[FRIAM] Abduction

[Prof David West]

"Trump supporters are not individualists, they are just people trying to
recover privilege they *didn’t earn *and now see slipping away"
Three brief comments:

  1- Refusal to "know your enemy" and insistence on erroneous straw man
  characterizations of that enemy is exactly what will allow Trump to be
  re-elected.
  2- Individualism is about responsibility - not ego, not 'privilege' -
  and includes a deeply felt responsibility to aid others who's
  circumstances mandate such aid. Questioning the means of providing
  that aid is not an argument against providing it. (Same thing is true
  of climate change - for the majority, not the straw man
  characterization - it is not a question of science, but of means for
  rectification.)
  3- The most blatant assertion of privilege that I see on this list is
  the privilege given to "Science." While I am certain that individuals
  among you have earned your position to speak about, and assert the
  privilege of, "Science," the subject itself has not demonstrated that
  it has "earned" its insistence on denying all other avenues to
  knowledge and understanding as 'erroneous', emotional (emphasis on the
  sexism here), irrational, or simply wrong. (The assertion of privilege
  for "liberal" viewpoints comes a very close second.)
davew


On Thu, Dec 27, 2018, at 5:21 PM, Nick Thompson wrote:
> Lee Rodulph wrote:


>  


> **As I have learned from Nick, Peirce is also committed to the defense
> of "the dignity of fallible knowledge" (at least, I *think* I've
> learned that from Nick; but I might be wrong...).**>  


> Well, it’s possible your learned the sentiment from me, but your way
> of expressing it, is, like Glen’s “level prejudice”, a patentable
> thought, and I would like to be the first to license it.>  


> Nick


>  


> Nicholas S. Thompson


> Emeritus Professor of Psychology and Biology


> Clark University


> http://home.earthlink.net/~nickthompson/naturaldesigns/


>  


>  


> -----Original Message----- From: Friam [mailto:friam-
> bounces at redfish.com] On Behalf Of lrudolph at meganet.net Sent: Thursday,
> December 27, 2018 9:24 AM To: 'The Friday Morning Applied Complexity
> Coffee Group' <friam at redfish.com> Subject: Re: [FRIAM] Abduction>  


> Glen wrote, in relevant part, "Like mathematicians, maybe we have to
> ultimately commit to the ontological status of our parsing methods?"
> I wish to question the implicit assumption that mathematicians _do_
> (or even _ought to_) "ultimately commit to the ontological status" of
> _anything_ in particular.>  


> I wrote (some time ago, and not here) something I will still stand by.
> It appears at the beginning of a me-authored chapter in a me-edited
> book, "Qualitative Mathematics for the Social Sciences: Mathematical
> models for research on cultural dynamics"; the "our" and "we" in the
> first sentence refer to me and my coauthor in an introductory chapter,
> not to me-and-a- mouse-in-my-pocket.  (Note that I am a mathematician,
> _not_ a social scientist, and only very occasionally a mathematical
> modeler of any sort.) I have edited out some footnotes, etc., but in
> return have expanded some of the in-line references {inside curly
> braces}.>  


> ===begin===


>  


> In our Introduction (p. 17) we quoted "three statements, by
> mathematicians {Ralph Abraham; three guys named Bohle-Carbonell, Booß,
> Jensen, who I'd not heard of before working on the book; and Phil
> Davis} on mathematical modeling". Here is a fourth.>  


> (D) Mathematics has its own structures; the world (as we perceive and
>     cognize it) is, or appears to be, structured; mathematical
>     modeling is a reciprocal process in which we
>     _construct/discover/bring into awareness_ correspondences between
>     mathematical structures and structures `in the world´, as we _take
>     actions that get meaning from, and give meaning to,_ those
>     structures and correspondences.>  


> Later (p. 24 ff.) we briefly viewed modeling from the standpoint of
> "evolutionary epistemology" in the style of Konrad Lorenz (1941)
> {Kant´s doctrine of the a priori in the light of contemporary
> biology}. In this chapter, I view modeling from the standpoint
> informally staked out by (D), which I propose to call "evolutionary
> ontology." My discussion is sketchy (and not very highly structured),
> but may help make sense of this volume and perhaps even mathematical
> modeling in general.>  


> Behind (D) is my conviction that there is no need to adopt any
> particular ontological> attitude(s) towards "structures", in the world at large and/or in
> mathematics, in order to proceed with the project of modeling the
> former by the latter and drawing inspiration for the latter from the
> former. It is, I claim, possible for someone simultaneously to adhere
> to a rigorously `realist´ view of mathematics (say, naïve and
> unconsidered Platonism) and to take the world to be entirely
> insubstantial and illusory (say, by adopting a crass reduction of the
> Buddhist doctrine of Maya), _and still practice mathematical modeling
> in good faith_ if not with guaranteed success. Other (likely or
> unlikely) combinations of attitudes are (I claim) just as possible,
> and equally compatible with the practice of modeling.>  


> I have the impression that many practitioners, if polled (which I have
> not done), would declare themselves to be both mathematical
> `formalists´ and physical `realists´. I also have the impression that
> a large, overlapping group of practitioners, observed in action (which
> I have done, in a small and unsystematic way), can reasonably be
> described to _behave_ like thoroughgoing ontological agnostics.
> Mathematical modeling _as human behavior_ is based, I am claiming, on
> acts of pattern-matching (or Gestalt-making)-which is to say,in other
> language, on creation/recognition/awareness of `higher order
> structures´ relating some `lower order structures´-that one performs
> (or that occur to one) independently of one´s ontological stances.
> That is not all there is to it, as behavior; but that is its basis.>  


> ===end===


>  


> To take Glen's question in (perhaps) a different direction, I note
> that Imre Lakatos also used the word "ultimate" about mathematicians,
> as follows: "But why on earth have `ultimate´ tests, `final
> authority´? Why foundations, if they are admittedly subjective?  Why
> not honestly admit mathematical fallibility, and try to defend the
> dignity of fallible knowledge from cynical scepticism, rather than
> delude ourselves that we can invisibly mend the latest tear in the
> fabric of our "ultimate" intuitions?" As I have learned from Nick,
> Peirce is also committed to the defense of "the dignity of fallible
> knowledge" (at least, I *think* I've learned that from Nick; but I
> might be wrong...).>  


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