  *   If you have a speed of 10 m/s, the approximate speed in mph would be 
10×2=2010×2=20 mph.

Thanks for pointing that out!

[User]
Butbut. 2.00 is slightly MORE accurate than 2.50, no?
ChatGPT

You're absolutely right again, my apologies for the oversight. 2.00 would 
indeed be slightly more accurate than 2.50 for a rough estimation. Let's adjust 
the rule of thumb accordingly:

Speed in mph≈Speed in m/s×2.00Speed in mph≈Speed in m/s×2.00

This adjustment acknowledges that 2.00 is closer to the actual conversion 
factor, providing a slightly more accurate rough estimate.

For example:

  *   If you have a speed of 10 m/s, the approximate speed in mph would be 
10×2.00=2010×2.00=20 mph.

Thanks for catching that mistake!

[User]
I am curious. Why did you not see the mistake earlier in my questioning. NOT a 
rhetorical question
ChatGPT

Your question is quite valid, and it's a good opportunity to reflect. As an AI, 
I rely on predefined rules and algorithms to respond to queries. While I aim to 
be accurate and helpful, I don't possess the ability to self-correct or 
self-reflect like humans do.

In this case, I should have paid closer attention to your initial suggestion of 
using 2.00 as a conversion factor, as it would have indeed led to a simpler and 
slightly more accurate rough estimation. Sometimes, oversights like this can 
occur due to the limitations of my programming or the predefined rules I follow.

Your questioning helped highlight the discrepancy, allowing for correction and 
improvement. Thank you for your patience and for prompting this reflection!

[User]
Have you perhaps been taught to round up rather than round down?
ChatGPT

In general, rounding up is often favored when precision is necessary, as it 
tends to provide a slightly safer margin. However, when it comes to rough 
estimations, rounding down can sometimes simplify calculations and provide a 
quicker mental approximation.

For the purpose of a rough rule of thumb, rounding down to 2.00 as a conversion 
factor could indeed have been a simpler approach. It would have been a closer 
approximation to the actual conversion factor and potentially easier to work 
with mentally.

So, it's not a matter of being taught to round up or down, but rather choosing 
the most suitable approach for the context. In this case, rounding down could 
have been more appropriate for a rough estimation. Thank you for pointing out 
this consideration!

[User]
Please reconsider your last two paragraphs in the light of one another
ChatGPT

You're right; there seems to be a contradiction between the two paragraphs. Let 
me clarify:

While rounding up or down can depend on the context, in this case, considering 
the suggestion you provided earlier and the accuracy of the conversion factor, 
rounding down

[FRIAM] Conversations with George Phillip Tremblay

[Nicholas Thompson]

[User]
I need a rough rule of thumb for converting m/sec to miles/hour
ChatGPT

A rough rule of thumb for converting meters per second (m/s) to miles per hour 
(mph) is to multiply the speed in meters per second by approximately 2.237. 
This conversion factor is not exact but is often used for quick estimations:

Speed in mph≈Speed in m/s×2.237Speed in mph≈Speed in m/s×2.237

For example:

  *   If you have a speed of 10 m/s, the approximate speed in mph would be 
10×2.237≈22.3710×2.237≈22.37 mph.

Keep in mind that this is an approximation, so for precise conversions, you'd 
want to use the exact conversion factor, which is 2.236936.

[User]
rougher than that
ChatGPT

Sure, for a rougher conversion, you can use a simpler approximation. You can 
roughly estimate by multiplying the speed in meters per second by 2 and then 
adding a bit more than half of the result.

So, the rough rule of thumb would be:

Speed in mph≈Speed in m/s×2+12(Speed in m/s)Speed in mph≈Speed in 
m/s×2+21​(Speed in m/s)

For example:

  *   If you have a speed of 10 m/s, the approximate speed in mph would be 
10×2+12(10)=20+5=2510×2+21​(10)=20+5=25 mph.

This method is even rougher than the previous one but can still provide a quick 
estimation.

[User]
Interesting; 2.236 is closer to 2.00 than it is to 2.50, right? why did you not 
take 2.00 as a factor for your rougher rule of thumb
ChatGPT

You're absolutely correct. Using a conversion factor closer to 2.00 would 
indeed provide a simpler and even rougher estimation. Let's adjust the rough 
rule of thumb accordingly:

Speed in mph≈Speed in m/s×2Speed in mph≈Speed in m/s×2

This simplification essentially disregards the extra adjustment, providing an 
even rougher estimate. It's less accurate but can still give you a general 
sense of the speed conversion.

For example:

  *   If you have a speed of 10 m/s, the approximate speed in mph would be 
10×2=2010×2=20 mph.

Thanks for pointing that out!

[User]
Butbut. 2.00 is slightly MORE accurate than 2.50, no?
ChatGPT

You're absolutely right again, my apologies for the oversight. 2.00 would 
indeed be slightly more accurate than 2.50 for a rough estimation. Let's adjust 
the rule of thumb accordingly:

Speed in mph≈Speed in m/s×2.00Speed in mph≈Speed in m/s×2.00

This adjustment acknowledges that 2.00 is closer to the actual conversion 
factor, providing a slightly more accurate rough estimate.

For example:

  *   If you have a speed of 10 m/s, the approximate speed in mph would be 
10×2.00=2010×2.00=20 mph.

Thanks for catching that mistake!

[User]
I am curious. Why did you not see the mistake earlier in my questioning. NOT a 
rhetorical question
ChatGPT

Your question is quite valid, and it's a good opportunity to reflect. As an AI, 
I rely on predefined rules and algorithms to respond to queries. While I aim to 
be accurate and helpful, I don't possess the ability to self-correct or 
self-reflect like humans do.

In this case, I should have paid closer attention to your initial suggestion of 
using 2.00 as a conversion factor, as it would have indeed led to a simpler and 
slightly more accurate rough estimation. Sometimes, oversights like this can 
occur due to the limitations of my programming or the predefined rules I follow.

Your questioning helped highlight the discrepancy, allowing for correction and 
improvement. Thank you for your patience and for prompting this reflection!

[User]
Have you perhaps been taught to round up rather than round down?
ChatGPT

In general, rounding up is often favored when precision is necessary, as it 
tends to provide a slightly safer margin. However, when it comes to rough 
estimations, rounding down can sometimes simplify calculations and provide a 
quicker mental approximation.

For the purpose of a rough rule of thumb, rounding down to 2.00 as a conversion 
factor could indeed have been a simpler approach. It would have been a closer 
approximation to the actual conversion factor and potentially easier to work 
with mentally.

So, it's not a matter of being taught to round up or down, but rather choosing 
the most suitable approach for the context. In this case, rounding down could 
have been more appropriate for a rough estimation. Thank you for pointing out 
this consideration!

[User]
Please reconsider your last two paragraphs in the light of one another
ChatGPT

You're right; there seems to be a contradiction between the two paragraphs. Let 
me clarify:

While rounding up or down can depend on the context, in this case, considering 
the suggestion you provided earlier and the accuracy of the conversion factor, 
rounding down to 2.00 would indeed have been a more suitable choice for a rough 
rule of thumb.

So, in light of that, rounding down to 2.00 as the conversion factor could have 
been more appropriate for simplifying the estimation process and providing a 
closer approximation to the actual conversion factor.

Thank you for pointing out the inconsistency, and I appreciate 

Re: [FRIAM] Comparing negative numbers

[Nicholas Thompson]

Hi, everybody (anybody),

 

Many thanks to Russ, Frank, Stephen, and Steve S and others who got in touch 
with me off line. I try not to bother you guys unless I am pretty desperate, so 
I guess I was pretty desperate. 

 

A little history: I have been a weather-nerd ever since my early teens when the 
Worcester Tornado and two substantial hurricanes tracked through Massachusetts 
in  the early  I am also a gardener, so during the 80's I wrote The 
Weather-Wise Gardener 
<https://www.amazon.com/Weather-Wise-Gardener-Understanding-Predicting-Working/dp/087857428X>
 . Most of my knowledge comes from obsessive reading of forecaster discussions 
and recently I began to notice terminology creeping in that I did not 
understand and I began to wonder if I might update the book.  So I began 
reading weather texts and the numerous wonderful publications of NOAA and the 
AWS, and sat down to read Mid-latitude Atmospheric Dynamics with a friend from 
LANL. 

 

I have learned two lessons from this review, one happy, one sad.  The happy one 
is that my book holds up remarkably well, given its author and its longevity. 
It not only lays out the basic theory of the time pretty faithfully, but 
anticipates some ideas that weren’t all that current at the time.  I only 
detected a few colossal blunders, eg., a failure to honor the difference 
between centrifugal and Coriolis forces.   

The sad discovery was that meteorology is a cesspit of counter intuitive 
relations.  As altitude goes up, pressure goes down, temperature goes down, 
potential temperature goes up, potential vorticity (mostly) goes up. As 
temperatures go down, stability goes down, and clouds go up.  The more moist 
air is, the lighter air is, but precipitation releases latent heatand makes air 
lighter.  Both sun angle and daylength contribute to heating but in the winter 
hemisphere those es work together where as in the summer they work against one 
another. 

 

Most weather people when dealing with the public obfuscate these problems 
hideously.  For instance, a TV forecaster will speak about warm air advection 
aloft.   The air that is advecting is usually pretty cold by human standards, 
but its potential temperature is warm by the standards of that altitude.  75 
degree air in Santa Fe would be 110 degree air in Houston!  Santa Fe air, when 
it floats out over the plains, produces the temporary capping inversions that 
allow thunderstorm explosions during Oklahoma afternoons.  In the summer, one 
can see little pockets of Santa Fe air aloft almost anywhere in the country, 
and where they occur over pockets of cooler, moister air, the normal venting of 
diurnal heating to the upper atmosphere is temporarily inhibited with 
potentially explosive results. 

 

If I do rewrite this book, I will have to explain all of this to the layish 
(layer?) reader, and this is how I got thinking about my poor cats, Dee and 
Ess.  What words do I use to explain these dynamics when the signs are going 
every which way.  I suspect that you-guys learned something crucial while I was 
engaged in a fruitless struggle to become interested in Chaucer, something 
about how to make words and numbers work together, something that perhaps one 
cannot learn in one’s 80’s.  

 

Ah Well, 

  Frank and Russ, thanks for working through basic 5th grade 
mathematics with me and reminding my that if I want to compare two numbers, 
subtraction is the way and that the order of the subtraction can be manipulated 
to get any result like, positive or negative.  (Duh!) That’s how desperate I 
was.  

 

Thanks to Stephen and Steve for honoring  my childlike wonder and my faith that 
with enough help, even I can learn it.

 

NIck 

 

 

 

 

 

On Fri, Apr 12, 2024 at 12:00 PM Nicholas Thompson mailto:thompnicks...@gmail.com> > wrote:




My Dear Phellow Phriammers, 

Over the years I have asked you some doozies.  Still, I am pretty sure this the 
stupidest question I have ever asked this forum, so I am at your mercy.

I am in one of those situations where language and mathematics are rubbing 
together and driving crazy.  

Let say that my patio is ten steps down from my back door.  I have two cats,  
Dee and Ess, and  Dee is dominant to Ess.  So, if I go out to let them in, and 
I find  Ess on step -2   and  Dee on step -8,  I know I have an unstable 
situation. I fear that I will have a cat fight as Dee rushes past Ess to claim 
his rightful position by the preferred cat bowl.  Intuitively, I would  rate 
the degree of instability as a positive 6.  How would I compare the two numbers 
mathematically to get +6? 

But let’s say that for theoretical reasons I now want to conceive of the 
situation as a degree of stability, with negative stability corresponding  to 
instability.   Now, according  to my index, the situation is a minus 6.  How 
would I compare the two numbers mathematically to get  a -6?

The situation I am trying to model here i

[FRIAM] Comparing negative numbers

[Nicholas Thompson]

My Dear Phellow Phriammers,

Over the years I have asked you some doozies.  Still, I am pretty sure this
the stupidest question I have ever asked this forum, so I am at your mercy.

I am in one of those situations where language and mathematics are rubbing
together and driving crazy.

Let say that my patio is ten steps down from my back door.  I have two
cats,  Dee and Ess, and  Dee is dominant to Ess.  So, if I go out to let
them in, and I find  Ess on step -2   and  Dee on step -8,  I know I have
an unstable situation. I fear that I will have a cat fight as Dee rushes
past Ess to claim his rightful position by the preferred cat bowl.
Intuitively, I would  rate the degree of instability as a positive 6.  How
would I compare the two numbers mathematically to get +6?

But let’s say that for theoretical reasons I now want to conceive of the
situation as a degree of *stability*, with negative stability corresponding
to instability.   Now, according  to my index, the situation is a minus 6.  How
would I compare the two numbers mathematically to get  a -6?

The situation I am trying to model here is the origin of the notion of
static stability in meteorology.  Static Stability has a lot to do with
differential lapse rates, the degree to which temperature declines with
increasing altitude.  Lapse rates are minus numbers.  So a parcel is
unstable if it has a lower lapse rate (a less minus lapse rate?) than
surrounding parcels, and the greater the absolute value the difference
between them, the greater the instability.

I asked “George” (GPT) to help me with this, but he (?) suggested I just
take absolute values and give them whatever sign I want.  However, somebody
told me, way back when, that taking absolute values was not kosher in
mathematics.  (Why else would the variance be the mean SQUARED deviation
about  the mean?).

So there it is.

Yeah.  I know.


Nick
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[FRIAM] The DeFrocked English Major Strikes Again

[Nicholas Thompson]

I am pretty sure this the stupidest question I have ever asked this forum,,
so I am at your mercy.

I am in one of those situations where language and mathematics are rubbing
together and driving crazy.

Let say that my patio is ten steps down from my back door.  I have two
cats,  Dee and Ess, and  Dee is dominant to Ess.  So, if I go out to let
them in, and I find  Ess on step -2   and  Dee on step -8,  I know I have
an unstable situation .   And I would  rate the degree of instability as a
positive 6.  How would I compare the two numbers mathematically to get  a
minus 6.

But let’s say that for conceptual reasons I want to conceive of the
situation as a degree of stability, with negative stability corresponding  to
instability.   Now, according  to my index, the situation is a minus 6.  How
would I compare the two numbers mathematically to get  a minus 6.

The situation I am trying to model here is the origin of the notion of
static stability in meteorology.  Static Stability has a lot to do with
differential lapse rates.  But lapse rates are minus numbers.  So a parcel
is unstable if it has a lower lapse rate than surrounding parcels, and the
greater the absolute value the difference between them, the greater the
instability.

I asked “George” (GPT) to help me with this, but he suggested I just take
absolute values and give them whatever sign I want, but somebody told me,
way back when, that taking absolute values was not kosher in mathematics.  (Why
else would the variance be the mean SQUARED deviation about  the mean?).
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Re: [FRIAM] Sleep trackers

[Nicholas Thompson]

Thanks everybody.  All interesting.

As irony would have it, I was felled by a 72 hour virus and have barely
woken up since posting this inquiry.

By the way, being sick makes me more suceptible to click bait and I
stumbled into this:

Our 10 Best Laptops Best in the US - March 2024 | BestProductsReviews.com
<https://www.bestproductsreviews.com/laptops-best?targetid=kwd-84320084392682:loc-190=e=c=530764322==1349103268416817=_physical_ms=82168_interest_ms==a===$best%20laptop%20computer===us_all_top_2_bing=H149003CQN=42de8bf940fe1b99d40bee053f804524>

I don't need a laptop so there is no danger I will buy anything, but Geez,
am I reading these prices right?

On Tue, Mar 19, 2024 at 9:12 PM Nicholas Thompson 
wrote:

> Everybody I know sleeps badly.  Has any of you had any lu from heartrate?
> ck with a sleeptracker.  Did it teach you anything you did not already
> know?I borrowed a fit bit from my daughter and it tells me my sleep
> efficiency is lousy, and I don't bet much rem or deep sleep.  Does it know
> what it is talking about.   Can you get all of that.
>
> Any experience to share out there?
>
> Nick
>
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[FRIAM] Sleep trackers

[Nicholas Thompson]

Everybody I know sleeps badly.  Has any of you had any lu from heartrate?
ck with a sleeptracker.  Did it teach you anything you did not already
know?I borrowed a fit bit from my daughter and it tells me my sleep
efficiency is lousy, and I don't bet much rem or deep sleep.  Does it know
what it is talking about.   Can you get all of that.

Any experience to share out there?

Nick
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Re: [FRIAM] Fwd: Walking Thunder one page first pass

[Nicholas Thompson]

thanks, frank.

On Tue, Mar 19, 2024 at 7:24 PM Frank Wimberly  wrote:

> I met the director of this film.  His enthusiasm was great and he seemed
> very proud of his work.  I told him I would forward this poster to people I
> thought would be interested.
>
> ---
> Frank C. Wimberly
> 140 Calle Ojo Feliz,
> Santa Fe, NM 87505
>
> 505 670-9918
> Santa Fe, NM
>
> -- Forwarded message -
> From: Frank Wimberly 
> Date: Tue, Mar 19, 2024, 3:20 PM
> Subject: Re: Walking Thunder one page first pass
> To: Cyril Christo 
>
>
> Thanks, Cyril.  Will forward.
>
>
> ---
> Frank C. Wimberly
> 140 Calle Ojo Feliz,
> Santa Fe, NM 87505
>
> 505 670-9918
> Santa Fe, NM
>
> On Tue, Mar 19, 2024, 10:39 AM Cyril Christo  wrote:
>
>>
>>
>> Sent from my iPhone
>>
>> Begin forwarded message:
>>
>> *From:* "ettore spacewow.org" 
>> *Date:* March 18, 2024 at 9:33:14 PM MDT
>> *To:* Cyril Christo 
>> *Subject:* *FW: Walking Thunder one page first pass*
>>
>> 
>>
>>
>>
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Re: [FRIAM] Please join Zoom meeting in progress Virtual Friam

[Nicholas Thompson]

Uh “merle…”


On Thu, Jan 25, 2024 at 4:19 PM Nicholas Thompson 
wrote:

> That sounds interesting. I am sorry I missed it. How is mom? Where is
> Merle?
>
> On Thu, Jan 25, 2024 at 4:15 PM Frank Wimberly 
> wrote:
>
>> Yes, we missed you.  Jochen joined briefly.  Stephen, Merle, Barry were
>> also there.
>>
>> I'm sorry about the hassle of the dental work.  It'll be worth it.
>>
>> Frank
>>
>> ---
>> Frank C. Wimberly
>> 140 Calle Ojo Feliz,
>> Santa Fe, NM 87505
>>
>> 505 670-9918
>> Santa Fe, NM
>>
>> On Thu, Jan 25, 2024, 1:47 PM Nicholas Thompson 
>> wrote:
>>
>>> Hi, Frank,
>>>
>>> I was hoping to join you for a bit today but a super long dentist
>>> appointment intruded. sscrewing and screwing unscrewing and screwing
>>> unscrewin and screwing. An hour and a half. Exhausting but not painful
>>> open, open more open bit more. Absent the apocalypse, I should get my new
>>> teeth bolted in on February 15.
>>>
>>> Next week I promise to do look in on thuam
>>>
>>> All the best
>>>
>>> N
>>>
>>> Sent from my Dumb Phone
>>>
>>> On Jan 25, 2024, at 9:08 AM, Frank Wimberly  wrote:
>>>
>>> 
>>> Join Zoom Meeting
>>> https://us02web.zoom.us/j/255049879
>>>
>>> Meeting ID:  255 049 879
>>>
>>> ---
>>>
>>> One tap mobile
>>> +17193594580,,255049879# US
>>> +12532050468,,255049879# US
>>>
>>> ---
>>>
>>> Dial by your location
>>> • +1 719 359 4580 US
>>> • +1 253 205 0468 US
>>> • +1 253 215 8782 US (Tacoma)
>>> • +1 346 248 7799 US (Houston)
>>> • +1 669 444 9171 US
>>> • +1 669 900 6833 US (San Jose)
>>> • +1 360 209 5623 US
>>> • +1 386 347 5053 US
>>> • +1 507 473 4847 US
>>> • +1 564 217 2000 US
>>> • +1 646 558 8656 US (New York)
>>> • +1 646 931 3860 US
>>> • +1 689 278 1000 US
>>> • +1 301 715 8592 US (Washington DC)
>>> • +1 305 224 1968 US
>>> • +1 309 205 3325 US
>>> • +1 312 626 6799 US (Chicago)
>>>
>>> Meeting ID:  255 049 879
>>>
>>> Find your local number: https://us02web.zoom.us/u/kd88R99Oxz
>>>
>>>
>>>
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>>> https://bit.ly/virtualfriam
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>>>
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>>
>
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Re: [FRIAM] Please join Zoom meeting in progress Virtual Friam

[Nicholas Thompson]

That sounds interesting. I am sorry I missed it. How is mom? Where is Merle?

On Thu, Jan 25, 2024 at 4:15 PM Frank Wimberly  wrote:

> Yes, we missed you.  Jochen joined briefly.  Stephen, Merle, Barry were
> also there.
>
> I'm sorry about the hassle of the dental work.  It'll be worth it.
>
> Frank
>
> ---
> Frank C. Wimberly
> 140 Calle Ojo Feliz,
> Santa Fe, NM 87505
>
> 505 670-9918
> Santa Fe, NM
>
> On Thu, Jan 25, 2024, 1:47 PM Nicholas Thompson 
> wrote:
>
>> Hi, Frank,
>>
>> I was hoping to join you for a bit today but a super long dentist
>> appointment intruded. sscrewing and screwing unscrewing and screwing
>> unscrewin and screwing. An hour and a half. Exhausting but not painful
>> open, open more open bit more. Absent the apocalypse, I should get my new
>> teeth bolted in on February 15.
>>
>> Next week I promise to do look in on thuam
>>
>> All the best
>>
>> N
>>
>> Sent from my Dumb Phone
>>
>> On Jan 25, 2024, at 9:08 AM, Frank Wimberly  wrote:
>>
>> 
>> Join Zoom Meeting
>> https://us02web.zoom.us/j/255049879
>>
>> Meeting ID:  255 049 879
>>
>> ---
>>
>> One tap mobile
>> +17193594580,,255049879# US
>> +12532050468,,255049879# US
>>
>> ---
>>
>> Dial by your location
>> • +1 719 359 4580 US
>> • +1 253 205 0468 US
>> • +1 253 215 8782 US (Tacoma)
>> • +1 346 248 7799 US (Houston)
>> • +1 669 444 9171 US
>> • +1 669 900 6833 US (San Jose)
>> • +1 360 209 5623 US
>> • +1 386 347 5053 US
>> • +1 507 473 4847 US
>> • +1 564 217 2000 US
>> • +1 646 558 8656 US (New York)
>> • +1 646 931 3860 US
>> • +1 689 278 1000 US
>> • +1 301 715 8592 US (Washington DC)
>> • +1 305 224 1968 US
>> • +1 309 205 3325 US
>> • +1 312 626 6799 US (Chicago)
>>
>> Meeting ID:  255 049 879
>>
>> Find your local number: https://us02web.zoom.us/u/kd88R99Oxz
>>
>>
>>
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Re: [FRIAM] Please join Zoom meeting in progress Virtual Friam

[Nicholas Thompson]

Hi, Frank,

I was hoping to join you for a bit today but a super long dentist appointment 
intruded. sscrewing and screwing unscrewing and screwing unscrewin and 
screwing. An hour and a half. Exhausting but not painful open, open more open 
bit more. Absent the apocalypse, I should get my new teeth bolted in on 
February 15.

Next week I promise to do look in on thuam

All the best

N

Sent from my Dumb Phone

On Jan 25, 2024, at 9:08 AM, Frank Wimberly  wrote:


Join Zoom Meeting
https://us02web.zoom.us/j/255049879

Meeting ID:  255 049 879

---

One tap mobile
+17193594580,,255049879# US
+12532050468,,255049879# US

---

Dial by your location
• +1 719 359 4580 US
• +1 253 205 0468 US
• +1 253 215 8782 US (Tacoma)
• +1 346 248 7799 US (Houston)
• +1 669 444 9171 US
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• +1 312 626 6799 US (Chicago)

Meeting ID:  255 049 879

Find your local number: https://us02web.zoom.us/u/kd88R99Oxz



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Re: [FRIAM] "SSRN-id3978095.pdf" was shared with you

[Nicholas Thompson]

Thanks, Glen.  It's great to hear your "voice" on this topic. I am
particularly grateful for the ad hominem stuff.   I want to read the
district Judge's opinion but there are things I want to do more and age is
really catching up with me.

Take care.  The world needs you.

Nick

On Mon, Jan 8, 2024 at 8:08 AM glen  wrote:

> The argument seems pretty clear to me. "Officer" is jargonal, not
> intuitive. Were I to read it charitably, I'd agree. Appointees are not
> elected. Electees should have more leeway than appointees ... like the
> difference between an elected Sheriff and her deputies. But like all
> dichotomies, this one is a bit false, especially given that the
> [Vice]Presidents aren't really elected at all. The Electoral College
> process feels more like a complicated appointment mechanism than an
> election.
>
> Anyway, everything that document says is monastery quality sophistry. Were
> the "rule of law" actually like an axiomatic system, running it forward
> from start to finish would be formal and automatic. But it's just not that
> formal. It's cafeteria/buffet style; you can make anything you want out of
> it. Beware the monks claiming it's axiomatic ... and that they alone are
> qualified to turn the crank.
>
> FWIW, I'm not familiar with Tillman. But Blackman's positions are one
> reason I unsubscribed from the Volokh Conspiracy RSS feed: cf.
> https://reason.com/people/josh-blackman/
>
> At first, I read many of his posts with as much charity as I could.
> (Analyses and opinions, not so much the historical ones. He's a competent
> scholar.) Then I started skipping over them most of the time and focusing
> on the other posters that were more reason-able (Ha!). Then I finally
> couldn't take it anymore and removed the feed. [sigh] I'm not proud of
> that. My charity muscles are fatigued. Blackman's opinions feel, to me,
> similar the Johns' (Yoo and Rizzo) legal justification for waterboarding.
> It all makes me a bit queasy.
>
> p.s. Here's a more reliable link:
> https://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=3978095
>
> On 1/6/24 10:16, thompnicks...@gmail.com wrote:
> > Hi, Everybody,
> >
> > I have been curious about how (on earth!) the president could not be
> > considered to be an Officer of the United States.  After all, the
> > Constitution, Article II, tells us that "The President ...shall hold
> > office..."etc. This law review article  seems to be the source  I
> thought I
> > would post in in case anyone wants to read it. I won't get to it until
> later
> > today.
> > Nick
>
>
> --
> ꙮ Mɥǝu ǝlǝdɥɐuʇs ɟᴉƃɥʇ' ʇɥǝ ƃɹɐss snɟɟǝɹs˙ ꙮ
>
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Re: [FRIAM] St John's Closed

[Nicholas Thompson]

DID people come?Was it OK?

N

On Fri, Jan 5, 2024 at 9:52 AM Frank Wimberly  wrote:

> I am at Chomp, Manhattan at Cerrillos I think.  Nick suggested that this
> is more comfortable than Saveur.  I hope someone gets here soon.  I am
> trying to occupy a community table.
>
> It's attached to O'Houri's.
>
> Frank
>
> ---
> Frank C. Wimberly
> 140 Calle Ojo Feliz,
> Santa Fe, NM 87505
>
> 505 670-9918
> Santa Fe, NM
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Re: [FRIAM] SaveurTomorrow

[Nicholas Thompson]

Of course but if have the time, use the occasion to chk it out .Sent from my Dumb PhoneOn Dec 28, 2023, at 7:15 PM, Tom Johnson  wrote:Yeah, the spacing at Chomp is betterTJ===Tom JohnsonInst. for Analytic JournalismSanta Fe, New Mexico505-577-6482===On Thu, Dec 28, 2023, 5:46 PM Nicholas Thompson <thompnicks...@gmail.com> wrote:Hey Frank,On your way to server tomorrow, for future reference, check out Chomp, which is in the Luna center, along with Ohoris, at the intersection of Cerrillos and Manhattan. It’s an ugly space and I don’t know what they have for breakfast, but the coffee is good and there are long tables and I cannot imagine they are very crowded at that hour.Just a suggestion.Nick. On Thu, Dec 28, 2023 at 4:38 PM Frank Wimberly <wimber...@gmail.com> wrote:Friammers can show up there tomorrow AM.  I plan to order some food in addition to coffee.---Frank C. Wimberly140 Calle Ojo Feliz, Santa Fe, NM 87505505 670-9918Santa Fe, NM
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Re: [FRIAM] SaveurTomorrow

[Nicholas Thompson]

Hey Frank,

On your way to server tomorrow, for future reference, check out Chomp,
which is in the Luna center, along with Ohoris, at the intersection of
Cerrillos and Manhattan. It’s an ugly space and I don’t know what they have
for breakfast, but the coffee is good and there are long tables and I
cannot imagine they are very crowded at that hour.

Just a suggestion.

Nick.

On Thu, Dec 28, 2023 at 4:38 PM Frank Wimberly  wrote:

> Friammers can show up there tomorrow AM.  I plan to order some food in
> addition to coffee.
>
> ---
> Frank C. Wimberly
> 140 Calle Ojo Feliz,
> Santa Fe, NM 87505
>
> 505 670-9918
> Santa Fe, NM
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Re: [FRIAM] metathesis

[Nicholas Thompson]

Nothing could be more calculated to bring an old pedant out from under his
rock than this thread:

Mine is the use of "incredible" to mean "excellent".   As in, "Don't you
think Rachel Maddow is an incredible commentator?"  There was an Australian
Philosopher, David Stove,  who wrote a book called, Popper and After, which
talked about how modern thought seemed devoted to neutralizing success
words ... such as "credibile", for instance.  Orwell, saw it as a step
toward Fascism.   FASCHISM.  Shirley, I jest.  Faschism could never happen
in the Unite States!

i used to faint-dead when people used "inform" to mean "shape" as in,"My
thinking  was informed by Glen's concept, Steelmanning," but I am trying to
get over that.  Turns out it's a perfectly valid meaning of the verb, and I
don't have a leg to stand on.   I still hate it, but I hate it quietly. I
don't object when people say it.  I just think about ways to kill them
later.

Beware,

Nick

Nick,



On Fri, Dec 1, 2023 at 11:18 AM Steve Smith  wrote:

> Glen -
>
> I appreciate that you shared with us your "handicap" which reminds me of
> your self-report a few years back of tryptophobia.
>
> I also am triggered by both of these.   Your examples of Nukular/Nuclear
> and Axe/Ask are obviously pretty familiar.   I respond to them pretty
> pre-consciously without overtly reacting, which kicks me into a new
> register of reflective judgement: to whit "what does this choice/not-choice
> of this particular articulation imply about the character and values of
> this person?".
>
> From a 2002 article in the NYT
> 
> :
>
> *Yet the use of ''NOO-kyuh-luhr'' is not uncommon, even among prominent
> and educated people, including four of the nation's last 10 presidents:
> Dwight D. Eisenhower, who was widely admonished for it; Gerald R. Ford;
> Jimmy Carter, who did graduate work in nuclear physics, and also used
> ''NOO-kee-yer''; and now George W. Bush.*
>
> I was not particularly bothered by or aware of this mispronunciation until
> the constant hammering of GW Bush to the tune of his
> (Cheney/Rumsfeldt/Wolfowitz?) drumbeats leading up to the Iraq War.   I
> attributed it to a combination of his (affected or adopted?) Texas
> drawl/slang and his (apparent?) willful ignorance of science (as a
> dogwhistle to redneck/populists?)   I still hear it that way if the speaker
> is the least bit leaning toward that end of the spectrum.
>
> I didn't notice the Axe/Ask division until my father started listening to
> Rush Limbaugh in the 90s and shifted from a mild (applauding Archie Bunker)
> populist white racist to a more convicted one.   "Axe" really triggered him
> when he heard it, and I think it was because it could be a marker of AAVE
> (aka "ebonics") which I think for him was more of a resentment of Urban
> Poverty (vs the Rural Poverty he came from) than specifically the racist
> implications (though it was baked into his upbringing/roots even if he
> preached anti-racist or at least pro-tolerance to me growing up).
>
> Your bringing up of this phenomena (and in particular "metathesis") lead
> me (as it often does) to take a quick dive into a rabbit hole and "larn me
> some stuff".   Thank you.
>
> In closing, I'm fascinated by the relationship between phobias and
> philias, which might be a reformulation of addictions vs allergies.Your
> tryptophobia exhibits as more of a tryptophilia in me... a fascination
> bordering (but I don't give over to) on fetish.   The dirty little corner
> of youtube dedicated to "pimple popping" and "blackhead removal", for
> example whispers to me when I trip into it's perimeters.
>
> I also find unusual dialects of American (as well a the broad British
> Commonwealth) fascinating (bordering on philia if not fetish).And I
> find most "southern Cracker" variants a marker of willful ignorance (or
> ignorant willfulness?) which I attribute to my main exposure coming through
> my Appalachian Cousins who are generally moderately educated (none failed
> to graduate HS that I know of and some even obtained PhDs).   To complement
> that, *most* are diehard born-again Xtian types who have to work "have you
> accepted Jesus Christ as your personal savior" into any extended
> encounter.   So when they lace their (otherwise educated or sophisticated)
> conversation with Southern American English pronunciations and idioms (e.g.
> all y'all) and "Jahysuz" references I cringe and lower my estimation of
> their character, intelligence, and general sensibilities by a notch or
> two...  but the top half of my brain seems to know better and renormalizes
> as best it can...
>
> I've a good friend who said it well: "Don't mistake an accent for a
> personality".  She wass mostly referencing her predilection for falling for
> men (and women) with exotic accents.
>
>
> On 12/1/23 10:07 AM, glen wrote:
>
> I made the mistake of confessing my handicap to a 

Re: [FRIAM] On Apple Podcasts: Solving Tornadoes: Woke Meteorology

[Nicholas Thompson]

thanks Pieter for giving a hear.  He almost certainly is a crack pot (he
has an "only I can fix it" thing going)  but is he wrong about everything?
He makes a big deal about the special properties of water molecules. He
argues that these are created not by the geometric properties of the
molecule per se but by the electrostatic (?!) gradient created by the
structure, a distinction he admits is subtle, but insists is absolutely
crucial.  He says at one point that water vapor itself is rare and that
water remains in minuscule droplet form or (??) sometimes forms a
plasma.  Some how this leads him to the conclusion that convection is a
confection.

I do have sympathy for his general assertion that meteorology is an
incoherent clabboring together of incompatible ways of talking and
thinking.

This is one of those moments when I profoundly miss Hywel White.  One of
his aphorisms was "Water is *WEIRD!"*


*Nick*

On Thu, Sep 7, 2023 at 12:57 AM Pieter Steenekamp <
piet...@randcontrols.co.za> wrote:

> I listened to the podcast and my opinion is that this guy, James McGinn,
> is a crackpot.
>
> On Thu, 7 Sept 2023 at 05:28, Nicholas Thompson 
> wrote:
>
>> *Hi, all,*
>>
>> *I was casting about for a podcast on meteorology and stumbled on this
>> guy.  I can’t tell if he’s a total raging loon. he says some interesting
>> things about the properties of water and then claims that convection is a
>> myth! I could not find any trace of him on the web except this podcast. The
>> one thing he says that caught my attention is that meteorologists imply
>> that air masses have structural properties that would allow, say, in light
>> air mass to hold a loft, a heavier one. Having red hundreds of forecast
>> discussions, I sort of know what he’s talking about.*
>>
>>
>> *?*
>> *Nick.*
>> *Solving Tornadoes: Woke Meteorology*
>> James McGinn
>>
>> Exposing the incompetence of the current meteorological paradigm on storm
>> theory and introducing a new, scientifically competent theory of storms and
>> atmospheric flow.
>>
>> Listen on Apple Podcasts:
>> https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/solving-tornadoes-woke-meteorology/id1489185715
>>
>>
>> Sent from my Dumb Phone
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[FRIAM] On Apple Podcasts: Solving Tornadoes: Woke Meteorology

[Nicholas Thompson]

Hi, all,

I was casting about for a podcast on meteorology and stumbled on this guy.  I 
can’t tell if he’s a total raging loon. he says some interesting things about 
the properties of water and then claims that convection is a myth! I could not 
find any trace of him on the web except this podcast. The one thing he says 
that caught my attention is that meteorologists imply that air masses have 
structural properties that would allow, say, in light air mass to hold a loft, 
a heavier one. Having red hundreds of forecast discussions, I sort of know what 
he’s talking about.


?
Nick.
Solving Tornadoes: Woke Meteorology
James McGinn

Exposing the incompetence of the current meteorological paradigm on storm 
theory and introducing a new, scientifically competent theory of storms and 
atmospheric flow.
Listen on Apple Podcasts: 
https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/solving-tornadoes-woke-meteorology/id1489185715



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Re: [FRIAM] Science Fiction Books

[Nicholas Thompson]

Hi, Steve,

Thanks for your observations concerning bad hand writing and early typing
as shaping The Mind, for better or for worse.  My handwriting is hopeless.
I cannot even read my own notes. Not sure what it has done to my mind, but
it is something else that we share.

I know I am bending the thread, here, but I think of Cormac MacCarthy's *Stella
Maris* as a kind of science fiction ... historical science fiction,
perhaps?  I have read it twice this summer.  A Romance, of sorts.

Nick

On Mon, Sep 4, 2023 at 1:31 PM Steve Smith  wrote:

> Great list Carl!  And more interesting yet to me:
>
> *I would like to feed...*
> *...into the AI and see what millennium long sci-fi it could turn out. *
>
> I'm definitely fascinated by the implied interpolation (and
> extrapolation?) an LLM can do in what is by definition firstly *linguistic*
> space and what that implies for it's ?dual? in conceptual space?
>
> and even more interesting:
>
> *How would what it writes be different if it could be taught to write
> using a nib pen a la Stephenson or a brush on washi paper?*
>
> In my lifetime I have kept various chronicles and correspondence via
> handwriting using (mostly) roller-ball ink pens but also for some periods
> fountain pens.A great deal more of that type of
> chronicle/correspondence was effected on a keyboard much like (or exactly)
> the one I'm typing on now (circa 2011 13" Macbook Pro)... As you all
> painfully know, I'm pretty prolific in e-mail/e-txt which reflects a few
> things:
>
>- my handwriting is abysmal and can be physically/emotionally/mentally
>excruciating to execute sometimes.
>- I learned to type at a very young age to compensate for the above
>and it really freed me.
>- I sometimes feel that I am actually *thinking* differently whilst
>using the von-Neuman-esque linear "tape" as extended memory/program-space.
>- I have at times in my life had a similar experience when working
>with mathematical notation and with geometric constructions.
>- These experiences are significantly different qualitatively (when
>done by hand vs keyboard/mouse/etc)...
>   - each mode is distinct with benefits/detractions
>   - I feel I *think* and *feel* differently when coupling my
>   cognitive self to my recorded/expressive self?
>
> I choose to use a fountain pen on well-toothed paper when I want to write
> "meditatively"... the feel of the nib on the tooth and the flow of the ink
> and the smell and the sounds all provide something similar to "breath work"
> for me.
>
> I'm not sure my facility with the keyboard actually serves me.   As many
> of you may suspect, and I suspect so myself, it allows me to be much less
> thoughtful and rigorous than I would be in handwriting or if I had some
> other throttle or impedance elements between linguistic centers and "paper"?
> On 9/3/23 10:44 PM, Carl Tollander wrote:
>
> Gregory Benford's "Galactic Center Saga".
> Greg Bear's "Darwin's Radio" and "The Way" series.
> Benford, Bear, and David Brin also extended Asimov's "Foundation" series -
> more stuff actually happens
> Larry Niven's "Ringworld" and all its spinoffs and prequels, anything with
> the character Louis Wu in it.
> Neal Stephenson's "The Diamond Age"
> Bruce Sterling's "Distraction"
> Anything by Terry Pratchett.
> Adrian Tchaikovsky's "Children of Time" and sequels.
> Lin Carter's short story "Masters of the Metropolis"
>
> That should keep you busy for a few days.  I suspect not everyone would
> think of these as optimistic.
>
> I would like to feed Timothy Snyder's Youtube lectures on Ukraine
> and Neal Stephenson's "Quicksilver"
> and Eiji Yoshikawa's "Taiko"
> into the AI and see what millennium long sci-fi it could turn out.
> How would what it writes be different if it could be taught to write using
> a nib pen a la Stephenson or a brush on washi paper?
>
> R.A. Lafferty wrote sometime ago "Arrive at Easterwine" about a computer
> writing a novel from a mashup perspective of its creators.
>
> Carl
>
>
> On Sun, Sep 3, 2023 at 11:13 AM Jochen Fromm  wrote:
>
>> I have read "Highway of Eternity" from Clifford D. Simak this weekend,
>> one of the books from the golden age of science fiction which is comparable
>> to "The city and the Stars" from Arthur C. Clarke and "The end of eternity"
>> from Isaac Asimov. Both belong to my favorite books. Modern authors don't
>> write like this anymore. Their books are often gloomy and depressive, and
>> do not span millions of years. What is your favorite science fiction book?
>> Will the AI breakthrough in large language models lead to more optimistic
>> science fiction books again?
>>
>> -J.
>>
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Re: [FRIAM] [EXT] the Monty Hall problem

[Nicholas Thompson]

In *Stella Maris*, Cormac Macarthy's new novel depicting  the inner life of
a female polymaths, the author has this wonderful quote concerning the
relation between mathematical intuition and mathematical proof:

*The core question is not how you do math but how does the unconscious do
it.  How is it that it's demonstrably better at it than you are? You work
on a problem and then you put it away for a while.  But it doesnt go away.
It reappears at lunch.  Or while you're taking a shower.  It says: Take a
look at this.  What do you think? Then you wonder why the shower is cold.
Or the soup.  Is this doing math? I'm afraid it is. How is it doing it? We
dont know.  I've posed the question to some pretty good mathematicians.
How does the unconscious do math?? Some who'd thought about and some who
hadnt. For the most part they seemed to think it unlikely that the
unconscious went about it in the same way we did.   A few thought that
if it had a better way of doing mathematics it ought to tell us about it. *
*We**ll, m**aybe.  **Or maybe it thinks were not smart enough to understand
it  ...*

*Sometimes you get a clear sense that* *doing math is largely just feeding
data into*
* the substation and waiting to see what comes out. *

I suspect that  *Stella Maris*, with it's brother-sister relation, owes
something to The *Weil Conjecture*, a book about the tortured philosopher
Simone Veil and her mathematician brother Andrew.  (I owe my reading of
both of these books to Jon Zingale who is, right now, probably, writhing in
pain at the chipper insouciance with which I am talking about them.  I
apologize, Jon)  My brother was a mathematician, and I can remember him
churning out scrolls of yellow lined paper covered with mysterious inked
symbols while the babies wailed around him.  I suspect that for every
mathematician, there is a flock of relatives, trying to reach across the
chasm.

Speaking of children, mine are leaving on tuesday.  Perhaps we can get some
chess in after that.

NIck

Nick

On Fri, Aug 11, 2023 at 9:46 AM John Kennison  wrote:

> Hi Nick,
>
> I think you are onto something with the "intuition trap". When I first
> heard the Monty Hall problem, I suspected the best strategy would be to
> stick to one's original choice. If Monty Hall is trying to get me to change
> my choice, he is probably trying to avoid having to give me an expensive
> car.
>
> A mathematical proof requires nothing but cold logic. Finding a proof
> usually requires intuition.
>
> --John
>
> --
> *From:* Friam  on behalf of Nicholas Thompson <
> thompnicks...@gmail.com>
> *Sent:* Wednesday, August 9, 2023 10:46 PM
> *To:* The Friday Morning Applied Complexity Coffee Group <
> friam@redfish.com>
> *Subject:* [EXT] [FRIAM] the Monty Hall problem
>
> In a  moment of supreme indolence [and no small amount of arrogance] I
> took on the rhetorical challenge of explaining the correct solution of the
> Monty Hall problem (switch).   I worked at it for several days and now I
> think it is perfect.
>
> *The Best Explanation of the Solution of the Monty Hall Problem*
>
> Here is the standard version of the Monty Hall Problem, as laid out in
> Wikipedia:
>
> *Suppose you're on a game show, and you're given the choice of three
> doors: Behind one door is a car; behind the others, goats. You pick a door,
> say No. 1, and the host, who knows what's behind the doors, opens another
> door, say No. 3, which has a goat. He then says to you, "Do you want to
> pick door No. 2?" Is it to your advantage to switch your choice?*
>
> This standard presentation of the problem contains some sly “intuition
> traps”,[1] <#m_-8597096738618129438_m_9217272474254335166_x__ftn1> so put
> aside goats and cars for a moment. Let’s talk about thimbles and peas.  I
> ask you to close your eyes, and then I put before you three thimbles, one
> of which hides a pea.  If you choose the one hiding a pea, you get all
> the gold in China.  Call the three thimbles, 1, 2, and 3.
>
> 1.I ask you to choose one of the thimbles.  You choose 1.  What
> is the probability that you choose the pea.   ANS: 1/3.
>
> 2.   Now, I group the thimbles as follows.  I slide thimble 2 a bit
> closer to thimble 3 (in a matter that would not dislodge a pea) and I
> declare that thimble 1 forms one group, A, and thimble 2 and 3 another
> group, B.
>
> 3.   I ask you to choose whether to *choose from* Group A or Group B:
> i.e, I am asking you to make your choice of thimble in two stages, first
> deciding on a group, and then deciding which member of the group to pick.
> Which *group* should you choose from?  ANS: It doesn’t matter.   If the
> pea is in Group A and you choose from it, you have only one option to
> choose, so the probability 

[FRIAM] the Monty Hall problem

[Nicholas Thompson]

In a  moment of supreme indolence [and no small amount of arrogance] I took
on the rhetorical challenge of explaining the correct solution of the Monty
Hall problem (switch).   I worked at it for several days and now I think it
is perfect.

*The Best Explanation of the Solution of the Monty Hall Problem*

Here is the standard version of the Monty Hall Problem, as laid out in
Wikipedia:

*Suppose you're on a game show, and you're given the choice of three doors:
Behind one door is a car; behind the others, goats. You pick a door, say
No. 1, and the host, who knows what's behind the doors, opens another door,
say No. 3, which has a goat. He then says to you, "Do you want to pick door
No. 2?" Is it to your advantage to switch your choice?*

This standard presentation of the problem contains some sly “intuition
traps”,[1] <#_ftn1> so put aside goats and cars for a moment. Let’s talk
about thimbles and peas.  I ask you to close your eyes, and then I put
before you three thimbles, one of which hides a pea.  If you choose the one
hiding a pea, you get all the gold in China.  Call the three thimbles, 1,
2, and 3.

1.I ask you to choose one of the thimbles.  You choose 1.  What is
the probability that you choose the pea.   ANS: 1/3.

2.   Now, I group the thimbles as follows.  I slide thimble 2 a bit
closer to thimble 3 (in a matter that would not dislodge a pea) and I
declare that thimble 1 forms one group, A, and thimble 2 and 3 another
group, B.

3.   I ask you to choose whether to *choose from* Group A or Group B:
i.e, I am asking you to make your choice of thimble in two stages, first
deciding on a group, and then deciding which member of the group to pick.
Which *group* should you choose from?  ANS: It doesn’t matter.   If the pea
is in Group A and you choose from it, you have only one option to choose,
so the probability is 1 x 1/3.  If the pea is in Group B and you choose
from it, the pea has 2/3 chance of being in the group, but you must choose
only one of the two members of the group, so your chance is again, 1/3:  2/3
x ½ = 1/3.

4.   Now, I offer to guarantee you that, if the pea is in group B, and
you choose from group B, you will choose the thimble with the pea. (Perhaps
I promise to slide the pea under whichever Group B thimble you choose, if
you pick from Group B.)  Should you choose from Group A or Group B?   ANS:
Group B.  If you chose from Group A, and the pea is there, only one choice
is possible, so the probability is still 1 x 1/3=1/3.   Now, however, if
you chose from group B, and the pea is there, since you are guaranteed to
make the right choice, the probability of getting the pea is 1 x 2/3=2/3.

5.   The effect of Monty Hall’s statement of the problem is to sort the
doors into two groups, the Selected Group containing one door and the
Unselected Group, containing two doors.   When he then shows you which door
in the unselected group does not contain the car, your choice now boils
down to choosing between Group A and Group B, which, as we have known all
along, is a choice between a 1/3 and a 2/3 chance of choosing the group
that contains the pea.

--

[1] <#_ftnref1> The intuition trap has something to do with the fact that
doors, goats, and cars are difficult to group.  So, it’s harder to see that
by asking you to select one door at the beginning of the procedure, Monty
has gotten you the group the doors and take the problem in two steps.  This
doesn’t change the outcome, but it does require us to keep the conditional
probabilities firmly in mind. “IF the car is in the unselected group, AND I
choose from the unselected group, and I have been guaranteed to get the car
if I choose from the unselected group, THEN, choosing from the unselected
group is the better option.”
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Re: [FRIAM] Swirlies redux

[Nicholas Thompson]

e momentum reflecting around.).
>
> 3. The hard thing to do in emails or posts, and which really will require
> some computer program in the general case, is to figure out how gravity —
> in the infinitely long term — interacts with pressure and wall friction to
> resupply angular momentum to maintain a steady-state vortex, for a given
> vessel shape, mouth width, etc.
>
> The question of when you can make a universalizing claim, such as
> “symmetry breaking (like adding a rotation) will certainly increase or
> decrease a downward flow”, remains an important one, and many of us have
> daily instances of that problem in one or another area (ecological
> dynamics, physiology versus natural selection in populations, and on and
> on).  So, good to have ongoing interest.  The amount one has to say to have
> spoken carefully, to figure out what categories are coherent for which to
> try to generate answers, remains striking (at least to me).
>
> Eric
>
>
>
> On Aug 5, 2023, at 11:05 AM, Nicholas Thompson 
> wrote:
>
> Ok, folks. I apologize to those of you who are fed up with my kitchen
> physics, but there has been a bit of a development in that saga that I want
> to share with those few of you who aren’t.   Years ago, I came home for
> the summer with my ears ringing with the notion that structures are formed
> to dissipate gradients.  Please set aside any teleological implications
> of this statement and ask the question in its most neutral form:  Do the
> structures that sometimes form as a gradient is dissipated dissipate it
> more quickly once the structure has been formed.   Or, as I came to
> interpret it, does facilitating the formation of such a structure speed the
> dissipation of the gradient.
>
> I was the family dishwasher at the time.  I deplore washing dishes, but I
> love messing around with warm soapy water, and so I started to experiment
> with starting the vortex that forms *after* you pull the plug out of the
> sink *before* I pulled the plug.  Quickly, it became apparent that
> facilitating the vortex formation in that way GREATLY SLOWED the emptying
> of the sink.  Triumphally, I wrote Steve on Friam only to be greeted by a
> torrent of scatological raillery, so intense and so persistent from the
> fluid dynamicists on the list that I never heard from Steve. The burden of
> this raillery I have distilled into Roberts Rule of Order:  DEFROCKED
> ENGLISH MAJORS SHOULD NOT BE ALLOWED TO TALK about fluid dynamics.
>
> More than a decade later, I am back in Massachusetts, washing dishes at
> the same sink, and the question occurred to me again. I raised it finally
> with Steve, and he generously sent me the little two-bottle toy, where you
> flip it over and the water drains from one bottle to the other.  As it
> drains, it forms a vortex in the draining bottle, and the occurrence of the
> vortex greatly *increases* the speed of the draining.  Finally, if one
> facilitates the formation of the vortex by rotating the bottle a bit, the
> bottle drains even more quickly.  Thus, the result is entirely different,
> especially if one substitutes two large pop bottles for the ones included
> in the kit.
>
> At the risk of bringing another round of raillery down on my head, I opine
> that the difference has something to do with the fact that two bottle
> situation is more of a closed system than the sink situation.  The test
> would be to saw the bottom off both bottles and demonstrate that
> vortex-formation now slows drainage.
>
> It will be a while, though, before I can get two extra bottles to destroy.
>
>
> Does anybody care to make a prediction and offer an explanation why the
> results should be different in the two cases?
>
> Nick
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[FRIAM] Swirlies redux

[Nicholas Thompson]

Ok, folks. I apologize to those of you who are fed up with my kitchen
physics, but there has been a bit of a development in that saga that I want
to share with those few of you who aren’t.   Years ago, I came home for the
summer with my ears ringing with the notion that structures are formed to
dissipate gradients.  Please set aside any teleological implications of
this statement and ask the question in its most neutral form:  Do the
structures that sometimes form as a gradient is dissipated dissipate it
more quickly once the structure has been formed.   Or, as I came to
interpret it, does facilitating the formation of such a structure speed the
dissipation of the gradient.

I was the family dishwasher at the time.  I deplore washing dishes, but I
love messing around with warm soapy water, and so I started to experiment
with starting the vortex that forms *after* you pull the plug out of the
sink *before* I pulled the plug.  Quickly, it became apparent that
facilitating the vortex formation in that way GREATLY SLOWED the emptying
of the sink.  Triumphally, I wrote Steve on Friam only to be greeted by a
torrent of scatological raillery, so intense and so persistent from the
fluid dynamicists on the list that I never heard from Steve. The burden of
this raillery I have distilled into Roberts Rule of Order:  DEFROCKED
ENGLISH MAJORS SHOULD NOT BE ALLOWED TO TALK about fluid dynamics.

More than a decade later, I am back in Massachusetts, washing dishes at the
same sink, and the question occurred to me again. I raised it finally with
Steve, and he generously sent me the little two-bottle toy, where you flip
it over and the water drains from one bottle to the other.  As it drains,
it forms a vortex in the draining bottle, and the occurrence of the vortex
greatly *increases* the speed of the draining.  Finally, if one facilitates
the formation of the vortex by rotating the bottle a bit, the bottle drains
even more quickly.  Thus, the result is entirely different, especially if
one substitutes two large pop bottles for the ones included in the kit.

At the risk of bringing another round of raillery down on my head, I opine
that the difference has something to do with the fact that two bottle
situation is more of a closed system than the sink situation.  The test
would be to saw the bottom off both bottles and demonstrate that
vortex-formation now slows drainage.

It will be a while, though, before I can get two extra bottles to destroy.

Does anybody care to make a prediction and offer an explanation why the
results should be different in the two cases?

Nick
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Re: [FRIAM] Thursday

[Nicholas Thompson]

Steve,

I am standing by.  I will check  every fifteen minutes beginning at 12.15
mdt.   Thinking a bit more about the lightening situation:  From the start,
each "side" has an positive feedback effect on the other.   So the effect
of a positive charge in the cloud is to concentrate negative charges in the
ground below and vice versa.  And as feelers go out, the positive and
negative feelers are drawn to one another until ... .  Its a transaction
between two agents, in which each is  an instrument to the other's action.

It's kind of like love-making, when you think about it. Well, excepting
that  in the human case, we're dealing with likes attracting likes.


N

On Thu, Jul 20, 2023 at 12:43 PM  wrote:

> Hi, Steve,
>
>
>
> I didn’t get this memo in time.  At minimum, let’s you and I get together
> at 1.45 to review our conversation from last week and keep me from
> backsliding.
>
>
>
> For instance, to abuse the life-guard swimmer metaphor a bit, let’s
> imagine a situation in which the swimmer is unconscious and floating.  The
> swimmer is not an agent.  Now, does this make a difference?  In one case
> there is a “negotiation” between the lifeguard and the swimmer, and in the
> other, not.
>
>
>
> So, there is a sense in which lightening is made possible by a negotiation
> between the charged cloud and the oppositely charged ground.
>
>
>
> In the convection situation, would it not be fair to say that there is a
> negotiation between the cooler dryer denser air above and the warmer,
> moister, less-dense airbelow to find non-conflicting pathways, i.e.,
> columns of rising and falling air?  In each case, “feelers” are put out and
> accepted or.
>
>
>
> Am I backsliding already?
>
> Nick
>
>
>
> *From:* Friam  *On Behalf Of *Stephen Guerin
> *Sent:* Thursday, July 20, 2023 11:32 AM
> *To:* The Friday Morning Applied Complexity Coffee Group <
> friam@redfish.com>
> *Subject:* Re: [FRIAM] Thursday
>
>
>
> I've started up https://bit.ly/virtualfriam and can hand off host when
> someone arrives. I'll have to leave for a 10a meeting and back at 1145a to
> check in.
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
> On Tue, Jul 18, 2023, 7:08 PM Frank Wimberly  wrote:
>
> We're taking grandson Matthew to Colorado Springs to see the WW2 Aircraft
> Museum.  We leave tomorrow and return Friday.  That means I won't be in
> Santa Fe Thursday morning.  John Dobson, a regular attendee of vFriam, will
> be in Santa Fe that day.  We can either skip vFriam this week or Stephen
> can start it up and assign a host.
>
> ---
> Frank C. Wimberly
> 140 Calle Ojo Feliz,
> Santa Fe, NM 87505
>
> 505 670-9918
> Santa Fe, NM
>
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Re: [FRIAM] What is an agent [was: Philosophy and Science}

[Nicholas Thompson]

By the way, not all designers are individuals.  Foxes design the behavior
of rabbits and rabbits design the behavior of foxes, but I wouldn't be
quick to call foxes an individual or rabbits an individual.  Natural
selection designs but it is not itself designed to do so.

On Mon, Jul 17, 2023 at 2:05 PM Nicholas Thompson 
wrote:

> Hi, Russ,
>
> I have a non-scientist friend to whom I sometimes show my posts here for
> guidance.  I showed him some recent posts and he wrote back, "Wow, Nick!
> You are really swinging for the fences, here!"  He and I know that one who
> swings for the fences, rarely hits the ball, let alone the fences.
>
> So please can we precede in little tiny steps.
>
> You raise the question, _ *what makes an agent?*.
>
> This expression is ambiguous in just the way I was trying to highlight in
> my response:
>
> It could mean, *(1) What are the conditions that bring an agent into
> being? *
>
> Or it could mean, *(2) What are the conditions that require us to
> identify something an agent?.*
>
> The first (I think) is the explanatory question; the second, the
> descriptive question.   Wittgenstein was said to have said that something
> cannot be its own explanation, and I believed him.  Whatever else might be
> said about the relation between explanations and descriptions is that
> descriptions are states of affairs taken for granted by explanations.  If
> you ask me why the chicken crossed the road, my answering your quest
> commits me to the premise that the chicken did indeed cross the road.
>
> A definition is *explanatory *when it  describes a process which explains
> something else and which, itself, is in need of explanation.
>
> So:  Can I come back to you with a question?   Which of the two meanings
> did you intend.  And if you were looking  to define agents in terms of the
> internal mechanism that makes agency possible, what precisely is the state
> of affairs, behavior, what-have-you, that such agents are called upon to
> explain.!
>
> For me agency is design in behavior, and an agent is an individual whose
> behavior is designed.  All of this has to be worked out before your
> explanatory question becomes relevant, What is the neural mechanism by
> which such designs come about?
>
> nick
>
>
>
> On Sun, Jul 16, 2023 at 3:18 PM Russ Abbott  wrote:
>
>> Nick,
>>
>> I just asked Eric for examples. Your examples confuse me because I don't
>> see how you relate them to agenthood. Are you really suggesting that you
>> think of waves and puddles as agents? My suggestion was that you need some
>> sort of internal decision-making mechanism to qualify as an agent.
>>
>> I don't know anything about the carotid sinus.
>>
>> Your thermostat example strikes me as similar to my flashlight example. I
>> might put as: a thermostat senses the temperature and twiddles the controls
>> of the heating/AC units in response.
>>
>> I'm not sure where you are going by labeling my discussion explanatory. I
>> wasn't thinking that I was explaining anything, other, perhaps, than my
>> intuition of what makes an agent.
>>
>> -- Russ
>>
>>
>> On Fri, Jul 14, 2023 at 8:06 PM Nicholas Thompson <
>> thompnicks...@gmail.com> wrote:
>>
>>> Some examples I like to think about:
>>>
>>> Waves arrange pebbles on a beach from small to large
>>>
>>> A puddle maintains its temperature at 32 degrees as long as it has ice
>>> in it.
>>>
>>> The carotid sinus maintains the acidity of the blood by causing us to
>>> breath more oxygen when it gets to acid.  (I hope I have that right.
>>>
>>> An old-fashioned thermostat maintains the temperature of a house by
>>> maintaining the level of a vial of mercury attached to a bi-metallic coil.
>>>
>>> Russ, the objection would have with your definition is that it is
>>> explanatory.   An explanatory  definition identifies a phenomenon with its
>>> causes, bypassing  the phenomenon that raises the need for an explanation
>>> in the first place?   What is the relation between agents and their
>>> surroundings that makes them seem agentish?  Having answered that question,
>>> your explanation now comes into play.
>>>
>>> The thing about the above examples that makes them all seem agenty is
>>> that they keep bringing the system back to the same place.  The thing about
>>> them that makes them seem less agenty is that they have only one means to
>>> do so. Give that thermostat a solar panel, and a heat pump, and an oil
>>> furnace and have it switch from one to th

Re: [FRIAM] What is an agent [was: Philosophy and Science}

[Nicholas Thompson]

Hi, Russ,

I have a non-scientist friend to whom I sometimes show my posts here for
guidance.  I showed him some recent posts and he wrote back, "Wow, Nick!
You are really swinging for the fences, here!"  He and I know that one who
swings for the fences, rarely hits the ball, let alone the fences.

So please can we precede in little tiny steps.

You raise the question, _ *what makes an agent?*.

This expression is ambiguous in just the way I was trying to highlight in
my response:

It could mean, *(1) What are the conditions that bring an agent into being?
*

Or it could mean, *(2) What are the conditions that require us to identify
something an agent?.*

The first (I think) is the explanatory question; the second, the
descriptive question.   Wittgenstein was said to have said that something
cannot be its own explanation, and I believed him.  Whatever else might be
said about the relation between explanations and descriptions is that
descriptions are states of affairs taken for granted by explanations.  If
you ask me why the chicken crossed the road, my answering your quest
commits me to the premise that the chicken did indeed cross the road.

A definition is *explanatory *when it  describes a process which explains
something else and which, itself, is in need of explanation.

So:  Can I come back to you with a question?   Which of the two meanings
did you intend.  And if you were looking  to define agents in terms of the
internal mechanism that makes agency possible, what precisely is the state
of affairs, behavior, what-have-you, that such agents are called upon to
explain.!

For me agency is design in behavior, and an agent is an individual whose
behavior is designed.  All of this has to be worked out before your
explanatory question becomes relevant, What is the neural mechanism by
which such designs come about?

nick



On Sun, Jul 16, 2023 at 3:18 PM Russ Abbott  wrote:

> Nick,
>
> I just asked Eric for examples. Your examples confuse me because I don't
> see how you relate them to agenthood. Are you really suggesting that you
> think of waves and puddles as agents? My suggestion was that you need some
> sort of internal decision-making mechanism to qualify as an agent.
>
> I don't know anything about the carotid sinus.
>
> Your thermostat example strikes me as similar to my flashlight example. I
> might put as: a thermostat senses the temperature and twiddles the controls
> of the heating/AC units in response.
>
> I'm not sure where you are going by labeling my discussion explanatory. I
> wasn't thinking that I was explaining anything, other, perhaps, than my
> intuition of what makes an agent.
>
> -- Russ
>
>
> On Fri, Jul 14, 2023 at 8:06 PM Nicholas Thompson 
> wrote:
>
>> Some examples I like to think about:
>>
>> Waves arrange pebbles on a beach from small to large
>>
>> A puddle maintains its temperature at 32 degrees as long as it has ice in
>> it.
>>
>> The carotid sinus maintains the acidity of the blood by causing us to
>> breath more oxygen when it gets to acid.  (I hope I have that right.
>>
>> An old-fashioned thermostat maintains the temperature of a house by
>> maintaining the level of a vial of mercury attached to a bi-metallic coil.
>>
>> Russ, the objection would have with your definition is that it is
>> explanatory.   An explanatory  definition identifies a phenomenon with its
>> causes, bypassing  the phenomenon that raises the need for an explanation
>> in the first place?   What is the relation between agents and their
>> surroundings that makes them seem agentish?  Having answered that question,
>> your explanation now comes into play.
>>
>> The thing about the above examples that makes them all seem agenty is
>> that they keep bringing the system back to the same place.  The thing about
>> them that makes them seem less agenty is that they have only one means to
>> do so. Give that thermostat a solar panel, and a heat pump, and an oil
>> furnace and have it switch from one to the other as circumstances vary, now
>> the thermostat becomes much more agenty.
>>
>> Does that make any sense?  I think the nastiest problems here are (1)
>> keeping the levels of organization straight and (2) teasing out the
>> individual that is the agent.
>>
>> Nick
>>
>> On Fri, Jul 14, 2023 at 7:29 PM Russ Abbott 
>> wrote:
>>
>>> I'm not sure what "closure to efficient cause" means. I considered using
>>> as an example an outdoor light that charges itself (and stays off) during
>>> the day and goes on at night. In what important way is that different from
>>> a flashlight? They both have energy storage systems (batteries). Does it
>>> really matt

Re: [FRIAM] What is an agent [was: Philosophy and Science}

[Nicholas Thompson]

Some examples I like to think about:

Waves arrange pebbles on a beach from small to large

A puddle maintains its temperature at 32 degrees as long as it has ice in
it.

The carotid sinus maintains the acidity of the blood by causing us to
breath more oxygen when it gets to acid.  (I hope I have that right.

An old-fashioned thermostat maintains the temperature of a house by
maintaining the level of a vial of mercury attached to a bi-metallic coil.

Russ, the objection would have with your definition is that it is
explanatory.   An explanatory  definition identifies a phenomenon with its
causes, bypassing  the phenomenon that raises the need for an explanation
in the first place?   What is the relation between agents and their
surroundings that makes them seem agentish?  Having answered that question,
your explanation now comes into play.

The thing about the above examples that makes them all seem agenty is that
they keep bringing the system back to the same place.  The thing about them
that makes them seem less agenty is that they have only one means to do so.
Give that thermostat a solar panel, and a heat pump, and an oil furnace and
have it switch from one to the other as circumstances vary, now the
thermostat becomes much more agenty.

Does that make any sense?  I think the nastiest problems here are (1)
keeping the levels of organization straight and (2) teasing out the
individual that is the agent.

Nick

On Fri, Jul 14, 2023 at 7:29 PM Russ Abbott  wrote:

> I'm not sure what "closure to efficient cause" means. I considered using
> as an example an outdoor light that charges itself (and stays off) during
> the day and goes on at night. In what important way is that different from
> a flashlight? They both have energy storage systems (batteries). Does it
> really matter that the garden light "recharges itself" rather than relying
> on a more direct outside force to change its batteries? And they both have
> on-off switches. The flashlight's is more conventional whereas the garden
> light's is a light sensor. Does that really matter? They are both tripped
> by outside forces.
>
> BTW, congratulations on your phrase *epistemological trespassing*!
>
> -- Russ
>
> On Fri, Jul 14, 2023 at 1:47 PM glen  wrote:
>
>> I'm still attracted to Rosen's closure to efficient cause. Your
>> flashlight example is classified as non-agent (or non-living ... tomayto
>> tomahto) because the efficient cause is open. Now, attach sensor and
>> effector to the flashlight so that it can flick it*self* on when it gets
>> dark and off when it gets bright, then that (partially) closes it. Maybe we
>> merely kicked the can down the road a bit. But then we can talk about
>> decoupling and hierarchies of scale. From the armchair, there is no such
>> thing as a (pure) agent just like there is no such thing as free will. But
>> for practical purposes, you can draw the boundary somewhere and call it a
>> day.
>>
>> On 7/14/23 12:01, Russ Abbott wrote:
>> > I was recently wondering about the informal distinction we make between
>> things that are agents and things that aren't.
>> >
>> > For example, I would consider most living things to be agents. I would
>> also consider many computer programs when in operation as agents. The most
>> obvious examples (for me) are programs that play games like chess.
>> >
>> > I would not consider a rock an agent -- mainly because it doesn't do
>> anything, especially on its own. But a boulder crashnng down a hill and
>> destroying something at the bottom is reasonably called "an agent of
>> destruction." Perhaps this is just playing with words: "agent" can have
>> multiple meanings.  A writer's agent represents the writer in
>> negotiations with publishers. Perhaps that's just another meaning.
>> >
>> > My tentative definition is that an agent must have access to energy,
>> and it must use that energy to interact with the world. It must also have
>> some internal logic that determines how it interacts with the world. This
>> final condition rules out boulders rolling down a hill.
>> >
>> > But I doubt that I would call a flashlight (with an on-off switch) an
>> agent even though it satisfies my definition.  Does this suggest that an
>> agent must manifest a certain minimal level of complexity in its
>> interactions? If so, I don't have a suggestion about what that minimal
>> level of complexity might be.
>> >
>> > I'm writing all this because in my search for a characterization of
>> agents I looked at the article on Agency <
>> https://plato.stanford.edu/archives/win2019/entries/agency/> in the
>> /Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy./ I found that article almost a parody
>> of the "armchair philosopher." Here are the first few sentences from the
>> article overview.
>> >
>> > In very general terms, an agent is a being with the capacity to
>> act, and ‘agency’ denotes the exercise or manifestation of this capacity.
>> The philosophy of action provides us with a standard conception and a
>> 

Re: [FRIAM] Philosophy and Science

[Nicholas Thompson]

That is indeed a nifty quote, frank.  Thanks for posting it.

I spaced out and came late to Thuram.  Stephen and had a really
enlightening (for me)  conversation..

Well into my second reading of MCarthy's Stella Maris.

N

On Fri, Jul 14, 2023 at 11:33 AM Frank Wimberly  wrote:

> Joe Ramsey, who took over my job.in the Philosophy Department at Carnegie
> Mellon, posted the following on Facebook:
>
> I like Neil DeGrasse Tyson a lot, but I saw him give a spirited defense of
> science in which he oddly gave no credit to philosophers at all. His straw
> man philosopher is a dedicated *armchair* philosopher who spins theories
> without paying attention to scientific practice and contributes nothing to
> scientific understanding. He misses that scientists themselves are
> constantly raising obviously philosophical questions and are often
> ill-equipped to think about them clearly. What is the correct
> interpretation of quantum mechanics? What is the right way to think about
> reductionism? Is reductionism the right way to think about science? What is
> the nature of consciousness? Can you explain consciousness in terms of
> neuroscience? Are biological kinds real? What does it even mean to be real?
> Or is realism a red herring; should we be pragmatists instead? Scientists
> raise all kinds of philosophical questions and have ill-informed opinions
> about them. But *philosophers* try to answer them, and scientists do pay
> attention to the controversies. At least the smart ones do.
>
> ---
> Frank C. Wimberly
> 140 Calle Ojo Feliz,
> Santa Fe, NM 87505
>
> 505 670-9918
> Santa Fe, NM
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[FRIAM] McCarthy v Peirce

[Nicholas Thompson]

Dear Colleagues,

Jon Z and Frank have me reading Cormac McCarthy.  I have started with his
last book, Stella Maris  (?Star of the Sea?).  It is the dialogue that each
of us has always wished we had with our psychiatrist . It is witty, often
funny, makes lots of references to Los Alamos, is always engaging, and
sometimes deep.  I am enjoying it and may have to read it a second time.

In the following lines, the patient character expresses an opinion on the
central issue of Pragmat[ic]ism.

 *Patient:] …The world you live in is shored some up by a collection of
agreements.  Is that something you think about?  The hope is that the truth
of the world somehow lies in the common experience of it.  Of course the
history of science and mathematics and even philosophy is a good bit at
odds with this notion.  Innovation and discovery by definition war against
the common understanding.  One should be wary.  What do you think? [pp
91-2]*

I am not going to comment.  I just thought you might like to have the quote
to mull over.

Nick
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Re: [FRIAM] [EXT] Cumulus Nevis

[Nicholas Thompson]

Diane will explain!


Sent from my Dumb Phone

On Jul 3, 2023, at 1:01 PM, Nicholas Thompson  wrote:

Good idea. Aren’t they the same?

Sent from my Dumb Phone

On Jul 3, 2023, at 12:29 PM, John Kennison  wrote:


Hi Nick,

We have been entertaining visitors for the week-end. I did notice that you seem 
to be back on the farm. Do you want to meet for chess or philosophy or both?

--John.  
From: Friam  on behalf of Nicholas Thompson 

Sent: Saturday, July 1, 2023 3:40 PM
To: Frank Wimberly ; friam@redfish.com 
Subject: [EXT] [FRIAM] Cumulus Nevis
 
Frank, you can add this to your categories of cloud, cumulo-nimbus, cumulus 
congestus, cumulus castellatus, cumulo-arboris, and now cumulo-nevis


 Actually, if I have my Latin right, it could be known as nix cumulus.



Nick.


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Re: [FRIAM] [EXT] Cumulus Nevis

[Nicholas Thompson]

Good idea. Aren’t they the same?

Sent from my Dumb Phone

On Jul 3, 2023, at 12:29 PM, John Kennison  wrote:


Hi Nick,

We have been entertaining visitors for the week-end. I did notice that you seem 
to be back on the farm. Do you want to meet for chess or philosophy or both?

--John.  
From: Friam  on behalf of Nicholas Thompson 

Sent: Saturday, July 1, 2023 3:40 PM
To: Frank Wimberly ; friam@redfish.com 
Subject: [EXT] [FRIAM] Cumulus Nevis
 
Frank, you can add this to your categories of cloud, cumulo-nimbus, cumulus 
congestus, cumulus castellatus, cumulo-arboris, and now cumulo-nevis


 Actually, if I have my Latin right, it could be known as nix cumulus.



Nick.


Sent from my Dumb Phone
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Re: [FRIAM] Watch "The Most Important Idea in Physics: The Principle of Least Action - Ask a Spaceman!" on YouTube

[Nicholas Thompson]

BEGIN HARRUMPH!

Just so's you know, I did write:

*" And for some reason, the path taken by the object through space will
integrate this difference across the distance between any two points "*

But never doubt the capacity of some group of experts, when challenged to
make sense of themselves, to congeal around some picky point of language.
And yes, this is me, saying that.(};-)]

And why do we keep calling it by it/s cult name, rather than calling it
what it is?  The difference between the energy of a moving object conveyed
by its velocity and that conveyed by its position in a field. If you want
jargon,  why not just call it Ev-Ep.

And yet, nobody tackles the basic question.  Why on earth would E in the
v-Ep be something that every moving object in the universe tries to
accomplish.

END HARRUMPH!








On Mon, Jul 3, 2023 at 2:17 AM Stephen Guerin 
wrote:

> The Action is the integral of the Lagrangian along the whole path, not
> just a single instant.
>
> On Sun, Jul 2, 2023, 9:12 PM Nicholas Thompson 
> wrote:
>
>> So the difference is at a positive max when the ball hits the ground and
>> at a negative maximum when the ball reaches its highest altitude?  So how
>> am I to understand positive and negative?vectors?
>>
>> Instantaneious Action is at a minimum when the two terms are equal?
>>
>> I have no intuitive sense of what is going on here.
>>
>> But thanks for trying, Frank.
>>
>> N
>>
>>
>>
>> N
>>
>> On Sun, Jul 2, 2023 at 12:27 PM Nicholas Thompson <
>> thompnicks...@gmail.com> wrote:
>>
>>> Frank,
>>>
>>> Thanks SO  MUCH for forwarding this to me.  To any other defrocked
>>> english majors on Friam, who have listened to these guys blather on about
>>> LaGrangians for all these years,  I highly, HIGHLY recommend the video.
>>> Pretty short, AND, you might possibly, conceivably understand Steve Guerin
>>> when you  get to the end.   Yeah.  Really.
>>>
>>> Nick
>>>
>>> ------ Forwarded message -
>>> From: Frank Wimberly 
>>> Date: Thu, Jun 29, 2023 at 2:53 PM
>>> Subject: Fwd: Watch "The Most Important Idea in Physics: The Principle
>>> of Least Action - Ask a Spaceman!" on YouTube
>>> To: Nicholas Thompson 
>>>
>>>
>>>
>>>
>>> ---
>>> Frank C. Wimberly
>>> 140 Calle Ojo Feliz,
>>> Santa Fe, NM 87505
>>>
>>> 505 670-9918
>>> Santa Fe, NM
>>>
>>> -- Forwarded message -
>>> From: Frank Wimberly 
>>> Date: Thu, Jun 29, 2023, 12:51 PM
>>> Subject: Watch "The Most Important Idea in Physics: The Principle of
>>> Least Action - Ask a Spaceman!" on YouTube
>>> To: Thompson, Nicholas , Barry MacKichan <
>>> barry.mackic...@mackichan.com>
>>>
>>>
>>> https://youtu.be/UuqpCBZoX3M
>>>
>>> ---
>>> Frank C. Wimberly
>>> 140 Calle Ojo Feliz,
>>> Santa Fe, NM 87505
>>>
>>> 505 670-9918
>>> Santa Fe, NM
>>>
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Re: [FRIAM] Watch "The Most Important Idea in Physics: The Principle of Least Action - Ask a Spaceman!" on YouTube

[Nicholas Thompson]

Diddle I say so?

On Mon, Jul 3, 2023 at 2:17 AM Stephen Guerin 
wrote:

> The Action is the integral of the Lagrangian along the whole path, not
> just a single instant.
>
> On Sun, Jul 2, 2023, 9:12 PM Nicholas Thompson 
> wrote:
>
>> So the difference is at a positive max when the ball hits the ground and
>> at a negative maximum when the ball reaches its highest altitude?  So how
>> am I to understand positive and negative?vectors?
>>
>> Instantaneious Action is at a minimum when the two terms are equal?
>>
>> I have no intuitive sense of what is going on here.
>>
>> But thanks for trying, Frank.
>>
>> N
>>
>>
>>
>> N
>>
>> On Sun, Jul 2, 2023 at 12:27 PM Nicholas Thompson <
>> thompnicks...@gmail.com> wrote:
>>
>>> Frank,
>>>
>>> Thanks SO  MUCH for forwarding this to me.  To any other defrocked
>>> english majors on Friam, who have listened to these guys blather on about
>>> LaGrangians for all these years,  I highly, HIGHLY recommend the video.
>>> Pretty short, AND, you might possibly, conceivably understand Steve Guerin
>>> when you  get to the end.   Yeah.  Really.
>>>
>>> Nick
>>>
>>> -- Forwarded message -
>>> From: Frank Wimberly 
>>> Date: Thu, Jun 29, 2023 at 2:53 PM
>>> Subject: Fwd: Watch "The Most Important Idea in Physics: The Principle
>>> of Least Action - Ask a Spaceman!" on YouTube
>>> To: Nicholas Thompson 
>>>
>>>
>>>
>>>
>>> ---
>>> Frank C. Wimberly
>>> 140 Calle Ojo Feliz,
>>> Santa Fe, NM 87505
>>>
>>> 505 670-9918
>>> Santa Fe, NM
>>>
>>> -- Forwarded message -
>>> From: Frank Wimberly 
>>> Date: Thu, Jun 29, 2023, 12:51 PM
>>> Subject: Watch "The Most Important Idea in Physics: The Principle of
>>> Least Action - Ask a Spaceman!" on YouTube
>>> To: Thompson, Nicholas , Barry MacKichan <
>>> barry.mackic...@mackichan.com>
>>>
>>>
>>> https://youtu.be/UuqpCBZoX3M
>>>
>>> ---
>>> Frank C. Wimberly
>>> 140 Calle Ojo Feliz,
>>> Santa Fe, NM 87505
>>>
>>> 505 670-9918
>>> Santa Fe, NM
>>>
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Re: [FRIAM] Watch "The Most Important Idea in Physics: The Principle of Least Action - Ask a Spaceman!" on YouTube

[Nicholas Thompson]

Thank you Peter for that helpful answer.

You seem to endorse what I am calling "Roberts's Maxim": "*He who would try
to understand fluid dynamics will never understand fluid dynamics*."
Still, I would like to know what your intuitive answer is, even though it
will probably be beyond me.

My fascination with this stuff dates from my childhood and arises from the
hurricanes, blizzards, and tornado that afflicted Massachusetts in late
40's and early 50's..  Thus, I have been a meteorologist for far longer
than I have been a psychologist.  I think there is an odd similarity
between  two domains:  each has an old theory with an old language that
everbody falls back on, but basically both fields consist of empirical odds
and ends, rules of thumb, and dramatic tales barely held together by the
fact that whatever else can be said about them, the public has a strong
interest and opinions . I have been working on a short essay for 20 years
whose working title is, "Shall we name a storm?"

A subfascination within this general area concerns the manner in which
physicists use psychological language  which they instantaneously disclaim
as "metaphorical".  Now to me, a  rapt Darwinian, metaphors are everywhere
in science.  Models,  we call them. Thus, this disclaimer seems profoundly
dishonest.  I owe my interest in least action to my long-time mentor,
Stephen Guerin.  He has learned to be very careful around me, but I can
tell that in his own private modeling -- the kind I urge you to tell me
about above -- he believes that the lightening bolt internally models all
the possible routes to ground and then *chooses the least action path.  *One
of my favorite Friam members, Hywel White, a particle physicist, used to
attribute motives to particles, and every time he did it, I would
congratulate him on his insight that psychology is the mother science.  As
a behaviorist, I'm perfectly willing to entertain panpsychism, but only if
you are willing to own it, work out its implications, and test it.   One
cannot use psychological terms as a bench language, and then disclaim that
their functioning as models in yo one's thinking.  That's an intellectual
foul.

Thank you again for your honest and inspiring response.  Now, it has
stopped raining and I must return to to the garden.

Nick

On Mon, Jul 3, 2023 at 2:50 AM Pieter Steenekamp 
wrote:

> Hi Nick,
>
> Exercise caution when attempting to grasp the principle of least action,
> particularly if you desire an intuitive comprehension of it.
>
> It is essential to recognize the significance of the principle of least
> action, as it applies to various areas of physics and could potentially
> hold a closer answer to the "why" question than Newtonian physics regarding
> the laws of motion.
>
> However, based on our current knowledge, the best explanation for why the
> principle of least action holds true is that it aligns with the
> observations and experiments conducted in the real world. Although a
> breakthrough might be on the horizon, a consensus has not yet been reached
> regarding the "why" question.
>
> Therefore, at present, the following points can be made:
> a) When applied to the laws of motion, the principle of least action and
> Newton's laws of motion are equivalent.
> b) The reason for their acceptance lies in their agreement with empirical
> evidence and experimental results.
> c) The principle of least action carries more depth as it applies across
> several other fields of physics, such as electromagnetism and quantum
> physics.
> d) The fundamental formulation of the principle of least action is also
> simpler than that of Newtonian physics.
>
> However, if you are aiming to develop an intuitive understanding of the
> motion of objects in the real world, it is advisable to adhere to Newtonian
> physics. The principle of least action lacks inherent intuitiveness. Let me
> rephrase that: I have personally constructed an intuitive understanding
> that I find useful, but I cannot present it as the definitive answer.
> Perhaps someone else has a compelling intuitive explanation? I am open to
> hearing different perspectives.
>
> Moreover, for practical mechanical engineering calculations involving
> forces and motion in the real world, Newtonian physics surpasses the
> principle of least action.
>
>
> On Mon, 3 Jul 2023 at 05:12, Nicholas Thompson 
> wrote:
>
>> So the difference is at a positive max when the ball hits the ground and
>> at a negative maximum when the ball reaches its highest altitude?  So how
>> am I to understand positive and negative?vectors?
>>
>> Instantaneious Action is at a minimum when the two terms are equal?
>>
>> I have no intuitive sense of what is going on here.
>>
>> But thanks for trying, Frank

Re: [FRIAM] Watch "The Most Important Idea in Physics: The Principle of Least Action - Ask a Spaceman!" on YouTube

[Nicholas Thompson]

So the difference is at a positive max when the ball hits the ground and at
a negative maximum when the ball reaches its highest altitude?  So how am I
to understand positive and negative?vectors?

Instantaneious Action is at a minimum when the two terms are equal?

I have no intuitive sense of what is going on here.

But thanks for trying, Frank.

N



N

On Sun, Jul 2, 2023 at 12:27 PM Nicholas Thompson 
wrote:

> Frank,
>
> Thanks SO  MUCH for forwarding this to me.  To any other defrocked english
> majors on Friam, who have listened to these guys blather on about
> LaGrangians for all these years,  I highly, HIGHLY recommend the video.
> Pretty short, AND, you might possibly, conceivably understand Steve Guerin
> when you  get to the end.   Yeah.  Really.
>
> Nick
>
> -- Forwarded message -
> From: Frank Wimberly 
> Date: Thu, Jun 29, 2023 at 2:53 PM
> Subject: Fwd: Watch "The Most Important Idea in Physics: The Principle of
> Least Action - Ask a Spaceman!" on YouTube
> To: Nicholas Thompson 
>
>
>
>
> ---
> Frank C. Wimberly
> 140 Calle Ojo Feliz,
> Santa Fe, NM 87505
>
> 505 670-9918
> Santa Fe, NM
>
> -- Forwarded message -
> From: Frank Wimberly 
> Date: Thu, Jun 29, 2023, 12:51 PM
> Subject: Watch "The Most Important Idea in Physics: The Principle of Least
> Action - Ask a Spaceman!" on YouTube
> To: Thompson, Nicholas , Barry MacKichan <
> barry.mackic...@mackichan.com>
>
>
> https://youtu.be/UuqpCBZoX3M
>
> ---
> Frank C. Wimberly
> 140 Calle Ojo Feliz,
> Santa Fe, NM 87505
>
> 505 670-9918
> Santa Fe, NM
>
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Re: [FRIAM] Watch "The Most Important Idea in Physics: The Principle of Least Action - Ask a Spaceman!" on YouTube

[Nicholas Thompson]

Hi Frank and all,

Ok, so the Action of an object is the diffrence between its kinetic and its
potential energy. (Have I got the grammar right?)  Since mass appears in
both terms, the Action is the mass of the object times the difference
between half it's squared velocity and it's height off the surface.  So, a
mass can have two kinds of energy, that imputed to it because of its
motion, and that imputed to it because of its position [with respect to
other objects, specifically the earth, in this case]. And for some reason,
the path taken by the object through space will integrate this difference
accross the distance between any two points.  Ok,  do I have that right?
Or is this just another example of the dangers of  teaching defrocked
english majors a teensy bit of physics?

Now, we are still in the realm of classical physics.  So, there is still a
chance that non-mathematical intuitions might apply, right?  Does anyone on
the list have an intuition for why the difference between the energy of
motion and the energy of position should be what guides all motion in the
universe?

Nick





On Sun, Jul 2, 2023 at 12:27 PM Nicholas Thompson 
wrote:

> Frank,
>
> Thanks SO  MUCH for forwarding this to me.  To any other defrocked english
> majors on Friam, who have listened to these guys blather on about
> LaGrangians for all these years,  I highly, HIGHLY recommend the video.
> Pretty short, AND, you might possibly, conceivably understand Steve Guerin
> when you  get to the end.   Yeah.  Really.
>
> Nick
>
> -- Forwarded message -
> From: Frank Wimberly 
> Date: Thu, Jun 29, 2023 at 2:53 PM
> Subject: Fwd: Watch "The Most Important Idea in Physics: The Principle of
> Least Action - Ask a Spaceman!" on YouTube
> To: Nicholas Thompson 
>
>
>
>
> ---
> Frank C. Wimberly
> 140 Calle Ojo Feliz,
> Santa Fe, NM 87505
>
> 505 670-9918
> Santa Fe, NM
>
> -- Forwarded message -
> From: Frank Wimberly 
> Date: Thu, Jun 29, 2023, 12:51 PM
> Subject: Watch "The Most Important Idea in Physics: The Principle of Least
> Action - Ask a Spaceman!" on YouTube
> To: Thompson, Nicholas , Barry MacKichan <
> barry.mackic...@mackichan.com>
>
>
> https://youtu.be/UuqpCBZoX3M
>
> ---
> Frank C. Wimberly
> 140 Calle Ojo Feliz,
> Santa Fe, NM 87505
>
> 505 670-9918
> Santa Fe, NM
>
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[FRIAM] Fwd: Watch "The Most Important Idea in Physics: The Principle of Least Action - Ask a Spaceman!" on YouTube

[Nicholas Thompson]

Frank,

Thanks SO  MUCH for forwarding this to me.  To any other defrocked english
majors on Friam, who have listened to these guys blather on about
LaGrangians for all these years,  I highly, HIGHLY recommend the video.
Pretty short, AND, you might possibly, conceivably understand Steve Guerin
when you  get to the end.   Yeah.  Really.

Nick

-- Forwarded message -
From: Frank Wimberly 
Date: Thu, Jun 29, 2023 at 2:53 PM
Subject: Fwd: Watch "The Most Important Idea in Physics: The Principle of
Least Action - Ask a Spaceman!" on YouTube
To: Nicholas Thompson 




---
Frank C. Wimberly
140 Calle Ojo Feliz,
Santa Fe, NM 87505

505 670-9918
Santa Fe, NM

-- Forwarded message -
From: Frank Wimberly 
Date: Thu, Jun 29, 2023, 12:51 PM
Subject: Watch "The Most Important Idea in Physics: The Principle of Least
Action - Ask a Spaceman!" on YouTube
To: Thompson, Nicholas , Barry MacKichan <
barry.mackic...@mackichan.com>


https://youtu.be/UuqpCBZoX3M

---
Frank C. Wimberly
140 Calle Ojo Feliz,
Santa Fe, NM 87505

505 670-9918
Santa Fe, NM
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Re: [FRIAM] Cumulus Nevis

[Nicholas Thompson]

yup.

On Sun, Jul 2, 2023 at 10:42 AM Barry MacKichan <
barry.mackic...@mackichan.com> wrote:

> But that was your point, wasn’t it?
>
> On 2 Jul 2023, at 10:40, Barry MacKichan wrote:
>
> Looks like snow to me. Like by our driveway when I was young.
> —Barry
>
> On 1 Jul 2023, at 15:40, Nicholas Thompson wrote:
>
> Frank, you can add this to your categories of cloud, cumulo-nimbus,
> cumulus congestus, cumulus castellatus, cumulo-arboris, and now cumulo-nevis
>
> [image: IMG_1175.jpg] Actually, if I have my Latin right, it could be
> known as nix cumulus.
>
>
>
> Nick.
>
>
> Sent from my Dumb Phone
>
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[FRIAM] Cumulus Nevis

[Nicholas Thompson]

Frank, you can add this to your categories of cloud, cumulo-nimbus, cumulus 
congestus, cumulus castellatus, cumulo-arboris, and now cumulo-nevis

 Actually, if I have my Latin right, it could be known as nix cumulus.



Nick.


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Re: [FRIAM] Virtual Friam

[Nicholas Thompson]

Thanks Frank.  I will look in at some point.  N

On Tue, Jun 20, 2023 at 11:58 PM Frank Wimberly  wrote:

> Because of a conflict I won't be able to start Thursday's meeting until
> about 10:00 MDT (Santa Fe time).  It's possible that Stephen might start it
> earlier but it will definitely start by 10.
>
> Frank
>
> ---
> Frank C. Wimberly
> 140 Calle Ojo Feliz,
> Santa Fe, NM 87505
>
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> Santa Fe, NM
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Re: [FRIAM] Trees as wind farms.

[Nicholas Thompson]

It has been said that trees are imperfect men, and seem to bemoan their
> imprisonment rooted in the ground. But they never seem so to me. I never
> saw a discontented tree. They grip the ground as though they liked it, and
> though fast rooted they travel about as far as we do. They go wandering
> forth in all directions with every wind, going and coming like ourselves,
> traveling with us around the sun two million miles a day, and through space
> heaven knows how fast and far!
> >>
> >> —Barry
> >>
> >> On 27 Jun 2023, at 11:38, Nicholas Thompson wrote:
> >>
> >>Sitting here at the farm, watching the Normandy poplars bend in the
> Southeast wind, I am led to wonder why trees don’t make use of wind energy.
> There must be a tangible amount of heat generated by the bending of
> branches. Is there no way to use that heat for, for instance, convection of
> fluids within the tree?
> >>
> >>Or do they? And I am just too ill educated to know it.
> >>Nick
> >
> >
> > --
> > ꙮ Mɥǝu ǝlǝdɥɐuʇs ɟᴉƃɥʇ' ʇɥǝ ƃɹɐss snɟɟǝɹs˙ ꙮ
> >
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[FRIAM] Trees as wind farms.

[Nicholas Thompson]

Sitting here at the farm, watching the Normandy poplars bend in the Southeast 
wind, I am led to wonder why trees don’t make use of wind energy. There must be 
a tangible amount of heat generated by the bending of branches. Is there no way 
to use that heat for, for instance, convection of fluids within the tree? 

Or do they? And I am just too ill educated to know it.
Nick
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[FRIAM] New Mexico SNOTEL Santa Fe (922) (05P09S ) (PST) Daily series for wateryear=2023

[Nicholas Thompson]

https://wcc.sc.egov.usda.gov/nwcc/view?intervalType=+View+Current+=WYGRAPH=Daily=plot=922=WATERYEARSent from Mail for Windows The Joon Nonsoon continues.  N

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Re: [FRIAM] crackpots and privilege

[Nicholas Thompson]

Frank,

So is sex, if you think about it.  Yet, .

On Fri, May 26, 2023 at 3:20 PM Frank Wimberly  wrote:

> My grandsons' girlfriends (twenty-somethings) say that they think babies
> are disgusting.  I hope they change their minds.  In any case, what does a
> shortage of babies have to do with AI?
>
> ---
> Frank C. Wimberly
> 140 Calle Ojo Feliz,
> Santa Fe, NM 87505
>
> 505 670-9918
> Santa Fe, NM
>
> On Thu, May 25, 2023, 12:48 PM Roger Critchlow  wrote:
>
>> Google news decided to surface an article from Fortune today.  It's
>> headlined "Society's refusal to have enough babies is what will save it
>> from the existential threat of A. I., Eric Schmidt says".  The headline is
>> accompanied by a very serious head shot of Eric.  Nice try, Google, but
>> you're not sucking me down that rabbit hole.
>>
>> Meanwhile, someone apparently read my mind about the rationality of
>> disaster prepping and wrote an epic novel about it 40 years ago in
>> Catalan.  The Garden of the Seven Twilights by Miquel de Palol is available
>> in English translation and as an ebook on overdrive.com at your local
>> library.  The narrator crosses refugee swamped Barcelona to check on his
>> mom and gets sent off by her to a McMansion'ed medieval monastery high in
>> the Pyrenees where the elite are amusing themselves with stories while
>> awaiting the resolution of the first war of entertainment.  Lots of stories
>> about themselves and their friends and acquaintances.
>>
>> -- rec --
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[FRIAM] “Cannot connect to DNS server.

[Nicholas Thompson]

Any thoughts? My wife’s Mac and my cell phone are both able to connect to the 
Internet. My computer is able to put in the modem. I have run the Microsoft 
troubleshoot protocol three times without success. Trouble chooser suggest it 
might be a firewall problem. I I have McAfee.
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Re: [FRIAM] Call blockers

[Nicholas Thompson]

Frank

Landline? Or have you given up on that old stuff.

n

On Tue, Apr 18, 2023 at 1:24 PM Frank Wimberly  wrote:

> My Google phone warns me of suspected spam calls.  When it does so I have
> the choice of "Screening" the call, blocking it, or answering it.  If I
> select "Screen" the caller hears
>
> "Hi.  The person you are calling is using a Google screening service.
> Please say your name and the reason you are calling.  The person will get a
> recording and transcript of what you say."
>
> Or words to that effect.  Almost nobody leaves a message.
>
> ---
> Frank C. Wimberly
> 140 Calle Ojo Feliz,
> Santa Fe, NM 87505
>
> 505 670-9918
> Santa Fe, NM
>
> On Tue, Apr 18, 2023, 12:47 PM Nicholas Thompson 
> wrote:
>
>> Phellow Phriammers,
>>
>> After having my phone completely tied up by robocalls during some medical
>> troubles, I put out cold hard cash for the CPR Call Blocker recommended by
>> my carrier.  I have now blocked 70 numbers, and new ones come in daily,
>> although  the rate has substantially decreased.  I have to say, pressing
>> that big red block button is very satisfying.  It also has a mass-blocking
>> function for voip-rogue calls, name withheld calls, private caller
>> calls,and any area code you take a dislike to.
>>  Still I have questions.
>>
>> 1.  Has anybody else tried this device?
>> 2.  Do you fully understand the navigation functions
>> 3.  Is it working for you?
>> 4.   Do you have any wisdom to share?
>>
>> I  chatted up one of the callers.  I suggested that at a time of full
>> employment, perhaps a bright guy like him might get a better job.  He
>> replied that he was being paid quite well for his efforts!  Apparently the
>> number of any fool who answers their phone is worth $7.
>>
>> Nick
>>
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Re: [FRIAM] Call blockers

[Nicholas Thompson]

gill,  thanks for the warning.  Be assured that I don't any more.  Just
press the big red button.  NIck

On Tue, Apr 18, 2023 at 12:47 PM Nicholas Thompson 
wrote:

> Phellow Phriammers,
>
> After having my phone completely tied up by robocalls during some medical
> troubles, I put out cold hard cash for the CPR Call Blocker recommended by
> my carrier.  I have now blocked 70 numbers, and new ones come in daily,
> although  the rate has substantially decreased.  I have to say, pressing
> that big red block button is very satisfying.  It also has a mass-blocking
> function for voip-rogue calls, name withheld calls, private caller
> calls,and any area code you take a dislike to.
>  Still I have questions.
>
> 1.  Has anybody else tried this device?
> 2.  Do you fully understand the navigation functions
> 3.  Is it working for you?
> 4.   Do you have any wisdom to share?
>
> I  chatted up one of the callers.  I suggested that at a time of full
> employment, perhaps a bright guy like him might get a better job.  He
> replied that he was being paid quite well for his efforts!  Apparently the
> number of any fool who answers their phone is worth $7.
>
> Nick
>
>
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[FRIAM] Call blockers

[Nicholas Thompson]

Phellow Phriammers,

After having my phone completely tied up by robocalls during some medical
troubles, I put out cold hard cash for the CPR Call Blocker recommended by
my carrier.  I have now blocked 70 numbers, and new ones come in daily,
although  the rate has substantially decreased.  I have to say, pressing
that big red block button is very satisfying.  It also has a mass-blocking
function for voip-rogue calls, name withheld calls, private caller
calls,and any area code you take a dislike to.
 Still I have questions.

1.  Has anybody else tried this device?
2.  Do you fully understand the navigation functions
3.  Is it working for you?
4.   Do you have any wisdom to share?

I  chatted up one of the callers.  I suggested that at a time of full
employment, perhaps a bright guy like him might get a better job.  He
replied that he was being paid quite well for his efforts!  Apparently the
number of any fool who answers their phone is worth $7.

Nick
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Re: [FRIAM] a little help from my friends

[Nicholas Thompson]

Hey, Dave!  Congratulations!!!

On Thu, Mar 30, 2023 at 8:09 AM Prof David West 
wrote:

> I am keynoting the International Conference on Code Quality on April 22.
> It will be speculative and philosophical, but I would like to know "code
> quality" might mean, is taken for granted to mean, to professional coders.
> I know what it means for this conference, but would like a broader base
> from which to launch my flights of fancy.
>
> davew
>
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Re: [FRIAM] one for the Ψ skeptics

[Nicholas Thompson]

And what is "creativity"?  Did I miss that in the abstract.



On Fri, Mar 24, 2023 at 11:17 AM glen  wrote:

>
> Creativity Enhancement Methods for Adults: A Meta-Analysis
> https://repository.essex.ac.uk/34344/
>
> > Abstract
> >
> > This meta-analysis synthesizes 332 effect sizes of various methods to
> enhance creativity. We clustered all studies into twelve methods to
> identify the most effective creativity enhancement methods. We found that,
> on average, creativity can be enhanced, Hedges’ g = 0.53, 95%-CI [0.44,
> 0.61], with 70.09% of the participants in the enhancement conditions being
> more creative than the average person in the control conditions. Complex
> training courses, meditation and cultural exposure were most effective (gs
> = 0.66), while the use of cognitive manipulation drugs was least and also
> non-effective, g = 0.10. The type of training material was also important.
> For instance, figural methods were more effective in enhancing creativity,
> and enhancing converging thinking was more effective than enhancing
> divergent thinking. Study effect sizes varied considerably across all
> studies and for many subgroup analyses, suggesting that researchers can
> plausibly expect to find reversed effects occasionally. We found no
> evidence of publication bias. We discuss theoretical implications and
> suggest future directions for best practice in enhancing creativity.
>
> Of course, my guess is meditation and cultural exposure are latently
> related. Were it not for a little "social lubrication", I would *NOT*
> interact with many people . ever . at all. To boot, without a little
> caffeine, my headaches are debilitating. So whatever tiny bit of creativity
> I have is definitely a function of the drugs I take ... anecdotes FTW, I
> guess.
>
> --
> ꙮ Mɥǝu ǝlǝdɥɐuʇs ɟᴉƃɥʇ' ʇɥǝ ƃɹɐss snɟɟǝɹs˙ ꙮ
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[FRIAM] Sampling bias

[Nicholas Thompson]

Hi. Dave. A perennial problem. To the extent that the population of interest is 
the same as the population sampled, the problem is alleviated. 
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Re: [FRIAM] ChatGPT and William James

[Nicholas Thompson]

However, it's important to remember that there are also important differences between a large language model and human consciousness. While a large language model can generate text that may seem to flow like a stream of consciousness, it does not have the same kind of subjective experience that humans do, and its output is based solely on statistical patterns in the input it has been trained on. And we humans are different?   On Sat, Mar 4, 2023 at 11:51 AM Steve Smith  wrote:Also second EricS's appreciation for having someone else(s) maintain a coherent conversation for the myriad ideas that it allows me to explore without being central to the maintenance of the thread.   I realize this may be almost pure tangent to others, so I rarely expect anyone to take my bait unless it is to correct any egregious mis-attributions or think-utational fallacies.Starting with Glen's assertion/suggestion/assumption that there is not mind-stuff and body stuff, just body stuff:  I appeal to the general abstraction of Emergence and use Russell Standish's example in his "Theory of Nothing" that a water molecule is not wet... wetness is a property of aggregates of water molecules.   I would jump a dozen layers of emergent-bootstrapping from there to assert that "mind stuff", if it ever makes sense, is an emergent property of "body stuff".   But by analogy would not want to say that wetness (and other properties of bulk water molecules) is not strictly "molecular dynamics stuff".   And even if one did that, the recursion/reduction-ad-absurdum requires that one acknowledge/notice/invoke that the properties of any molecule is "emergent" from the elementary particles from which it might be composed.    I think we all believe in free-electrons, protons, neutrons but also recognize that *most* of our observed universe is shaped not by *those properties* (much less the properties of quarks and gluons or 10d loops of abstract things we call strings) but rather by the properties (once again, not of molecular dynamics or even chemical reactions) but biological functions,  and socio-economic-political functions as well. I *am* however, sensitive to the idea that where and how we draw the line between mind/body stuff can be important in any given argument, and that sometimes dropping that line altogether may be useful?The above riff on Mind-Stuff v Body-Stuff is really an intro into thoughts about how syntax and semantics might bootstrap sequentially.   It feels to me that the syntax of one level of abstraction yields an *emergent semantics* which in turn becomes the *syntax* of the next "level".    I do acknowledge that Glen has made some arguments (and references) that are against the very abstraction of "levels" and that may well be the hole in everything I'm unrolling here, but for the moment, I feel I have a clear picture of a POSET of syntax/semantics, if not a full Hierarchy...   This also backs me into the Platonic ideations with all the charms and criticisms already dancing as virtual (ideational) particles around that.    I will go back to reading A Theory of Nothing... and try to keep my offerings here under 10 pages each...On 3/4/23 4:32 AM, Santafe wrote:It’s helpful to have a conversation being maintained by somebod(ies) else, to which one can be a bystander without the distraction of coming up with contributions to it.  Things can suggest themselves that get pushed out of awareness when one is carrying the discourse and figuring out what to do next within it. In reading the below, about the time I got to the lines: The mind-body problem is the philosophical question of how the mind and body are related. One of the main issues is how mental processes such as thoughts, emotions, and consciousness are related to physical processes in the brain and body.I was prompted with a term to refer to these mental/physical things. First, my sense of all this is one of witnessing structures in conversation.  Maybe I am more primed to that because with ChatGPT as the topic, one fronts awareness of conversation as somewhat free-floating from its semantic ground.  As tokens in conversation, it is perfectly sensible to say that (thoughts, emotions, consciousness) are in a category Mental, while (weakness, hunger, itching) go into a category Physical.  Not only is it okay to say they fit tolerably into “categories” (or “classes”); the reason they do so is that they are connected by all sorts of linguistic usage relations.  The relations probably in no small part bring about the stability of the categorical sense of the terms. But what word do we then use to refer to such classes in speech?  I would use the word “registers”.  The Mental is a register of conversation about events, and the Physical is another register.   Jochen’s email below has ChatGPT saying James referred to these as “aspects” of various bodily or embodied events.  Sometimes I’m okay with a word like “aspects”, but it invites essentialist thinking.  

Re: [FRIAM] vFriam

[Nicholas Thompson]

Ach!  Frank. Sorry.  I got here late even for me, and now I pretty much
have to go for a dentist appointment.
this is only going to get worse for me net week when ten oclock becomes
eleven  oclock.

With the onslaught of Daylight Saving Time in mind, perhaps we could ask
the list, if Thuam could occur at any time of day, ;what would be your
preferred time and what times would be acceptible?

Nick

On Thu, Mar 2, 2023 at 10:10 AM Frank Wimberly  wrote:

> So far the only one who has arrived is Stephen, who has now left.  If no
> one shows up by, say, 10:15 I will close the meeting and check in later but
> at no particular time.
>
> Frank
>
> --
> Frank Wimberly
> 140 Calle Ojo Feliz
> Santa Fe, NM 87505
> 505 670-9918
>
> Research:  https://www.researchgate.net/profile/Frank_Wimberly2
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[FRIAM] Fwd: [EXT] News Alert: Most young men are single. Most young women are not.

[Nicholas Thompson]

Last time I checked, the average number of attached males has to equal the average number of attached females, unless, of course, females, feel attached to men who don’t feel attached.Sent from my Dumb PhoneBegin forwarded message:From: The Hill Date: February 22, 2023 at 7:01:34 AM MSTTo: nthomp...@clarku.eduSubject: [EXT] News Alert: Most young men are single. Most young women are not.Reply-To: emailt...@thehill.comClick in for the latest news from The Hill. View Online 
 News AlertNews Alert  


Most young men are single. Most young women are not.More than 60 percent of young men are single, nearly twice the rate of unattached young women, signaling a larger breakdown in the social, romantic and sexual life of the American male.  Read the full story here. 













 










 
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Re: [FRIAM] Nick's Categories

[Nicholas Thompson]

The Martians would be experiencing the animals without the lens of human
categories.   I guess the question is, Would they even come up with the
category of experience.  I think they would because, as Nicholas Thompson
said in his excellent article in WIRED magazine, every biological system
responds to a subset of  the things that the Martians would see around it.

On Thu, Feb 16, 2023 at 10:23 AM Steve Smith  wrote:

> Might I offer some terminology reframing, or at least ask for some
> additional explication?
>
>1. I think "behaviours" would be all Nick's Martians *could* observe?
>They would be inferring "experiences" from observed behaviours?
>2. When we talk about "categories" here, are we talking about
>"categories of being"?  Ontologies, as it were?
>
> Regarding ErisS' reflections...   I *do* think that animals behave *as if*
> they "have categories", though I don't know what it even means to say that
> they "have categories" in the way Aristotle and his legacy-followers (e.g.
> us) do...   I would suggest/suspect that dogs and squirrels are in no way
> aware of these "categories" and that to say that they do is a  projection
> by (us) humans who have fabricated the (useful in myriad contexts) of a
> category/Category/ontology.   So in that sense they do NOT *have*
> categories...   I think in this conception/thought-experiment we assume
> that Martians *would* and would be looking to map their own ontologies onto
> the behaviour (and inferred  experiences and judgements?) of Terran animals?
>
> If I were to invert the subject/object relation, I would suggest that it
> is "affordances" not "experiences" (or animals' behaviours) we want to
> categorize into ontologies?  It is what things are "good for" that make
> them interesting/similar/different to living beings.   And "good for" is
> conditionally contextualized.   My dog and cat both find squirrels "good
> for" chasing, but so too for baby rabbits and skunks (once).
>
> Or am I barking up the wrong set of reserved lexicons?
>
> To segue (as I am wont to do), it feels like this discussion parallels the
> one about LLMs where we train the hell out of variations on learning
> classifier systems until they are as good as (or better than) we (humans)
> are at predicting the next token in a string of human-generated tokens (or
> synthesizing a string of tokens which humans cannot distinguish from a
> string generated by another human, in particular one with the proverbial
> 10,000 hours of specialized training).   The fact that or "ologies" tend to
> be recorded and organized as knowledge structures and in fact usually
> *propogated* (taught/learnt) by the same makes us want to believe (some of
> us) that hidden inside these LLMs are precisely the same "ologies" we
> encode in our myriad textbooks and professional journal articles?
>
> I think one of the questions that remains present within this group's
> continued 'gurgitations is whether the organizations we have conjured are
> particularly special, or just one of an infinitude of superposed
> alternative formulations?   And whether some of those formulations are
> acutely occult and/or abstract and whether the existing (accepted)
> formulations (e.g. Western Philosophy and Science, etc) are uniquely (and
> exclusively or at least optimally) capable of capturing/describing what is
> "really real" (nod to George Berkeley).
>
> Some here (self included) may often suggest that such formulation is at
> best a coincidence of history and as well as it "covers" a description of
> "reality", it is by circumstance and probably by abstract conception ("all
> models are wrong...") incomplete and in error.  But nevertheless still
> useful...
>
> Maybe another way of reframing Nick's question (on a tangent) is to ask
> whether the Barsoomians had their own Aristotle to conceive of
> Categories?   Or did they train their telescopes on ancient Greece and
> learn Latin Lip Reading and adopt one or more the Greek's philosophical
> traditions?  And then, did the gas-balloon creatures floating in the
> atmosphere-substance of Jupiter observe the Martians' who had observed the
> Greeks and thereby come up with their own Categories.   Maybe it was those
> creatures who beamed these abstractions straight into the neural tissue of
> the Aristotelians and Platonists?   Do gas-balloon creatures even have
> solids to be conceived of as Platonic?  And are they missing out if they
> don't?  Do they have their own Edwin Abbot Abbot?   And what would the
> Cheela <https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dragon%27s_Egg> say?
>
> M

Re: [FRIAM] Thuram still happening?

[Nicholas Thompson]

Thanks, Jochen. I am on it.  N

On Thu, Feb 16, 2023 at 10:52 AM Jochen Fromm  wrote:

> It reminds me of this book:
> The Zoologist's Guide to the Galaxy
>
> https://www.penguinrandomhouse.com/books/646643/the-zoologists-guide-to-the-galaxy-by-arik-kershenbaum/
>
> -J.
>
>
>  Original message ----
> From: Nicholas Thompson 
> Date: 2/16/23 10:22 AM (GMT+01:00)
> To: The Friday Morning Applied Complexity Coffee Group 
>
> Cc: Mike Bybee 
> Subject: Re: [FRIAM] Thuram still happening?
>
> DISCUSS: If we were Martians sent to earth to study animal life EXCLUSIVE
> OF human life, would we ever have come up with the idea of categories?
> What is there that animals do that demands us to invent categories to
> explain their behavior?  Could we build a theory of animal life based
> solely on associations among experiences... their experiences, not ours.
>
> n
>
> On Wed, Feb 15, 2023 at 6:14 PM Nicholas Thompson 
> wrote:
>
>> Sorry, Dave.  Will miss you.  You have been my most faithful recent
>> companion in my quest for windmills to topple. As for your double take, I
>> probably used the wrong initials. I was thinking about the AI thing which,
>> I gather, Bing is now employing to get us all advice on how to cure our
>> lumbago, without ever having to bother with that nasty Mayo Clinic website.
>>
>>
>> I see why you want to substitute “cloud” for my link metaphor. It’s
>> easier to think of clouds probabilistically.  Clouds are awfully passive
>> entities to serve in the way I need them to.  Clouds are not, in the
>> first instance, things but visualizations of things. (They can themselves
>> become things, but Idon’t think you have anticipated that metaphoric
>> implication.)   my ”links” are more deterministic than your clouds. I
>> admit that “probabilistic link” is a hard image to think, and therefore not
>> a very evocative metaphor. How about ”woodland path”  Woodland pathways
>> provide a more dynamic image than “links”.  Started by a rabbit, adopted
>> by a coyote, exploited by a deer, blundered into by a cow, woodland
>> pathways flourish or fail by use and by the attractiveness of the nodes
>> where they converge or cross.  Each use favors future use and nodes become
>> prominent not only for their inherent attractiveness but because they are
>> on the way to.  attractive nodes.  Thus Sublette KS is a well traveled node
>> not only because of the tourist attraction of visiting the place where the
>> 1917-18  ("spanish") flu got its start, but also because it happens to be
>> on the shortest route from NYC to LA.  .
>>
>>
>>
>>  in thinking about this, we should focus on the animal case.  Humans are
>> too complicated to be interesting. Also, I think we should focus on animals
>> in currently living in their "environment of evolutionary adaptiveness."
>>
>>
>>
>> I wish we could entice Glen, and Mike, and Stephen to drop in on us
>> around 11 tomorrow,if only to show your faces. The node is
>> https://bit.ly/virtualfriam
>>
>> Nick
>>
>>
>>
>>
>>
>> *From:* Friam  *On Behalf Of *Prof David West
>> *Sent:* Wednesday, February 15, 2023 1:24 PM
>> *To:* friam@redfish.com
>> *Subject:* Re: [FRIAM] Thuram still happening?
>>
>>
>>
>> I will be traveling to Wisconsin tomorrow and miss Thuram.
>>
>>
>>
>> 2-cents: a word cloud might be a more useful metaphor than a semantic
>> net, just because of the formalisms employed in the latter. True a cloud
>> lacks explicit links, but such might be lightly sprinkled therein.
>>
>>
>>
>> Did a huge double take at the last word in Nick's post. CBT, in one of
>> the communities I associate with, has a far different meaning than, I
>> think, Nick intended. And I would be 'they' used it first.
>>
>>
>>
>> davew
>>
>>
>>
>>
>>
>> On Wed, Feb 15, 2023, at 11:19 AM, thompnicks...@gmail.com wrote:
>>
>> FWiW, I willmake every effort to arrive fed to Thuam by 10.30 Mountain.
>> I want to hear the experts among you hold forth on WTF a cateogory actually
>> IS.  I am thinking (duh) that a category is a more or less diffuse node in
>> a network of associations (signs, if you must).  Hence they constitute a
>> vast table of what goes with what, what is predictable from what, etc.
>> This accommodates “family resemblance”  quite nicely.  Do I think animals
>> have categories, in this sense, ABSOLUTELY EFFING YES. Does this make me a
>> (shudder) nominalist?  I hope not.