[FRIAM] Ants and Bees, Oh My.
Robert Cordingley
robert at cirrillian.com
Tue Jul 10 15:11:10 EDT 2007
I think you are saying that societies use enculturation to apply their
own rules as part of a self-organizing, self programming CAS. And it
takes a lot of (human) energy or pain to change direction, assuming the
CAS that we are part of is actually non-deterministic.
Robert C.
John Goekler wrote:
>
> 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
> <mailto: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 <mailto:pfh at synapse9.com>
>> explorations: www.synapse9.com <http://www.synapse9.com/>
>>
>> -----Original Message-----
>> *From:* friam-bounces at redfish.com
>> <mailto:friam-bounces at redfish.com>
>> [mailto: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 <mailto:pfh at synapse9.com>
>>> explorations: www.synapse9.com <http://www.synapse9.com/>
>>>
>>> -----Original Message-----
>>> *From:* friam-bounces at redfish.com
>>> <mailto:friam-bounces at redfish.com>
>>> [mailto: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 <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
>> <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
> <http://www.friam.org/>
>
>
> ------------------------------------------------------------------------
>
> ============================================================
> 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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