[FRIAM] Friam Digest, Vol 187, Issue 6

Fri Jan 4 10:36:22 EST 2019

 Is FRIAM meeting this morning?
    On Wednesday, January 2, 2019, 3:55:03 PM MST, <friam-request at redfish.com> wrote:  

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Today's Topics:

  1. Re: Was: Abduction; Is Now: Dionysian and Apollonian Lives
      (u?l? ?)
  2. Re: Statistical poser (aka fact checking is hard) (Steven A Smith)
  3. Re: Abduction (Nick Thompson)
  4. Re: Abduction (u?l? ?)
  5. Re: Statistical poser (aka fact checking is hard) (Marcus Daniels)
  6. Re: Was: Abduction; Is Now: Dionysian and Apollonian Lives
      (lrudolph at meganet.net)
  7. Re: Was: Abduction; Is Now: Dionysian and Apollonian Lives
      (Nick Thompson)
  8. Re: Was: Abduction; Is Now: Dionysian and Apollonian Lives
      (u?l? ?)
  9. Learning curves (was, Abduction) (lrudolph at meganet.net)
  10. Re: Learning curves (was, Abduction) (Marcus Daniels)
  11. Re: Abduction (Prof David West)
Since one of my dead horses is artificial discretization, I've always wondered what it's like to work in many-valued logics.  So, proof by contradiction would change from [not-true => false] to [not-0 => {1,2,..,n}], assuming a discretized set of values {0..n}.  But is there a continuous "many valued" logic, where any proposition can be evaluated to take on some sub-region of a continuous set?  So, proof by contradiction would become something like [not∈{-∞,0} => ∈{0+ε,∞}]?

On 1/2/19 11:23 AM, Frank Wimberly wrote:
> p.s.  Dropping the law of the excluded middle required giving up proof by
> contradiction.

-- 
☣ uǝlƃ

It is to this point that I prefer to think in terms of "neurodiverse" rather than "mentally ill".   Your definitions here respond more to my idea of "sociopathy".    I don't think of sociopaths as being mentally ill, just not good members of the society they find themselves in.   Most *L*ibertarians I know seem to be on the verge of sociopathy as a matter of honor.  

There has been a move afoot to recognize the selection value of neurodiversity in a group and to de-stigmatize or de-pathologize what was previously considered dis-ease or dys-function.

https://www.nytimes.com/2015/08/23/books/review/neurotribes-by-steve-silberman.html

 On 1/2/19 12:33 PM, Marcus Daniels wrote:

Nick writes:

“A mentally ill individual is one whose behavior is so annoying that other individuals are willing to cooperate to put him away?”  

Sure, in that case the “mentally ill individual” may have failed to connect their actions with the consequences.   Or maybe they wanted lodging in a psychiatric facility on the family dime -- probably a bad call if your name was Rosemary Kennedy.

Marcus

From: Friam <friam-bounces at redfish.com> on behalf of Nick Thompson <nickthompson at earthlink.net>
 Reply-To: The Friday Morning Applied Complexity Coffee Group <friam at redfish.com>
 Date: Wednesday, January 2, 2019 at 12:15 PM
 To: 'The Friday Morning Applied Complexity Coffee Group' <friam at redfish.com>
 Subject: Re: [FRIAM] Statistical poser (aka fact checking is hard)

Marcus, 

Forgive me if I am entering this party late, but what exactly means “mental illness” 

I would expect that mental illness is massively underdiagnosed in this country, and especially in the blue collar mid-west where it is considered a taboo topic and people have not had adequate health insurance to use to diagnose it. 

So, is a young person who hears voices, but who integrates those voices into a well-organized and effective life mentally ill?  Is the homeless person who prefers to sleep on a subway grate than go into a shelter mentally ill? I had a colleague once who famously checked himself into a mental hospital making a vague claim to hearing voices and then, once on the ward, behaved absolutely as he would have otherwise.  His only aberrant behavior was that he constantly took notes.  Explaining that he was doing a study of the ward.  When, after a few weeks, he got bored of it and tried to check himself out, he could not get out!  He had to use his “fail-safe” (the chairman of his department, if I remember) to extract himself.  Was he mentally ill?  

Is trump mentally Ill?  WAS he mentally ill before he became president?  Or was he promoted to his level of mental illness. (CF, Peter Principle.)  (In a political hierarchy a politician will rise to his level of insanity.) (cf, All the Kings Men, a fabulous novel, by the way).  Not clear to me how a libertarian of any stripe can allow the concept of mental illness into a conversation.  A mentally ill individual is one whose behavior is so annoying that other individuals are willing to cooperate to put him away?  

Nick 

Nicholas S. Thompson

Emeritus Professor of Psychology and Biology

Clark University

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

From: Friam [mailto:friam-bounces at redfish.com] On Behalf Of Marcus Daniels
 Sent: Wednesday, January 02, 2019 11:44 AM
 To: The Friday Morning Applied Complexity Coffee Group <friam at redfish.com>
 Subject: Re: [FRIAM] Statistical poser (aka fact checking is hard)

Robert writes:

“Estimates vary by source, but fraction of opioid deaths that are suicide is around 20-30%”

What I’d really like to know is how the fraction of opioid deaths occur with individuals that have no historical sign of mental illness at all, and would be  described by their friends and colleagues as effective and engaged prior to their initial prescription.   I would expect that mental illness is massively underdiagnosed in this country, and especially in the blue collar mid-west where it is considered a taboo topic and people have not had adequate health insurance to use to diagnose it.    I strongly suspect a structural cause of all this is the idea that free will exists, combined with the inevitable evolution of the economy toward more automation.   Millions of people, maybe hundreds of millions of people, have what amounts to a mistaken view of the world.   Similar arguments apply to the ongoing outbursts of gun homicide (instead of suicide).  

Marcus

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Well, right, Steve.  Is it fair to say that, to some extent, you have "cultivated" dreaming?  

I guess that's all I mean to say.  I decided not to dream much.  

By the way, may I unfairly take you to task about one thing you said.  And I quote: 

rational/linear modes of thinking/being,

There is nothing linear about rational thought.  It is intensely hierarchical.  It is its hieararchical nature, not it’s linearity, that leads it astray.  Because one is working in one compartment, one misses things that would be obvious to people working in a less compartmentalized way.   This reminds me of the mis use of the “learning curve” metaphor.  People speak of a steep learning curve as something to be feared.  In fact, people who learn quickly have a steep learning curve.  

Your friendly metaphor police at your service, 

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 Steven A Smith
Sent: Wednesday, January 02, 2019 12:11 PM
To: friam at redfish.com
Subject: Re: [FRIAM] Abduction

I have spent my life cultivating hypnopompic and hypnogogic states... this, which supports lucid dreaming, is my best way to access mystical states...   mindfulness meditation, as I practice it, can lapse into these states if I allow it.

I was put off by the drug-culture of my peers in the 60's/70's for many reasons, one might have included a strong steeping in rational/linear modes of thinking/being, in spite of an early discovery of and indulgence in lucid dreaming.

I know many who identify as "evening" or "morning" people, but there is evidence that before the industrial revolution brought ubiquitous artificial light (city gas or kerosene lamps, then electric lights, now flickering TV/computer/phone screens), "segmented sleep" was the standard.  It was common (almost ubiquitous?) for people to go to sleep soon after dark and then wake in the middle of the night for an hour or two of wakefulness, referred to as "Dorvielle" in French Speaking cultures or "wake-sleep", a somewhat hypnotic state (perhaps a slow slide from hypnopompia to  hypnogagia and back again?).

Hot climates/cultures have an alternative "segmented sleep" wherein the heat of the day is reserved for a "siesta" with both evening and early morning reserved for taking care of business when  it is cooler.   I think of a siesta as being somewhat lighter and more lucid-dream conducive than "night sleep".

- Steve

On 1/2/19 10:07 AM, Marcus Daniels wrote:

> There's also this thing one can do called `sleeping in', which tends 

> to increase the probability of dream memory and/or lucid dreaming, at 

> least for me.  A built-in neuroplasticity mechanism complete with 

> psychedelic phenomena and a safety mechanism of motor system 

> deactivation. (

>  

> On 1/2/19, 10:03 AM, "Friam on behalf of Nick Thompson" <friam-bounces at redfish.com on behalf of nickthompson at earthlink.net> wrote:

>  

>      For instance, I have never dreamed about what mushrooms might do for me.  Is that a fair statement of a difference between us?

>  

> ============================================================

> 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

> archives back to 2003: http://friam.471366.n2.nabble.com/

> FRIAM-COMIC http://friam-comic.blogspot.com/ by Dr. Strangelove

>  

============================================================

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Meets Fridays 9a-11:30 at cafe at St. John's College to unsubscribe http://redfish.com/mailman/listinfo/friam_redfish.com

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FRIAM-COMIC http://friam-comic.blogspot.com/ by Dr. Strangelove
I claim the answer to your 2 questions is yes.  As Marcus (with the usage classes) and Steve (with behavioral "drugs") point out, the reason people engage in such things is to make their lives *better* (according to some definition of "better").  To think anything else is to risk the madness of morons like Nancy Reagan or those who think alcoholics suffer from a moral failing, rather than a physiochemical one.

You want your insulin pump to make your life better than it would be without it.  Simple.  Rational.

As Dave pointed out, though, we have some very promising therapeutic agents that we've ignored because we've been hoodwinked by the moral proselytizing of anti-science nutbags who think like Scientologists -- Clear Body, Clear Mind and all that.

On 1/2/19 11:33 AM, Nick Thompson wrote:
> So is THAT the spirit in which people take psilocybin?  Is that the spirit in which people welcome the legalization of LSD?  I fear I may have wronged them horribly.  To be so far from a moderately happy life to want to derange one's entire experience for even only a few hours, seems like  a terrible thing to me.  I regard sanity as an achievement, not a state of affairs into which life naturally folds.  I would no more take LSD than crumple up a piece of paper before I put it in the printer.  

-- 
☣ uǝlƃ

Depression, bipolar disorder, and OCD are examples of the kind of mental illnesses I had in mind.  They make life hard for those that have it.  More downsides than upsides.   As for sociopathy, for most people, just being too damned irritating will eventually create a cost for them too.   Others become the president, at least for a while. 

From: Friam <friam-bounces at redfish.com> on behalf of Steven A Smith <sasmyth at swcp.com>
Reply-To: The Friday Morning Applied Complexity Coffee Group <friam at redfish.com>
Date: Wednesday, January 2, 2019 at 12:47 PM
To: "friam at redfish.com" <friam at redfish.com>
Subject: Re: [FRIAM] Statistical poser (aka fact checking is hard)

It is to this point that I prefer to think in terms of "neurodiverse" rather than "mentally ill".   Your definitions here respond more to my idea of "sociopathy".    I don't think of sociopaths as being mentally ill, just not good members of the society they find themselves in.   Most *L*ibertarians I know seem to be on the verge of sociopathy as a matter of honor. 

There has been a move afoot to recognize the selection value of neurodiversity in a group and to de-stigmatize or de-pathologize what was previously considered dis-ease or dys-function.

https://www.nytimes.com/2015/08/23/books/review/neurotribes-by-steve-silberman.html

On 1/2/19 12:33 PM, Marcus Daniels wrote:

Nick writes:

“A mentally ill individual is one whose behavior is so annoying that other individuals are willing to cooperate to put him away?” 

Sure, in that case the “mentally ill individual” may have failed to connect their actions with the consequences.   Or maybe they wanted lodging in a psychiatric facility on the family dime -- probably a bad call if your name was Rosemary Kennedy.

Marcus

From: Friam<friam-bounces at redfish.com> on behalf of Nick Thompson<nickthompson at earthlink.net>
Reply-To: The Friday Morning Applied Complexity Coffee Group <friam at redfish.com>
Date: Wednesday, January 2, 2019 at 12:15 PM
To: 'The Friday Morning Applied Complexity Coffee Group' <friam at redfish.com>
Subject: Re: [FRIAM] Statistical poser (aka fact checking is hard)

Marcus, 

Forgive me if I am entering this party late, but what exactly means “mental illness”

I would expect that mental illness is massively underdiagnosed in this country, and especially in the blue collar mid-west where it is considered a taboo topic and people have not had adequate health insurance to use to diagnose it. 

So, is a young person who hears voices, but who integrates those voices into a well-organized and effective life mentally ill?  Is the homeless person who prefers to sleep on a subway grate than go into a shelter mentally ill? I had a colleague once who famously checked himself into a mental hospital making a vague claim to hearing voices and then, once on the ward, behaved absolutely as he would have otherwise.  His only aberrant behavior was that he constantly took notes.  Explaining that he was doing a study of the ward.  When, after a few weeks, he got bored of it and tried to check himself out, he could not get out!  He had to use his “fail-safe” (the chairman of his department, if I remember) to extract himself.  Was he mentally ill?  

Is trump mentally Ill?  WAS he mentally ill before he became president?  Or was he promoted to his level of mental illness. (CF, Peter Principle.)  (In a political hierarchy a politician will rise to his level of insanity.) (cf,All the Kings Men, a fabulous novel, by the way).  Not clear to me how a libertarian of any stripe can allow the concept of mental illness into a conversation.  A mentally ill individual is one whose behavior is so annoying that other individuals are willing to cooperate to put him away? 

Nick 

Nicholas S. Thompson

Emeritus Professor of Psychology and Biology

Clark University

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

From: Friam [mailto:friam-bounces at redfish.com]On Behalf Of Marcus Daniels
Sent: Wednesday, January 02, 2019 11:44 AM
To: The Friday Morning Applied Complexity Coffee Group <friam at redfish.com>
Subject: Re: [FRIAM] Statistical poser (aka fact checking is hard)

Robert writes:

“Estimates vary by source, but fraction of opioid deaths that are suicide is around 20-30%”

What I’d really like to know is how the fraction of opioid deaths occur with individuals that have no historical sign of mental illness at all, and would be described by their friends and colleagues as effective and engaged prior to their initial prescription.   I would expect that mental illness is massively underdiagnosed in this country, and especially in the blue collar mid-west where it is considered a taboo topic and people have not had adequate health insurance to use to diagnose it.    I strongly suspect a structural cause of all this is the idea that free will exists, combined with the inevitable evolution of the economy toward more automation.   Millions of people, maybe hundreds of millions of people, have what amounts to a mistaken view of the world.   Similar arguments apply to the ongoing outbursts of gun homicide (instead of suicide). 

Marcus

 ============================================================ 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 archives back to 2003: http://friam.471366.n2.nabble.com/ FRIAM-COMIC http://friam-comic.blogspot.com/ by Dr. Strangelove 
I'm not sure what you're buying with your move to "continuous" rather than
(merely) "infinite-valued".  I mean, though your discretized values {0..n}
are integers, they are (in my small experience of many-valued logics,
which does not include any actually *working* with them as logics) merely
nominal labels--the order, and the arithmetic for that matter, are
irrelevant semantically: the flavors 1, 2, 3 of not-true aren't such that
2 is more not-true than 1 but less not-true than 3, and certainly aren't
such that 2 is exactly half-way from 1 to 3 in not-trueness.

And, from another point of view, contrary to most people's "intuition" (as
formed by what turns out to be bad pedagogy, not anything in the
foundation of either physics or mathematics), "continuity" doesn't require
infinitude.  Way back in the early 1960 a couple of mathematicians
independently (Bob Stong was one of them, I forget the other) noticed that
all the algebraic topology that can be done with (finite) "simplicial
complexes" (e.g., polyhedra) in Euclidean space  (so, in particular, all
the algebraic topology of compact differentiable manifolds) can be
faithfully rephrased in terms of *finite* topological spaces (I mean,
literally finite: only finitely many points, where in particular a
one-element set does not have to be closed), if you don't insist that the
topology be Hausdorff (but do impose one very weak "separation property"
which I'm currently blanking on).  Much more recently, a pair of
Argentinians, J. Barmak & E. Minian, have published a series of papers
(all available at the arXiv) extending and clarifying that.  Logics with
*that* kind of a continuum of values has, I think, already be done (the
finite topological spaces in question can be reinterpreted as finite
posets / finite lattices / etc., and at least "lattice-valued logics" has
a familiar sound to me; but, again, I'm blanking on any details).

> Since one of my dead horses is artificial discretization, I've always
> wondered what it's like to work in many-valued logics.  So, proof by
> contradiction would change from [not-true => false] to [not-0 =>
> {1,2,..,n}], assuming a discretized set of values {0..n}.  But is there a
> continuous "many valued" logic, where any proposition can be evaluated to
> take on some sub-region of a continuous set?  So, proof by contradiction
> would become something like [notâˆˆ{-âˆž,0} => âˆˆ{0+Îµ,âˆž}]?

Lee, I think you got your threads seriously tangled. 

N

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: Wednesday, January 02, 2019 2:14 PM
To: friam at redfish.com
Subject: Re: [FRIAM] Was: Abduction; Is Now: Dionysian and Apollonian Lives

I'm not sure what you're buying with your move to "continuous" rather than
(merely) "infinite-valued".  I mean, though your discretized values {0..n} are integers, they are (in my small experience of many-valued logics, which does not include any actually *working* with them as logics) merely nominal labels--the order, and the arithmetic for that matter, are irrelevant semantically: the flavors 1, 2, 3 of not-true aren't such that
2 is more not-true than 1 but less not-true than 3, and certainly aren't such that 2 is exactly half-way from 1 to 3 in not-trueness.

And, from another point of view, contrary to most people's "intuition" (as formed by what turns out to be bad pedagogy, not anything in the foundation of either physics or mathematics), "continuity" doesn't require infinitude.  Way back in the early 1960 a couple of mathematicians independently (Bob Stong was one of them, I forget the other) noticed that all the algebraic topology that can be done with (finite) "simplicial complexes" (e.g., polyhedra) in Euclidean space  (so, in particular, all the algebraic topology of compact differentiable manifolds) can be faithfully rephrased in terms of *finite* topological spaces (I mean, literally finite: only finitely many points, where in particular a one-element set does not have to be closed), if you don't insist that the topology be Hausdorff (but do impose one very weak "separation property"
which I'm currently blanking on).  Much more recently, a pair of Argentinians, J. Barmak & E. Minian, have published a series of papers (all available at the arXiv) extending and clarifying that.  Logics with
*that* kind of a continuum of values has, I think, already be done (the finite topological spaces in question can be reinterpreted as finite posets / finite lattices / etc., and at least "lattice-valued logics" has a familiar sound to me; but, again, I'm blanking on any details).

> Since one of my dead horses is artificial discretization, I've always 
> wondered what it's like to work in many-valued logics.  So, proof by 
> contradiction would change from [not-true => false] to [not-0 => 
> {1,2,..,n}], assuming a discretized set of values {0..n}.  But is 
> there a continuous "many valued" logic, where any proposition can be 
> evaluated to take on some sub-region of a continuous set?  So, proof 
> by contradiction would become something like [notâˆˆ{-âˆž,0} => âˆˆ{0+Îµ,âˆž}]?

============================================================
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Meets Fridays 9a-11:30 at cafe at St. John's College to unsubscribe http://redfish.com/mailman/listinfo/friam_redfish.com
archives back to 2003: http://friam.471366.n2.nabble.com/
FRIAM-COMIC http://friam-comic.blogspot.com/ by Dr. Strangelove

Blame Frank! 8^)  Or blame yourself for artificially discretizing humans into Dionysian vs. Apollonian.

Thanks, Lee.  I doubt I have the ability to parse the Barmak and Minian work.  But I appreciate your skepticism.  My intention was to vaguely hand-wafe at something about closed and open topologies and, perhaps, imply something about analytical balls of radius epsilon as the truth that's preserved by deduction.  I still think there's something that could be said about the rational numbers as possible truth values, as opposed to a dense infinity.  But like my worry that all directed cyclic graphs can be reduced to DAGs, you've made me just as worried about the necessity of dense sets.

On 1/2/19 1:18 PM, Nick Thompson wrote:
> Lee, I think you got your threads seriously tangled. 

-- 
☣ uǝlƃ

Nick wrote, in relevant part,
> This reminds me of the misuse of the "learning curve"
> metaphor.  People speak of a steep learning curve as something to be
> feared.  In fact, people who learn quickly have a steep learning curve.

Behold, complete with ASCII art (so be ready to view this in a monospaced
font, or forever hold your peace), an ancient USENET post of mine to
alt.usage.english, from 1995 (!):

===begin===
Robert L Rosenberg (rros... at osf1.gmu.edu):
>: A learning curve should be the graph of a non-decreasing function (time
>: on the horizontal axis, knowledge of the topic on the vertical axis).  A
>: fast learner would have a generally steeper learning curve than a slow
>: learner.  At least that's the way I've always pictured it.

kci... at cpcug.digex.net (Keith Ivey) writes:
>I agree that this makes sense, but it doesn't seem to correspond with
>the way the phrase is used.  In my experience, something that is hard
>to learn is said to have a steep learning curve.

Rosenberg's explanation not only makes sense, it accords with the
original use by rat-runners and other operant conditioners (cf.,
e.g., _Psychology_ by James D. Laird and Nicholas S. Thompson, p. 164:
"The ... steeper the curve, the faster the animal is learning").
More precisely, *during an interval of time where the curve is
steep, the animal is learning quickly*.

The present use is muddled; as Ivey points out, "something
that is hard to learn is said to have a steep learning curve."
Here's how I unmuddle it (but I don't know what, if anything, is
going on in the heads of most people who use the phrase): by the
Mean Value Theorem, or common intuition, if a (smooth) nondecreasing
function f(t) with f(0)=0 and f(1)=1 is "steep" (has large derivative)
somewhere, then it MUST be "flat" (have small derivative) somewhere
else.  Typical learning curves (I gather from the illustrations in
Laird and Thompson) look either like Figure A or like Figure B:

                            x                                    o
                    x
              x                                                o
          x
        x                                                    o

      x                                                    o
                                                        o
                                                o
      x                                o

              FIGURE A                          FIGURE B

In the first case, you learn almost everything in a short period of
time near the beginning of the training, then reach a plateau and learn
the rest very slowly.  In the second case, you learn very slowly for a long
time, then take off near the end of the training.

So the question is reduced to another one: which of Figures A and B is
a "steep" curve to the average speaker?

Lee Rudolph

===end===

Figure B is how R&D works, and Figure A describes a good student.  

On 1/2/19, 2:32 PM, "lrudolph at meganet.net" <lrudolph at meganet.net> wrote:

    Nick wrote, in relevant part,
    > This reminds me of the misuse of the "learning curve"
    > metaphor.  People speak of a steep learning curve as something to be
    > feared.  In fact, people who learn quickly have a steep learning curve.

    Behold, complete with ASCII art (so be ready to view this in a monospaced
    font, or forever hold your peace), an ancient USENET post of mine to
    alt.usage.english, from 1995 (!):

    ===begin===
    Robert L Rosenberg (rros... at osf1.gmu.edu):
    >: A learning curve should be the graph of a non-decreasing function (time
    >: on the horizontal axis, knowledge of the topic on the vertical axis).  A
    >: fast learner would have a generally steeper learning curve than a slow
    >: learner.  At least that's the way I've always pictured it.

    kci... at cpcug.digex.net (Keith Ivey) writes:
    >I agree that this makes sense, but it doesn't seem to correspond with
    >the way the phrase is used.  In my experience, something that is hard
    >to learn is said to have a steep learning curve.

    Rosenberg's explanation not only makes sense, it accords with the
    original use by rat-runners and other operant conditioners (cf.,
    e.g., _Psychology_ by James D. Laird and Nicholas S. Thompson, p. 164:
    "The ... steeper the curve, the faster the animal is learning").
    More precisely, *during an interval of time where the curve is
    steep, the animal is learning quickly*.

    The present use is muddled; as Ivey points out, "something
    that is hard to learn is said to have a steep learning curve."
    Here's how I unmuddle it (but I don't know what, if anything, is
    going on in the heads of most people who use the phrase): by the
    Mean Value Theorem, or common intuition, if a (smooth) nondecreasing
    function f(t) with f(0)=0 and f(1)=1 is "steep" (has large derivative)
    somewhere, then it MUST be "flat" (have small derivative) somewhere
    else.  Typical learning curves (I gather from the illustrations in
    Laird and Thompson) look either like Figure A or like Figure B:

                                x                                    o
                        x
                  x                                                o
              x
            x                                                    o

          x                                                    o
                                                            o
                                                    o
          x                                o

                  FIGURE A                          FIGURE B

    In the first case, you learn almost everything in a short period of
    time near the beginning of the training, then reach a plateau and learn
    the rest very slowly.  In the second case, you learn very slowly for a long
    time, then take off near the end of the training.

    So the question is reduced to another one: which of Figures A and B is
    a "steep" curve to the average speaker?

    Lee Rudolph

    ===end===

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Why hast thou forsaken me?

Nick

Well, did you pay your tithes last month????

It is really kind of silly to think that one can either characterize oneself, or be characterized by others, as Dionysian or Apollonian. the concept has become so mucked up since Nietzsche used the notions to define tragedy (a folly of his youth).  The absurd overlay / infusion of Islamo-Judeo-Christo morality delivered a death blow to the whole idea.

In Greek Philosophy ones behavior (and thoughts if you want to allow such) were grounded in complex blend of the the two traits; and consequently everyone was "ambiguous" with regard to them. The intolerance of ambiguity among the People of the Book and most of Western culture, keeps trying to push for a two valued logic which is not useful.

If you want to use the terms as metaphors, Apollonian vs. Dionysian could correspond to 1) cortex vs. amygdala; or 2) right-brain vs. left-brain. Everyone knows that any behavior is simultaneously grounded in both elements, but to an observer, including an internal one, any given behavior might seem to be predominantly influenced by one or the other.

My claim to "Apollonian" is grounded in a long ago commitment to following the precepts of Jinyana (Jnana) Yoga. first in Vedic literature, the Buddhism and Taoism — Ch'an Buddhism --> Zen. I strive to make all of my behavior deliberate and intentional within a meta-rational and meta-logical context, utilizing the cortex / left-brain as a filter.  If you ever read Korzibski, there echos in my head of his "cortico-thalamic pause."

Feel free to reduce the preceding mumbo-jumbo to: its all behavior, and each behavior is grounded in the complexity of the whole organism.

davew

On Wed, Jan 2, 2019, at 11:18 AM, Nick Thompson wrote:

Dave,

Thou deniest me in my moment of need!

Thou castest me to the wolves (eg Marcus).

Why hast thou forsaken me?

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 Prof David West
Sent: Wednesday, January 02, 2019 10:49 AM
To: friam at redfish.com
Subject: Re: [FRIAM] Abduction

Sorry Nick,

I am as hardcore Apollonian as is possible.

And if you organize your life around pleasure, even if moderate and consistent, it is you that are the Dionysian.

davew

On Wed, Jan 2, 2019, at 10:02 AM, Nick Thompson wrote:

> Dave,

>

> I realize that you (and perhaps others of our colleagues here) are

> Dionysians, whereas I, always, have been a stalwart Apollonian. The

> difference, for me, is the risk one is willing to take for a peak

> experience of some sort.  Some people organize their lives around

> their vacations and holidays.  I hate holidays and vacations and

> organize my life around a steady diet of moderate pleasure.  If you see what I mean.

> For instance, I have never dreamed about what mushrooms might do for me. 

> Is that a fair statement of a difference between us? 

>

> 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 Prof David

> West

> Sent: Wednesday, January 02, 2019 7:05 AM

> To: friam at redfish.com

> Subject: Re: [FRIAM] Abduction

>

> MDMA risks = dehydration, in part because it is usually taken in the

> context of frenetic physical activity like at a rave. Disinhibition

> can pose a secondary risk because partner selection is less

> discerning. Like too many drugs, long term effects / gender different

> effects / age different effects, are unknown because unstudied.

>

> davew

>

>

> On Tue, Jan 1, 2019, at 7:46 PM, Marcus Daniels wrote:

> > The premise of the series is that a drug + counseling is used to

> > mitigate PTSD symptoms, but in fact it ends-up deleting recent memories

> > and was intended to make soldiers able to continue service.   

> >

> > One might argue that accumulation of emotional trauma is part of one's

> > personality, and relieving it destroys part of a person.   One might

> > also argue that to have just one personality, developing on a

> > contiguous timeline, is a sort of arbitrary confinement -- like

> > living in a freezer that just keeps getting colder.

> >

> > I don't know what the actual risks are of MDMA.  Alcohol's side effects,

> > in terms of impairment of judgement, are already pretty dangerous.  

> >

> > Marcus

> >

> > On 1/1/19, 7:23 PM, "Friam on behalf of glen"

> > <friam-bounces at redfish.com on behalf of gepropella at gmail.com> wrote:

> >

> >     I don't understand what you mean? Are you asking why

> > psychedelics are not prescribable? Or saying that their therapeutic

> > effect is negligible?

> >    

> >     FWIW, I haven't seen Homecoming.

> >    

> >     On January 1, 2019 11:28:28 AM PST, Marcus Daniels

> > <marcus at snoutfarm.com> wrote:

> >     >Watching Homecoming I found myself thinking, "Yes, so what's

> > the big

> >     >deal?"

> >     >

> >     >On 12/31/18, 1:40 PM, "Friam on behalf of uǝlƃ ☣"

> >     ><friam-bounces at redfish.com on behalf of gepropella at gmail.com>

> > wrote:

> >     >

> >     >    We're getting closer EVERY DAY!

> >     >   

> >     >      https://psi-2020.org/

> >     >   

> >     >    Oh, and if anyone needs a charity to toss some 2018 money at:

> >     >   

> >     >      https://maps.org/

> >     >   

> >     --

> >     glen

> >    

> >     ============================================================

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> >     Meets Fridays 9a-11:30 at cafe at St. John's College

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> >     archives back to 2003: http://friam.471366.n2.nabble.com/

> >     FRIAM-COMIC http://friam-comic.blogspot.com/ by Dr. Strangelove

> >    

> >

> > ============================================================

> > 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

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> > FRIAM-COMIC http://friam-comic.blogspot.com/ by Dr. Strangelove

>

> ============================================================

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> at St. John's College to unsubscribe

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>

>

> ============================================================

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Meets Fridays 9a-11:30 at cafe at St. John's College
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