Re: [FRIAM] FRIAM and causality

2007-12-07 Thread Glen E. P. Ropella
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Phil Henshaw on 12/07/2007 01:42 PM:
> PH:  I was impressed with the clarity of the abstract and their not
> confusing biology, lab chemistry and computer model references.  Figure
> 1 puzzles me though.  I get your suggestion that this shows a way people
> are using new visualization techniques to compare models.   I don't
> understand how highly complex comparisons of test tube and computer
> based things would make them look so very much alike unless both are
> parametric data displays of a sort not described, though.   Comparing
> hugely complicated systems does need visualization help, certainly, but
> if that's what makes the images look so much alike it should be
> mentioned.  Still, what I get from the picture is that they give
> themselves an A+.  I don't see how their model recreates some features
> of the natural process and interestingly leaves others out.  It's
> importantly that art of making what you've failed to account for
> interesting, rather than hiding it, that I find missing in lots of
> studies.

Just for clarity, it's a cartoon and not a visualization.  The diagram
is merely intended to give a visual impression of the iterative process
being used.  The gray smudges and spots representing targeted attributes
do not map to particular behaviors of the in vitro or in silico models.

So, it's not that they're giving themselves an A+, they're just trying
to say that the first model (the gray circle in A) is falsified because
it doesn't exhibit the behavior indicated by the spot labeled "a" even
though it exhibits the behaviors labeled "t".  The second model (not
just the same model with different parameter values), pointed to by "2"
in B is _also_ falsified because it does not exhibit "a".  However,
there are indications that model 2 is "better" than model 1 because it
exhibits those two behaviors indicated by the spots that are closer in
the behavior space to "a".  The subsequent model 3 is _validated_
because it exhibits behaviors "t" and "a".

> So, here's to all 'bad' models...!  may we survive them...:-)

Perfect!  I'll make that toast over my next pint.

- --
glen e. p. ropella, 971-219-3846, http://tempusdictum.com
The only good is knowledge and the only evil is ignorance. -- Socrates

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Re: [FRIAM] FRIAM and causality

2007-12-07 Thread Phil Henshaw
Glen,
> 
> Phil Henshaw on 12/06/2007 10:53 AM:
> > The hard part seems to be to take the first dark step to accepting 
> > there might be a shape of another form that the measures 
> are missing 
> > (like the whole tree or person).  It means looking for how to best 
> > extend and complete your image based on the limited cast of the 
> > measures at hand. Interpolation gone wild?? Free form projection 
> > perhaps??  Sort of... You just gotta do something to make 
> sense of the 
> > larger continuities that develop in natural complex 
> systems.  What I 
> > think we can see clearly is that our measures and models are highly 
> > incomplete.
> 
> I think we agree, which normally means there's nothing to 
> talk about! [grin]  But, I thought I'd throw out my term for 
> what you're describing:  "triangulation".
> 
> It's not really triangulation, of course.  But it's certainly 
> more like triangulation than, say, population sampling.  
> Perhaps we could call it "tuple-angulation"???  [grin]

PH: I guess I just call it filling in the gaps, understanding that as a
combination of analysis and synthesis.   So, if 'gaps' then become a raw
material for systems science part of what makes a model 'good' is if you
can see how it is also interestingly 'bad', since without having some
interest in the 'bad' you can't be tracking the usually moving and
significantly misrepresented targets of the physical system.. :-,)

I do come close to 'triangulation' in my derivative reconstruction
method, except I use 4 points to find a 5th rather than 2 points to find
a 3rd.  Given 5 points in time sequence it imputes a new value for the
middle one, based on the making the implied 3rd derivatives from right
and left the same (going forward and back in separate passes and
averaging).  If each point is considered a separate "bad" model for the
system one could impute an average value and a system having a single
fixed average state.   Using derivative reconstruction imputes a
continuous complex process without fixed definition instead.   That
seems to be a less distorting way of data smoothing, and more useful for
raising questions about the turning points within the changing
mechanisms producing it.



> Here's a paper in which "we" (i.e. my outrageous rhetoric is 
> reigned in and made coherent by the authors of the paper ;-) 
> try to describe it:
> 
   http://www.biomedcentral.com/1752-0509/1/14/abstract

>See Figure 1.  This particular example is just one sub-type of the
general method we're talking
>about, here, though.

PH:  I was impressed with the clarity of the abstract and their not
confusing biology, lab chemistry and computer model references.  Figure
1 puzzles me though.  I get your suggestion that this shows a way people
are using new visualization techniques to compare models.   I don't
understand how highly complex comparisons of test tube and computer
based things would make them look so very much alike unless both are
parametric data displays of a sort not described, though.   Comparing
hugely complicated systems does need visualization help, certainly, but
if that's what makes the images look so much alike it should be
mentioned.  Still, what I get from the picture is that they give
themselves an A+.  I don't see how their model recreates some features
of the natural process and interestingly leaves others out.  It's
importantly that art of making what you've failed to account for
interesting, rather than hiding it, that I find missing in lots of
studies.

So, here's to all 'bad' models...!  may we survive them...:-)

Best,

Phil
- --
glen e. p. ropella, 971-219-3846, http://tempusdictum.com
If this were a dictatorship, it would be a heck of a lot easier, just so
long as I'm the dictator. -- George W. Bush

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lectures, archives, unsubscribe, maps at http://www.friam.org





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Meets Fridays 9a-11:30 at cafe at St. John's College
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Re: [FRIAM] FRIAM and causality

2007-12-07 Thread Marcus G. Daniels
Phil Henshaw wrote:
> The hard part seems to be to take the first dark step to accepting there
> might be a shape of another form that the measures are missing (like the
> whole tree or person).
Glen E. P. Ropella wrote:
> See Figure 1.  This particular example is just one sub-type of the
> general method we're talking about, here, though.
>   
Figure 1 concerns using behavioral distributions estimated from in vitro 
data to constrain the choice of parameters/tuples/object 
composition/etc. in an agent model -- model fitting.  Phil seems to be 
talking about the situation where it isn't yet clear what to measure -- 
theory driving experiment, e.g. the development of general relativity 
preceding experiments to find gravitational waves.



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Re: [FRIAM] FRIAM and causality

2007-12-07 Thread Glen E. P. Ropella
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Phil Henshaw on 12/06/2007 10:53 AM:
> The hard part seems to be to take the first dark step to accepting there
> might be a shape of another form that the measures are missing (like the
> whole tree or person).  It means looking for how to best extend and
> complete your image based on the limited cast of the measures at hand.
> Interpolation gone wild?? Free form projection perhaps??  Sort of...
> You just gotta do something to make sense of the larger continuities
> that develop in natural complex systems.  What I think we can see
> clearly is that our measures and models are highly incomplete.

I think we agree, which normally means there's nothing to talk about!
[grin]  But, I thought I'd throw out my term for what you're describing:
 "triangulation".

It's not really triangulation, of course.  But it's certainly more like
triangulation than, say, population sampling.  Perhaps we could call it
"tuple-angulation"???  [grin]

Here's a paper in which "we" (i.e. my outrageous rhetoric is reigned in
and made coherent by the authors of the paper ;-) try to describe it:

   http://www.biomedcentral.com/1752-0509/1/14/abstract

See Figure 1.  This particular example is just one sub-type of the
general method we're talking about, here, though.

- --
glen e. p. ropella, 971-219-3846, http://tempusdictum.com
If this were a dictatorship, it would be a heck of a lot easier, just so
long as I'm the dictator. -- George W. Bush

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