Why can't a point have a position, speed, acceleration and any other derivative? Can't one judge calculus by results? Or by "its fruits" as the Good Book hath it! In the 50' and 60's I and others got folks to the moon and back using these "abstract calculus concepts" of old Isaac. At least they went to the moon according to the press, our earthbased Newtonian commo systems, and to two astronaut students of mine who called me afterwards and SAID they'd been there. Mebbe they weren't thinking it through carefully enough!
Peter Lissaman, Da Vinci Ventures Expertise is not knowing everything, but knowing what to look for. 1454 Miracerros Loop South, Santa Fe, New Mexico 87505 TEL: (505) 983-7728 FAX: (505) 983-1694 > [Original Message] > From: <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> > To: <friam@redfish.com> > Date: 7/9/2008 10:00:32 AM > Subject: Friam Digest, Vol 61, Issue 7 > > Send Friam mailing list submissions to > friam@redfish.com > > To subscribe or unsubscribe via the World Wide Web, visit > http://redfish.com/mailman/listinfo/friam_redfish.com > or, via email, send a message with subject or body 'help' to > [EMAIL PROTECTED] > > You can reach the person managing the list at > [EMAIL PROTECTED] > > When replying, please edit your Subject line so it is more specific > than "Re: Contents of Friam digest..." > > > Today's Topics: > > 1. Fwd: [OS X TeX] gmane archives out of date. (Owen Densmore) > 2. Re: Fwd: [OS X TeX] gmane archives out of date. > (Marcus G. Daniels) > 3. Sun's MPK20 (Mikhail Gorelkin) > 4. Announcing the Complexity Noodlers Corner (Nicholas Thompson) > 5. Mentalism and Calculus (Nicholas Thompson) > 6. Re: Announcing the Complexity Noodlers Corner (Steve Smith) > 7. Re: Mentalism and Calculus (Marcus G. Daniels) > 8. Re: Mentalism and Calculus (Robert Holmes) > > > ---------------------------------------------------------------------- > > Message: 1 > Date: Tue, 8 Jul 2008 11:20:40 -0600 > From: Owen Densmore <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> > Subject: [FRIAM] Fwd: [OS X TeX] gmane archives out of date. > To: The Friday Morning Applied Complexity Coffee Group > <friam@redfish.com> > Message-ID: <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> > Content-Type: text/plain; charset=ISO-8859-1; format=flowed; delsp=yes > > Well, one can always learn! And Nick, note that I too can screw up a > mail list! > > Here's the story: I joined the OS X TeX list. My first email to them > was simply that their gmane archive was broken. But the way I did > this was to view the first email I received on the list (on an > entirely different topic), hit Reply, deleted the body of the email > and changed to a new Subject. Basically a way to get a fresh email > with the correct To: address. > > In other words, I used an existing email for a template for a new > email to the list. > > Turns out this is a no-no. It confuses modern email clients into > thinking this is the same thread even though the subject has changed. > It certainly occurs all the time in my client (Mail.app), but I just > presumed Mail.app was struggling to identify "same thread-ness" via > context and failing. > > Nope. The headers keep a "In-reply-to" field to help in threading. > So when I cloned a new email, deleting all but the to: field, I > inadvertently kept the "In-reply-to" header field, thus screwing up > everyone's email threading. > > (BTW: This never happens with Nabble and Forum software due to the > explicit new-post/reply buttons, thus completely isolating a thread. > There the etiquette is simply search before a new post to see if there > is already a similar thread underway.) > > Sigh! But Nick, I now know what you mean by that "calm, stern, reply- > to-an-idiot" tone of voice. > > -- Owen > > Begin forwarded message: > > > From: Bruno Voisin <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> > > Date: July 8, 2008 12:28:21 AM MDT > > To: TeX on Mac OS X Mailing List <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> > > Subject: Re: [OS X TeX] gmane archives out of date. > > Reply-To: TeX on Mac OS X Mailing List <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> > > > > Le 8 juil. 08 ? 01:49, Owen Densmore a ?crit : > > > >> On Jul 7, 2008, at 5:27 PM, Gary L. Gray wrote: > >> > >>> Please don't hijack existing threads -- see the "List Reminders > >>> and Etiquette" link in the footer of this message. > >> > >> Yikes! Not sure how I hijacked an existing thread. Is there a "os > >> x tex gmane" thread? Anyway, sorry! > > > > You hijack an existing thread by replying to a message from this > > thread to create a new message with different subject. > > > > Symptom: in emailers which support threading (such as Apple's Mail, > > Mozilla's Thunderbird), your new message and the various answers it > > will get will be classified within the same thread as the original > > message you replied to. > > > > Cause: by replying to an existing message, whatever new subject you > > enter manually for the reply, this reply will keep in its hidden > > headers an In-reply-to header such as (in your case) > > > > In-reply-to: <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> > > > > Cure: always use Address Book to create a new message, or hover the > > pointer onto the headers of an existing message and when either of > > the From or To fields turns into a blue button click on the white > > triangle on the right of this button and select "New message" in the > > contextual menu that appears. > > > > See <http://www.esm.psu.edu/mac-tex/list/>. > > > > Bruno Voisin > > > > > > > > > > > > ----------- Please Consult the Following Before Posting ----------- > > TeX FAQ: http://www.tex.ac.uk/faq > > List Reminders and Etiquette: http://www.esm.psu.edu/mac-tex/list/ > > List Archive: http://tug.org/pipermail/macostex-archives/ > > Mac-TeX Website: http://www.esm.psu.edu/mac-tex/ > > List Info: http://email.esm.psu.edu/mailman/listinfo/macosx-tex > > > > > > > ------------------------------ > > Message: 2 > Date: Tue, 08 Jul 2008 11:32:32 -0600 > From: "Marcus G. Daniels" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> > Subject: Re: [FRIAM] Fwd: [OS X TeX] gmane archives out of date. > To: The Friday Morning Applied Complexity Coffee Group > <friam@redfish.com> > Message-ID: <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> > Content-Type: text/plain; charset=ISO-8859-1; format=flowed > > Well, this list swallows e-mails with sufficient frequency that when > discussions seem out of context, I just go back to the archives to see > why. Sure enough, the answer is usually that the relevant context was > never sent, at least to me. > > In this situations, when I want to reply, I just start a new thread cut > and pasting from the archive. Sure, I could hack up the headers of the > e-mail to make the threads work, but it would be better if the delivery > just worked in the first place! > > Marcus > > > > ------------------------------ > > Message: 3 > Date: Tue, 8 Jul 2008 15:05:03 -0400 > From: "Mikhail Gorelkin" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> > Subject: [FRIAM] Sun's MPK20 > To: "FRIAM" <Friam@redfish.com> > Message-ID: <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> > Content-Type: text/plain; charset="utf-8" > > Here is about Sun's Virtual Workplace: > > > > http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BJS8DGjeGvM > > http://research.sun.com/projects/mc/mpk20.html > > > -------------- next part -------------- > An HTML attachment was scrubbed... > URL: http://redfish.com/pipermail/friam_redfish.com/attachments/20080708/830ba76a /attachment-0001.html > > ------------------------------ > > Message: 4 > Date: Tue, 8 Jul 2008 22:39:54 -0600 > From: "Nicholas Thompson" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> > Subject: [FRIAM] Announcing the Complexity Noodlers Corner > To: friam@redfish.com > Message-ID: <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> > Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" > > As many of you know, I have been impatient with FRIAM for years because so much good stuff gets lost. Well, not LOST strictly, but certainly packed down in the midden. I long for a medium in which the good stuff gets saved, and built upon, and ultimately perhaps turned into articles or books! [Hey! I am an Old Media Guy.] About a year ago, several of us in Santa Fe started a conversation place in PBWIKI. The idea was that each of us would have a subspace into which he or she would write rants or other promising thoughts for the others to read and think about. Each person was the owner of his or her own page in the sense that only the owner could delete stuff, but anybody could ADD to what was written on another's page and anybody could take the material on a page, transfer it to a new page with a new owner, and destructively edit to his or her heart's content. Or just copy the bit to be edited to the bottom of the same page, and put the edited version there. > Like all such utopian projects, there was a lot of fruitless milling about, but in the end, some really interesting material got created, including, for instance, a theoretical glossary of informational thermodynamics speak, a language that we all sort of share out here, but haven't quite got a handle on. It ended NOT because it wasn't productive, but because we all got involved in creating the sfComplex and had to stop. > I am eager now to get that project going again, and this ComplexityNoodlersCorner is my attempt to do so. I hope many of you will participate. > HOW TO PARTICIPATE. > Here is the idea: Any time you find yourself writing something to FRIAM that you think might be a bit too good to be lost to a list, go ahead and finish it. However, BEFORE you send it to the list, copy it to your clip board and past into a page on in the ComplexityNoodlersCorner. Then, leave a reference to that page in your FRIAM contribution, so that others can go to the WIKI and work with your material. The Noodler's Corner is in MEDIAWIKI on the sfcomplex website at > http://www.sfcomplex.org/wiki/ComplexityNoodlersCorner > > MediaWiki is the same software that WIKIPEDIA is written in, so it will be real familiar. However, it has its little traps that the nerds left for us ordinary folks, so I suggest you have a look at the page > http://www.sfcomplex.org/wiki/Getting_started > to orient yourself. If you are having problems, please email me any time of day or night, [EMAIL PROTECTED] > If you want to start a new page, go to > http://www.sfcomplex.org/wiki/NoodlersIndex > and make a reference to that page, following the format modeled there and adding your new page to the top of the list. > It is my fervent prayer that others will see the potential value of this project and will help me get it started. > A very good way to help me would be to complain about the unclarity of my instructions and make suggestions concerning how they might be clarified. > The next message will contain The First Noodle. > Thanks, > Nick > > > Nicholas S. Thompson > Emeritus Professor of Psychology and Ethology, > Clark University ([EMAIL PROTECTED]) > -------------- next part -------------- > An HTML attachment was scrubbed... > URL: http://redfish.com/pipermail/friam_redfish.com/attachments/20080708/4de40d50 /attachment-0001.html > > ------------------------------ > > Message: 5 > Date: Tue, 8 Jul 2008 22:45:51 -0600 > From: "Nicholas Thompson" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> > Subject: [FRIAM] Mentalism and Calculus > To: friam@redfish.com > Cc: echarles <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> > Message-ID: <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> > Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" > > All who have patience, > Once of the classic critiques of mentalism .... the belief that behavior is caused by events in some "inner" space called the mind ... is that it involves a category error. The term "category error" arises from ordinary language philosophy (I think). You made a category error when you start talking about some thing as if it were a different sort of thing altogether. In other words, our language is full of conventions concerning the way we talk about things, and when we violate those conventions, we start to talk silly. To an anti-mentalist a "feeling" is something that arises when one palpates the world and to talk about our "inner feelings", say, is to doom ourselves to silliness. Feelings are inherently "of" other things and to talk of "feeling our own feelings" is, well, in a word, nutty. > As many of you know, I have been engaged in a geriatric attempt to recover what slipped by me in my youth, the chance to understand the Calculus. As I read more and more, it became clear to me that the differential calculus was based on a huge "category error." To speak of a point as having velocity and direction one had to speak of it at if it were something that it essentially wasn't. And yet, of course, the Calculus flourishes. > Now the reason I am writing is that I am not sure where to go with this "discovery." One way is to renounce my behaviorism on the ground that category errors ... any category errors ... are just fine. Another way is to start to think of the mind/behavior distinction in some way analogous to the derivative/function distinction. That mind is just the derivative of behavior. For instance, a motive, or an intention, is not some inner thing that directs behavior, but rather the limit of its behavioral direction. A third way, is to wonder about how the inventors of calculus thought about these issues. They, presumably, were steeped in mentalism and it cannot have escaped their notice that they were attributing to points qualities that points just cannot have. Many of the texts have been reading have alluded to the idea that some contemporaries ... perhaps Newton himself ... attributed to the Calculus some sort of mystic properties. I really would like to know more about that. Any intellectual historians out there???? > So, I am hoping somebody will help me go in any, or all, of these directions. > --Nthompson 04:14, 9 July 2008 (GMT) > This noodle, and perhaps some subsequent revisions and commentary, may be found at http://www.sfcomplex.org/wiki/MentalismAndCalculus > > Nicholas S. Thompson > Emeritus Professor of Psychology and Ethology, > Clark University ([EMAIL PROTECTED]) > -------------- next part -------------- > An HTML attachment was scrubbed... > URL: http://redfish.com/pipermail/friam_redfish.com/attachments/20080708/e040f28c /attachment-0001.html > > ------------------------------ > > Message: 6 > Date: Tue, 08 Jul 2008 23:11:06 -0600 > From: Steve Smith <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> > Subject: Re: [FRIAM] Announcing the Complexity Noodlers Corner > To: [EMAIL PROTECTED], The Friday Morning Applied Complexity > Coffee Group <friam@redfish.com> > Message-ID: <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> > Content-Type: text/plain; charset=ISO-8859-1; format=flowed > > Nick! > > Peanut Butter and Noodles! MMMmmmMMM! > > Good on ya for trying this... I'll give it a shot... best I can... I > like the concept and have my own Wiki in LAVA for my folks to do > something similar. Can't say it's a success, but it isn't a failure (yet)! > > - Steve > > > > ------------------------------ > > Message: 7 > Date: Wed, 09 Jul 2008 00:05:05 -0600 > From: "Marcus G. Daniels" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> > Subject: Re: [FRIAM] Mentalism and Calculus > To: The Friday Morning Applied Complexity Coffee Group > <friam@redfish.com> > Message-ID: <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> > Content-Type: text/plain; charset=ISO-8859-1; format=flowed > > Nicholas Thompson wrote: > > > > For instance, a motive, or an intention, is not some inner thing that > > directs behavior, but rather the limit of its behavioral direction. > > > Or it could be that the so-called `motive' or `intention' was merely a > rationalization of a subconscious impulse that had already been revealed > in a whole pattern of related behaviors. If so, the behaviourist would > be ahead of the game using careful observation or perturbation of either > the behavior of the individual, or of its brain. > > The easy way out of the category error, whether in regard to mentalism > or calculus is to regard them as models -- separate standalone things. > > Marcus > > > > > ------------------------------ > > Message: 8 > Date: Wed, 9 Jul 2008 09:49:10 -0600 > From: "Robert Holmes" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> > Subject: Re: [FRIAM] Mentalism and Calculus > To: [EMAIL PROTECTED], "The Friday Morning Applied > Complexity Coffee Group" <friam@redfish.com> > Message-ID: > <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> > Content-Type: text/plain; charset="iso-8859-1" > > This is based on nothing more than reading the entry on categories at > http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/categories/ so please take with a pinch of > salt... > > It seems that the tools necessary to construct category systems are severely > broken. Specifically, there is no generally accepted method for > distinguishing between categories. For example, the Ryle/Husserl method > boils down to a highly subjective notion of whether a statement is absurd or > not. That means it's perfectly possible for Nick to see a category error > ("it's crazy to say that a point can have position and velocity") and me not > to see one ("nothing wrong with a point having position and velocity") and *we > can both be right*. > > IMHO, this means that category theory really can't tell us very much about > calculus. > > Robert > On 7/8/08, Nicholas Thompson <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote: > > > > All who have patience, > > > > Once of the classic critiques of mentalism .... the belief that behavior is > > caused by events in some "inner" space called the mind ... is that it > > involves a category error. The term "category error" arises from ordinary > > language philosophy (I think). You made a category error when you start > > talking about some thing as if it were a different sort of thing altogether. > > In other words, our language is full of conventions concerning the way we > > talk about things, and when we violate those conventions, we start to talk > > silly. To an anti-mentalist a "feeling" is something that arises when one > > palpates the world and to talk about our "inner feelings", say, is to doom > > ourselves to silliness. Feelings are inherently "of" other things and to > > talk of "feeling our own feelings" is, well, in a word, nutty. > > > > As many of you know, I have been engaged in a geriatric attempt to recover > > what slipped by me in my youth, the chance to understand the Calculus. As I > > read more and more, it became clear to me that the differential calculus was > > based on a huge "category error." To speak of a point as having velocity and > > direction one had to speak of it at if it were something that it essentially > > wasn't. And yet, of course, the Calculus flourishes. > > > > Now the reason I am writing is that I am not sure where to go with this > > "discovery." One way is to renounce my behaviorism on the ground that > > category errors ... any category errors ... are just fine. Another way is to > > start to think of the mind/behavior distinction in some way analogous to the > > derivative/function distinction. That mind is just the derivative of > > behavior. For instance, a motive, or an intention, is not some inner thing > > that directs behavior, but rather the limit of its behavioral direction. A > > third way, is to wonder about how the inventors of calculus thought about > > these issues. They, presumably, were steeped in mentalism and it cannot have > > escaped their notice that they were attributing to points qualities that > > points just cannot have. Many of the texts have been reading have alluded to > > the idea that some contemporaries ... perhaps Newton himself ... attributed > > to the Calculus some sort of mystic properties. I really would like to know > > more about that. Any intellectual historians out there???? > > > > So, I am hoping somebody will help me go in any, or all, of these > > directions. > > > > --Nthompson<http://www.sfcomplex.org/mediawiki/index.php?title=User:Nthompso n&action=edit>04:14, 9 July 2008 (GMT) > > This noodle, and perhaps some subsequent revisions and commentary, may be > > found at http://www.sfcomplex.org/wiki/MentalismAndCalculus > > > > Nicholas S. Thompson > > Emeritus Professor of Psychology and Ethology, > > Clark University ([EMAIL PROTECTED]) > > > > > > > > > > ============================================================ > > FRIAM Applied Complexity Group listserv > > Meets Fridays 9a-11:30 at cafe at St. John's College > > lectures, archives, unsubscribe, maps at http://www.friam.org > > > -------------- next part -------------- > An HTML attachment was scrubbed... > URL: http://redfish.com/pipermail/friam_redfish.com/attachments/20080709/669a73df /attachment-0001.html > > ------------------------------ > > _______________________________________________ > Friam mailing list > Friam@redfish.com > http://redfish.com/mailman/listinfo/friam_redfish.com > > > End of Friam Digest, Vol 61, Issue 7 > ************************************ ============================================================ FRIAM Applied Complexity Group listserv Meets Fridays 9a-11:30 at cafe at St. John's College lectures, archives, unsubscribe, maps at http://www.friam.org
