Re: [FRIAM] Judea Pearl: Book of Why

[Frank Wimberly]

Possibly relevant:

See  Reynolds, W. N., Wimberly, F. C.,

  Simulation Validation Using Causal Inference Theory with Morphological
  Constraints.
  Proceedings of the 2011 Winter Simulation Conference, Arizona
Grand Resort,
  December, 2011.


On Sun, Apr 19, 2020 at 9:33 AM uǝlƃ ☣  wrote:

> Well, the argument I often end up making is that you can do a kind of face
> validation with the fake data. Show it to someone who's used to dealing
> with that sort of data and if the fake data looks a lot like the data they
> normally deal with, then maybe more data-taking isn't necessary. If it
> looks fake to the "expert", then more data-taking is definitely needed.
>
> On 4/19/20 8:29 AM, Marcus Daniels wrote:
> > I have a hard time with this as a way to extend data.   If it is
> high-dimensional it will be under-sampled.  Seems better to me to  measure
> or simulate more so that the joint distribution can be realistic.  And if
> you can do that there is no reason to infer the joint distribution because
> you *have* it.
> >
> >> On Apr 19, 2020, at 8:18 AM, Frank Wimberly 
> wrote:
> >>
> >> 
> >> Going back and forth:  If you infer the causal graph from observational
> data you can use that graph to simulate data with the same joint
> distribution as the original data.
>
> --
> ☣ uǝlƃ
>
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>


-- 
Frank Wimberly
140 Calle Ojo Feliz
Santa Fe, NM 87505
505 670-9918
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[FRIAM] Apple-Google and tracking virus

[Tom Johnson]

https://www.cbsnews.com/news/on-the-trail-of-covid-19-contact-tracing-the-virus/



Tom Johnson - t...@jtjohnson.com
Institute for Analytic Journalism   -- Santa Fe, NM USA
505.577.6482(c)505.473.9646(h)
*NM Foundation for Open Government* 
*Check out It's The People's Data
*




-- Forwarded message -
From: Tom Johnson 
Date: Sun, Apr 19, 2020 at 5:09 PM
Subject: Re: [FRIAM] FB self-selected antibody covid testing of 3000+ in
Santa Clara
To: The Friday Morning Applied Complexity Coffee Group 


You're right.  My apologies.  Bit.ly is driving me crazy lately.
TJ


Tom Johnson - t...@jtjohnson.com
Institute for Analytic Journalism   -- Santa Fe, NM USA
505.577.6482(c)505.473.9646(h)
*NM Foundation for Open Government* 
*Check out It's The People's Data
*




On Sun, Apr 19, 2020 at 4:11 PM Frank Wimberly  wrote:

> I was tempted to offer them 0.50.
>
> ---
> Frank C. Wimberly
> 140 Calle Ojo Feliz,
> Santa Fe, NM 87505
> 505 670-9918
> Santa Fe, NM
>
> On Sun, Apr 19, 2020, 4:08 PM Gary Schiltz 
> wrote:
>
>> Hey Tom, that link points to a domain that is for sale.
>>
>> On Sun, Apr 19, 2020 at 5:04 PM Tom Johnson  wrote:
>>
>>> Related:
>>> BS NEWS April 19, 2020, 9:07 AM
>>> "On the trail of COVID-19: Contact tracing the virus
>>> bit.ly/mSad
>>> TJ
>>>
>>>
>>> 
>>> Tom Johnson - t...@jtjohnson.com
>>> Institute for Analytic Journalism   -- Santa Fe, NM USA
>>> 505.577.6482(c)505.473.9646(h)
>>> *NM Foundation for Open Government* 
>>> *Check out It's The People's Data
>>> *
>>>
>>> 
>>>
>>>
>>> On Sun, Apr 19, 2020 at 3:25 PM  wrote:
>>>

 https://www.livescience.com/coronavirus-antibodies-widespread-in-santa-clara.html
 Preprint below.

 Has this been discussed already?
 Seems like a fairly key new piece of information in the covid19
 version of the Drake Equation (with a time component).
 This seems to be a decent guess at the fraction truly infected number.


 Of course, there are self-selection effects on the population, but they
 attempted to control for them it looks like.  Also, none of the antibody
 tests has been certified by the feds yet.


 If you know of any other antibody testing that has better
 randomization, please post!

 -Jim


 preprint:

 https://www.medrxiv.org/content/10.1101/2020.04.14.20062463v1?__cf_chl_jschl_tk__=6eed0f382928d377843071bf75b21bd8cd3f6e1a-1587330720-0-AcFcOZnNzxiZ0uUfp5P0sDRMuIV1ohSGTGDkjjCIG2bjSq-JmBrCrxKWqc2pXRybOqH0j1k9r5srJiQ1tMR8e0y_biF6fNLtAxCFYZ0o_jUEnG2JyN-bpaejc1TultdhSuvu-7UjEYayt7w7eReBRPCwcVoELD5w5zyIfTV-7Dc2ij8dftVX9HPqMMLYaT1QNkQMMgPhIxCLa-ixudM8FiD7HrlOIry3hSn6XzoaG9EhPOK4K3B2t2_OiHPKFEs4QyviLCUouYRl9CWfaUNDNzt-0vXLsXeR1FtnJYqgWeGir26ZyNQkZ4qxqZ1LE5ESDfPTq23pVeZDiSjQk5D_oyo




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Re: [FRIAM] FB self-selected antibody covid testing of 3000+ in Santa Clara

[Tom Johnson]

You're right.  My apologies.  Bit.ly is driving me crazy lately.
TJ


Tom Johnson - t...@jtjohnson.com
Institute for Analytic Journalism   -- Santa Fe, NM USA
505.577.6482(c)505.473.9646(h)
*NM Foundation for Open Government* 
*Check out It's The People's Data
*




On Sun, Apr 19, 2020 at 4:11 PM Frank Wimberly  wrote:

> I was tempted to offer them 0.50.
>
> ---
> Frank C. Wimberly
> 140 Calle Ojo Feliz,
> Santa Fe, NM 87505
> 505 670-9918
> Santa Fe, NM
>
> On Sun, Apr 19, 2020, 4:08 PM Gary Schiltz 
> wrote:
>
>> Hey Tom, that link points to a domain that is for sale.
>>
>> On Sun, Apr 19, 2020 at 5:04 PM Tom Johnson  wrote:
>>
>>> Related:
>>> BS NEWS April 19, 2020, 9:07 AM
>>> "On the trail of COVID-19: Contact tracing the virus
>>> bit.ly/mSad
>>> TJ
>>>
>>>
>>> 
>>> Tom Johnson - t...@jtjohnson.com
>>> Institute for Analytic Journalism   -- Santa Fe, NM USA
>>> 505.577.6482(c)505.473.9646(h)
>>> *NM Foundation for Open Government* 
>>> *Check out It's The People's Data
>>> *
>>>
>>> 
>>>
>>>
>>> On Sun, Apr 19, 2020 at 3:25 PM  wrote:
>>>

 https://www.livescience.com/coronavirus-antibodies-widespread-in-santa-clara.html
 Preprint below.

 Has this been discussed already?
 Seems like a fairly key new piece of information in the covid19
 version of the Drake Equation (with a time component).
 This seems to be a decent guess at the fraction truly infected number.


 Of course, there are self-selection effects on the population, but they
 attempted to control for them it looks like.  Also, none of the antibody
 tests has been certified by the feds yet.


 If you know of any other antibody testing that has better
 randomization, please post!

 -Jim


 preprint:

 https://www.medrxiv.org/content/10.1101/2020.04.14.20062463v1?__cf_chl_jschl_tk__=6eed0f382928d377843071bf75b21bd8cd3f6e1a-1587330720-0-AcFcOZnNzxiZ0uUfp5P0sDRMuIV1ohSGTGDkjjCIG2bjSq-JmBrCrxKWqc2pXRybOqH0j1k9r5srJiQ1tMR8e0y_biF6fNLtAxCFYZ0o_jUEnG2JyN-bpaejc1TultdhSuvu-7UjEYayt7w7eReBRPCwcVoELD5w5zyIfTV-7Dc2ij8dftVX9HPqMMLYaT1QNkQMMgPhIxCLa-ixudM8FiD7HrlOIry3hSn6XzoaG9EhPOK4K3B2t2_OiHPKFEs4QyviLCUouYRl9CWfaUNDNzt-0vXLsXeR1FtnJYqgWeGir26ZyNQkZ4qxqZ1LE5ESDfPTq23pVeZDiSjQk5D_oyo




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Re: [FRIAM] FB self-selected antibody covid testing of 3000+ in Santa Clara

[Frank Wimberly]

I was tempted to offer them 0.50.

---
Frank C. Wimberly
140 Calle Ojo Feliz,
Santa Fe, NM 87505
505 670-9918
Santa Fe, NM

On Sun, Apr 19, 2020, 4:08 PM Gary Schiltz 
wrote:

> Hey Tom, that link points to a domain that is for sale.
>
> On Sun, Apr 19, 2020 at 5:04 PM Tom Johnson  wrote:
>
>> Related:
>> BS NEWS April 19, 2020, 9:07 AM
>> "On the trail of COVID-19: Contact tracing the virus
>> bit.ly/mSad
>> TJ
>>
>>
>> 
>> Tom Johnson - t...@jtjohnson.com
>> Institute for Analytic Journalism   -- Santa Fe, NM USA
>> 505.577.6482(c)505.473.9646(h)
>> *NM Foundation for Open Government* 
>> *Check out It's The People's Data
>> *
>>
>> 
>>
>>
>> On Sun, Apr 19, 2020 at 3:25 PM  wrote:
>>
>>>
>>> https://www.livescience.com/coronavirus-antibodies-widespread-in-santa-clara.html
>>> Preprint below.
>>>
>>> Has this been discussed already?
>>> Seems like a fairly key new piece of information in the covid19 version
>>> of the Drake Equation (with a time component).
>>> This seems to be a decent guess at the fraction truly infected number.
>>>
>>>
>>> Of course, there are self-selection effects on the population, but they
>>> attempted to control for them it looks like.  Also, none of the antibody
>>> tests has been certified by the feds yet.
>>>
>>>
>>> If you know of any other antibody testing that has better randomization,
>>> please post!
>>>
>>> -Jim
>>>
>>>
>>> preprint:
>>>
>>> https://www.medrxiv.org/content/10.1101/2020.04.14.20062463v1?__cf_chl_jschl_tk__=6eed0f382928d377843071bf75b21bd8cd3f6e1a-1587330720-0-AcFcOZnNzxiZ0uUfp5P0sDRMuIV1ohSGTGDkjjCIG2bjSq-JmBrCrxKWqc2pXRybOqH0j1k9r5srJiQ1tMR8e0y_biF6fNLtAxCFYZ0o_jUEnG2JyN-bpaejc1TultdhSuvu-7UjEYayt7w7eReBRPCwcVoELD5w5zyIfTV-7Dc2ij8dftVX9HPqMMLYaT1QNkQMMgPhIxCLa-ixudM8FiD7HrlOIry3hSn6XzoaG9EhPOK4K3B2t2_OiHPKFEs4QyviLCUouYRl9CWfaUNDNzt-0vXLsXeR1FtnJYqgWeGir26ZyNQkZ4qxqZ1LE5ESDfPTq23pVeZDiSjQk5D_oyo
>>>
>>>
>>>
>>>
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>>> FRIAM Applied Complexity Group listserv
>>> Zoom Fridays 9:30a-12p Mtn GMT-6  bit.ly/virtualfriam
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>>>
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Re: [FRIAM] FB self-selected antibody covid testing of 3000+ in Santa Clara

[Gary Schiltz]

Hey Tom, that link points to a domain that is for sale.

On Sun, Apr 19, 2020 at 5:04 PM Tom Johnson  wrote:

> Related:
> BS NEWS April 19, 2020, 9:07 AM
> "On the trail of COVID-19: Contact tracing the virus
> bit.ly/mSad
> TJ
>
>
> 
> Tom Johnson - t...@jtjohnson.com
> Institute for Analytic Journalism   -- Santa Fe, NM USA
> 505.577.6482(c)505.473.9646(h)
> *NM Foundation for Open Government* 
> *Check out It's The People's Data
> *
>
> 
>
>
> On Sun, Apr 19, 2020 at 3:25 PM  wrote:
>
>>
>> https://www.livescience.com/coronavirus-antibodies-widespread-in-santa-clara.html
>> Preprint below.
>>
>> Has this been discussed already?
>> Seems like a fairly key new piece of information in the covid19 version
>> of the Drake Equation (with a time component).
>> This seems to be a decent guess at the fraction truly infected number.
>>
>>
>> Of course, there are self-selection effects on the population, but they
>> attempted to control for them it looks like.  Also, none of the antibody
>> tests has been certified by the feds yet.
>>
>>
>> If you know of any other antibody testing that has better randomization,
>> please post!
>>
>> -Jim
>>
>>
>> preprint:
>>
>> https://www.medrxiv.org/content/10.1101/2020.04.14.20062463v1?__cf_chl_jschl_tk__=6eed0f382928d377843071bf75b21bd8cd3f6e1a-1587330720-0-AcFcOZnNzxiZ0uUfp5P0sDRMuIV1ohSGTGDkjjCIG2bjSq-JmBrCrxKWqc2pXRybOqH0j1k9r5srJiQ1tMR8e0y_biF6fNLtAxCFYZ0o_jUEnG2JyN-bpaejc1TultdhSuvu-7UjEYayt7w7eReBRPCwcVoELD5w5zyIfTV-7Dc2ij8dftVX9HPqMMLYaT1QNkQMMgPhIxCLa-ixudM8FiD7HrlOIry3hSn6XzoaG9EhPOK4K3B2t2_OiHPKFEs4QyviLCUouYRl9CWfaUNDNzt-0vXLsXeR1FtnJYqgWeGir26ZyNQkZ4qxqZ1LE5ESDfPTq23pVeZDiSjQk5D_oyo
>>
>>
>>
>>
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Re: [FRIAM] FB self-selected antibody covid testing of 3000+ in Santa Clara

[Tom Johnson]

Related:
BS NEWS April 19, 2020, 9:07 AM
"On the trail of COVID-19: Contact tracing the virus
bit.ly/mSad
TJ



Tom Johnson - t...@jtjohnson.com
Institute for Analytic Journalism   -- Santa Fe, NM USA
505.577.6482(c)505.473.9646(h)
*NM Foundation for Open Government* 
*Check out It's The People's Data
*




On Sun, Apr 19, 2020 at 3:25 PM  wrote:

>
> https://www.livescience.com/coronavirus-antibodies-widespread-in-santa-clara.html
> Preprint below.
>
> Has this been discussed already?
> Seems like a fairly key new piece of information in the covid19 version
> of the Drake Equation (with a time component).
> This seems to be a decent guess at the fraction truly infected number.
>
>
> Of course, there are self-selection effects on the population, but they
> attempted to control for them it looks like.  Also, none of the antibody
> tests has been certified by the feds yet.
>
>
> If you know of any other antibody testing that has better randomization,
> please post!
>
> -Jim
>
>
> preprint:
>
> https://www.medrxiv.org/content/10.1101/2020.04.14.20062463v1?__cf_chl_jschl_tk__=6eed0f382928d377843071bf75b21bd8cd3f6e1a-1587330720-0-AcFcOZnNzxiZ0uUfp5P0sDRMuIV1ohSGTGDkjjCIG2bjSq-JmBrCrxKWqc2pXRybOqH0j1k9r5srJiQ1tMR8e0y_biF6fNLtAxCFYZ0o_jUEnG2JyN-bpaejc1TultdhSuvu-7UjEYayt7w7eReBRPCwcVoELD5w5zyIfTV-7Dc2ij8dftVX9HPqMMLYaT1QNkQMMgPhIxCLa-ixudM8FiD7HrlOIry3hSn6XzoaG9EhPOK4K3B2t2_OiHPKFEs4QyviLCUouYRl9CWfaUNDNzt-0vXLsXeR1FtnJYqgWeGir26ZyNQkZ4qxqZ1LE5ESDfPTq23pVeZDiSjQk5D_oyo
>
>
>
>
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[FRIAM] FB self-selected antibody covid testing of 3000+ in Santa Clara

[jpgirard]

https://www.livescience.com/coronavirus-antibodies-widespread-in-santa-clara.htmlPreprint below.Has this been discussed already?Seems like a fairly key new piece of information in the covid19 version of the Drake Equation (with a time component).This seems to be a decent guess at the fraction truly infected number.Of course, there are self-selection effects on the population, but they attempted to control for them it looks like.  Also, none of the antibody tests has been certified by the feds yet.If you know of any other antibody testing that has better randomization, please post!-Jimpreprint:https://www.medrxiv.org/content/10.1101/2020.04.14.20062463v1?__cf_chl_jschl_tk__=6eed0f382928d377843071bf75b21bd8cd3f6e1a-1587330720-0-AcFcOZnNzxiZ0uUfp5P0sDRMuIV1ohSGTGDkjjCIG2bjSq-JmBrCrxKWqc2pXRybOqH0j1k9r5srJiQ1tMR8e0y_biF6fNLtAxCFYZ0o_jUEnG2JyN-bpaejc1TultdhSuvu-7UjEYayt7w7eReBRPCwcVoELD5w5zyIfTV-7Dc2ij8dftVX9HPqMMLYaT1QNkQMMgPhIxCLa-ixudM8FiD7HrlOIry3hSn6XzoaG9EhPOK4K3B2t2_OiHPKFEs4QyviLCUouYRl9CWfaUNDNzt-0vXLsXeR1FtnJYqgWeGir26ZyNQkZ4qxqZ1LE5ESDfPTq23pVeZDiSjQk5D_oyo 

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Re: [FRIAM] basis for prediction — forked from the tail end of anthropological observtions

[Steven A Smith]

Thanks for the elaboration, my "worst fears" trumped my "greatest hopes"
when I read the Wikipedia article...

The first rule of Fight Club is "you do not talk about Fight Club"

> Steve,
>
> I mentioned the Bellamy Clubs then and now, solely as an example of
> spontaneous generation of hundreds of local groups to talk about the
> future. I mentioned before I taught a class with Bellamy's grandson
> who was writing a biography and i was told many a story about the
> clubs and their evolution.
>
> First, they were a self-organized, spontaneous, emergent phenomena.
> Not sponsored, not directed, just one neighbor talking to another,
> "say have you read this?"
>
> It seems inevitable, and it was the case that the clubs became
> "organized" and the discussion "formalized" which killed the whole
> thing. Bellamy was appalled by the eventual "findings" of the club and
> distanced himself from them. And of course they dissipated as fast as
> they arose.
>
> If the generative phase of the clubs were to be replicated, it would
> probably have to be on-line somehow and how you would prevent the
> discussion from prematurely settling on a variation of the current
> general political discussion instead of fully exploring alternatives —
> I have no clue.
>
> davew
>
>
> On Sun, Apr 19, 2020, at 9:31 AM, Steven A Smith wrote:
>>
>> Dave -
>>
>> I do remember your reference to the Bellamyists and probably wrote a
>> long-winded (well-over 300) commentary which I then deleted.  
>>
>> What I remember of that (my aborted response) was somewhat
>> reactionary to Utopianism and Nationalism.  In the spirit of
>> productive optimism, I realize(d) my reactionaryisms was maybe not
>> very productive.   I don't want to devolve into the splitting of
>> hairs we are so fond of here in this forum.
>>
>> With that caveat...  I am struggling against those two things I
>> impute to what little I know of "the Bellamyists".  "One (hu)man's
>> Utopia is another's Dystopia".  And.  "Nationalism is (dangerously)
>> out-of-scale Tribalism".
>>
>> I guess I would ask why such a grandiose scale structure would need
>> to be put in place?  Would not an emergence from discussions among
>> small groups (such as the threads on FriAM) not be a more practical
>> and perhaps "safer" route?   Is such a structure/container required,
>> or perhaps it might be inevitable?   But then it would not be
>> Bellamyists, but rather DaveWestist?
>>
>> With that in mind...  perhaps it is worth discussing the Bellamyites
>> primary focus (as claimed in the Wikipedia Article that is my only
>> source) of "nationalizing industry".  That seems to be what the Left
>> is leaning toward... or at least regulating/taxing industry at the
>> federal level to the point that it IS effectively nationalized?  
>> What is the Right's version of that?   In the spirit of NeoLiberalism
>> and free-markets  of which the Right is most fond, nationalization is
>> anathema. 
>>
>> And yet, it seems that the "free market" is best at innovation... and
>> once an industry has been commodified, perhaps the next step IS to
>> nationalization.   There might have been a time when gasoline
>> stations had something significantly different to offer, one from the
>> other, but even the detergents and oxygenators seem to have become
>> pretty standard(?lame assertion?) and the only difference is how big
>> is the big-gulp soda in the convenience store, is it filled from the
>> Coca Cola or Pepsi Cola pantheon and are more triggered by a giant
>> yellow clam-shell logo or a green baby brontosaurus?
>>
>> I'm entirely with you on the diversity of foodstuffs referenced
>> earlier...   but IF/When I'm going to feed from the same trough of
>> the same hybrids as my fellow piggies, why put so many different (or
>> any?) labels on them?  And then why not plant your own garden with
>> seeds exchanged with friends and neighbors, localized to your
>> conditions, and buy/trade what you can't grow from small (tiny) farms
>> within a short drive (walk)?
>>
>> And I agree on the liminal, though I see liminality everywhere at all
>> scales, like the fractality of an estuary and this moment is more
>> acute and offering/demanding more focused/proaction?  If we did live
>> in our everyday liminality more-better, then this would just be an
>> extrema(ish) of scale... but since we (mostly) don't, it feels like a
>> change in quality in it's quantity.  There I go, splitting hairs?
>>
>> - Steve
>>
>>
>>> Steve,
>>>
>>> This *_should_* be a time between lightning and thunder, liminal, a
>>> time "when all things are possible."
>>>
>>> I would love to be optimistic, even guardedly,
>>>
>>> Prerequisite, perhaps, is for everyone to accept Hywel's dictum,
>>> "Ah, but it is more complicated than that" coupled with a heady dose
>>> of agonizing reappraisal of one's unexamined positions.  Healthy
>>> doses, of "you have a point," "errors were made," "our ontology
>>> should incorporate those distinctions," etc.
>>>
>>> 

Re: [FRIAM] Judea Pearl: Book of Why

[Marcus Daniels]

For comparison, there are 288 deep sequences for SARS-Cov2 at GenBank, and 
about 2.4 million confirmed cases world-wide.   A few thousand more sequences 
at GISAID.   Not hundreds of thousands of samples that have been deep 
sequenced.   There could actually be many independent transmission cases, and 
the tree that GISAID shows is just the known evidence.

From: Friam  on behalf of Jochen Fromm 

Reply-To: The Friday Morning Applied Complexity Coffee Group 
Date: Sunday, April 19, 2020 at 1:03 PM
To: The Friday Morning Applied Complexity Coffee Group 
Subject: Re: [FRIAM] Judea Pearl: Book of Why

"I think it would be wise to watch the evolution of the virus over time within 
people and across people"

Scientists do this already, and they found out for instance that most NY cases 
came from Europe, not from China directly. Carl Zimmer reported about it in the 
NY Times. This is the article Donald misunderstood...
https://www.nytimes.com/2020/04/08/science/new-york-coronavirus-cases-europe-genomes.html

..so that Carl had to correct him
https://twitter.com/carlzimmer/status/1249132628755787782

-J.



 Original message 
From: Marcus Daniels 
Date: 4/19/20 21:50 (GMT+01:00)
To: The Friday Morning Applied Complexity Coffee Group 
Subject: Re: [FRIAM] Judea Pearl: Book of Why

Roger directs us to the story about Biohub:

< It was also different, in an important way. The commercial labs are set up to 
take in the samples and spit out a simple answer: positive or negative. They 
aren’t set up, as the Biohub is, to sequence the genome of every positive 
specimen and look for variations among them. As it moves through the 
population, the virus replicates and, as DeRisi says, “every time you replicate 
something there is a chance of an error.” He’s already found tiny differences 
from one coronavirus genome to the next — not so great that it changes the 
essential nature of the virus but noticeable nevertheless.  >

I think it would be wise to watch the evolution of the virus over time within 
people and across people.   I’ve heard experts argue it is slowly mutating, but 
I’ve personally seen deep sequence data (just from Genbank) reveal other 
variants.   The stakes are high enough that shortcuts seem like a bad idea to 
me.  And the technology exists to do the deep sequencing.   That’s good point 
IMO about how Quest and LabCorp are designed to do positive/negative tests.  
Imagine the disaster that happens if the tests become fragile, like the CDC 
tests were..

Marcus


From: Friam  on behalf of Roger Critchlow 

Reply-To: The Friday Morning Applied Complexity Coffee Group 
Date: Sunday, April 19, 2020 at 12:30 PM
To: The Friday Morning Applied Complexity Coffee Group 
Subject: Re: [FRIAM] Judea Pearl: Book of Why

UCSF has something like this, 
https://www.bloomberg.com/opinion/articles/2020-04-17/chan-zuckerberg-biohub-is-ready-for-coronavirus-tests-to-come

-- rec --


On Sun, Apr 19, 2020 at 1:40 PM Marcus Daniels 
mailto:mar...@snoutfarm.com>> wrote:
Dave writes:

< Marcus said, "Imagine if everyone had full genome sequencing and every viral 
sample was deep sequenced." Iceland has something close to this already. >

https://www.decode.com/publications/

Marcus
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Re: [FRIAM] Judea Pearl: Book of Why

[Steven A Smith]

> Not directly relevant, but another good sci-fi about genetics — Daniel
> Suarez' Change Agent.
>
> davew

Thanks...

I read that earlier this year in response to your general reference to
Suarez (starting with Delta-V?) and my body and soul *still* ache from
the memories!

and Marcus... yes, GATTACA didn't (apparently) anticipate CRISPR

Trans/Posthumanist Utopias have a strong flavor of  Dystopia for me...  

Eloi & Morlocks


>
>
> On Sun, Apr 19, 2020, at 10:41 AM, Steven A Smith wrote:
>>
>> Marcus -
>>
>>
>>
>> I believe that Andrew Niccol DID imagine something like that:
>>
>>
>> I wish I had a pithy preamble for this dystopian BioPunk reference,
>> but perhaps it speaks for itself?
>>
>>
>> https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gattaca
>>
>>
>> - Steve
>>
>>> Steve writes:
>>>
>>> < The whole world is responding to what is *roughly* the same virus
>>> with *roughly* what is the same human phenotype/metabolism in a
>>> myriad of *roughly* the same modes of human organization. >
>>>
>>> There are hundreds of common HLA alleles across humans.   In a
>>> diverse country like the US, with hundreds of thousands of positive
>>> cases and tens of thousands of deaths the hundreds of alleles would
>>> be well sampled.   Too bad our medical surveillance is so bad, and
>>> made worse by the moron.  Imagine if everyone had full genome
>>> sequencing and every viral sample was deep sequenced. 
>>>
>>> Marcus
>>> 
>>>
>>> *From:* Friam 
>>>  on behalf of Steven A Smith
>>>  
>>> *Sent:* Sunday, April 19, 2020 10:11 AM
>>> *To:* friam@redfish.com 
>>>  
>>> *Subject:* Re: [FRIAM] Judea Pearl: Book of Why
>>>  
>>>
 One way to address the N/A issue is to repeatedly perturb the real-world 
 system so as to elicit those correlations.  When that is practical.. 
>>>
>>> We are, in a time of real-world system perturbation, right now.  The
>>> whole world is responding to what is *roughly* the same virus with
>>> *roughly* what is the same human phenotype/metabolism in a myriad of
>>> *roughly* the same modes of human organization.   This IS a testbed
>>> of human (-system?) response to a widespread, somewhat invisible
>>> threat.   From Wuhan to Singapore to Italy to Iran to Sweden to
>>> Germany to NYC to WA State to the Navajo Nation to Florida's
>>> beaches, this IS a huge coupled systems dynamics/agent-model
>>> executed in real-time by real-people with real casualties and real
>>> consequences.  
>>>
>>> We are, to varying degrees (collectively) recording the results of
>>> these "experiments" and if we are lucky (or smart, or both) we will
>>> do some post-game analysis intended to understand more-better how
>>> best to (self-)organize around a (nearly) existential world-scale
>>> threat.   And to the extent this is a game that will never end, we
>>> have to begin the analysis while we cope with it's consequences.  
>>> Feels a bit like the models pof Physics Interreality.
>>>
>>>     https://journals.aps.org/pre/abstract/10.1103/PhysRevE.75.057201
>>> 
>>>
>>> Hanging too aggressive of a model on this (or collecting the data 
>>> against too premature of a model) will reduce the utility of such
>>> data gathering and analysis.   Whatever the dual of overfitting a
>>> model is?  Overmodeling?  Premature Modeling?
>>>
>>> What I'm looking (askance) to(ward) Pearl for is a better way of
>>> rapidly constructing, maintaining, revising as generic of a model as
>>> possible in response to "this moment".   Four months ago we should
>>> have been interested in models of how one limits a virus such as
>>> COVID19 getting a foothold in this country.   One month ago we
>>> should have been interested in how one limits COVID19 (with new
>>> understanding of it's virility, it's fatality, it's symptoms, it's
>>> mode of spread) once it HAS a foothold,  now we are faced with
>>> trying to understand how to cope with it once it is pervasive in our
>>> population whilst continuing/returning to "business as usual" and in
>>> another thread, I'm encouraging that we "try to
>>> plan/consider/think-about" what we want to do with this somewhat
>>> "blank slate" (our ass?) we are having  handed to us.  
>>>
>>> And how to think about this without premature modeling... what I
>>> think I was railing (whining/pushing-back) about with Dave on the
>>> Bellamyist thread earlier this morning.
>>>
>>> - Steve
>>>
> On Apr 19, 2020, at 8:33 AM, uǝlƃ ☣  
>  wrote:
>
> Well, the argument I often end up making is that you can do a kind of 
> face validation with the fake data. Show it to someone who's used to 
> dealing with that sort of data and if the fake data looks a lot like the 
> data they normally deal with, then maybe more 

Re: [FRIAM] Judea Pearl: Book of Why

[Jochen Fromm]

"I think it would be wise to watch the evolution of the virus over time within 
people and across people"Scientists do this already, and they found out for 
instance that most NY cases came from Europe, not from China directly. Carl 
Zimmer reported about it in the NY Times. This is the article Donald 
misunderstood...https://www.nytimes.com/2020/04/08/science/new-york-coronavirus-cases-europe-genomes.html..so
 that Carl had to correct 
himhttps://twitter.com/carlzimmer/status/1249132628755787782-J.
 Original message From: Marcus Daniels  
Date: 4/19/20  21:50  (GMT+01:00) To: The Friday Morning Applied Complexity 
Coffee Group  Subject: Re: [FRIAM] Judea Pearl: Book of Why 

Roger directs us to the story about Biohub:
 
< It was also different, in an important way. The commercial labs are set up to 
take in the samples and spit out a simple answer: positive or negative. They 
aren’t set up, as the Biohub is, to sequence the genome of every positive 
specimen
 and look for variations among them. As it moves through the population, the 
virus replicates and, as DeRisi says, “every time you replicate something there 
is a chance of an error.” He’s already found tiny differences from one 
coronavirus genome to the next
 — not so great that it changes the essential nature of the virus but 
noticeable nevertheless.  >
 
I think it would be wise to watch the evolution of the virus over time within 
people and across people.   I’ve heard experts argue it is slowly mutating, but 
I’ve personally seen deep sequence data (just from Genbank) reveal other 
variants. 
  The stakes are high enough that shortcuts seem like a bad idea to me.  And 
the technology exists to do the deep sequencing.   That’s good point IMO about 
how Quest and LabCorp are designed to do positive/negative tests.  Imagine the 
disaster that happens
 if the tests become fragile, like the CDC tests were..
 
Marcus
 
 

From: Friam  on behalf of Roger Critchlow 

Reply-To: The Friday Morning Applied Complexity Coffee Group 
Date: Sunday, April 19, 2020 at 12:30 PM
To: The Friday Morning Applied Complexity Coffee Group 
Subject: Re: [FRIAM] Judea Pearl: Book of Why


 


UCSF has something like this, 
https://www.bloomberg.com/opinion/articles/2020-04-17/chan-zuckerberg-biohub-is-ready-for-coronavirus-tests-to-come


 


-- rec --


 


 


On Sun, Apr 19, 2020 at 1:40 PM Marcus Daniels  wrote:





Dave writes:


 




< Marcus said, "Imagine if everyone had full genome sequencing and every viral 
sample was deep sequenced." Iceland has something close to this already. >


 


https://www.decode.com/publications/


 


Marcus



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Re: [FRIAM] Judea Pearl: Book of Why

[Marcus Daniels]

Roger directs us to the story about Biohub:

< It was also different, in an important way. The commercial labs are set up to 
take in the samples and spit out a simple answer: positive or negative. They 
aren’t set up, as the Biohub is, to sequence the genome of every positive 
specimen and look for variations among them. As it moves through the 
population, the virus replicates and, as DeRisi says, “every time you replicate 
something there is a chance of an error.” He’s already found tiny differences 
from one coronavirus genome to the next — not so great that it changes the 
essential nature of the virus but noticeable nevertheless.  >

I think it would be wise to watch the evolution of the virus over time within 
people and across people.   I’ve heard experts argue it is slowly mutating, but 
I’ve personally seen deep sequence data (just from Genbank) reveal other 
variants.   The stakes are high enough that shortcuts seem like a bad idea to 
me.  And the technology exists to do the deep sequencing.   That’s good point 
IMO about how Quest and LabCorp are designed to do positive/negative tests.  
Imagine the disaster that happens if the tests become fragile, like the CDC 
tests were..

Marcus


From: Friam  on behalf of Roger Critchlow 

Reply-To: The Friday Morning Applied Complexity Coffee Group 
Date: Sunday, April 19, 2020 at 12:30 PM
To: The Friday Morning Applied Complexity Coffee Group 
Subject: Re: [FRIAM] Judea Pearl: Book of Why

UCSF has something like this, 
https://www.bloomberg.com/opinion/articles/2020-04-17/chan-zuckerberg-biohub-is-ready-for-coronavirus-tests-to-come

-- rec --


On Sun, Apr 19, 2020 at 1:40 PM Marcus Daniels 
mailto:mar...@snoutfarm.com>> wrote:
Dave writes:

< Marcus said, "Imagine if everyone had full genome sequencing and every viral 
sample was deep sequenced." Iceland has something close to this already. >

https://www.decode.com/publications/

Marcus
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Re: [FRIAM] basis for prediction — forked from the tail end of anthropological observtions

[Stephen Guerin]

On Sun, Apr 19, 2020 at 11:41 AM  wrote:

>
>
> Of COURSE it would be you who would recognize “Red, Right, Returning”.
>
>
>
> I am surprised that some conservative magazine hasn’t adopted it as its
> motto.
>

Might be a better motto for the centrists to keep Left of the Red markers.
ie keep navigating toward the center of the channel where you don't destroy
the ship on the rocks.
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Re: [FRIAM] Judea Pearl: Book of Why

[Roger Critchlow]

UCSF has something like this,
https://www.bloomberg.com/opinion/articles/2020-04-17/chan-zuckerberg-biohub-is-ready-for-coronavirus-tests-to-come

-- rec --


On Sun, Apr 19, 2020 at 1:40 PM Marcus Daniels  wrote:

> Dave writes:
>
> < Marcus said, "Imagine if everyone had full genome sequencing and every
> viral sample was deep sequenced." Iceland has something close to this
> already. >
>
> https://www.decode.com/publications/
>
> Marcus
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Re: [FRIAM] Tripping on the Rye: She's a Witch! How do you know? . (Re: basis for prediction — forked from the tail end of anthropological observtions)

[Marcus Daniels]

Stephen writes:

< Though if you listen closely, it was already offered right before "duck" :-) >

Ah ha!  Only my subconscious picked it up, I guess.  :-)

Marcus

From: Friam  on behalf of Stephen Guerin 

Sent: Sunday, April 19, 2020 12:37 PM
To: The Friday Morning Applied Complexity Coffee Group 
Subject: Re: [FRIAM] Tripping on the Rye: She's a Witch! How do you know? . 
(Re: basis for prediction — forked from the tail end of anthropological 
observtions)

Marcus,

Yes, Lead is a good guess. Though if you listen closely, it was already offered 
right before "duck" :-)
  https://youtu.be/zrzMhU_4m-g?t=157


On Sun, Apr 19, 2020 at 12:32 PM Marcus Daniels 
mailto:mar...@snoutfarm.com>> wrote:
How about lead?

https://www.cbsnews.com/news/lead-in-americas-water-systems-is-a-national-problem/
https://www.nrdc.org/resources/whats-your-water-flint-and-beyond
https://www.vox.com/2016/1/21/10811004/lead-poisoning-cities-us

Marcus


From: Friam mailto:friam-boun...@redfish.com>> on 
behalf of Steven A Smith mailto:sasm...@swcp.com>>
Sent: Sunday, April 19, 2020 12:21 PM
To: friam@redfish.com 
mailto:friam@redfish.com>>
Subject: Re: [FRIAM] Tripping on the Rye: She's a Witch! How do you know? . 
(Re: basis for prediction — forked from the tail end of anthropological 
observtions)



SG -
I was completely ignorant of the history/impacts of 
ergot before this thread. Fascinating!

so now you have added (upped the game of) "ergot" to your argot!

Language of thieves?!

https://grammarist.com/usage/argot-vs-ergot/

It might be notable that Rye Whiskey (and wild, wild women) is my preferred 
(hard) drink of choice...  not sure if there is evidence or precedent of rye 
whiskey made from "spoiled Rye".  Also that my cover/nurse crop of choice is a 
mix of winter-wheat/winter-rye here on the "homestead".   I haven't tried 
actually eating or fermenting any yet.

-SS

In this context, we can think about Dave's different ways of knowing when we 
show cause and evidence that someone is a witch.

  1.  Science: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zrzMhU_4m-g
  2.   LSD: Ergo the Ergot: LSD, Causation and Evidence 
https://www.vox.com/2015/10/29/9620542/salem-witch-trials-ergotism




On Sun, Apr 19, 2020 at 7:47 AM Prof David West 
mailto:profw...@fastmail.fm>> wrote:
addendum:  I was interrupted mid-post

Just as a new strain of ergot might pose a severe challenge to hybridized 
wheat, a new "strain" of problem might pose a severe challenge to a hybridized 
mode of thinking.

I would posit that challenges like Covid-19, global warming, and even The 
Donald are akin to a new strain of ergot vis-a-vis wheat. Our ability to 
address or solve those challenges might be, I am certain it would be, enhanced 
if we could bring to bear some "heritage modes of thought."

My expressed antipathy for Science derives from the tendency of scientists to 
simply dismiss any alternative ideas or arguments as anti-scientific and 
therefore invalid.

The reason I said that you and I are in fundamental agreement, is that, I 
think, both of us would accept into our garden of thought" any sufficiently 
viable, and tasty, mode of thinking.

davew


On Sun, Apr 19, 2020, at 6:24 AM, Prof David West wrote:
> Nick,
>
> There is truth in what you say, but only a bit.
>
> I have certainly spoken as if "Science was a bunch of nasty people with
> vested interests acting in an exclusionary manner."
>
> Hyperbole.
>
> A better metaphor / analogy would be the way we have hybridized our
> food supply; e.g. 90 percent of all dairy cows have one of two bulls in
> their ancestry, there are one or two tomato hybrids, one or two strains
> of rice, wheat, corn, etc.
>
> This creates a huge vulnerability — a novel pest or disease and presto,
> no food supply.
>
> Now imagine that there are multiple species of investigation, thinking,
> knowledge.
>
> Since the Age of Enlightenment, the western world has been hell bent on
> hybridizing but one of them — Formalism (aka, roughly, Science).
>
> Yes, I believe that Formalism has attained such a privileged status
> that it tolerates no criticism and critics are "excommunicated" with
> prejudice.
>
> I would like to think of myself as someone interested in growing
> heritage tomatoes in my garden and marveling at the differences in
> taste and texture and finding very deep value from the use of them in
> culinary creations.
>
> davew
>
>
> On Sat, Apr 18, 2020, at 8:58 PM, 
> thompnicks...@gmail.com wrote:
> > Dave,
> >
> > No, wait a minute!  Thou slenderest me!   For you, Science is a bunch
> > of nasty people with vested interests. Science, on that understanding,
> > has the power to exclude.  For me, Science is a set of practices that
> > lead to understandings of experience that endure the test of time.  It
> > is not the sort of thing that can exclude.   If 

Re: [FRIAM] Tripping on the Rye: She's a Witch! How do you know? . (Re: basis for prediction — forked from the tail end of anthropological observtions)

[Stephen Guerin]

Marcus,

Yes, Lead is a good guess. Though if you listen closely, it was already
offered right before "duck" :-)
  https://youtu.be/zrzMhU_4m-g?t=157


On Sun, Apr 19, 2020 at 12:32 PM Marcus Daniels 
wrote:

> How about lead?
>
>
> https://www.cbsnews.com/news/lead-in-americas-water-systems-is-a-national-problem/
> https://www.nrdc.org/resources/whats-your-water-flint-and-beyond
> https://www.vox.com/2016/1/21/10811004/lead-poisoning-cities-us
>
> Marcus
>
> --
> *From:* Friam  on behalf of Steven A Smith <
> sasm...@swcp.com>
> *Sent:* Sunday, April 19, 2020 12:21 PM
> *To:* friam@redfish.com 
> *Subject:* Re: [FRIAM] Tripping on the Rye: She's a Witch! How do you
> know? . (Re: basis for prediction — forked from the tail end of
> anthropological observtions)
>
>
>
> SG -
>
> I was completely ignorant of the history/impacts of ergot
>  before this thread. Fascinating!
>
> so now you have added (upped the game of) "ergot" to your argot!
>
> Language of thieves?!
>
> https://grammarist.com/usage/argot-vs-ergot/
>
> It might be notable that Rye Whiskey (and wild, wild women) is my
> preferred (hard) drink of choice...  not sure if there is evidence or
> precedent of rye whiskey made from "spoiled Rye".  Also that my cover/nurse
> crop of choice is a mix of winter-wheat/winter-rye here on the
> "homestead".   I haven't tried actually eating or fermenting any yet.
>
> -SS
>
>
> In this context, we can think about Dave's different ways of knowing when
> we show cause and evidence that someone is a witch.
>
>1. Science: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zrzMhU_4m-g
>2.  LSD: Ergo the Ergot: LSD, Causation and Evidence
>https://www.vox.com/2015/10/29/9620542/salem-witch-trials-ergotism
>
>
>
>
>
> On Sun, Apr 19, 2020 at 7:47 AM Prof David West 
> wrote:
>
> addendum:  I was interrupted mid-post
>
> Just as a new strain of ergot might pose a severe challenge to hybridized
> wheat, a new "strain" of problem might pose a severe challenge to a
> hybridized mode of thinking.
>
> I would posit that challenges like Covid-19, global warming, and even The
> Donald are akin to a new strain of ergot vis-a-vis wheat. Our ability to
> address or solve those challenges might be, I am certain it would be,
> enhanced if we could bring to bear some "heritage modes of thought."
>
> My expressed antipathy for Science derives from the tendency of scientists
> to simply dismiss any alternative ideas or arguments as anti-scientific and
> therefore invalid.
>
> The reason I said that you and I are in fundamental agreement, is that, I
> think, both of us would accept into our garden of thought" any sufficiently
> viable, and tasty, mode of thinking.
>
> davew
>
>
> On Sun, Apr 19, 2020, at 6:24 AM, Prof David West wrote:
> > Nick,
> >
> > There is truth in what you say, but only a bit.
> >
> > I have certainly spoken as if "Science was a bunch of nasty people with
> > vested interests acting in an exclusionary manner."
> >
> > Hyperbole.
> >
> > A better metaphor / analogy would be the way we have hybridized our
> > food supply; e.g. 90 percent of all dairy cows have one of two bulls in
> > their ancestry, there are one or two tomato hybrids, one or two strains
> > of rice, wheat, corn, etc.
> >
> > This creates a huge vulnerability — a novel pest or disease and presto,
> > no food supply.
> >
> > Now imagine that there are multiple species of investigation, thinking,
> > knowledge.
> >
> > Since the Age of Enlightenment, the western world has been hell bent on
> > hybridizing but one of them — Formalism (aka, roughly, Science).
> >
> > Yes, I believe that Formalism has attained such a privileged status
> > that it tolerates no criticism and critics are "excommunicated" with
> > prejudice.
> >
> > I would like to think of myself as someone interested in growing
> > heritage tomatoes in my garden and marveling at the differences in
> > taste and texture and finding very deep value from the use of them in
> > culinary creations.
> >
> > davew
> >
> >
> > On Sat, Apr 18, 2020, at 8:58 PM, thompnicks...@gmail.com wrote:
> > > Dave,
> > >
> > > No, wait a minute!  Thou slenderest me!   For you, Science is a bunch
> > > of nasty people with vested interests. Science, on that understanding,
> > > has the power to exclude.  For me, Science is a set of practices that
> > > lead to understandings of experience that endure the test of time.  It
> > > is not the sort of thing that can exclude.   If pot smoking in bubble
> > > baths leads to understandings that endure the test of time, then it is
> > > a scientific method.  Something like that seemed to have worked for
> > > Archimedes.
> > >
> > > Nick
> > >
> > > Nicholas Thompson
> > > Emeritus Professor of Ethology and Psychology
> > > Clark University
> > > thompnicks...@gmail.com
> > > https://wordpress.clarku.edu/nthompson/
> > >
> > >
> > >
> > > -Original Message-
> > > From: Friam  On Behalf Of Prof 

Re: [FRIAM] Tripping on the Rye: She's a Witch! How do you know? . (Re: basis for prediction — forked from the tail end of anthropological observtions)

[Marcus Daniels]

How about lead?

https://www.cbsnews.com/news/lead-in-americas-water-systems-is-a-national-problem/
https://www.nrdc.org/resources/whats-your-water-flint-and-beyond
https://www.vox.com/2016/1/21/10811004/lead-poisoning-cities-us

Marcus


From: Friam  on behalf of Steven A Smith 

Sent: Sunday, April 19, 2020 12:21 PM
To: friam@redfish.com 
Subject: Re: [FRIAM] Tripping on the Rye: She's a Witch! How do you know? . 
(Re: basis for prediction — forked from the tail end of anthropological 
observtions)



SG -
I was completely ignorant of the history/impacts of 
ergot before this thread. Fascinating!

so now you have added (upped the game of) "ergot" to your argot!

Language of thieves?!

https://grammarist.com/usage/argot-vs-ergot/

It might be notable that Rye Whiskey (and wild, wild women) is my preferred 
(hard) drink of choice...  not sure if there is evidence or precedent of rye 
whiskey made from "spoiled Rye".  Also that my cover/nurse crop of choice is a 
mix of winter-wheat/winter-rye here on the "homestead".   I haven't tried 
actually eating or fermenting any yet.

-SS

In this context, we can think about Dave's different ways of knowing when we 
show cause and evidence that someone is a witch.

  1.  Science: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zrzMhU_4m-g
  2.   LSD: Ergo the Ergot: LSD, Causation and Evidence 
https://www.vox.com/2015/10/29/9620542/salem-witch-trials-ergotism




On Sun, Apr 19, 2020 at 7:47 AM Prof David West 
mailto:profw...@fastmail.fm>> wrote:
addendum:  I was interrupted mid-post

Just as a new strain of ergot might pose a severe challenge to hybridized 
wheat, a new "strain" of problem might pose a severe challenge to a hybridized 
mode of thinking.

I would posit that challenges like Covid-19, global warming, and even The 
Donald are akin to a new strain of ergot vis-a-vis wheat. Our ability to 
address or solve those challenges might be, I am certain it would be, enhanced 
if we could bring to bear some "heritage modes of thought."

My expressed antipathy for Science derives from the tendency of scientists to 
simply dismiss any alternative ideas or arguments as anti-scientific and 
therefore invalid.

The reason I said that you and I are in fundamental agreement, is that, I 
think, both of us would accept into our garden of thought" any sufficiently 
viable, and tasty, mode of thinking.

davew


On Sun, Apr 19, 2020, at 6:24 AM, Prof David West wrote:
> Nick,
>
> There is truth in what you say, but only a bit.
>
> I have certainly spoken as if "Science was a bunch of nasty people with
> vested interests acting in an exclusionary manner."
>
> Hyperbole.
>
> A better metaphor / analogy would be the way we have hybridized our
> food supply; e.g. 90 percent of all dairy cows have one of two bulls in
> their ancestry, there are one or two tomato hybrids, one or two strains
> of rice, wheat, corn, etc.
>
> This creates a huge vulnerability — a novel pest or disease and presto,
> no food supply.
>
> Now imagine that there are multiple species of investigation, thinking,
> knowledge.
>
> Since the Age of Enlightenment, the western world has been hell bent on
> hybridizing but one of them — Formalism (aka, roughly, Science).
>
> Yes, I believe that Formalism has attained such a privileged status
> that it tolerates no criticism and critics are "excommunicated" with
> prejudice.
>
> I would like to think of myself as someone interested in growing
> heritage tomatoes in my garden and marveling at the differences in
> taste and texture and finding very deep value from the use of them in
> culinary creations.
>
> davew
>
>
> On Sat, Apr 18, 2020, at 8:58 PM, 
> thompnicks...@gmail.com wrote:
> > Dave,
> >
> > No, wait a minute!  Thou slenderest me!   For you, Science is a bunch
> > of nasty people with vested interests. Science, on that understanding,
> > has the power to exclude.  For me, Science is a set of practices that
> > lead to understandings of experience that endure the test of time.  It
> > is not the sort of thing that can exclude.   If pot smoking in bubble
> > baths leads to understandings that endure the test of time, then it is
> > a scientific method.  Something like that seemed to have worked for
> > Archimedes.
> >
> > Nick
> >
> > Nicholas Thompson
> > Emeritus Professor of Ethology and Psychology
> > Clark University
> > thompnicks...@gmail.com
> > https://wordpress.clarku.edu/nthompson/
> >
> >
> >
> > -Original Message-
> > From: Friam mailto:friam-boun...@redfish.com>> 
> > On Behalf Of Prof David West
> > Sent: Saturday, April 18, 2020 6:31 PM
> > To: friam@redfish.com
> > Subject: Re: [FRIAM] basis for prediction — forked from the tail end of
> > anthropological observtions
> >
> > Nick,
> >
> > I won't lose the argument, because I pre-believe that, IF alternative
> > means with some kind 

Re: [FRIAM] Tripping on the Rye: She's a Witch! How do you know? . (Re: basis for prediction — forked from the tail end of anthropological observtions)

[Steven A Smith]

SG -
> I was completely ignorant of the history/impacts of ergot
>  before this thread. Fascinating!

so now you have added (upped the game of) "ergot" to your argot!

Language of thieves?!

    https://grammarist.com/usage/argot-vs-ergot/

It might be notable that Rye Whiskey (and wild, wild women) is my
preferred (hard) drink of choice...  not sure if there is evidence or
precedent of rye whiskey made from "spoiled Rye".  Also that my
cover/nurse crop of choice is a mix of winter-wheat/winter-rye here on
the "homestead".   I haven't tried actually eating or fermenting any yet.

-SS

>
> In this context, we can think about Dave's different ways of knowing
> when we show cause and evidence that someone is a witch.
>
>  1. Science: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zrzMhU_4m-g 
>  2.  LSD: Ergo the Ergot: LSD, Causation and Evidence
> https://www.vox.com/2015/10/29/9620542/salem-witch-trials-ergotism  
>
>
>
>  
>
> On Sun, Apr 19, 2020 at 7:47 AM Prof David West  > wrote:
>
> addendum:  I was interrupted mid-post
>
> Just as a new strain of ergot might pose a severe challenge to
> hybridized wheat, a new "strain" of problem might pose a severe
> challenge to a hybridized mode of thinking.
>
> I would posit that challenges like Covid-19, global warming, and
> even The Donald are akin to a new strain of ergot vis-a-vis wheat.
> Our ability to address or solve those challenges might be, I am
> certain it would be, enhanced if we could bring to bear some
> "heritage modes of thought."
>
> My expressed antipathy for Science derives from the tendency of
> scientists to simply dismiss any alternative ideas or arguments as
> anti-scientific and therefore invalid.
>
> The reason I said that you and I are in fundamental agreement, is
> that, I think, both of us would accept into our garden of thought"
> any sufficiently viable, and tasty, mode of thinking.
>
> davew
>
>
> On Sun, Apr 19, 2020, at 6:24 AM, Prof David West wrote:
> > Nick,
> >
> > There is truth in what you say, but only a bit.
> >
> > I have certainly spoken as if "Science was a bunch of nasty
> people with
> > vested interests acting in an exclusionary manner."
> >
> > Hyperbole.
> >
> > A better metaphor / analogy would be the way we have hybridized our
> > food supply; e.g. 90 percent of all dairy cows have one of two
> bulls in
> > their ancestry, there are one or two tomato hybrids, one or two
> strains
> > of rice, wheat, corn, etc.
> >
> > This creates a huge vulnerability — a novel pest or disease and
> presto,
> > no food supply.
> >
> > Now imagine that there are multiple species of investigation,
> thinking,
> > knowledge.
> >
> > Since the Age of Enlightenment, the western world has been hell
> bent on
> > hybridizing but one of them — Formalism (aka, roughly, Science).
> >
> > Yes, I believe that Formalism has attained such a privileged status
> > that it tolerates no criticism and critics are "excommunicated"
> with
> > prejudice.
> >
> > I would like to think of myself as someone interested in growing
> > heritage tomatoes in my garden and marveling at the differences in
> > taste and texture and finding very deep value from the use of
> them in
> > culinary creations.
> >
> > davew
> >
> >
> > On Sat, Apr 18, 2020, at 8:58 PM, thompnicks...@gmail.com
>  wrote:
> > > Dave,
> > >
> > > No, wait a minute!  Thou slenderest me!   For you, Science is
> a bunch
> > > of nasty people with vested interests. Science, on that
> understanding,
> > > has the power to exclude.  For me, Science is a set of
> practices that
> > > lead to understandings of experience that endure the test of
> time.  It
> > > is not the sort of thing that can exclude.   If pot smoking in
> bubble
> > > baths leads to understandings that endure the test of time,
> then it is
> > > a scientific method.  Something like that seemed to have
> worked for
> > > Archimedes. 
> > >
> > > Nick   
> > >
> > > Nicholas Thompson
> > > Emeritus Professor of Ethology and Psychology
> > > Clark University
> > > thompnicks...@gmail.com 
> > > https://wordpress.clarku.edu/nthompson/
> > > 
> > >
> > >
> > > -Original Message-
> > > From: Friam  > On Behalf Of Prof David West
> > > Sent: Saturday, April 18, 2020 6:31 PM
> > > To: friam@redfish.com 
> > > Subject: Re: [FRIAM] basis for prediction — forked from the
> tail end of
> > > anthropological observtions
> > >
> > > Nick,
> > >
> > > 

Re: [FRIAM] basis for prediction — forked from the tail end of anthropological observtions

[Prof David West]

Steve,

I mentioned the Bellamy Clubs then and now, solely as an example of spontaneous 
generation of hundreds of local groups to talk about the future. I mentioned 
before I taught a class with Bellamy's grandson who was writing a biography and 
i was told many a story about the clubs and their evolution.

First, they were a self-organized, spontaneous, emergent phenomena. Not 
sponsored, not directed, just one neighbor talking to another, "say have you 
read this?"

It seems inevitable, and it was the case that the clubs became "organized" and 
the discussion "formalized" which killed the whole thing. Bellamy was appalled 
by the eventual "findings" of the club and distanced himself from them. And of 
course they dissipated as fast as they arose.

If the generative phase of the clubs were to be replicated, it would probably 
have to be on-line somehow and how you would prevent the discussion from 
prematurely settling on a variation of the current general political discussion 
instead of fully exploring alternatives — I have no clue.

davew


On Sun, Apr 19, 2020, at 9:31 AM, Steven A Smith wrote:
> Dave -

> I do remember your reference to the Bellamyists and probably wrote a 
> long-winded (well-over 300) commentary which I then deleted. 

> What I remember of that (my aborted response) was somewhat reactionary to 
> Utopianism and Nationalism. In the spirit of productive optimism, I 
> realize(d) my reactionaryisms was maybe not very productive. I don't want to 
> devolve into the splitting of hairs we are so fond of here in this forum.

> With that caveat... I am struggling against those two things I impute to what 
> little I know of "the Bellamyists". "One (hu)man's Utopia is another's 
> Dystopia". And. "Nationalism is (dangerously) out-of-scale Tribalism".

> I guess I would ask why such a grandiose scale structure would need to be put 
> in place? Would not an emergence from discussions among small groups (such as 
> the threads on FriAM) not be a more practical and perhaps "safer" route? Is 
> such a structure/container required, or perhaps it might be inevitable? But 
> then it would not be Bellamyists, but rather DaveWestist?

> With that in mind... perhaps it is worth discussing the Bellamyites primary 
> focus (as claimed in the Wikipedia Article that is my only source) of 
> "nationalizing industry". That seems to be what the Left is leaning toward... 
> or at least regulating/taxing industry at the federal level to the point that 
> it IS effectively nationalized? What is the Right's version of that? In the 
> spirit of NeoLiberalism and free-markets of which the Right is most fond, 
> nationalization is anathema. 

> And yet, it seems that the "free market" is best at innovation... and once an 
> industry has been commodified, perhaps the next step IS to nationalization. 
> There might have been a time when gasoline stations had something 
> significantly different to offer, one from the other, but even the detergents 
> and oxygenators seem to have become pretty standard(?lame assertion?) and the 
> only difference is how big is the big-gulp soda in the convenience store, is 
> it filled from the Coca Cola or Pepsi Cola pantheon and are more triggered by 
> a giant yellow clam-shell logo or a green baby brontosaurus?

> I'm entirely with you on the diversity of foodstuffs referenced earlier... 
> but IF/When I'm going to feed from the same trough of the same hybrids as my 
> fellow piggies, why put so many different (or any?) labels on them? And then 
> why not plant your own garden with seeds exchanged with friends and 
> neighbors, localized to your conditions, and buy/trade what you can't grow 
> from small (tiny) farms within a short drive (walk)?

> And I agree on the liminal, though I see liminality everywhere at all scales, 
> like the fractality of an estuary and this moment is more acute and 
> offering/demanding more focused/proaction? If we did live in our everyday 
> liminality more-better, then this would just be an extrema(ish) of scale... 
> but since we (mostly) don't, it feels like a change in quality in it's 
> quantity. There I go, splitting hairs?

> - Steve

> 

>> Steve,
>> 
>> This *_should_* be a time between lightning and thunder, liminal, a time 
>> "when all things are possible."
>> 
>> I would love to be optimistic, even guardedly, 
>> 
>> Prerequisite, perhaps, is for everyone to accept Hywel's dictum, "Ah, but it 
>> is more complicated than that" coupled with a heady dose of agonizing 
>> reappraisal of one's unexamined positions. Healthy doses, of "you have a 
>> point," "errors were made," "our ontology should incorporate those 
>> distinctions," etc.
>> 
>> A while back I spoke of the Bellamy Clubs as a social / civic/ phenomenon 
>> focused on a "constructive way forward." Something of that sort would be 
>> required to instantiate your optimism.
>> 
>> davew
>> 
>> 
>> On Sun, Apr 19, 2020, at 7:14 AM, Steven A Smith wrote:
>>> Dave, et al -

>>> 

Re: [FRIAM] basis for prediction — forked from the tail end of anthropological observtions

[thompnickson2]

 

Roger!  Great to hear from you!  Are you At Sea!?

 

Of COURSE it would be you who would recognize “Red, Right, Returning”.  

 

I am surprised that some conservative magazine hasn’t adopted it as its  motto. 
 

 

Nick 

 

 

 

 

Nicholas Thompson

Emeritus Professor of Ethology and Psychology

Clark University

  thompnicks...@gmail.com

  
https://wordpress.clarku.edu/nthompson/

 

 

From: Friam  On Behalf Of Roger Critchlow
Sent: Sunday, April 19, 2020 10:17 AM
To: The Friday Morning Applied Complexity Coffee Group 
Subject: Re: [FRIAM] basis for prediction — forked from the tail end of 
anthropological observtions

 

I've watched people leave red to port on their returns, and some even get away 
with it.

 

-- rec --

 

On Sun, Apr 19, 2020, 12:09 PM Nicholas Thompson mailto:thompnicks...@gmail.com> > wrote:

Hi, Dave n all, 

 

"Outlook" has collapsed leaving me in gmail, which I don't understand..  So 
forgive me if... etc. 

 

The thunder lightening thing is both apt and strange, because of course nothing 
is possible between lightning and thunder EXCEPT that it is going to thunder.  
CF living in SFO or Seattle.  You've seen the lightening, folks!  "One 
banana, two bananas.three bananas ….."  Yet I still like the aphorism.  

 

By the way, how many people on this list have heard the expression, "Red, 
Right, Returning" and know to what it refers.  

 

Ach!  I don't know how you all tolerate this interface.  

 

Nick 

 

On Sun, Apr 19, 2020 at 9:31 AM Steven A Smith mailto:sasm...@swcp.com> > wrote:

Dave -

I do remember your reference to the Bellamyists and probably wrote a 
long-winded (well-over 300) commentary which I then deleted.   

What I remember of that (my aborted response) was somewhat reactionary to 
Utopianism and Nationalism.  In the spirit of productive optimism, I realize(d) 
my reactionaryisms was maybe not very productive.   I don't want to devolve 
into the splitting of hairs we are so fond of here in this forum.

With that caveat...  I am struggling against those two things I impute to what 
little I know of "the Bellamyists".  "One (hu)man's Utopia is another's 
Dystopia".  And.  "Nationalism is (dangerously) out-of-scale Tribalism".

I guess I would ask why such a grandiose scale structure would need to be put 
in place?  Would not an emergence from discussions among small groups (such as 
the threads on FriAM) not be a more practical and perhaps "safer" route?   Is 
such a structure/container required, or perhaps it might be inevitable?   But 
then it would not be Bellamyists, but rather DaveWestist?

With that in mind...  perhaps it is worth discussing the Bellamyites primary 
focus (as claimed in the Wikipedia Article that is my only source) of 
"nationalizing industry".  That seems to be what the Left is leaning toward... 
or at least regulating/taxing industry at the federal level to the point that 
it IS effectively nationalized?   What is the Right's version of that?   In the 
spirit of NeoLiberalism and free-markets  of which the Right is most fond, 
nationalization is anathema.  

And yet, it seems that the "free market" is best at innovation... and once an 
industry has been commodified, perhaps the next step IS to nationalization.   
There might have been a time when gasoline stations had something significantly 
different to offer, one from the other, but even the detergents and oxygenators 
seem to have become pretty standard(?lame assertion?) and the only difference 
is how big is the big-gulp soda in the convenience store, is it filled from the 
Coca Cola or Pepsi Cola pantheon and are more triggered by a giant yellow 
clam-shell logo or a green baby brontosaurus?

I'm entirely with you on the diversity of foodstuffs referenced earlier...   
but IF/When I'm going to feed from the same trough of the same hybrids as my 
fellow piggies, why put so many different (or any?) labels on them?  And then 
why not plant your own garden with seeds exchanged with friends and neighbors, 
localized to your conditions, and buy/trade what you can't grow from small 
(tiny) farms within a short drive (walk)?

And I agree on the liminal, though I see liminality everywhere at all scales, 
like the fractality of an estuary and this moment is more acute and 
offering/demanding more focused/proaction?  If we did live in our everyday 
liminality more-better, then this would just be an extrema(ish) of scale... but 
since we (mostly) don't, it feels like a change in quality in it's quantity.  
There I go, splitting hairs?

- Steve

 

Steve,

 

This should be a time between lightning and thunder, liminal, a time "when all 
things are possible."

 

I would love to be optimistic, even guardedly, 

 

Prerequisite, perhaps, is for everyone to accept Hywel's dictum, "Ah, but it is 
more complicated than that" coupled with a heady dose of agonizing reappraisal 
of one's unexamined 

Re: [FRIAM] Judea Pearl: Book of Why

[Marcus Daniels]

Dave writes:

< Marcus said, "Imagine if everyone had full genome sequencing and every viral 
sample was deep sequenced." Iceland has something close to this already. >

https://www.decode.com/publications/

Marcus
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. ...
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Zoom Fridays 9:30a-12p Mtn GMT-6  bit.ly/virtualfriam
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Re: [FRIAM] basis for prediction — forked from the tail end of anthropological observtions

[thompnickson2]

 

 

Nicholas Thompson

Emeritus Professor of Ethology and Psychology

Clark University

  thompnicks...@gmail.com

  
https://wordpress.clarku.edu/nthompson/

 

 

From: Friam  On Behalf Of Roger Critchlow
Sent: Sunday, April 19, 2020 10:17 AM
To: The Friday Morning Applied Complexity Coffee Group 
Subject: Re: [FRIAM] basis for prediction — forked from the tail end of 
anthropological observtions

 

I've watched people leave red to port on their returns, and some even get away 
with it.

 

-- rec --

 

On Sun, Apr 19, 2020, 12:09 PM Nicholas Thompson mailto:thompnicks...@gmail.com> > wrote:

Hi, Dave n all, 

 

"Outlook" has collapsed leaving me in gmail, which I don't understand..  So 
forgive me if... etc. 

 

The thunder lightening thing is both apt and strange, because of course nothing 
is possible between lightning and thunder EXCEPT that it is going to thunder.  
CF living in SFO or Seattle.  You've seen the lightening, folks!  "One 
banana, two bananas.three bananas ….."  Yet I still like the aphorism.  

 

By the way, how many people on this list have heard the expression, "Red, 
Right, Returning" and know to what it refers.  

 

Ach!  I don't know how you all tolerate this interface.  

 

Nick 

 

On Sun, Apr 19, 2020 at 9:31 AM Steven A Smith mailto:sasm...@swcp.com> > wrote:

Dave -

I do remember your reference to the Bellamyists and probably wrote a 
long-winded (well-over 300) commentary which I then deleted.   

What I remember of that (my aborted response) was somewhat reactionary to 
Utopianism and Nationalism.  In the spirit of productive optimism, I realize(d) 
my reactionaryisms was maybe not very productive.   I don't want to devolve 
into the splitting of hairs we are so fond of here in this forum.

With that caveat...  I am struggling against those two things I impute to what 
little I know of "the Bellamyists".  "One (hu)man's Utopia is another's 
Dystopia".  And.  "Nationalism is (dangerously) out-of-scale Tribalism".

I guess I would ask why such a grandiose scale structure would need to be put 
in place?  Would not an emergence from discussions among small groups (such as 
the threads on FriAM) not be a more practical and perhaps "safer" route?   Is 
such a structure/container required, or perhaps it might be inevitable?   But 
then it would not be Bellamyists, but rather DaveWestist?

With that in mind...  perhaps it is worth discussing the Bellamyites primary 
focus (as claimed in the Wikipedia Article that is my only source) of 
"nationalizing industry".  That seems to be what the Left is leaning toward... 
or at least regulating/taxing industry at the federal level to the point that 
it IS effectively nationalized?   What is the Right's version of that?   In the 
spirit of NeoLiberalism and free-markets  of which the Right is most fond, 
nationalization is anathema.  

And yet, it seems that the "free market" is best at innovation... and once an 
industry has been commodified, perhaps the next step IS to nationalization.   
There might have been a time when gasoline stations had something significantly 
different to offer, one from the other, but even the detergents and oxygenators 
seem to have become pretty standard(?lame assertion?) and the only difference 
is how big is the big-gulp soda in the convenience store, is it filled from the 
Coca Cola or Pepsi Cola pantheon and are more triggered by a giant yellow 
clam-shell logo or a green baby brontosaurus?

I'm entirely with you on the diversity of foodstuffs referenced earlier...   
but IF/When I'm going to feed from the same trough of the same hybrids as my 
fellow piggies, why put so many different (or any?) labels on them?  And then 
why not plant your own garden with seeds exchanged with friends and neighbors, 
localized to your conditions, and buy/trade what you can't grow from small 
(tiny) farms within a short drive (walk)?

And I agree on the liminal, though I see liminality everywhere at all scales, 
like the fractality of an estuary and this moment is more acute and 
offering/demanding more focused/proaction?  If we did live in our everyday 
liminality more-better, then this would just be an extrema(ish) of scale... but 
since we (mostly) don't, it feels like a change in quality in it's quantity.  
There I go, splitting hairs?

- Steve

 

Steve,

 

This should be a time between lightning and thunder, liminal, a time "when all 
things are possible."

 

I would love to be optimistic, even guardedly, 

 

Prerequisite, perhaps, is for everyone to accept Hywel's dictum, "Ah, but it is 
more complicated than that" coupled with a heady dose of agonizing reappraisal 
of one's unexamined positions.  Healthy doses, of "you have a point," "errors 
were made," "our ontology should incorporate those distinctions," etc.

 

A while back I spoke of the Bellamy Clubs as a social / civic/ phenomenon 
focused on a "constructive way 

Re: [FRIAM] Judea Pearl: Book of Why

[Prof David West]

Not directly relevant, but another good sci-fi about genetics — Daniel Suarez' 
Change Agent.

davew


On Sun, Apr 19, 2020, at 10:41 AM, Steven A Smith wrote:
> Marcus -

> 
> 

> I believe that Andrew Niccol DID imagine something like that:

> 

> I wish I had a pithy preamble for this dystopian BioPunk reference, but 
> perhaps it speaks for itself?

> 

>> https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gattaca

> 

> - Steve

>> Steve writes:
>> 
>> < The whole world is responding to what is *roughly* the same virus with 
>> *roughly* what is the same human phenotype/metabolism in a myriad of 
>> *roughly* the same modes of human organization. >
>> 
>> There are hundreds of common HLA alleles across humans. In a diverse country 
>> like the US, with hundreds of thousands of positive cases and tens of 
>> thousands of deaths the hundreds of alleles would be well sampled. Too bad 
>> our medical surveillance is so bad, and made worse by the moron. Imagine if 
>> everyone had full genome sequencing and every viral sample was deep 
>> sequenced. 
>> 
>> Marcus
>> 
>> *From:* Friam  on behalf of Steven A Smith 
>> 
>> *Sent:* Sunday, April 19, 2020 10:11 AM
>> *To:* friam@redfish.com 
>> *Subject:* Re: [FRIAM] Judea Pearl: Book of Why 
>> 
>> 
>>> One way to address the N/A issue is to repeatedly perturb the real-world 
>>> system so as to elicit those correlations.  When that is practical.. 
>> 
>> We are, in a time of real-world system perturbation, right now. The whole 
>> world is responding to what is *roughly* the same virus with *roughly* what 
>> is the same human phenotype/metabolism in a myriad of *roughly* the same 
>> modes of human organization. This IS a testbed of human (-system?) response 
>> to a widespread, somewhat invisible threat. From Wuhan to Singapore to Italy 
>> to Iran to Sweden to Germany to NYC to WA State to the Navajo Nation to 
>> Florida's beaches, this IS a huge coupled systems dynamics/agent-model 
>> executed in real-time by real-people with real casualties and real 
>> consequences. 

>> We are, to varying degrees (collectively) recording the results of these 
>> "experiments" and if we are lucky (or smart, or both) we will do some 
>> post-game analysis intended to understand more-better how best to 
>> (self-)organize around a (nearly) existential world-scale threat. And to the 
>> extent this is a game that will never end, we have to begin the analysis 
>> while we cope with it's consequences. Feels a bit like the models pof 
>> Physics Interreality.

>>  https://journals.aps.org/pre/abstract/10.1103/PhysRevE.75.057201

>> Hanging too aggressive of a model on this (or collecting the data against 
>> too premature of a model) will reduce the utility of such data gathering and 
>> analysis. Whatever the dual of overfitting a model is? Overmodeling? 
>> Premature Modeling?

>> What I'm looking (askance) to(ward) Pearl for is a better way of rapidly 
>> constructing, maintaining, revising as generic of a model as possible in 
>> response to "this moment". Four months ago we should have been interested in 
>> models of how one limits a virus such as COVID19 getting a foothold in this 
>> country. One month ago we should have been interested in how one limits 
>> COVID19 (with new understanding of it's virility, it's fatality, it's 
>> symptoms, it's mode of spread) once it HAS a foothold, now we are faced with 
>> trying to understand how to cope with it once it is pervasive in our 
>> population whilst continuing/returning to "business as usual" and in another 
>> thread, I'm encouraging that we "try to plan/consider/think-about" what we 
>> want to do with this somewhat "blank slate" (our ass?) we are having handed 
>> to us. 

>> And how to think about this without premature modeling... what I think I was 
>> railing (whining/pushing-back) about with Dave on the Bellamyist thread 
>> earlier this morning.

>> - Steve

 On Apr 19, 2020, at 8:33 AM, uǝlƃ ☣  wrote:

Well, the argument I often end up making is that you can do a kind of face 
validation with the fake data. Show it to someone who's used to dealing with 
that sort of data and if the fake data looks a lot like the data they normally 
deal with, then maybe more data-taking isn't necessary. If it looks fake to the 
"expert", then more data-taking is definitely needed.

 
> On 4/19/20 8:29 AM, Marcus Daniels wrote:
I have a hard time with this as a way to extend data.   If it is 
high-dimensional it will be under-sampled.  Seems better to me to  measure or 
simulate more so that the joint distribution can be realistic.  And if you can 
do that there is no reason to infer the joint distribution because you *have* 
it. 

> 
>>> On Apr 19, 2020, at 8:18 AM, Frank Wimberly  wrote:
>>> 
>> 
Going back and forth:  If you infer the causal graph from observational data 
you can use that graph to simulate data with the same joint distribution as the 
original data.
>> 
 -- 
☣ uǝlƃ

.-. .- -. -.. --- 

Re: [FRIAM] Judea Pearl: Book of Why

[Prof David West]

Marcus said, "Imagine if everyone had full genome sequencing and every viral 
sample was deep sequenced." Iceland has something close to this already.

davew

On Sun, Apr 19, 2020, at 10:34 AM, Marcus Daniels wrote:
> Steve writes:
> 
> < The whole world is responding to what is *roughly* the same virus with 
> *roughly* what is the same human phenotype/metabolism in a myriad of 
> *roughly* the same modes of human organization. >
> 
> There are hundreds of common HLA alleles across humans. In a diverse country 
> like the US, with hundreds of thousands of positive cases and tens of 
> thousands of deaths the hundreds of alleles would be well sampled. Too bad 
> our medical surveillance is so bad, and made worse by the moron. Imagine if 
> everyone had full genome sequencing and every viral sample was deep 
> sequenced. 
> 
> Marcus
> 
> 
> *From:* Friam  on behalf of Steven A Smith 
> 
> *Sent:* Sunday, April 19, 2020 10:11 AM
> *To:* friam@redfish.com 
> *Subject:* Re: [FRIAM] Judea Pearl: Book of Why 
> 
> 
>> One way to address the N/A issue is to repeatedly perturb the real-world 
>> system so as to elicit those correlations.  When that is practical.. 
> 
> We are, in a time of real-world system perturbation, right now. The whole 
> world is responding to what is *roughly* the same virus with *roughly* what 
> is the same human phenotype/metabolism in a myriad of *roughly* the same 
> modes of human organization. This IS a testbed of human (-system?) response 
> to a widespread, somewhat invisible threat. From Wuhan to Singapore to Italy 
> to Iran to Sweden to Germany to NYC to WA State to the Navajo Nation to 
> Florida's beaches, this IS a huge coupled systems dynamics/agent-model 
> executed in real-time by real-people with real casualties and real 
> consequences. 

> We are, to varying degrees (collectively) recording the results of these 
> "experiments" and if we are lucky (or smart, or both) we will do some 
> post-game analysis intended to understand more-better how best to 
> (self-)organize around a (nearly) existential world-scale threat. And to the 
> extent this is a game that will never end, we have to begin the analysis 
> while we cope with it's consequences. Feels a bit like the models pof Physics 
> Interreality.

>  https://journals.aps.org/pre/abstract/10.1103/PhysRevE.75.057201

> Hanging too aggressive of a model on this (or collecting the data against too 
> premature of a model) will reduce the utility of such data gathering and 
> analysis. Whatever the dual of overfitting a model is? Overmodeling? 
> Premature Modeling?

> What I'm looking (askance) to(ward) Pearl for is a better way of rapidly 
> constructing, maintaining, revising as generic of a model as possible in 
> response to "this moment". Four months ago we should have been interested in 
> models of how one limits a virus such as COVID19 getting a foothold in this 
> country. One month ago we should have been interested in how one limits 
> COVID19 (with new understanding of it's virility, it's fatality, it's 
> symptoms, it's mode of spread) once it HAS a foothold, now we are faced with 
> trying to understand how to cope with it once it is pervasive in our 
> population whilst continuing/returning to "business as usual" and in another 
> thread, I'm encouraging that we "try to plan/consider/think-about" what we 
> want to do with this somewhat "blank slate" (our ass?) we are having handed 
> to us. 

> And how to think about this without premature modeling... what I think I was 
> railing (whining/pushing-back) about with Dave on the Bellamyist thread 
> earlier this morning.

> - Steve

>> 
>>> On Apr 19, 2020, at 8:33 AM, uǝlƃ ☣  wrote:

Well, the argument I often end up making is that you can do a kind of face 
validation with the fake data. Show it to someone who's used to dealing with 
that sort of data and if the fake data looks a lot like the data they normally 
deal with, then maybe more data-taking isn't necessary. If it looks fake to the 
"expert", then more data-taking is definitely needed.

>>> 
 On 4/19/20 8:29 AM, Marcus Daniels wrote:
I have a hard time with this as a way to extend data.   If it is 
high-dimensional it will be under-sampled.  Seems better to me to  measure or 
simulate more so that the joint distribution can be realistic.  And if you can 
do that there is no reason to infer the joint distribution because you *have* 
it. 

 
>> On Apr 19, 2020, at 8:18 AM, Frank Wimberly  wrote:
>> 
> 
Going back and forth:  If you infer the causal graph from observational data 
you can use that graph to simulate data with the same joint distribution as the 
original data.
> 
>>> -- 
☣ uǝlƃ

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FRIAM Applied Complexity Group listserv
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archives: 

[FRIAM] Tripping on the Rye: She's a Witch! How do you know? . (Re: basis for prediction — forked from the tail end of anthropological observtions)

[Stephen Guerin]

I was completely ignorant of the history/impacts of ergot
 before this thread. Fascinating!

In this context, we can think about Dave's different ways of knowing when
we show cause and evidence that someone is a witch.

   1. Science: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zrzMhU_4m-g
   2.  LSD: Ergo the Ergot: LSD, Causation and Evidence
   https://www.vox.com/2015/10/29/9620542/salem-witch-trials-ergotism





On Sun, Apr 19, 2020 at 7:47 AM Prof David West 
wrote:

> addendum:  I was interrupted mid-post
>
> Just as a new strain of ergot might pose a severe challenge to hybridized
> wheat, a new "strain" of problem might pose a severe challenge to a
> hybridized mode of thinking.
>
> I would posit that challenges like Covid-19, global warming, and even The
> Donald are akin to a new strain of ergot vis-a-vis wheat. Our ability to
> address or solve those challenges might be, I am certain it would be,
> enhanced if we could bring to bear some "heritage modes of thought."
>
> My expressed antipathy for Science derives from the tendency of scientists
> to simply dismiss any alternative ideas or arguments as anti-scientific and
> therefore invalid.
>
> The reason I said that you and I are in fundamental agreement, is that, I
> think, both of us would accept into our garden of thought" any sufficiently
> viable, and tasty, mode of thinking.
>
> davew
>
>
> On Sun, Apr 19, 2020, at 6:24 AM, Prof David West wrote:
> > Nick,
> >
> > There is truth in what you say, but only a bit.
> >
> > I have certainly spoken as if "Science was a bunch of nasty people with
> > vested interests acting in an exclusionary manner."
> >
> > Hyperbole.
> >
> > A better metaphor / analogy would be the way we have hybridized our
> > food supply; e.g. 90 percent of all dairy cows have one of two bulls in
> > their ancestry, there are one or two tomato hybrids, one or two strains
> > of rice, wheat, corn, etc.
> >
> > This creates a huge vulnerability — a novel pest or disease and presto,
> > no food supply.
> >
> > Now imagine that there are multiple species of investigation, thinking,
> > knowledge.
> >
> > Since the Age of Enlightenment, the western world has been hell bent on
> > hybridizing but one of them — Formalism (aka, roughly, Science).
> >
> > Yes, I believe that Formalism has attained such a privileged status
> > that it tolerates no criticism and critics are "excommunicated" with
> > prejudice.
> >
> > I would like to think of myself as someone interested in growing
> > heritage tomatoes in my garden and marveling at the differences in
> > taste and texture and finding very deep value from the use of them in
> > culinary creations.
> >
> > davew
> >
> >
> > On Sat, Apr 18, 2020, at 8:58 PM, thompnicks...@gmail.com wrote:
> > > Dave,
> > >
> > > No, wait a minute!  Thou slenderest me!   For you, Science is a bunch
> > > of nasty people with vested interests. Science, on that understanding,
> > > has the power to exclude.  For me, Science is a set of practices that
> > > lead to understandings of experience that endure the test of time.  It
> > > is not the sort of thing that can exclude.   If pot smoking in bubble
> > > baths leads to understandings that endure the test of time, then it is
> > > a scientific method.  Something like that seemed to have worked for
> > > Archimedes.
> > >
> > > Nick
> > >
> > > Nicholas Thompson
> > > Emeritus Professor of Ethology and Psychology
> > > Clark University
> > > thompnicks...@gmail.com
> > > https://wordpress.clarku.edu/nthompson/
> > >
> > >
> > >
> > > -Original Message-
> > > From: Friam  On Behalf Of Prof David West
> > > Sent: Saturday, April 18, 2020 6:31 PM
> > > To: friam@redfish.com
> > > Subject: Re: [FRIAM] basis for prediction — forked from the tail end
> of
> > > anthropological observtions
> > >
> > > Nick,
> > >
> > > I won't lose the argument, because I pre-believe that, IF alternative
> > > means with some kind of criteria for falsifiability and repeatability
> > > THEN they should be incorporated into that which is deemed "Science" —
> > > ergo there is no argument to lose.
> > >
> > > If there is an argument — and there is clearly a difference of opinion
> > > — it centers on the the issue of why Hermetic Alchemy, Acid
> > > Epistemology, Anthropological Thick Description, Ayurvedic Medicine,
> > > Adams' "rhetorical analysis" et. al. are, at the moment and for the
> > > most part, excluded from Science.
> > >
> > > davew
> > >
> > >
> > >
> > >
> > > On Sat, Apr 18, 2020, at 5:28 PM, thompnicks...@gmail.com wrote:
> > > > Dave,
> > > >
> > > > You're going to lose this argument with me eventually, because any
> > > > investigatory practice that works in the long run I am going to
> > > > declare to be part of "the scientific method."  So if you declare
> that
> > > > discovery is enhanced by lying in a warm suds bath smoking pot, and
> > > > you can describe a repeatable practice  which includes that as a
> > > > method, 

Re: [FRIAM] Judea Pearl: Book of Why

[Marcus Daniels]

< I wish I had a pithy preamble for this dystopian BioPunk reference, but 
perhaps it speaks for itself? >

Gattaca only considered the consequences of the read genome, not the write 
genome, or of all the interventions that could be discovered as a result of 
statistical inference.   Hypothetically, Vincent could have had his heart 
repaired and not been at risk for heart failure in the first place.

Marcus

From: Friam  on behalf of Steven A Smith 

Sent: Sunday, April 19, 2020 10:41 AM
To: friam@redfish.com 
Subject: Re: [FRIAM] Judea Pearl: Book of Why


Marcus -



I believe that Andrew Niccol DID imagine something like that:


I wish I had a pithy preamble for this dystopian BioPunk reference, but perhaps 
it speaks for itself?


https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gattaca


- Steve

Steve writes:

< The whole world is responding to what is *roughly* the same virus with 
*roughly* what is the same human phenotype/metabolism in a myriad of *roughly* 
the same modes of human organization. >

There are hundreds of common HLA alleles across humans.   In a diverse country 
like the US, with hundreds of thousands of positive cases and tens of thousands 
of deaths the hundreds of alleles would be well sampled.   Too bad our medical 
surveillance is so bad, and made worse by the moron.  Imagine if everyone had 
full genome sequencing and every viral sample was deep sequenced.

Marcus

From: Friam  on 
behalf of Steven A Smith 
Sent: Sunday, April 19, 2020 10:11 AM
To: friam@redfish.com 

Subject: Re: [FRIAM] Judea Pearl: Book of Why



One way to address the N/A issue is to repeatedly perturb the real-world system 
so as to elicit those correlations.  When that is practical..


We are, in a time of real-world system perturbation, right now.  The whole 
world is responding to what is *roughly* the same virus with *roughly* what is 
the same human phenotype/metabolism in a myriad of *roughly* the same modes of 
human organization.   This IS a testbed of human (-system?) response to a 
widespread, somewhat invisible threat.   From Wuhan to Singapore to Italy to 
Iran to Sweden to Germany to NYC to WA State to the Navajo Nation to Florida's 
beaches, this IS a huge coupled systems dynamics/agent-model executed in 
real-time by real-people with real casualties and real consequences.

We are, to varying degrees (collectively) recording the results of these 
"experiments" and if we are lucky (or smart, or both) we will do some post-game 
analysis intended to understand more-better how best to (self-)organize around 
a (nearly) existential world-scale threat.   And to the extent this is a game 
that will never end, we have to begin the analysis while we cope with it's 
consequences.   Feels a bit like the models pof Physics Interreality.


https://journals.aps.org/pre/abstract/10.1103/PhysRevE.75.057201

Hanging too aggressive of a model on this (or collecting the data  against too 
premature of a model) will reduce the utility of such data gathering and 
analysis.   Whatever the dual of overfitting a model is?  Overmodeling?  
Premature Modeling?

What I'm looking (askance) to(ward) Pearl for is a better way of rapidly 
constructing, maintaining, revising as generic of a model as possible in 
response to "this moment".   Four months ago we should have been interested in 
models of how one limits a virus such as COVID19 getting a foothold in this 
country.   One month ago we should have been interested in how one limits 
COVID19 (with new understanding of it's virility, it's fatality, it's symptoms, 
it's mode of spread) once it HAS a foothold,  now we are faced with trying to 
understand how to cope with it once it is pervasive in our population whilst 
continuing/returning to "business as usual" and in another thread, I'm 
encouraging that we "try to plan/consider/think-about" what we want to do with 
this somewhat "blank slate" (our ass?) we are having  handed to us.

And how to think about this without premature modeling... what I think I was 
railing (whining/pushing-back) about with Dave on the Bellamyist thread earlier 
this morning.

- Steve

On Apr 19, 2020, at 8:33 AM, uǝlƃ ☣ 
 wrote:

Well, the argument I often end up making is that you can do a kind of face 
validation with the fake data. Show it to someone who's used to dealing with 
that sort of data and if the fake data looks a lot like the data they normally 
deal with, then maybe more data-taking isn't necessary. If it looks fake to the 
"expert", then more data-taking is definitely needed.



On 4/19/20 8:29 AM, Marcus Daniels wrote:
I have a hard time with this as a way to extend data.   If it is 
high-dimensional it will be under-sampled.  Seems better to me to  measure or 

Re: [FRIAM] Judea Pearl: Book of Why

[Steven A Smith]

Marcus -



I believe that Andrew Niccol DID imagine something like that:


I wish I had a pithy preamble for this dystopian BioPunk reference, but
perhaps it speaks for itself?


https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gattaca


- Steve

> Steve writes:
>
> < The whole world is responding to what is *roughly* the same virus
> with *roughly* what is the same human phenotype/metabolism in a myriad
> of *roughly* the same modes of human organization. >
>
> There are hundreds of common HLA alleles across humans.   In a diverse
> country like the US, with hundreds of thousands of positive cases and
> tens of thousands of deaths the hundreds of alleles would be well
> sampled.   Too bad our medical surveillance is so bad, and made worse
> by the moron.  Imagine if everyone had full genome sequencing and
> every viral sample was deep sequenced. 
>
> Marcus
> 
> *From:* Friam  on behalf of Steven A Smith
> 
> *Sent:* Sunday, April 19, 2020 10:11 AM
> *To:* friam@redfish.com 
> *Subject:* Re: [FRIAM] Judea Pearl: Book of Why
>  
>
>> One way to address the N/A issue is to repeatedly perturb the real-world 
>> system so as to elicit those correlations.  When that is practical.. 
>
> We are, in a time of real-world system perturbation, right now.  The
> whole world is responding to what is *roughly* the same virus with
> *roughly* what is the same human phenotype/metabolism in a myriad of
> *roughly* the same modes of human organization.   This IS a testbed of
> human (-system?) response to a widespread, somewhat invisible
> threat.   From Wuhan to Singapore to Italy to Iran to Sweden to
> Germany to NYC to WA State to the Navajo Nation to Florida's beaches,
> this IS a huge coupled systems dynamics/agent-model executed in
> real-time by real-people with real casualties and real consequences.  
>
> We are, to varying degrees (collectively) recording the results of
> these "experiments" and if we are lucky (or smart, or both) we will do
> some post-game analysis intended to understand more-better how best to
> (self-)organize around a (nearly) existential world-scale threat.  
> And to the extent this is a game that will never end, we have to begin
> the analysis while we cope with it's consequences.   Feels a bit like
> the models pof Physics Interreality.
>
>     https://journals.aps.org/pre/abstract/10.1103/PhysRevE.75.057201
> 
>
> Hanging too aggressive of a model on this (or collecting the data 
> against too premature of a model) will reduce the utility of such data
> gathering and analysis.   Whatever the dual of overfitting a model
> is?  Overmodeling?  Premature Modeling?
>
> What I'm looking (askance) to(ward) Pearl for is a better way of
> rapidly constructing, maintaining, revising as generic of a model as
> possible in response to "this moment".   Four months ago we should
> have been interested in models of how one limits a virus such as
> COVID19 getting a foothold in this country.   One month ago we should
> have been interested in how one limits COVID19 (with new understanding
> of it's virility, it's fatality, it's symptoms, it's mode of spread)
> once it HAS a foothold,  now we are faced with trying to understand
> how to cope with it once it is pervasive in our population whilst
> continuing/returning to "business as usual" and in another thread, I'm
> encouraging that we "try to plan/consider/think-about" what we want to
> do with this somewhat "blank slate" (our ass?) we are having  handed
> to us.  
>
> And how to think about this without premature modeling... what I think
> I was railing (whining/pushing-back) about with Dave on the Bellamyist
> thread earlier this morning.
>
> - Steve
>
>>> On Apr 19, 2020, at 8:33 AM, uǝlƃ ☣  
>>>  wrote:
>>>
>>> Well, the argument I often end up making is that you can do a kind of face 
>>> validation with the fake data. Show it to someone who's used to dealing 
>>> with that sort of data and if the fake data looks a lot like the data they 
>>> normally deal with, then maybe more data-taking isn't necessary. If it 
>>> looks fake to the "expert", then more data-taking is definitely needed.
>>>
 On 4/19/20 8:29 AM, Marcus Daniels wrote:
 I have a hard time with this as a way to extend data.   If it is 
 high-dimensional it will be under-sampled.  Seems better to me to  measure 
 or simulate more so that the joint distribution can be realistic.  And if 
 you can do that there is no reason to infer the joint distribution because 
 you *have* it. 

>> On Apr 19, 2020, at 8:18 AM, Frank Wimberly  
>>  wrote:
> 
> Going back and forth:  If you infer the causal graph from observational 
> data you can use that graph to simulate data with the same joint 
> distribution as the original data.
>>> -- 
>>> ☣ uǝlƃ
>>>
>>> .-. .- 

Re: [FRIAM] Judea Pearl: Book of Why

[Frank Wimberly]

You want to do an agent-based simulation of, say, consumer behavior where
the relevant properties of the agents have the joint distribution of a
sample.  You want it to be in a context that or for a period of time not
realizable with actual subjects...

On Sun, Apr 19, 2020 at 9:30 AM Marcus Daniels  wrote:

> I have a hard time with this as a way to extend data.   If it is
> high-dimensional it will be under-sampled.  Seems better to me to  measure
> or simulate more so that the joint distribution can be realistic.  And if
> you can do that there is no reason to infer the joint distribution because
> you *have* it.
>
> On Apr 19, 2020, at 8:18 AM, Frank Wimberly  wrote:
>
> 
> Going back and forth:  If you infer the causal graph from observational
> data you can use that graph to simulate data with the same joint
> distribution as the original data.
>
>
> Frank
>
> On Sun, Apr 19, 2020 at 9:11 AM uǝlƃ ☣  wrote:
>
>> The *ensemble* point is the primary reason I regret not being able to
>> parse your response to my Necker cube summarization of EricS' TLDR. It goes
>> back to the original question of how/whether distributional conceptions
>> better catch the unknown unknowns left dangling in the ambience. Pearl's
>> attempts to burst "causality" into graphs, away from chains (though helping
>> to identify chains when they do exist) is along the same line.
>>
>> To boot, it evokes both Gödel's interpretation of von Neumann's
>> interpretation of Gödel's work (that it takes an infinite expression to
>> describe a thing) and Rosen's definition of complexity (basically anything
>> that requires an infinite number of models to describe).
>>
>> And, although I can't get my hands on the Rota paper EricS posted, I'm
>> leery of relying on any phenomenology. Heidegger I trust a bit. Husserl not
>> so much. Regardless, I don't think it's *necessary* to go that deep to grok
>> the main point, which is that the transformation should be invertible. We
>> should be able to flip back and forth from goo to thing such that the
>> flipping doesn't change it. The goo we get after flipping from the things
>> should be the same goo we had to start with.
>>
>> On 4/19/20 6:25 AM, Steven A Smith wrote:
>> > My work of late (other than SimTable) has been in the realm of trying
>> to analyze ensembles of predictive simulations.   This is a logical next
>> step (forward and backward propogating data and constraints as they are
>> recorded/discovered/postulated) across space (populations) and time.
>>
>>
>> --
>> ☣ uǝlƃ
>>
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>> archives: http://friam.471366.n2.nabble.com/
>> FRIAM-COMIC 
>> http://friam-comic.blogspot.com/
>>
>
>
> --
> Frank Wimberly
> 140 Calle Ojo Feliz
> Santa Fe, NM 87505
> 505 670-9918
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-- 
Frank Wimberly
140 Calle Ojo Feliz
Santa Fe, NM 87505
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Re: [FRIAM] basis for prediction — forked from the tail end of anthropological observtions

[Steven A Smith]

Nick -

>
> The thunder lightening thing is both apt and strange, because of
> course nothing is possible between lightning and thunder EXCEPT that
> it is going to thunder.  CF living in SFO or Seattle.  You've seen the
> lightening, folks!  "One banana, two bananas.three bananas
> ….."  Yet I still like the aphorism. 

I would claim it is a "failure of imagination" to believe that nothing
is possible in that banana-time.   But that would be too blunt.

Unless the the lightning/thunder pair appears simultaneous (and your
horse throws you and you claim later that you were "struck by lightning"
yet have no melted belt-buckle or burn-scars to back it up) then there
is at least a tiny-bit of banana between one and the other. What we do
with that time is the point...

While human reactions are often too slow to do more than cower or fling
up one's arm, I attribute the term/sentiment to the north American
Plains Indians who were as often as not watching/hearing lightning
strike far away with seconds (or bananas) to wait.   And on the plains
one often can be *surrounded* by thunderstorms...  lightning flashing on
every horizon for an hour or more...   *plenty* of time to contemplate
the best/worst cases afoot as the thunder rolls across the plains,
echoing complexly off of this bluff and that.  a contemplation of many
forms of imminent causality?

In this moment (roughly the last month) we have been watching lightning
dance on the horizons (months ago across the Pacific in Wuhan,
Singapore, Korea) and waiting to hear the death toll on our nightly
news... not unlike many here might remember during the 60's and Viet Nam
(I was too young, had no TV but I heard stories).   Now I feel like the
lightning is things like the people up in arms (carrying arms), yelling
at their governors to "let them back to work", and the thunder will be
the rise in infections that will happen a week or three after they do
followed by echoing peals of "I Tole You So!" and "Fake News" and
"Democrat Hoax!" and "Freedom isn't Free" and "Don't Tread on Me!" and
"I wish I wuz in Dixie!"

The metaphor of lightning/thunder is stretched here, and it feels a bit
more like "tickling the tail of the dragon" in slow-motion... watching
one flash of fission trigger another and listening to the Geiger
counter...   (just don't drop one shell onto the other)!    We are
playing with chain reactions here and most of us just aren't tuned to
think that way.  Even a Tsunami or Earthquake or Hurricane is beyond our
ken, and *they* are relatively linear in progression. 


>
> By the way, how many people on this list have heard the expression,
> "Red, Right, Returning" and know to what it refers. 
"Red, Right, Returning" I know of as a mnemonic device used in coastal
navigation, extended from the more general starboard/larboard red/green
navigational lighting standards?   How might that map to this moment of
(presumed) returning (toward) (a new?) normalcy?
>
> Ach!  I don't know how you all tolerate this interface. 

I don't I use Thunderbird.  Gmail is at best a Frienemy.

"Tickling the forked tail end of anthropological observations",

    - Steve




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Re: [FRIAM] Judea Pearl: Book of Why

[Marcus Daniels]

Steve writes:

< The whole world is responding to what is *roughly* the same virus with 
*roughly* what is the same human phenotype/metabolism in a myriad of *roughly* 
the same modes of human organization. >

There are hundreds of common HLA alleles across humans.   In a diverse country 
like the US, with hundreds of thousands of positive cases and tens of thousands 
of deaths the hundreds of alleles would be well sampled.   Too bad our medical 
surveillance is so bad, and made worse by the moron.  Imagine if everyone had 
full genome sequencing and every viral sample was deep sequenced.

Marcus

From: Friam  on behalf of Steven A Smith 

Sent: Sunday, April 19, 2020 10:11 AM
To: friam@redfish.com 
Subject: Re: [FRIAM] Judea Pearl: Book of Why



One way to address the N/A issue is to repeatedly perturb the real-world system 
so as to elicit those correlations.  When that is practical..


We are, in a time of real-world system perturbation, right now.  The whole 
world is responding to what is *roughly* the same virus with *roughly* what is 
the same human phenotype/metabolism in a myriad of *roughly* the same modes of 
human organization.   This IS a testbed of human (-system?) response to a 
widespread, somewhat invisible threat.   From Wuhan to Singapore to Italy to 
Iran to Sweden to Germany to NYC to WA State to the Navajo Nation to Florida's 
beaches, this IS a huge coupled systems dynamics/agent-model executed in 
real-time by real-people with real casualties and real consequences.

We are, to varying degrees (collectively) recording the results of these 
"experiments" and if we are lucky (or smart, or both) we will do some post-game 
analysis intended to understand more-better how best to (self-)organize around 
a (nearly) existential world-scale threat.   And to the extent this is a game 
that will never end, we have to begin the analysis while we cope with it's 
consequences.   Feels a bit like the models pof Physics Interreality.


https://journals.aps.org/pre/abstract/10.1103/PhysRevE.75.057201

Hanging too aggressive of a model on this (or collecting the data  against too 
premature of a model) will reduce the utility of such data gathering and 
analysis.   Whatever the dual of overfitting a model is?  Overmodeling?  
Premature Modeling?

What I'm looking (askance) to(ward) Pearl for is a better way of rapidly 
constructing, maintaining, revising as generic of a model as possible in 
response to "this moment".   Four months ago we should have been interested in 
models of how one limits a virus such as COVID19 getting a foothold in this 
country.   One month ago we should have been interested in how one limits 
COVID19 (with new understanding of it's virility, it's fatality, it's symptoms, 
it's mode of spread) once it HAS a foothold,  now we are faced with trying to 
understand how to cope with it once it is pervasive in our population whilst 
continuing/returning to "business as usual" and in another thread, I'm 
encouraging that we "try to plan/consider/think-about" what we want to do with 
this somewhat "blank slate" (our ass?) we are having  handed to us.

And how to think about this without premature modeling... what I think I was 
railing (whining/pushing-back) about with Dave on the Bellamyist thread earlier 
this morning.

- Steve





On Apr 19, 2020, at 8:33 AM, uǝlƃ ☣ 
 wrote:

Well, the argument I often end up making is that you can do a kind of face 
validation with the fake data. Show it to someone who's used to dealing with 
that sort of data and if the fake data looks a lot like the data they normally 
deal with, then maybe more data-taking isn't necessary. If it looks fake to the 
"expert", then more data-taking is definitely needed.



On 4/19/20 8:29 AM, Marcus Daniels wrote:
I have a hard time with this as a way to extend data.   If it is 
high-dimensional it will be under-sampled.  Seems better to me to  measure or 
simulate more so that the joint distribution can be realistic.  And if you can 
do that there is no reason to infer the joint distribution because you *have* 
it.



On Apr 19, 2020, at 8:18 AM, Frank Wimberly 
 wrote:




Going back and forth:  If you infer the causal graph from observational data 
you can use that graph to simulate data with the same joint distribution as the 
original data.



--
☣ uǝlƃ

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Re: [FRIAM] basis for prediction — forked from the tail end of anthropological observtions

[Roger Critchlow]

I've watched people leave red to port on their returns, and some even get
away with it.

-- rec --

On Sun, Apr 19, 2020, 12:09 PM Nicholas Thompson 
wrote:

> Hi, Dave n all,
>
> "Outlook" has collapsed leaving me in gmail, which I don't understand..
> So forgive me if... etc.
>
> The thunder lightening thing is both apt and strange, because of course
> nothing is possible between lightning and thunder EXCEPT that it is going
> to thunder.  CF living in SFO or Seattle.  You've seen the lightening,
> folks!  "One banana, two bananas.three bananas ….."  Yet I still
> like the aphorism.
>
> By the way, how many people on this list have heard the expression, "Red,
> Right, Returning" and know to what it refers.
>
> Ach!  I don't know how you all tolerate this interface.
>
> Nick
>
> On Sun, Apr 19, 2020 at 9:31 AM Steven A Smith  wrote:
>
>> Dave -
>>
>> I do remember your reference to the Bellamyists and probably wrote a
>> long-winded (well-over 300) commentary which I then deleted.
>>
>> What I remember of that (my aborted response) was somewhat reactionary to
>> Utopianism and Nationalism.  In the spirit of productive optimism, I
>> realize(d) my reactionaryisms was maybe not very productive.   I don't want
>> to devolve into the splitting of hairs we are so fond of here in this forum.
>>
>> With that caveat...  I am struggling against those two things I impute to
>> what little I know of "the Bellamyists".  "One (hu)man's Utopia is
>> another's Dystopia".  And.  "Nationalism is (dangerously) out-of-scale
>> Tribalism".
>>
>> I guess I would ask why such a grandiose scale structure would need to be
>> put in place?  Would not an emergence from discussions among small groups
>> (such as the threads on FriAM) not be a more practical and perhaps "safer"
>> route?   Is such a structure/container required, or perhaps it might be
>> inevitable?   But then it would not be Bellamyists, but rather DaveWestist?
>>
>> With that in mind...  perhaps it is worth discussing the Bellamyites
>> primary focus (as claimed in the Wikipedia Article that is my only source)
>> of "nationalizing industry".  That seems to be what the Left is leaning
>> toward... or at least regulating/taxing industry at the federal level to
>> the point that it IS effectively nationalized?   What is the Right's
>> version of that?   In the spirit of NeoLiberalism and free-markets  of
>> which the Right is most fond, nationalization is anathema.
>>
>> And yet, it seems that the "free market" is best at innovation... and
>> once an industry has been commodified, perhaps the next step IS to
>> nationalization.   There might have been a time when gasoline stations had
>> something significantly different to offer, one from the other, but even
>> the detergents and oxygenators seem to have become pretty standard(?lame
>> assertion?) and the only difference is how big is the big-gulp soda in the
>> convenience store, is it filled from the Coca Cola or Pepsi Cola pantheon
>> and are more triggered by a giant yellow clam-shell logo or a green baby
>> brontosaurus?
>>
>> I'm entirely with you on the diversity of foodstuffs referenced
>> earlier...   but IF/When I'm going to feed from the same trough of the same
>> hybrids as my fellow piggies, why put so many different (or any?) labels on
>> them?  And then why not plant your own garden with seeds exchanged with
>> friends and neighbors, localized to your conditions, and buy/trade what you
>> can't grow from small (tiny) farms within a short drive (walk)?
>>
>> And I agree on the liminal, though I see liminality everywhere at all
>> scales, like the fractality of an estuary and this moment is more acute and
>> offering/demanding more focused/proaction?  If we did live in our everyday
>> liminality more-better, then this would just be an extrema(ish) of scale...
>> but since we (mostly) don't, it feels like a change in quality in it's
>> quantity.  There I go, splitting hairs?
>>
>> - Steve
>>
>>
>> Steve,
>>
>> This *should* be a time between lightning and thunder, liminal, a time
>> "when all things are possible."
>>
>> I would love to be optimistic, even guardedly,
>>
>> Prerequisite, perhaps, is for everyone to accept Hywel's dictum, "Ah, but
>> it is more complicated than that" coupled with a heady dose of agonizing
>> reappraisal of one's unexamined positions.  Healthy doses, of "you have a
>> point," "errors were made," "our ontology should incorporate those
>> distinctions," etc.
>>
>> A while back I spoke of the Bellamy Clubs as a social / civic/ phenomenon
>> focused on a "constructive way forward." Something of that sort would be
>> required to instantiate your optimism.
>>
>> davew
>>
>>
>> On Sun, Apr 19, 2020, at 7:14 AM, Steven A Smith wrote:
>>
>> Dave, et al -
>>
>> These are fecund times.   The time between the lightning and the thunder
>> - "when all things are possible".  Or maybe, if you have a more apocalyptic
>> bent, the beginning of the "end of times".   William Gibson's 

Re: [FRIAM] Judea Pearl: Book of Why

[Steven A Smith]

> One way to address the N/A issue is to repeatedly perturb the real-world 
> system so as to elicit those correlations.  When that is practical.. 

We are, in a time of real-world system perturbation, right now.  The
whole world is responding to what is *roughly* the same virus with
*roughly* what is the same human phenotype/metabolism in a myriad of
*roughly* the same modes of human organization.   This IS a testbed of
human (-system?) response to a widespread, somewhat invisible threat.  
From Wuhan to Singapore to Italy to Iran to Sweden to Germany to NYC to
WA State to the Navajo Nation to Florida's beaches, this IS a huge
coupled systems dynamics/agent-model executed in real-time by
real-people with real casualties and real consequences.  

We are, to varying degrees (collectively) recording the results of these
"experiments" and if we are lucky (or smart, or both) we will do some
post-game analysis intended to understand more-better how best to
(self-)organize around a (nearly) existential world-scale threat.   And
to the extent this is a game that will never end, we have to begin the
analysis while we cope with it's consequences.   Feels a bit like the
models pof Physics Interreality.

    https://journals.aps.org/pre/abstract/10.1103/PhysRevE.75.057201


Hanging too aggressive of a model on this (or collecting the data 
against too premature of a model) will reduce the utility of such data
gathering and analysis.   Whatever the dual of overfitting a model is? 
Overmodeling?  Premature Modeling?

What I'm looking (askance) to(ward) Pearl for is a better way of rapidly
constructing, maintaining, revising as generic of a model as possible in
response to "this moment".   Four months ago we should have been
interested in models of how one limits a virus such as COVID19 getting a
foothold in this country.   One month ago we should have been interested
in how one limits COVID19 (with new understanding of it's virility, it's
fatality, it's symptoms, it's mode of spread) once it HAS a foothold, 
now we are faced with trying to understand how to cope with it once it
is pervasive in our population whilst continuing/returning to "business
as usual" and in another thread, I'm encouraging that we "try to
plan/consider/think-about" what we want to do with this somewhat "blank
slate" (our ass?) we are having  handed to us.  

And how to think about this without premature modeling... what I think I
was railing (whining/pushing-back) about with Dave on the Bellamyist
thread earlier this morning.

- Steve

>
>> On Apr 19, 2020, at 8:33 AM, uǝlƃ ☣  wrote:
>>
>> Well, the argument I often end up making is that you can do a kind of face 
>> validation with the fake data. Show it to someone who's used to dealing with 
>> that sort of data and if the fake data looks a lot like the data they 
>> normally deal with, then maybe more data-taking isn't necessary. If it looks 
>> fake to the "expert", then more data-taking is definitely needed.
>>
>>> On 4/19/20 8:29 AM, Marcus Daniels wrote:
>>> I have a hard time with this as a way to extend data.   If it is 
>>> high-dimensional it will be under-sampled.  Seems better to me to  measure 
>>> or simulate more so that the joint distribution can be realistic.  And if 
>>> you can do that there is no reason to infer the joint distribution because 
>>> you *have* it. 
>>>
> On Apr 19, 2020, at 8:18 AM, Frank Wimberly  wrote:
 
 Going back and forth:  If you infer the causal graph from observational 
 data you can use that graph to simulate data with the same joint 
 distribution as the original data.
>> -- 
>> ☣ uǝlƃ
>>
>> .-. .- -. -.. --- -- -..-. -.. --- - ... -..-. .- -. -.. -..-. -.. .- ... 
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Re: [FRIAM] basis for prediction — forked from the tail end of anthropological observtions

[Nicholas Thompson]

Hi, Dave n all,

"Outlook" has collapsed leaving me in gmail, which I don't understand..  So
forgive me if... etc.

The thunder lightening thing is both apt and strange, because of course
nothing is possible between lightning and thunder EXCEPT that it is going
to thunder.  CF living in SFO or Seattle.  You've seen the lightening,
folks!  "One banana, two bananas.three bananas ….."  Yet I still
like the aphorism.

By the way, how many people on this list have heard the expression, "Red,
Right, Returning" and know to what it refers.

Ach!  I don't know how you all tolerate this interface.

Nick

On Sun, Apr 19, 2020 at 9:31 AM Steven A Smith  wrote:

> Dave -
>
> I do remember your reference to the Bellamyists and probably wrote a
> long-winded (well-over 300) commentary which I then deleted.
>
> What I remember of that (my aborted response) was somewhat reactionary to
> Utopianism and Nationalism.  In the spirit of productive optimism, I
> realize(d) my reactionaryisms was maybe not very productive.   I don't want
> to devolve into the splitting of hairs we are so fond of here in this forum.
>
> With that caveat...  I am struggling against those two things I impute to
> what little I know of "the Bellamyists".  "One (hu)man's Utopia is
> another's Dystopia".  And.  "Nationalism is (dangerously) out-of-scale
> Tribalism".
>
> I guess I would ask why such a grandiose scale structure would need to be
> put in place?  Would not an emergence from discussions among small groups
> (such as the threads on FriAM) not be a more practical and perhaps "safer"
> route?   Is such a structure/container required, or perhaps it might be
> inevitable?   But then it would not be Bellamyists, but rather DaveWestist?
>
> With that in mind...  perhaps it is worth discussing the Bellamyites
> primary focus (as claimed in the Wikipedia Article that is my only source)
> of "nationalizing industry".  That seems to be what the Left is leaning
> toward... or at least regulating/taxing industry at the federal level to
> the point that it IS effectively nationalized?   What is the Right's
> version of that?   In the spirit of NeoLiberalism and free-markets  of
> which the Right is most fond, nationalization is anathema.
>
> And yet, it seems that the "free market" is best at innovation... and once
> an industry has been commodified, perhaps the next step IS to
> nationalization.   There might have been a time when gasoline stations had
> something significantly different to offer, one from the other, but even
> the detergents and oxygenators seem to have become pretty standard(?lame
> assertion?) and the only difference is how big is the big-gulp soda in the
> convenience store, is it filled from the Coca Cola or Pepsi Cola pantheon
> and are more triggered by a giant yellow clam-shell logo or a green baby
> brontosaurus?
>
> I'm entirely with you on the diversity of foodstuffs referenced
> earlier...   but IF/When I'm going to feed from the same trough of the same
> hybrids as my fellow piggies, why put so many different (or any?) labels on
> them?  And then why not plant your own garden with seeds exchanged with
> friends and neighbors, localized to your conditions, and buy/trade what you
> can't grow from small (tiny) farms within a short drive (walk)?
>
> And I agree on the liminal, though I see liminality everywhere at all
> scales, like the fractality of an estuary and this moment is more acute and
> offering/demanding more focused/proaction?  If we did live in our everyday
> liminality more-better, then this would just be an extrema(ish) of scale...
> but since we (mostly) don't, it feels like a change in quality in it's
> quantity.  There I go, splitting hairs?
>
> - Steve
>
>
> Steve,
>
> This *should* be a time between lightning and thunder, liminal, a time
> "when all things are possible."
>
> I would love to be optimistic, even guardedly,
>
> Prerequisite, perhaps, is for everyone to accept Hywel's dictum, "Ah, but
> it is more complicated than that" coupled with a heady dose of agonizing
> reappraisal of one's unexamined positions.  Healthy doses, of "you have a
> point," "errors were made," "our ontology should incorporate those
> distinctions," etc.
>
> A while back I spoke of the Bellamy Clubs as a social / civic/ phenomenon
> focused on a "constructive way forward." Something of that sort would be
> required to instantiate your optimism.
>
> davew
>
>
> On Sun, Apr 19, 2020, at 7:14 AM, Steven A Smith wrote:
>
> Dave, et al -
>
> These are fecund times.   The time between the lightning and the thunder -
> "when all things are possible".  Or maybe, if you have a more apocalyptic
> bent, the beginning of the "end of times".   William Gibson's "Jackpot"
> perhaps (to be more ambiguous).
>
> I think Churchill tried on (in oratorial style):
>
> "Now this is not the end. It is not even the beginning of the end. But
> it is, perhaps, the end of the beginning."
>
> In closing your "trip report" a dozen posts back 

[FRIAM] TL;DR

[Steven A Smith]

Glen -

I very much appreciate your balance in this regard.  I did not (and
likely Marcus did not either) interpret your frustration with parsing my
(overly) layered response to your Necker-Cube post as judgement of TL;DR
unless the "L" was for "Layered" not "Long".  

I also appreciate your *prescription* for citation with pithy preamble,
and your *example* of it which I think has evolved over the years we
have been doing this continuous "salsa rueda".

(too)Much of my rambling here, unfortunately, is little more than
"thinking out loud" and I DO trust that most (though not all) will
delete or skip or skim most of my maunderings.  

I have enough evidence that others find bits and bobs, gems and pearls,
in the swill that is my monolog (channeling Stephen Colbert?), that I
continue.   Yet I am inclined to try to *learn* from my betters (many
here are MUCH better at being concise and precise) by example to
hopefully increase the apparent signal/noise ratio.  I need not demand
of everyone that they have my  public-key  memorized to decrypt my often
crytpographic gibberings.  

Waxing Gibbous,

 - Steve

On 4/19/20 9:29 AM, uǝlƃ ☣ wrote:
> I won't read whatever argument Scott Adams might have made about long 
> narratives, mostly because I doubt he has anything useful to say. But also 
> because I *do* prioritize my time. It's not that my time is valuable. It's 
> that if I didn't prioritize (and triage against people like Adams), I'd never 
> be able to get any work done.
>
> Those that *complain* about TL;DR probably comprise a complicated set of 
> multi-faceted people, that won't be well-categorized by the "incurious, 
> impatient, entitled, part of the problem" predicate. That's OK. I'm willing 
> to allow the over-generalization. But it's those that do NOT complain, but 
> simply ignore TL;DR's are more interesting, I think.
>
> One interesting tactic for avoiding constructing TL;DR's is familiar, here in 
> this forum, and consists of *citation*. E.g. one need not post a long 
> explanation of negative probability when there's already an excellent TL;DR 
> exposition out there. All one need do is post a pithy preamble and link to 
> the extant exposition. But the interesting people are not those that complain 
> the TL;DR exposition is difficult to slog through. The interesting people are 
> those who never say a word about it. Did they click the link at all? Did they 
> read it after seeing Feynman's name atop it? Did they get past the 1st couple 
> of pages? Etc.
>
> It reminds me of this bit of hilarity: https://youtu.be/X-ZFoco_1gQ Where 
> Klepper goes round and round some of them "Read the transcript!" "Did you 
> read the transcript?" "No."
>
> On 4/18/20 6:36 PM, Marcus Daniels wrote:
>> The opposite of TLDR is the technique described by Scott Adams.   This leads 
>> me to posit that those that complain things are TLDR are likely just the 
>> incurious, the impatient, and the entitled, and likely to be part of the 
>> problem.  Is  there some particular crisis of their Valuable Attention that 
>> must be conserved at all cost?  Are we running out of disk space?   Are we 
>> running out of network bandwidth?   No.   Netflix is blazing gigabytes of 
>> nothing 24 hours a day to the drooling masses.   Enough.


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Re: [FRIAM] Judea Pearl: Book of Why

[Marcus Daniels]

One way to address the N/A issue is to repeatedly perturb the real-world system 
so as to elicit those correlations.  When that is practical.. 

> On Apr 19, 2020, at 8:33 AM, uǝlƃ ☣  wrote:
> 
> Well, the argument I often end up making is that you can do a kind of face 
> validation with the fake data. Show it to someone who's used to dealing with 
> that sort of data and if the fake data looks a lot like the data they 
> normally deal with, then maybe more data-taking isn't necessary. If it looks 
> fake to the "expert", then more data-taking is definitely needed.
> 
>> On 4/19/20 8:29 AM, Marcus Daniels wrote:
>> I have a hard time with this as a way to extend data.   If it is 
>> high-dimensional it will be under-sampled.  Seems better to me to  measure 
>> or simulate more so that the joint distribution can be realistic.  And if 
>> you can do that there is no reason to infer the joint distribution because 
>> you *have* it. 
>> 
 On Apr 19, 2020, at 8:18 AM, Frank Wimberly  wrote:
>>> 
>>> 
>>> Going back and forth:  If you infer the causal graph from observational 
>>> data you can use that graph to simulate data with the same joint 
>>> distribution as the original data.
> 
> -- 
> ☣ uǝlƃ
> 
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Re: [FRIAM] Judea Pearl: Book of Why

[uǝlƃ ☣]

Well, the argument I often end up making is that you can do a kind of face 
validation with the fake data. Show it to someone who's used to dealing with 
that sort of data and if the fake data looks a lot like the data they normally 
deal with, then maybe more data-taking isn't necessary. If it looks fake to the 
"expert", then more data-taking is definitely needed.

On 4/19/20 8:29 AM, Marcus Daniels wrote:
> I have a hard time with this as a way to extend data.   If it is 
> high-dimensional it will be under-sampled.  Seems better to me to  measure or 
> simulate more so that the joint distribution can be realistic.  And if you 
> can do that there is no reason to infer the joint distribution because you 
> *have* it. 
> 
>> On Apr 19, 2020, at 8:18 AM, Frank Wimberly  wrote:
>>
>> 
>> Going back and forth:  If you infer the causal graph from observational data 
>> you can use that graph to simulate data with the same joint distribution as 
>> the original data.

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Re: [FRIAM] basis for prediction — forked from the tail end of anthropological observtions

[Steven A Smith]

Dave -

I do remember your reference to the Bellamyists and probably wrote a
long-winded (well-over 300) commentary which I then deleted.  

What I remember of that (my aborted response) was somewhat reactionary
to Utopianism and Nationalism.  In the spirit of productive optimism, I
realize(d) my reactionaryisms was maybe not very productive.   I don't
want to devolve into the splitting of hairs we are so fond of here in
this forum.

With that caveat...  I am struggling against those two things I impute
to what little I know of "the Bellamyists".  "One (hu)man's Utopia is
another's Dystopia".  And.  "Nationalism is (dangerously) out-of-scale
Tribalism".

I guess I would ask why such a grandiose scale structure would need to
be put in place?  Would not an emergence from discussions among small
groups (such as the threads on FriAM) not be a more practical and
perhaps "safer" route?   Is such a structure/container required, or
perhaps it might be inevitable?   But then it would not be Bellamyists,
but rather DaveWestist?

With that in mind...  perhaps it is worth discussing the Bellamyites
primary focus (as claimed in the Wikipedia Article that is my only
source) of "nationalizing industry".  That seems to be what the Left is
leaning toward... or at least regulating/taxing industry at the federal
level to the point that it IS effectively nationalized?   What is the
Right's version of that?   In the spirit of NeoLiberalism and
free-markets  of which the Right is most fond, nationalization is
anathema. 

And yet, it seems that the "free market" is best at innovation... and
once an industry has been commodified, perhaps the next step IS to
nationalization.   There might have been a time when gasoline stations
had something significantly different to offer, one from the other, but
even the detergents and oxygenators seem to have become pretty
standard(?lame assertion?) and the only difference is how big is the
big-gulp soda in the convenience store, is it filled from the Coca Cola
or Pepsi Cola pantheon and are more triggered by a giant yellow
clam-shell logo or a green baby brontosaurus?

I'm entirely with you on the diversity of foodstuffs referenced
earlier...   but IF/When I'm going to feed from the same trough of the
same hybrids as my fellow piggies, why put so many different (or any?)
labels on them?  And then why not plant your own garden with seeds
exchanged with friends and neighbors, localized to your conditions, and
buy/trade what you can't grow from small (tiny) farms within a short
drive (walk)?

And I agree on the liminal, though I see liminality everywhere at all
scales, like the fractality of an estuary and this moment is more acute
and offering/demanding more focused/proaction?  If we did live in our
everyday liminality more-better, then this would just be an extrema(ish)
of scale... but since we (mostly) don't, it feels like a change in
quality in it's quantity.  There I go, splitting hairs?

- Steve


> Steve,
>
> This *_should_* be a time between lightning and thunder, liminal, a
> time "when all things are possible."
>
> I would love to be optimistic, even guardedly,
>
> Prerequisite, perhaps, is for everyone to accept Hywel's dictum, "Ah,
> but it is more complicated than that" coupled with a heady dose of
> agonizing reappraisal of one's unexamined positions.  Healthy doses,
> of "you have a point," "errors were made," "our ontology should
> incorporate those distinctions," etc.
>
> A while back I spoke of the Bellamy Clubs as a social / civic/
> phenomenon focused on a "constructive way forward." Something of that
> sort would be required to instantiate your optimism.
>
> davew
>
>
> On Sun, Apr 19, 2020, at 7:14 AM, Steven A Smith wrote:
>>
>> Dave, et al -
>>
>> These are fecund times.   The time between the lightning and the
>> thunder - "when all things are possible".  Or maybe, if you have a
>> more apocalyptic bent, the beginning of the "end of times".   William
>> Gibson's "Jackpot" perhaps (to be more ambiguous). 
>>
>> I think Churchill tried on (in oratorial style):
>>
>>     "Now this is not the end. It is not even the beginning of the
>> end. But it is, perhaps, the end of the beginning."
>>
>> In closing your "trip report" a dozen posts back you referenced once
>> again, the likelihood of a violent clash between Left and Right or
>> Red and Blue as a next logical/likely step in the path we seem to be
>> stumbling (shambling?) down right now.
>>
>> The recent (armed) protests at state capitals, demanding that the
>> Governors "open up the state" do seem foreboding.  An almost
>> self-abusive desire to trigger a breakdown in social order.
>>
>> The (""/failing""/ double-scare-quotes) New York Times opinion
>> piece The America We Need
>> 
>> from 10 days ago (feels much longer in Corona Time) exposes one side
>> of the challenge (how modern society/America has been failing) and a
>> 

Re: [FRIAM] Judea Pearl: Book of Why

[Marcus Daniels]

I have a hard time with this as a way to extend data.   If it is 
high-dimensional it will be under-sampled.  Seems better to me to  measure or 
simulate more so that the joint distribution can be realistic.  And if you can 
do that there is no reason to infer the joint distribution because you *have* 
it.

On Apr 19, 2020, at 8:18 AM, Frank Wimberly  wrote:


Going back and forth:  If you infer the causal graph from observational data 
you can use that graph to simulate data with the same joint distribution as the 
original data.


Frank

On Sun, Apr 19, 2020 at 9:11 AM uǝlƃ ☣ 
mailto:geprope...@gmail.com>> wrote:
The *ensemble* point is the primary reason I regret not being able to parse 
your response to my Necker cube summarization of EricS' TLDR. It goes back to 
the original question of how/whether distributional conceptions better catch 
the unknown unknowns left dangling in the ambience. Pearl's attempts to burst 
"causality" into graphs, away from chains (though helping to identify chains 
when they do exist) is along the same line.

To boot, it evokes both Gödel's interpretation of von Neumann's interpretation 
of Gödel's work (that it takes an infinite expression to describe a thing) and 
Rosen's definition of complexity (basically anything that requires an infinite 
number of models to describe).

And, although I can't get my hands on the Rota paper EricS posted, I'm leery of 
relying on any phenomenology. Heidegger I trust a bit. Husserl not so much. 
Regardless, I don't think it's *necessary* to go that deep to grok the main 
point, which is that the transformation should be invertible. We should be able 
to flip back and forth from goo to thing such that the flipping doesn't change 
it. The goo we get after flipping from the things should be the same goo we had 
to start with.

On 4/19/20 6:25 AM, Steven A Smith wrote:
> My work of late (other than SimTable) has been in the realm of trying to 
> analyze ensembles of predictive simulations.   This is a logical next step 
> (forward and backward propogating data and constraints as they are 
> recorded/discovered/postulated) across space (populations) and time.


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--
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Re: [FRIAM] anthropological observations

[uǝlƃ ☣]

I won't read whatever argument Scott Adams might have made about long 
narratives, mostly because I doubt he has anything useful to say. But also 
because I *do* prioritize my time. It's not that my time is valuable. It's that 
if I didn't prioritize (and triage against people like Adams), I'd never be 
able to get any work done.

Those that *complain* about TL;DR probably comprise a complicated set of 
multi-faceted people, that won't be well-categorized by the "incurious, 
impatient, entitled, part of the problem" predicate. That's OK. I'm willing to 
allow the over-generalization. But it's those that do NOT complain, but simply 
ignore TL;DR's are more interesting, I think.

One interesting tactic for avoiding constructing TL;DR's is familiar, here in 
this forum, and consists of *citation*. E.g. one need not post a long 
explanation of negative probability when there's already an excellent TL;DR 
exposition out there. All one need do is post a pithy preamble and link to the 
extant exposition. But the interesting people are not those that complain the 
TL;DR exposition is difficult to slog through. The interesting people are those 
who never say a word about it. Did they click the link at all? Did they read it 
after seeing Feynman's name atop it? Did they get past the 1st couple of pages? 
Etc.

It reminds me of this bit of hilarity: https://youtu.be/X-ZFoco_1gQ Where 
Klepper goes round and round some of them "Read the transcript!" "Did you read 
the transcript?" "No."

On 4/18/20 6:36 PM, Marcus Daniels wrote:
> The opposite of TLDR is the technique described by Scott Adams.   This leads 
> me to posit that those that complain things are TLDR are likely just the 
> incurious, the impatient, and the entitled, and likely to be part of the 
> problem.  Is  there some particular crisis of their Valuable Attention that 
> must be conserved at all cost?  Are we running out of disk space?   Are we 
> running out of network bandwidth?   No.   Netflix is blazing gigabytes of 
> nothing 24 hours a day to the drooling masses.   Enough.

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Re: [FRIAM] Judea Pearl: Book of Why

[Frank Wimberly]

Going back and forth:  If you infer the causal graph from observational
data you can use that graph to simulate data with the same joint
distribution as the original data.


Frank

On Sun, Apr 19, 2020 at 9:11 AM uǝlƃ ☣  wrote:

> The *ensemble* point is the primary reason I regret not being able to
> parse your response to my Necker cube summarization of EricS' TLDR. It goes
> back to the original question of how/whether distributional conceptions
> better catch the unknown unknowns left dangling in the ambience. Pearl's
> attempts to burst "causality" into graphs, away from chains (though helping
> to identify chains when they do exist) is along the same line.
>
> To boot, it evokes both Gödel's interpretation of von Neumann's
> interpretation of Gödel's work (that it takes an infinite expression to
> describe a thing) and Rosen's definition of complexity (basically anything
> that requires an infinite number of models to describe).
>
> And, although I can't get my hands on the Rota paper EricS posted, I'm
> leery of relying on any phenomenology. Heidegger I trust a bit. Husserl not
> so much. Regardless, I don't think it's *necessary* to go that deep to grok
> the main point, which is that the transformation should be invertible. We
> should be able to flip back and forth from goo to thing such that the
> flipping doesn't change it. The goo we get after flipping from the things
> should be the same goo we had to start with.
>
> On 4/19/20 6:25 AM, Steven A Smith wrote:
> > My work of late (other than SimTable) has been in the realm of trying to
> analyze ensembles of predictive simulations.   This is a logical next step
> (forward and backward propogating data and constraints as they are
> recorded/discovered/postulated) across space (populations) and time.
>
>
> --
> ☣ uǝlƃ
>
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> archives: http://friam.471366.n2.nabble.com/
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>


-- 
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Re: [FRIAM] Judea Pearl: Book of Why

[uǝlƃ ☣]

The *ensemble* point is the primary reason I regret not being able to parse 
your response to my Necker cube summarization of EricS' TLDR. It goes back to 
the original question of how/whether distributional conceptions better catch 
the unknown unknowns left dangling in the ambience. Pearl's attempts to burst 
"causality" into graphs, away from chains (though helping to identify chains 
when they do exist) is along the same line.

To boot, it evokes both Gödel's interpretation of von Neumann's interpretation 
of Gödel's work (that it takes an infinite expression to describe a thing) and 
Rosen's definition of complexity (basically anything that requires an infinite 
number of models to describe).

And, although I can't get my hands on the Rota paper EricS posted, I'm leery of 
relying on any phenomenology. Heidegger I trust a bit. Husserl not so much. 
Regardless, I don't think it's *necessary* to go that deep to grok the main 
point, which is that the transformation should be invertible. We should be able 
to flip back and forth from goo to thing such that the flipping doesn't change 
it. The goo we get after flipping from the things should be the same goo we had 
to start with.

On 4/19/20 6:25 AM, Steven A Smith wrote:
> My work of late (other than SimTable) has been in the realm of trying to 
> analyze ensembles of predictive simulations.   This is a logical next step 
> (forward and backward propogating data and constraints as they are 
> recorded/discovered/postulated) across space (populations) and time.


-- 
☣ uǝlƃ

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[FRIAM] Phaedrus and Theimania

[Steven A Smith]

FriAM-

As long as I am being arbitrarily prolific (manic?) I feel compelled to
reference the *other* book I'm more than halfway through.  It is likely
to be familiar to many here.  "Zen and the Art of Motorcycle
Maintenance" - Robert Pirsig. 

I read this when I was young and it was fresh and hyperpopularized and I
swear I hardly recognize a word of it as I re-read it now.  I was so
unprepared for it...  reading it probably coincides with my recent
anecdote about diving into "Philosophy and Physics", but also a time of
life when my primary (nearly singular) mode of transportation was a
motorcycle not dissimilar (mine an early 70s Honda, his a few years
older) to the one Persig rides on his long journey (in real life, as
well as ultimately in his story).  

I mentioned this to Guerin (that I was reading it) and he dove into the
philosophical ideas related to Phaedrus (the Greek Philosopher as well
as the "former" personality of Persig pre-ECT who he was
channeling/finding/experiencing on his motorcycle trip).  I was too
early in the book to appreciate his references, and it had been too long
(and I was too innocent during) from my first reading to remember.  
Now, most of the way through the book, it is all flooding back to me,
not unlike the way Pirsig's /Phaedrus /comes back to him.

And to add an extra level of indirection, I am not, in fact reading
"Zen", but rather listening to it as Mary reads it aloud.   She also
(with no attachment to either motorcycles nor analytical thought) read
it as a young woman and could hardly remember any of it either.  

In searching for more context on /Phaedrus/ the Greek and /Phaedrus /the
Pirsig alter-ego, I found what might be Pirsig's last (and rare)
interview in 2006.  In many ways it feels as if he is part of these
interwoven thread of FriAM conversation (or is it just me?).  Esp. Re:
metaphysics and the nature of science/knowledge.


*https://www.theguardian.com/books/2006/nov/19/fiction*

*Pirsig's pearls*

*·* The Buddha resides as comfortably in the circuits of a digital
computer or the gears of a cycle transmission as he does at the top
of a mountain.

*·* Metaphysics is a restaurant where they give you a 30,000 page
menu and no food.

*·* Traditional scientific method has always been, at the very best,
20-20 hindsight. It's good for seeing where you've been. It's good
for testing the truth of what you think you know, but it can't tell
you where you ought to go.

*·* Why, for example, should a group of simple, stable compounds of
carbon, hydrogen, oxygen and nitrogen struggle for billions of years
to organise themselves into a professor of chemistry? What's the motive?

*·* The only Zen you find on the tops of mountains is the Zen you
bring up there.


- Steve

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Re: [FRIAM] basis for prediction — forked from the tail end of anthropological observtions

[Prof David West]

Steve,

This *_should_* be a time between lightning and thunder, liminal, a time "when 
all things are possible."

I would love to be optimistic, even guardedly, 

Prerequisite, perhaps, is for everyone to accept Hywel's dictum, "Ah, but it is 
more complicated than that" coupled with a heady dose of agonizing reappraisal 
of one's unexamined positions. Healthy doses, of "you have a point," "errors 
were made," "our ontology should incorporate those distinctions," etc.

A while back I spoke of the Bellamy Clubs as a social / civic/ phenomenon 
focused on a "constructive way forward." Something of that sort would be 
required to instantiate your optimism.

davew


On Sun, Apr 19, 2020, at 7:14 AM, Steven A Smith wrote:
> Dave, et al -

> These are fecund times. The time between the lightning and the thunder - 
> "when all things are possible". Or maybe, if you have a more apocalyptic 
> bent, the beginning of the "end of times". William Gibson's "Jackpot" perhaps 
> (to be more ambiguous). 

> I think Churchill tried on (in oratorial style):

>  "Now this is not the end. It is not even the beginning of the end. But it 
> is, perhaps, the end of the beginning."

> In closing your "trip report" a dozen posts back you referenced once again, 
> the likelihood of a violent clash between Left and Right or Red and Blue as a 
> next logical/likely step in the path we seem to be stumbling (shambling?) 
> down right now.

> The recent (armed) protests at state capitals, demanding that the Governors 
> "open up the state" do seem foreboding. An almost self-abusive desire to 
> trigger a breakdown in social order.

> The (""*failing""* double-scare-quotes) New York Times opinion piece The 
> America We Need 
> 
>  from 10 days ago (feels much longer in Corona Time) exposes one side of the 
> challenge (how modern society/America has been failing) and a hopeful 
> response (how this crisis could help galvanize us to become who we need to be 
> collectively). I'd love to hear something from the Right with an equally 
> constructive perspective. Maybe I just have my ear on the wrong rail but I 
> only hear "boom or bust" talk from the Right.

> Living with one foot in each camp (Red and Blue) I believe that the divide we 
> feel is on one hand very real, but on the other deliberately aggravated as a 
> way to keep us in dynamic tension (or more simply pitted-against one another) 
> while those with most power keep stirring us up and raking off the top. 
> Red/Right sees the threat of government/wealthy/elite/??? one way while 
> Blue/Left see what I think is roughly the same threat very differently. But 
> it might very well be the very same threat, and the pointy end is designed to 
> keep us divided.

> And lest we create a strong "other" to reject/resent/hate/fear: "We have met 
> the enemy, and they is us". 

> The deficit-hawk, small-government GOP has been building up a State like none 
> before it, and while they (and the NRA) are encouraging their loyal followers 
> to arm themselves to the teeth, double down on ammunition, all the while 
> militarizing the police, loading them up with armored personnel carriers and 
> fully-automatic weapons (opposite the citizen's semi-autos), and bullet-proof 
> vests, helmets and shields to maintain overwhelming force. Meanwhile, the 
> Dems might be trying to nurture us out of our dysfunction and misery, 
> sometimes disabling us more in the process, and the wealthy on that side are 
> raking their share off of that, elbow to elbow at the same trough. 

> We ship our (two hybrid strains of tomato and two germ-lines of beef) food 
> halfway across the country (add coffee, avocados and bananas - world) from 
> agri-industry-chemical soaked feed-lots and (formerly) fertile valleys and 
> plains, burning fossil fuels (not just in the machines, but to make the 
> hyper-fertilizer now needed). Whether we shop at Trader Joes, or Whole Foods, 
> or Bob's Butcher or just order up Trump Steaks, we HAVE built a house of 
> cards which is bending under the weight of this pandemic. 

> Why does it feel like a segment of the population just wants to knock it down?

> Is there a constructive route up and out of this mess? The pandemic has 
> exposed a LOT more of the weaknesses in our economy/society as this current 
> administration has exposed the weaknesses in our government. It seems like an 
> opportunity to try to rebuild thoughtfully rather than "tear it down" or 
> "patch it back the way it was".

> Guardedly Hopeful,

>  - Steve (574)

> 

>> Nick,

There is truth in what you say, but only a bit.

I have certainly spoken as if "Science was a bunch of nasty people with vested 
interests acting in an exclusionary manner."

Hyperbole.

A better metaphor / analogy would be the way we have hybridized our food 
supply; e.g. 90 percent of all dairy cows have one of two bulls in their 
ancestry, 

Re: [FRIAM] basis for prediction — forked from the tail end of anthropological observtions

[Prof David West]

addendum:  I was interrupted mid-post

Just as a new strain of ergot might pose a severe challenge to hybridized 
wheat, a new "strain" of problem might pose a severe challenge to a hybridized 
mode of thinking.

I would posit that challenges like Covid-19, global warming, and even The 
Donald are akin to a new strain of ergot vis-a-vis wheat. Our ability to 
address or solve those challenges might be, I am certain it would be, enhanced 
if we could bring to bear some "heritage modes of thought."

My expressed antipathy for Science derives from the tendency of scientists to 
simply dismiss any alternative ideas or arguments as anti-scientific and 
therefore invalid.

The reason I said that you and I are in fundamental agreement, is that, I 
think, both of us would accept into our garden of thought" any sufficiently 
viable, and tasty, mode of thinking.

davew


On Sun, Apr 19, 2020, at 6:24 AM, Prof David West wrote:
> Nick,
> 
> There is truth in what you say, but only a bit.
> 
> I have certainly spoken as if "Science was a bunch of nasty people with 
> vested interests acting in an exclusionary manner."
> 
> Hyperbole.
> 
> A better metaphor / analogy would be the way we have hybridized our 
> food supply; e.g. 90 percent of all dairy cows have one of two bulls in 
> their ancestry, there are one or two tomato hybrids, one or two strains 
> of rice, wheat, corn, etc.
> 
> This creates a huge vulnerability — a novel pest or disease and presto, 
> no food supply.
> 
> Now imagine that there are multiple species of investigation, thinking, 
> knowledge.
> 
> Since the Age of Enlightenment, the western world has been hell bent on 
> hybridizing but one of them — Formalism (aka, roughly, Science).
> 
> Yes, I believe that Formalism has attained such a privileged status 
> that it tolerates no criticism and critics are "excommunicated" with 
> prejudice.
> 
> I would like to think of myself as someone interested in growing 
> heritage tomatoes in my garden and marveling at the differences in 
> taste and texture and finding very deep value from the use of them in 
> culinary creations.
> 
> davew
> 
> 
> On Sat, Apr 18, 2020, at 8:58 PM, thompnicks...@gmail.com wrote:
> > Dave, 
> > 
> > No, wait a minute!  Thou slenderest me!   For you, Science is a bunch 
> > of nasty people with vested interests. Science, on that understanding, 
> > has the power to exclude.  For me, Science is a set of practices that 
> > lead to understandings of experience that endure the test of time.  It 
> > is not the sort of thing that can exclude.   If pot smoking in bubble 
> > baths leads to understandings that endure the test of time, then it is 
> > a scientific method.  Something like that seemed to have worked for 
> > Archimedes.  
> > 
> > Nick   
> > 
> > Nicholas Thompson
> > Emeritus Professor of Ethology and Psychology
> > Clark University
> > thompnicks...@gmail.com
> > https://wordpress.clarku.edu/nthompson/
> >  
> > 
> > 
> > -Original Message-
> > From: Friam  On Behalf Of Prof David West
> > Sent: Saturday, April 18, 2020 6:31 PM
> > To: friam@redfish.com
> > Subject: Re: [FRIAM] basis for prediction — forked from the tail end of 
> > anthropological observtions
> > 
> > Nick,
> > 
> > I won't lose the argument, because I pre-believe that, IF alternative 
> > means with some kind of criteria for falsifiability and repeatability 
> > THEN they should be incorporated into that which is deemed "Science" — 
> > ergo there is no argument to lose.
> > 
> > If there is an argument — and there is clearly a difference of opinion 
> > — it centers on the the issue of why Hermetic Alchemy, Acid 
> > Epistemology, Anthropological Thick Description, Ayurvedic Medicine, 
> > Adams' "rhetorical analysis" et. al. are, at the moment and for the 
> > most part, excluded from Science.
> > 
> > davew
> > 
> > 
> > 
> > 
> > On Sat, Apr 18, 2020, at 5:28 PM, thompnicks...@gmail.com wrote:
> > > Dave,
> > > 
> > > You're going to lose this argument with me eventually, because any 
> > > investigatory practice that works in the long run I am going to 
> > > declare to be part of "the scientific method."  So if you declare that 
> > > discovery is enhanced by lying in a warm suds bath smoking pot, and 
> > > you can describe a repeatable practice  which includes that as a 
> > > method, and that method produces enduring intellectual and practical 
> > > structures such as the periodic table, then I will simply say, "That's 
> > > science."
> > > 
> > > I am not sure this works with my falsifiability schtik, but that must 
> > > have been at least 4 hours ago.  So "before lunch".
> > > 
> > >  Nick
> > > 
> > > Nicholas Thompson
> > > Emeritus Professor of Ethology and Psychology Clark University 
> > > thompnicks...@gmail.com https://wordpress.clarku.edu/nthompson/
> > >  
> > > 
> > > 
> > > -Original Message-
> > > From: Friam  On Behalf Of Prof David West
> > > Sent: Saturday, April 18, 2020 5:07 PM
> > > To: 

Re: [FRIAM] Judea Pearl: Book of Why

[Steven A Smith]

Frank -

> Steve,
>
> I'm surprised you didn't find any posts by me in your search for
> "causality" .
Actually I did find you, your voice was in that thread as well, and in
others. 
>   Usually, when someone says "correlation is not causation" it
> triggers me.  In the early 90s/late 80s there were two teams working
> on inference of causal graphs from observational data:  Pearl et al at
> UCLA and Glymour et al at Carnegie Mellon.  They cooperated and
> developed algorithms based on d-separation which was based on
> conditional independence relations (correlation).  Glymour et al's
> book is "Causation, Prediction and Search".  I implemented many
> algorithms in Java for that group over a period of about 10 years and
> I was co-author of several papers.
>
> Sorry for the narcissistic reaction.

I am glad you spoke up immediately.  If I had something actionable to do
with this right now, I would be consulting your grounded experience, but
also welcome your broader perspective.  I saw your references to Glymour
and wish (also) that I had followed that "back then".   I think the
first discussions I saw here were as early as 2003?  I snagged on the
2013 one because of Doug and Tory's "voices" from the other side of the
veil.

I was lead to Pearl's latest by a colleague who has been encouraging me
to look at the Pandemic Modeling challenge in a somewhat different way
than has been traditional.   Essentially a space-time network of causal
implications ( I think) which would be rich in post-hoc elaboration.  
The simplest SIR models are challenged with not knowing nearly enough
about the Infected in particular, and even then after they have been
Infectous for days or even weeks.  The recent hints (Santa Clara
county?) that infection rates may be 10x or higher than believed (a or
sub or crypto -symptomatic)  demonstrate that acutely.   My work of late
(other than SimTable) has been in the realm of trying to analyze
ensembles of predictive simulations.   This is a logical next step
(forward and backward propogating data and constraints as they are
recorded/discovered/postulated) across space (populations) and time.

More offline maybe?

- Steve

>
> Frank
>
> ---
> Frank C. Wimberly
> 140 Calle Ojo Feliz,
> Santa Fe, NM 87505
> 505 670-9918
> Santa Fe, NM
>
> On Sun, Apr 19, 2020, 6:26 AM Steven A Smith  > wrote:
>
> Glen -
>
> I'm in the midst (early part) of Judea Pearl's "Book of Why".  
>
> I had a vague memory of his earlier book: "Causality" having been
> referenced if not discussed on this list.   Searching the
> archives, I discovered what I considered to be quite a Pearl (NPI)
> circa 2013.  In this long chain, you recommended Pearl's
> "Causality" which I now wish I had followed up on then.  
>
> 
> http://friam.471366.n2.nabble.com/beyond-reductionism-twice-td7582273i20.html#a7582308
>
> Among the many gems in the thread were the voices of two of our
> deceased members, Doug Roberts and Tory Hughes.   Doug coined one
> of his classic lines about (paraphrase) "being violently
> disinterested in the philosophy of causation" (or complexity or
> agent-based-model-design).
>
> After Nick's recent "violent disinterest in the Cult of Feynman"
> and in particular to any quote that might imply that birds are
> (paraphrase) "not first-class-citizens who would in fact be
> interested in ornithology, if they were given access to it", my
> eyes caught on your own quote (in 2013) of S. Ulam:
>
>     "Talking about non-linear mathematics is like talking about
> non-elephant
>     zoology." -- Stanislaw Ulam
>
> - Steve (176)
>
>>> Unfortunately, after a couple of attempts to read it, I couldn't 
>>> understand anything in your post except this part. My previous post was 
>>> just under 300 words. So, I decided to try to make the next one under that 
>>> mark as well.
>>>
>>> On 4/18/20 1:22 PM, Steven A Smith wrote:
 From whence (or wherest?) did you get your 300 word target? 
>> you might not be alone in that...  perhaps it was just gibberish.  And 
>> likely more than three hundred words of it.
>>
>>
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Re: [FRIAM] basis for prediction — forked from the tail end of anthropological observtions

[Steven A Smith]

Dave, et al -

These are fecund times.   The time between the lightning and the thunder
- "when all things are possible".  Or maybe, if you have a more
apocalyptic bent, the beginning of the "end of times".   William
Gibson's "Jackpot" perhaps (to be more ambiguous). 

I think Churchill tried on (in oratorial style):

    "Now this is not the end. It is not even the beginning of the end.
But it is, perhaps, the end of the beginning."

In closing your "trip report" a dozen posts back you referenced once
again, the likelihood of a violent clash between Left and Right or Red
and Blue as a next logical/likely step in the path we seem to be
stumbling (shambling?) down right now.

The recent (armed) protests at state capitals, demanding that the
Governors "open up the state" do seem foreboding.  An almost
self-abusive desire to trigger a breakdown in social order.

The (""/failing""/ double-scare-quotes) New York Times opinion piece
The America We Need

from 10 days ago (feels much longer in Corona Time) exposes one side of
the challenge (how modern society/America has been failing) and a
hopeful response (how this crisis could help galvanize us to become who
we need to be collectively).   I'd love to hear something from the Right
with an equally constructive perspective.  Maybe I just have my ear on
the wrong rail but I only hear "boom or bust" talk from the Right.

Living with one foot in each camp (Red and Blue) I believe that the
divide we feel is on one hand very real, but on the other deliberately
aggravated as a way to keep us in dynamic tension (or more simply
pitted-against one another) while those with most power keep stirring us
up and raking off the top.   Red/Right sees the threat of
government/wealthy/elite/??? one way while Blue/Left see what I think is
roughly the same threat very differently.   But it might very well be
the very same threat, and the pointy end is designed to keep us divided.

And lest we create a strong "other" to reject/resent/hate/fear:   "We
have met the enemy, and they is us".  

The deficit-hawk, small-government GOP has been building up a State like
none before it, and while they (and the NRA) are encouraging their loyal
followers to arm themselves to the teeth, double down on ammunition, all
the while militarizing the police, loading them up with armored
personnel carriers and fully-automatic weapons (opposite the citizen's
semi-autos), and bullet-proof vests, helmets and shields to maintain
overwhelming force.   Meanwhile,  the Dems might be trying to nurture us
out of our dysfunction and misery, sometimes disabling us more in the
process, and the wealthy on that side are raking their share off of
that, elbow to elbow at the same trough. 

We ship our (two hybrid strains of tomato and two germ-lines of beef)
food halfway across the country (add coffee, avocados and bananas -
world) from agri-industry-chemical soaked feed-lots and (formerly)
fertile valleys and plains, burning fossil fuels (not just in the
machines, but to make the hyper-fertilizer now needed).  Whether we shop
at Trader Joes, or Whole Foods, or Bob's Butcher or just order up Trump
Steaks,  we HAVE built a house of cards which is bending under the
weight of this pandemic.

Why does it feel like a segment of the population just wants to knock it
down?

Is there a constructive route up and out of this mess?  The pandemic has
exposed a LOT more of the weaknesses in our economy/society as this
current administration has exposed the weaknesses in our government.  
It seems like an opportunity to try to rebuild thoughtfully rather than
"tear it down" or "patch it back the way it was".

Guardedly Hopeful,

 - Steve (574)


> Nick,
>
> There is truth in what you say, but only a bit.
>
> I have certainly spoken as if "Science was a bunch of nasty people with 
> vested interests acting in an exclusionary manner."
>
> Hyperbole.
>
> A better metaphor / analogy would be the way we have hybridized our food 
> supply; e.g. 90 percent of all dairy cows have one of two bulls in their 
> ancestry, there are one or two tomato hybrids, one or two strains of rice, 
> wheat, corn, etc.
>
> This creates a huge vulnerability — a novel pest or disease and presto, no 
> food supply.
>
> Now imagine that there are multiple species of investigation, thinking, 
> knowledge.
>
> Since the Age of Enlightenment, the western world has been hell bent on 
> hybridizing but one of them — Formalism (aka, roughly, Science).
>
> Yes, I believe that Formalism has attained such a privileged status that it 
> tolerates no criticism and critics are "excommunicated" with prejudice.
>
> I would like to think of myself as someone interested in growing heritage 
> tomatoes in my garden and marveling at the differences in taste and texture 
> and finding very deep value from the use of them in culinary creations.
>
> davew
>
>
> On Sat, Apr 18, 2020, at 8:58 

Re: [FRIAM] Judea Pearl: Book of Why

[Frank Wimberly]

Steve,

I'm surprised you didn't find any posts by me in your search for
"causality" .  Usually, when someone says "correlation is not causation" it
triggers me.  In the early 90s/late 80s there were two teams working on
inference of causal graphs from observational data:  Pearl et al at UCLA
and Glymour et al at Carnegie Mellon.  They cooperated and developed
algorithms based on d-separation which was based on conditional
independence relations (correlation).  Glymour et al's book is "Causation,
Prediction and Search".  I implemented many algorithms in Java for that
group over a period of about 10 years and I was co-author of several papers.

Sorry for the narcissistic reaction.

Frank

---
Frank C. Wimberly
140 Calle Ojo Feliz,
Santa Fe, NM 87505
505 670-9918
Santa Fe, NM

On Sun, Apr 19, 2020, 6:26 AM Steven A Smith  wrote:

> Glen -
>
> I'm in the midst (early part) of Judea Pearl's "Book of Why".
>
> I had a vague memory of his earlier book: "Causality" having been
> referenced if not discussed on this list.   Searching the archives, I
> discovered what I considered to be quite a Pearl (NPI) circa 2013.  In this
> long chain, you recommended Pearl's "Causality" which I now wish I had
> followed up on then.
>
>
> http://friam.471366.n2.nabble.com/beyond-reductionism-twice-td7582273i20.html#a7582308
>
> Among the many gems in the thread were the voices of two of our deceased
> members, Doug Roberts and Tory Hughes.   Doug coined one of his classic
> lines about (paraphrase) "being violently disinterested in the philosophy
> of causation" (or complexity or agent-based-model-design).
>
> After Nick's recent "violent disinterest in the Cult of Feynman" and in
> particular to any quote that might imply that birds are (paraphrase) "not
> first-class-citizens who would in fact be interested in ornithology, if
> they were given access to it", my eyes caught on your own quote (in 2013)
> of S. Ulam:
>
> "Talking about non-linear mathematics is like talking about
> non-elephant
> zoology." -- Stanislaw Ulam
>
> - Steve (176)
>
>  Unfortunately, after a couple of attempts to read it, I couldn't understand 
> anything in your post except this part. My previous post was just under 300 
> words. So, I decided to try to make the next one under that mark as well.
>
> On 4/18/20 1:22 PM, Steven A Smith wrote:
>
> From whence (or wherest?) did you get your 300 word target?
>
>
> you might not be alone in that...  perhaps it was just gibberish.  And likely 
> more than three hundred words of it.
>
>
> .-. .- -. -.. --- -- -..-. -.. --- - ... -..-. .- -. -.. -..-. -.. .- ... 
>  . ...
> FRIAM Applied Complexity Group listserv
> Zoom Fridays 9:30a-12p Mtn GMT-6  bit.ly/virtualfriam
> unsubscribe http://redfish.com/mailman/listinfo/friam_redfish.com
> archives: http://friam.471366.n2.nabble.com/
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>
> .-. .- -. -.. --- -- -..-. -.. --- - ... -..-. .- -. -.. -..-. -.. .- ...
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> FRIAM Applied Complexity Group listserv
> Zoom Fridays 9:30a-12p Mtn GMT-6  bit.ly/virtualfriam
> unsubscribe http://redfish.com/mailman/listinfo/friam_redfish.com
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[FRIAM] Judea Pearl: Book of Why

[Steven A Smith]

Glen -

I'm in the midst (early part) of Judea Pearl's "Book of Why".  

I had a vague memory of his earlier book: "Causality" having been
referenced if not discussed on this list.   Searching the archives, I
discovered what I considered to be quite a Pearl (NPI) circa 2013.  In
this long chain, you recommended Pearl's "Causality" which I now wish I
had followed up on then.  

http://friam.471366.n2.nabble.com/beyond-reductionism-twice-td7582273i20.html#a7582308

Among the many gems in the thread were the voices of two of our deceased
members, Doug Roberts and Tory Hughes.   Doug coined one of his classic
lines about (paraphrase) "being violently disinterested in the
philosophy of causation" (or complexity or agent-based-model-design).

After Nick's recent "violent disinterest in the Cult of Feynman" and in
particular to any quote that might imply that birds are (paraphrase)
"not first-class-citizens who would in fact be interested in
ornithology, if they were given access to it", my eyes caught on your
own quote (in 2013) of S. Ulam:

    "Talking about non-linear mathematics is like talking about non-elephant
    zoology." -- Stanislaw Ulam

- Steve (176)

>> Unfortunately, after a couple of attempts to read it, I couldn't understand 
>> anything in your post except this part. My previous post was just under 300 
>> words. So, I decided to try to make the next one under that mark as well.
>>
>> On 4/18/20 1:22 PM, Steven A Smith wrote:
>>> From whence (or wherest?) did you get your 300 word target? 
> you might not be alone in that...  perhaps it was just gibberish.  And likely 
> more than three hundred words of it.
>
>
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Re: [FRIAM] basis for prediction — forked from the tail end of anthropological observtions

[Prof David West]

Nick,

There is truth in what you say, but only a bit.

I have certainly spoken as if "Science was a bunch of nasty people with vested 
interests acting in an exclusionary manner."

Hyperbole.

A better metaphor / analogy would be the way we have hybridized our food 
supply; e.g. 90 percent of all dairy cows have one of two bulls in their 
ancestry, there are one or two tomato hybrids, one or two strains of rice, 
wheat, corn, etc.

This creates a huge vulnerability — a novel pest or disease and presto, no food 
supply.

Now imagine that there are multiple species of investigation, thinking, 
knowledge.

Since the Age of Enlightenment, the western world has been hell bent on 
hybridizing but one of them — Formalism (aka, roughly, Science).

Yes, I believe that Formalism has attained such a privileged status that it 
tolerates no criticism and critics are "excommunicated" with prejudice.

I would like to think of myself as someone interested in growing heritage 
tomatoes in my garden and marveling at the differences in taste and texture and 
finding very deep value from the use of them in culinary creations.

davew


On Sat, Apr 18, 2020, at 8:58 PM, thompnicks...@gmail.com wrote:
> Dave, 
> 
> No, wait a minute!  Thou slenderest me!   For you, Science is a bunch 
> of nasty people with vested interests. Science, on that understanding, 
> has the power to exclude.  For me, Science is a set of practices that 
> lead to understandings of experience that endure the test of time.  It 
> is not the sort of thing that can exclude.   If pot smoking in bubble 
> baths leads to understandings that endure the test of time, then it is 
> a scientific method.  Something like that seemed to have worked for 
> Archimedes.  
> 
> Nick   
> 
> Nicholas Thompson
> Emeritus Professor of Ethology and Psychology
> Clark University
> thompnicks...@gmail.com
> https://wordpress.clarku.edu/nthompson/
>  
> 
> 
> -Original Message-
> From: Friam  On Behalf Of Prof David West
> Sent: Saturday, April 18, 2020 6:31 PM
> To: friam@redfish.com
> Subject: Re: [FRIAM] basis for prediction — forked from the tail end of 
> anthropological observtions
> 
> Nick,
> 
> I won't lose the argument, because I pre-believe that, IF alternative 
> means with some kind of criteria for falsifiability and repeatability 
> THEN they should be incorporated into that which is deemed "Science" — 
> ergo there is no argument to lose.
> 
> If there is an argument — and there is clearly a difference of opinion 
> — it centers on the the issue of why Hermetic Alchemy, Acid 
> Epistemology, Anthropological Thick Description, Ayurvedic Medicine, 
> Adams' "rhetorical analysis" et. al. are, at the moment and for the 
> most part, excluded from Science.
> 
> davew
> 
> 
> 
> 
> On Sat, Apr 18, 2020, at 5:28 PM, thompnicks...@gmail.com wrote:
> > Dave,
> > 
> > You're going to lose this argument with me eventually, because any 
> > investigatory practice that works in the long run I am going to 
> > declare to be part of "the scientific method."  So if you declare that 
> > discovery is enhanced by lying in a warm suds bath smoking pot, and 
> > you can describe a repeatable practice  which includes that as a 
> > method, and that method produces enduring intellectual and practical 
> > structures such as the periodic table, then I will simply say, "That's 
> > science."
> > 
> > I am not sure this works with my falsifiability schtik, but that must 
> > have been at least 4 hours ago.  So "before lunch".
> > 
> >  Nick
> > 
> > Nicholas Thompson
> > Emeritus Professor of Ethology and Psychology Clark University 
> > thompnicks...@gmail.com https://wordpress.clarku.edu/nthompson/
> >  
> > 
> > 
> > -Original Message-
> > From: Friam  On Behalf Of Prof David West
> > Sent: Saturday, April 18, 2020 5:07 PM
> > To: friam@redfish.com
> > Subject: [FRIAM] basis for prediction — forked from the tail end of 
> > anthropological observtions
> > 
> > Consider three entities making 2016 political predictions and their 
> > predictions.
> > 
> > 1- "cognoscenti" those citing poll data, Nate Silver (albeit as 
> > everyone notes, the citation was more interpretation than citation), 
> > pundits, et. al. — Trump, at various times, has 1/1000 to 1/3 chance of 
> > winning the election.
> > 
> > 2- Scott Adams - Trump "very likely"  will win to "almost certain" he will 
> > win.
> > 
> > 3- davew - Trump will win.
> > 
> > # 3 is a fool because he made no effort whatsoever to hedge his prediction.
> > 
> > The first group used traditional polling, statistical modelling, etc. 
> > to come to their conclusions.
> > 
> > Scott Adams used none of those methods/tools but, as described in his 
> > book — Win Bigly — the language and rhetoric analysis tools/techniques 
> > he did use.
> > 
> > davew remains coy about how he came to his certainty.
> > 
> > QUESTIONS:  Are there different approaches, different avenues, 
> > different means, for acquiring "knowledge?" I am