Re: [FRIAM] Metaphor [POSSIBLE DISTRACTON FROM]: privacy games

[Steve Smith]

On one of my first trips to the Bay Area I remember driving up
telegraph? into Berzerkley and saw a "Bank of America" sign that had
been very artfully re-designed to say "Bank of Apartheid"

I've a good friend in Berk who said tonight that he was expecting the
grey haired hippies and beats to "March on Peets" at sunrise.   He's
still mostly pepper with a little salt, and post-boomer himself.

> Piedmont, for example, has a higher per capita income than Beverly Hills.
>
> On the other hand if one wants to drag a newspaper dispenser into the
> street and use it as a shield from rubber bullets, that’s an option
> too.   Oakland has got it all!
>
>  
>
> I mentioned this hackery.   Fun.
>
>  
>
> https://www.berkeleyside.com/2019/09/09/whos-been-hacking-digital-traffic-signs-in-berkeley
>
>  
>
> I saw someone on MSNBC tonight dreading the “global anarchists”.  
> Seriously?
>
>  
>
> *From: *Friam  on behalf of Steve Smith
> 
> *Reply-To: *The Friday Morning Applied Complexity Coffee Group
> 
> *Date: *Friday, May 29, 2020 at 10:03 PM
> *To: *"friam@redfish.com" 
> *Subject: *Re: [FRIAM] Metaphor [POSSIBLE DISTRACTON FROM]: privacy games
>
>  
>
> I think I just saw Marcus blocking 880 in Oakland!
>
> Nick, for the record, and this will not change from my end:
>
>  
>
> Your right to be interested in whatever you are interested in is
> sacrosanct, here or in any other forum.  I don’t think there are
> thread boundaries on that, though there are all the normal
> courtesies which I see more clearly for a while after I transgress
> one.
>
>  
>
> Eric
>
>  
>
>
>
> On May 30, 2020, at 1:03 PM,  >  > wrote:
>
>  
>
> All –
>
>  
>
> I feel norm formation going on here, and it is making me a bit
> nervous.  I am not sure what follows from that, but there it
> is.  I thing that we at FriAM have long worked the boundary
> between work and play.  I think that’s where the best work is
> done.  
>
>  
>
> But this is my thread, right?  Can a man bust his own
> thread?  */_I  d o n t  t h I n k  s o_/*.  I want to talk
> about metaphor.  And it’s relation to models.  And it’
> relation to the concept of intentionality.  The question is,
> To what extent do our norms allow me to bring those concerns
> to other threads.  And the answer I am hearing from many of
> you is, “Less than I have been”.
>
>  
>
> Well, I will do my best.  But, for instance, I think the
> “work” we did on “strawman” was tremendously important.  In my
> introductory graduate lectures at Berkeley, where, one by one,
> the the grey-backed gorillas  of the department laid down the
> law.  Somebody, I think David Krech, announced that if “I say
> that the number of rat turds left by a rat in an open field
> maze is “anxiety”, then that is what anxiety IS for the
> purposes of my research, and there’s no more discussion to be
> had.”  And even in the tenuous position of a first year
> graduate student I knew that was wrong.  Meanings have
> momentum.   Words have meaning that is independent of their
> users. I have fought for 50 years to rescue ‘teleonomy’
> (=natural design) from the dualistic thieves that abducted
> it.  And SteveG and I could be thought of as battling for nigh
> a decade and half about which specification of the metaphor of
> natural selection is best for the purposes of understanding
> natural design.  (I thought we made a lot of progress on that
> issue today.)   Much of what we do in scientific discourse is
> fight over metaphors and we need to develop methods for
> fighting fairly, skillfully, and expeditiously.  
>
>  
>
> I don’t think I have EVER introduced the idea of metaphor in a
> conversation where I didn’t think a clarification or
> specification of the metaphors implicit in our conversation
> might move the discussion forward.  I may be playing with
> words but I am not /just/ playing with words.  God knows, I
> may have been WRONG in many cases, but I absolutely defend the
> idea that attention to the metaphors at play in a conversation
> is often essential to any development of understanding or
> convergence of opinion.  
>
>  
>
> Is it /always?/  No.  Of course not.  And I will try to be
> more careful about that. 
>
>  
>
> Thanks, as always, for all your thoughts.   My life would not
> be half of what it is without them.   Really.  It’s perhaps
> pathetic for me to admit that, but it’s true. 
>
>  
>
> Nick 
>
>  
>
>  
>
>  

Re: [FRIAM] Metaphor [POSSIBLE DISTRACTON FROM]: privacy games

[Marcus Daniels]

Piedmont, for example, has a higher per capita income than Beverly Hills.
On the other hand if one wants to drag a newspaper dispenser into the street 
and use it as a shield from rubber bullets, that’s an option too.   Oakland has 
got it all!

I mentioned this hackery.   Fun.

https://www.berkeleyside.com/2019/09/09/whos-been-hacking-digital-traffic-signs-in-berkeley

I saw someone on MSNBC tonight dreading the “global anarchists”.   Seriously?

From: Friam  on behalf of Steve Smith 

Reply-To: The Friday Morning Applied Complexity Coffee Group 
Date: Friday, May 29, 2020 at 10:03 PM
To: "friam@redfish.com" 
Subject: Re: [FRIAM] Metaphor [POSSIBLE DISTRACTON FROM]: privacy games

I think I just saw Marcus blocking 880 in Oakland!

Nick, for the record, and this will not change from my end:

Your right to be interested in whatever you are interested in is sacrosanct, 
here or in any other forum.  I don’t think there are thread boundaries on that, 
though there are all the normal courtesies which I see more clearly for a while 
after I transgress one.

Eric



On May 30, 2020, at 1:03 PM, 
mailto:thompnicks...@gmail.com>> 
mailto:thompnicks...@gmail.com>> wrote:

All –

I feel norm formation going on here, and it is making me a bit nervous.  I am 
not sure what follows from that, but there it is.  I thing that we at FriAM 
have long worked the boundary between work and play.  I think that’s where the 
best work is done.

But this is my thread, right?  Can a man bust his own thread?  I  d o n t  t h 
I n k  s o.  I want to talk about metaphor.  And it’s relation to models.  And 
it’ relation to the concept of intentionality.  The question is, To what extent 
do our norms allow me to bring those concerns to other threads.  And the answer 
I am hearing from many of you is, “Less than I have been”.

Well, I will do my best.  But, for instance, I think the “work” we did on 
“strawman” was tremendously important.  In my introductory graduate lectures at 
Berkeley, where, one by one, the the grey-backed gorillas  of the department 
laid down the law.  Somebody, I think David Krech, announced that if “I say 
that the number of rat turds left by a rat in an open field maze is “anxiety”, 
then that is what anxiety IS for the purposes of my research, and there’s no 
more discussion to be had.”  And even in the tenuous position of a first year 
graduate student I knew that was wrong.  Meanings have momentum.   Words have 
meaning that is independent of their users. I have fought for 50 years to 
rescue ‘teleonomy’ (=natural design) from the dualistic thieves that abducted 
it.  And SteveG and I could be thought of as battling for nigh a decade and 
half about which specification of the metaphor of natural selection is best for 
the purposes of understanding natural design.  (I thought we made a lot of 
progress on that issue today.)   Much of what we do in scientific discourse is 
fight over metaphors and we need to develop methods for fighting fairly, 
skillfully, and expeditiously.

I don’t think I have EVER introduced the idea of metaphor in a conversation 
where I didn’t think a clarification or specification of the metaphors implicit 
in our conversation might move the discussion forward.  I may be playing with 
words but I am not just playing with words.  God knows, I may have been WRONG 
in many cases, but I absolutely defend the idea that attention to the metaphors 
at play in a conversation is often essential to any development of 
understanding or convergence of opinion.

Is it always?  No.  Of course not.  And I will try to be more careful about 
that.

Thanks, as always, for all your thoughts.   My life would not be half of what 
it is without them.   Really.  It’s perhaps pathetic for me to admit that, but 
it’s true.

Nick



Nicholas Thompson
Emeritus Professor of Ethology and Psychology
Clark University
thompnicks...@gmail.com
https://wordpress.clarku.edu/nthompson/


From: Friam mailto:friam-boun...@redfish.com>> On 
Behalf Of David Eric Smith
Sent: Friday, May 29, 2020 9:11 PM
To: The Friday Morning Applied Complexity Coffee Group 
mailto:friam@redfish.com>>
Subject: Re: [FRIAM] Metaphor [POSSIBLE DISTRACTON FROM]: privacy games

Hi Jon,

No, actually not any issue with any of what you had posted, as also just 
affirmation toward various historical posts by Glen.

Yes, sorry about a thread-rudeness.  I had sort of dropped a chunk of something 
that had been accumulating for a week in the middle of your thread which was in 
the coarse of solving other problems, where it didn’t belong.  Partly this was 
because yours had been the latest snapshot, partly it was because the overall 
frame you and Glen and Steve are building is one that I would like to think of 
my own additions as finding a place in, and partly I was probably using the 
measured tone of this sub-thread as cover, since my own was rather crabby and 
aggressive.  Strange that it seemed formally impolite to me

Re: [FRIAM] Metaphor [POSSIBLE DISTRACTON FROM]: privacy games

[Steve Smith]

I think I just saw Marcus blocking 880 in Oakland!
> Nick, for the record, and this will not change from my end:
>
> Your right to be interested in whatever you are interested in is
> sacrosanct, here or in any other forum.  I don’t think there are
> thread boundaries on that, though there are all the normal courtesies
> which I see more clearly for a while after I transgress one.
>
> Eric
>
>
>> On May 30, 2020, at 1:03 PM, > > > > wrote:
>>
>> All –
>>  
>> I feel norm formation going on here, and it is making me a bit
>> nervous.  I am not sure what follows from that, but there it is.  I
>> thing that we at FriAM have long worked the boundary between work and
>> play.  I think that’s where the best work is done.  
>>  
>> But this is my thread, right?  Can a man bust his own thread?  */_I 
>> d o n t  t h I n k  s o_/*.  I want to talk about metaphor.  And it’s
>> relation to models.  And it’ relation to the concept of
>> intentionality.  The question is, To what extent do our norms allow
>> me to bring those concerns to other threads.  And the answer I am
>> hearing from many of you is, “Less than I have been”.
>>  
>> Well, I will do my best.  But, for instance, I think the “work” we
>> did on “strawman” was tremendously important.  In my introductory
>> graduate lectures at Berkeley, where, one by one, the the grey-backed
>> gorillas  of the department laid down the law.  Somebody, I think
>> David Krech, announced that if “I say that the number of rat turds
>> left by a rat in an open field maze is “anxiety”, then that is what
>> anxiety IS for the purposes of my research, and there’s no more
>> discussion to be had.”  And even in the tenuous position of a first
>> year graduate student I knew that was wrong.  Meanings have
>> momentum.   Words have meaning that is independent of their users. I
>> have fought for 50 years to rescue ‘teleonomy’ (=natural design) from
>> the dualistic thieves that abducted it.  And SteveG and I could be
>> thought of as battling for nigh a decade and half about which
>> specification of the metaphor of natural selection is best for the
>> purposes of understanding natural design.  (I thought we made a lot
>> of progress on that issue today.)   Much of what we do in scientific
>> discourse is fight over metaphors and we need to develop methods for
>> fighting fairly, skillfully, and expeditiously.  
>>  
>> I don’t think I have EVER introduced the idea of metaphor in a
>> conversation where I didn’t think a clarification or specification of
>> the metaphors implicit in our conversation might move the discussion
>> forward.  I may be playing with words but I am not /just/ playing
>> with words.  God knows, I may have been WRONG in many cases, but I
>> absolutely defend the idea that attention to the metaphors at play in
>> a conversation is often essential to any development of understanding
>> or convergence of opinion.  
>>  
>> Is it /always?/  No.  Of course not.  And I will try to be more
>> careful about that. 
>>  
>> Thanks, as always, for all your thoughts.   My life would not be half
>> of what it is without them.   Really.  It’s perhaps pathetic for me
>> to admit that, but it’s true. 
>>  
>> Nick 
>>  
>>  
>>  
>> Nicholas Thompson
>> Emeritus Professor of Ethology and Psychology
>> Clark University
>> thompnicks...@gmail.com 
>> https://wordpress.clarku.edu/nthompson/
>>  
>>  
>> *From:* Friam > > *On Behalf Of *David Eric Smith
>> *Sent:* Friday, May 29, 2020 9:11 PM
>> *To:* The Friday Morning Applied Complexity Coffee Group
>> mailto:friam@redfish.com>>
>> *Subject:* Re: [FRIAM] Metaphor [POSSIBLE DISTRACTON FROM]: privacy games
>>  
>> Hi Jon,
>>  
>> No, actually not any issue with any of what you had posted, as also
>> just affirmation toward various historical posts by Glen.  
>>  
>> Yes, sorry about a thread-rudeness.  I had sort of dropped a chunk of
>> something that had been accumulating for a week in the middle of your
>> thread which was in the coarse of solving other problems, where it
>> didn’t belong.  Partly this was because yours had been the latest
>> snapshot, partly it was because the overall frame you and Glen and
>> Steve are building is one that I would like to think of my own
>> additions as finding a place in, and partly I was probably using the
>> measured tone of this sub-thread as cover, since my own was rather
>> crabby and aggressive.  Strange that it seemed formally impolite to
>> me, to use your thread as a point of departure and not direct the
>> salutation to you, while I blew past the fact that it was
>> substantively rude to use the thread, rather than to participate in it.
>>  
>> Very good.  Thanks for calling me on this,
>>  
>>  
>> Eric
>>  
>>  
>>
>>
>>> On May 30, 2020, at 9:43 AM, Jon Zingale >> > wrote:
>>>  
>>> Eric,
>>>  
>>> I am not sure that I d

Re: [FRIAM] Optimizing for maximal serendipity or how Alan Turing misdirected ALife

[Jon Zingale]

Marcus,

you write:
*The experience of being out-of-phase with a conversation has the same
gist.*

You summarized much of my experience with Friam. Can you say more about
how it is *like homomorphic encryption, but in plain sight*? There is a sense
that homomorphic encryption (relative to the privacy discussion) is *in
plain sight*
*(public key)*, so I am guessing you have something different in mind.

Jon
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Re: [FRIAM] Science Commits Suicide (yes, another trolling headline)

[David Eric Smith]

I agree, Gary,

I wasn’t at all speaking in a disingenuous code, about censoring or other.  I 
meant what I said, as I said it.  It happens that, as part of the general 
pattern of the world’s being set on fire around our ears, there seem to be 
explosions today about twitter and power-trolls etc., so it seems inescapable, 
in a post of the kind I wrote, to need to state explicitly that I am on the 
side of open expression by people who have demonstrated that they are indeed 
there as part of the support for a good community.  Dave can troll, and I can 
call bullshit on the rare occasions that there seems to be any reason to do so.

I fully appreciate that there is a lot of the merry pirate in Dave, and that he 
is an elegant and well-formed writer, and much more fun to read than I am.  I 
have followed several of his threads, and used material he has brought.  I 
would be sorry to lose that.

I also recognize that there are jerks in the world, and that there are power 
structures that give cover and a developmental scaffold to jerks, and that like 
any other power structure, social conventions around science can get coopted 
for that.  Like racism, that needs to be understood as a problem for everybody, 
or else we don’t feel the right weight of responsibility to correct it.  But if 
one really wants to be helpful, it is good to start to get specific and be a 
bit careful.

I think my sense of the discussion is well summed up in a link somebody sent me 
https://www.facebook.com/413132078795966/posts/2793699517405865/ 

The list lives in the overlap of social community and real relations.  It’s 
okay for people to object to specific things they think are a problem; that’s 
part of the dynamically maintained community.

All best,

Eric


> On May 30, 2020, at 8:08 AM, Gary Schiltz  wrote:
> 
> Eric, I don't know either you or Dave West personally, and hope I don't fan 
> the embers into flames. Some of Dave's posts certainly have a trolling tone. 
> I agree that painting everyone in a group (in this case, scientists) with 
> such a broad brush merits calling bullshit, but the posts haven't bothered 
> me. As far as Friam involvement goes, I suspect that nobody has ever been 
> banned for their posts, for which I'm happy. This is the most mature group of 
> thinkers that I've ever had the pleasure to be a part. I admit that I only 
> skim a lot of the philosophical ramblings, which are quite over my head, but 
> I would miss anyone who has been part of the group.
> 
> On Fri, May 29, 2020 at 5:18 PM David Eric Smith  > wrote:
> Dave,
> 
> > On May 30, 2020, at 12:32 AM, Prof David West  > > wrote:
> > 
> > Science suffers from a similar problem. Making assertions as if they were 
> > unalloyed accurate and True Facts when they know that the models, the 
> > assumptions, the data (lack of) generate more ambiguity and conclude little 
> > more than probabilities. And they constantly change. But Science remains 
> > unable to admit to error or ambiguity — generating a facade that is just as 
> > false as the "We are always in the right" facade of police departments.
> 
> That’s a lot of bullshit.
> 
> It is a general claim about the actions of an encompassing set of people.  I 
> have a large set of people against whom I can test that claim, and it is 
> about as opposite from factual accuracy as I know how to get in the world of 
> human behavior.
> 
> You are, of course, free to believe whatever serves your own needs, and I 
> continue to support your right to do it unmolested.  You are even free to 
> troll up to whatever limits the board moderators consider appropriate, and I 
> can’t imagine the above comes anywhere near infringing on a limit of decency.
> 
> However, if you are trolling in a public place, it is reasonable for someone 
> else to flag the trolling as bullshit.
> 
> Eric
> 
> 
> 
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Re: [FRIAM] Metaphor [POSSIBLE DISTRACTON FROM]: privacy games

[Jon Zingale]

Steve,

you write:
*I'm still harping on "bent" as it implies that something was "meant to be
straight is deformed by some process or force"?. *

Oh, I misapprehended the critique. Yeah, *bent* like *normie* where there is
a whole context and a basis for comparison. However *bent,* unlike *normie,*
is relegated to a supporting role. I suppose this is why we came to speak
of *geodesics* in the first place, you had already mentioned this too it
seems
in your writings on cartographic projections and *great circle routes*.


*flying, levitating, soaring, running, jumping, seven-leaguing, swimming,
swinging from branches, spidermanning, surfing, skiing, skating, tumbling,
etc.*

Ha, a very nice list. I had to look up *seven-leaguing*, though
*spidermaning*
gave me nostalgia for staring out of car windows on long road trips as
a small child. I would fantasize that some humanoid was *spidermanning*
after the car along the telephone lines.

Jon
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Re: [FRIAM] Metaphor [POSSIBLE DISTRACTON FROM]: privacy games

[Jon Zingale]

Eric,

Cool, I misunderstood is all. I very much appreciate what you
accumulate for a week and drop. I would be sorry to not have it,
so please do what you need. Thank you for drawing my attention
to *polysemy* and its operational relation to *overloading*, which in
turn I am connecting to *polymorphism* (computing not biology).
What I am hearing is *polysemy* is not a *metaphor* and that both
have a role to play in our denotational language games. Further,
these games are only interesting if they assist in exploring new
domains. In the meantime, you advocate for not making the
collaborative explorations harder on ourselves than we need.
Hell, there is a lot of work to be done so let's not rewrite Russell's
Principia.

Jon
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Re: [FRIAM] Metaphor [POSSIBLE DISTRACTON FROM]: privacy games

[thompnickson2]

All –

 

I feel norm formation going on here, and it is making me a bit nervous.  I am 
not sure what follows from that, but there it is.  I thing that we at FriAM 
have long worked the boundary between work and play.  I think that’s where the 
best work is done.  

 

But this is my thread, right?  Can a man bust his own thread?  I  d o n t  t h 
I n k  s o.  I want to talk about metaphor.  And it’s relation to models.  And 
it’ relation to the concept of intentionality.  The question is, To what extent 
do our norms allow me to bring those concerns to other threads.  And the answer 
I am hearing from many of you is, “Less than I have been”.

 

Well, I will do my best.  But, for instance, I think the “work” we did on 
“strawman” was tremendously important.  In my introductory graduate lectures at 
Berkeley, where, one by one, the the grey-backed gorillas  of the department 
laid down the law.  Somebody, I think David Krech, announced that if “I say 
that the number of rat turds left by a rat in an open field maze is “anxiety”, 
then that is what anxiety IS for the purposes of my research, and there’s no 
more discussion to be had.”  And even in the tenuous position of a first year 
graduate student I knew that was wrong.  Meanings have momentum.   Words have 
meaning that is independent of their users. I have fought for 50 years to 
rescue ‘teleonomy’ (=natural design) from the dualistic thieves that abducted 
it.  And SteveG and I could be thought of as battling for nigh a decade and 
half about which specification of the metaphor of natural selection is best for 
the purposes of understanding natural design.  (I thought we made a lot of 
progress on that issue today.)   Much of what we do in scientific discourse is 
fight over metaphors and we need to develop methods for fighting fairly, 
skillfully, and expeditiously.  

 

I don’t think I have EVER introduced the idea of metaphor in a conversation 
where I didn’t think a clarification or specification of the metaphors implicit 
in our conversation might move the discussion forward.  I may be playing with 
words but I am not just playing with words.  God knows, I may have been WRONG 
in many cases, but I absolutely defend the idea that attention to the metaphors 
at play in a conversation is often essential to any development of 
understanding or convergence of opinion.  

 

Is it always?  No.  Of course not.  And I will try to be more careful about 
that. 

 

Thanks, as always, for all your thoughts.   My life would not be half of what 
it is without them.   Really.  It’s perhaps pathetic for me to admit that, but 
it’s true. 

 

Nick 

 

 

 

Nicholas Thompson

Emeritus Professor of Ethology and Psychology

Clark University

  thompnicks...@gmail.com

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

 

 

From: Friam  On Behalf Of David Eric Smith
Sent: Friday, May 29, 2020 9:11 PM
To: The Friday Morning Applied Complexity Coffee Group 
Subject: Re: [FRIAM] Metaphor [POSSIBLE DISTRACTON FROM]: privacy games

 

Hi Jon,

 

No, actually not any issue with any of what you had posted, as also just 
affirmation toward various historical posts by Glen.  

 

Yes, sorry about a thread-rudeness.  I had sort of dropped a chunk of something 
that had been accumulating for a week in the middle of your thread which was in 
the coarse of solving other problems, where it didn’t belong.  Partly this was 
because yours had been the latest snapshot, partly it was because the overall 
frame you and Glen and Steve are building is one that I would like to think of 
my own additions as finding a place in, and partly I was probably using the 
measured tone of this sub-thread as cover, since my own was rather crabby and 
aggressive.  Strange that it seemed formally impolite to me, to use your thread 
as a point of departure and not direct the salutation to you, while I blew past 
the fact that it was substantively rude to use the thread, rather than to 
participate in it.

 

Very good.  Thanks for calling me on this,

 

 

Eric

 

 





On May 30, 2020, at 9:43 AM, Jon Zingale mailto:jonzing...@gmail.com> > wrote:

 

Eric,

 

I am not sure that I disagree with you anywhere, but I am

unsure whether you are taking issue with me? The proliferation

of threads are sometimes hard for me to follow, inevitably I mis-

determine who is talking to whom. Are there places in my writing

that you would suggest I revisit and reconsider? Pointing things

out to another can be an expensive and thankless task, so thank

you in advance.

 

Jon

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Re: [FRIAM] Metaphor [POSSIBLE DISTRACTON FROM]: privacy games

[David Eric Smith]

Jon, Glen, All,

I took Glen’s point in his former post to be the one that also seems 
overwhelmingly obvious to me.

In the rest of the universe outside this thread, we have a relatively rich 
conceptual landscape for thinking and talking about what it means for words or 
other units of speech to refer to things.  We have a kind of ontology of 
denotation and connotation of various types, and lots of ways to refer to it 
and share points of view toward it.

Glen’s revivalist meme, which gave me the rare pleasure of actually physically 
laughing out loud, captured the way all that expressive richness seems to get 
dumped for harping and harping (the official instrument of heaven) on one term. 
 Kind of like Murray used to distill his irritation with the evangelicals in 
the complaint that the universe is rich and the world full of books to convey 
the richness, but the various fundamentalists want everything else but one book 
to be thrown out.

It’s hard not to respond to these things with the obvious reductii ad absurdum. 
 I don’t know how Glen manages to keep an even keel and keep responding with 
analyses.  If every symbol is another symbol of another symbol of another…. 
Then one of two things must be true.  Either there is Only One Thing, and all 
of language ultimately points back to it through a category-theoretic chain of 
metaphor, or there isn’t anything at all, and talking is just about talking, 
and never about actually doing anything (the analytical philosopher’s preferred 
view of the world — sorry; said with reference to a particular person I have in 
mind, or maybe a couple of them).

I wanted to post that, back in the awful early days of Southwest Airlines (do 
you remember how they used to ensure every seat full on every plane, allowing 
them to charge $50 less on a ticket?), I used to blow off steam at the end of a 
horrendous travel day by complaining that Southwest didn’t operate nonstop 
flights between any two cities.  In the “It’s all Metaphors!” Conversation, the 
above would not be seen as absurd.

I wanted to post to paraphrase Yogi Berra:  Learning something is hard, 
especially something you don’t already know.

The purpose being to then write that, when I used to teach physics to liberal 
arts majors (honors students, and very smart and deeply good kids), I tried to 
make the point by referring to “operational definitions”.  Unpacked: I tried to 
sell them on the idea that the reason we were there together was for them to 
understand something new.  Of course, I have no idea what “understand something 
new” means, any more than I understand what it means “to think” (to which I 
will save Nick larding here to say it doesn’t mean anything at all).  But I can 
refer concretely to may activities that I think are part of understanding 
something.  
Experimentation.
Reading measurements.
Learning facts of various kinds.
Lots of off-line reading around the topic, so that the class readings are not a 
sort of scripture to be memorized, but a thing that one does lots of 
hermeneutic filling-in to try to get to grips with.
Immersion to develop a kind of familiarity with the patterns seen in some 
domain of phenomena.

All of those I thought of as “operations”.  Then try to sell the students on 
the claim that the substance of the idea is in the operations that give 
understanding of it, and after the fact we can tag the idea with whatever word, 
for ease of association, or compatibility with conventional grammars for its 
use, or whatever.  I took this to be Glen’s point that we could use “xyz” if we 
have got clear what we are talking about, though of course some terms are more 
convenient than others, for reasons we all also understand.

But each new operational definition creates a genuinely new thing to be 
understood, and a new sense that could either be referred to with a new term 
(entropy, enstrophy, Bacillus subtitlis, ...),  or by a new meaning assigned to 
an existing term by overloading (color, charm, strangeness, evolution, 
manifold, fiber, filtration, …).  Thus “polysemy” does not mean the same thing 
as “metaphor”.  
(Operationalized in only one limited way among many possible ways as 
https://www.pnas.org/content/113/7/1766 
)

I wanted to post a story Wendell Berry tells, in affectionate ribbing of rural 
Kentuckians.  They never say a word they haven’t said before.  When he and his 
wife Tanya moved back to Port Arthur, since they had never known someone named 
Tanya before, they spent the first 20 years of the Berrys’ return addressing 
her by some collection of other names.  (Wendell does not elaborate what 
exactly changed that.)

I wanted to post an instance of Lashon Hara against my analytical philosopher 
colleague, which is an act of bad faith.  The contest is that some operational 
understanding gets built up in some domain.  The philosopher’s method is then 
something like this:
1. Don’t learn any of that operational

Re: [FRIAM] Metaphor [POSSIBLE DISTRACTON FROM]: privacy games

[Frank Wimberly]

Thanks, Nick!  I would not have retrieved that.

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

505 670-9918
Santa Fe, NM

On Fri, May 29, 2020, 9:12 PM  wrote:

> Being There   Chauncy Gardener.  “I like to watch”
>
>
>
> Nicholas Thompson
>
> Emeritus Professor of Ethology and Psychology
>
> Clark University
>
> thompnicks...@gmail.com
>
> https://wordpress.clarku.edu/nthompson/
>
>
>
>
>
> *From:* Friam  *On Behalf Of *Frank Wimberly
> *Sent:* Friday, May 29, 2020 7:25 PM
> *To:* The Friday Morning Applied Complexity Coffee Group <
> friam@redfish.com>
> *Subject:* Re: [FRIAM] Metaphor [POSSIBLE DISTRACTON FROM]: privacy games
>
>
>
> What was the film in which Dustin Hoffman played an autistic(?)
> presidential candidate?  He would say something that he meant quite
> literally and people would assume he was speaking m...ically and that
> he was brilliant.
>
>
>
>
>
> On Fri, May 29, 2020 at 6:45 PM Frank Wimberly 
> wrote:
>
> I have been much more active in the List that usual.  It's the pandemic.
>
>
>
> On Fri, May 29, 2020 at 6:43 PM Jon Zingale  wrote:
>
> Eric,
>
>
>
> I am not sure that I disagree with you anywhere, but I am
>
> unsure whether you are taking issue with me? The proliferation
>
> of threads are sometimes hard for me to follow, inevitably I mis-
>
> determine who is talking to whom. Are there places in my writing
>
> that you would suggest I revisit and reconsider? Pointing things
>
> out to another can be an expensive and thankless task, so thank
>
> you in advance.
>
>
>
> Jon
>
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> FRIAM-COMIC http://friam-comic.blogspot.com/
>
>
>
>
> --
>
> Frank Wimberly
> 140 Calle Ojo Feliz
> Santa Fe, NM 87505
> 505 670-9918
>
>
>
>
> --
>
> Frank Wimberly
> 140 Calle Ojo Feliz
> Santa Fe, NM 87505
> 505 670-9918
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>
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Re: [FRIAM] Metaphor [POSSIBLE DISTRACTON FROM]: privacy games

[thompnickson2]

Being There   Chauncy Gardener.  “I like to watch”  

 

Nicholas Thompson

Emeritus Professor of Ethology and Psychology

Clark University

  thompnicks...@gmail.com

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

 

 

From: Friam  On Behalf Of Frank Wimberly
Sent: Friday, May 29, 2020 7:25 PM
To: The Friday Morning Applied Complexity Coffee Group 
Subject: Re: [FRIAM] Metaphor [POSSIBLE DISTRACTON FROM]: privacy games

 

What was the film in which Dustin Hoffman played an autistic(?) presidential 
candidate?  He would say something that he meant quite literally and people 
would assume he was speaking m...ically and that he was brilliant. 

 

 

On Fri, May 29, 2020 at 6:45 PM Frank Wimberly mailto:wimber...@gmail.com> > wrote:

I have been much more active in the List that usual.  It's the pandemic.

 

On Fri, May 29, 2020 at 6:43 PM Jon Zingale mailto:jonzing...@gmail.com> > wrote:

Eric,

 

I am not sure that I disagree with you anywhere, but I am

unsure whether you are taking issue with me? The proliferation

of threads are sometimes hard for me to follow, inevitably I mis-

determine who is talking to whom. Are there places in my writing

that you would suggest I revisit and reconsider? Pointing things

out to another can be an expensive and thankless task, so thank

you in advance.

 

Jon

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-- 

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




 

-- 

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

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Re: [FRIAM] Metaphor [POSSIBLE DISTRACTON FROM]: privacy games

[Steve Smith]

Jon -
>
> /I might instead say that the source domain of the metaphorical
> description of "bent" or "curved" space IS the formal mathematical
> construction of "a manifold"? /
>
> What about Eddington's measurement or gravitational lensing? These both
> appear situated in a phenomenological domain, and so we seem to have
> another candidate domain for talking meaningfully about /bent/ or
> /curved/ space.
I guess I'm not saying that nobody (in this case Eddington and many
others after him) have not experimentally observed light failing to
follow the Euclidean "straight line" we intuitively? expect to see?   I
agree that we don't have any (much?) direct experience otherwise
(mirage, underwater with density/temp flux?).  I'm still harping on
"bent" as it implies that something was "meant to be straight is
deformed by some process or force"?. 
>  Still, I suspect I am missing something important in
> your emphasis on /apprehension./ Can you say a bit more about what you
> mean?
I'm not sure if it is important... or obvious... or not.  I am using
"apprehension" to be as broad of a word/concept as possible to describe
"taking something in", it could range from observing to experiencing to
measuring (and fitting to an apt model?) to "intuiting" to /grokking/?  
I guess the key is being convinced that what you are "taking in" is
real, even of course, if you are wrong.   This might include Dave's
conversations with Joseph Smith, though that would be on one extreme.
>
> you write:
> /Which I think is analogous or at least similar to Guerin's "least
> action paths"?/
>
> Yeah, I suspect so too. MacLane's book intentionally focuses on developing
> Lagrangian and Hamiltonian mechanics. Mechanics, as far as I am concerned,
> is the prototypical home for these ideas.
At least from an embodied, motile creature's perspective, it seems like
it would be?  Not that I can imagine being anything else really?   My
orbital mechanics dreams are just the latest variant on a whole suite of
dreams I've had as far as I can remember and they all involve various
forms of locomotion/navigation through space (flying, levitating,
soaring, running, jumping, seven-leaguing, swimming, swinging from
branches, spidermanning, surfing, skiing, skating, tumbling, etc.).
>
> You write:
> /feels a bit more to me like an "algebra of cliche's"?/
>
> Thanks for that. Upon further reflection, I completely agree with you.
>
And thank you for "snowclone" between you and Glen, I am feeling
hopelessly out of date on modern terminology.   I feel like my
grandfather (born 1890ish) when he came to live with us in the 60's, and
it felt like he had to have explained every other term that I didn't
even recognize as slang!  ("hey man", "cool").
>
> †) At the unintended risk of moving the conversation into the /meta/††,
> I am including a link here to a page motivating the development of
> sheaves
> .
> In section 2 the author invents a game where he thinks up a space and the
> player can query the author about how other spaces map into it.
>
> †† /Meta/ in that sheaves themselves offer a more flexible paradigm for
> reasoning about generalized spaces than we get from manifold theory.

I'm gonna have to give this a lot more attention than the quick read I
tried just now!

I'm barely versed enough in CT to *read* it with a lexicon in my hand.

- Steve

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Re: [FRIAM] Science Commits Suicide (yes, another trolling headline)

[David Eric Smith]

Dave,

> On May 30, 2020, at 12:32 AM, Prof David West  wrote:
> 
> Science suffers from a similar problem. Making assertions as if they were 
> unalloyed accurate and True Facts when they know that the models, the 
> assumptions, the data (lack of) generate more ambiguity and conclude little 
> more than probabilities. And they constantly change. But Science remains 
> unable to admit to error or ambiguity — generating a facade that is just as 
> false as the "We are always in the right" facade of police departments.

That’s a lot of bullshit.

It is a general claim about the actions of an encompassing set of people.  I 
have a large set of people against whom I can test that claim, and it is about 
as opposite from factual accuracy as I know how to get in the world of human 
behavior.

You are, of course, free to believe whatever serves your own needs, and I 
continue to support your right to do it unmolested.  You are even free to troll 
up to whatever limits the board moderators consider appropriate, and I can’t 
imagine the above comes anywhere near infringing on a limit of decency.

However, if you are trolling in a public place, it is reasonable for someone 
else to flag the trolling as bullshit.

Eric



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Re: [FRIAM] Metaphor [POSSIBLE DISTRACTON FROM]: privacy games

[Frank Wimberly]

What was the film in which Dustin Hoffman played an autistic(?)
presidential candidate?  He would say something that he meant quite
literally and people would assume he was speaking m...ically and that
he was brilliant.


On Fri, May 29, 2020 at 6:45 PM Frank Wimberly  wrote:

> I have been much more active in the List that usual.  It's the pandemic.
>
> On Fri, May 29, 2020 at 6:43 PM Jon Zingale  wrote:
>
>> Eric,
>>
>> I am not sure that I disagree with you anywhere, but I am
>> unsure whether you are taking issue with me? The proliferation
>> of threads are sometimes hard for me to follow, inevitably I mis-
>> determine who is talking to whom. Are there places in my writing
>> that you would suggest I revisit and reconsider? Pointing things
>> out to another can be an expensive and thankless task, so thank
>> you in advance.
>>
>> Jon
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>> FRIAM Applied Complexity Group listserv
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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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505 670-9918
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Re: [FRIAM] Metaphor [POSSIBLE DISTRACTON FROM]: privacy games

[Jon Zingale]

Frank,

same.

Jon
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Re: [FRIAM] Metaphor [POSSIBLE DISTRACTON FROM]: privacy games

[Frank Wimberly]

I have been much more active in the List that usual.  It's the pandemic.

On Fri, May 29, 2020 at 6:43 PM Jon Zingale  wrote:

> Eric,
>
> I am not sure that I disagree with you anywhere, but I am
> unsure whether you are taking issue with me? The proliferation
> of threads are sometimes hard for me to follow, inevitably I mis-
> determine who is talking to whom. Are there places in my writing
> that you would suggest I revisit and reconsider? Pointing things
> out to another can be an expensive and thankless task, so thank
> you in advance.
>
> Jon
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> FRIAM-COMIC http://friam-comic.blogspot.com/
>


-- 
Frank Wimberly
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Santa Fe, NM 87505
505 670-9918
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Re: [FRIAM] Metaphor [POSSIBLE DISTRACTON FROM]: privacy games

[Jon Zingale]

Eric,

I am not sure that I disagree with you anywhere, but I am
unsure whether you are taking issue with me? The proliferation
of threads are sometimes hard for me to follow, inevitably I mis-
determine who is talking to whom. Are there places in my writing
that you would suggest I revisit and reconsider? Pointing things
out to another can be an expensive and thankless task, so thank
you in advance.

Jon
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Re: [FRIAM] Metaphor [POSSIBLE DISTRACTON FROM]: privacy games

[Frank Wimberly]

Jon

I can't even find MacLane's book for sale anywhere, at any price.  Oh well,
I need to read Lawvere anyway.

Frank

On Fri, May 29, 2020 at 11:17 AM Jon Zingale  wrote:

> Frank, Steve,
>
> My favored approach is to say that *space is like a manifold*.
> For me, space is a *thing* and a manifold is an *object*. The former
> I can experience free from my models of it, I can continue to
> learn facts(?) about space not derived by deduction alone
> (consider Nick's posts on inductive and abductive reasoning).
> I concede here that we talk about an objectified space, but
> I am not intending to. I am using the term space as a place-
> holder for the thing I am physically moving about in. OTOH
> manifolds are fully *objectified*, they exist by virtue of their
> formality. Any meaningful question *about a manifold* itself
> is derived deductively from its construction. Neither in their
> own right are metaphors, the metaphor is created when we
> treat space *as if it were* a manifold. Just my two cents.
>
> At the beginning of MacLane's *Geometrical Mechanics,* (a book
> I have held many times, but never found an inexpensive copy
> to buy) MacLane opens his lecture's with '*The slogan is: Kinetic*
> *energy is a Riemann metric on configuration space*'. What a baller.
>
> Glen,
>
> I love that you mention the , ultimately reducing
> the argument to a *snowclone*. Because the title of the thread
> actually implicates a discussion of metaphor, and because I may
> have missed your point about *xyz,* please allow me this question.
> Do you feel that *snowclones* are necessarily templates for making
> metaphors, or do you feel that a snowclone is somehow different?
>
> Jon
>
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>


-- 
Frank Wimberly
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Santa Fe, NM 87505
505 670-9918
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Re: [FRIAM] "higher" education

[Dean Gerber]

 Thanks for the link Cody.  That was a fine talk.  Dean Gerber
On Friday, May 29, 2020, 12:44:05 PM MDT, cody dooderson 
 wrote:  
 
 Here is a nice talk to the graduates of Harvard 
https://www.youtube.com/watch?time_continue=1001&v=jSn_QW9FFiI&feature=emb_logo.
 
Cody Smith

On Fri, May 29, 2020 at 12:21 PM Gary Schiltz  
wrote:

I don't know if my attitudes have an objective basis, or if I am just envious 
of folks whose degrees are from Ivy League schools. My father had only a sixth 
grade education and my mother eighth grade, and Dad never earned over two 
dollars an hour, so an expensive University was out of the question. So I went 
to Kansas State University in the 1970s and early 1980s and got what I thought 
was an adequate education (BS in Biology and MS in Computer Science) spread out 
over nearly ten years. In-state tuition, no doubt subsidized by the State of 
Kansas, was between $500 and $1000 per semester. Working as a software 
engineer, my salary was always somewhere in the mid range, and I didn't mind. I 
think my career was more rewarding to me than if I had incurred huge debts at a 
more top-tier University in order to get higher paying jobs. I guess my point 
is that higher education could be a whole lot more affordable without throwing 
out the face-to-face model entirely.
On Fri, May 29, 2020 at 10:08 AM Prof David West  wrote:

Scott Galloway (professor at  Stern School of business and supposed authority) 
on universities post COVID.

Fifty percent of the investment in prestige university education is for 
'certification' —  degree that signals your lifetime earnings. The Harvard 
brand is strong enough that students will accept an inferior educational 
experience. The fifty biggest university brands, Harvard, Stanford, etc, will 
partner with tech giants like Apple or Facebook to create a hybrid university, 
most others will hollow out and die like the large department store chains. 
Dorm life and in-person experience will be reserved for children of the 1%.

Pretty bleak and a commentary on previous FRIAM conversations about education 
and elite universities.

davew

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Re: [FRIAM] Metaphor [POSSIBLE DISTRACTON FROM]: privacy games

[Jon Zingale]

Steve,

you write:
*I might instead say that the source domain of the metaphorical description
of "bent" or "curved" space IS the formal mathematical construction of "a
manifold"? *

What about Eddington's measurement or gravitational lensing? These both
appear situated in a phenomenological domain, and so we seem to have
another candidate domain for talking meaningfully about *bent* or *curved*
 space.
My preference is to grant that the metaphor maker has a domain in mind,
but one that I will only come to understand through investigation†. It is
perfectly acceptable to me that the metaphor maker intends a domain which
includes, but is not limited to, both phenomenological and mathematically
formal domains (say). Still, I suspect I am missing something important in
your emphasis on *apprehension.* Can you say a bit more about what you mean?

you write:
*Which I think is analogous or at least similar to Guerin's "least action
paths"?*

Yeah, I suspect so too. MacLane's book intentionally focuses on developing
Lagrangian and Hamiltonian mechanics. Mechanics, as far as I am concerned,
is the prototypical home for these ideas.

You write:
*feels a bit more to me like an "algebra of cliche's"?*

Thanks for that. Upon further reflection, I completely agree with you.

Jon

†) At the unintended risk of moving the conversation into the *meta*††,
I am including a link here to a page motivating the development of sheaves

.
In section 2 the author invents a game where he thinks up a space and the
player can query the author about how other spaces map into it.

†† *Meta* in that sheaves themselves offer a more flexible paradigm for
reasoning about generalized spaces than we get from manifold theory.
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Re: [FRIAM] "higher" education

[Steve Smith]

On 5/29/20 5:23 PM, Frank Wimberly wrote:
> Steve, I am sure that my brother-in-law, who got his MD at Harvard
> after his undergraduate study there would enjoy talking to your
> daughter and would treat her as a full equal.  I've never seen him
> acting superior to a colleague based on what school they went to. 
> Same for my wife.

I know... I don't mean on a pairwise one-on-one situation (much), but
more about when grant proposals are being developed and submitted and
collaborations with peers are developed and how she overhears
discussions among them at conferences that are not personally
dismissive, but might have some implication that (in this case) they
would prefer to only work with "top notch" scientists which might be a
code-word for something like "not from a State School", or similar.

I think we have *all* been in situations where someone abruptly turns to
us in freewheeling conversation and says "present company excluded, of
course!" when they realize that what they were implying might seem to
apply to us.   I have plenty of friends who forget I am a member of one
class or another that they are dismissing or impugning in some way, and
may or may not catch themselves.  

I'd say these things are much more "structural" than personal... and as
she matures (she just turned 40 and had her first/only child) I think
this will bother her less. And, the old white men (my generation) who
still treat her a little less than equal (though always respectful and
often (albeit condescendingly) specifically helpful) will retire or
die... and that will open up a few more opportunities for her and she
might feel less (mildly) marginalized by the "good ole this-n-that
networks" that seem to (structurally) inhibit her.  

- Steve




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Re: [FRIAM] "higher" education

[Frank Wimberly]

Steve, I am sure that my brother-in-law, who got his MD at Harvard after
his undergraduate study there would enjoy talking to your daughter and
would treat her as a full equal.  I've never seen him acting superior to a
colleague based on what school they went to.  Same for my wife.

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

505 670-9918
Santa Fe, NM

On Fri, May 29, 2020, 4:51 PM Steve Smith  wrote:

> My daughter  chose (with my strong advice) to get her undergrad from UCSC
> instead of UCB (accepted but the academic scholarships she was offered
> would have left her with a $50K debt after 4 years).   She was shooting for
> an MD at that point, and entering Med School with that kind of debt seemed
> ridiculous...  she ended up doing a PhD at UNM (Molecular Bio) with a fully
> funded GRA position instead of UCB (where she would have incurred similar
> debts in SPITE of a GRA offer there also).  She went into the workforce
> with $0 student debt very intentionally.
>
> She feels as well prepared as any of her peers (and more dedicated than
> many) in her field (virology, flavi-virus specialty), yet feels mildly
> excluded from some circles of IVY or neoIVY or ??? similarly elite school
> alumni.   There is a good-ole-boys-and-girls club in her world (or her
> apprehension of her world) which has her being treated as "less than".
>
> Maybe this isn't real, or it is latent.   But she lives it viscerally,
> especially during funding cycles.
>
>
>
> On 5/29/20 4:37 PM, Frank Wimberly wrote:
>
> The mean household assets of the 1% exceeds $10 million.  My wife and her
> brother both graduated from Harvard.  Their parents paid for their expenses
> out-of-pocket.  My in-laws were nowhere near the 1%.  My FIL was an
> attorney and a member of Governor Kerner's Human Rights Commission.  My
> wife's mother was a freelance writer who had published a couple of books
> and many articles in popular magazines.  Both my wife and my brother-in-law
> received excellent educations.  Yes, Nick, they were well-educated before
> they got to Harvard.
>
> Frank
>
> ---
> Frank C. Wimberly
> 140 Calle Ojo Feliz,
> Santa Fe, NM 87505
>
> 505 670-9918
> Santa Fe, NM
>
> On Fri, May 29, 2020, 9:08 AM Prof David West 
> wrote:
>
>> Scott Galloway (professor at  Stern School of business and supposed
>> authority) on universities post COVID.
>>
>> Fifty percent of the investment in prestige university education is for
>> 'certification' —  degree that signals your lifetime earnings. The Harvard
>> brand is strong enough that students will accept an inferior educational
>> experience. The fifty biggest university brands, Harvard, Stanford, etc,
>> will partner with tech giants like Apple or Facebook to create a hybrid
>> university, most others will hollow out and die like the large department
>> store chains. Dorm life and in-person experience will be reserved for
>> children of the 1%.
>>
>> Pretty bleak and a commentary on previous FRIAM conversations about
>> education and elite universities.
>>
>> davew
>>
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>> http://friam-comic.blogspot.com/
>>
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Re: [FRIAM] Science Commits Suicide (yes, another trolling headline)

[Gary Schiltz]

Eric, I don't know either you or Dave West personally, and hope I don't fan
the embers into flames. Some of Dave's posts certainly have a trolling
tone. I agree that painting everyone in a group (in this case, scientists)
with such a broad brush merits calling bullshit, but the posts haven't
bothered me. As far as Friam involvement goes, I suspect that nobody has
ever been banned for their posts, for which I'm happy. This is the most
mature group of thinkers that I've ever had the pleasure to be a part. I
admit that I only skim a lot of the philosophical ramblings, which are
quite over my head, but I would miss anyone who has been part of the group.

On Fri, May 29, 2020 at 5:18 PM David Eric Smith 
wrote:

> Dave,
>
> > On May 30, 2020, at 12:32 AM, Prof David West 
> wrote:
> >
> > Science suffers from a similar problem. Making assertions as if they
> were unalloyed accurate and True Facts when they know that the models, the
> assumptions, the data (lack of) generate more ambiguity and conclude little
> more than probabilities. And they constantly change. But Science remains
> unable to admit to error or ambiguity — generating a facade that is just as
> false as the "We are always in the right" facade of police departments.
>
> That’s a lot of bullshit.
>
> It is a general claim about the actions of an encompassing set of people.
> I have a large set of people against whom I can test that claim, and it is
> about as opposite from factual accuracy as I know how to get in the world
> of human behavior.
>
> You are, of course, free to believe whatever serves your own needs, and I
> continue to support your right to do it unmolested.  You are even free to
> troll up to whatever limits the board moderators consider appropriate, and
> I can’t imagine the above comes anywhere near infringing on a limit of
> decency.
>
> However, if you are trolling in a public place, it is reasonable for
> someone else to flag the trolling as bullshit.
>
> Eric
>
>
>
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Re: [FRIAM] "higher" education

[Steve Smith]

My daughter  chose (with my strong advice) to get her undergrad from
UCSC instead of UCB (accepted but the academic scholarships she was
offered would have left her with a $50K debt after 4 years).   She was
shooting for an MD at that point, and entering Med School with that kind
of debt seemed ridiculous...  she ended up doing a PhD at UNM (Molecular
Bio) with a fully funded GRA position instead of UCB (where she would
have incurred similar debts in SPITE of a GRA offer there also).  She
went into the workforce with $0 student debt very intentionally.  

She feels as well prepared as any of her peers (and more dedicated than
many) in her field (virology, flavi-virus specialty), yet feels mildly
excluded from some circles of IVY or neoIVY or ??? similarly elite
school alumni.   There is a good-ole-boys-and-girls club in her world
(or her apprehension of her world) which has her being treated as "less
than".   

Maybe this isn't real, or it is latent.   But she lives it viscerally,
especially during funding cycles.



On 5/29/20 4:37 PM, Frank Wimberly wrote:
> The mean household assets of the 1% exceeds $10 million.  My wife and
> her brother both graduated from Harvard.  Their parents paid for their
> expenses out-of-pocket.  My in-laws were nowhere near the 1%.  My FIL
> was an attorney and a member of Governor Kerner's Human Rights
> Commission.  My wife's mother was a freelance writer who had published
> a couple of books and many articles in popular magazines.  Both my
> wife and my brother-in-law received excellent educations.  Yes, Nick,
> they were well-educated before they got to Harvard.
>
> Frank
>
> ---
> Frank C. Wimberly
> 140 Calle Ojo Feliz,
> Santa Fe, NM 87505
>
> 505 670-9918
> Santa Fe, NM
>
> On Fri, May 29, 2020, 9:08 AM Prof David West  > wrote:
>
> Scott Galloway (professor at  Stern School of business and
> supposed authority) on universities post COVID.
>
> Fifty percent of the investment in prestige university education
> is for 'certification' —  degree that signals your lifetime
> earnings. The Harvard brand is strong enough that students will
> accept an inferior educational experience. The fifty biggest
> university brands, Harvard, Stanford, etc, will partner with tech
> giants like Apple or Facebook to create a hybrid university, most
> others will hollow out and die like the large department store
> chains. Dorm life and in-person experience will be reserved for
> children of the 1%.
>
> Pretty bleak and a commentary on previous FRIAM conversations
> about education and elite universities.
>
> davew
>
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>
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Re: [FRIAM] "higher" education

[Frank Wimberly]

The mean household assets of the 1% exceeds $10 million.  My wife and her
brother both graduated from Harvard.  Their parents paid for their expenses
out-of-pocket.  My in-laws were nowhere near the 1%.  My FIL was an
attorney and a member of Governor Kerner's Human Rights Commission.  My
wife's mother was a freelance writer who had published a couple of books
and many articles in popular magazines.  Both my wife and my brother-in-law
received excellent educations.  Yes, Nick, they were well-educated before
they got to Harvard.

Frank

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

505 670-9918
Santa Fe, NM

On Fri, May 29, 2020, 9:08 AM Prof David West  wrote:

> Scott Galloway (professor at  Stern School of business and supposed
> authority) on universities post COVID.
>
> Fifty percent of the investment in prestige university education is for
> 'certification' —  degree that signals your lifetime earnings. The Harvard
> brand is strong enough that students will accept an inferior educational
> experience. The fifty biggest university brands, Harvard, Stanford, etc,
> will partner with tech giants like Apple or Facebook to create a hybrid
> university, most others will hollow out and die like the large department
> store chains. Dorm life and in-person experience will be reserved for
> children of the 1%.
>
> Pretty bleak and a commentary on previous FRIAM conversations about
> education and elite universities.
>
> davew
>
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Re: [FRIAM] Science Commits Suicide (yes, another trolling headline)

[Frank Wimberly]

Agreed, EricS.

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

505 670-9918
Santa Fe, NM

On Fri, May 29, 2020, 4:18 PM David Eric Smith  wrote:

> Dave,
>
> > On May 30, 2020, at 12:32 AM, Prof David West 
> wrote:
> >
> > Science suffers from a similar problem. Making assertions as if they
> were unalloyed accurate and True Facts when they know that the models, the
> assumptions, the data (lack of) generate more ambiguity and conclude little
> more than probabilities. And they constantly change. But Science remains
> unable to admit to error or ambiguity — generating a facade that is just as
> false as the "We are always in the right" facade of police departments.
>
> That’s a lot of bullshit.
>
> It is a general claim about the actions of an encompassing set of people.
> I have a large set of people against whom I can test that claim, and it is
> about as opposite from factual accuracy as I know how to get in the world
> of human behavior.
>
> You are, of course, free to believe whatever serves your own needs, and I
> continue to support your right to do it unmolested.  You are even free to
> troll up to whatever limits the board moderators consider appropriate, and
> I can’t imagine the above comes anywhere near infringing on a limit of
> decency.
>
> However, if you are trolling in a public place, it is reasonable for
> someone else to flag the trolling as bullshit.
>
> Eric
>
>
>
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Re: [FRIAM] Metaphor [POSSIBLE DISTRACTON FROM]: privacy games

[Frank Wimberly]

Steve,

FWIW the more basic mathematical concepts that are used to define manifolds
are topological space and thus open set, continuity, functions, and R^n
(for an n-dimensional manifold).  They are usually, but not necessarily,
assumed to be Hausdorff and paracompact.  Hausdorff means that distinct
points are in non-intersecting open sets.  For details see Baez, previously
cited.

I usually forget the metaphor and think of the abstract definition.  Maybe
that's why I have trouble with the relationship to applications.  Once
Hywel and I were reading the definition and I was digging the
abstractness.  He said, "I see where they're going with this".   I asked,
"Where?"  He said something like, "An electron in an energy state..."  When
he finished I asked, "What??"

Frank


Frank

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

505 670-9918
Santa Fe, NM

On Fri, May 29, 2020, 2:47 PM Steve Smith  wrote:

> Jon -
>
> This is a nicely crisp and dense description which I found myself
> responding to several times (inline) and having to start over, as multiple
> readings (and partial responses) did help me unpack it somewhat better I
> hope.  If this response makes it through my internal editor, it is probably
> still sloppy or incomplete.
>
> Frank, Steve,
>
> My favored approach is to say that *space is like a manifold*.
> For me, space is a *thing* and a manifold is an *object*. The former
> I can experience free from my models of it, I can continue to
> learn facts(?) about space not derived by deduction alone
> (consider Nick's posts on inductive and abductive reasoning).
> I concede here that we talk about an objectified space, but
> I am not intending to. I am using the term space as a place-
> holder for the thing I am physically moving about in. OTOH
> manifolds are fully *objectified*, they exist by virtue of their
> formality. Any meaningful question *about a manifold* itself
> is derived deductively from its construction. Neither in their
> own right are metaphors, the metaphor is created when we
> treat space *as if it were* a manifold. Just my two cents.
>
> Can we agree that the term "manifold" is a signifier for a mathematical
> object which we have chosen to use as a formalism for describing something
> we have (presumably) a more intuitive sense of?   The space we "move around
> in" (propriocept?) and "apprehend through action-at-a-distance" (see, hear,
> grasp, feel-the-heat-from)?  The mathematical construct we call a
> "manifold" is built up from simpler mathematical concepts of "dimension"
> and "point" and "set" "curve" and "surface" (and n-d analogs).   I *think*
> the distinction between intrinsic and extrinsic curvature might be the
> formalism related to what I am trying to gesture at when I talk about
> "apprehending" the curvature of a space directly, and why both "bent" and
> "curved" space are a little dubious to me.
>
> I suppose your terminology of "the metaphor is created when we treat space
> *as if it were* a manifold* can work for me, though I might instead say
> that the source domain of the metaphorical description of "bent" or
> "curved" space IS the formal mathematical construction of "a manifold"?
> To say "bent" (IMO) requires an additional layer of something like a
> homogenous substance with plastic (but not elastic?) deformability?
> Colloquially "bent" is a fair standin for "curved" but I think only
> intrinsic curvature is really meaningful in this context?
>
> At the beginning of MacLane's *Geometrical Mechanics,* (a book
> I have held many times, but never found an inexpensive copy
> to buy) MacLane opens his lecture's with '*The slogan is: Kinetic*
> *energy is a Riemann metric on configuration space*'. What a baller.
>
> Which I think is analogous or at least similar to Guerin's "least action
> paths"?  And what I *think* I (imagine that I) experience in my orbital
> mechanics dreams (albeit without any direct obvious intuitive grounding,
> just one extrapolated from experiences like aerobatics, acrobatics,
> high-diving, swimming under-water...
>
> This all reduces to what qualifies for a direct apprehension, a deep
> grounded intuition, a (legitimate) gut-feeling?   I'm beginning to suspect
> that I might be the only one who has or at least needs that kind of
> grounding for formalisms?
>
> Glen,
>
> I love that you mention the , ultimately reducing
> the argument to a *snowclone*. Because the title of the thread
> actually implicates a discussion of metaphor, and because I may
> have missed your point about *xyz,* please allow me this question.
> Do you feel that *snowclones* are necessarily templates for making
> metaphors, or do you feel that a snowclone is somehow different?
>
> *Snowclone* (new word to me) feels a bit more to me like an "algebra of
> cliche's"?   Which is another hazard of "loose" metaphors...  they are
> prone to becoming canalized as/into cliche's?
>
> - Steve
>
> -- --- .-. . .-.. --- -.-. -.- ... -..-. .- .-. . -.

Re: [FRIAM] Metaphor [POSSIBLE DISTRACTON FROM]: privacy games

[Steve Smith]

Jon -

This is a nicely crisp and dense description which I found myself
responding to several times (inline) and having to start over, as
multiple readings (and partial responses) did help me unpack it somewhat
better I hope.  If this response makes it through my internal editor, it
is probably still sloppy or incomplete.

> Frank, Steve,
>
> My favored approach is to say that /space is like a manifold/.
> For me, space is a /thing/ and a manifold is an /object/. The former
> I can experience free from my models of it, I can continue to
> learn facts(?) about space not derived by deduction alone
> (consider Nick's posts on inductive and abductive reasoning).
> I concede here that we talk about an objectified space, but
> I am not intending to. I am using the term space as a place-
> holder for the thing I am physically moving about in. OTOH
> manifolds are fully /objectified/, they exist by virtue of their
> formality. Any meaningful question /about a manifold/ itself
> is derived deductively from its construction. Neither in their
> own right are metaphors, the metaphor is created when we
> treat space /as if it were/ a manifold. Just my two cents.

Can we agree that the term "manifold" is a signifier for a mathematical
object which we have chosen to use as a formalism for describing
something we have (presumably) a more intuitive sense of?   The space we
"move around in" (propriocept?) and "apprehend through
action-at-a-distance" (see, hear, grasp, feel-the-heat-from)?  The
mathematical construct we call a "manifold" is built up from simpler
mathematical concepts of "dimension" and "point" and "set" "curve" and
"surface" (and n-d analogs).   I *think* the distinction between
intrinsic and extrinsic curvature might be the formalism related to what
I am trying to gesture at when I talk about "apprehending" the curvature
of a space directly, and why both "bent" and "curved" space are a little
dubious to me. 

I suppose your terminology of "the metaphor is created when we treat
space *as if it were* a manifold* can work for me, though I might
instead say that the source domain of the metaphorical description of
"bent" or "curved" space IS the formal mathematical construction of "a
manifold"?   To say "bent" (IMO) requires an additional layer of
something like a homogenous substance with plastic (but not elastic?)
deformability?  Colloquially "bent" is a fair standin for "curved" but I
think only intrinsic curvature is really meaningful in this context?

> At the beginning of MacLane's /Geometrical Mechanics,/ (a book
> I have held many times, but never found an inexpensive copy
> to buy) MacLane opens his lecture's with '/The slogan is: Kinetic/
> /energy is a Riemann metric on configuration space/'. What a baller.

Which I think is analogous or at least similar to Guerin's "least action
paths"?  And what I *think* I (imagine that I) experience in my orbital
mechanics dreams (albeit without any direct obvious intuitive grounding,
just one extrapolated from experiences like aerobatics, acrobatics,
high-diving, swimming under-water...

This all reduces to what qualifies for a direct apprehension, a deep
grounded intuition, a (legitimate) gut-feeling?   I'm beginning to
suspect that I might be the only one who has or at least needs that kind
of grounding for formalisms?  

> Glen,
>
> I love that you mention the , ultimately reducing
> the argument to a /snowclone/. Because the title of the thread
> actually implicates a discussion of metaphor, and because I may
> have missed your point about /xyz,/ please allow me this question.
> Do you feel that /snowclones/ are necessarily templates for making
> metaphors, or do you feel that a snowclone is somehow different?

/Snowclone/ (new word to me) feels a bit more to me like an "algebra of
cliche's"?   Which is another hazard of "loose" metaphors...  they are
prone to becoming canalized as/into cliche's?

- Steve


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Re: [FRIAM] "higher" education

[Frank Wimberly]

Excellent, Cody.

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

505 670-9918
Santa Fe, NM

On Fri, May 29, 2020, 12:44 PM cody dooderson  wrote:

> Here is a nice talk to the graduates of Harvard
> https://www.youtube.com/watch?time_continue=1001&v=jSn_QW9FFiI&feature=emb_logo
> .
>
> Cody Smith
>
>
> On Fri, May 29, 2020 at 12:21 PM Gary Schiltz 
> wrote:
>
>> I don't know if my attitudes have an objective basis, or if I am just
>> envious of folks whose degrees are from Ivy League schools. My father had
>> only a sixth grade education and my mother eighth grade, and Dad never
>> earned over two dollars an hour, so an expensive University was out of the
>> question. So I went to Kansas State University in the 1970s and early 1980s
>> and got what I thought was an adequate education (BS in Biology and MS in
>> Computer Science) spread out over nearly ten years. In-state tuition, no
>> doubt subsidized by the State of Kansas, was between $500 and $1000 per
>> semester. Working as a software engineer, my salary was always somewhere in
>> the mid range, and I didn't mind. I think my career was more rewarding to
>> me than if I had incurred huge debts at a more top-tier University in order
>> to get higher paying jobs. I guess my point is that higher education could
>> be a whole lot more affordable without throwing out the face-to-face model
>> entirely.
>>
>> On Fri, May 29, 2020 at 10:08 AM Prof David West 
>> wrote:
>>
>>> Scott Galloway (professor at  Stern School of business and supposed
>>> authority) on universities post COVID.
>>>
>>> Fifty percent of the investment in prestige university education is for
>>> 'certification' —  degree that signals your lifetime earnings. The Harvard
>>> brand is strong enough that students will accept an inferior educational
>>> experience. The fifty biggest university brands, Harvard, Stanford, etc,
>>> will partner with tech giants like Apple or Facebook to create a hybrid
>>> university, most others will hollow out and die like the large department
>>> store chains. Dorm life and in-person experience will be reserved for
>>> children of the 1%.
>>>
>>> Pretty bleak and a commentary on previous FRIAM conversations about
>>> education and elite universities.
>>>
>>> davew
>>>
>>> -- --- .-. . .-.. --- -.-. -.- ... -..-. .- .-. . -..-. -  . -..-. .
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>>> FRIAM Applied Complexity Group listserv
>>> Zoom Fridays 9:30a-12p Mtn GMT-6  bit.ly/virtualfriam
>>> un/subscribe http://redfish.com/mailman/listinfo/friam_redfish.com
>>> archives: http://friam.471366.n2.nabble.com/
>>> FRIAM-COMIC 
>>> http://friam-comic.blogspot.com/
>>>
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>>
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>
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Re: [FRIAM] "higher" education

[cody dooderson]

Here is a nice talk to the graduates of Harvard
https://www.youtube.com/watch?time_continue=1001&v=jSn_QW9FFiI&feature=emb_logo
.

Cody Smith


On Fri, May 29, 2020 at 12:21 PM Gary Schiltz 
wrote:

> I don't know if my attitudes have an objective basis, or if I am just
> envious of folks whose degrees are from Ivy League schools. My father had
> only a sixth grade education and my mother eighth grade, and Dad never
> earned over two dollars an hour, so an expensive University was out of the
> question. So I went to Kansas State University in the 1970s and early 1980s
> and got what I thought was an adequate education (BS in Biology and MS in
> Computer Science) spread out over nearly ten years. In-state tuition, no
> doubt subsidized by the State of Kansas, was between $500 and $1000 per
> semester. Working as a software engineer, my salary was always somewhere in
> the mid range, and I didn't mind. I think my career was more rewarding to
> me than if I had incurred huge debts at a more top-tier University in order
> to get higher paying jobs. I guess my point is that higher education could
> be a whole lot more affordable without throwing out the face-to-face model
> entirely.
>
> On Fri, May 29, 2020 at 10:08 AM Prof David West 
> wrote:
>
>> Scott Galloway (professor at  Stern School of business and supposed
>> authority) on universities post COVID.
>>
>> Fifty percent of the investment in prestige university education is for
>> 'certification' —  degree that signals your lifetime earnings. The Harvard
>> brand is strong enough that students will accept an inferior educational
>> experience. The fifty biggest university brands, Harvard, Stanford, etc,
>> will partner with tech giants like Apple or Facebook to create a hybrid
>> university, most others will hollow out and die like the large department
>> store chains. Dorm life and in-person experience will be reserved for
>> children of the 1%.
>>
>> Pretty bleak and a commentary on previous FRIAM conversations about
>> education and elite universities.
>>
>> davew
>>
>> -- --- .-. . .-.. --- -.-. -.- ... -..-. .- .-. . -..-. -  . -..-. .
>> ... ... . -. - .. .- .-.. -..-. .-- --- .-. -.- . .-. ...
>> FRIAM Applied Complexity Group listserv
>> Zoom Fridays 9:30a-12p Mtn GMT-6  bit.ly/virtualfriam
>> un/subscribe http://redfish.com/mailman/listinfo/friam_redfish.com
>> archives: http://friam.471366.n2.nabble.com/
>> FRIAM-COMIC 
>> http://friam-comic.blogspot.com/
>>
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>
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Re: [FRIAM] "higher" education

[Frank Wimberly]

New Ivies:

https://www.newsweek.com/americas-25-new-elite-ivies-108771

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

505 670-9918
Santa Fe, NM

On Fri, May 29, 2020, 12:39 PM Frank Wimberly  wrote:

> I don't know about Harvard but at Carnegie Mellon, which has been called
> "one of the new Ivies", admissions decisions are made without regard to
> financial factors.  Once admitted financial aid is granted with the goal of
> not impacting the family's lifestyle excessively.
>
> ---
> Frank C. Wimberly
> 140 Calle Ojo Feliz,
> Santa Fe, NM 87505
>
> 505 670-9918
> Santa Fe, NM
>
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Re: [FRIAM] "higher" education

[Frank Wimberly]

I don't know about Harvard but at Carnegie Mellon, which has been called
"one of the new Ivies", admissions decisions are made without regard to
financial factors.  Once admitted financial aid is granted with the goal of
not impacting the family's lifestyle excessively.

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

505 670-9918
Santa Fe, NM
-- --- .-. . .-.. --- -.-. -.- ... -..-. .- .-. . -..-. -  . -..-. . ... 
... . -. - .. .- .-.. -..-. .-- --- .-. -.- . .-. ...
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Re: [FRIAM] "higher" education

[Gary Schiltz]

I don't know if my attitudes have an objective basis, or if I am just
envious of folks whose degrees are from Ivy League schools. My father had
only a sixth grade education and my mother eighth grade, and Dad never
earned over two dollars an hour, so an expensive University was out of the
question. So I went to Kansas State University in the 1970s and early 1980s
and got what I thought was an adequate education (BS in Biology and MS in
Computer Science) spread out over nearly ten years. In-state tuition, no
doubt subsidized by the State of Kansas, was between $500 and $1000 per
semester. Working as a software engineer, my salary was always somewhere in
the mid range, and I didn't mind. I think my career was more rewarding to
me than if I had incurred huge debts at a more top-tier University in order
to get higher paying jobs. I guess my point is that higher education could
be a whole lot more affordable without throwing out the face-to-face model
entirely.

On Fri, May 29, 2020 at 10:08 AM Prof David West 
wrote:

> Scott Galloway (professor at  Stern School of business and supposed
> authority) on universities post COVID.
>
> Fifty percent of the investment in prestige university education is for
> 'certification' —  degree that signals your lifetime earnings. The Harvard
> brand is strong enough that students will accept an inferior educational
> experience. The fifty biggest university brands, Harvard, Stanford, etc,
> will partner with tech giants like Apple or Facebook to create a hybrid
> university, most others will hollow out and die like the large department
> store chains. Dorm life and in-person experience will be reserved for
> children of the 1%.
>
> Pretty bleak and a commentary on previous FRIAM conversations about
> education and elite universities.
>
> davew
>
> -- --- .-. . .-.. --- -.-. -.- ... -..-. .- .-. . -..-. -  . -..-. .
> ... ... . -. - .. .- .-.. -..-. .-- --- .-. -.- . .-. ...
> FRIAM Applied Complexity Group listserv
> Zoom Fridays 9:30a-12p Mtn GMT-6  bit.ly/virtualfriam
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> archives: http://friam.471366.n2.nabble.com/
> FRIAM-COMIC 
> http://friam-comic.blogspot.com/
>
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Re: [FRIAM] FRIAM

[Frank Wimberly]

More links from the morning's Friam meeting:
DOH COVID HUB https://cv.nmhealth.org/
CABQ HUB - https://coronavirus-response-albuquerque-cabq.hub.arcgis.com/


On Fri, May 29, 2020 at 11:40 AM Frank Wimberly  wrote:

> From TOM NMCDC to Everyone:  11:38 AM
> https://nmcdc.maps.arcgis.com/home/index.html
> From Tom jtjohnson-SantaFe to Everyone:  11:39 AM
> STand by.  Here's link to FRIAM Google Doc:
>
> https://www.santafenm.gov/news/detail/santa_fe_parks_and_recreation_updates_on_openings_and_closures
> From TOM NMCDC to Everyone:  11:39 AM
> DOH COVID HUB https://cv.nmhealth.org/
>
> On Thu, May 28, 2020 at 9:46 PM Tom Johnson  wrote:
>
>> 9 a.m. Plus Friday mornings.
>>
>>
>> https://docs.google.com/document/d/1Cgu8mvXeGOCyVG2fRjwY646nv1D7n4Zl6hFhWkWkXf0/edit?usp=drivesdk
>> -- --- .-. . .-.. --- -.-. -.- ... -..-. .- .-. . -..-. -  . -..-. .
>> ... ... . -. - .. .- .-.. -..-. .-- --- .-. -.- . .-. ...
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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
>


-- 
Frank Wimberly
140 Calle Ojo Feliz
Santa Fe, NM 87505
505 670-9918
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Re: [FRIAM] FRIAM

[Frank Wimberly]

>From TOM NMCDC to Everyone:  11:38 AM
https://nmcdc.maps.arcgis.com/home/index.html
>From Tom jtjohnson-SantaFe to Everyone:  11:39 AM
STand by.  Here's link to FRIAM Google Doc:
https://www.santafenm.gov/news/detail/santa_fe_parks_and_recreation_updates_on_openings_and_closures
>From TOM NMCDC to Everyone:  11:39 AM
DOH COVID HUB https://cv.nmhealth.org/

On Thu, May 28, 2020 at 9:46 PM Tom Johnson  wrote:

> 9 a.m. Plus Friday mornings.
>
>
> https://docs.google.com/document/d/1Cgu8mvXeGOCyVG2fRjwY646nv1D7n4Zl6hFhWkWkXf0/edit?usp=drivesdk
> -- --- .-. . .-.. --- -.-. -.- ... -..-. .- .-. . -..-. -  . -..-. .
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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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Re: [FRIAM] Metaphor [POSSIBLE DISTRACTON FROM]: privacy games

[Jon Zingale]

Frank, Steve,

My favored approach is to say that *space is like a manifold*.
For me, space is a *thing* and a manifold is an *object*. The former
I can experience free from my models of it, I can continue to
learn facts(?) about space not derived by deduction alone
(consider Nick's posts on inductive and abductive reasoning).
I concede here that we talk about an objectified space, but
I am not intending to. I am using the term space as a place-
holder for the thing I am physically moving about in. OTOH
manifolds are fully *objectified*, they exist by virtue of their
formality. Any meaningful question *about a manifold* itself
is derived deductively from its construction. Neither in their
own right are metaphors, the metaphor is created when we
treat space *as if it were* a manifold. Just my two cents.

At the beginning of MacLane's *Geometrical Mechanics,* (a book
I have held many times, but never found an inexpensive copy
to buy) MacLane opens his lecture's with '*The slogan is: Kinetic*
*energy is a Riemann metric on configuration space*'. What a baller.

Glen,

I love that you mention the , ultimately reducing
the argument to a *snowclone*. Because the title of the thread
actually implicates a discussion of metaphor, and because I may
have missed your point about *xyz,* please allow me this question.
Do you feel that *snowclones* are necessarily templates for making
metaphors, or do you feel that a snowclone is somehow different?

Jon
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[FRIAM] Science Commits Suicide (yes, another trolling headline)

[Prof David West]

idle thoughts from overlapping reading experience the past two days.

The cop kneeling on George's neck had 18 prior complaints for excessive force 
and/or violations of department policy and remained in good standing.  Lots of 
writing about similar situations in police departments around the country 
including Albuquerque and the shooting of the homeless man a few years back.

Police departments lose credibility because they will not police themselves. 
They will not police themselves because they have an institutional culture that 
centers on "Us versus Them" and We are the Good Guys, They are the bad guys. 
This quickly becomes We can do no wrong. Any apparent error by one of ours must 
be excused and rationalized. We cannot admit even the smallest or slightest 
error.  

Science suffers from a similar problem. Making assertions as if they were 
unalloyed accurate and True Facts when they know that the models, the 
assumptions, the data (lack of) generate more ambiguity and conclude little 
more than probabilities. And they constantly change. But Science remains unable 
to admit to error or ambiguity — generating a facade that is just as false as 
the "We are always in the right" facade of police departments.

Politicians amplify the problem when they assert, "We will do what "The 
Science" tells us" as if "The Science" is clear, absolute, and inerrant.

Do not be surprised when "the people" recognize the reality behind the facade 
and, making their own error, dismiss, devalue, or discard Science.

davew


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Re: [FRIAM] Metaphor [POSSIBLE DISTRACTON FROM]: privacy games

[Steve Smith]

Glen -

I'm sympathetic with your patchouli-scent trigger but trust that you are
being hyperbolic when you suggest we've actually traumatized you off to
therapy with our metaphor-yap.  Irritated/put-off I'm sure, but I doubt
you will be visiting a therapist over this (unless it is a shot of the
hard stuff before/after your craft brew at the end of the day).  With
the shut-down I started learning to sip tequila on ice when the rye
whiskey ran out, between the ritual wards of a Corona or two.

I entered my adulthood during the advent of the development of "newage"
(rhymes with sewage) thinking having to listen to the invocation of what
I felt were "reserved terms"  from physics, including those from
"quantum woo" as you call it.   Laser this, vibration that, crystals and
light and holographic this and that with only the thinnest reference to
what those terms actually were developed to mean.   I have roughly the
opposite problem from you with "metaphor".   In (good) literature and
poetry it is used masterfully and carves out exquisite images that
uplift the human experience (IMO).   The technicalities of conceptual
metaphor use the same mechanisms but follow more strict mechanics and so
remain distant cousins but provide a formal (when used correctly) way of
building up complex concepts from simple ones.   The everyday use of
metaphor, especially in strident argument often fails to represent
either of these much more refined (literary) and rigorous (conceptual)
practices.   So I'm possibly as offended by the loose use of metaphor as
you are (though I've come to terms with it through years of therapy),
but for somewhat different reasons.

Perhaps we can start at the bottom of the "apprehension stack" and
discuss how we build complex language-models of phenomena that are
(usually) too complex or foreign for us to perceive directly (whatever
that really means, though I contend *everyone* has things they feel they
perceive directly without intervening language).   Those of us trained
in mathematics and physical sciences (most/many here?) are comfortable
pretending that the these complexities are built up from things like
mathematical axioms or first principles... because (I contend) that is
how we learn them in school and how post-hoc they were constructed (for
good reason).  If we (have) an intuitive grasp of something (say after
throwing thousands of stones off cliffs and observing their
trajectories), the addition of a formalism for predicting and explaining
them may or may not be necessary or welcome, but in my own case, I was
able to embrace calculus and Newton's equations of motion without
forgetting what I knew (intuitively) about ballistic trajectories of
rocks and sticks and dead cats (no, i've never chucked a dead cat).

I was challenging Frank about "bent" space, because I think many of us
either encounter such ideas for the first time as formalisms built on
top of apt but mildly broken metaphors (thus aether, phlogiston, and
"bent space"), or if we already had some kind of intuitive sense (e.g.
the path taken by a thrown stone) for the phenomena, we may well give it
up in the face of the more formal (and often more accurate for
prediction, and likely more explanatory) model offered by the body of
science that has been aggregated over time by people at least as smart
and observant as we are.

Mary and I have been reading about a family of 10 children of whom 6 of
the 8 boys were diagnosed Schizophrenic (Hidden Valley Road).   The
children spanned the baby boom era (roughly 1945-1965) and grew up
mostly in Colorado Springs.   Mary has a lot of experience working with
the mentally ill, including those diagnosed with Schizophrenia in a
mental health context but outside of clinical settings.  She has studied
the emerging work of the "Hearing Voices Network" which among other
things is trying to de-medicalize/clinicize the very pervasive
experience of those who "hear voices", the most extreme of which are
usually diagnosed as Schizophrenic and who may live their lives in 
distorted manner because of the very fact of "hidden voices" or more
likely because of the things the voices say to them (caricatured by a
devil on one shoulder and an angel on the other).  The "Hearing Voices
Network" is an advocate for people who experience the world this way
strongly enough to be troubled by it in their daily lives, and in
particular advocate for NOT crushing their experience down to normalize
them to the rest of us, while helping them to learn how to cope with the
mismatch of vectors with "polite society".  

I bring this up because my own non-standard/unfamiliar-to-many sensory
experience of the world had me growing up a functional animist in many
ways and feeling a strong empathy/sympathy with others who have to split
their apprehension of the world between "what they know" and "what they
have been taught".   Every "object" in my childhood had something like a
personality (persona?)...  while I *could* apprehend the 

[FRIAM] "higher" education

[Prof David West]

Scott Galloway (professor at  Stern School of business and supposed authority) 
on universities post COVID.

Fifty percent of the investment in prestige university education is for 
'certification' —  degree that signals your lifetime earnings. The Harvard 
brand is strong enough that students will accept an inferior educational 
experience. The fifty biggest university brands, Harvard, Stanford, etc, will 
partner with tech giants like Apple or Facebook to create a hybrid university, 
most others will hollow out and die like the large department store chains. 
Dorm life and in-person experience will be reserved for children of the 1%.

Pretty bleak and a commentary on previous FRIAM conversations about education 
and elite universities.

davew

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Re: [FRIAM] Metaphor [POSSIBLE DISTRACTON FROM]: privacy games

[uǝlƃ ☣]

Yes, I agree. If -- big if -- we can talk about the near bottom maps and begin 
to plausibly *construct* higher level maps from those *then* the conversation 
will be interesting. For these maps to be useful, we need some tools for 
deciding how "thick"/deep they are, how long they live, whether they're 
structured in hierarchies or dynamic constellations, etc. (Dave's recent posts 
hint in these directions, but are still lacking the necessary granularity and 
situation in a particular context.)

E.g. the pressure and temperature sensors do double duty to sense other things 
like inflammation. That *context* and the way those compose into one map (to 
temperature) or another (to inflammation) is exactly the kind of context we'd 
need to make any discussion of "metaphor" anything but a trigger word for 
nausea.

On 5/28/20 9:16 PM, Steve Smith wrote:
> The grounding under the ground are the kinds of ion-channels
> described recently in his Touch/Pressure/Temperature/Proprioception
> paper link. I hope Glen will agree with me (not so that I feel I am
> *right* only because I *think* this captures/resolves a lot of what we
> have argued here and offline?)  somewhat on this alternative of "maps"
> all the way down?


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Re: [FRIAM] Metaphor [POSSIBLE DISTRACTON FROM]: privacy games

[uǝlƃ ☣]

Well, to be clear, I "offered" 100s of thousands of metaphors. THAT is the 
point of my response to Nick's bias-imputing *choice* to cherry pick only 4 out 
of those thousands. That's the pattern in pretty much every one of these 
"metaphors everywhere" tangents we take.

And my more recent comment to Nick applies to this post as well. I'd believe 
we're engaged in some sort of "role of metaphor in " discussion if 
and only if the "" were being talked about. But we're not talking 
about the "". We're not talking about the context (which was 
"privacy games" writ large -- but I'd be happy to talk about the role of 
metaphor in *any* particular context as long as the context was actually 
maintained as a core part of the discussion [†]).

But no. Instead, we're talking completely abstractly about _metaphor_ 
*regardless* of context. It's a purely hypothetical exercise in ungrounded 
theory (where I use "theory" quite generously).


[†] Steve's recent comments *do* begin to seem interesting with the "sensorial 
grounding out" and the comments about direct and indirect maps from tacit vs. 
formal knowledge because he wraps it context (like tennis vs. soccer). Even 
there, though, I'm not very interested. These useless tangents have convinced 
me that the overwhelming majority of the uses of the word "metaphor" are 
markers for sloppy thinking. Y'all have installed a trigger in me that only 
decades of therapy will remove. >8^D Forever more, when I hear "metaphor", 
it'll be like quantum woo, every time some patchouli wearing psychonaut says 
"entanglement", I get a bit nauseous. Now that happens with "metaphor", too.

On 5/28/20 5:56 PM, Eric Charles wrote:
> I'm not sure Glen's point about "xyz" gets us very far. Sure, you can call 
> anything you want by any label you want. I'm not sure anyone disputes that. 
> But after that there remain three-ish different issues, which I think Nick 
> tends to muddle: 
> 
> 1) The role of metaphor in communication.
> 2) The role of metaphor in thought.
> 3) The role of metaphor in science.
> 
> Glen's example doesn't get us very far in any of those conversations, because 
> it is an example, and literally any example is self-defeating in these 
> contexts. 
> 
> The role of metaphor in communication: Glen want's us to understand that 
> there are many situation like the one he described. He doesn't literally use 
> "xyz" in all those cases, but it is like he has done that, in crucial ways. 
> He also isn't always referring to a "green thing in the distance", but, 
> again, it is like he has done that, in crucial ways. In order to effectively 
> communicate his idea, he offered a metaphor... because they   make 
> communication much easier. 
> 
> The role of metaphor in thought: Does Glen inherently think that way? I think 
> the analysis would be similar. 
> 
> The role of metaphor in science: I'm not sure where this aspect is in the 
> various conversations at the moment, but a particular strength of Nick's 
> analysis of metaphor illuminating its role in science - both for better and 
> for worse.  Scientific theories are metaphors that are meant to be taken very 
> seriously ("Natural selection", "A snake eating its tail", "Bent space time", 
> "The bystander effect", "Atomism", etc., etc.). We make the metaphor because 
> we see a similarity between two situations, and we intend that metaphor to 
> suggest other similarities that we have not witnessed. Because it is a 
> metaphor, we don't intend an exact match, so there are intended 
> non-similarities as well. The intended similarities are the things to be 
> investigated. Something goes awry if people start investigating the 
> non-similarities. For example, it would be silly if we had demanded Glen 
> produce an example of when he had used "xyz" in the past to refer 
> specifically to a "green thing in the
> distance". Glen didn't intend that aspect of his metaphor to be held up to 
> such scrutiny (at least I do not think he intended it to be). Good metaphors 
> function in common conversation without the need to hammer out such details 
> explicitly, and typically without any intent to investigate the intended 
> implication. 
> 
> Did I punch the tar baby enough? Am I hopelessly stuck? Or did I possibly 
> help accomplish anything?
> 
> 
> P.S. I am very committed to Nick's understanding of how to understand 
> metaphors, but abhor the notion that it is metaphor all the way down. There 
> were once people who had to literally toe a literal line, and now there are 
> people who metaphorically "toe the line", and anything that makes it seem 
> like we will lose that distinction is highly problematic. Don't know if 
> that's relevant, but since I've seen a few people in the thread talk about 
> "Nick/EricC" I thought I'd mention that crucial difference.  
> P.P.S. And a metaphorically "toe the line" might or might not be distinct 
> from whatever dysfunctional thing is happening when wherein someone is said 
> to

Re: [FRIAM] Metaphor [POSSIBLE DISTRACTON FROM]: privacy games

[Steve Smith]

Frank -
> There is a rigorous definition of curvature that doesn't depend on the
> manifold's being embedded in Euclidean space.  Right, Jon?
I'll give you "curved" but not "bent" as something other than metaphor.
> By the way, I was a private pilot during the 70s.  Hywel was a more
> experienced and more cautious pilot.  I think there are others in Friam.

So plotting a cross-country course would require at least a mechanical
accommodation for the curvature of the earth (not to mention the
distortion of the magnetic field), and/or with enough practice a "feel"
for navigating on the surface of a spheroid (if not ellipsoid)?    I
never got past the mechanical in spite of staring at globes and trying
to "feel" the difference.   My flight paths were never long enough to
matter really, but I *did* sometimes have an intuitive feel for "shape
of space" implied by the winds aloft.  But surely not as much as a
hang-glider or sailplane pilot.   Long before I flew in an airplane I
dreamed of soaring like a raven, especially those "surfing" on the
uplift currents flowing over the ridge behind my house.   I would expect
that (high flying) birds and ocean dwellers live in an ever-changing
(based on currents) manifold onto which our euclidean is nearly a
fiction?   Any specifics about that I might feel are surely wrong.

The tennis court did not remain "rectangular" for me for very long after
I began to play as a youth... it quickly took on a "shape" in phase
space, moderately asymmetric due to my right-handed reach and changing
with the style of play of my opponent.   My own strategy with a new
player in competition was to try to quickly gain control of the "shape"
of that space, and a match could "turn" on one of us putting an
unexpected "kink" in the other's playable space.  This was well before I
had a word for phase space or even a conception of manifolds or
non-euclidean geometries.  

I'm belaboring this because I think those experiences
(internalizing/direct-apprehension of the non-euclidean) ARE grounding
out in the direct-experience/sensorium, and do not require (allow for?)
a stacking of linguistic mappings (previously "metaphor"), but the way
such things are normally taught in school ARE stacked on top of the
conventional idiom we have for "the shape of space" (i.e. euclidean) so
we DO use terms (and conceptions) like "bent" space.  A whale or highly
intelligent bird might *develop differential/integral calculus" as a
method for managing the abstractions in *their world* that they don't
experience directly (euclidean like straight lines and flat surfaces).

I don't know if this addresses (well) Dave's insistence on "other ways
of knowing", but that is where *I* go when he speaks of that.   Learning
to play tennis well was not a science for me, it was an art and involved
practicing my body and reflexes and strategery into a direct
apprehension of the phase space (post-hoc name for it) I described
above.   I ONLY talk about it in terms of "phase space" because it is a
common mathematical abstraction that we both share, not because I think
or feel IN phase space.   It is just the "dynamic spacetime of tennis
playing"?   I've never talked to other tennis players much, and
certainly not in these terms.   To the rest of you, maybe a tennis court
is a rectangular region within which you must keep the ball to remain in
play and within which there are ballistic trajectories modified by
(mostly) the varying lift/drag on the ball based on it's rate and
direction of spin.   A naive tennis player (including extremely good
ones) surely don't have strong conceptions of the abstractions of
physics, but instead a strong intuitive command of the behaviour of the
coupled system of their body, the racquet, the ball, the air, the
surface of the court, etc.  

In all this rambling I'm arguing against myself on the "metaphors all
the way down"...  and for "metaphors all the way down until you can A)
use more formal analogy and mathematical mappings if that is your
training, and/or B) until you have internalized those mappings and feel
them intuitively.

- Steve

- Steve




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