[FRIAM] All hail confirmation bias!

[Frank Wimberly]

Thanks, Glen.  Maybe, with age, the denial of being a wisp becomes less
effective.

-----------------------------------
Frank Wimberly

My memoir:
https://www.amazon.com/author/frankwimberly

My scientific publications:
https://www.researchgate.net/profile/Frank_Wimberly2

Phone (505) 670-9918

On Tue, Jul 30, 2019, 11:34 PM glen∈ℂ <gepropella at gmail.com> wrote:

> Steve and I discussed some of this sort of thing awhile back. I argued
> that the loss of both individual and collective plasticity over time might
> be the core selection criterion.  In times of fat diversity in the
> environment, it's helpful to have diverse and tightly coupled estimators
> (thanks to Eric for bringing up Ashby again). Like a broken record, I tend
> to support both recreational and therapeutic uses of plasticity-increasing
> behaviors.
>
> Then again, I just engaged in an argument between me, a Brexiteer, and a
> Remainer about the benefits of the inertia-preserving EU in times of high
> environmental stresses (like climate-driven migration). I see Brexit as a
> plasticitiy-increasing move. Yes, it will allow the UK more degrees of
> freedom to succeed or fail. But it also (further) opens the UK, Europe and
> the whole world to more bad behavior (like autocracy, organized crime,
> human trafficking, etc.).
>
> On a personal level, when we crack apart our fossilized policies and
> habits, we run the risk of going downhill quickly ... which is kinda-sorta
> what I've done since my cancer therapy. Luckily, I never had any sense that
> my policies and habits "worked" in the first place. I've always felt like a
> wisp experiencing whatever, at the mercy of my surroundings.
>
> On 7/30/19 6:38 AM, Frank Wimberly wrote:
> > I mentioned that this discussion depresses me.  I felt obligated to
> think about why.  It has to do with banal, quotidian, personal matters.
> Policies that I have developed based on beliefs held for decades no longer
> seem to work.  That is, they no longer serve to make me "happy".  I'm
> thinking of stupid things like what to do while driving or eating
> breakfast.  Or interacting with children (I have five grandchildren).
> >
> > I read Ortega y Gasset in fragments when I was taking Spanish classes in
> highschool and college.  But I don't recall being particularly impacted.
> >
> > Some of the "policies" are probably best understood as OCD symptoms but
> not ridiculous ones like those that involve magical thinking.  It's just
> that things that used to work no longer do.  The world is changing.  This
> all may have to do with reaching old age.  Someone suggested that my
> acquiring a Porsche was a sign of a midlife crisis.  I said that it was
> more like an end-of-life crisis.  Not that I expect to expire in the near
> future.  The Posche doesn't charm me the way it would have years ago.
>
>
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