[FRIAM] Posts from the Scotts

[Steven A Smith]

> It's not clear to me which of these Marcus was responding to. But it
> seems like he was responding to (1) with the variation as a function
> of changes in perspective. But your teasing with (2) seems likely,
> too, from which I infer that our world-cutters are dynamic and can be
> complexified depending on whatever feedback mechanisms they're
> dependent on.

I will admit to "playing" with the other topic you mentioned in your
previous post in this thread, regarding the difference between talking
to hear your own voice and having something interesting to say.    As
you know from some of our private correspondence, I often indulge in the
former and then never post it because I recognize that what I'm
blathering on about might be more self-indulgent than relevant.   So in
this case I tried to distill the essence of a long-winded response into
bullet-points...

1) is probably most self-evident.  2) is an elaboration of 1... 
referencing the predator-prey like dynamics between what we call
passive-aggressive and aggressive-aggressive... for example, watching
various raptors being *harried* by much smaller birds (protecting their
nests?).   Here we might see a bird whose claws are adapted for perching
and whose beak is adapted for seed-cracking using (threatening?) them in
the mode that the (much larger and constitutionally more aggressive)
raptor is adapted for (clutching, tearing).  I watched my younger
daughter take on this role with my older when they were in their
teens... the younger was used to being (mildly) bullied by her older
sister until one day she "found her voice" and discovered that she could
"harry" her big sister very effectively with much more meticulously
constructed barbs than her sister had ever used (along with physical
dominance based on size-differences).   I *didn't* (have to/choose to?)
teach either of them the "sticks and stones" taunt because it seemed it
would only aggravate such aggressive dynamics.   I saw it used that way
myself as I grew up.

> I don't quite grok how (3) applies, I guess. My understanding of
> abduction (whatever it actually means) has done the most for me
> regarding how to handle outliers of any kind. Anomalies can never be
> ignored. If one's world-cutting seems persistent, my preference is to
> assume that it's motivated reasoning and the consistency is artificial.

3) is an under-elaborated reference to the question of "what means an
anomoly/outlier?".   For a given choice of model-fitting (choice of
ontology) it is likely that there will be outliers...  yet another model
(ontology) would fit some of these outliers and expose "yet other"
outliers.   Blended or composed models/ontologies may resolve that
tension (including more outliers) but at some point such
blending/composition will become forced and suggest a more complete
reformulation/refactoring of the model.  This is partly responsive to
our offline discussion about the question of how dynamic (mental) models
really are/can-be/should-be.  

I liked the term you used of "world-cutter" but when I read the footnote
referencing "cookie cutter" as the source of the metaphor I was
disappointed.   I thought you were referencing something closer to what
James Burke coined in (of "Connections" fame) his "Axemaker's Gift" 
which contended that there was a convergence/co-evolution of the
development of neo lithics and language in hominid history.   He
proposed the phrase "cut and control" to describe both the way
constructed edged blades allowed humans to cut and control the physical
world and the way language (nouns in particular) could be used to cut
and control the conceptual world.  By naming and categorizing things,
humans made them more useful for their purposes in an analogous way to
using edged stones to slice open and separate animal hides from flesh
and fascia, to separate tendons and sinew for use in stitching and
binding, to separate digestible portions from non-digestible, to
pre-masticate, etc.  

- Steve

>
> On 7/26/19 8:53 AM, Steven A Smith wrote:
>>  1. Stick and Stones ...
>>  2. Passive-Aggressive modes/roles in Kolmogorov Models
>>  3. Outlier identification within Persistent Homologies
>
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