Re: [FRIAM] The nature of Discussion Fora

[Steve Smith]

Glen -


No references.  As far as I know, I made it up. 8^)  I'm sure I've
stolen it from somewhere, though.
Thanks... I definitely don't need you to be a scholar and I'm completely 
comfortable with stuff people pull out of a dark place on their own  
while any given example may be total shite, every once in a while a true 
gem emerges.

  If I were to cite anyone, it would be
Lima de Faria and "autoevolution".
LIma de Faria is a great lead, this is the class of reference I was 
looking for... parallel work to your ideas and/or sources of inspiration 
and parallax.

  But it's also inspired by
autopoiesis. And there's a good dose of this mixed in:

http://www.gprolog.org/manual/gprolog.html#htoc342
Prolog was my first AI language after SNOBOL (if you can call SNOBOL 
that)...  I'm sure with the pedigree of folks here I'm not the only one 
to have learned Griswold's SNOBOL... but can anyone claim to have 
learned ICON?

I wouldn't say it attempts to explain human behavior as automata.  It's
more an assertion that there is really only 1 source of all the variety
we see around us, the impetus to fill/explore a space.  I haven't yet
decided if it's a categorically different thing that the rest of
matter/energy.  Human (or any, including quantum foam) behavior is just
an artifact of the twitch sampling a constrained space.  The constrained
space has properties, including being more or less dense in various
dimension.  The denser the space, the more options/points the twitch has
to explore.
This seems parallel/related to Kauffman's "fourth law" and is compelling 
to me as my own observations have slowly converged on a sense (could 
totally be the iterative application of confirmation bias I fear) that 
*all* activity in the universe (there I go with the absolutes I wanted 
to bust Rich for) seems to be part of a grand ballroom dance of 
self-organization running directly upstream from the entropy gradient.


I guess I'll twitch on all this a bit more...

Thanks,
 - Steve


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Re: [FRIAM] The nature of Discussion Fora

[glen ropella]

On 03/19/2013 07:03 PM, Steve Smith wrote:
> do you have any references I could follow?  The "Twitch Ontology" would
> be new to me (excepting what you just wrote).  It felt as if it
> explained human behaviour as an automaton, but obviously more than that?

No references.  As far as I know, I made it up. 8^)  I'm sure I've
stolen it from somewhere, though.  If I were to cite anyone, it would be
Lima de Faria and "autoevolution".  But it's also inspired by
autopoiesis. And there's a good dose of this mixed in:

   http://www.gprolog.org/manual/gprolog.html#htoc342

I think I began thinking this way back in college when I eavesdropped on
an argument between a physics and a chemistry major who were arguing
about what "absolute zero" means.  Sorry for not being a "scholar".
I've long lamented my inability to keep track of where I get ideas.

I wouldn't say it attempts to explain human behavior as automata.  It's
more an assertion that there is really only 1 source of all the variety
we see around us, the impetus to fill/explore a space.  I haven't yet
decided if it's a categorically different thing that the rest of
matter/energy.  Human (or any, including quantum foam) behavior is just
an artifact of the twitch sampling a constrained space.  The constrained
space has properties, including being more or less dense in various
dimension.  The denser the space, the more options/points the twitch has
to explore.

>> So, there are no types of twitch, there is only twitch.  That doesn't
>> imply any sort of determinism.  In fact, it might argue for
>> nondeterminism.
> I like to distinguish determinism from predictability.  If I understand
> your concept of twitch, there is no choice to be made, but the outcome
> of coupled, cascading twitches (actors acting interactively?) can only
> be determined by running the twitching simulation forward?

That's right, there is no choice to be made.  However, the twitch might
sample the space randomly or by some determined algorithm.  I don't know.

-- 
glen  =><= Hail Eris!


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Re: [FRIAM] The nature of Discussion Fora

[Rich Murray]

Leaping Lizards !

hyperinfinity, which concepts can never span, by that reality gives
concepts space to evolve freely forever --

actually timelessly (infinities of time lines criss crossing every
which witch way -- we may say, all at once always) --

I'm pleased to see how metaphors are multiplying, proliferating,
beyond true or false, as arbitrary art full wonder games --

I feel appreciated by Steve Smith's appreciations -- an encouraging
experience for this soul stream --

as words become free and hyper tantalizing, so also follows the
collaborative creativity we label as prosaic daily life --

words are the railroad tracks we hastily lay down before us as our
loco motives charge forward, forward, through the days --

no boxes to think outside of, just vast sensitive supple potent space,
within which living, moving, being evolve --

really, with increasing integrity, freedom, compassion, creativity,
love, awareness, joy, as God is so helping us all...

within the fellowship of service,  Rich



On Tue, Mar 19, 2013 at 7:03 PM, Steve Smith  wrote:

> Glen -
>
>>> I'm still enjoying my illusion of free-will and get a little skitchy
>>> around overstated pre-determination (or a fully mechanistic model of the
>>> universe?).  This is probably just a twitch itself?
>>
>> Well, the twitch ontology doesn't make any statements about free will or
>> illusions or any of that.  It only minimizes what would be inside an
>> actor's boundary if such a boundary exists.  That's why it will work for
>> objectivists or constructivists.
>
> do you have any references I could follow?  The "Twitch Ontology" would be
> new to me (excepting what you just wrote).  It felt as if it explained human
> behaviour as an automaton, but obviously more than that?
>
>>
>> That minimal kernel is simply a source of "energy", the impetus to move,
>> say, do, act in whatever way your constraints allow you to. If you only
>> have 1 DoF, then every twitch will place you on points in that
>> dimension.  If you have N DsoF, then you'll (eventually) end up sampling
>> the space bounded by those constraints.
>>
>> So, there are no types of twitch, there is only twitch.  That doesn't
>> imply any sort of determinism.  In fact, it might argue for
>> nondeterminism.
>
> I like to distinguish determinism from predictability.  If I understand your
> concept of twitch, there is no choice to be made, but the outcome of
> coupled, cascading twitches (actors acting interactively?) can only be
> determined by running the twitching simulation forward?
>
>>> You have referred to yourself in the past as a "simulant" which I took
>>> to mean that you are a professional creator of "simulations" (simulation
>>> scientist?) despite the fact that it was too close to "Replicant" from
>>> Blade Runner and sounded more like you were claiming that "you" were
>>> just a somewhat modularized region in a giant simulation.
>>
>> I mean it in both senses, circularity, ambiguity.  I am part of the
>> simulations I help create.
>
> I think Rich and I (at least) would grant you that.
>
>>But I don't say it to distinguish me from
>> anyone else.  I actually think we're all simulants.
>
> A given in the rhetoric of the discussion I think.
>
>>The manifested
>> effects of your twitch may seem to fall into an entirely different
>> taxonomy (e.g. music or paper mache bagels with cream cheese)
>
> yes...
>
>> , but it's
>> still constructed and it's still _similar_ to something else.  Hence
>> everything we construct is a simulation of something.  And everything we
>> construct is a (complementary, reflective, inverted) simulation of
>> ourselves, like a glove is a simulation of the hand.
>
> Echoes of echoes of reflections of folds of reflections of postive/negative
> space.
>
>>> In some circles it is a truism the "we are what we eat"... which
>>> suggests that someone who "eats simulations" for a living is likely to
>>> "become a simulation" at least in their own mind.  Or perhaps it is your
>>> twitch that you *are* a simulation scientist *because* you see the world
>>> as one grande simulation and the ones you create and execute are just
>>> modularized simulations within the simulation?
>>
>> Excellent!  But, no.  I'm the type of simulant I am because, for
>> whatever ontogenic, hysterical constraints, the only/best thing I can
>> manipulate is rhetoric (which includes deduction in the form of
>> instructions for machines).
>
> Well said.
>
>>   That region of my constraint box was more
>> open, perhaps more densely meshed than other regions. If my twitch had
>> emerged in a baseball player's constraint box, then the simulations I'd
>> be a part of would be much different.
>
> Flingin spittballz?
>
>>> "I" am also not completely an illusion.
>>
>> Right.  You're a wiggly twitch exploring your constraints.  So say we all.
>
> So say we all!
>
> - Steve
>
>
>
> 
> FRIAM Applied Complexity Group listserv
> Mee

Re: [FRIAM] The nature of Discussion Fora

[Steve Smith]

Glen -

I'm still enjoying my illusion of free-will and get a little skitchy
around overstated pre-determination (or a fully mechanistic model of the
universe?).  This is probably just a twitch itself?

Well, the twitch ontology doesn't make any statements about free will or
illusions or any of that.  It only minimizes what would be inside an
actor's boundary if such a boundary exists.  That's why it will work for
objectivists or constructivists.
do you have any references I could follow?  The "Twitch Ontology" would 
be new to me (excepting what you just wrote).  It felt as if it 
explained human behaviour as an automaton, but obviously more than that?


That minimal kernel is simply a source of "energy", the impetus to move,
say, do, act in whatever way your constraints allow you to. If you only
have 1 DoF, then every twitch will place you on points in that
dimension.  If you have N DsoF, then you'll (eventually) end up sampling
the space bounded by those constraints.

So, there are no types of twitch, there is only twitch.  That doesn't
imply any sort of determinism.  In fact, it might argue for nondeterminism.
I like to distinguish determinism from predictability.  If I understand 
your concept of twitch, there is no choice to be made, but the outcome 
of coupled, cascading twitches (actors acting interactively?) can only 
be determined by running the twitching simulation forward?

You have referred to yourself in the past as a "simulant" which I took
to mean that you are a professional creator of "simulations" (simulation
scientist?) despite the fact that it was too close to "Replicant" from
Blade Runner and sounded more like you were claiming that "you" were
just a somewhat modularized region in a giant simulation.

I mean it in both senses, circularity, ambiguity.  I am part of the
simulations I help create.

I think Rich and I (at least) would grant you that.

   But I don't say it to distinguish me from
anyone else.  I actually think we're all simulants.

A given in the rhetoric of the discussion I think.

   The manifested
effects of your twitch may seem to fall into an entirely different
taxonomy (e.g. music or paper mache bagels with cream cheese)

yes...

, but it's
still constructed and it's still _similar_ to something else.  Hence
everything we construct is a simulation of something.  And everything we
construct is a (complementary, reflective, inverted) simulation of
ourselves, like a glove is a simulation of the hand.
Echoes of echoes of reflections of folds of reflections of 
postive/negative space.

In some circles it is a truism the "we are what we eat"... which
suggests that someone who "eats simulations" for a living is likely to
"become a simulation" at least in their own mind.  Or perhaps it is your
twitch that you *are* a simulation scientist *because* you see the world
as one grande simulation and the ones you create and execute are just
modularized simulations within the simulation?

Excellent!  But, no.  I'm the type of simulant I am because, for
whatever ontogenic, hysterical constraints, the only/best thing I can
manipulate is rhetoric (which includes deduction in the form of
instructions for machines).

Well said.

  That region of my constraint box was more
open, perhaps more densely meshed than other regions. If my twitch had
emerged in a baseball player's constraint box, then the simulations I'd
be a part of would be much different.

Flingin spittballz?

"I" am also not completely an illusion.

Right.  You're a wiggly twitch exploring your constraints.  So say we all.

So say we all!

- Steve



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Re: [FRIAM] The nature of Discussion Fora

[Steve Smith]

Right.  You're a wiggly twitch exploring your constraints.  So say we all.

Thanks... I think!
- Steve



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Re: [FRIAM] The nature of Discussion Fora

[glen]

Steve Smith wrote at 03/19/2013 03:08 PM:
> I'm still enjoying my illusion of free-will and get a little skitchy
> around overstated pre-determination (or a fully mechanistic model of the
> universe?).  This is probably just a twitch itself?

Well, the twitch ontology doesn't make any statements about free will or
illusions or any of that.  It only minimizes what would be inside an
actor's boundary if such a boundary exists.  That's why it will work for
objectivists or constructivists.

That minimal kernel is simply a source of "energy", the impetus to move,
say, do, act in whatever way your constraints allow you to. If you only
have 1 DoF, then every twitch will place you on points in that
dimension.  If you have N DsoF, then you'll (eventually) end up sampling
the space bounded by those constraints.

So, there are no types of twitch, there is only twitch.  That doesn't
imply any sort of determinism.  In fact, it might argue for nondeterminism.

> You have referred to yourself in the past as a "simulant" which I took
> to mean that you are a professional creator of "simulations" (simulation
> scientist?) despite the fact that it was too close to "Replicant" from
> Blade Runner and sounded more like you were claiming that "you" were
> just a somewhat modularized region in a giant simulation.

I mean it in both senses, circularity, ambiguity.  I am part of the
simulations I help create.  But I don't say it to distinguish me from
anyone else.  I actually think we're all simulants.  The manifested
effects of your twitch may seem to fall into an entirely different
taxonomy (e.g. music or paper mache bagels with cream cheese), but it's
still constructed and it's still _similar_ to something else.  Hence
everything we construct is a simulation of something.  And everything we
construct is a (complementary, reflective, inverted) simulation of
ourselves, like a glove is a simulation of the hand.

> In some circles it is a truism the "we are what we eat"... which
> suggests that someone who "eats simulations" for a living is likely to
> "become a simulation" at least in their own mind.  Or perhaps it is your
> twitch that you *are* a simulation scientist *because* you see the world
> as one grande simulation and the ones you create and execute are just
> modularized simulations within the simulation?

Excellent!  But, no.  I'm the type of simulant I am because, for
whatever ontogenic, hysterical constraints, the only/best thing I can
manipulate is rhetoric (which includes deduction in the form of
instructions for machines). That region of my constraint box was more
open, perhaps more densely meshed than other regions. If my twitch had
emerged in a baseball player's constraint box, then the simulations I'd
be a part of would be much different.

> "I" am also not completely an illusion.

Right.  You're a wiggly twitch exploring your constraints.  So say we all.

-- 
=><= glen e. p. ropella
If there's something left of my spirit



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Re: [FRIAM] The nature of Discussion Fora

[Steve Smith]

Glen -

This is twitchin awesome!  But for some unexplained reason, I feel 
pithed about it. (lame puns intended, punning being one of *my* twitches).


I'm still enjoying my illusion of free-will and get a little skitchy 
around overstated pre-determination (or a fully mechanistic model of the 
universe?).  This is probably just a twitch itself?


I do think that a great deal of what we (think we) do consciously is 
some level of "twitch" as you call it.  Coupled dynamical systems, all 
of us in one great grand ensemble of twitching frog-legs all wired 
together...  or in Stephenson's Diamond Age like the "Drummers" (sorry 
Carl).   I also accept the idea that *much* of what we think we 
understand or control is just a post-hoc rationalization of what 
happened  without even our involvement much less understanding.


You have referred to yourself in the past as a "simulant" which I took 
to mean that you are a professional creator of "simulations" (simulation 
scientist?) despite the fact that it was too close to "Replicant" from 
Blade Runner and sounded more like you were claiming that "you" were 
just a somewhat modularized region in a giant simulation.


This of course wanders me into Fredkin/Wolfram/Chaitin land where their 
digitally updated version of Leibnitz' Monist Metaphysics is expressed 
variously as Digital Philosophy or Digital Physics.


In some circles it is a truism the "we are what we eat"... which 
suggests that someone who "eats simulations" for a living is likely to 
"become a simulation" at least in their own mind.  Or perhaps it is your 
twitch that you *are* a simulation scientist *because* you see the world 
as one grande simulation and the ones you create and execute are just 
modularized simulations within the simulation?


In my offline conversations with Rich Murray, it is becoming apparent 
that we (he and I) share the feeling that by giving over to 
"consciousness" being *at best* the unique ability to observe (but maybe 
not to effect) the unfolding universe.   It is why I am entertained by 
such as Bohm's Rheomode and of course Digital Physics/Philosophy... the 
possibility that even if "I" am mostly an illusion, "I" am also not 
completely an illusion.


Oh Ego, twitch on you surly beast!
- Steve


Steve Smith wrote at 03/19/2013 01:20 PM:

I am glad that you *also* appreciate the list's freewheeling style and
seek more engagement in a broader sense (if I read you correctly).
Maybe this discussion will help encourage a broadening in the
participation...

I don't think of it so much as freewheeling.  I think of it more as a
compulsion.  Owen's persistent attempts to find a homunculus inside
Google is a better example than brain farts for a better definition of
time.  And it goes back to what I was trying to say in the last e-mail.

We (humans, actors, initiators of causal chains of events) have only a
SINGLE effector available to us: twitch.  We spastically twitch about
because that's the only thing we can do.

The resulting patterns are NOT caused by any intelligence, plan, goal,
objective, belief, intention, etc. within the actor.  The resulting
patterns are an artifact of the collection of actors twitching about in
the open universe surrounding us.

It's only in hindsight ... or with an epiphenomenal or finitely limited
attention span that we "recognize" patterns and, post-hoc, impute
intelligence, plans, objectives, etc. onto some arbitrarily sliced out
kernel of the pattern.


Given that, I explain running forward with our own reality-disconnected
systems of assumptions as life's imperative: we twitch and we just keep
twitching.  We just wiggle and squirm about in our own juices until some
other wiggling squirming process changes the juices in some happenstance
way.

So, when you're quaffing pints with that guy who just won't shut up
about, say, football, then you can see him for what he is: a twitch with
few degrees of freedom.  He must twitch and football is all he has to
twitch about!





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Re: [FRIAM] The nature of Discussion Fora

[glen e. p. ropella]

Steve Smith wrote at 03/19/2013 01:20 PM:
> I am glad that you *also* appreciate the list's freewheeling style and
> seek more engagement in a broader sense (if I read you correctly). 
> Maybe this discussion will help encourage a broadening in the
> participation...

I don't think of it so much as freewheeling.  I think of it more as a
compulsion.  Owen's persistent attempts to find a homunculus inside
Google is a better example than brain farts for a better definition of
time.  And it goes back to what I was trying to say in the last e-mail.

We (humans, actors, initiators of causal chains of events) have only a
SINGLE effector available to us: twitch.  We spastically twitch about
because that's the only thing we can do.

The resulting patterns are NOT caused by any intelligence, plan, goal,
objective, belief, intention, etc. within the actor.  The resulting
patterns are an artifact of the collection of actors twitching about in
the open universe surrounding us.

It's only in hindsight ... or with an epiphenomenal or finitely limited
attention span that we "recognize" patterns and, post-hoc, impute
intelligence, plans, objectives, etc. onto some arbitrarily sliced out
kernel of the pattern.


Given that, I explain running forward with our own reality-disconnected
systems of assumptions as life's imperative: we twitch and we just keep
twitching.  We just wiggle and squirm about in our own juices until some
other wiggling squirming process changes the juices in some happenstance
way.

So, when you're quaffing pints with that guy who just won't shut up
about, say, football, then you can see him for what he is: a twitch with
few degrees of freedom.  He must twitch and football is all he has to
twitch about!

-- 
glen e. p. ropella, 971-255-2847, http://tempusdictum.com
Shallow men believe in luck ... Strong men believe in cause and effect.
-- Ralph Waldo Emerson



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Re: [FRIAM] The nature of Discussion Fora

[Steve Smith]

Glen sed:

I think it's more a feature of the openness of thought (and, for the
realists among us, the openness of the universe).
I also am reminded of Bohm's Rheomode (as exposed in his Wholeness and 
the Implicate Order ) and of 
James Carse's "Finite and Infinite Games" 
 with "Zero Sum" 
and the distinction between "Boundaries" and "Horizons".

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[FRIAM] The nature of Discussion Fora

[Steve Smith]

Glen -

I think it's more a feature of the openness of thought (and, for the
realists among us, the openness of the universe).  People tend to run
with their own thoughts, regardless of whether the foundations of those
thoughts couple nicely with reality.  That sort of behavior is necessary
for skills from good chess playing to sculpture, much less invention.
And it also results in phenomena like groups of (usually men) who merely
wait for others to quit talking so they can begin talking about
something totally unrelated.

To me, this ability to run forward with a set of assumptions is critical
to exploring what can be said (and done).  The only thing that irritates
me is our self-centeredness, our facility with running forward with our
own thoughts and our disability with respect to playing out _others'_
thoughts.  Communities where you see lots of extended, playful, futile
bitching and/or philosophy are refreshing because it indicates, to me,
that the participants are willing and perhaps good at running others'
thoughts/assumptions forward and seeing how it turns out.

It's much more interesting than the communities where every stray
thought is shut down and ridiculed the instant it shows up.

I agree, and this is the kind of meta-discussion (observation) I am 
seeking.   I think it is a testimony to the safety and comfort the 
regular posters here feel to DO that freewheeling.  Even though a few of 
us may pick at some of the others, it is mostly (if not all) in good 
humor I think.  It may not be obvious but I'm interested in seeing the 
active participation in this list grow.   We seem to be something like 
10-20 voices with 300-500 (Owen or Stephen probably have the current 
subscribership numbers) listeners (lurkers?).




Stephen Guerin said roughly what you said over beers recently and it 
really struck home.  Paraphrasing:


   "We all just sit and nod politely to each other waiting for the
   other to finish so we can talk about what we really wanted to talk
   about!"

It was an honest statement about the people we usually sit and talk with 
and of course, to a lesser acknowledged extent, ourselves (he and I).


You note that this is "mostly men" and in fact, that does seem to be a 
correlate with what has been pop-diagnosed as Ausperger-Autism spectrum 
in many situations.   Perhaps something about the sterility (ASCII-only) 
and psuedonymical (most folks here use their common names but that 
doesn't mean we have ever or will ever meet) and asynchronicity of this 
medium that supports manly-Auspergers vs something else?


We have order 5 semi-active women on the list, all (as I know them) to 
be quite able to hold their own in "a man's world" but probably not as 
prone to this Ausperger's style as the rest of us.  Thank you Pamela, 
Tory, Didi, Peggy, Morgan, Merle, ???  (I know I'm missing at least a 
few names here)!


I myself indulge in the latter (asynch comm) a great deal.  In person, I 
am usually pretty quiet in groups larger than 2 and even then generally 
spend as much time listening as talking.  On this list, I can be very 
vocal (frequent and voluminous) because I trust that most of you will 
simply ignore me if you find what I'm saying boorish, poorly articulated 
or irrelevant.  In person, there simply isn't that much real-estate for 
very many people to say very much without dominating the conversation.  
I might very well fit the image you and Stephen caste of simply waiting 
for the other person to quit speaking so I can say what I want to... but 
in the asynchronous world, I don't have to wait... and I don't have to 
interrupt... and I can't easily be interrupted.  I don't have to ignore 
what others have said in order to hold the floor, I can acknowledge it, 
confront it, riff on it, and still talk about whatever I whimsically 
want to talk about.   It is a blessing and probably a curse.  In person, 
if I were to make some of the comments I do here and was met with as 
little response, I would probably take it as being completely ignored 
and quit talking.  Fortunately here I have enough out-of-band 
communication with others to know that they are silently reading what I 
write, appreciating some of it, but declining to stir the pot 
themselves.  It is not unlike a knowing glance or nod in an in-person 
group conversation.


I read fast, write fast, and can context shift fairly easily, so being 
active on a list such as this one is not as onerous as it might seem.  
Also, if I need to chew something over for an hour or a day before 
responding, I have that freedom to.   In person, there is usually a 
fairly small window where one can respond to another's statement or 
question before the opportunity is lost.  I have friends who I enjoy the 
company of greatly because of this same cadence.  We see each other 
every few days or perhaps weeks, and can both pick up a conversation 
where it was left days or weeks before... or even longer.


I hold myself to reading *most* of the