[FRIAM] Formalizing the concept of design

[Eric Charles]

Bob Shaw has spend a good chunk of his career trying to do this at what I
would call a "lower level of analysis" even though that might not be the
right term. His "intentional dynamics" are about trying to use
dynamic-systems math to try to say what "intentionality" looks like in the
topology of an action. Thus, when I say "lower level" I mean that he is
interested in how one moves through the room to accomplish a goal, rather
than *that *one is doing a move-through-the-room option, which is what Nick
tends to focus on. That said, both approaches connect strongly, I believe,
with E.B. Holt's assertion that a central task of psychology is to
determine what aspects of the world our behavior is a function of, i.e.,
the assertion that one is "*trying* to leave the room" is a *description*
about how one is acting, contextualized by an array of actions that would
result in an array of various outcomes.

https://commons.trincoll.edu/robertshaw/
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=om0HV5TQkXw

Bob's work might really appeal to some on the list, which is why I have
linked both to his webpage and a talk from a few years ago. Differential
geometry, Feynman path integral, system dynamics, etc. If you want to skip
the less contextualized technical stuff and get to the big picture of his
effort, regarding the relation between the math he is using and psychology,
you could start at minute 50 and watch for about 10 minutes.

For a touch more context: Bob was a crucial player in the second generation
of "ecological psychologists", those who kept James J. Gibson's work alive
after his death. Gibson's work is now extremely influential in the emerging
fields of "embodied cognition" (often called "enactivisim" in European
contexts). That said, most researchers in the field aren't mathematically
sophisticated enough to connect with Bob's work, and it is technically
challenging to implement in experiments, as such, few are working on the
project besides Bob, which is unfortunate.


-----------
Eric P. Charles, Ph.D.
Supervisory Survey Statistician
U.S. Marine Corps
<echarles at american.edu>


On Sun, Oct 28, 2018 at 6:53 AM ∄ uǝʃƃ <gepropella at gmail.com> wrote:

> This description suffers from the same criticism I made before: you're
> assuming a *strict* hierarchy, where the higher order can only operate over
> whole components from the lower order.  I.e. the gun's algorithm 1st
> chooses the type/medium of target (ballistic, air, water), then uses that
> type to select the specific tracking sub-algorithm.
>
> And while this is mostly how it's done in artificial systems, I suspect
> biology does NOT use strict hierarchies.  A higher order function can
> operate over a mixture of operands, some complex wholes in that higher
> order and some from the lower orders.  E.g. if the gun's higher order
> selection is based not only on the 3 types (ballistic, air, water), but
> also on a lower order measure like *speed*, then it may well use he same
> sub-algorithm for both air and water.  So, it takes both high order
> constructs and low order constructs as its operands.
>
> You see your assumption of a strict hierarchy peeking through when you say
> sex is the only motive that is ESSENTIALLY social.  What do you mean by
> "essentially"?  Couldn't we say that *all* the behavior of all the social
> animals is, in part, social?  ... including following others to the water
> hole?  So, these functions would be mixed ... do not obey a strict
> hierarchy.
>
> On 10/27/18 11:32 PM, Nick Thompson wrote:
> > But the function that connects the two arrays will be different in the
> two kinds of gun because a surface target is capable of different sorts of
> motion from an aerial target.
> > [...]
> > So, the gun would display two levels of design, the lower level that
> relates trajectory to firing and the higher level that relates the lower
> level design to target type.
> > [...]
> > This conception of multiple hierarchical layers of design is a useful
> way to describe many of the phenomena that ethologists and socio-biologists
> are required to explain. …
>
>
>
>
>
> --
> ∄ uǝʃƃ
>
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