[FRIAM] FRIAM and causality

[Phil Henshaw]

Glen 
> 
> Sorry for breaking the threading.
> 
> Phil wrote:
> > But isn't the shape of our varying ability to fit our 
> models a direct 
> > image of 'nature itself', in fact, and our main mistake to discard 
> > them all but the 'best' one and so loose the shape of what they are 
> > all unable to describe?  That's why I like to go back and forth 
> > studying alternate models for their discrepancies and their 
> fit, using 
> > models as learning tools rather than answers.  I think the notable 
> > thing you find that way is independent whole systems...i
> 
> Yes!
> 
> Sheesh, your prose is so hard to parse it feels good when I 
> finally do parse it. [grin]

Well, partly that's from my mad editing scheme... :-,) repeated word
substitution looking for ways to suggest difficult ideas.  I too find on
rereading that it can get disjointed...    Glad it occasionally works!

> 
> Anyway, I definitely agree that it's a "mistake" in some 
> sense to discard all but the best projections.  However, in 
> cases where a limit _exists_ (and it is reasonable to believe 
> it exists), then it's not a mistake at all.  

Yes, like the data showing that economies are approaching a
thermodynamic limit in using energy to create wealth.   I use
approaching limits to narrow down my definitions of natural structures
and categories all the time.  My preference is using them like an
envelope with a space in-between, though.  When you use upper and lower
bounds to home in on a natural subject, fitting to it with a matching
shape, like a ball in a catcher's mitt, your image of any prominence in
the natural structure is self-centering.  By 'pointing around' it rather
than 'pointing at' it you're also both more likely to capture where the
natural structure is located and less likely to represent it as being
your model.  

> Preserving an 
> erroneous model when much more accurate models are at hand 
> would be perverse (or evidence that one should be a historian 
> rather than a scientist).  I'm not talking about the type of 
> preservation that allows us to think back and learn from 
> previous events.  I'm talking about someone _sticking_ to 
> and/or regularly relying on a "bad" model even when they know 
> it's wrong.

A historical view is a fine way to gain more perspective on how our
images really fit with nature.  The complex world is far too complicated
and full of independently behaving things, and any way to begin to
appreciate that seems fine.  Then as we begin using models as learning
tools rather than representational tools, looking for which models are
the 'most help for learning' rather than the 'least wrong for
representation', I think the focus moves toward modeling as a learning
process.

> 
> However, in most cases, we have no idea if the limit even 
> exists and it is often just psychological bias or delusion 
> that makes us believe in such a limit.  And in _those_ cases 
> (MOST cases) it is definitely a mistake to discard any model 
> that is reasonably effective.  (Notice my shift from 
> "erroneous" or "accurate" to "effective".)

Yes!  They help you recall your own thought processes and it's
branchings.  Another way to make discarded models more useful can be to
break them up.  Turning well made things into a clutter of probably
useless parts might seem confusing, but like compost they may contain
very useful parts for some unforeseen purpose.  That can even be a
specific strategy for evolving complex systems sometimes.  Economies use
that method of creative reinvention fairly often, capitalizing the
fortuitous design of waste products and byproducts. 

> 
> Personally, I believe this is the fundamental point of 
> critical rationalism and _open_ science where we allow and 
> seriously consider _any_ hypothesis, no matter how bizarre or 
> offensive.  Only when a hypothesis is falsified should it be 
> demoted to secondary consideration or the history books.

Sure, while not discarding too much, and we should still keep the word
'falsified'.  False theories, say like those of Freud or Lamarck, the
flat earth or idealized determinism, can offer fruitful ground for
asking what made them so compelling.  

...does this go anywhere you think?

Best,

Phil
 
> - --
> glen e. p. ropella, 971-219-3846, http://tempusdictum.com
> We must respect the other fellow's religion, but only in the 
> sense and to the extent that we respect his theory that his 
> wife is beautiful and his children smart. -- H.L. Mencken
>