[FRIAM] convergence

[Jon Zingale]

A series and a rearrangement of the same:

A) 1 - 1/2 +1/3 -1/4 + ...
limiting its way to the natural log of 2

B) 1 + 1/3 - 1/2 +1/5 + 1/7 - 1/4 ...
limiting its way to 3/2 times the natural log of 2

Let's call the object that exists in the limit of statistical practice the
state-of-affairs. If the process by which the object of scientific inquiry
gives up its properties is absolutely convergent then maybe it is *fine* to
allow statistics to tightly govern policy creation.

But what an assumption! The sum above being just one of an unfathomable
number of ways that facts of the world can be incorporated to show
conditional convergence.

So Nick, what does your boy Peirce have to say about that?

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[FRIAM] Is Lightning Langevin?

[Jon Zingale]

Lightning traces in it's drunken way
a geodesic along an energy landscape.
The medium by which high potential difference
couple is unimaginably arbitrary.

No different than sampling from
the most probable configurations
at the surface of a vintage picture tube.

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Re: [FRIAM] Fraud in Research

[Roger Critchlow]

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/David_Baltimore is pretty good, though you
have to wade through his illustrious career to find the Controversies
section.

In May 2021, Baltimore was quoted in the Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists
>  in an
> article about the origins of the COVID-19
>  virus, saying, "When I first saw
> the furin cleavage site in the viral sequence, with its arginine codons, I
> said to my wife it was the smoking gun for the origin of the virus. These
> features make a powerful challenge to the idea of a natural origin for
> SARS2."[114]  
> This
> quote was widely shared and gave credence to the possibility of a Wuhan
> lab leak  that
> has been discussed extensively as part of investigations into the origin
> of COVID-19
> 
> .
> A month later, Baltimore told the *Los Angeles Times
> * that he "should have
> softened the phrase 'smoking gun' because I don't believe that it proves
> the origin of the furin cleavage site but it does sound that way. I believe
> that the question of whether the sequence was put in naturally or by
> molecular manipulation is very hard to determine but I wouldn't rule out
> either origin."[115]
> 


-- rec --

On Fri, Oct 8, 2021 at 2:47 PM Frank Wimberly  wrote:

> I mentioned this unhelpfully in today's vFriam meeting
>
> https://www.google.com/books/edition/The_Baltimore_Case/hBB7-vrk4fAC?hl=en
>
> ---
> Frank C. Wimberly
> 140 Calle Ojo Feliz,
> Santa Fe, NM 87505
>
> 505 670-9918
> Santa Fe, NM
>
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> FRIAM-COMIC http://friam-comic.blogspot.com/
> archives:
>  5/2017 thru present https://redfish.com/pipermail/friam_redfish.com/
>  1/2003 thru 6/2021  http://friam.383.s1.nabble.com/
>

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Re: [FRIAM] Newborn Heart Rate

[Roger Critchlow]

https://www.researchgate.net/publication/353762832_Antenatal_and_perinatal_factors_influencing_neonatal_blood_pressure_a_systematic_review

Maternal ethnicity/race. The effect of maternal ethnicity on
neonatal BP is uncertain. Schachter et al. found higher DBP in
term neonates of African-American mothers at 3 days after birth
compared to white American infants (51.9 ± 6.7 mmHg versus
50.1 ± 6.6 mmHg; p =0.047), but no significant difference in SBP
was observed (76.4 ± 8.3 mmHg versus 75 ± 8.4 mmHg) [23]. In
contrast, Zinner et al. reported no significant difference in SBP
(74.1 ± 9.2 mmHg and 75.1 ± 11.2 mmHg respectively) or DBP
(51.3 ± 9.0 mmHg and 51.3 ± 10.6 mmHg) in neonates born to
white or African-American mothers [10]. Another prospective
cohort study by Schachter et al. comparing 111 African-American
with 136 white term newborn infants on day 3 after birth reported
a marginally higher SBP for the African-American newborns (mean
SBP 76.7 mmHg versus 74.3 mmHg; SD not reported; p=0.04).
However, when adjusted for number of feeds since birth, there
was no longer a significant difference [24]


So the significance was p < 0.05 only because 0,047 < 0.05 when not rounded.

-- rec --

On Fri, Oct 8, 2021 at 3:55 PM Frank Wimberly  wrote:

> The full paper about newborn heart rate by race
>
>
> https://drive.google.com/file/d/1XRv3_a7Es2FjEP6aUMxx2x-hspBd-2KD/view?usp=drivesdk
>
>
> ---
> Frank C. Wimberly
> 140 Calle Ojo Feliz,
> Santa Fe, NM 87505
>
> 505 670-9918
> Santa Fe, NM
>
> On Fri, Oct 8, 2021, 1:04 PM Frank Wimberly  wrote:
>
>> This post actually has to do with newborn heart rate by race
>>
>> Here is a link to the abstract.  I'm going to see if I have the full
>> paper in case anyone's interested
>>
>>
>> https://www.researchgate.net/publication/22148609_Newborn_Heart_Rate_and_Blood_Pressure_Relation_to_Race_and_to_Socioeconomic_Class
>>
>> Frank
>>
>> On Fri, Oct 8, 2021 at 9:18 AM  wrote:
>>
>>> I’m with David on this one.  Distinguishing between “real” and random
>>> effects is what learning IS.  Of course, such judgements are never more
>>> than probably true.
>>>
>>>
>>>
>>> N
>>>
>>>
>>>
>>> Nick Thompson
>>>
>>> thompnicks...@gmail.com
>>>
>>> https://wordpress.clarku.edu/nthompson/
>>>
>>>
>>>
>>> *From:* Friam  *On Behalf Of *Prof David West
>>> *Sent:* Friday, October 8, 2021 2:49 AM
>>> *To:* friam@redfish.com
>>> *Subject:* Re: [FRIAM] Newborn Heart Rate
>>>
>>>
>>>
>>> David Eric Smith wrote:
>>>
>>>
>>>
>>> *"I cannot juggle hundreds of variables, and produce a result that would
>>> fail _any_ test for randomness.  I can conceive that maybe there are people
>>> smart enough to do that, but cannot imagine any-wise what it would feel
>>> like to be one of them."*
>>>
>>>
>>>
>>> But  . . . . every human being does exactly that, all the time, more or
>>> less effortlessly — certainly below the threshold of "conscious" awareness.
>>> Billions of variables, including certain cell receptors "detecting" and
>>> responding to quantum effects (like changes in spin induced by magnetic
>>> fields).
>>>
>>>
>>>
>>> Some Asian philosophies (Jnana Yoga, Tibetan Tantra) and most of the
>>> Alchemical literature can be read as efforts to "decompile" this ability,
>>> make it conscious, and apply it in "ordinary reality."
>>>
>>>
>>>
>>> davew
>>>
>>>
>>>
>>>
>>>
>>> On Wed, Oct 6, 2021, at 9:28 AM, David Eric Smith wrote:
>>>
>>> Gilding the lily, since I don’t disagree with anything that has
>>> specifically been said.
>>>
>>>
>>>
>>> I have felt like, somewhere between the deliberate distortion of Emerson
>>> that reads “consistency is the hobgoblin of small minds”
>>>
>>> (Fun ref see
>>> https://www.lawfareblog.com/foolish-consistency-hobgoblin-little-minds-metadata-stay
>>>  )
>>>
>>> and what Scott Aaronson might call “the blankfaces of consistency”,
>>>
>>> there should be a sort of Herb Simon Watchmaker’s consistency.  The
>>> ability to check a form for consistency — even if I am alert that the
>>> system within which I am checking might be subject to overruling or
>>> revision — allows me to get past one thing and go to the next.  To clip
>>> together a sub-component of the watch and set it on the shelf, while
>>> assembling other sub-components, or to take the sub-components and assemble
>>> them relative to each other without having to constantly actively maintain
>>> the innards of each.
>>>
>>>
>>>
>>> To somebody with my innate limitations, that seems among the most
>>> valuable things in the world.
>>>
>>>
>>>
>>> DaveW wrote this fabulous paean to never calling anything done, some
>>> months ago.  I can’t resurrect the text, and on my best living day could
>>> not compose its equal, but the gist was that sciences in which one arrives
>>> at conclusions are the pastimes of trivial minds.  Real Men do
>>> anthropology, where nothing is ever closed.  In a lovely rant on what a day
>>> in the life of a Real Man is like, a sentence contained a clause I am
>>> pretty sure I do have 

Re: [FRIAM] Newborn Heart Rate

[Frank Wimberly]

Also this

https://www.researchgate.net/publication/22148609_Newborn_Heart_Rate_and_Blood_Pressure_Relation_to_Race_and_to_Socioeconomic_Class

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

505 670-9918
Santa Fe, NM

On Fri, Oct 8, 2021, 1:04 PM Frank Wimberly  wrote:

> This post actually has to do with newborn heart rate by race
>
> Here is a link to the abstract.  I'm going to see if I have the full paper
> in case anyone's interested
>
>
> https://www.researchgate.net/publication/22148609_Newborn_Heart_Rate_and_Blood_Pressure_Relation_to_Race_and_to_Socioeconomic_Class
>
> Frank
>
> On Fri, Oct 8, 2021 at 9:18 AM  wrote:
>
>> I’m with David on this one.  Distinguishing between “real” and random
>> effects is what learning IS.  Of course, such judgements are never more
>> than probably true.
>>
>>
>>
>> N
>>
>>
>>
>> Nick Thompson
>>
>> thompnicks...@gmail.com
>>
>> https://wordpress.clarku.edu/nthompson/
>>
>>
>>
>> *From:* Friam  *On Behalf Of *Prof David West
>> *Sent:* Friday, October 8, 2021 2:49 AM
>> *To:* friam@redfish.com
>> *Subject:* Re: [FRIAM] Newborn Heart Rate
>>
>>
>>
>> David Eric Smith wrote:
>>
>>
>>
>> *"I cannot juggle hundreds of variables, and produce a result that would
>> fail _any_ test for randomness.  I can conceive that maybe there are people
>> smart enough to do that, but cannot imagine any-wise what it would feel
>> like to be one of them."*
>>
>>
>>
>> But  . . . . every human being does exactly that, all the time, more or
>> less effortlessly — certainly below the threshold of "conscious" awareness.
>> Billions of variables, including certain cell receptors "detecting" and
>> responding to quantum effects (like changes in spin induced by magnetic
>> fields).
>>
>>
>>
>> Some Asian philosophies (Jnana Yoga, Tibetan Tantra) and most of the
>> Alchemical literature can be read as efforts to "decompile" this ability,
>> make it conscious, and apply it in "ordinary reality."
>>
>>
>>
>> davew
>>
>>
>>
>>
>>
>> On Wed, Oct 6, 2021, at 9:28 AM, David Eric Smith wrote:
>>
>> Gilding the lily, since I don’t disagree with anything that has
>> specifically been said.
>>
>>
>>
>> I have felt like, somewhere between the deliberate distortion of Emerson
>> that reads “consistency is the hobgoblin of small minds”
>>
>> (Fun ref see
>> https://www.lawfareblog.com/foolish-consistency-hobgoblin-little-minds-metadata-stay
>>  )
>>
>> and what Scott Aaronson might call “the blankfaces of consistency”,
>>
>> there should be a sort of Herb Simon Watchmaker’s consistency.  The
>> ability to check a form for consistency — even if I am alert that the
>> system within which I am checking might be subject to overruling or
>> revision — allows me to get past one thing and go to the next.  To clip
>> together a sub-component of the watch and set it on the shelf, while
>> assembling other sub-components, or to take the sub-components and assemble
>> them relative to each other without having to constantly actively maintain
>> the innards of each.
>>
>>
>>
>> To somebody with my innate limitations, that seems among the most
>> valuable things in the world.
>>
>>
>>
>> DaveW wrote this fabulous paean to never calling anything done, some
>> months ago.  I can’t resurrect the text, and on my best living day could
>> not compose its equal, but the gist was that sciences in which one arrives
>> at conclusions are the pastimes of trivial minds.  Real Men do
>> anthropology, where nothing is ever closed.  In a lovely rant on what a day
>> in the life of a Real Man is like, a sentence contained a clause I am
>> pretty sure I do have verbatim: “ . . . , juggling hundreds of variables, .
>> . . “.
>>
>>
>>
>> I cannot juggle hundreds of variables, and produce a result that would
>> fail _any_ test for randomness.  I can conceive that maybe there are people
>> smart enough to do that, but cannot imagine any-wise what it would feel
>> like to be one of them.
>>
>>
>>
>> It seems it must be possible in this sense to cling to consistency like a
>> life-raft, yet not elevate it to aa religious icon.  After all, life rafts
>> only keep you alive, and in the big sweep of things, that isn’t _all_ that
>> important.
>>
>>
>>
>> Eric
>>
>>
>>
>>
>>
>>
>>
>> On Oct 5, 2021, at 11:56 AM, uǝlƃ ☤>$  wrote:
>>
>>
>>
>> Yeah, I'm perfectly aligned with the freak among freaks sentiment, though
>> I'd argue we *do* live in that world, we just deny it with our false
>> beliefs. "The problem with communication is the illusion that it exists."
>>
>>
>>
>> But the more important part of the argument surrounds whether
>> consistency, itself, is a matter of degree or kind. The analog world is
>> full of graded [in]consistency. You see it a lot with artifacts resulting
>> from welding, baking, brewing, etc. ... I even saw it often with the level
>> 3 drafting at lockheed. Any inconsistencies resulting from our designs, the
>> effete knowledge engineers, were *easily* overcome by the gritty
>> on-the-ground engineers 

Re: [FRIAM] Newborn Heart Rate

[Frank Wimberly]

The full paper about newborn heart rate by race

https://drive.google.com/file/d/1XRv3_a7Es2FjEP6aUMxx2x-hspBd-2KD/view?usp=drivesdk


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

505 670-9918
Santa Fe, NM

On Fri, Oct 8, 2021, 1:04 PM Frank Wimberly  wrote:

> This post actually has to do with newborn heart rate by race
>
> Here is a link to the abstract.  I'm going to see if I have the full paper
> in case anyone's interested
>
>
> https://www.researchgate.net/publication/22148609_Newborn_Heart_Rate_and_Blood_Pressure_Relation_to_Race_and_to_Socioeconomic_Class
>
> Frank
>
> On Fri, Oct 8, 2021 at 9:18 AM  wrote:
>
>> I’m with David on this one.  Distinguishing between “real” and random
>> effects is what learning IS.  Of course, such judgements are never more
>> than probably true.
>>
>>
>>
>> N
>>
>>
>>
>> Nick Thompson
>>
>> thompnicks...@gmail.com
>>
>> https://wordpress.clarku.edu/nthompson/
>>
>>
>>
>> *From:* Friam  *On Behalf Of *Prof David West
>> *Sent:* Friday, October 8, 2021 2:49 AM
>> *To:* friam@redfish.com
>> *Subject:* Re: [FRIAM] Newborn Heart Rate
>>
>>
>>
>> David Eric Smith wrote:
>>
>>
>>
>> *"I cannot juggle hundreds of variables, and produce a result that would
>> fail _any_ test for randomness.  I can conceive that maybe there are people
>> smart enough to do that, but cannot imagine any-wise what it would feel
>> like to be one of them."*
>>
>>
>>
>> But  . . . . every human being does exactly that, all the time, more or
>> less effortlessly — certainly below the threshold of "conscious" awareness.
>> Billions of variables, including certain cell receptors "detecting" and
>> responding to quantum effects (like changes in spin induced by magnetic
>> fields).
>>
>>
>>
>> Some Asian philosophies (Jnana Yoga, Tibetan Tantra) and most of the
>> Alchemical literature can be read as efforts to "decompile" this ability,
>> make it conscious, and apply it in "ordinary reality."
>>
>>
>>
>> davew
>>
>>
>>
>>
>>
>> On Wed, Oct 6, 2021, at 9:28 AM, David Eric Smith wrote:
>>
>> Gilding the lily, since I don’t disagree with anything that has
>> specifically been said.
>>
>>
>>
>> I have felt like, somewhere between the deliberate distortion of Emerson
>> that reads “consistency is the hobgoblin of small minds”
>>
>> (Fun ref see
>> https://www.lawfareblog.com/foolish-consistency-hobgoblin-little-minds-metadata-stay
>>  )
>>
>> and what Scott Aaronson might call “the blankfaces of consistency”,
>>
>> there should be a sort of Herb Simon Watchmaker’s consistency.  The
>> ability to check a form for consistency — even if I am alert that the
>> system within which I am checking might be subject to overruling or
>> revision — allows me to get past one thing and go to the next.  To clip
>> together a sub-component of the watch and set it on the shelf, while
>> assembling other sub-components, or to take the sub-components and assemble
>> them relative to each other without having to constantly actively maintain
>> the innards of each.
>>
>>
>>
>> To somebody with my innate limitations, that seems among the most
>> valuable things in the world.
>>
>>
>>
>> DaveW wrote this fabulous paean to never calling anything done, some
>> months ago.  I can’t resurrect the text, and on my best living day could
>> not compose its equal, but the gist was that sciences in which one arrives
>> at conclusions are the pastimes of trivial minds.  Real Men do
>> anthropology, where nothing is ever closed.  In a lovely rant on what a day
>> in the life of a Real Man is like, a sentence contained a clause I am
>> pretty sure I do have verbatim: “ . . . , juggling hundreds of variables, .
>> . . “.
>>
>>
>>
>> I cannot juggle hundreds of variables, and produce a result that would
>> fail _any_ test for randomness.  I can conceive that maybe there are people
>> smart enough to do that, but cannot imagine any-wise what it would feel
>> like to be one of them.
>>
>>
>>
>> It seems it must be possible in this sense to cling to consistency like a
>> life-raft, yet not elevate it to aa religious icon.  After all, life rafts
>> only keep you alive, and in the big sweep of things, that isn’t _all_ that
>> important.
>>
>>
>>
>> Eric
>>
>>
>>
>>
>>
>>
>>
>> On Oct 5, 2021, at 11:56 AM, uǝlƃ ☤>$  wrote:
>>
>>
>>
>> Yeah, I'm perfectly aligned with the freak among freaks sentiment, though
>> I'd argue we *do* live in that world, we just deny it with our false
>> beliefs. "The problem with communication is the illusion that it exists."
>>
>>
>>
>> But the more important part of the argument surrounds whether
>> consistency, itself, is a matter of degree or kind. The analog world is
>> full of graded [in]consistency. You see it a lot with artifacts resulting
>> from welding, baking, brewing, etc. ... I even saw it often with the level
>> 3 drafting at lockheed. Any inconsistencies resulting from our designs, the
>> effete knowledge engineers, were *easily* overcome by the gritty
>> on-the-ground engineers ... like 

Re: [FRIAM] Newborn Heart Rate

[Frank Wimberly]

This post actually has to do with newborn heart rate by race

Here is a link to the abstract.  I'm going to see if I have the full paper
in case anyone's interested

https://www.researchgate.net/publication/22148609_Newborn_Heart_Rate_and_Blood_Pressure_Relation_to_Race_and_to_Socioeconomic_Class

Frank

On Fri, Oct 8, 2021 at 9:18 AM  wrote:

> I’m with David on this one.  Distinguishing between “real” and random
> effects is what learning IS.  Of course, such judgements are never more
> than probably true.
>
>
>
> N
>
>
>
> Nick Thompson
>
> thompnicks...@gmail.com
>
> https://wordpress.clarku.edu/nthompson/
>
>
>
> *From:* Friam  *On Behalf Of *Prof David West
> *Sent:* Friday, October 8, 2021 2:49 AM
> *To:* friam@redfish.com
> *Subject:* Re: [FRIAM] Newborn Heart Rate
>
>
>
> David Eric Smith wrote:
>
>
>
> *"I cannot juggle hundreds of variables, and produce a result that would
> fail _any_ test for randomness.  I can conceive that maybe there are people
> smart enough to do that, but cannot imagine any-wise what it would feel
> like to be one of them."*
>
>
>
> But  . . . . every human being does exactly that, all the time, more or
> less effortlessly — certainly below the threshold of "conscious" awareness.
> Billions of variables, including certain cell receptors "detecting" and
> responding to quantum effects (like changes in spin induced by magnetic
> fields).
>
>
>
> Some Asian philosophies (Jnana Yoga, Tibetan Tantra) and most of the
> Alchemical literature can be read as efforts to "decompile" this ability,
> make it conscious, and apply it in "ordinary reality."
>
>
>
> davew
>
>
>
>
>
> On Wed, Oct 6, 2021, at 9:28 AM, David Eric Smith wrote:
>
> Gilding the lily, since I don’t disagree with anything that has
> specifically been said.
>
>
>
> I have felt like, somewhere between the deliberate distortion of Emerson
> that reads “consistency is the hobgoblin of small minds”
>
> (Fun ref see
> https://www.lawfareblog.com/foolish-consistency-hobgoblin-little-minds-metadata-stay
>  )
>
> and what Scott Aaronson might call “the blankfaces of consistency”,
>
> there should be a sort of Herb Simon Watchmaker’s consistency.  The
> ability to check a form for consistency — even if I am alert that the
> system within which I am checking might be subject to overruling or
> revision — allows me to get past one thing and go to the next.  To clip
> together a sub-component of the watch and set it on the shelf, while
> assembling other sub-components, or to take the sub-components and assemble
> them relative to each other without having to constantly actively maintain
> the innards of each.
>
>
>
> To somebody with my innate limitations, that seems among the most valuable
> things in the world.
>
>
>
> DaveW wrote this fabulous paean to never calling anything done, some
> months ago.  I can’t resurrect the text, and on my best living day could
> not compose its equal, but the gist was that sciences in which one arrives
> at conclusions are the pastimes of trivial minds.  Real Men do
> anthropology, where nothing is ever closed.  In a lovely rant on what a day
> in the life of a Real Man is like, a sentence contained a clause I am
> pretty sure I do have verbatim: “ . . . , juggling hundreds of variables, .
> . . “.
>
>
>
> I cannot juggle hundreds of variables, and produce a result that would
> fail _any_ test for randomness.  I can conceive that maybe there are people
> smart enough to do that, but cannot imagine any-wise what it would feel
> like to be one of them.
>
>
>
> It seems it must be possible in this sense to cling to consistency like a
> life-raft, yet not elevate it to aa religious icon.  After all, life rafts
> only keep you alive, and in the big sweep of things, that isn’t _all_ that
> important.
>
>
>
> Eric
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
> On Oct 5, 2021, at 11:56 AM, uǝlƃ ☤>$  wrote:
>
>
>
> Yeah, I'm perfectly aligned with the freak among freaks sentiment, though
> I'd argue we *do* live in that world, we just deny it with our false
> beliefs. "The problem with communication is the illusion that it exists."
>
>
>
> But the more important part of the argument surrounds whether consistency,
> itself, is a matter of degree or kind. The analog world is full of graded
> [in]consistency. You see it a lot with artifacts resulting from welding,
> baking, brewing, etc. ... I even saw it often with the level 3 drafting at
> lockheed. Any inconsistencies resulting from our designs, the effete
> knowledge engineers, were *easily* overcome by the gritty on-the-ground
> engineers ... like smoothing out burrs or gluing together pieces that don't
> quite fit.
>
>
>
> In the special case of refined, crisply expressed propositions of digital
> computation, inconsistency finding becomes a (perhaps the) powerful tool.
> Debugging a serial program relies on it fundamentally. But it's softened a
> bit in parallel algorithms. Inconsistency is broken up into multiple, yet
> still crisp, types (race conditions, deadlocks, 

[FRIAM] Fraud in Research

[Frank Wimberly]

I mentioned this unhelpfully in today's vFriam meeting

https://www.google.com/books/edition/The_Baltimore_Case/hBB7-vrk4fAC?hl=en

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

505 670-9918
Santa Fe, NM

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Re: [FRIAM] Newborn Heart Rate

[David Eric Smith]

Dave, btw:

I was too quick with the “but” and passed over the “yes, “ part.

Your characterization of decompiling native competences that operate on many 
variables, to bring them under a kind of willed control, was a really helpful 
way to express the aims of some of these contemplative projects.  That one will 
stay with me.

Eric



> On Oct 8, 2021, at 2:48 AM, Prof David West  wrote:
> 
> David Eric Smith wrote:
> 
> "I cannot juggle hundreds of variables, and produce a result that would fail 
> _any_ test for randomness.  I can conceive that maybe there are people smart 
> enough to do that, but cannot imagine any-wise what it would feel like to be 
> one of them."
> 
> But  . . . . every human being does exactly that, all the time, more or less 
> effortlessly — certainly below the threshold of "conscious" awareness. 
> Billions of variables, including certain cell receptors "detecting" and 
> responding to quantum effects (like changes in spin induced by magnetic 
> fields).
> 
> Some Asian philosophies (Jnana Yoga, Tibetan Tantra) and most of the 
> Alchemical literature can be read as efforts to "decompile" this ability, 
> make it conscious, and apply it in "ordinary reality."
> 
> davew
> 
> 
> On Wed, Oct 6, 2021, at 9:28 AM, David Eric Smith wrote:
>> Gilding the lily, since I don’t disagree with anything that has specifically 
>> been said.
>> 
>> I have felt like, somewhere between the deliberate distortion of Emerson 
>> that reads “consistency is the hobgoblin of small minds” 
>> (Fun ref see 
>> https://www.lawfareblog.com/foolish-consistency-hobgoblin-little-minds-metadata-stay
>>  
>> 
>>  )
>> and what Scott Aaronson might call “the blankfaces of consistency”, 
>> there should be a sort of Herb Simon Watchmaker’s consistency.  The ability 
>> to check a form for consistency — even if I am alert that the system within 
>> which I am checking might be subject to overruling or revision — allows me 
>> to get past one thing and go to the next.  To clip together a sub-component 
>> of the watch and set it on the shelf, while assembling other sub-components, 
>> or to take the sub-components and assemble them relative to each other 
>> without having to constantly actively maintain the innards of each.  
>> 
>> To somebody with my innate limitations, that seems among the most valuable 
>> things in the world.
>> 
>> DaveW wrote this fabulous paean to never calling anything done, some months 
>> ago.  I can’t resurrect the text, and on my best living day could not 
>> compose its equal, but the gist was that sciences in which one arrives at 
>> conclusions are the pastimes of trivial minds.  Real Men do anthropology, 
>> where nothing is ever closed.  In a lovely rant on what a day in the life of 
>> a Real Man is like, a sentence contained a clause I am pretty sure I do have 
>> verbatim: “ . . . , juggling hundreds of variables, . . . “.
>> 
>> I cannot juggle hundreds of variables, and produce a result that would fail 
>> _any_ test for randomness.  I can conceive that maybe there are people smart 
>> enough to do that, but cannot imagine any-wise what it would feel like to be 
>> one of them. 
>> 
>> It seems it must be possible in this sense to cling to consistency like a 
>> life-raft, yet not elevate it to aa religious icon.  After all, life rafts 
>> only keep you alive, and in the big sweep of things, that isn’t _all_ that 
>> important. 
>> 
>> Eric
>> 
>> 
>> 
>>> On Oct 5, 2021, at 11:56 AM, uǝlƃ ☤>$ >> > wrote:
>>> 
>>> Yeah, I'm perfectly aligned with the freak among freaks sentiment, though 
>>> I'd argue we *do* live in that world, we just deny it with our false 
>>> beliefs. "The problem with communication is the illusion that it exists."
>>> 
>>> But the more important part of the argument surrounds whether consistency, 
>>> itself, is a matter of degree or kind. The analog world is full of graded 
>>> [in]consistency. You see it a lot with artifacts resulting from welding, 
>>> baking, brewing, etc. ... I even saw it often with the level 3 drafting at 
>>> lockheed. Any inconsistencies resulting from our designs, the effete 
>>> knowledge engineers, were *easily* overcome by the gritty on-the-ground 
>>> engineers ... like smoothing out burrs or gluing together pieces that don't 
>>> quite fit.
>>> 
>>> In the special case of refined, crisply expressed propositions of digital 
>>> computation, inconsistency finding becomes a (perhaps the) powerful tool. 
>>> Debugging a serial program relies on it fundamentally. But it's softened a 
>>> bit in parallel algorithms. Inconsistency is broken up into multiple, yet 
>>> still crisp, types (race conditions, deadlocks, etc.). As approach "the 
>>> real 

Re: [FRIAM] Copernican thresholds; was: Newborn Heart Rate

[uǝlƃ ☤ $]

Great point! This is a good restatement of my objection to this:

Beware explanations from AI in health care
https://www.science.org/doi/pdf/10.1126/science.abg1834

And why I like the argument from (global) mimic modeling ... perhaps obviously, 
since I'm stuck in the simulation attractor. We need both the opaque, 
compressed thing and the "exploded diagram"-atic [sim|em]ulation of it in order 
for our whole enlightenment program to work.

Explanations are the kind of thing EricS laments ... akin to an ecstatic 
Heaven. They're fideistic. A pragmatic approach is to see that both the opaque 
and the parseable are needed.

On 10/8/21 8:06 AM, Marcus Daniels wrote:
> Let’s say one deconstructed a neural net with substitutions from a library of 
> functions (fit on the basis of input/output mappings), and that after a 
> series of substitutions and application of rewrite rules, there was no neural 
> net left.  Further suppose the resulting recomposition was as readable as a 
> program by a good software engineer.  If one can do this the dichotomy seems 
> artificial.   However, I claim the neural net representation is not ideal for 
> reasoning about what the program will do without running it.   It will be 
> obvious when generality arises from (in effect) a big case statement rather 
> than from a compact functional form in the code representation.
> 
> 
>> On Oct 8, 2021, at 7:32 AM, uǝlƃ ☤>$  wrote:
>>
>> I *think* I disagree. But I'm not sure. The distinction between:
>>
>> • in-the-moment, go-with-the-flow, compiled/parallel/chunked
>>
>> versus
>>
>> • articulated, delineated, de-compiled, serialized, persnickety, academic, 
>> rational
>>
>> processing isn't really a crushing of Zaphod Beeblebrox in light of the 
>> Total View. It's more like a mode change. It was only crushing to Zaphod 
>> because he was incapable of thinking of the larger whole of which he was 
>> only a small part. I don't know much about wu wei or the dao. But it always 
>> struck me that what I have understood is about that context switching ... 
>> the *navigation* across the frames, from Copernican to Ptolemaic and back 
>> ... from making tea simply because you need a kick to making tea as a 
>> religious experience ... and back.
>>
>> So there seem to be 2 different traditions. The "progressive" one, which 
>> only follows the one direction (from banal to enlightened). And the 
>> "pragmatic" one, which facilitates the navigation of the map, both forward 
>> and inverse. I think you're lamenting the former, which leads us into 
>> fantasy land. But the latter is almost a brute fact for anyone who 
>> experiences "Flow" of some kind, from running to magic mushrooms to getting 
>> caught up in seemingly endless algebra only to be yelled at by mom to take 
>> out the garbage.
>>
>> I often think there's a similarity between True Believers who think their 
>> model of some thing "makes so much sense". Like when I listen to Chiara 
>> Marletto talk about constuctor theory. I can't shake the feeling that she's 
>> similar to many Christians I've argued with. (Not the banal kind on the 
>> street. But the Jesuits I've met and some of the Protestant "biblical 
>> scholars" I've met.) It just feels too "progressive" ... pushing only toward 
>> the one-way, forward map, from banal to ecstasy. 
>>
>> The objective isn't really apotheosis. It's the cycle. To both rise *and* 
>> fall, if not periodically, then at least sporadically. I feel like I'm 
>> discussing a philosophy of engineering, where you not only expect your 
>> constructs to collapse sometimes, you almost *want* it ... It's hard to 
>> describe how satisfying that smell of a burnt IC chip is, when you've bent 
>> that circuit beyond its capabilities.
>>
>>
>>
>>> On 10/8/21 2:26 AM, David Eric Smith wrote:
>>> It’s an interesting assertion, Dave, and I understand that you are both 
>>> serious and informed in making it.
>>>
>>> I don’t know, and there is a thing I struggle with in responding to some of 
>>> this literature that straddles what I might call (making up a term on the 
>>> spot) the “Copernican threshold”.  (Hat tip to Carl Woese’s “Darwinian 
>>> threshold”, though not meant to connect to it in any detail.)
>>>
>>> Your characterization of Arjuna’s dilemma in the note on wu wei was 
>>> probably the most helpful I have seen, in expressing what the writers 
>>> believed to be the point in a language that uses modern frames (together 
>>> with words like “factors” that I recognize are references to certain 
>>> Sanskrit terms of art).  
>>>
>>> As I read it, though, language like “a perfect knowledge of all factors 
>>> affecting an action” rings to me as the kind of hyperbolic framing that 
>>> characterizes the era of epic literature.  
>>>
>>> There seems to be a human habit of yearning for god that I would 
>>> characterize — and _every one_ of its adherents will say I am totally wrong 
>>> in this — as saying “no, you are not just one person in one body 

Re: [FRIAM] Copernican thresholds; was: Newborn Heart Rate

[thompnickson2]

Eric, David, n all,

 

Just to say:  this is one of those posts that makes me wish we had a Friam 
harvester, a 30’s style editor who would gather up the threads of what you-all 
are writing here , hack out two thirds of it, and deliver a book.  If I were 
truly my father’s child, I would have played that role, but I am too much the 
narcissist to be captured for that worthy task.  

 

[sigh]

 

Nick Thompson

  thompnicks...@gmail.com

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

 

From: Friam  On Behalf Of David Eric Smith
Sent: Friday, October 8, 2021 5:27 AM
To: The Friday Morning Applied Complexity Coffee Group 
Subject: Re: [FRIAM] Copernican thresholds; was: Newborn Heart Rate

 

It’s an interesting assertion, Dave, and I understand that you are both serious 
and informed in making it.

 

I don’t know, and there is a thing I struggle with in responding to some of 
this literature that straddles what I might call (making up a term on the spot) 
the “Copernican threshold”.  (Hat tip to Carl Woese’s “Darwinian threshold”, 
though not meant to connect to it in any detail.)

 

Your characterization of Arjuna’s dilemma in the note on wu wei was probably 
the most helpful I have seen, in expressing what the writers believed to be the 
point in a language that uses modern frames (together with words like “factors” 
that I recognize are references to certain Sanskrit terms of art).  

 

As I read it, though, language like “a perfect knowledge of all factors 
affecting an action” rings to me as the kind of hyperbolic framing that 
characterizes the era of epic literature.  

 

There seems to be a human habit of yearning for god that I would characterize — 
and _every one_ of its adherents will say I am totally wrong in this — as 
saying “no, you are not just one person in one body in one lifetime with limits 
to what you can be and can have; actually you are the whole universe, with 
unlimited power and knowledge and time and extent, and your desires or wants 
are not really limited.”  In short form: no, baby, you didn’t have to grow up 
and realize that life has disappointments; you can still be a creature of pure 
will and desire.  (That last way of putting it is trollish, and I understand 
that it totally leaves out the considerable elaboration behind these 
literatures in terms of a dev-psych gloss, so I don’t mean the trolling to be 
too categorical.)

 

I imagine that the age of epic literature comes out of the indulgence of this 
yearning.  Everything is, quite literally, “bigger than life”.  It tries to 
have significance by exaggeration.  So whether it is Mahabharata and Ramayana, 
the Epic of Gilgamesh, the Eddas, the Three Kingdoms romance and Journey to the 
West, there are these big, bold-colored characters, supernaturals, of the kind 
that we retain in comic books (and which I am sure were inspired by epic 
literature).

 

But somewhere, I think in Jane Smiley’s introduction to her volume of the 
Icelandic Sagas, a thing is written that has had a very strong formative effect 
on my understanding of things.  It is: that the innovation we associate with 
the Modern Novel was a letting-go of the heroic stance in favor of the scope 
and scale of the literal-human experience.  Smiley makes this point because she 
says that the Sagas deserve to be recognized as among the earliest precursors 
to the Modern Novel, well in advance of the landmark works that are usually 
credited with stages in its establishment: Quixote or some works by Kafka.  

 

That to me brings a ton of things into focus.  It says that even cultures, in 
their literary tastes, eventually get tired of the superlatives.  They realize 
that these bold-colored figures, which try for significance by pushing 
boundaries of extremity, are ultimately somewhat boring, and that there is much 
more interest to be found in literature that looks closely at ordinary things.  
Like I once read that young people get all enamored of the romantic composers, 
but they realize that those don’t hold up well to repeated listening, and then 
they come back to Bach which seems to be almost inexhaustible, even though and 
in part because it is such a composition of measure and balance. 

 

Because I am the way I am, I then imprint it on all sorts of other things: the 
transition from the epic to the modern novel seems to me the literary peer to 
what happened in science in the various Copernican revolutions, both the 
original one for planetary orbits, but also relativity with respect to 
observational frames and the abandonment of the aether, and in quantum 
mechanics with respect to the assumption that states are a kind of thing fixed 
by observables.  These have in common that each removes an unconditioned 
privileged frame and replaces it with a situated one.  And of course Darwin for 
biology (with his various companions and antecedents).  We could talk about 

Re: [FRIAM] Newborn Heart Rate

[thompnickson2]

I’m with David on this one.  Distinguishing between “real” and random effects 
is what learning IS.  Of course, such judgements are never more than probably 
true.  

 

N

 

Nick Thompson

  thompnicks...@gmail.com

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

 

From: Friam  On Behalf Of Prof David West
Sent: Friday, October 8, 2021 2:49 AM
To: friam@redfish.com
Subject: Re: [FRIAM] Newborn Heart Rate

 

David Eric Smith wrote:

 

"I cannot juggle hundreds of variables, and produce a result that would fail 
_any_ test for randomness.  I can conceive that maybe there are people smart 
enough to do that, but cannot imagine any-wise what it would feel like to be 
one of them."

 

But  . . . . every human being does exactly that, all the time, more or less 
effortlessly — certainly below the threshold of "conscious" awareness. Billions 
of variables, including certain cell receptors "detecting" and responding to 
quantum effects (like changes in spin induced by magnetic fields).

 

Some Asian philosophies (Jnana Yoga, Tibetan Tantra) and most of the Alchemical 
literature can be read as efforts to "decompile" this ability, make it 
conscious, and apply it in "ordinary reality."

 

davew

 

 

On Wed, Oct 6, 2021, at 9:28 AM, David Eric Smith wrote:

Gilding the lily, since I don’t disagree with anything that has specifically 
been said.

 

I have felt like, somewhere between the deliberate distortion of Emerson that 
reads “consistency is the hobgoblin of small minds” 

(Fun ref see 
https://www.lawfareblog.com/foolish-consistency-hobgoblin-little-minds-metadata-stay
 )

and what Scott Aaronson might call “the blankfaces of consistency”, 

there should be a sort of Herb Simon Watchmaker’s consistency.  The ability to 
check a form for consistency — even if I am alert that the system within which 
I am checking might be subject to overruling or revision — allows me to get 
past one thing and go to the next.  To clip together a sub-component of the 
watch and set it on the shelf, while assembling other sub-components, or to 
take the sub-components and assemble them relative to each other without having 
to constantly actively maintain the innards of each.  

 

To somebody with my innate limitations, that seems among the most valuable 
things in the world.

 

DaveW wrote this fabulous paean to never calling anything done, some months 
ago.  I can’t resurrect the text, and on my best living day could not compose 
its equal, but the gist was that sciences in which one arrives at conclusions 
are the pastimes of trivial minds.  Real Men do anthropology, where nothing is 
ever closed.  In a lovely rant on what a day in the life of a Real Man is like, 
a sentence contained a clause I am pretty sure I do have verbatim: “ . . . , 
juggling hundreds of variables, . . . “.

 

I cannot juggle hundreds of variables, and produce a result that would fail 
_any_ test for randomness.  I can conceive that maybe there are people smart 
enough to do that, but cannot imagine any-wise what it would feel like to be 
one of them. 

 

It seems it must be possible in this sense to cling to consistency like a 
life-raft, yet not elevate it to aa religious icon.  After all, life rafts only 
keep you alive, and in the big sweep of things, that isn’t _all_ that 
important. 

 

Eric

 

 

 

On Oct 5, 2021, at 11:56 AM, uǝlƃ ☤>$ mailto:geprope...@gmail.com> > wrote:

 

Yeah, I'm perfectly aligned with the freak among freaks sentiment, though I'd 
argue we *do* live in that world, we just deny it with our false beliefs. "The 
problem with communication is the illusion that it exists."

 

But the more important part of the argument surrounds whether consistency, 
itself, is a matter of degree or kind. The analog world is full of graded 
[in]consistency. You see it a lot with artifacts resulting from welding, 
baking, brewing, etc. ... I even saw it often with the level 3 drafting at 
lockheed. Any inconsistencies resulting from our designs, the effete knowledge 
engineers, were *easily* overcome by the gritty on-the-ground engineers ... 
like smoothing out burrs or gluing together pieces that don't quite fit.

 

In the special case of refined, crisply expressed propositions of digital 
computation, inconsistency finding becomes a (perhaps the) powerful tool. 
Debugging a serial program relies on it fundamentally. But it's softened a bit 
in parallel algorithms. Inconsistency is broken up into multiple, yet still 
crisp, types (race conditions, deadlocks, etc.). As approach "the real world" 
and move away from digital computation, it seems, to my ignorant eye, that 
[in]consistency softens more and more. Whether that softening takes the form of 
a countable set of types or something denser, I don't know. But it definitely 
takes on a different form.

 

Discussions like Frank and EricS are having about the stability of a limit 
point (never mind the 

Re: [FRIAM] Meanwhile ...

[Marcus Daniels]

Texas needs all the smart people it can get!

> On Oct 8, 2021, at 7:58 AM, uǝlƃ ☤>$  wrote:
> 
> Tesla headquarters will move from California to Texas, Elon Musk says
> https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2021/oct/07/tesla-moving-texas-elon-musk-california
> 
> Meanwhile,
> 
> https://projects.propublica.org/climate-migration/
> 
> I suppose it makes some sense. Robots don't care how hot it is as long as 
> they have coolant systems for their microprocessors.
> 
> -- 
> "Better to be slapped with the truth than kissed with a lie."
> ☤>$ uǝlƃ
> 
> 
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Re: [FRIAM] Copernican thresholds; was: Newborn Heart Rate

[Marcus Daniels]

Let’s say one deconstructed a neural net with substitutions from a library of 
functions (fit on the basis of input/output mappings), and that after a series 
of substitutions and application of rewrite rules, there was no neural net 
left.  Further suppose the resulting recomposition was as readable as a program 
by a good software engineer.  If one can do this the dichotomy seems 
artificial.   However, I claim the neural net representation is not ideal for 
reasoning about what the program will do without running it.   It will be 
obvious when generality arises from (in effect) a big case statement rather 
than from a compact functional form in the code representation.


> On Oct 8, 2021, at 7:32 AM, uǝlƃ ☤>$  wrote:
> 
> I *think* I disagree. But I'm not sure. The distinction between:
> 
> • in-the-moment, go-with-the-flow, compiled/parallel/chunked
> 
> versus
> 
> • articulated, delineated, de-compiled, serialized, persnickety, academic, 
> rational
> 
> processing isn't really a crushing of Zaphod Beeblebrox in light of the Total 
> View. It's more like a mode change. It was only crushing to Zaphod because he 
> was incapable of thinking of the larger whole of which he was only a small 
> part. I don't know much about wu wei or the dao. But it always struck me that 
> what I have understood is about that context switching ... the *navigation* 
> across the frames, from Copernican to Ptolemaic and back ... from making tea 
> simply because you need a kick to making tea as a religious experience ... 
> and back.
> 
> So there seem to be 2 different traditions. The "progressive" one, which only 
> follows the one direction (from banal to enlightened). And the "pragmatic" 
> one, which facilitates the navigation of the map, both forward and inverse. I 
> think you're lamenting the former, which leads us into fantasy land. But the 
> latter is almost a brute fact for anyone who experiences "Flow" of some kind, 
> from running to magic mushrooms to getting caught up in seemingly endless 
> algebra only to be yelled at by mom to take out the garbage.
> 
> I often think there's a similarity between True Believers who think their 
> model of some thing "makes so much sense". Like when I listen to Chiara 
> Marletto talk about constuctor theory. I can't shake the feeling that she's 
> similar to many Christians I've argued with. (Not the banal kind on the 
> street. But the Jesuits I've met and some of the Protestant "biblical 
> scholars" I've met.) It just feels too "progressive" ... pushing only toward 
> the one-way, forward map, from banal to ecstasy. 
> 
> The objective isn't really apotheosis. It's the cycle. To both rise *and* 
> fall, if not periodically, then at least sporadically. I feel like I'm 
> discussing a philosophy of engineering, where you not only expect your 
> constructs to collapse sometimes, you almost *want* it ... It's hard to 
> describe how satisfying that smell of a burnt IC chip is, when you've bent 
> that circuit beyond its capabilities.
> 
> 
> 
>> On 10/8/21 2:26 AM, David Eric Smith wrote:
>> It’s an interesting assertion, Dave, and I understand that you are both 
>> serious and informed in making it.
>> 
>> I don’t know, and there is a thing I struggle with in responding to some of 
>> this literature that straddles what I might call (making up a term on the 
>> spot) the “Copernican threshold”.  (Hat tip to Carl Woese’s “Darwinian 
>> threshold”, though not meant to connect to it in any detail.)
>> 
>> Your characterization of Arjuna’s dilemma in the note on wu wei was probably 
>> the most helpful I have seen, in expressing what the writers believed to be 
>> the point in a language that uses modern frames (together with words like 
>> “factors” that I recognize are references to certain Sanskrit terms of art). 
>>  
>> 
>> As I read it, though, language like “a perfect knowledge of all factors 
>> affecting an action” rings to me as the kind of hyperbolic framing that 
>> characterizes the era of epic literature.  
>> 
>> There seems to be a human habit of yearning for god that I would 
>> characterize — and _every one_ of its adherents will say I am totally wrong 
>> in this — as saying “no, you are not just one person in one body in one 
>> lifetime with limits to what you can be and can have; actually you are the 
>> whole universe, with unlimited power and knowledge and time and extent, and 
>> your desires or wants are not really limited.”  In short form: no, baby, you 
>> didn’t have to grow up and realize that life has disappointments; you can 
>> still be a creature of pure will and desire.  (That last way of putting it 
>> is trollish, and I understand that it totally leaves out the considerable 
>> elaboration behind these literatures in terms of a dev-psych gloss, so I 
>> don’t mean the trolling to be too categorical.)
>> 
>> I imagine that the age of epic literature comes out of the indulgence of 
>> this yearning.  Everything is, quite literally, “bigger 

[FRIAM] Meanwhile ...

[uǝlƃ ☤ $]

Tesla headquarters will move from California to Texas, Elon Musk says
https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2021/oct/07/tesla-moving-texas-elon-musk-california

Meanwhile,

https://projects.propublica.org/climate-migration/

I suppose it makes some sense. Robots don't care how hot it is as long as they 
have coolant systems for their microprocessors.

-- 
"Better to be slapped with the truth than kissed with a lie."
☤>$ uǝlƃ


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Zoom Fridays 9:30a-12p Mtn UTC-6  bit.ly/virtualfriam
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 1/2003 thru 6/2021  http://friam.383.s1.nabble.com/

Re: [FRIAM] Copernican thresholds; was: Newborn Heart Rate

[uǝlƃ ☤ $]

I *think* I disagree. But I'm not sure. The distinction between:

• in-the-moment, go-with-the-flow, compiled/parallel/chunked

versus

• articulated, delineated, de-compiled, serialized, persnickety, academic, 
rational

processing isn't really a crushing of Zaphod Beeblebrox in light of the Total 
View. It's more like a mode change. It was only crushing to Zaphod because he 
was incapable of thinking of the larger whole of which he was only a small 
part. I don't know much about wu wei or the dao. But it always struck me that 
what I have understood is about that context switching ... the *navigation* 
across the frames, from Copernican to Ptolemaic and back ... from making tea 
simply because you need a kick to making tea as a religious experience ... and 
back.

So there seem to be 2 different traditions. The "progressive" one, which only 
follows the one direction (from banal to enlightened). And the "pragmatic" one, 
which facilitates the navigation of the map, both forward and inverse. I think 
you're lamenting the former, which leads us into fantasy land. But the latter 
is almost a brute fact for anyone who experiences "Flow" of some kind, from 
running to magic mushrooms to getting caught up in seemingly endless algebra 
only to be yelled at by mom to take out the garbage.

I often think there's a similarity between True Believers who think their model 
of some thing "makes so much sense". Like when I listen to Chiara Marletto talk 
about constuctor theory. I can't shake the feeling that she's similar to many 
Christians I've argued with. (Not the banal kind on the street. But the Jesuits 
I've met and some of the Protestant "biblical scholars" I've met.) It just 
feels too "progressive" ... pushing only toward the one-way, forward map, from 
banal to ecstasy. 

The objective isn't really apotheosis. It's the cycle. To both rise *and* fall, 
if not periodically, then at least sporadically. I feel like I'm discussing a 
philosophy of engineering, where you not only expect your constructs to 
collapse sometimes, you almost *want* it ... It's hard to describe how 
satisfying that smell of a burnt IC chip is, when you've bent that circuit 
beyond its capabilities.



On 10/8/21 2:26 AM, David Eric Smith wrote:
> It’s an interesting assertion, Dave, and I understand that you are both 
> serious and informed in making it.
> 
> I don’t know, and there is a thing I struggle with in responding to some of 
> this literature that straddles what I might call (making up a term on the 
> spot) the “Copernican threshold”.  (Hat tip to Carl Woese’s “Darwinian 
> threshold”, though not meant to connect to it in any detail.)
> 
> Your characterization of Arjuna’s dilemma in the note on wu wei was probably 
> the most helpful I have seen, in expressing what the writers believed to be 
> the point in a language that uses modern frames (together with words like 
> “factors” that I recognize are references to certain Sanskrit terms of art).  
> 
> As I read it, though, language like “a perfect knowledge of all factors 
> affecting an action” rings to me as the kind of hyperbolic framing that 
> characterizes the era of epic literature.  
> 
> There seems to be a human habit of yearning for god that I would characterize 
> — and _every one_ of its adherents will say I am totally wrong in this — as 
> saying “no, you are not just one person in one body in one lifetime with 
> limits to what you can be and can have; actually you are the whole universe, 
> with unlimited power and knowledge and time and extent, and your desires or 
> wants are not really limited.”  In short form: no, baby, you didn’t have to 
> grow up and realize that life has disappointments; you can still be a 
> creature of pure will and desire.  (That last way of putting it is trollish, 
> and I understand that it totally leaves out the considerable elaboration 
> behind these literatures in terms of a dev-psych gloss, so I don’t mean the 
> trolling to be too categorical.)
> 
> I imagine that the age of epic literature comes out of the indulgence of this 
> yearning.  Everything is, quite literally, “bigger than life”.  It tries to 
> have significance by exaggeration.  So whether it is Mahabharata and 
> Ramayana, the Epic of Gilgamesh, the Eddas, the Three Kingdoms romance and 
> Journey to the West, there are these big, bold-colored characters, 
> supernaturals, of the kind that we retain in comic books (and which I am sure 
> were inspired by epic literature).
> 
> But somewhere, I think in Jane Smiley’s introduction to her volume of the 
> Icelandic Sagas, a thing is written that has had a very strong formative 
> effect on my understanding of things.  It is: that the innovation we 
> associate with the Modern Novel was a letting-go of the heroic stance in 
> favor of the scope and scale of the literal-human experience.  Smiley makes 
> this point because she says that the Sagas deserve to be recognized as among 
> the earliest precursors to 

Re: [FRIAM] Copernican thresholds; was: Newborn Heart Rate

[David Eric Smith]

It’s an interesting assertion, Dave, and I understand that you are both serious 
and informed in making it.

I don’t know, and there is a thing I struggle with in responding to some of 
this literature that straddles what I might call (making up a term on the spot) 
the “Copernican threshold”.  (Hat tip to Carl Woese’s “Darwinian threshold”, 
though not meant to connect to it in any detail.)

Your characterization of Arjuna’s dilemma in the note on wu wei was probably 
the most helpful I have seen, in expressing what the writers believed to be the 
point in a language that uses modern frames (together with words like “factors” 
that I recognize are references to certain Sanskrit terms of art).  

As I read it, though, language like “a perfect knowledge of all factors 
affecting an action” rings to me as the kind of hyperbolic framing that 
characterizes the era of epic literature.  

There seems to be a human habit of yearning for god that I would characterize — 
and _every one_ of its adherents will say I am totally wrong in this — as 
saying “no, you are not just one person in one body in one lifetime with limits 
to what you can be and can have; actually you are the whole universe, with 
unlimited power and knowledge and time and extent, and your desires or wants 
are not really limited.”  In short form: no, baby, you didn’t have to grow up 
and realize that life has disappointments; you can still be a creature of pure 
will and desire.  (That last way of putting it is trollish, and I understand 
that it totally leaves out the considerable elaboration behind these 
literatures in terms of a dev-psych gloss, so I don’t mean the trolling to be 
too categorical.)

I imagine that the age of epic literature comes out of the indulgence of this 
yearning.  Everything is, quite literally, “bigger than life”.  It tries to 
have significance by exaggeration.  So whether it is Mahabharata and Ramayana, 
the Epic of Gilgamesh, the Eddas, the Three Kingdoms romance and Journey to the 
West, there are these big, bold-colored characters, supernaturals, of the kind 
that we retain in comic books (and which I am sure were inspired by epic 
literature).

But somewhere, I think in Jane Smiley’s introduction to her volume of the 
Icelandic Sagas, a thing is written that has had a very strong formative effect 
on my understanding of things.  It is: that the innovation we associate with 
the Modern Novel was a letting-go of the heroic stance in favor of the scope 
and scale of the literal-human experience.  Smiley makes this point because she 
says that the Sagas deserve to be recognized as among the earliest precursors 
to the Modern Novel, well in advance of the landmark works that are usually 
credited with stages in its establishment: Quixote or some works by Kafka.  

That to me brings a ton of things into focus.  It says that even cultures, in 
their literary tastes, eventually get tired of the superlatives.  They realize 
that these bold-colored figures, which try for significance by pushing 
boundaries of extremity, are ultimately somewhat boring, and that there is much 
more interest to be found in literature that looks closely at ordinary things.  
Like I once read that young people get all enamored of the romantic composers, 
but they realize that those don’t hold up well to repeated listening, and then 
they come back to Bach which seems to be almost inexhaustible, even though and 
in part because it is such a composition of measure and balance. 

Because I am the way I am, I then imprint it on all sorts of other things: the 
transition from the epic to the modern novel seems to me the literary peer to 
what happened in science in the various Copernican revolutions, both the 
original one for planetary orbits, but also relativity with respect to 
observational frames and the abandonment of the aether, and in quantum 
mechanics with respect to the assumption that states are a kind of thing fixed 
by observables.  These have in common that each removes an unconditioned 
privileged frame and replaces it with a situated one.  And of course Darwin for 
biology (with his various companions and antecedents).  We could talk about 
Nietzche’s concern that without god, people would sink into nihilism, which I 
believe got picked up by the existentialists later.

And of course, we could take the entire anthology of the agriculture people 
like Aldo Leopold, Wendell Berry, and Wes Jackson, arguing that a large-scale 
agriculture is a blunt instrument because it generates homogeneous responses to 
heterogeneous problems.  A part of that literature argues that agriculture and 
culture are windows on the same phenomenon, which rightly has a complexity not 
appreciated from the outside, because it needs to adapt and solve problems in 
many dimensions that are particular to each region.


So, sorry for that long preamble, which is not directly to your point, but is a 
declaration of context on my side: 

I read the assertions 

Re: [FRIAM] Newborn Heart Rate

[Prof David West]

David Eric Smith wrote:

*"I cannot juggle hundreds of variables, and produce a result that would fail 
_any_ test for randomness.  I can conceive that maybe there are people smart 
enough to do that, but cannot imagine any-wise what it would feel like to be 
one of them."*

But  . . . . every human being does exactly that, all the time, more or less 
effortlessly — certainly below the threshold of "conscious" awareness. Billions 
of variables, including certain cell receptors "detecting" and responding to 
quantum effects (like changes in spin induced by magnetic fields).

Some Asian philosophies (Jnana Yoga, Tibetan Tantra) and most of the Alchemical 
literature can be read as efforts to "decompile" this ability, make it 
conscious, and apply it in "ordinary reality."

davew


On Wed, Oct 6, 2021, at 9:28 AM, David Eric Smith wrote:
> Gilding the lily, since I don’t disagree with anything that has specifically 
> been said.
> 
> I have felt like, somewhere between the deliberate distortion of Emerson that 
> reads “consistency is the hobgoblin of small minds” 
> (Fun ref see 
> https://www.lawfareblog.com/foolish-consistency-hobgoblin-little-minds-metadata-stay
>  )
> and what Scott Aaronson might call “the blankfaces of consistency”, 
> there should be a sort of Herb Simon Watchmaker’s consistency.  The ability 
> to check a form for consistency — even if I am alert that the system within 
> which I am checking might be subject to overruling or revision — allows me to 
> get past one thing and go to the next.  To clip together a sub-component of 
> the watch and set it on the shelf, while assembling other sub-components, or 
> to take the sub-components and assemble them relative to each other without 
> having to constantly actively maintain the innards of each.  
> 
> To somebody with my innate limitations, that seems among the most valuable 
> things in the world.
> 
> DaveW wrote this fabulous paean to never calling anything done, some months 
> ago.  I can’t resurrect the text, and on my best living day could not compose 
> its equal, but the gist was that sciences in which one arrives at conclusions 
> are the pastimes of trivial minds.  Real Men do anthropology, where nothing 
> is ever closed.  In a lovely rant on what a day in the life of a Real Man is 
> like, a sentence contained a clause I am pretty sure I do have verbatim: “ . 
> . . , juggling hundreds of variables, . . . “.
> 
> I cannot juggle hundreds of variables, and produce a result that would fail 
> _any_ test for randomness.  I can conceive that maybe there are people smart 
> enough to do that, but cannot imagine any-wise what it would feel like to be 
> one of them. 
> 
> It seems it must be possible in this sense to cling to consistency like a 
> life-raft, yet not elevate it to aa religious icon.  After all, life rafts 
> only keep you alive, and in the big sweep of things, that isn’t _all_ that 
> important. 
> 
> Eric
> 
> 
> 
>> On Oct 5, 2021, at 11:56 AM, uǝlƃ ☤>$  wrote:
>> 
>> Yeah, I'm perfectly aligned with the freak among freaks sentiment, though 
>> I'd argue we *do* live in that world, we just deny it with our false 
>> beliefs. "The problem with communication is the illusion that it exists."
>> 
>> But the more important part of the argument surrounds whether consistency, 
>> itself, is a matter of degree or kind. The analog world is full of graded 
>> [in]consistency. You see it a lot with artifacts resulting from welding, 
>> baking, brewing, etc. ... I even saw it often with the level 3 drafting at 
>> lockheed. Any inconsistencies resulting from our designs, the effete 
>> knowledge engineers, were *easily* overcome by the gritty on-the-ground 
>> engineers ... like smoothing out burrs or gluing together pieces that don't 
>> quite fit.
>> 
>> In the special case of refined, crisply expressed propositions of digital 
>> computation, inconsistency finding becomes a (perhaps the) powerful tool. 
>> Debugging a serial program relies on it fundamentally. But it's softened a 
>> bit in parallel algorithms. Inconsistency is broken up into multiple, yet 
>> still crisp, types (race conditions, deadlocks, etc.). As approach "the real 
>> world" and move away from digital computation, it seems, to my ignorant eye, 
>> that [in]consistency softens more and more. Whether that softening takes the 
>> form of a countable set of types or something denser, I don't know. But it 
>> definitely takes on a different form.
>> 
>> Discussions like Frank and EricS are having about the stability of a limit 
>> point (never mind the ontological status of that point) get at this nicely. 
>> If you change the frame entirely (e.g. move to position-momentum) and the 
>> "inconsistency" of the singularities *moves* (or disappears entirely), then 
>> a focus on consistency is not as powerful of a tool. The focus becomes one 
>> of which frame expresses the target domain "less inconsistently" ... aka 
>> with fewer exceptions to the rule.