Re: [FRIAM] models that bite back

[George Duncan]

I agree with Orlando that there is no need for a conflict here. The Bayesian
paradigm provides a unified framework for decision making that integrates a
subjective interpretation of the past record and views of the future.
Further it is a paradigm that in a principled way modifies current beliefs
according to incoming data--Bayesian learning. In an important sense the
Bayesian paradigm does resolve the controversy.

George

On Thu, Jan 8, 2009 at 10:22 PM, Orlando Leibovitz <
orla...@orlandoleibovitz.com> wrote:

> Tom,
>
> Some of us look to both the patterns of the past and a subjective belief
> about the uncertain future when making decisions. And sometimes the way we
> interpret  past patterns is as subjective as our  anticipation of the
> future. Why set up a non existent conflict?
>
> O
>
> Tom Johnson wrote:
>
>   A sidebar conversation regarding the "reality" of models
>
> 'The story that I have to tell is marked all the way through by a
> persistent tension between those who assert that the best decisions are
> based on quantification and numbers, determined by the patterns of the
> past, and those who base their decisions on more subjective degrees of
> belief about the uncertain future. This is a controversy that has never been
> resolved.'
> — FROM THE INTRODUCTION TO ''AGAINST THE GODS: THE REMARKABLE STORY OF
> RISK,'' BY PETER L. BERNSTEIN
> See
> http://www.nytimes.com/2009/01/04/magazine/04risk-t.html?_r=1&ref=magazine
>
> -tj
> --
> ==
> J. T. Johnson
> Institute for Analytic Journalism -- Santa Fe, NM USA
> www.analyticjournalism.com
> 505.577.6482(c)505.473.9646(h)
> http://www.jtjohnson.com t...@jtjohnson.com
>
> "You never change things by fighting the existing reality.
> To change something, build a new model that makes the
> existing model obsolete."
> -- Buckminster Fuller
> ==
>
> --
>
> 
> FRIAM Applied Complexity Group listserv
> Meets Fridays 9a-11:30 at cafe at St. John's College
> lectures, archives, unsubscribe, maps at http://www.friam.org
>
>
> --
>
> Orlando Leibovitz
>
> orla...@orlandoleibovitz.com
>
> www.orlandoleibovitz.com
>
> Studio Telephone: 505-820-6183
>
> 
> FRIAM Applied Complexity Group listserv
> Meets Fridays 9a-11:30 at cafe at St. John's College
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>



-- 
George T. Duncan
Professor of Statistics, Emeritus
Heinz College
Carnegie Mellon University
(505) 983-6895

Life must be understood backwards; but... it must be lived forward.
Soren Kierkegaard

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Re: [FRIAM] models that bite back

[Phil Henshaw]

All well and good, .unless something in the environment develops a
continuity of divergence

 

Phil Henshaw  

NY NY  www.synapse9.com

 

From: friam-boun...@redfish.com [mailto:friam-boun...@redfish.com] On Behalf
Of George Duncan
Sent: Friday, January 09, 2009 11:23 AM
To: The Friday Morning Applied Complexity Coffee Group
Subject: Re: [FRIAM] models that bite back

 

I agree with Orlando that there is no need for a conflict here. The Bayesian
paradigm provides a unified framework for decision making that integrates a
subjective interpretation of the past record and views of the future.
Further it is a paradigm that in a principled way modifies current beliefs
according to incoming data--Bayesian learning. In an important sense the
Bayesian paradigm does resolve the controversy.

 

George

On Thu, Jan 8, 2009 at 10:22 PM, Orlando Leibovitz
 wrote:

Tom,

Some of us look to both the patterns of the past and a subjective belief
about the uncertain future when making decisions. And sometimes the way we
interpret  past patterns is as subjective as our  anticipation of the
future. Why set up a non existent conflict?

O 

Tom Johnson wrote: 

A sidebar conversation regarding the "reality" of models

'The story that I have to tell is marked all the way through by a persistent
tension between those who assert that the best decisions are based on
quantification and numbers, determined by the patterns of the past, and
those who base their decisions on more subjective degrees of belief about
the uncertain future. This is a controversy that has never been resolved.' 

- FROM THE INTRODUCTION TO ''AGAINST THE GODS: THE REMARKABLE STORY OF
RISK,'' BY PETER L. BERNSTEIN
See http://www.nytimes.com/2009/01/04/magazine/04risk-t.html?_r=1

&ref=magazine

-tj
-- 


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[FRIAM] NYTimes.com: Risk Mismanagement

[tom]

This page was sent to you by: t...@jtjohnson.com.

MAGAZINE | January 04, 2009
Risk Mismanagement
By JOE NOCERA
Were the measures used to evaluate Wall Street trades flawed? Or was the 
mistake ignoring them?

http://www.nytimes.com/2009/01/04/magazine/04risk-t.html?emc=eta1




--

ABOUT THIS E-MAIL
This e-mail was sent to you by a friend through NYTimes.com's E-mail This 
Article service.  For general information about NYTimes.com, write to 
h...@nytimes.com.

NYTimes.com 620 Eighth Avenue New York, NY 10018

Copyright 2009 The New York Times Company

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Re: [FRIAM] models that bite back

[Marcus G. Daniels]

Phil Henshaw wrote:


All well and good, …unless something in the environment develops a 
continuity of divergence


A model can be built around whatever hunch and evaluated in a Bayesian 
framework. At some point, if the divergence really exists, the model 
will reflect that in its likelihood. It's all well and good.


Marcus


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Re: [FRIAM] models that bite back

[Phil Henshaw]

That's only in you model, and leaves out the rest of the world.   My "hunch"
is it's good to watch the rest of the world for diverging continuities
too...

Phil Henshaw  
NY NY  www.synapse9.com


> -Original Message-
> From: friam-boun...@redfish.com [mailto:friam-boun...@redfish.com] On
> Behalf Of Marcus G. Daniels
> Sent: Friday, January 09, 2009 12:25 PM
> To: The Friday Morning Applied Complexity Coffee Group
> Subject: Re: [FRIAM] models that bite back
> 
> Phil Henshaw wrote:
> >
> > All well and good, …unless something in the environment develops a
> > continuity of divergence
> >
> A model can be built around whatever hunch and evaluated in a Bayesian
> framework. At some point, if the divergence really exists, the model
> will reflect that in its likelihood. It's all well and good.
> 
> Marcus
> 
> 
> FRIAM Applied Complexity Group listserv
> Meets Fridays 9a-11:30 at cafe at St. John's College
> lectures, archives, unsubscribe, maps at http://www.friam.org




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Re: [FRIAM] models that bite back

[Marcus G. Daniels]

Phil Henshaw wrote:

That's only in you model, and leaves out the rest of the world.   My "hunch"
is it's good to watch the rest of the world for diverging continuities
too...
  
Nothing prevents a person from explicitly representing and revising 
beliefs about the world in a model, especially in an ABM. 



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Re: [FRIAM] Food for Complex Thought

[Parks, Raymond]

Gary Schiltz wrote:
> Owen's comic strip on chaos made me think of a photo I took a few  
> years back in Artesia, New Mexico, which I offer for your amusement.

  It's still there - must have reached an equilibrium.

-- 
Ray Parks   rcpa...@sandia.gov
Consilient Heuristician Voice:505-844-4024
ATA Department  Mobile:505-238-9359
http://www.sandia.gov/scada Fax:505-844-9641
http://www.sandia.gov/idart Pager:800-690-5288



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Re: [FRIAM] Tomorrow's meeting at sfComplex

[John Sadd]

Ahh, this explains the low attendance (but stimulating conversation)  
at St Johns this morning, which was indeed open, with chairs and  
coffee and everything. Until next week, then...


js

On Jan 8, 2009, at 9:30 PM, Owen Densmore wrote:

Folks: if you know of anyone who might not read their email before  
FRIAM, could you give them a call?


I called Kim/Mary Sorvig, Carl Tollander, and Bob Lancaster.

Anyone have Hywel White's number?

   -- Owen




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Re: [FRIAM] models that bite back

[Phil Henshaw]

Well Marcus, isn't that is entirely the point, and why models are unreliable
and need help?

A model invariably represents only a person's belief's about the world.
The physical subject being represented is both fabulously more complex than
any belief system can be, and full of things that are differently organized
and requires it's own language of description.  It's why one needs a
different mode of description for each way of describing what a person is.
It's why science, being one language of description, is incomplete.  

In some cases, a common language seems adequate for many subjects, but only
when you are careful to ask the same kind of question of each subject,
consistent with that common language.  To use common terminology for
different things you do need to ignore the discrepancies as insignificant,
though.  As when your economic system collapses because they were not
actually insignificant, that turns out to be an error.  It ends up being
much safer to think of the physical world as complexly changing place
needing many languages of description and close attention, and for science,
to watch the fit of your model to see if discrepancies are developing.

In order to pick up significant errors due to emerging discrepancies, you
need to become aware of what's happening.  One way is to watch closely for
them.  You can also rely on hearsay.  The world is full of independently
evolving systems, each changing it's organization in response to its own
place in the world, in its own way, and developing emergent behaviors as it
does. Lots of systems we share the environment with seem sort of diffuse and
passive, and others rather distinctly individual with strong independent
individual reactions to being interfered with.  There's no 'book' you just
have to watch.

If you're not watching and only wait till you loose your job to know that
you should have been watching, (like a lot of us are at the moment) you're
out of a job.   It's like we were imagining an open road and were driving
along in our car and didn't see the water coming because it wasn't on the
map.  
The water coming was real obvious to the people looking out the window who
were repeating saying in increasingly urgent tones "hey there's water
coming".   

Am I wrong to be stunned at how difficult it is to get an acknowledgement
here that living in a physical world means that theory is not enough?  


Phil Henshaw  
NY NY  www.synapse9.com


> -Original Message-
> From: friam-boun...@redfish.com [mailto:friam-boun...@redfish.com] On
> Behalf Of Marcus G. Daniels
> Sent: Friday, January 09, 2009 2:12 PM
> To: The Friday Morning Applied Complexity Coffee Group
> Subject: Re: [FRIAM] models that bite back
> 
> Phil Henshaw wrote:
> > That's only in you model, and leaves out the rest of the world.   My
> "hunch"
> > is it's good to watch the rest of the world for diverging
> continuities
> > too...
> >
> Nothing prevents a person from explicitly representing and revising
> beliefs about the world in a model, especially in an ABM.
> 
> 
> FRIAM Applied Complexity Group listserv
> Meets Fridays 9a-11:30 at cafe at St. John's College
> lectures, archives, unsubscribe, maps at http://www.friam.org




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Re: [FRIAM] models that bite back

[Marcus G. Daniels]

Phil Henshaw writes:

A model invariably represents only a person's belief's about the world.
  
Consider surveys of undecided voters where during a debate the surveyed 
turn their individual dials to indicate approval or disapproval.  

The physical subject being represented is both fabulously more complex than
any belief system can be,
A library is fabulously more complex than most any individual's belief 
system as well.

and full of things that are differently organized
and requires it's own language of description.
Military simulations, for example, are often large federated systems, 
where each part is designed by a different domain expert.  Some parts of 
the models could even be delegated to human decision makers, as in the 
voting example. 


Complexity, subjectivity, and quantification are different issues.

Marcus


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Re: [FRIAM] models that bite back

[Phil Henshaw]

And,... how does a poll, or a military analysis tell you what emotions are
going through people's minds?   That kind of clairvoyance is what you're
claiming, you know.   It seems to me a yes/no vote has insufficient variety
in comparison to thought, and a potential kill ration won't tell you if
going ahead will unusually piss people off.

Phil Henshaw  
NY NY  www.synapse9.com


> -Original Message-
> From: friam-boun...@redfish.com [mailto:friam-boun...@redfish.com] On
> Behalf Of Marcus G. Daniels
> Sent: Friday, January 09, 2009 5:35 PM
> To: The Friday Morning Applied Complexity Coffee Group
> Subject: Re: [FRIAM] models that bite back
> 
> Phil Henshaw writes:
> > A model invariably represents only a person's belief's about the
> world.
> >
> Consider surveys of undecided voters where during a debate the surveyed
> turn their individual dials to indicate approval or disapproval.
> > The physical subject being represented is both fabulously more
> complex than
> > any belief system can be,
> A library is fabulously more complex than most any individual's belief
> system as well.
> > and full of things that are differently organized
> > and requires it's own language of description.
> Military simulations, for example, are often large federated systems,
> where each part is designed by a different domain expert.  Some parts
> of
> the models could even be delegated to human decision makers, as in the
> voting example.
> 
> Complexity, subjectivity, and quantification are different issues.
> 
> Marcus
> 
> 
> FRIAM Applied Complexity Group listserv
> Meets Fridays 9a-11:30 at cafe at St. John's College
> lectures, archives, unsubscribe, maps at http://www.friam.org




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Re: [FRIAM] models that bite back

[Marcus G. Daniels]

Phil Henshaw wrote:

And,... how does a poll, or a military analysis tell you what emotions are
going through people's minds?
Given a hunch or actual evidence that a class of emotions have relevance 
to an interesting mass behavior, a poll could be open-ended, where those 
polled would describe their feelings about some stimulus, and then a 
knowledge engineer would listen carefully and formalize what they 
heard.  A model of psychological or sociological phenomena doesn't need 
to be fixed.   There could even be a feedback process where the polled 
individuals would review the formalism to see that they agreed that the 
interpretation was a accurate and if not, refine it.  Alternatively, one 
could in-principle accuse a person, or something more extreme, and take 
careful notes on reactions based on available context and infer a 
sub-model from those observations.   Such stories, for many individuals, 
could be converted into computer programs that describe how each agent 
changes from state `Happy' to `Sad' to `Mad' (or whatever states 
described) on the basis of different kinds of stimulation.   Of course, 
the polled individuals could lie or be delusional, or be easily led by 
careless interviewer.   But for the moment, the mind is still something 
of a black box.


Marcus


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[FRIAM] bye

[Phil Henshaw]

There is much further to fall, and I think it's likely the Obama plan will
aggravate the failure of the system and push it over the next edge.  It will
certainly not relieve it of strain and allow it to heal.  

The Obama plan is designed by the same theory that caused the collapse, and
intended to pump up the process of harvesting multiplying returns from our
diminishing, dangerously unstable, and increasingly unresponsive set of
physical resources.  If we pull out all stops to continue on that path as
intended it will probably push the system to a significantly greater failure
that may be relatively permanent.

The only thing that will work is for the people who have financial claims to
be paid more than the physical system was able to produce to rescind those
claims,  i.e. come to a realization that having taken too much money out of
the system enough debts need to be forgiven or enough money put back as
needed to relieve the system of unachievable obligations to them.


Phil Henshaw  
NY NY  www.synapse9.com




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[FRIAM] e-mail address

[Jack Leibowitz]

My e-mail address has been changed. The earthlink address is now a time- 
limited address.


Please remove my name from that address:

jrl...@earthlink.net 





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Re: [FRIAM] Financial crisis [was bye(?)]

[Russ Abbott]

So let's talk about the financial state of the world for a while. It
certainly is worth of a complex systems discussion list.

Here's my basic analysis. For the past 2+ decades we have been engaged in a
self-inflicted Ponzi scheme -- during more or less the same period in which
Madoff was doing the same thing but to other people. We (the entire world)
did it to ourselves. We recently reached the point where it became clear
that it really is a Ponzi scheme and that the money we all thought was there
isn't.  That's actually not a particularly complex systems issue. It's
pretty straightforward. Lots and lots of people have a lot less money than
they thought they did. (See this nice
pieceabout
bubbles.)

The question is: now what?

One of the interesting things about a financial crisis is that nothing is
actually destroyed. No manufacturing plants are damaged. No power plants are
destroyed. Nothing is bombed. The world's farm land has not been poisoned.
Nothing physically has changed. It's just that a lot of people now know that
they have a lot less money than they thought.

One thing that's happening is that people are a lot more careful about
spending money. That ripples through the economy putting people out of work,
which causes even less money to be spent, etc.

It would seem that it should be possible to achieve a new stable state. But
no one seems to know what that state will look like or what can and should
be done for people who are suffering during the transition. It's also not
clear whether the monetary and fiscal policies are helping us get there.

So it seems to me that the basic questions are: what are the possible new
stable states and how can we get there with the least pain?

P.S. By a stable state I don't mean a government-run economy but one that is
in relative equilibrium -- but obviously not complete equilibrium or there
would be no evolutionary progress.

-- Russ

On Fri, Jan 9, 2009 at 6:21 PM, Phil Henshaw  wrote:

> There is much further to fall, and I think it's likely the Obama plan will
> aggravate the failure of the system and push it over the next edge.  It
> will
> certainly not relieve it of strain and allow it to heal.
>
> The Obama plan is designed by the same theory that caused the collapse, and
> intended to pump up the process of harvesting multiplying returns from our
> diminishing, dangerously unstable, and increasingly unresponsive set of
> physical resources.  If we pull out all stops to continue on that path as
> intended it will probably push the system to a significantly greater
> failure
> that may be relatively permanent.
>
> The only thing that will work is for the people who have financial claims
> to
> be paid more than the physical system was able to produce to rescind those
> claims,  i.e. come to a realization that having taken too much money out of
> the system enough debts need to be forgiven or enough money put back as
> needed to relieve the system of unachievable obligations to them.
>
>
> Phil Henshaw
> NY NY  www.synapse9.com
>
>
>
> 
> FRIAM Applied Complexity Group listserv
> Meets Fridays 9a-11:30 at cafe at St. John's College
> lectures, archives, unsubscribe, maps at http://www.friam.org
>

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Re: [FRIAM] Financial crisis [was bye(?)]

[Steve Smith]

Russ - 

Well said.

A friend of mine once asked the following question:

If you were building a house, would you stop just because
you ran out of "inches"?


The analogy is that $$ are simply units of measurement for work or
useful assets.   Do you cease to do the (same) work or (use) the assets
effectively just because the units you used to measure them changed in
some way?  

Rumor has it that the depression ended pretty abruptly as the US geared
up (on credit to ourselves?) to provide manufacturing/hard resources to
the Allies in Europe to fight the Germans.   If we thought of $$ as
hard assets (conserved quantities) themselves, then the "competition"
for "scarce resources" from Europe should have somehow *crashed* us
even harder... but instead it invigorated us.  

I'm obviously/certainly not advocating (yet) more war... the"New Deal"
and "WPA" and "CCC" and the like had already created an "artificial
demand", when coupled with "minting more 'inches'" was helping...

I can't comment specifically on "Obama's Plan" (I'm just not tracking
it closely) but in principle, a re-organization and re-motivation of
our collective efforts could be a seriously positive thing to do about
now.  

Refactoring our economy/society is both scary and maybe necessary (or
inevitable)?   Are we on the verge of a Punctuation Mark in the
ever-famed Punctuated Equilibrium?  Or is there a way for the system to
"re-organize" itself to absorb/dissipate the internal stresses without
cataclysmic change?

- Steve


So let's talk about the financial state of the world for a
while. It certainly is worth of a complex systems discussion list.
  
Here's my basic analysis. For the past 2+ decades we have been engaged
in a self-inflicted Ponzi scheme -- during more or less the same period
in which Madoff was doing the same thing but to other people. We (the
entire world) did it to ourselves. We recently reached the point where
it became clear that it really is a Ponzi scheme and that the money we
all thought was there isn't.  That's actually not a particularly
complex systems issue. It's pretty straightforward. Lots and lots of
people have a lot less money than they thought they did. (See this
nice piece about bubbles.)
  
The question is: now what?
  
One of the interesting things about a financial crisis is that nothing
is actually destroyed. No manufacturing plants are damaged. No power
plants are destroyed. Nothing is bombed. The world's farm land has not
been poisoned. Nothing physically has changed. It's just that a lot of
people now know that they have a lot less money than they thought.
  
One thing that's happening is that people are a lot more careful about
spending money. That ripples through the economy putting people out of
work, which causes even less money to be spent, etc. 
  
It would seem that it should be possible to achieve a new stable state.
But no one seems to know what that state will look like or what can and
should be done for people who are suffering during the transition. It's
also not clear whether the monetary and fiscal policies are helping us
get there.
  
So it seems to me that the basic questions are: what are the possible
new stable states and how can we get there with the least pain?
  
P.S. By a stable state I don't mean a government-run economy but one
that is in relative equilibrium -- but obviously not complete
equilibrium or there would be no evolutionary progress.
  
-- Russ
  
  On Fri, Jan 9, 2009 at 6:21 PM, Phil Henshaw
   wrote:
  There
is much further to fall, and I think it's likely the Obama plan will
aggravate the failure of the system and push it over the next edge.  It
will
certainly not relieve it of strain and allow it to heal.

The Obama plan is designed by the same theory that caused the collapse,
and
intended to pump up the process of harvesting multiplying returns from
our
diminishing, dangerously unstable, and increasingly unresponsive set of
physical resources.  If we pull out all stops to continue on that path
as
intended it will probably push the system to a significantly greater
failure
that may be relatively permanent.

The only thing that will work is for the people who have financial
claims to
be paid more than the physical system was able to produce to rescind
those
claims,  i.e. come to a realization that having taken too much money
out of
the system enough debts need to be forgiven or enough money put back as
needed to relieve the system of unachievable obligations to them.


Phil Henshaw  
NY NY  www.synapse9.com




FRIAM Applied Complexity Group listserv
Meets Fridays 9a-11:30 at cafe at St. John's College
lectures, archives, unsubscribe, maps at http://www.friam.org
  
  
  
  


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