Re: [FRIAM] Everything she knows...

No error is worse than conflating the map with the territory. On 4/15/19 9:47 AM, Marcus Daniels wrote: > I can't get into the details, but I was recently in a situation where I was > very confident of a risk to some people I know. It turns out this risk > became a reality and it played out al

Re: [FRIAM] Everything she knows...

I've never heard of the Cosmic Muffin. But your description sounds like something a friend was into: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Secret_%28book%29 He and his SO at the time suggested I watch the movie with an open mind. So, I did, and subsequently wrote these two log entries: https://ge

Re: [FRIAM] Android phones

I've been pretty happy with my Google Pixel 2, though Renee' still has her 1. Mine is unlocked and I explored different OSes when I first got my Pixel 1. But I think I've satisfied my tinkering on my service phone for awhile. I was tinkering on my ZTE Open. But now I'm thinking of getting a Fa

[FRIAM] Thorstein Veblen?

I feel certain I've seen that name before, maybe in the citations for reports on the models of evolutionary economics I once worked on? I don't know. But now I *must* read a little deeper. Tomgram: Ann Jones, Our Veblen Momen https://www.tomdispatch.com/blog/176550/ > Of course, Veblen, who

Re: [FRIAM] /Topic Latent in: Latent Topics was: enough sleep?

to having the team > `gel' (sarcasm). My experience is that there a part of any team that just > wants consensus, and doesn't care one iota what or why they are doing the > thing, or if it is even a good idea.It is a hunger for social order that > I find incomprehensi

Re: [FRIAM] /Topic Latent in: Latent Topics was: enough sleep?

What you seem to be describing is a kind of social "flow", where some say the ego disappears in the midst of it. Google presented this: Optimal Experience and Optimal Identity: A Multinational Study of the Associations Between Flow and Social Identity https://www.frontiersin.org/articles/10.33

Re: [FRIAM] /Topic Latent in: Latent Topics was: enough sleep?

On 4/11/19 10:08 AM, Marcus Daniels wrote: > What I'm pitching here is not to extend identity, but to annihilate it. Can we, though? In the conversation about playing roles instead of simply changing topics of conversation, there seemed to be quite a bit of push back in the sense of "authentic

Re: [FRIAM] enough sleep?

In the sense that all causation is over-simplification, I can agree with you. But in the sense that function is distinct from material (ends distinct from means), I disagree. In particular, when we consider things like therapeutic compounds, many different compounds can achieve the same (or si

Re: [FRIAM] enough sleep?

Heh, I usually wake up angry. So, if I didn't work out in the morning, I'd be an even worse person than I already am. On 4/9/19 8:46 AM, Marcus Daniels wrote: > The nature of our economy rewards people that keep their nose to the > grindstone. Locally it is a good optimization, but globally y

Re: [FRIAM] Friam Digest, Vol 190, Issue 1

Speaking of which, have y'all seen these?: Half Derivative of x https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gaAhCTDc6oA&t=633s Imaginary derivative of x https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tMalym_n8zM The enthusiasm is infectious! On 4/2/19 9:03 AM, Frank Wimberly wrote: > Why wouldn't the adjacent possible of

Re: [FRIAM] new studies confirm existence galaxies almost-no-dark-matter

I second the thanks, Eric! Your "stripped via collision" lead me to Google. I try to follow Ethan Siegel, but totally missed this post from last year: https://medium.com/starts-with-a-bang/5-ways-to-make-a-galaxy-with-no-dark-matter-7ed6fe6c9889 > On Mon, Apr 1, 2019 at 3:14 AM Eric Smith

Re: [FRIAM] Friam Digest, Vol 190, Issue 1

I can only try. And the people who actually know what they're talking about can correct my mangle. Adjacent possible means something like one point mutation away from where we are now. Like, it would be possible I wouldn't be bald if I could just tweak this one gene. Iteration is applying a

Re: [FRIAM] Friam Digest, Vol 190, Issue 1

Is the size of the universe invariant across iterations, though? I.e. is the old universe, after the iteration, now adjacent to the current universe, just in the opposite direction? Or is there some sense that the current universe is expanding to incorporate that unit slice of the adjacent un

Re: [FRIAM] Income Equality

Steve points to a pragmatic way to find the answer to a permutation of the question. But it's interesting to me to try to answer the question as written: Why ... should NOT ...? If I reformulate it, we may lose the original intent, but arrive at a clearer question: Why _should_ everyone's annu

Re: [FRIAM] TheoremDep

On 3/29/19 9:29 AM, Steven A Smith wrote: > All I think Frank and Joe did was make a jump from TheoremDep the tool to > imagining things one might do with the underlying ConcepDag data structure...  >   "proof generation" I suppose. Yes, I can see that. The answer(s) to the question, though, i

Re: [FRIAM] TheoremDep

That makes a lot of sense to me. I suppose my reaction (regarding misapplication of algorithms) has to do with something like "coherence-invariant composition" ... some sub-concept of truth-preservation through manipulation. Practically, it shows up in the (I claim false) distinction between

[FRIAM] TheoremDep

I saw this on reddit this morning and thought some of you might like it: https://sharmaeklavya2.github.io/theoremdep/ > Track dependencies between theorems. > About TheoremDep > TheoremDep contains many theorems and shows you the dependencies for each > theorem. Theorem X is said to be dependen

[FRIAM] Human Magnetoreception!

https://maglab.caltech.edu/human-magnetic-reception-laboratory/ > After a downwards magnetic field rotated counterclockwise, some people > responded with a large drop in amplitude of their EEG alpha waves, up to a > 60% decrease from pre-stimulus levels. Alpha waves are EEG oscillations that >

Re: [FRIAM] is this true?

On 3/13/19 11:24 AM, Nick Thompson wrote: > */Now, as Glen points out, there is no need for this to be the case.  The two > modalities could work on entirely different parts of the central nervous > systems, yet have pretty much the same effect for our purposes on behavior, > right?. /* I think

[FRIAM] [ae]ffect and [low|high] dimensional communication

Trying to explain how to "read into" good or bad grammar what the original author meant reminded me that I recently attended a talk where this guy felt like he *had* to diagram a complex conception that the original author (and those who parsed that author) laid out only/mostly in prose. The pr

Re: [FRIAM] is this true?

"Way" being more of a constructive concept than, say, "destination". Technical writing has (painfully) verbose ways to handle this ambiguity. But since we're discussing snarkiness, we shouldn't need to point out that people *always* prefer pithy snark to technical

Re: [FRIAM] is this true?

The idea that the path of least resistance *names* the end result is interesting. But it's definitely NOT what *I* mean when I hear "similar effects on the brain". What I mean is along the same lines of the 3 links I posted: https://www.nytimes.com/2002/08/27/health/behavior-like-drugs-talk-t

Re: [FRIAM] Manifold Enthusiasts

I *almost* violated my standing directive to unplug on the weekends because of all the little beeps and buzzes from my phone. It's fantastic to see so much traffic. I only have one comment on "closure", as used here. I think it's a bit misleading to talk about turning a shroud into a balloon/

Re: [FRIAM] is this true?

And I suppose it might be a bit unethical to approach such things purely objectively. Both Renee' and my oncologist seemed quite happy I was assigned to the arm of my cancer study that used the new antibody (obinutuzumab). The control was the old antibody (rituxumab). I suppose it was justifie

Re: [FRIAM] is this true?

Well, as I tried to make clear earlier, my question isn't about the changes either therapy makes to the brain so much as whether or not the changes from one therapy are _similar to_ the changes from the other therapy. The evidence that the two therapies change the brain in the same or similar w

Re: [FRIAM] are we how we behave?

But if we infer from this that each person is inscrutably unique, then how do we classify them into groups so that we can make laws and even model them generically enough to take demographic statistics? We can't be doomed to the computational complexity of treating each one *as* unsimplifiable

Re: [FRIAM] are we how we behave?

I think your argument is damaged by the inclusion of "world class", "top cited", etc. Such competitive reframings of capability/merit are the evidence that social darwinism, capitalism, and neoliberalism are failures as -isms. Whether one plans the *best* invasion, is the fastest/best diaper c

Re: [FRIAM] are we how we behave?

I can't help but tie these maunderings to the modern epithets of "snowflake" and "privilege" (shared by opposite but similar ideologues). I have to wonder what it means to "learn" something. The question of whether a robot will take one's job cuts nicely to the chase, I think. How much of wha

Re: [FRIAM] are we how we behave?

Salt-air yoga and access to a shaman! Sign me up. On 3/5/19 9:40 AM, Marcus Daniels wrote: > https://www.nytimes.com/2019/03/04/technology/modern-elder-resort-silicon-valley-ageism.html -- ☣ uǝlƃ FRIAM Applied Complexity Group lists

Re: [FRIAM] are we how we behave?

Ha! It's more likely that, "Every year, I edit out more details that may contradict my opinion of myself." On 3/1/19 2:49 PM, Nick Thompson wrote: > An elderly friend of ours used to say, somewhat ruefully, "every year I get > more like myself." > > Keep fattening that tube, baby! -- ☣ uǝlƃ

Re: [FRIAM] College humor youtube channel explaining that effin wall

Very nice! It highlights something I've been worried about. Infotainment gets such a bad wrap these days with yahoos complaining about "fake news", clickbait, mesmerizing graphics on Fox News, the balance fallacy, and the old trope "if it bleeds, it leads". But there is a good side. College H

Re: [FRIAM] Modeling 4chan: roles, topics, beliefs, strawman, anonymity, etc.

Well, I agree completely about not requiring pre-approval for a segue. I go even further and don't see the need even for recognition that the transition has taken place. And I wouldn't know a segue if it hit me in the face. With deep fakes and auditions for roles like political candidates or a

Re: [FRIAM] Modeling 4chan: roles, topics, beliefs, strawman, anonymity, etc.

Hm. As shallow as I think Trump is, or as much as I think Warren is a gaming politician, I don't think any of it is (merely) a distraction. I'm rather fond of the concept of code switching (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Code-switching) and it's extrapolation into other domains (e.g. https://ww

Re: [FRIAM] Modeling 4chan: roles, topics, beliefs, strawman, anonymity, etc.

Aha! OK. If we view stories as constrained in some way, then it's easy for me to agree with you. For example, if Little Red Riding Hood is only about wolves and people, then it really doesn't matter how well the story is acted. But if it's *also* a more occult story about trust and the wolf

Re: [FRIAM] Modeling 4chan: roles, topics, beliefs, strawman, anonymity, etc.

OK. Again, I don't think I disagree with (what I think) you're saying. But I am having trouble understanding why this is related to the difference between an undercover LEO versus a method actor. Are you willing to connect the dots more explicitly? Although I agree with the gist of what you've

Re: [FRIAM] Modeling 4chan: roles, topics, beliefs, strawman, anonymity, etc.

I was struggling to find something to disagree with. 8^) But of course, I found it. A story is not (purely) imaginary nor a (mere) reformulation of past experience. I think it's part-and-parcel of consciousness, whatever that is. We tell ourselves stories all the time, big and small ones. I

Re: [FRIAM] Modeling 4chan: roles, topics, beliefs, strawman, anonymity, etc.

I think so. It strikes me that committed actors try to authentically *be* the role, fill the role. I say this because they (in interviews and such) often use words like "bring humanity to the character" and "see the world from the character's perspective". They seem to do this *not* because t

Re: [FRIAM] Few of you ...

Heh, I'm imagining the logic where injuries result in more (good) social interaction ... like the way we felt about soccer as a kid. But I take issue with your words "ordinary, practical". I hurt myself a lot in various different ways. And I think anyone who does so, has a practical understan

Re: [FRIAM] Few of you ...

Yep. Not as mind-blowing, but absolutely OUTRAGEOUS was the fact that none of them knew how much *work* went into the creation of that mysterious fluid. Whenever I saw it, I thought of the untold number of bench scientists who worked on it and its predecessors, as well as all the animals we sa

Re: [FRIAM] Few of you ...

Well, hearkening back to our discussion about cross-species "mind reading", I do know Amy knew *something* was happening. Around the turn of the new year, she started puking up all her solid food (because it couldn't get past the adenoma). For the 1st 2 days, having had cats for my entire life

Re: [FRIAM] Few of you ...

"Automism" is a funky word. But if it means something like knee-jerk reaction, then I get it. The important question you ask evaluates negative, though. No, nothing "is what it is however it comes to be." This is an instance of the logical abstraction layer I've been mentioning (that has no

Re: [FRIAM] Few of you ...

Well, someone could suggest that the bred-in knob is the stable feature in a larger evolutionary/ecological system in which the breed and individual organism are finer grained components entrained by the larger dynamic. So by slicing out the organism's timescale from the evolutionary timescale,

Re: [FRIAM] Few of you ...

That's fine. But it doesn't directly address the point. Is experience-being-with-other-people really an "attractor" in the sense we usually use that term? I don't think so. I think the normal (complexity fanboi) sense of "attractor" is at least somewhat reductionist/thin/flat and not commen

Re: [FRIAM] Few of you ...

There's something nagging at me. But I can't quite figure out what it is. On the one hand, you say "The larger culture is where these attractors ... exist." Yet you seem to allow for (these or other) attractors to exist at a finer layer, within you or in a very proximate locale near you with

Re: [FRIAM] Few of you ...

That's an interesting idea. I don't think that's what I'm describing, though. I'm simply describing my coping strategy for coerced social interaction, mostly with strangers. If I meet the same person more than 2 or 3 times, a real relationship develops and I don't play the roles anymore. On

Re: [FRIAM] Few of you ...

Hm. Maybe you're right. Maybe I've been *told* I'm anti-social and simply been a victim of those over-socialized people who don't show much depth in social contexts. Regardless, the topical question I raised still stands: For those poor sailors who *feel* demeaned by the algorithmic context,

Re: [FRIAM] Few of you ...

Good question. An individual discussing a topic implies a deep, historical, perspective on the part of the discussant. When I engage individuals (with deep structure and historicity), I have a lot of work to do to carry on a healthy conversation. Such work is exhausting. Even a *social* pers

Re: [FRIAM] Few of you ...

So, while reading the wikipedia article, an old saw of mine re-emerges. They talk about these sorts of things as "fluid" or context dependent. Yet they never (given my dilettante attention) talk about transients, transition times, half-life, periodicity, etc. How long does it take to self-ste

Re: [FRIAM] Few of you ...

As usual, embedded in your story lies our group identity which we might call "applied complexity". Well done! On 1/15/19 9:29 AM, Steven A Smith wrote: > Glen claims "antisocial" and I think Dave has mentioned his own "tendency to > withdraw from society" (my paraphrase, I welcome correction or

Re: [FRIAM] Few of you ...

Heh, all of this begs for a definition of "algorithmic". I sincerely doubt Nick was using it in the sense of a fully definite process that is guaranteed to halt. So, there's something else, there, something significantly *softer* ... more vague ... ill-defined. It's almost as if Nick (or Wouk

Re: [FRIAM] Motives - Was Abduction

I think that conflates the communicat-or with the communication medium. My question to Dave about the need for "individual" in his version of individualism was intended to sideload this point. To what extent is a person simply a *vehicle* for innovations to bubble up through? We spend all thi

Re: [FRIAM] Motives - Was Abduction

Heh. When I was tasked with explaining agent-based modeling to some art students in Sweden, I made heavy use of the gooey colloid metaphor. There were a lot of blank stares in the audience. 8^) But the guy who hired me was happy with the presentation. So, who knows? I think I agree with Marc

Re: [FRIAM] Another few ponderances

It's interesting because I can't distinguish between a mental boost and a physical boost, from exercise, especially. It's mostly true of other boosts (from drugs like caffeine, or the "adrenaline" surge of a good argument). But mental/physical seem slightly more distinct under the influence of

Re: [FRIAM] Motives - Was Abduction

Ha! Unless you consider all that philosophy he's polluted his mind with. >8^D (JK, of course.) On 1/9/19 3:05 PM, Marcus Daniels wrote: > Good news, your mind hasn’t been damaged by the popular programming languages. > > http://learnyouahaskell.com/ -- ☣ uǝlƃ ===

Re: [FRIAM] Who knew a good Coors head could make this shutdown hillarius

Just a little googly: http://www.gambrinus.com/brands.html https://www.opensecrets.org/donor-lookup/results?employ=Gambrinus https://www.frostbank.com/leadership/carlos-alvarez FWIW, I drink Bridgeport all the time, regardless that I'm sending my money to TX. (I'm also sending some of tha

Re: [FRIAM] Motives - Was Abduction

FWIW, I have no idea what to call myself. So, I often opt for "simulant", which usually requires an explanation. Then I can yap till the cows come home about systems engineering, programming, yaddayaddayadda and let other people decide what to call me. (It's usually not a flattering label the

Re: [FRIAM] Motives - Was Abduction

But isn't this precisely what Nick and Eric's rendition of Peirce (NEP) is arguing *against*? By analogy, if we take a schematic structure like "if p, then q", it literally does not matter what p or q is bound to, what values they may or may not take on. (In NEP, we're talking more about stati

Re: [FRIAM] Venice and Paying for content!

For sites like Guardian, Aeon, ProPublica, ICIJ, etc. once per year along with Debian, EFF, Wikipedia, etc. For some services like DuckDNS, I "subscribe". On 1/7/19 9:14 AM, Owen Densmore wrote: > Hey, thanks. The Guardian site popped up a plea for support so I finally > did. > > Which reminded

Re: [FRIAM] Abduction

I mean it in a sense you know: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Duality_(mathematics) I suspect you'll take issue with the way I'm using the term. Everyone always takes issue with everything I say. 8^) But I'm not really relying on the term for my argument about the expressibility of hier- and het

Re: [FRIAM] Abduction

I just gave you an example. But it's weird because nobody ever responds to my mentions of eyeball saccade. You also didn't respond to my scalar multiplied by a matrix analogy (an analogy because I was talking about comprehensions, which matrices are not, technically). So, rather than give you

Re: [FRIAM] Abduction

Heh, there you go again, rejecting the heterarchy! >8^D I would claim motives are a higher order behavior, but NOT (solely) at a higher level of organization. I.e. motives consist of BOTH low level behaviors like eyeball saccades AND high level behaviors like how one feels about another person

Re: [FRIAM] Abduction

Forget my incompetence in ε-machines for a minute. 8^) They say: > Take a glass shattering upon impact with the floor. In one temporal > direction, the future distribution of shards depends only on the glass's > current position, velocity,and orientation. In the opposite direction, we may > ne

Re: [FRIAM] Was: Abduction; Is Now: Dionysian and Apollonian Lives

Blame Frank! 8^) Or blame yourself for artificially discretizing humans into Dionysian vs. Apollonian. Thanks, Lee. I doubt I have the ability to parse the Barmak and Minian work. But I appreciate your skepticism. My intention was to vaguely hand-wafe at something about closed and open topo

Re: [FRIAM] Abduction

I claim the answer to your 2 questions is yes. As Marcus (with the usage classes) and Steve (with behavioral "drugs") point out, the reason people engage in such things is to make their lives *better* (according to some definition of "better"). To think anything else is to risk the madness of

Re: [FRIAM] Was: Abduction; Is Now: Dionysian and Apollonian Lives

Since one of my dead horses is artificial discretization, I've always wondered what it's like to work in many-valued logics. So, proof by contradiction would change from [not-true => false] to [not-0 => {1,2,..,n}], assuming a discretized set of values {0..n}. But is there a continuous "many v

Re: [FRIAM] on selection pressure

The reason I asked was your statement "selection pressure has accomplished nothing". What I would be looking for is a more comprehensive description of the solution space showing selection as selecting a *subset* of properties/dimensions of the space. So, while selection may not have pushed t

Re: [FRIAM] Abduction

I think this is where the misunderstanding lies. The people who experiment with nootropics (nowadays, anyway) aren't really looking for a "peak experience". I think the trend is toward the older shamanic use ... like my mom used to say about going to church on Sunday ... it's like a "shot in t

Re: [FRIAM] Abduction

I think I'm posting too frequently. But I'm compelled to make one comment: On 12/31/18 2:28 PM, Eric Charles wrote: > And by just such a series of discoveries (Peirce believes), the scientific > method progresses us towards beliefs that are ever-more stable, and... > least some of the time... tow

Re: [FRIAM] Abduction

Thanks for that paper. It forced me to remember (and look up) the discussion in Pearl's book ("Causality" 2000) about the Markov assumption and latent structure reduction. Part of my reaction to John's statement about trying to find a time series that cannot be generated by a sequential machin

Re: [FRIAM] Abduction

We're getting closer EVERY DAY! https://psi-2020.org/ Oh, and if anyone needs a charity to toss some 2018 money at: https://maps.org/ On 12/31/18 12:18 PM, Prof David West wrote: > > > "Maybe the answer is to take a fistful of magic mushrooms and listen to some > Bach? " > > Always the

Re: [FRIAM] Abduction

The link doesn't work for me. But I suspect: Yes! In all my posts, I've tried to push for "True as far as it goes" ... or "true for now, maybe not true later", "true over here but not over there", etc. Time is an important, but not the only factor. Feedback often assumes time. But all it re

Re: [FRIAM] Abduction

Ha! Dude. I feel like I've said it over and over again. Nothing is real. To do what you've (or Peirce's) done and simply redefine the word "real" is iffy, at best. Why not simply *admit* that nothing is real and move on? The answer to your question is that there's something that lies, with

Re: [FRIAM] Abduction

On 12/28/18 4:43 PM, Nick Thompson wrote: > Ok. What to do? Well, we could admit that we are screwed and define truth > as that which is beyond all experience. But this is nonsense, right? If > truth is beyond all experience, how do we come to be talking about it. If > Truth is that which

Re: [FRIAM] 2019 - The end of Trumpism

OK. But let's assume we could at least agree on LaVey's complaint: "It's too bad stupidity isn't painful." The idea being to select against some (special) formulation of innovative/crazy/creative/lucky behavior for which we have an accounting and that accounting shows "bad" (leads to costs we d

[FRIAM] g-conjecture?

I'm sure most of you know more about this than me. But since I'm in a kind of pseudo-holiday state between work and doing nothing, perhaps you are too: Amazing: Karim Adiprasito proved the g-conjecture for spheres! https://gilkalai.wordpress.com/2018/12/25/amazing-karim-adiprasito-proved-the-g-

Re: [FRIAM] 2019 - The end of Trumpism

Thanks for reminding me! When I read Marcus' original claim, I balked. But then forgot it because I wanted to respond to the other thread. The principle of leveling the playing field so that any given player has the chance to become an individual is flawed, I think ... somehow, though I don't

Re: [FRIAM] An Overview of Dark Matter – Sasha Manu – Medium

I hate that use of the word with as much passion as I hate the (modern) use of methodology. I cringe every time I read some simulation paper or see a talk where they use "methodologies". Ugh. What in hell's wrong with "methods"? Why do those blasted kids have to abuse language so badly? Get

Re: [FRIAM] 2019 - The end of Trumpism

I always insist on discussing politics and religion in polite company, despite the ancient wisdom to avoid them. Over this holiday season, I've had the opportunity to witness a common thread in "their" argument(s): "In my experience ..." Perhaps it stood out, first, because of our haranguing

Re: [FRIAM] "rational" discussion

Sites like that always seem susceptible to myopia or tunnel vision. I'm th[ia]nking e.g. Stanley's "Myth of the Objective" and the (notorious) failures in early genetic algorithm fitness functions ... etc. The best part of collaborative filtering is the exploration it enables, not the converge

[FRIAM] Object-Oriented Ontology

I'm looking for something a little "harder" to dig into. Harman, Bryant, Gratton: philosophy. Morton: English. Bogost: media. Bennett: political theory. Ennis: business philosophy (?). Of these, Ennis seems the most likely to have *concrete* ideas of OOO, given his listed research interests

Re: [FRIAM] Pondering the slang Adulting

On 11/14/18 12:07 PM, Marcus Daniels wrote: > Well, there is a difference between accurately observing that life is some > way and recognizing it could be different. > I posit it is hard for many adults to look in their metaphorical toolshed and > admit that was just what they had to accumulate.

Re: [FRIAM] Pondering the slang Adulting

But isn't this the point of things like "kin selection" and "eusociality"? Hell, even *cats* share food and negotiate territory. Is there, in actuality, anything that's "truly individualistic"? On 11/14/18 11:49 AM, Marcus Daniels wrote: > "Coming out" or asserting an individual to group relat

Re: [FRIAM] Pondering the slang Adulting

Adulting, no doubt. To analogize the connotation, "childing" would be "acting like a child". On 11/14/18 11:33 AM, Nick Thompson wrote: > Oh, but here's the point: > > Is having sex "childing" or "adulting"? -- ☣ uǝlƃ FRIAM Appl

Re: [FRIAM] Pondering the slang Adulting

I think this captures the irony in the youngsters' use of the word "adulting". It's a role and only a role. You sometimes *play* the role and you sometimes don't. It's like clothing you put on and take off ... much like an avatar in a video game. I think it's an authentic attempt to be just

Re: [FRIAM] Pondering the slang Adulting

I'd be *amazed* if anyone could find THE person who coined the term. I'd be even more amazed if that person had a coherent definition at the time. I suppose you could trace it back to the first person to use it in print, maybe look at Google's NGram: https://books.google.com/ngrams/graph?cont

Re: [FRIAM] Pondering the slang Adulting

It sounds to me like yet another effect of the information age, the decoupling of one's essential self from their environment/behavior. E.g. in gaming, a "tryhard" is someone who takes the game too seriously. It's just a game. It's OK if you lose. Or another e.g. trolling. When interacting

Re: [FRIAM] gerrymandering algorithm question

If there's any lesson we can take from the apparent growth of complexity as biology progresses, it's that each sub-population that lands in a niche, exploits that niche until some set of constraints are met. And if humans are still evolving, then our extended phenotype (including cultural const

Re: [FRIAM] gerrymandering algorithm question

Right. Again, I'll vaguely wave my hand in the direction of von Hayek -- don't regulate what you don't understand. It's reasonable to challenge the assumption that we *cannot*, in pricincple, know something. So, the burden of proof lies on the assertion that a massively distributed, undesigne

Re: [FRIAM] gerrymandering algorithm question

the number of issues with some sort of precedent is finite ... very large what with the whole body of somewhat hierarchical statutes including common law. It *seems* like that set of issues-with-precedent could be binned down to a relatively small set of "ways to decide". On 11/13

Re: [FRIAM] gerrymandering algorithm question

Someone made an interesting point the other day ... something like "States are the most basic form of gerrymandering." ... or maybe they said "oldest" instead of "most basic" or whatever. But Oregon's midterm election brings this point up very clearly. Several of our counties put measures on

[FRIAM] World's first AI news anchor makes China debut

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=h_OetRQl2s0 Gives new meaning to the "talking head" epithet. -- ☣ uǝlƃ FRIAM Applied Complexity Group listserv Meets Fridays 9a-11:30 at cafe at St. John's College to unsubscribe http://redfish.com/mai

[FRIAM] "Saving Social Constructionism

Boghossian is a troll. I don't know the other two. I'm glad they're out there doing this. One way to raise the bar is to out-game the system, making that system more complicated and more expensive, thereby pricing out those who can't muster the resources to engage (like me). It's a well hone

Re: [FRIAM] Formalizing the concept of design

It seems to me you're still directly on topic. Nick's emphasis on hierarchy leads directly to (forgive me, here) the *flatness* or flattenability of dynamical systems equations versus whatever units multi-level selection might operate over. It's probably just another fit of apophenia. But I j

Re: [FRIAM] a real threat

It's important that we don't over-react to Trump's political stunt. I admit I don't know the laws or how things might eventually play out. But here's an article that seems to tone down the rhetoric a bit: The US is sending 5,000 troops to the border. Here’s what they can and can’t do. https://

[FRIAM] Pithecanthropus in the Fly Room!

The Eugenics Crusade https://www.pbs.org/video/the-eugenics-crusade-jtaetc/ http://archives.caltech.edu/graphics/news/1.43-1-morgan-fly-room.jpg What is wrong with that guy's face? >8^D -- ☣ uǝlƃ FRIAM Applied Complexity Group listser

[FRIAM] another entry into the (lack of a) human-animal status differential

Cognition is not exceptional http://journals.sagepub.com/doi/full/10.1177/1059712318756166 > Humans, I would say, have bad form when it comes to recognising their > commonality with others. History abounds with assertions by particular groups > that their gender, culture or other narrowly define

Re: [FRIAM] On old question

Well, to be fair, Nick launched the thread with the meaning of "function" that includes teleology. And Rosen's whole shtick is an attempt to address what it means to leave purpose out of science. But Rosen's formulation of anticipation does identify the temporal part of construction. And he do

Re: [FRIAM] On old question

Hm. I'm probably a victim of my own skimming. Allowing metaphor to run rampant ... The scaffolding Nick linked to is definitely *supervised* in what seems a fairly biased (maybe in a good way) constraint system. Granted, the DGI stuff seems very constrained, too. But within the constraints,

Re: [FRIAM] On old question

I think you have the "materialist but not mechanist" gist right. But it's worth a warning that Rosen's definition of mechanism isn't what most people mean by that word. And it's his hijacking of the word into jargon that caused so many, for so long, to accuse him of vitalism. Most people incl

Re: [FRIAM] On old question

This might qualify: Bravemind: Virtual Reality Exposure Therapy http://ict.usc.edu/prototypes/pts/ Of course, you'll probably go all sophist on my and claim that the 2 experiences (of the original traumatic experience and the simulation) are separate and unique. But ... well... sophistry a

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