Re: [FRIAM] Subjectivity and square roots

[Arlo Barnes]

Fine with me. Reminds me of https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/thripple, and
for some reason marshmallows also (perhaps by way of "ripple"?).
-Arlo James Barnes

FRIAM Applied Complexity Group listserv
Meets Fridays 9a-11:30 at cafe at St. John's College
to unsubscribe http://redfish.com/mailman/listinfo/friam_redfish.com

Re: [FRIAM] Subjectivity and square roots

[Steve Smith]

  
  
I like it...  seems like the precedence
  of tuppence and thruppence adds charm if not validity!


  
  
  
  
Arlo,

 
I
stand corrected.  However, there is something awfully
charming about “thrupple.”  Can I continue to use it? 
 

N
 
Nicholas
S. Thompson
Emeritus
Professor of Psychology and Biology
Clark
University
http://home.earthlink.net/~nickthompson/naturaldesigns/
 
From:
Friam [mailto:friam-boun...@redfish.com] On Behalf Of Arlo
Barnes
Sent: Friday, March 04, 2016 3:13 PM
To: The Friday Morning Applied Complexity Coffee
Group <friam@redfish.com>
Subject: Re: [FRIAM] Subjectivity and square roots
 

  

  On Fri, Mar 4, 2016 at 3:07 PM, Nick
Thompson <nickthomp...@earthlink.net>
wrote:
  
a sign IS a thrupple .. or whatever
  that lovely word is
  

A 3-tuple? I believe "tuple" itself is
  just a generalisation of "double, triple, quadruple,
  quintuple, [...]", with "singleton" being the odd one
  (pun? intended) out. So the word you want is "triple".
  
  
-Arlo James Barnes
  

  
  
  
  
  
FRIAM Applied Complexity Group listserv
Meets Fridays 9a-11:30 at cafe at St. John's College
to unsubscribe http://redfish.com/mailman/listinfo/friam_redfish.com


  



FRIAM Applied Complexity Group listserv
Meets Fridays 9a-11:30 at cafe at St. John's College
to unsubscribe http://redfish.com/mailman/listinfo/friam_redfish.com

Re: [FRIAM] Subjectivity and square roots

[Nick Thompson]

Arlo, 

 

I stand corrected.  However, there is something awfully charming about 
“thrupple.”  Can I continue to use it? 

 

N

 

Nicholas S. Thompson

Emeritus Professor of Psychology and Biology

Clark University

 <http://home.earthlink.net/~nickthompson/naturaldesigns/> 
http://home.earthlink.net/~nickthompson/naturaldesigns/

 

From: Friam [mailto:friam-boun...@redfish.com] On Behalf Of Arlo Barnes
Sent: Friday, March 04, 2016 3:13 PM
To: The Friday Morning Applied Complexity Coffee Group <friam@redfish.com>
Subject: Re: [FRIAM] Subjectivity and square roots

 

On Fri, Mar 4, 2016 at 3:07 PM, Nick Thompson <nickthomp...@earthlink.net 
<mailto:nickthomp...@earthlink.net> > wrote:

a sign IS a thrupple .. or whatever that lovely word is

A 3-tuple? I believe "tuple" itself is just a generalisation of "double, 
triple, quadruple, quintuple, [...]", with "singleton" being the odd one (pun? 
intended) out. So the word you want is "triple".

-Arlo James Barnes


FRIAM Applied Complexity Group listserv
Meets Fridays 9a-11:30 at cafe at St. John's College
to unsubscribe http://redfish.com/mailman/listinfo/friam_redfish.com

Re: [FRIAM] Subjectivity and square roots

[Arlo Barnes]

On Fri, Mar 4, 2016 at 3:07 PM, Nick Thompson 
wrote:

> a sign IS a thrupple .. or whatever that lovely word is

A 3-tuple? I believe "tuple" itself is just a generalisation of "double,
triple, quadruple, quintuple, [...]", with "singleton" being the odd one
(pun? intended) out. So the word you want is "triple".
-Arlo James Barnes

FRIAM Applied Complexity Group listserv
Meets Fridays 9a-11:30 at cafe at St. John's College
to unsubscribe http://redfish.com/mailman/listinfo/friam_redfish.com

Re: [FRIAM] Subjectivity and square roots

[Nick Thompson]

I perhaps put us back in the pragmatist weeds by using the term "sign".  But 
Glen is right, a sign IS a thrupple .. or whatever that lovely word is, and no 
sign has been identified until all three elements have been specified.   To get 
an intuitive idea of the idea of sign, one might take the example of a monkey 
"predator call".  A predator call (the sign) is is a sign of the presence of a 
predator (the referent) to from the point of view of (the interpretant)  
another monkey.  But the concept of sign, in pragmatism, is much, much, much 
broader.  (And more confusing ... to me.)  And Glen is correct also that all 
three elements of a sign are themselves signs.  Thus every sign is embedded in 
a web of signs.  The final crucial element in pragmatist philosophy (in case 
you-re still with me) is that all experience is in signs.  So Pragmatism treats 
us as living in a stream of experience, in which each experience leads to 
expectatons of other experiences which may or may not be confirmed.  Through 
confirmation and disconfirmation of these expectations we (i.e., all of us, 
together)  erect structures of experience such as, you, me, object, reality, 
true, false, etc, which are, themselves, experiences in good standing.  The 
square root of two is one of those structures of experience, richly confirmed 
in “our” experience.  

 

Nick 

 

Nicholas S. Thompson

Emeritus Professor of Psychology and Biology

Clark University

http://home.earthlink.net/~nickthompson/naturaldesigns/

 

 

-Original Message-
From: Friam [mailto:friam-boun...@redfish.com] On Behalf Of glen
Sent: Friday, March 04, 2016 11:19 AM
To: The Friday Morning Applied Complexity Coffee Group <friam@redfish.com>
Subject: Re: [FRIAM] Subjectivity and square roots

 

On 03/03/2016 11:16 PM, Russ Abbott wrote:

> I find myself confused about what you mean when you say they are 

> "signs that stand in a rigorous, systematic, and extensively confirmed 

> way to ... mathematical relationships". A sign is not (in your

> view) a thing (other than itself) is it? I would have thought that a 

> sign it's a reference to a thing. The thing itself is only brought to 

> mind (in the mind) when looking at and thinking about the sign.

 

A sign is one of 3 objects in a 3-tuple. The set of 3 is the subject of this 
conversation, not any single member of the set.  Any one of the 3 things can be 
handled as itself, separate from that particular 3-tuple.  I.e. any given 
referent object (the thing the sign signifies) can have multiple signs; the 
sign can signify other objects (be part of a different 3-tuple); and the thing 
interpreting the sign can interpret other signs.  E.g.

 

multiple signs: √ versus x^.5

multiple referents:

   • any x such that x*x=2

   • ½[x_n + 2/x_n]|n→∞

multiple interpreters: ZFA versus ZFC

 

The important point is that if you remove any of the 3 objects, you no longer 
have a sign.

 

> So let's say we take a paint

> color strip and ask people to select from a list of five color words 

> (along with non-of-these as an option) the best match to the color 

> experience they have when looking at the strip. Let's say there is 

> essentially universal agreement. Is that good enough to confirm that 

> they all have the same color experience? That sounds more empirical 

> than mathematics and should satisfy your requirement for an 

> experimental experience -- although I'm not sure what you mean by 
> "experimental experience".

 

You keep isolating the machine from its I/O.  If they all get "the same" input 
and give "the same" output, then they are all "the same", up to the strength of 
whatever equivalence is considered.  Any variation that is undetectable is just 
that... undetectable.  Sure, you can _speculate_ on those undetectable 
differences... the differences that don't make a difference.  But why?  To what 
purpose?

 

We've already talked about hypothesis formulation.  So, perhaps the purpose is 
to formulate a new equivalence relation that will detect the differences 
undetectable under the old one.  But you're not talking that way.  You seem to 
want to promote speculated constructs up to a significance that's unwarranted 
... to talk about thoughts and feelings as if they exist, without any 
similarity measure with which to falsify them.

 

--

⇔ glen

 



FRIAM Applied Complexity Group listserv

Meets Fridays 9a-11:30 at cafe at St. John's College to unsubscribe  
<http://redfish.com/mailman/listinfo/friam_redfish.com> 
http://redfish.com/mailman/listinfo/friam_redfish.com


FRIAM Applied Complexity Group listserv
Meets Fridays 9a-11:30 at cafe at St. John's College
to unsubscribe http://redfish.com/mailman/listinfo/friam_redfish.com

Re: [FRIAM] Subjectivity and square roots

[glen]

On 03/04/2016 11:17 AM, Russ Abbott wrote:

All that is much to sophisticated for me.  I don't have a theory or a model
(e.g., in terms of interpreters) for how the mind works.


Heh, you claim it's too sophisticated and that you don't have a theory or a 
model for how the mind works, yet you _write_ as if you do.  The things Eric 
and Nick have said would make complete sense if you had no theory/model.  They 
may end up being incomplete.  But they're coherent (as far as I can tell).  I 
believe I'm the same thing they're saying, just in different language.

What I think is actually happening is that you do have a theory/model and what 
Nick and Eric say simply doesn't fit your theory/model.  That's OK, of course.  
But it'll continue to be difficult to compare your model with theirs as long as 
you won't explain your model.


This all started as a discussion of subjective behavior. It has drifted
into a discussion of thinking more generally -- and in particular thinking
about mathematical "objects." I see the drift as a positive development
since we all presumably agree about what things like "the square root of 2"
means. Yet the referent of "the square root of 2" is not (I still claim) a
material thing. It is (I still claim) a mental construct, and it exists (at
least and perhaps only) in the mind.


We don't all agree, I think.  The √2 is extremely hard to conceive, I think.  
Irrational numbers are naively defined in the negative, as any number that's 
not a rational number.  This indicates to me that they are _not_ mental 
constructs at all.  They are linguistic/algebraic/definitional (whatever) 
constructs for most of us.  (I'm not ruling out that people like Leibniz or 
Penrose did/do conceive them... but most people probably don't.)

And language/algebra/definitions are concrete things referred to by symbols like √ in the 
same way actual cats are referred to by symbols like "cat" (and interpreted by 
things like humans).


 I see that as important to this
discussion since Nick and Eric claim (as I understand them) that talk of
things being in the mind is meaningless.


I don't think they've intended to say that it's completely meaningless.  I do think 
they've said that whatever happens in "the mind" can be (can only be) precisely 
described through it's I/O.  This seems like the same thing as the holographic principle: 
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Holographic_principle  And although it may not be true, 
it's certainly a pretty solid idea.

--
⇔ glen


FRIAM Applied Complexity Group listserv
Meets Fridays 9a-11:30 at cafe at St. John's College
to unsubscribe http://redfish.com/mailman/listinfo/friam_redfish.com

Re: [FRIAM] Subjectivity and square roots

[Russ Abbott]

All that is much to sophisticated for me.  I don't have a theory or a model
(e.g., in terms of interpreters) for how the mind works.

This all started as a discussion of subjective behavior. It has drifted
into a discussion of thinking more generally -- and in particular thinking
about mathematical "objects." I see the drift as a positive development
since we all presumably agree about what things like "the square root of 2"
means. Yet the referent of "the square root of 2" is not (I still claim) a
material thing. It is (I still claim) a mental construct, and it exists (at
least and perhaps only) in the mind.I see that as important to this
discussion since Nick and Eric claim (as I understand them) that talk of
things being in the mind is meaningless. So the discussion comes down to
the question of whether mathematical constructs are meaningless or how Nick
and Eric define what such things mean without talking about thinking about
them. (Or perhaps I'm wrong and Nick and Eric think it's ok to talk about
thinking about things -- where by "thinking" I mean what most people have
in mind by that term. I guess I can use "have in mind" in this discussion
since Nick himself used it.)

On Fri, Mar 4, 2016 at 10:48 AM glen  wrote:

> On 03/04/2016 10:27 AM, Russ Abbott wrote:
> > I must have missed the message where you talked about the 3-tuple and
> don't
> > understand what you mean that a sign is one of 3 objects in a 3-tuple and
> > why it matters. Nick talked about a sign; I was distinguishing a sign
> from
> > its referent -- which you do too. I also said the reference is often a
> > mental construct. I'm not sure how your comment relates to that
> framework.
>
> This is the 1st time I've mentioned the 3-tuple.  Sorry.  It was my guess
> at Nick's use of the word "sign".
>
> It relates to "mental constructs" at least because you have to place the
> "mental construct" in one of the 3 types: referent, sign, interpreter.  I
> gave mathematical examples because you expressed confusion over what Nick
> might have meant by "They are signs that stand in a rigorous, systematic,
> and extensively confirmed way for a vast collection of mathematical
> relationships."  I presume you intend to put "mental constructs" in the
> interpreter category, but maybe not.  They could be in any category.  For
> example, the mental construct I have of cat-like can be a sign for a
> particular image of one of my cats (yes, I have more than one,
> unfortunately).  And the interpreter is the mental construct(s) I use to
> organize the house (feeding times, expected behaviors, etc.) with respect
> to those cats.
>
> --
> ⇔ glen
>
> 
> FRIAM Applied Complexity Group listserv
> Meets Fridays 9a-11:30 at cafe at St. John's College
> to unsubscribe http://redfish.com/mailman/listinfo/friam_redfish.com

FRIAM Applied Complexity Group listserv
Meets Fridays 9a-11:30 at cafe at St. John's College
to unsubscribe http://redfish.com/mailman/listinfo/friam_redfish.com

Re: [FRIAM] Subjectivity and square roots

[glen]

On 03/04/2016 10:27 AM, Russ Abbott wrote:

I must have missed the message where you talked about the 3-tuple and don't
understand what you mean that a sign is one of 3 objects in a 3-tuple and
why it matters. Nick talked about a sign; I was distinguishing a sign from
its referent -- which you do too. I also said the reference is often a
mental construct. I'm not sure how your comment relates to that framework.


This is the 1st time I've mentioned the 3-tuple.  Sorry.  It was my guess at Nick's use 
of the word "sign".

It relates to "mental constructs" at least because you have to place the "mental construct" in one 
of the 3 types: referent, sign, interpreter.  I gave mathematical examples because you expressed confusion over what 
Nick might have meant by "They are signs that stand in a rigorous, systematic, and extensively confirmed way for a 
vast collection of mathematical relationships."  I presume you intend to put "mental constructs" in the 
interpreter category, but maybe not.  They could be in any category.  For example, the mental construct I have of 
cat-like can be a sign for a particular image of one of my cats (yes, I have more than one, unfortunately).  And the 
interpreter is the mental construct(s) I use to organize the house (feeding times, expected behaviors, etc.) with 
respect to those cats.

--
⇔ glen


FRIAM Applied Complexity Group listserv
Meets Fridays 9a-11:30 at cafe at St. John's College
to unsubscribe http://redfish.com/mailman/listinfo/friam_redfish.com

Re: [FRIAM] Subjectivity and square roots

[Russ Abbott]

I must have missed the message where you talked about the 3-tuple and don't
understand what you mean that a sign is one of 3 objects in a 3-tuple and
why it matters. Nick talked about a sign; I was distinguishing a sign from
its referent -- which you do too. I also said the reference is often a
mental construct. I'm not sure how your comment relates to that framework.

On Fri, Mar 4, 2016 at 10:18 AM glen  wrote:

> On 03/03/2016 11:16 PM, Russ Abbott wrote:
> > I find myself confused about what you mean when you say
> > they are "signs that stand in a rigorous, systematic, and extensively
> > confirmed way to ... mathematical relationships". A sign is not (in your
> > view) a thing (other than itself) is it? I would have thought that a sign
> > it's a reference to a thing. The thing itself is only brought to mind (in
> > the mind) when looking at and thinking about the sign.
>
> A sign is one of 3 objects in a 3-tuple. The set of 3 is the subject of
> this conversation, not any single member of the set.  Any one of the 3
> things can be handled as itself, separate from that particular 3-tuple.
> I.e. any given referent object (the thing the sign signifies) can have
> multiple signs; the sign can signify other objects (be part of a different
> 3-tuple); and the thing interpreting the sign can interpret other signs.
> E.g.
>
> multiple signs: √ versus x^.5
> multiple referents:
>• any x such that x*x=2
>• ½[x_n + 2/x_n]|n→∞
> multiple interpreters: ZFA versus ZFC
>
> The important point is that if you remove any of the 3 objects, you no
> longer have a sign.
>
> > So let's say we take a paint
> > color strip and ask people to select from a list of five color words
> (along
> > with non-of-these as an option) the best match to the color experience
> they
> > have when looking at the strip. Let's say there is essentially universal
> > agreement. Is that good enough to confirm that they all have the same
> color
> > experience? That sounds more empirical than mathematics and should
> satisfy
> > your requirement for an experimental experience -- although I'm not sure
> > what you mean by "experimental experience".
>
> You keep isolating the machine from its I/O.  If they all get "the same"
> input and give "the same" output, then they are all "the same", up to the
> strength of whatever equivalence is considered.  Any variation that is
> undetectable is just that... undetectable.  Sure, you can _speculate_ on
> those undetectable differences... the differences that don't make a
> difference.  But why?  To what purpose?
>
> We've already talked about hypothesis formulation.  So, perhaps the
> purpose is to formulate a new equivalence relation that will detect the
> differences undetectable under the old one.  But you're not talking that
> way.  You seem to want to promote speculated constructs up to a
> significance that's unwarranted ... to talk about thoughts and feelings as
> if they exist, without any similarity measure with which to falsify them.
>
> --
> ⇔ glen
>
> 
> FRIAM Applied Complexity Group listserv
> Meets Fridays 9a-11:30 at cafe at St. John's College
> to unsubscribe http://redfish.com/mailman/listinfo/friam_redfish.com

FRIAM Applied Complexity Group listserv
Meets Fridays 9a-11:30 at cafe at St. John's College
to unsubscribe http://redfish.com/mailman/listinfo/friam_redfish.com

Re: [FRIAM] Subjectivity and square roots

[glen]

On 03/03/2016 11:16 PM, Russ Abbott wrote:

I find myself confused about what you mean when you say
they are "signs that stand in a rigorous, systematic, and extensively
confirmed way to ... mathematical relationships". A sign is not (in your
view) a thing (other than itself) is it? I would have thought that a sign
it's a reference to a thing. The thing itself is only brought to mind (in
the mind) when looking at and thinking about the sign.


A sign is one of 3 objects in a 3-tuple. The set of 3 is the subject of this 
conversation, not any single member of the set.  Any one of the 3 things can be 
handled as itself, separate from that particular 3-tuple.  I.e. any given 
referent object (the thing the sign signifies) can have multiple signs; the 
sign can signify other objects (be part of a different 3-tuple); and the thing 
interpreting the sign can interpret other signs.  E.g.

   multiple signs: √ versus x^.5
   multiple referents:
  • any x such that x*x=2
  • ½[x_n + 2/x_n]|n→∞
   multiple interpreters: ZFA versus ZFC

The important point is that if you remove any of the 3 objects, you no longer 
have a sign.


So let's say we take a paint
color strip and ask people to select from a list of five color words (along
with non-of-these as an option) the best match to the color experience they
have when looking at the strip. Let's say there is essentially universal
agreement. Is that good enough to confirm that they all have the same color
experience? That sounds more empirical than mathematics and should satisfy
your requirement for an experimental experience -- although I'm not sure
what you mean by "experimental experience".


You keep isolating the machine from its I/O.  If they all get "the same" input and give "the 
same" output, then they are all "the same", up to the strength of whatever equivalence is 
considered.  Any variation that is undetectable is just that... undetectable.  Sure, you can _speculate_ on 
those undetectable differences... the differences that don't make a difference.  But why?  To what purpose?

We've already talked about hypothesis formulation.  So, perhaps the purpose is 
to formulate a new equivalence relation that will detect the differences 
undetectable under the old one.  But you're not talking that way.  You seem to 
want to promote speculated constructs up to a significance that's unwarranted 
... to talk about thoughts and feelings as if they exist, without any 
similarity measure with which to falsify them.

--
⇔ glen


FRIAM Applied Complexity Group listserv
Meets Fridays 9a-11:30 at cafe at St. John's College
to unsubscribe http://redfish.com/mailman/listinfo/friam_redfish.com

Re: [FRIAM] Subjectivity and square roots

[Nick Thompson]

Well, Russ, now, I think you might be ready to see (be the only one to see?) 
the force of my making an analogy between the first derivative of a function 
and the motivation of a behavior.  

 

One can see and touch increasingly accurate approximations to it, but one can 
never see and touch the square root of two itself -- at least not as a concrete 
number. 

 

Funny I wonder what the mathematicians on this list will say about this 
statement.  It seems to be that the problem of the square root of two is the 
reverse of how you have it.  You can touch it any time.  Just lay out a unit 
isosceles right triangle and touch the hypotenuse.  The problem is that you 
cannot measure it using a unit ruler.  The square root of two is concrete; it’s 
just the ruler that measures it is abstract. 

 

But I don’t think Eric and I are committed to the proposition that imaginary 
numbers aren’t real.  They are signs that stand in a rigorous, systematic, and 
extensively confirmed way for a vast collection of mathematical relationships.  
If you could show me that the idea of subjective mind is embedded in a 
structure of experimental experience as rigorous as that which embraces the 
square root of two, I would concede the argument. 

 

Nick 

 

Nicholas S. Thompson

Emeritus Professor of Psychology and Biology

Clark University

http://home.earthlink.net/~nickthompson/naturaldesigns/

 

From: Friam [mailto:friam-boun...@redfish.com] On Behalf Of Russ Abbott
Sent: Thursday, March 03, 2016 10:09 PM
To: The Friday Morning Applied Complexity Coffee Group <friam@redfish.com>
Subject: Re: [FRIAM] Subjectivity and square roots

 

Since Glen missed the square root analogy, I'd like to repeat it.

 

Nick and Eric seem to be saying that there is no such thing as subjective 
experience since only things that can be seen and touched are real.

 

I said that such a position seems to deny the existence of the square root of 
two. One can see and touch increasingly accurate approximations to it, but one 
can never see and touch the square root of two itself -- at least not as a 
concrete number. 

 

One can also see and touch Newton's algorithm for computing the square root of 
two. But again, not the number itself.

 

So does that mean from Eric' and Nick's perspective there is no such thing as 
the square root of 2?


FRIAM Applied Complexity Group listserv
Meets Fridays 9a-11:30 at cafe at St. John's College
to unsubscribe http://redfish.com/mailman/listinfo/friam_redfish.com

Re: [FRIAM] Subjectivity and square roots

[Russ Abbott]

Since Glen missed the square root analogy, I'd like to repeat it.

Nick and Eric seem to be saying that there is no such thing as subjective
experience since only things that can be seen and touched are real.

I said that such a position seems to deny the existence of the square root
of two. One can see and touch increasingly accurate approximations to it,
but one can never see and touch the square root of two itself -- at least
not as a concrete number.

One can also see and touch Newton's algorithm for computing the square root
of two. But again, not the number itself.

So does that mean from Eric' and Nick's perspective there is no such thing
as the square root of 2?

FRIAM Applied Complexity Group listserv
Meets Fridays 9a-11:30 at cafe at St. John's College
to unsubscribe http://redfish.com/mailman/listinfo/friam_redfish.com