[FRIAM] Formalizing the concept of design

[Nick Thompson]

Eric, 

 

Your two posts are very interesting.  And very well written and tactful.  I think I am going to let them lie for a bit and see if others comment, before I start mucking about in my big boots.  Well done!  

 

Do you own Rosen?  If you did, I would direct your attention to something in it.  

 

Nick 

 

Nicholas S. Thompson

Emeritus Professor of Psychology and Biology

Clark University

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

 

From: Friam [mailto:friam-bounces at redfish.com] On Behalf Of Eric Charles
Sent: Sunday, October 28, 2018 12:32 PM
To: The Friday Morning Applied Complexity Coffee Group <friam at redfish.com>
Subject: Re: [FRIAM] Formalizing the concept of design

 

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

 

 

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

============================================================
FRIAM Applied Complexity Group listserv
Meets Fridays 9a-11:30 at cafe at St. John's College
to unsubscribe http://redfish.com/mailman/listinfo/friam_redfish.com
FRIAM-COMIC http://friam-comic.blogspot.com/ by Dr. Strangelove

-------------- next part --------------
An HTML attachment was scrubbed...
URL: <http://redfish.com/pipermail/friam_redfish.com/attachments/20181028/10490aa8/attachment.html>