[FRIAM] Ants and Bees, Oh My.

Tue Jul 10 10:32:56 EDT 2007

While I don't disagree with the broad assessments of the Iraq fiasco
presented here, I think we have to very careful about valuing 'our' truth
more highly than 'their' truth.

There is, after all, a universe for every physicist.

Is it not possible that 'truth' is no more than an emergent property of the
CAS we might call the observer?  (Or the 'reporting party' as they say in
the police logs.)

It can certainly be argued that 'truth' is entirely subjective.  That it is
dependent upon the initial conditions or context of the observer (culture,
education, personal experience, etc.); the rules (what the CAS believes it
must pay attention to and assign meaning to depending on its own unique
heuristics); and relationship (what other agents or systems the CAS holds in
high enough regard that it will allow itself to assign meaning to data and
rules they offer that are outside its normal parameters and would otherwise
be rejected).

Or as they say in the spook biz, 'Whose truth?  Which truth?'

On 7/10/07, Pamela McCorduck <pamela at well.com> wrote:
>
> Sorry, Phil, I misread and hence misquoted.  My mistake.
>
> I personally know no one, scientist or otherwise, who does not speak out
> against this war.  (No, that's not true.  I am acquainted with some people
> who feel so invested in this administration and Republicanism in general
> that they think the majority of us have simply failed to see the light, and
> history will show, blah blah blah.  There's no arguing with such people.
> That's their "truth.")  As for the tales the members of the administration
> who promulgated this war tell their mirrors, I have no idea.   They got
> orders from God?
>
>
> I'm told that after Vietnam, the junior officers who had watched the
> senior officers lie their way through light-at-the-end-of-the-tunnel stuff
> until the last moment said to each other: we will never do that; we will
> resign first.   Some did.  Some told the truth to power and were quickly
> replaced (Shinseki, for example).   Others understood that the president is
> commander in chief of the armed forces under our constitution, and however
> wrong-headed his ideas might be, it was their duty to follow those orders,
> because that was an oath they had taken.
>
>
> It's never easy.
>
>
>
>
>
>  On Jul 9, 2007, at 10:18 PM, phil henshaw wrote:
>
>  I guess I think science is mostly an art of speaking accurately about
> those things it is possible to be accurate about.   Since it seems the fault
> in Iraq, is that our army is at war with an indigenous culture, because it
> mistakenly tried to 'clean-up' the violent objectors to our occupation as if
> they were stragglers in Saddam's army, and so stirred up a firestorm of
> hatred for us that had not been there before, people should speak plainly
> about it and not defer to the rules of polite conversation when perpetuates
> a war crime of any large or small proportion.   We should be truthful when
> we know the truth.   Accepting the right of anyone to have any opinion does
> not mean that you need to not state the facts you know yourself with their
> full value.
>
> You did slightly misquote me, though, my phrase "comity of
> political/military deceit"   you substituted 'defeat' for some reason.
> Comity is the way to getting along with people, and hides a lot of what goes
> into the sausage of government, a glue that holds all kinds of things
> together. I'm not suggesting we abandon that, but for speaking plane and
> true where it matters, dropping the polite 'well you may be right' nod of
> deference for people who are clearly committing great crimes.
>
>
> Phil Henshaw                       ¸¸¸¸.·´ ¯ `·.¸¸¸¸
> ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
> 680 Ft. Washington Ave
> NY NY 10040
> tel: 212-795-4844
> e-mail: pfh at synapse9.com
> explorations: www.synapse9.com
>
>  -----Original Message-----
> *From:* friam-bounces at redfish.com [mailto:friam-bounces at redfish.com<friam-bounces at redfish.com>]
> *On Behalf Of *Pamela McCorduck
> *Sent:* Monday, July 09, 2007 10:05 AM
> *To:* The Friday Morning Applied Complexity Coffee Group
> *Subject:* Re: [FRIAM] Ants and Bees, Oh My.
>
> I must have missed where science was deferring to  the "comity of
> political/military defeat."  Most scientists, and for that matter, most
> professional military people, deplore this gap, though gap is too nice a
> word for blindly pursuing ideology in the face of facts.  If you follow it
> at all, you know that the present administration has gutted scientific
> committees meant to advise or make scientific policy for the government and
> loaded them with politically safe ignoramuses.  But you find the same
> pattern in many significant areas--health care, the drug problem, education,
> foreign policy generally.
>
> I  put it to an historian I know: when did we stop being a nation of
> Yankee pragmatists and start being a nation of ideologues?
>
>
>  On Jul 9, 2007, at 5:03 AM, phil henshaw wrote:
>
>  Well, where's the gap between knowledge and it's practical use then?
> We're using a method in Iraq designed for certain failure (because of
> strategies modeled on attacking a phantom enemy unlike the one actually
> interfering with our plans)  and causing huge harm in every direction.  add
> the 15% of our own soldiers that come bask with serious permanent
> psycological dammage. http://content.nejm.org/cgi/content/full/351/1/13 from
> New Eng J of Med.  I was looking to see if young soldiers would be more
> senstitive to mental damage from it, as i would expect, but this article
> doesn't break that out.   If sci defers to the 'comity of plotical/military
> deceit' , as it would look to me is the problem, what's the point of calling
> it science?
>
> Phil Henshaw                       ¸¸¸¸.·´ ¯ `·.¸¸¸¸
> ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
> 680 Ft. Washington Ave
> NY NY 10040
> tel: 212-795-4844
> e-mail: pfh at synapse9.com
> explorations: www.synapse9.com
>
>  -----Original Message-----
> *From:* friam-bounces at redfish.com [mailto:friam-bounces at redfish.com<friam-bounces at redfish.com>]
> *On Behalf Of *Pamela McCorduck
> *Sent:* Sunday, July 08, 2007 10:02 PM
> *To:* The Friday Morning Applied Complexity Coffee Group
> *Subject:* Re: [FRIAM] Ants and Bees, Oh My.
>
>
>  On Jul 8, 2007, at 7:31 PM, phil henshaw wrote:
>
>  Good observation, about using young mend when they are most maleable for
> making platoons and follow commands.    It's the opportunity for emergent
> structure, as well as in this case, people who wish to exploite it, that
> makes the difference.   I don't generally buy the evolutionary value laden
> self interest of genes idea for what makes systems powerful, but how the
> confluence of diverse factors and a catalyst actually engage a developmental
> process.  And it's often contradictions like the fact that these are not the
> men most fit for the job, but the ones dumb enough for the job, that raises
> the questions that reveal what's actually going on.   Older men would think
> more.  Bad for armies!
>
>
>
> I had no idea when I read this (a revelation to me at the time) whether it
> was empirical observation all senior officers in armies understood, or
> grounded  in biology.  Both, apparently, but for centuries, empirical
> observation served well enough.
>
>
> As for your next two paragraphs, Phil, I do believe many in the military
> understand the situation completely--my 80-year-old cousin, who served as a
> member of the British SAS in WW II, yelled at me on the phone last night: "A
> field army can never fight a guerilla army."  It's no secret.  Whether the
> officers who understand it have--or once had--the power to do anything
> about  it I don't know, but it seems unlikely.  Those who once balked have
> been replaced.  Our military is quite properly under the direction of
> civilians.  I hope it will always be so, even when the civilians fail as
> egregiously to understand things as they have failed  in this instance.
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
> "One is often told that it is a very wrong thing to attack religion,
> because religion makes men virtuous.  So I am told; I have not noticed it."
>
>
> Bertrand Russell
>
>
> ============================================================
> 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
>
>
> "One is often told that it is a very wrong thing to attack religion,
> because religion makes men virtuous.  So I am told; I have not noticed it."
>
>
> Bertrand Russell
>
>
>
>
> ============================================================
> 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
>
>
> "One is often told that it is a very wrong thing to attack religion,
> because religion makes men virtuous.  So I am told; I have not noticed it."
>
>
> Bertrand Russell
>
>
>
>
> ============================================================
> 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
>
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